Jonathan Orders Removal Of Offensive Bring Back Jonathan Signs

Press Release 

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has directed that the #Bring Back Jonathan 2015 signs and banners around Abuja which he and many Nigerians find offensive and repugnant  be brought down immediately.

President Jonathan wholly shares the widely expressed view that the signs which were put up without his knowledge or approval are a highly insensitive parody of the #Bring Back Our Girls hash tag.

President Jonathan To Akande: Respect The Truth, Your Age And Nigeria

 PRESS RELEASE

We have noted with dismay the continuation of efforts by leaders of the opposition to promote themselves and their party through the irresponsible denigration of President Goodluck Jonathan and the exalted Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The interim national chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande sank to a new low in this regard yesterday when he rudely and falsely described President Jonathan as a “kindergarten” leader who treats national issues with levity.

On The ‘Crises’ In Rivers State!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

I just undertook a tour of some parts of Rivers State. It was amazing to discover that anyone in Rivers State who does not care to read today’s newspapers may not even be aware that the state he lives in is the same one being widely reported as presently "engulfed in great, boundless crises capable of derailing the nation's democracy."

 

Rivers State Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi

The people I saw in Rivers State were too busy undertaking their normal daily engagements, struggling to put food on their tables (like other Nigerians elsewhere) to bother about the loads of inane, self-serving exchanges by grossly over-fed, light-minded and ultra-selfish delinquents that dominate the pages of the newspapers daily.

Forget the rented crowds! If you ask me: the "war" in Rivers State exists only in the minds of (and among) these misguided combatants fighting to out-smart each other in the endless desperation to corner Nigerian resources to themselves and impoverish the masses the more – the same masses they claim to be fighting for.

Nigeria, Kill Corruption Before It Kills You!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

It has since become common knowledge which enjoys widespread acceptance that any day Nigeria is able to make up its mind to end its obscene and ruinous romance with the stubborn monster called “Corruption”, this country will automatically witness the kind of prosperity no one had thought was possible in these parts. Just imagine the amount of public funds reportedly (and un-reportedly) being stolen and squandered daily under various guises by too many public officers and their accomplices, and the great transformation that would happen to public infrastructure and the lives of the citizenry if this organized banditry can at least be reduced by fifty percent!  

 A Victim Of Corruption (pix by Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye) 

Now, is this monster divorceable? Of course, yes. But are there any signs that anyone in the corridors of power is genuinely interested in ending the strong grip it maintains on the very soul of this country? That is the problem. It is sheer foolishness to expect many of them to willingly block the very hole from which great goodies also flow to them just because some other persons are also benefiting from there. No, you can neither fight corruption with soiled hands nor retain monopoly of it! It spreads like cancer. And the whole thing appears now to have been so horribly compounded by the emergence and successful empowerment of a very formidable class whose sustenance and longevity solely depend on its ability to continue sustaining the culture of corruption and bleeding the country pale.

Who Needs Patricia Etteh’s House?

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 
Not long after the N628 million contract scandal involving the leadership of the House of Representatives exploded in the face of Nigerians, Vanguard newspaper (August 29, 2007) carried an interview with Dino Melaye, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information and National Orientation. Mr. Melaye who has unduly advertised himself as one of the loudest supporters of the House Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Bunmi Etteh, in her current travails, had, in the course of the interview, startled Nigerians with a very loaded and overly distasteful statement that spoke volumes about the quality of minds that “make laws” for Nigerians at the nation’s Lower Legislative House.

Said Melaye: “This woman [Etteh] told us, on the floor of the House, that she’s got two boobs. That the old [House Members] can suck one while the new would suck one. Honestly speaking, we are sucking. We are enjoying the sucking. We are doing that right now.”

Nigeria’s Perpetually Diminished Assembly

(First published Tuesday, September 4, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

 Last Sunday (September 2, 2007) , The Guardian carried an interview with Professor Pat Utomi in which he lamented that contrary to every expectation that the 2007 electoral exercise might somehow console the nation with some form of improvement in the quality of lawmakers that would be dumped in the National Assembly, Nigeria still, sadly, found itself saddled with a class of legislators that is ten times worse than any it ever had. The worst evil “those who conducted the last election did to Nigeria” he said, was  “to put in place a National Assembly that is 10 times inferior to the one we had before.  The last Assembly was bad enough, but we were supposed to make progress from there. Most societies would make progress and in the next elections get better. But what we got is a much more inferior National Assembly this time around.” 

Indeed, Pat Utomi spoke my mind on this issue! Any reader of this column would easily recall that in several essays here, I have never been able to contain my sorrow and deep pain over the quality of lawmakers we end up with each time, and how such a misfortune continues to sabotage our best expectations for progress and development, since all it does is to extend generous incentive to the Executive to celebrate its insufferable ineptitude and directionlessness with indecent fanfare. As our decadent politics and the mostly base characters that star in it continue to inflict the nation with grossly underweight and light-minded fellows as lawmakers, that is, individuals who neither have any acquaintance with sound ideas nor the capacity to appreciate the gravity of the assignment they are supposed to be performing in Abuja, what the nation gets in return can only be retrogression and unchecked decay. What has remained sadly true is that for most of the lawmakers who had diminished our legislative chambers with their uninspiring presence these past few years, their real reason for showing up in Abuja was just to scramble over dirty naira notes like wanton street boys over balls of akra suddenly falling off the tray of an indiscreet hawker. Indeed, these were mostly down-and-out fellows dusted off from here and there, easily excited by such little things as a sumptuous lunch with the president, and they emerge each time from such encounters feeling so high that they forget their very important brief in Abuja. In  them, we found the best example of a prodigal House in hapless nation! And if indeed, as Prof Utomi reminded us last Sunday, the present set of lawmakers is ten times worse than the others before them, then the future, dear reader, is indeed scary. We are already seeing the signs, aren’t we?  


Everyone can now appreciate my pain and sadness. Nothing seems to change in our National Assembly, whether it is their strange mindset or the way their leaders are always handpicked by external forces and imposed on them. When Anyim Pius Anyim became Senate President by the “vote” of one man, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was not even a member of the National Assembly, and he began to place his godfather’s interests over that of the nation, I lamented here in an essay I titled: “The President Obasanjo Gave The Nigerian Senate.” Anyim had ensured the Senate remained an appendage to the Executive, until he fell out with Obasanjo, due to a clash of their individual interests. When Adolphus Wabara also came on board, through the same route, that is, by the decree of the same man, and then continued to lead the Senate through the same path of irresponsibility and unproductivity, I also cried out in another essay captioned:  “Wabara: How Long Shall We Suffer Thee?”

 In fact, until the inauguration of the present National Assembly, Wabara’s Senate had remained the best example of a rudderless, unfocused and totally purposeless Assembly. It was a Senate which believed in nothing, stood for nothing, without any sense of history, and clearly had no plans of changing anything or achieving anything. 


Now, virtually everyone recalls with refreshing nostalgia the dignity and sense of direction the former Senate President, Mr. Ken Nnamani brought to the business of lawmaking in Abuja, but as far as I could remember, his tenure had practically made little or no noticeable effort to transcend the Anyim/Wabara demoralizing paradigm until on Wednesday, September 1, 2005, when I focused my sad eyes on the drab National Assembly over which he was presiding and screamed in this column: “Where Is the Senate President?”

Prof. Pat Utomi: Disappointed With An Underperforming Assembly


 Although the article, unfortunately, attracted a very abusive rejoinder from Nnamani’s media adviser, there were also rejoinders from several Nigerians who shared my frustration and pain over the almost lifeless National Assembly he was leading, while a ruthless civilian dictator rode roughshod on Nigerians.


Please, permit me to quote the concluding paragraph of that essay:

 “As an implacable Executive drives the nail hard on a hapless populace, the unspoken question everywhere is: Where is Senator Ken Nnamani, the President of Nigeria’s Senate and leader of the National Assembly? Does he ever pause to ask himself the real reason why he is in Abuja? Has he ever told himself that his office demands more ennobling engagements than supervising the cutting of cakes at society weddings and chairing some multitudes of largely unedifying events?  What is his response to the undisguised programme of perpetual impoverishment which the current government is executing with chilling dedication? What can Nnamani say is the achievement of the National Assembly under his watch? Where is Nigeria’s Senate President? Sorry, he is on a permanent leave.” 

Now, I refuse to take any credit for Ken Nnamani’s sudden recovery of his focus, which caused the National Assembly to start showing a sense of direction and purpose, thereby reclaiming the respect and confidence of Nigerians. Who am I to move a whole Senate President? All I keep insisting is that I consider the National Assembly a very essential and strategic institution in any nation, and how it chooses to discharge its constitutionally assigned roles may sink or advance the progress of that nation. That is why, during the dark years of Obasanjo, when he operated in utter disdain for laws and decency,  I had heaped greater blames on the National Assembly. Indeed, I do not think that other nations whose rulers try to behave like human beings waited until they had elected angels into office before they began to get quality leadership. It was clear to me that if by any stroke of misfortune  America suddenly found itself with the kind of legislature Nigeria regularly gets,  President George Bush will make the Obasanjo disaster pale to total insignificance. In fact, each time I look at Bush, the picture I see is that of a thoroughbred dictator held on a strong leash by a responsible Congress. What this means is that leaders can be compelled to rule responsibly if countervailing institutions and relevant laws are strong enough to keep them within the bounds of reason, patriotism and decent conduct.  

So, Obasanjo was able to ride rough-shod on hapless Nigerians and impoverish them as suites his fancy because, he was merrily aware that the principles of Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, which differentiates a democracy from a dictatorship never made any meaning to the good-for-nothing and totally debased National Assembly headed by the light-minded fellows he personally handpicked and installed. All we had got were a gaggle of disoriented and misdirected lawmakers, who idled away at Abuja at huge expense to the nation, while the people whose well-being they were supposed to safeguard were grossly brutalized, impoverished and re-enslaved by a irremediably wayward Executive. In fact, at one point, after examining the quality of National Assembly Nigeria was cursed with, I had to commend Obasanjo for resisting the temptation to totally become another Idi Amin, because, from all available evidence, there was no Assembly with the requisite will and patriotism to scuttle such a vile ambition. 

Well, the expectation had been that all these should have since become part of our dark, distant history. But, unfortunately, in 2007, we are still stuck with an even worse variety, a species no one could have imagined would still be with us at this time and age. Whatever modest advancements Ken Nnamani may have recorded in his time have been rudely reversed, and the nation dragged further backwards. While small countries like Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, are all advancing and refining their electoral processes and strengthening the instruments of democracy in their domains, Nigeria is still a willing captive to the backward, vile fancies of a few prehistoric men, who, it would seem, have vowed to ensure that Nigeria never moved forward. 


In 2007, we have a Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, who are there, not because of any special qualities or superior ideas they may possess, but because some fellow, whose eight year siege on Nigeria now ranks as the nation’s worst trauma, thinks they should be there, to solely represent his narrow interests. That’s where we are, dear reader, and if you watched the recent nausea-inducing farce they called Senate screening of ministerial nominees, and saw how would-be ministers in whose hands the nation’s destiny would soon rest were either merely entertained with perfunctory and even frivolous questions, or just asked to “take a bow” and go, you would then appreciate what Pat Utomi was saying about the quality of lawmakers we are stuck with today.    

Senate President, David Mark, may even be sincere, and probably wishes to preside over a Senate which Nigerians would happily respect, but these are hardly enough. One may be sincerely wishing to assist another person to make some meaning out of the directions for administering a life-saving drug written in Greek, a language both of them are blissfully unfamiliar with. His good intentions notwithstanding, he would be of no real help to the other person. That’s how these things go. I appreciate Mrs. Patricia Etteh’s admirable struggles to move the House of Representatives forward. But it is also easy to see that she is already overwhelmed, like the fellow battling to interpret Greek words he is unfamiliar with to another person. It is usually a pitiable spectacle. 


One admires Etteh’s zeal, courage and struggles to take charge of the situation, but how long can a nation in crying need of persons with sound ideas wait for perpetual learners. Well, a child confronted with a highly complicated toy can only dismantle it, to bring it to his level. That is exactly what is happening in the National Assembly today. And so, instead of bright ideas and quality lawmaking going on, we only hear bellyaching tales of pursuits of vanities and revolting contract scams and other obscene tales. And mind you, this will continue to assault our sensibilities until we decide to put our fifth eleven aside and go for the first. But can we?

———————————————————
scruples2006@yahoo.com

In Nigeria, Yar’Adua Reigns, Obasanjo Rules

(First Published Thursday, July 12, 2007, Less Than Two Months After Umar Musa Yar'Adua Was Sworn In As President Of Nigeria)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

At various formal and informal discussion points across the country, and on listserv and discussion boards on the cyberspace, Nigerians are not hiding their deep pain and frustration that the obnoxious Third Term Project which they unanimously and disdainfully rejected not too long ago has been so smoothly and successfully imposed on them with such brazenness and flourish that seem to dare anyone who is not comfortable with the set-up to find himself the shortest route to hell. 

The demoralising situation as we have it today is simple: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua reigns in Aso Rock; Olusegun Obasanjo rules Nigeria from Ota.

It is a classic case of post-colonial Indirect Rule. The “Emperor and Conqueror of Modern Nigeria” is still perfectly in-charge and has no intention of leaving any one in doubt about that. He has merely delegated Umoru, one of his very loyal “boys” to stand in for him at Abuja to implement his orders with maximum accuracy. So, while this “accredited Servant-leader” treads softly within the hallowed ambience of Aso Rock Villa with the title of “President” timidly attached to his flowing agbada, full Presidential powers reside at some cozy corner of a multi-billion naira farm in Ota, Ogun State . 

I Am The One In-Charge Here, Right!
A Case Of Post-Colonial Indirect In Nigeria?


What makes the matter even more revolting is what clearly looks like the utter helplessness of President Yar’Adua, a 56-year-old former academic and two-term governor, with enormous powers of State at his disposal, before such a repugnant affront from someone who now sees himself as some kind of “Senior President”, as somebody pointed out last Friday. This is very sad.

Now, even though Yar’Adua became president through what has been widely described as the worst election in human history, the only hint of consolation in that horrible, broad-day electoral robbery was the hope that by May 29, 2007, Nigerians would be rid of the flamboyant incompetence, and pugnacious person of Aremu Obasanjo, the man whose entire energy in the past eight years appeared to have been solely channeled into the accumulation of so much unearned resources to build himself the wealthiest dynasty this side of the sea, while the country he was supposed to be ruling decayed beyond what anyone would have imagined was possible. Nigerians just wanted a breath of fresh air, an entirely new face, but unfortunately, they have been shortchanged once again. The man they had become sick and tired of, and thought had gone for good, is still very much around. 


Yar'Adua: Merely Reigning?

It is not only Yar’Adua that appears so helpless. For the past one week, I have read several columns on this matter, and all I have seen are passionate appeals to former President Obasanjo to, please, leave Yar’Adua alone to rule Nigeria the way he deems fit. Now, this makes no sense at all. Should we be begging an ex-president, obsessed with a grand illusion of boundless powers he no longer possesses, to leave the man with the real, statutory authority and powers alone to function? No, wait a minute! This would have been most laughable if it was not such a serious and pathetic matter, with far-reaching consequences to the survival of our nation.

As the nation’s opinion moulders weep and beg Obasanjo to, please, take his retirement in good faith and quickly dump himself in the unedifying company of failed leaders where he ought to feel very comfortable, and allow Yar’Adua free hand to conduct the affairs of the nation, what none of them appears to be asking is whether Yar’Adua himself is even desirous and eager to be rid of the overbearing influence of Obasanjo? Is he really ready to take charge? Are we sure that the “Servant-leader” is not even too grateful that Obasanjo’s meddlesome and looming shadow are providing perfect alibi for what is gradually appearing as his stark visionlessness? I would certainly want to know those great ideas of Yar’Adua’s which Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness is preventing him from unfolding! The truth, as we know it, is that Yar’Adua never wanted to be president, and so, he never sat down to draw up anything that vaguely looks like a blueprint for the country’s redemption.

When he was conscripted by Obasanjo and imposed on both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Nigerians at a time elections were merely a couple of weeks away, he was too preoccupied with the thought of winning elections to have any time to concentrate and think about how he would rule Nigeria. And so when he eventually became President through the “Iwu-ruwuru” elections that took place last April, one of the first statements he made was that he had no plans of becoming a “Jack-of-all-trade” President. A nice statement though, except that it left a bold hint that the man who uttered it was already feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of Nigeria ’s problems.  


Olusegun Obasanjo: Power Behind The Throne?


Quite early, Yar’Adua began to make a singsong of the “Energy Challenge”, how he was going to confront it headlong, overcome it, and give Nigerians an uninterrupted power supply. This, if you would remember, formed the high point of virtually all his usually terse, uninspiring campaign speeches. It is more than forty days now since he became President, and the impression of him out there is that of a pitiably confused leader groping his way through an impenetrably dark alleyway. I am yet to encounter anyone with the slightest hint of how he plans to confront the ever-worsening “Energy Challenge.”

All he did the other day, to the consternation of many Nigerians, was to summon the same gaggle of failed “experts” in the Ministry of Power, the same people that ensured that Nigeria remained submerged in pitch darkness throughout the eight dark years of Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, and ordered them to either come up with a blueprint on how to solve the nation’s energy crises immediately, or he would declare a State of Emergency in the power sector? So, with all the talk about tackling the “energy challenge” headlong, the Servant-leader had no clear idea what to do? So, all these while, his hope had been on the same dead woods that could not achieve anything for a whole eight years? What a shame! I am sure, that it is equally becoming clearer to him that the Niger Delta problem which he promised to solve in a couple of months is much more complex than he had imagined.

No doubt, Obasanjo is clearly enjoying the show, filling a gaping power vacuum that clearly exists. When he said that the reason for his “reforms” in the “PiiiiDiiiiPiiii” was to change it from a Movement to a Party, where discipline would reign, so that his successor would not encounter the massive indiscipline he suffered, it was clear he was merely erecting an out-of-office power base for himself. He handpicked his comrade-in-arms and loyalist, Brigadier-General David Mark, and made him Senate President and installed a certain Patricia Etteh as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Next, he shoved aside Tony Anenih and installed himself as the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) Chairman, and equally formed and became Chairman of what he calls PDP Legislative Agenda Committee whose business, we’re told, would be to vet the bills to be presented by PDP Senators and House Members. Already he is the “Life Leader” of the PDP.

In the light of the amended PDP constitution, the Party (read Obasanjo) is supreme, and even higher than both the president and the governors, and can dictate to them. And to underline this fact, Obasanjo recently summoned a meeting of the governors in Ota. That those wishing to be ministers had to lobby at Ota instead of Abuja is no more a secret; ditto for the fact that the list of the ministerial nominees were delayed until it was approved by Ota.

So, it is true that Obasanjo still rules Nigeria , but he is doing so, because Yar’Adua thinks he should. Or put another way, it suits Yar’Adua to still have Obasanjo in charge, while he enjoys the perks of office without the responsibilities that go with them. And at the end of the day, when another four years of devastating failure must have been successfully enacted, Yar’Adua can conveniently come up with the theory that he was not allowed to implement his ‘superior ideas’. So, please, no one should insult our intelligence any more with the old wives tales about how helpless he is before an overbearing ex-president! Because he knows full well that if he truly wants to halt the entire charade, he can. Even this morning!

What, for instance, stops Yar’Adua from threatening to resign and giving as reason his unwillingness to have history credit him with the disastrous outcome of another man’s decisions? It would be interesting to see how Obasanjo would respond to this challenge. Either way, both Obasanjo and the PDP are losers. At least, Yar’Adua would be able to redeem his name if he is forced to make good his threat. After all, he never wanted to be president.

 Again, he could dust up the PTDF file and set up an Independent Commission of Enquiry to look into its management and, in fact, the whole Oil Ministry since 1999, and follow it up with a pledge that anybody implicated, “no matter how highly placed” would face the full weight of the law! The heavens would not fall.

Nor should he fear impeachment by the Obasanjo foot soldiers in the National Assembly, because the mere thought of its implication to the contentious issue of power shift would effectively kill the thought in the legislatures. Even if they now impeach him and his deputy, both Obasanjo and the PDP are still at loss.   So,  that option would remain unattractive to them.  

So, please, spare me all these tales about Obasanjo’s overbearing influence on Yar’Adua, as if both the Inspector General of Police or Chief of Army Staff reside and take orders from Ota. Truth is: Yar’Adua is not yet ready to take over power. He should be sincere enough to tell himself that. When he is ready, we will know. He is still content with merely reigning in Aso Rock, while ‘Senior President’ Obasanjo rules Nigeria from Ota. That’s probably what he wanted from the beginning. What a sad situation.
--------------------------------------------------
    
scruples2006@yahoo.com
www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com
First Published Thursday, July 12, 2007