Lai Mohammed And Others Feeding Off El-Zakzaky

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With a pedigree of an incurable self-advertisement behind it, the Muhammadu Buhari government is not known for half-measures.

Alas, this propensity has not found its profoundest expression in the prosecution of an agenda for engendering good governance. 

*Lai Mohammed 

The upshot is that the emergence of the Buhari government has burdened the citizens with a miserable existence that harks back to a Hobbesian state of nature where life is nasty, brutish and short on account of the half-hearted measures for governance that has been deployed. For the political party of Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC), there is the tragedy that this predilection has also become the petard on which it is being hoisted.

Nigeria: Don’t Forget Leah Sharibu

By Tony Ogunlowo

On the 19th of February this year more than a hundred girls were kidnapped from the Government Girls Science and Technology College, Dapchi in Yobe state by a faction of the dreaded Boko Haram.

*Leah Sharibu

Five weeks later 105 girls were released, 5 had died in captivity and one girl was held back. The name of the girl held back is Leah Sharibu, only 14 years old at the time, and her captors refused to release her because she refused to convert to Islam.

Why Have They Thrown Gov Ambode Into The Lagos Lagoon?

By Sam Ohuabunwa 

Many Nigerians will remember the story of the threat which the Oba of Lagos was said to have issued to Ndigbo who lived in Lagos during the 2015 political season. Those who decide what happens in Lagos State were in great panic. They looked into their crystal balls and found that a majority of Ndigbo in Lagos had planned to vote for Jimmy Agbaje of PDP as governor of Lagos. All the political principalities in APC in Lagos went beserk.

*Ambode

What to do? Oba of Lagos was recruited. He summoned some of the so called Eze Ndigbo in Lagos and issued the infamous threat. They must vote for Ambode of APC or they better be prepared to be thrown into the Lagos Lagoon. It was a desperate situation that demanded desperate action. 

Buhari 2019: The Audacity Of Buharideens

By Martins-Hassan Eze

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance  and an conscientious stupidity” — Dr. Martin-Lurther King Jnr.

Walahi! This thing called shame some Dudu’s just don’t have it. How can a man with conscience and human heart refuse to acknowledge the regrettable fact the GMB is a disaster; a ticking time bomb. Is it not now clear that GMB is the worst thing to happen to Nigeria since the return of civilian rule in 1999? Yet, some mugus are not just shameful enough to stop selling the candidature of this Mobutu in the social media. And, I ask. Is the protection of lives and properties no longer the primary responsibility of government? Have PBM and APC not failed woefully in this regard? Perhaps, for Elrufai; the petit Kaduna tyrant and Dean, college of Buharideens, good governance is all about ethnic cleaning and political jihad. 

President Buhari 

Who should we blame? Did KONGI the noble laureate not bemoan the fact that social media is a vomitorium some years back?  Some folks think that the social media is their village stream. They just jump into the square with rotten and stinking narratives: fighting corruption is the reason why we should become slaves in our country. Fighting corruption is also the reason why all ancestral lands of non-Muslims in the north should become a mass grave and grazing land for Fulani herdsmen.

Why Good Journalism Truly Matters

By Adewale Kupoluyi

Media, democracy and development are tripartite partners that could drive any modern society. These critical issues formed discussions at the just-concluded 67th General Assembly and 2018 IPI World Congress of the International Press Institute, held in Abuja for the very first time in the history of Nigeria and attended by some 330 participants, 65 speakers from 37 countries. Themed, Why Good Journalism Matters: Quality Journalism for Strong Societies, the congress coincided with when IPI would hold its flagship global press freedom event in West Africa. 

Welcoming all, IPI Executive Board Vice-Chair, Dawn Thomas, said the hosting was an acknowledgement of the country’s historical importance to the institute and that Nigeria became a key focus of IPI’s Africa programme in the 1960s and 1970s, when it established the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ). The IPI Executive Director, Barbara Trionfi disclosed that the congress was a reminder of the power of solidarity in the global media.

Nigeria: At A Pro-Propaganda Rally

By Dan Amor

I'm not your run-of-the-mills television freak or enthusiast. Due largely to the nature of my job, which is basically guided by the need to beat deadlines, I hardly have time for over-indulgence in leisure and other niceties. Whereas my wife and kids occasionally feast on the television screen for either of their usual sops- Zee World, or Nickelodeon, yours sincerely would always lock himself up in the study writing an editorial or a column. 

Yet, since January this year (2018), I have occasionally squeezed a few minutes of my limited time in my little room to watch CHANNELS Television's flagship programme, SUNRISE DAILY. On occasions, viewers are treated to a crossfire which usually features a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and another of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who are made to argue on a topical issue of public concern in a moderated atmosphere.

Dapchi Abduction, Height Of Inglorious, Pathological Deceit And Hoax

Press Release

“The latest drama of the Dapchi school girls release is the height of serial and inglorious, pathological deceit and hoax. In their bid to make unfounded and unthinkable comparisons (with the regime of Gooduck Jonathan) President Buhari and his hegemonic Fulani cabal become antithetic as they are contradictory.

“Apparently, in a hurried orchestra to display their high dexterity of quick response to the manipulated abduction (as against the snail speed approach of the then Jonathan’s regime) the ‘good plan’ was marred by poor execution. Over one hundred girls appearing in new and neat dresses with their big bags of different makes.

“The thought-provoking questions are: Did all the girls dress for a religious or social outing shortly before their abduction? Were they allowed to bring their new clothes on abduction or were they taken to a boutique for their fine ‘uniforms’ before they were brought back?

The Dancing Python And The Smiling Crocodile

By SOC Okenwa

The reckless militarization of the South-East and South-South geopolitical zones of Nigeria never started today nor yesterday. The federal government has been accused in the past - and present - of treating Igboland as a conquered territory. I remember when I travelled back home in 2013 and was driving from Onitsha to Benin City I had encountered a monstrous 'go-slow' just before the Niger Bridge head. From Upper Iweka Road towards the major entry and exit point to and from the South-East I spent several hours in the artificial gridlock that stretched well over a kilometer! It was a disgusting, suffocating spectacle to behold as motorists heading towards the bridge were forced to drive at a snail’s speed. The heavily-armed soldiers were directing traffic and monitoring every vehicle that passed by, parking some for verification of documents or passengers or waving off others.

*Burutai and Buhari 

And again traveling from my hometown of Ihiala to Port Harcourt a few days earlier, I had met some gun-wielding military and paramilitary officers posted to mount roadblocks on the ever-busy Onitsha/Owerri Expressway. After an altercation with the officers at one of the many checkpoints, I wondered if in the northern states some Igbo soldiers or policemen could be drafted and allowed to do what the predominantly northern military elements were doing on our roads in 'Biafraland.' Or was that the price to pay for losing out in the 1967-70 pogrom? Was it a harsh reminder of defeat?

The ongoing Operation Python Dance 2 in the South-East and the imminent relaunching of Operation Crocodile Smile in the South-South areas of the embattled country are not only provocative but intimidatory. The so-called "show of force" is a show of shame that advertises our country to the outside world as a nation with the jackboot mentality. It is primarily meant to intimidate the people and silence them. We hold that in a democracy such an anti-constitutional demonstration of crude force that believes in 'crush-crush' policy in a time of relative peace is uncalled for and unnecessary.

Buhari, Just Come Back Home!

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Whether President Muhammadu Buhari has been irrevocably hobbled by ill-health or is sound in bound and mind and prancing around in the Abuja House in London is a puzzle that would not be unravelled until he returns home.

*Buhari 

Even if all the state governors, the officials of the presidency and political parties travel to London and return with the verdict that Buhari exudes great health and a stellar sense of humour that belies the stern stuff he is made of, this would make no difference to Nigerians. Let Buhari write again to his Guinean counterpart that he is well and that he would soon return to Nigeria to assume the responsibilities he has abandoned for months, this would not still douse Nigerians’ doubts. They would maintain the skepticism that Buhari is yet to recover from his debilitating sickness that has kept him away from Aso Rock.

This cynicism is well founded. The officials of government have so much lost the citizens’ good will that they cannot be trusted. Remember? It was the same way that politicians and even clerics visited the late President Musa Yar’Adua but when they returned they did not tell Nigerians that he was incapacitated. It was only the then Minister of Information, the late Dora Akunyili who had the courage to shed off the carapace of propaganda for Nigerians to be confronted with the reality: the truth that the health of their president was beyond recovery. Yes, we take cognisance of the fact that a glaring misalignment of the creeds and deeds of politicians, especially the ones in these climes, oftentimes makes trusting them as amounting to self-immolation. 

Lai Mohammed: An Unmanageable Mistake!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

When President Muhammadu Buhari announced the people he has selected to occupy some of the most strategic positions in his regime, there was understandable uproar across the country. Nigerians looked at the profile of these fellows and wondered what could have motivated their choice, what exactly in their credentials qualified them for such sensitive positions.

 

*President Buhari and Lai Mohammed

Ordinarily, Buhari would have simply ignored such an outcry, but he surprised Nigerians by volunteering an explanation. These, he said, were the people who had stood by him through the stressful years of his various unsuccessful attempts to become president. As he moved from one party to another in his quest to actualise his ambition, they stuck with him, undiscouraged by his growing history of failed presidential runs. So, this was the time to "reward" them for their steadfast loyalty. (These are the people now loosely referred to as Buhari’s "Kitchen Cabinet," or more recently, "the Cabal" in Aso Rock, whose activities Nigerians have learnt to monitor with considerable apprehension.)

Buhari's preference for cronyism which mostly celebrates mediocrity at the expense of merit and expertise (an odious, counterproductive practice that has sufficiently advertised its predictable dividend in his regime's very dismal performance in the last two years) is, however, not original. In the unmissed Olusegun Obasanjo regime, appointment into public office was celebrated as an invitation to "come and eat." And not a few in that wayward regime, and the ones that followed it, really overate and became horribly obese, as evidenced by their mysterious humongous   accumulations!

In decently-run countries, people see appointment into public offices as sacrifice to their nation. Some, driven solely by love for country, quit high-paying jobs to take these positions whose statutorily fixed salaries compel them to undertake drastic readjustments in their lifestyles by shedding some luxuries that were easily guaranteed by their former salaries. Their country men and women celebrate them as patriots and heroes, and they leave public office with their heads held high, and their names boldly engraved in their country's Hall of Fame.  

But in Nigeria, the story is different. That is why it should be understood that while for many months Nigerians waited for Buhari to announce his list of ministers, thinking he was busy carefully searching for the best hands to do the very significant and urgent   reclamation job crying for attention at such a very critical period in our nation's history, the man was, no doubt, busy considering whom to "reward" with what position. 

When the list was eventually released, it greatly disappointed and shocked many Nigerians leaving them wondering why it took the president all those months to come up with such hope-depleting appointments. 

The most demoralising confirmation that little or no imaginative thinking went into the making of that list, however, was Buhari's decision to "reward" Mr. Lai Mohammed, the industrious chief propagandist of his party, with the office of the Minister of Information. Although, I had learnt very early to grossly moderate my expectations of the Buhari regime, I never in my wildest imagination expected that the president would fall so cheaply into such a brightly advertised trap.

The President’s Handlers And His Health

By Ikeogu Oke

This piece was triggered by a tweet I stumbled on recently. Emanating from the tweeter handle of one George Okusanya, it read, ‘Femi Adesina: “The president is not sick”.

Lai Mohammed: “The president is hale and hearty”.

GMB: “I couldn’t recall ever being so sick”.’

 

*Buhari 

Clearly, the tweet juxtaposes the words of Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, and Lai Mohammed, the President’s Minister of Information and Culture, on the one hand, and those of the President on the other hand. By this contrasting placement, the tweet seems to provide proof of the allegation that the President’s handlers had misinformed Nigerians about the state of his health while he was in the UK on medical leave, in consequence of which they have drawn flak from a legion of critics.

I, for one, had been taken aback by the morbid interest shown by some Nigerians in knowing the exact state of the President’s health while he was receiving medical treatment abroad. And this is why: I had thought such people would be more concerned about the resultant indignity for our country that, 56 years after Independence, our President, the President of the country that prides itself as the “Giant of Africa” and “the most populous black nation in the world”, still travels to a foreign country, the country of our colonial masters, to receive medical treatment for a protracted period, during which he might be splayed repeatedly on an operating table, anesthetized, and carved open by foreign scalpels.

The Buhari Govt’s Tower Of Babel

By Onuoha Ukeh

When President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated his cabinet,  six months after assuming office, many Nigerians did heave a sign of relief, believing that a government had eventually been formed. With ministers duly assigned portfolios and sworn in, all was set for government to roll and begin to address the myriad of  issues plaguing the country, with the view to catering to the needs of the people. It was a legitimate wish by a people who had high expectations from a government that promised heaven and earth.

*Buhari 

Sixteen months after the government was formed, and 22 months after President Buhari took over the reins of governance, I have often asked myself this question: Is this really a government or just an assemblage of people, who are just doing whatever please them, in the name of working for the good governance of Nigeria? I ask this question because what we have as a government appears mainly like a mere party, where those in office operate like islands, doing and saying what they like, while humanity suffers. There is no synergy  whatsoever.  In the government, there are discordant and cacophony of voices.

This week, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, issued a travel advisory on the United States (US). No doubt, feeling that as a presidential aide on foreign affairs, she could talk about foreign policy and issues related to her office, this former federal lawmaker advised Nigerians not to travel to the US for now, if they do not have any compelling business in the North American country. She said her advice became necessary, since Nigerians, who have valid US visas, had been denied entry into the US. In her wisdom, Dabiri-Erewa wanted Nigerians to freeze their trips to the US until the immigration policy of the Donald Trump administration was clear.

Lai Mohammed And The APC: Uncommonly Gifted Liars!

By Reno Omokri

Last week, Lai Mohammed, the infamous minister of information (if you can call what he does as dishing out information) denied being a liar and rhetorically asked newsmen interviewing him to “give me one thing that I have said which is not true”.
When I read that, I thought that perhaps he had repented from his demonic pastime of lying. But it appears I spoke too soon and I was too hopeful!

*President Buhari and Lai Mohammed 

I say this because just days after justifying himself and in response to the US congress citing Nigeria as “the most dangerous place for Christians in the world”, Lai Mohammed had the following to say: “Such fallacies like the Islamisation of Nigeria, the killing of Christians by Muslims, the labelling of Nigeria as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world.”

I do not know about the Islamisation of Nigeria and I doubt that President Muhammadu Buhari has such intentions, but to say that “the killing of Christians by Muslims” is a ‘fallacy’ is a special kind of a lie that could only have proceeded from the lips of a man whose own parents saw the perfidious destiny ahead of him and chose to name their child Lai accordingly!

I know for a fact that thousands of Christians have been killed by Muslims since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power including hundreds in Southern Kaduna (possibly thousands), even more hundreds in Agatu in Benue (although the Agatu Community Elders said over 6,000 of their people have been killed), hundreds in Bali and Donga Local Government Areas of Taraba, over a hundred killed in Enugu, hundreds in Delta, and multiple other deaths of Christians at the hands of Islamic extremists Fulani herdsmen.

This is besides the thousands of Christians killed by Boko Haram and Evangelist Bridget Agbahime beheaded in Kano (and whose suspected killers were discharged and acquitted on the instructions of the Kano State Attorney General) and Pastor Eunice Elisha killed in Kubwa after the morning ministration (whose killers were not surprisingly never charged).
Lai Mohammed has a very distinguished career in lying. I imagine that if he could find his way there, Lucifer will gladly give him an honorary PhD from the University of the Pit of Hell!

Elsewhere, I have detailed his lies but in this piece I want to inform my readers of a troubling pattern I am noticing which is that lying seems to be the default pattern of communication for not just Lai, but the ruling All Progressives Congress, its members and sympathisers. I will prove it.
Two years ago, Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, a known APC surrogate LIED that former President Jonathan wanted to kill him. Today, hunger is killing Nigerians and Mbaka’s lying mouth is silent!

APC: A Nest Of Liars

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Wole Soyinka once described the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a “nest of killers”. That was at the height of PDP’s power when former President Olusegun Obasanjo held sway and prominent political personalities were gruesomely murdered in their bedrooms, on the streets and other unimaginable places.

*President Buhari and APC Chairman Oyegun

Many, including the Nobel laureate, construed those killings, rightly or wrongly, as politically motivated. He was particularly incensed after the brutal murder of his childhood friend, Bola Ige, who, as the attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, was the country’s chief law officer. The lethargy that characterised the investigation of Ige’s murder didn’t help matters.

Soyinka is yet to put a sticky tag on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which he helped elect in 2015 by unreservedly endorsing its then presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a man he had had issues with since his first coming as military head of state on December 31, 1983. I doubt if Soyinka will do so very soon, considering that he will be hard put explaining to Nigerians what has changed.

If the PDP was a nest of killers, the APC is a nest of liars. The party, like the swashbuckling United States President, Donald Trump, came to power by serving the people cocktails of lies, and it has sustained itself in office for 21 months by upping the ante, feeding the people more egregious lies.

That is expected. Unlike truth that stands on the parapet of facts, realities and evidence, and therefore needs no further propping, lies stand on nothing. And because lies stand on nothing, for sustainability, they must be hoisted on an effigy of more invidious lies.

That is the story of the APC. Truth is anathema to it. Its officials take pride in worshipping at the altar of mendacity. 
 Nothing illustrates this more than the stories the party and its government officials have been dishing out since Buhari proceeded on an impromptu 10-day winter vacation in London, his third in one year.

The vacation, which began on January 19 and was to end on February 6, was so sudden that Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, the man Buhari temporarily handed power to, had to abruptly end his participation at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, to rush back home. Yet, whatever was the matter with the president was so serious that he could not wait for the arrival of Osinbajo before leaving. It was that bad.

Nigerians were told he was going to rest after working so hard. For someone the Financial Times of London described last week as “the man supposedly in charge of the country” who has “been literally sleeping on the job,” hard work must have a new meaning.

Buhari was hardly airborne when the stories started making the rounds that there was more to the trip than ordinary vacation. And the lies started pouring in.

Why President Buhari Ran(n) to Gambia and Away From Rann

By Reno Omokri

Till date, the only person who has died in The Gambia is President elect Barrow's son, Habibu Barrow, who was bitten by a dog. But in Southern Kaduna, hundreds of people have bitten the dust. 

If in truth President Buhari really wants to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the place he should be visiting and intervening in is Southern Kaduna before The Gambia.

*Buhari

And the penchant of the President to delegate pressing domestic problems to his subordinates while personally addressing foreign challenges of lower priority is on the increase.

I have chosen to empathize with the Buhari administration over the deaths of Internally Displaced Persons and international aid workers at the Rann IDP camp in Borno state by a bomb mistakenly dropped on the camp by a Nigerian Air Force Jet, but for the life of me I cannot understand why the President, who heavily criticized former President Jonathan's handling of the Boko Haram crisis, elected to delegate his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and some ministers to visit the victims and survivors of the Rann disaster to offer condolences and supposed support.

And to the Borno state governor who cheekily said there was progress because in his words there was no "blame game" as would have happened in the previous administration of Jonathan, I would just say, wake up and smell the coffee. I can see no excuse for this faux pas except the Borno state Governor is sarcastically trying to call out the Buhari government for its over indulgence in blaming previous administrations.

If it was possible, the Buhari administration would have taken out a registered trade mark on the phrase 'blame game'. Never in the history of Nigeria, and perhaps contemporary Africa, has an administration invested so much of its focus and time on blame gaming as the Buhari government. So Governor Shettima would have to pull more fallacious words out of his mischievous magical hat of illusions to be able to pin such a false accusation on the Jonathan Government.

It may be necessary to remind Governor Shettima that the Jonathan he so likes to blame visited Borno more than once as President during the height of the Boko Haram insurgency. Has President Buhari even bothered to drop by? That is how much the President thinks of him!

But in all this, we still must give God the glory that the mistake by the air force did not occur while Oby Ezekwesili and Lai Mohammed were combing Sambisa forest in search of the missing Chibok girls. 

And let me speak directly to the President. President Muhammadu Buhari, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, don't you think you owe it as a duty to be in Rann at this very moment to personally comfort victims and survivors of the unfortunate mistaken bombing by our Armed Forces? 

The War Against Terrorism

By Michael Jegede

After his triumphant outing in the poll last year, President Muhammadu Buhari reiterated his campaign promise to adopt a different approach, in tackling the Boko Haram insurgency, and securing the release of the girls of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, abducted in 2014 by the terrorist group.

In his inaugural speech to the nation on May 29, 2015, Buhari, as part of his strategies to ensure that the insurgents are completely subdued, announced the relocation of the Military Command and Control Centre from Abuja to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, believed to be the headquarters of the Boko Haram sect.

For Buhari, who was obviously worried by the extent of damage done to lives and property by the Islamic sect, nothing meaningful could be achieved in the battle to checkmate the Boko Haram militants with the command and control centre based in Abuja.

The authorities of the Nigerian Military seeing the seriousness the President attached to his directive for the Command and Control Centre to be moved to Maiduguri wasted no time in heeding to the order. The centre served as a forward command base for the Chief of Army Staff and other service chiefs with an alternate command centre established in Yola, the Adamawa State capital.

With the President’s motivation and the moving of the Command Centre to the North East, the military, via well-coordinated operations was able to reclaim all the Local Government Areas that were fully taken over by the dreaded Islamic terrorists, within one year of Buhari’s assumption of office.

Former Governor of Yobe State and Senator representing Yobe East Senato- rial District, Abba Bukar Ibrahim, attested to the remarkable achievements recorded by the Buhari administration in its effort to decimate the Boko Ha- ram group when he said: “Definitely, there have been a lot of improvements compared to what has happened during Jonathan presidency. After all, when President Buhari took over there were at least 18 local governments which were totally under the control of Boko Haram. As of today, not a single local government is totally under the control of Boko Haram. They are just going round hitting and running hitting of soft spot and the military are doing their best to flush them out.”

The third term Senator who was heavily affected by the Boko Haram onslaught with his personal and family houses destroyed, added: “Quite a num- ber of people have started going back to Goniri, my home town.

A lot of people have started going back to the two local government areas in Yobe which were completely overrun and controlled by Boko Haram for over two years. Several other local governments in Borno too, people have started going back in places like Dikwa, Yala, Gwoza, Mongonu, Kukawa and other areas.”

The Economist And Buhari's 'Change Begins With Me' Campaign

By Lai Mohammed

Our attention has been drawn to a story by The Economist, datelined Lagos and featured in the paper's print edition of Sept. 24th 2016, entitled: ''Nigeria's War Against Indiscipline, Behave Or Be Whipped''.

*President Buhari and Lai Mohammed

Contrary to the newspaper's self-professed belief in ''plain language'', the article in question, from the headline to the body, is a master-piece of embellishment or dressed-up language. It is loaded with innuendos and decidedly pejorative at best, and downright racist at worst.

The Economist wrote that President Buhari wants to ''tame'' Nigerians with the ''Change Begins With Me'' Campaign. For those who are the owners of the English language, the use of that word is unpardonable, the verb ''tame'' suggests that Nigerians are some kind of wild animals that must be domesticated, and the usage reveals the mind-set of the authors of the article: a deliberate put down of a whole people under the guise of criticising a government policy.

The paper, in striving to reach a preconceived conclusion, also insinuated that some 150,000 volunteers are being trained as enforcers of the ''Change Begins With Me'' Campaign. This is not true. In his speech at the launch of the Campaign on September 8th 2016, the President, a globally-acknowledged leader who believes strongly in the rule of law, left no one in doubt that moral suasion, the very antithesis of force, will be employed to achieve attitudinal change among Nigerians. In that speech, the President said: ''I am therefore appealing to all Nigerians to be part of this campaign.'' To the best of our knowledge and, surely the knowledge of those who own the language, the words ''appeal'' and ''enforce'' are not synonymous.

In its rush to discredit the ''Change Begins With Me'' Campaign, The Economist, a widely respected newspaper, fell below its own standards by choosing to be economical with the truth. Enforcement is not part of the strategies to be employed under the Campaign, and nowhere has it been said that the ''moral police'' will be unleashed, as reported by the newspaper. In writing the story, the paper did not even deem it necessary to speak with any official of the government, thus breaching one of the codes of journalism, which is fairness. It chose instead to quote a ''critic'' of Mr. President in a perfunctory manner.

Again, The Economist made the same mistakes that most critics of the ''Change Begins With Me'' Campaign have made: Rushing to comment on a campaign they do not understand. The Campaign had barely been launched when the critics brought out their big guns to shoot it down. In the process, many of them ended up shooting themselves in the foot. Had they tarried a while to allow the government to roll out the details of the campaign, they might have shown more circumspection than they did in their criticism.

Buhari Plagiarized Obama In “Change Begins With Me” Speech

By Adeola Akinremi

Plagiarism is not a trivial matter. President Muhammadu Buhari made a terrible mistake last Thursday. He plagiarized President Barack Obama’s speech to launch “Change Begins With Me.”

So you didn’t notice that our president lifted from Obama’s 2008 victory speech and passed it off as if the words were his own? The argument will rage, but the moral problem of plagiarism on a day Mr. President launched a campaign to demand honesty and integrity from the people is what we should concern ourselves with.

*President Buhari with US President Obama
 at the Whitehouse

I’m not a wailing wailer and I don’t like the downfall of any man but I also don’t like to be deceived. The very last thing you should do when you’re launching a campaign like this is to be dishonest with the people.

As Buhari talked down on Nigerians during the launch of the campaign spearheaded by no other person, other than the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, known for his trash-talk, particularly for the opposition, I started following the speech line-by-line. I was alarmed to make the discovery. It was a scandal that escaped the attention of our newspapers. It is one of two things: either people don’t pay particular attention to Buhari’s words or we are a nation of anything goes.

Only in July, Melania Trump, the wife of the Republican White House hopeful, Donald Trump, was caught in the web of plagiarism after she spoke at the Republican National Convention. She plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech. It was a big headline on television screen and national newspapers. Indeed it was a “global” headline. Yes, a prime part of Buhari’s speech to the nation last Thursday to launch a campaign encouraging new culture of transparency, attitudinal change and hard work among Nigerians was plagiarized from America’s President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory speech.

Buhari’s speech during the launch of the “Change Begins With Me”, a new national orientation campaign, contained largely the same sentiment and arrangement of words that President Obama used in his 2008 victory speech after he was elected the first American black president.

The president lifted a whole paragraph from Obama’s speech and passed it off as his own when he said: “We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long. Let us summon a new spirit of responsibility, spirit of service, of patriotism and sacrifice, Let us all resolve to pitch in and work hard and look after, not only ourselves but one another, What the current problem has taught us is that we cannot have a thriving army of rent seekers and vested interests, while the majority suffers.”

Nigeria: Change For The Worse, Litany Of Failures

By Fem Aribasala

When Buhari seized power, Nigeria’s GDP was $444. When he was overthrown in 1985, Nigeria’s GDP had dropped dramatically to $344. When Buhari seized power, one dollar exchanged for 0.724 naira. But by the time he was overthrown, one dollar exchanged for 0.894 naira; a 23% devaluation in barely two years. It was not surprising, therefore, that there was wild jubilation throughout the length and breadth of Nigeria when Buhari was overthrown.

*Buhari 

Litany Of Failure

History is now repeating itself in Nigeria. Since electing Buhari as president one year ago, Nigeria’s GDP has plummeted, with the economy suffering a negative growth in the first quarter of 2016; the worst in 25 years. Prices have skyrocketed. Investors have packed their bags and left Nigeria. Job losses and lay-offs have increased geometrically. Petrol stations have surreptitiously doubled their prices. Nigeria is now on the cusp of a recession.

Buhari was handed over $30 billion in foreign reserves by the Jonathan administration. He inherited over $2.5 billion in the Sovereign Wealth Fund; $1.4 billion in the ECA; and $4.65 billion in back taxes from NLNG. But virtually all of this has been squandered in one year of gross incompetence.

The president took the illegal and ill-advised step of providing N713 billion as bailout for insolvent state governments, without the approval of the national assembly, only to discover that those monies were squandered and not even used as intended to pay salary arrears. He squandered billions of dollars defending doggedly an unrealistic official value of the naira, only to finally admit defeat after the damage had been done.

Billions of dollars were mopped up by corrupt officials and shrewd middlemen who obtained dollars at the official N200 to $1 rate, only to sell this for huge profit at the N380 to $1 black market rate.

Babatunde Fashola boasted while in opposition that: “A serious government will fix the power problem in six months.” Now in office as Minister of Power for over six months, power blackouts have been unprecedented under his watch condemning the Buhari administration by his own words as a most unserious government.

Change For Worse

Goodluck Jonathan warned Nigerians about the bankruptcy of Buhari and the APC. His words have now become prophetic. He said in the heat of the 2015 election campaign: “The choice before Nigerians in the coming election is simple. It is a choice between going forward and backward, between the new ways and old ways, between freedom and repression, between a record of visible achievements and beneficial reforms and desperate power seekers with empty promises.”

After 365 days of a disastrous Buhari presidency, only diehard Buharimaniacs can deny that Jonathan’s warning has not come true. Propaganda has an expiration date, and it must now be abundantly clear that the expiration date for the hot air of Buhari’s government has long passed. Many of those like Dele Sobowale, Oby Ezekwesili and Wole Soyinka, who sang the praises of Buhari during the 2015 election, are already having a buyer’s remorse. Most Nigerians now realise they have been sold a fake bill of goods by Buhari and the APC.

Scarcity Of Truth, Fatal In Governance

By Sly Edaghese  

It is fatal in governance when the citizens begin to perceive or see their President as lying through his teeth. The earlier President Muhammadu Buhari knows this the better for him. It is increasingly becoming the hallmark of the President and his administration to say one thing today and the next day you hear them reversing it or even denying it. This is referred to as a flip-flop. Flip flop is very harmful in politics, especially when it becomes pervasive, as we are seeing it happening in this administration. It started with the padding of the budget the President passed on to the National Assembly for debate.

*President Buhari and Lai Mohammed 

The document was inflated and stuffed with all sorts of unimaginable provisions by some unknown elements. As the President was saying that the budget proposal he sent to the National Assembly had been tampered with or padded with sand, so to say, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who seems unable to differentiate his propaganda work as APC National Publicity Secretary from his present portfolio as Nigeria’s Minister of Information, was saying another thing, that the budget remained as it’s submitted; that no one padded it. Later the budget was declared missing from the National Assembly. Who took away the budget, no one knew. Again, before you knew it, we heard the budget was not missing!

Then most recently, Buhari set a date, May 29, the Democracy Day, that he would be publishing the names of those who had looted the nation dry along with the amount of what each of them looted and what have so far been recovered from them. The day came and nothing of such or near to that was heard from the President in his national broadcast! Rather, as it were, the president developed cold feet and began to speak to the nation in “tongues”. Not a single name of looter was disclosed nor the amount of what was looted or recovered. It was only just two or three days ago the government published some amounts it claimed to have recovered from the looters, without stating the names of such looters. Yet another display of a master class in lying was when the President gave a notice the other day, first, that he was coming to visit Lagos State. Lagos made elaborate preparations to receive Mr. President.

At the eleventh hour, a change was made, the President would be represented by his deputy, because of his “tight schedule.” An online social media disclosed that the President not coming personally to visit Lagos was due to his ill-health: an ear tumour or so.  The presidency rose stoutly, as if the President was a superhuman who could not be touched by infirmity, to fault the claim of the online social media. To prove that the president was sound and healthy, they began to show him on TV the next day or so welcoming a visiting governor to his office. Next was the President’s planned visit to Port Harcourt.