Atiku-Obi ticket: The Devil In The Detail

By Banji Ojewale

“There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book, and the tired man who wants to read.”

—G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) English writer

Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi, the flag bearers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria’s 2019 presidential poll, come from two different backgrounds. Atiku is a swashbuckling jolly good fellow. Peter Obi isn’t. Atiku is a rumbustious politician. Obi isn’t. Atiku is a gregarious personality on account of his wealth. Obi isn’t. Atiku is given to raucous peals of laughter that reflect his carriage. Obi isn’t. Atiku is a political figure who has operated at the national level. Obi isn’t. Finally, septuagenarian Atiku’s temperament is predictable. 57-year-old Obi’s isn’t.

*Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar 

Two opposites brought together by the PDP to make Nigeria work again, following a perception that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has underperformed and sunk the country into an abyss of misery, misrule and misfortune. Both Atiku and Obi post ‘formidable’ records in their days in office; the former as a vice-president for eight years after grabbing a governorship seat in Adamawa which he didn’t consummate, and the latter as a governor in Anambra for eight years.

Ekiti Election: Test For Our Democracy

By Raymond Oise-Oghaede

The Ekiti State governorship election is around the corner and all eyes from far and wide are on the state because of its cruciality to determining the level of the people’s preparedness for the 2019 general elections. Its importance to the permutations of the ruling parties at the federal and state levels respectively cannot be overemphasized. Presently, Ekiti is the only state in the South West that is not under the control of the (APC) and it is the only state that the main opposition party is holding on to and hoping to build on in its quest to have a major breakthrough into the region. 

*Fmr Gov Fayemi and Gov Fayose of Ekiti State 

Consequently, you will agree with me that it is going to be an interesting contest in all ramifications. The situation is further embroidered with curious expectations as a result of the caliber and personalities of the candidates that are been thrown into the contest. The popularity, political acumen and the wherewithal at the disposal of these candidates and their party platforms have made it look very unpredictable.

Nigeria: Defectors As Jesters

By Dan Amor

It is a sickening reality in Nigeria that defection, the act of leaving one political party for another, also known as carpet –crossing or what the eminent poet and humorist, Uzor Maxim-Uzoatu called “Jumpology” (the political act of jumping from party to party), has been elevated to the height of a national ideology. 

This glamourisation of political prostitution by Nigerian politicians signals the death of commonsense. Before the December 2013 defection of 37 members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in an open show and fanfare, four PDP governors had led the way in a much more rehearsed, media pampered braggadocio in November 2013.

President Buhari’s Anti-Corruption Conundrum

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

There is common sense in the submission that the anti-corruption crusade of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has slumped.

This is validated by the slipshod, ineffectual and selective manner the administration has so far executed the vaunted crusade. 

*President Buhari 

There has been so much mismanagement of the process, so much misapplication of the momentum, and so much floundering of the philosophy underpinning the anti-corruption agenda. The corollary, thus, is a concomitant contention, which will be explicated shortly. 

A New Role For Magu

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

In a democratic government that is marked by the absence of an autocratic pecking order that harks back to the days of medieval despots, conflicts among the key players in the political space are inevitable. But since there is no allowance for any of the three arms of government to hegemonise authority, they are all expected to adhere to a constitutionally ratified cooperative principle that oils the wheel of good governance.

*Ibrahim Magu

Such a principle is violated if instead of the arms of government mustering enough capacity to resolve their disagreements, they allow them to hurt governance. This brings us to the long-drawn rift between the Presidency and the Senate over the confirmation of the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu. The conflict is festering as both arms of government continue to maintain their hardline positions.

The Senate has vowed not to confirm any presidential nominee until Magu is relieved of his job. It feels affronted by the unresolved contradiction that the same Presidency that gleefully declared that it did not need the approval of the Senate for Magu to be in office wants the upper legislative chamber to confirm presidential nominees. 

In its attempt to wriggle out of the cul-de-sac it has found itself, the Presidency is considering taking the matter to the Supreme Court for judicial intervention. When the rift between the two arms began, the Presidency obviously relished the support of the public. The latter eagerly waited for that moment when the Senate would declare itself shellacked by the Presidency. Beyond supinely contemplating the impudence of the Senate to appropriate powers it has not been given by the constitution, some people made themselves available to be hired to protest against the chamber. But these protests have since fizzled out since it has become clear that the Senate would not disavow its position.

1967, A Metaphor For Military Slaughter

By Ochereome Nnanna

The international human rights outfit, Amnesty International (AI), has engaged the Nigerian military authorities in a war of wits, accusations and counter-accusations since our armed forces embraced a full-scale campaign to overcome the Boko Haram Islamist threat in Northern Nigeria.

The first sign of tension emerged shortly after former President Goodluck Jonathan, in January 2014, signed the bill outlawing homosexuality (especially gay marriage) in Nigeria. Most Western countries and local and international organisations (such as civil society groups which they fund) propagating their mostly alien and unacceptable values in the Third World suddenly became hostile to Nigeria, particularly the Jonathan regime.

They directly and indirectly added their voices to the growing anti-Jonathan opposition, especially those based in the North which were perceived as using the Boko Haram terrorists as a political tool to oust Jonathan and grab political power. AI, which had harshly criticised the anti-gay law, descended heavily on the Nigerian Army. AI was no longer interested in the horrendous activities of Boko Haram, which were sacking villages and communities, slaughtering people like animals and carting away women whom they dehumanised just as they liked.

These did not matter to AI. Instead, AI beamed its activities on the so-called human rights of Boko Haram fighters killed or captured during operations. Many Nigerians saw AI’s slur campaign against the Nigerian Armed Forces as ill-motivated, hostile and malicious, perhaps due to the anti-gay law. It seemed to meld with the strange reluctance of the President Barack Obama regime to recognise Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist outfit, which also manifested in its refusal to sell arms to Nigeria to prosecute the war on terror.

Obama’s America and its non-state sidekick, the AI, seemed unwilling to even help Nigeria in coping with our explosive humanitarian crisis concerning the internally-displaced persons. Rather, their own headache was the “human rights” of terrorists and the demonisation of our military. Following the change of government on May 29th 2015, and the assumption of power by retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the mindset and combat reflexes of our armed forces underwent a sudden psychedelic shift.

Tinubu And The Paths Once Travelled

By Debo Adesina

As All Progressives Congress (APC) governments at all levels in many places, not all, strike a pitiable or pitiful sight, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed by emotions.

So much goodwill, so much hope, so much disappointment and, now, so much anger! All within two years!

*Bola Tinubu

But blame the people first.

The climate in which the party thrived ahead of the 2015 elections was only genuinely ripe for deceit and empty promises by any candidate who could successfully inflame emotions, escape rigorous scrutiny even as he basked in ignorance of or poor preparation for the enormity of the task ahead.

Having been short-changed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for 16 years and particularly the Goodluck Jonathan-led brigandage, the people had every cause to abandon reason and hold on to emotions, such fertile breeding ground for gullibility.

Houses for all who had no shelter. Money for those who were out of jobs, for widows and the disadvantaged. Abundant life for the weak and vulnerable, the APC promised it all.

But what could compel disbelief more than the promises the party made then? What should have set the alarm ringing that Nigeria was in for a fantasy ride into fallacy than the promise of millions of jobs in a year? Should the promissory note on which the idea of social security-like payments to the poor was written not have been trashed by a discerning people? What could be less convincing than the avowal of true federalism in the manifesto of a party whose leading lights shunned the finest attempts yet at beginning the journey as represented by the 2014 National Conference?

Under normal circumstances, such promises as APC made would have been subjected to the most rigorous interrogation by the media and the people. But such was the incompetence of the then government and the odium of its ways that the more unbelievable the alternative was, the greater its appeal.

More importantly, that alternative had a political master gladiator as its leading salesman.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu had long established himself as a smart political tactician and grand strategist long before he teamed up with Muhammadu Buhari for the 2015 presidential election. He ran a good shop in Lagos, laid a good foundation for its development and entrenched a succession scheme that has worked very well so far. He perfected the art of surrounding himself with the best and the brightest and had constantly expanded the pool of talents from which he has always picked the most suitable for any assignment.

Gov Okorocha Has Confirmed Sheriff Is APC’s Lackey – PDP

PRESS RELEASE

Re: Respect Appeal Court Ruling, Don’t Heat Up The Polity – Okorocha…This Is Another Confirmation That Sheriff Is A Lackey Of The APC – PDP

*Sheriff

The attention of the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), led by Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, CON, has been drawn to the statement credited to the Governor of Imo State and Chairman of APC Governor’s Forum, Mr. Rochas Okorocha, wherein he said the PDP should respect the ruling of the Friday, February 17, 2017 Court of Appeal Judgment and not to heat up the polity.

2.    This statement coming from Okorocha is not all that surprising. He is not known to be a person who exercises caution or restraint before making unguarded statements. His constant vituperation on matters small or big is indicative of an over excited mind desperately in need of a large dose  of tranquilizer. It is curious that while he would want the PDP to accept the verdict of the court of Appeal and not exercise its right of appeal to the Supreme Court, he was nowhere to be found when Sheriff refused to accept the judgment of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt but instead proceeded to the court of appeal. In any case, what is Okorocha’s special interest in the PDP matter? Need Nigerians any further conviction that the APC is the unseen hand stoking the fire of crisis in the PDP and Sheriff and his cohorts mere puppets in their hands?

3.    The desperate attempt by APC to exonerate itself only further exposed its duplicity. The Police excuse for preventing a peaceful assembly of distinguished PDP members on alleged but unproven “security threat ” is an insult to the intelligence of Nigerians. It is the duty of the Police to provide security if they suspect any breach of peace . It is a gross abnegation of its responsibilities to prevent people from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right of peaceful assembly.  No one is in doubt today that the Police has submitted itself to total control and direction by the APC.

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.

Fayose And The Re-Emergence Of PDP In The South-West

By Sola Adetola

The appointment of Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State as chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum is a good development. First, he earned it as the most senior state governor of the PDP extraction in the present dispensation. Secondly, according to Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, who announced the appointment, Fayose deserved it as a committed party man. No one can fault this claim.

*Gov Fayose 

The position gives Fayose the privilege to coordinate the activities of the Governors Forum and work with other party structures to uplift the party. It is a weighty responsibility thrust upon his shoulders at a time the party is struggling to overcome leadership challenges and the concomitant fractionalization and disorientation the crisis had plunged its members into in most parts of the country.

Fortunately, Fayose himself is not unfamiliar with the leadership tussle that has torn the party apart. He was part of the genesis of the crisis, being one of the principal actors who foisted ex-governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff on the party as acting national chairman, despite the fears raised by notable stakeholders, including the board of trustees of the party. Sadly, he and his collaborators in the scheme were unable to curb the man when he engineered a power play that became volatile. The resultant conflagration has defied political solution and the party now seeks refuge in a judicial resolution. Fayose should learn something from that to guide him in his new call to duty.

Another party issue that Fayose needs to draw lessons from was his alleged role in yet another contrivance to impose a relatively new member of the party and former governorship candidate in Lagos State, Jimi Agbaje, as national chairman of the party in very controversial circumstances, at the botched national convention of the party in Port Harcourt, in August last year.

This move did not go down well with the stakeholders of the party from the South-West as they had already endorsed a consensus candidate at their meeting in Akure, Ondo State, in the person of Chief Olabode George. The subsequent disenfranchisement of most of the delegates from the zone, with the exception of Ekiti State delegates, at the convention ground left members feeling betrayed and convinced that Fayose was pursuing a separate agenda against the collective will of the majority in the zone.

Nigeria: Drifting To A One-Party State

By Victor Effik

Nigerians may have to expect a full blown one-party rule unless the opposition parties gear up and put their houses in order. 2019 may just end up as a one horse race. The evidence is simply overwhelming. As I write, the ruling party is using all the political tricks in its bag  to lure many members of the opposition PDP in the National Assembly into its fold. Their soft targets are the serving members who may, in the estimation of the party apparatchik, not get a return ticket for another term; they are also targeting those who are not in the good books of their state governors.

*Buhari

And that reminds us that the greatest problem in the opposition camp are the governors. Apart from bringing a frankenstein monster called Sheriff, they seem not intelligent enough to know where their power stops. Some of them are even antagonizing serving members of the National Assembly who should add political value to the party and by extension, their second term ambitions. And apart from Rivers State’s Wike, not many of the serving PDP Governors can withstand the heat of  federal might during elections.

Really, the opposition PDP is in tatters. That has been the plan of the ruling APC. The plan is working well now. No thanks to overzealous state governors, lack of party cohesion and discipline that characterize Nigerian party politics.

The feeling from within the ruling party is that except a death blow is dealt on PDP given its 16 years dominance, there is a threat that it might bounce back. So, the strategy of the ruling party to dismember it was carefully hatched. Let us now look at the following scenarios:First, the Sheriff strategy fitted the bill. Given his case with EFCC and the likelihood of him being roped into the Boko Haram conundrum, he was seen as an easy prey who will play ball. And he has done that so perfectly. The APC strategists did their homework well.

Second, a section of the judiciary perceived to be hostile must be brought to its knees if the Sheriff strategy must work. Those judges perceived to be a stumbling block needed to be singled out and dealt with. True, the state may have a genuine case against some of them, but like the anti corruption campaign has shown, the campaign is heavily skewed in favour those ready to acquiesce.

Thirdly, the electoral umpire, INEC and the security might of the state needed to be mobilized to ensure that the ruling party makes an inroad into South-south and captures the Edo and Ondo top prizes ahead of 2019. That too seemed to have worked well in Edo and Ondo and partially in Rivers.

Politicians And The failure of Democracy

By Dan Amor
Without ignoring irony as a characteristic value of a mature literary work- the maintenance of desperate perspectives- I wish to regard it here as also a mode of interconnection, as illuminating discrepancy. Awareness of discrepancy means awareness of at least the two elements required to create a discrepancy. In a non-ironic work such nexus would be lacking, and the texture would be correspondingly thinner. The ironic connection may be between elements close or distant; it may be completed in actional or verbal terms; and it may have different temporal aspects. 

*Nigerian Politicians 

It may complete itself in the present in which it comes into view, either bad a contradiction of terms within that situation or as an overturn of a universal expectancy. Or it may bind past and present or present and future by a reversal of ordinary probability or of specific expectancies created by the term of the plot. And so, the standard dramatic irony in Nigeria today is that of a class of people- a clan of aggrieved individuals made up of expired warlords and frustrated pseudo-democrats- who have captured political power by hook or crook but lack an iota of idea of what to do with it. It is an irony of a character taking an action which does not lead to applause or which leads to a soured applause.

Nigeria has indeed been turned into a paradise for power-starved men who desperately seek power for the sake of it: for ego boosting, lining of their pockets and self aggrandizement. In this most endowed but most troubled Black Country in the world, the fight for power has taken on a particularly unpleasant form. The race for the 2015 general elections had begun with pomp and fanfare as politicians, both the contenders and pretenders alike, jostled for attention and space. For the Presidential race, the list paraded some interesting personalities. But, in terms of ideology and presentation of alternative programmes, Nigerians were yet to see anything different from what had always been on ground. 

What the citizens were confronted with daily were insults and virulent attacks on the personality of the sitting President. Since the emergence of the present civilian dispensation in May 1999, there has been a complete lack of courage and the political will to play the game of politics according to the rules. First, is the complete absence of ideology and clear-cut distinction between one political party and another, and then the absence of issues-oriented debates on the hustings. Indeed, what we have is "bread-and-butter" politics as our politicians lack the necessary reorientation required to bring them into lasting acquaintance with the real essence of party politics and strong democracy. This is a lamentable departure from the halcyon days of ideological divisions.

Reuben Abati: The Threat Of A New Political Party

ESSAY

By Reuben Abati

When aggrieved politicians within the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) decided to join forces with members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the All Progressives Peoples Alliance (APGA) to form the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013, they had well-defined, if not so clearly stated, even if poorly conceived objectives: to send President Jonathan out of power, displace the PDP which had clearly become a dominating hegemonic party, exert vengeance and offer the people an alternative.

*Reuben Abati 

   The triumph of the APC in the 2015 elections resulting in victory at the Presidential level, in 23 states out of 36, and also in the legislature, state and federal, was propelled on the wings of the people’s embrace of this slogan of change. Change became the aphrodisiac of Nigeria’s search for democratic progress. The new party’s promises were delivered with so much certainty and cock-suredness. Those who were promised free meals were already salivating before casting the first vote.

    The permanently opportunistic players in Nigeria’s private sector could be seen trading across the lines as they have always done. Everyone knew the PDP had too much internal baggage to deal with.  The opposition exploited this to the fullest and they were helped in no small measure, not just by the party’s implosion, but also the offensiveness of the claims by certain elements within the PDP that their party will rule Nigeria forever. This arrogance had gone down the rank and file resulting in bitter conflicts among the various big men who dominated the party. The party failed from within, and even after losing the 2015 elections, it has further failed to recover from the effects of the factionalism that demystified it and drove it out of its hegemonic comfort zone. It took the PDP 16 years to get that hubristic moment. It is taking the APC a much shorter time to get to that same moment.

      The displacement of the PDP gave the impression that Nigeria’s political space, hitherto dominated by one party, and a half, out of over 30 political parties with fears of a possible authoritarian one-party system, had become competitive.  But the victory of a new party over a dominant political party in power such as occurred in 2015, has not delivered the much-expected positives: instead, questions have been raised about the depth of democratic change and the quality of Nigeria’s political development. The disappointment on both scores has been telling.

        The ruling APC has not been able to live up to expectations. In less than two years in power, it has been behaving not like the PDP, but worse. Not a day passes without a pundit or a party member or a civil society activist suggesting that the only way forward is the formation of a new political party. There are over 30 registered political parties in Nigeria; no one is saying that these political parties should be reorganized and made more functional; the received opinion is that a new political party would have to replace the APC.

Of Parliament, Poverty Of Debates And Corruption

By Dan Amor

In mid 2007, at the emergence of the Mrs. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh as first female Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, a very close friend of mine who was then covering the Lower Chamber of the National Assembly for a top flight national newspaper called me on phone. His message: "Dan, Nigeria has elected a Speaker who cannot speak." My friend, a honed history scholar-turned journalist, is a thorough-bred professional most interested in written and spoken words and their applications. And his message was loud and clear. He spoke against the backdrop of Etteh's alleged legendary grammatical inadequacies.

*Speaker Dogara and Senate President Saraki

As beneficiary of the old Nsukka tradition of history and intellectual erudition, my friend had lamented the complete absence of a culture of informed debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, and even the Senate.  Poor him! He had thought that our politicians would cultivate the habit of formal debate which is the hallmark of the parliament anywhere in the world and which is as old as education itself. It dates back at least in the invention of dialectics and more specifically to Protagoras of Abdera, who introduced this method of learning to his students nearly 2,500 years ago.

In fact, the rudiments of dialectics emerged from the misty past, when grunts grew into language and men discovered that language could facilitate both the making of decisions and changing them. Debate as a medium for policy-making came into being in the first crude democracy when words as well as force became tools of government. In its maturity, it prevailed over the city-state of Greece and the republic of Rome, where skillful debaters such as Demosthenes and Cicero moved empires with words. Aristotle himself considered rhetoric to be the first and most important art. The highest purpose of debate is to develop, as Emerson described it, "man's thinking in the total milieu of society and the world around him." Ultimately, debate attempts to improve a man by laying a foundation for a better understanding of himself and those around him, to inculcate habits of mind, breath of interests, and enlargement of spirit. The process of debate, therefore, becomes as important as the issues contained within it. Lest we deviate, it was this process of intellectual confrontation that my friend said was lacking in Etteh's House.

Buhari: Six Mistakes In Eighteen Months

By Sabella Ogbobode Abidde

President Muhammadu Buhari is not your typical party-man. By that I mean that he is not a politician in the classic sense of the word. Hence, he doesn’t seem to have the full and complete grasp of party-politics. Or may be does, but simply detests it (at least in the way and manner it is being played in Nigeria).  Whether he likes party-politics or not, I have news for him: the sooner he learns to play ball and act like a party-man, the better.

*Buhari 

Party-politics can be dirty, very dirty; but that’s the nature of political association the world over. Even the most honorable of men understands this; yet, they device ways of swimming in the Ocean without being bitten by sharks. They device ways of padding through rivers while evading crocodiles and other hunters. They swim if necessary; and they levitate if levitation is in order. But not so for Buhari who, eighteen months into his presidency, has committed six fundamental mistakes.

First, he is acting as though it is beneath him to get involved in the internal strife of his party. He is wrong! If he does not bring leadership, meaning and direction to the affairs of his party, The All Progressives Congress (APC), his base will fragment and may even collapse.  If he allows the wrangling to get out of hand, the major opposition party, The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) will take advantage of the situation and maneuver its way back to power.

Nigeria: Obituary Of A Political Party

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It was only those who lacked prescience in the heady days of the campaigns for the 2015 elections that failed to realise that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was a contraption waiting to unravel. All that was needed was the appropriate time for the party to suffer an implosion and disrupt its self-valourisation for being different from the much-pilloried People’s Democratic Party (PDP). And now in less than two years after assuming power, the party is in the grip of crises from which recovery may not be possible.

This should have been expected in so far as the APC grew out of a myriad of crises of other parties. These crises have continued to haunt the APC in a way that has rendered its performance since its emergence less than stellar. Of course, no one makes the case that the existence of conflicting interests is aberrant in a democracy with its attendant plurality of perspectives. One moment of such a contest of interests that culminated in discontent was the quest for the chairmanship of the party that led to the exit of Tom Ikimi and his supporters.

But the troubling reality is that these crises have worsened since the APC assumed the reins of power. They have negated all expectations that after the electoral victory, previous differences would be relegated for a common front to tackle national problems. Thus, the only area where the APC could be said to have done well aside from winning the 2015 elections remains in its playing the role of an opposition party. It succeeded in demonising the then government of the PDP and eventually made it unacceptable at the polls.

What has dogged the APC and prevented it from building on its electoral success is a lack of a clear ideological vision that is underpinned by a holistic pursuit of service to the citizens. It is in this ideological vacuum that has festered all shenanigans for the appropriation of the party by its members as a vehicle for realising their selfish goals. In other words, what has marked out the party is its members’ Darwinian struggle for supremacy. In this quest, the disparate members owe no fidelity to the common ethos that binds them together in the party; thus it can be used and dumped as they have done to other political parties. It was this that led to the emergence of Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as House of Representatives Speaker in utter disregard for the desire of some of the party’s leaders.

It is not only the party that its members brutally disregard to pursue their selfish interests. They have also disavowed their own promises to the citizens. But the citizens are not beyond blame; they have had too high expectations from politicians of the Nigerian hue. For despite all the pretensions, these politicians who decamped from the PDP could not be expected to do anything good to improve the lot of the people.

At his inauguration, President Muhammadu Buhari in a moment that was seemingly preceded by a great introspection declared that he belonged to everybody and belonged to nobody. If this were a clear repudiation of all obligations that might have negated national interest, the citizens would have appreciated it. But from the performance of Buhari in the past 16 months, he has been far from proving that he understood the heavy weight of the thoughts he expressed. For it is clear now that far from what he would like the citizens to believe, he is beholden to some interests that conflict with the collective good of the citizens.

Buhari Needs No Recession Experts

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

In their tepid search for solutions to the current economic crisis, our political leaders are fixated on two culprits that gnaw at the nation’s wellbeing.

It is either the past that is chastised for not catering for its future or the militancy in the Niger Delta that has driven oil revenue to its nadir.

*Buhari 

Our current leaders can keep avoiding culpability for the nation’s economic recession. The danger is that any optimism about overcoming the crisis in a short time may soon evaporate as long as our political leaders fail to recognise that it is not only the past that is sullied by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan and his predecessors that should be blamed, but the present that is anchored on the current administration is equally complicit.

We are on the right path to economic redemption only when we appreciate the fact that the affliction that is the source of the recession is simply that our politics reeks of a crude conflation of national and personal interests by political leaders. Actuated by the credo of politics that negates national interest, politicians pursue purely selfish goals and present them to the citizens as targeted at engendering national transformation.

Thus no matter how potentially workable the recommendations from the citizens for the development of their nation, most political leaders do not have that capacity to accommodate them. And this is why all ideas about development, no matter how ill-bred , must come from their cronies because they would not pose any threat to their interests. Or why have all the great proposals for the development of the nation for over five decades not launched it into the league of the developed?

Now that there is a flurry of suggestions from the citizens as regards how to overcome the recession, our leaders may only take the ones that would not threaten their personal interests. President Muhammadu Buhari has been asked to invite experts to help him salvage the economy. Some citizens want him to invite the nation’s best economists to proffer solutions to the economic problems. Some have even canvassed the return of former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The former minister has already said she would not be ready to serve under the Buhari government when she is invited as she wants other people to contribute their own quota to development. Okonjo-Iweala may not even be an acceptable choice having been tainted by her association with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when she served its government. She is still subjected to excoriation for triggering the crisis in the first place by her feckless economic management.

Buhari And Nigeria’s Economic Recession: Matters Arising

By Arthur Nwankwo

There is this anecdote in Igboland about the grasshopper and the bird called “Okpoko”, a mysterious bird reputed for its queer ways. Okpoko is a noisy predatory bird. She rarely catches her preys because her noisy approach always warns her victims in advance and they scamper for safety at her approach. But the grasshopper would not listen and scorned those who warned her.

*Arthur Nwankwo 

Regaling in her illusion that Okpoko would not come, the grasshopper was caught unawares despite the noisy approach of the Okpoko. In the end the grasshopper’s stubbornness and indisposition to hearken to wise counsel would cost her, her life. So today, one would always hear the Igbo say: “Ukpana Okpoko buuru; nti chiri ya” literally meaning “any grasshopper that falls prey to the Okpoko is irredeemably deaf and stubborn”. 

Nigeria is like the stubborn grasshopper. Even with the noisy approach of the Okpoko she does not sense any danger. Her leaders would never listen to informed warnings. I recall that in June this year, I warned that Nigerian’s economy was taking a dangerous turn for the worse. On that occasion, I had alerted Nigerians of the collapsing economy pointing out that sooner than we expected, the economy would go into recession. I recall also that on that occasion, many apologists of this lame-duck Buhari government went to town to label me a prophet of doom; most calling for my head, some even went as far as suggesting that I have misdiagnosed Nigerian’s ailment and therefore offered the wrong therapies.

Interestingly, the Federal Government, after several ostrich evasion in admitting the obvious came out in August to admit that Nigeria’s economy has collapsed. Today the economy is officially in recession. Some days back (August 30th 2016), the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirmed that the Nigerian economy has gone into recession. According to the NBS, the economy contracted by 2% in the second quarter and unemployment is also on the rise. Many have lost their jobs in the formal sector as firms have cut staff or folded up altogether. 

This is no longer news. What is rather worrisome is the lethargy and ineptitude of this government in rising up to the challenge. Embarrassingly, Muhammadu Buhari and his co-travelers have repeatedly tried to justify their lack of vision and mission on the past PDP-led Federal Government. This escapist excuse has never, and will never be acceptable essentially because it is the kind of excuse a lousy and slothful man gives for failing to provide food for his family. The Bible clearly states that a man who cannot provide for his family is worse than an infidel (1Timothy 5:8). The federal government is the father of all Nigerians. If as the father, it fails to live up to its expectation but take refuge in an attitude of cold complicity and naïve excuses, it is worse than worse can be. 

Much as I would not absolve the past government of any wrong doing, it will be preposterous to blame it wholesale for the collapse of the Nigerian economy. The truth is that our economy has always been sick. We never cared and today a minor health disorder that could have been contained and nipped in the bud has been allowed to metastasize into a cancerous terminal illness. 

Nigeria:Why We Are In This Terrible Mess

By Dan Amor

Once upon a time, there was a young country struggling in the comity of nations to find her place in the sun. For in this young country of brave people, it was discovered that freedom is a God-given right. So impressed were the citizens with this belief that they lit a candle to symbolize their freedom. But, in their wisdom, they knew that the flame could not burn alone. So, they lit a second candle to symbolize man's right to govern himself. The third candle was lighted to signify that the rights of the individual were more important than the rights of the State. And finally, they lit a fourth candle to show that government should not do for the people those things which the people should do for themselves.

*Buhari

As the four candles of freedom burned brightly, the young nation prospered. And as they prospered, they grew fat. And as they grew fat, they got lazy. When they got lazy, they asked the government to do things for them which they had been doing for themselves, and one of the candles went out. As government became bigger, the people became smaller, and the government became all important. And the rights of the individual were sacrificed to the all important rights of the State. Then the second candle went out. In their apathy and indifference, they asked those who bear armour to govern them, and the marshals of the commandist clan did, and the third candle went off. In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security, a comfortable life, and they lost all - comfort and security and freedom.

For, you see! When the freedom they wanted most was freedom from responsibility, then Nigerians ceased to be free. The last candle has been extinguished. One could assume, then, that we have it made. Never have any people at any time, anywhere, had it so good. But in our present abundance and luxury in the galaxy of power, something is wrong. People aren't happy. They no longer walk down the streets of our cities smiling or whistling a happy tune. There is discontent, and one can sense the fear of the unknown. Everywhere, the people are grumbling, cursing, jeering and hooting. 

Nigerians are jittery. There seems to be a tarnish on our golden Mecca. We've created a new breed of men and women who can't work but loot, just like we've created a new breed of men and women who crave for power for the sake of it. You had an opportunity to turn the nation to an Eldorado, but you supervised the mindless looting of our national patrimony into private pockets. You wailed and roared and were given the power, but you're seeing it as an opportunity to favour your tribesmen at the expense of others and you're still enmeshed in blame game while the country is bleeding. And, instead of the slogan, "God bless Nigeria", all we now hear is, "Let us go our separate ways". The signs aren't too hard to read. They are the signs of internal decay - the dry rot of apathy and indifference.

Buhari: Worst President Nigeria Ever Had?

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

I have two confessions to make from the outset.

I am an incurable optimist. I am a firm believer in the maxim that no matter how dark a tunnel may appear to be, there will always be some ray of light at the end.

Of course, this presupposes that for you to encounter this light, you must not stand still at the darkest end of the tunnel. Therefore, the philosophy underpinning this belief is that for you to get to the bright end, you must keep moving away from the darkest end.

*Buhari 

You must stay the course; perseverance is the watchword. Don’t quit because quitters never win. Here, pragmatism is an inevitable companion.

This conviction also informed my reaction to the socio-political and economic developments in our country in recent times.
I strongly believed that no matter how starkly the national augury may seem to tilt south, we shall overcome as long as we have a leadership that is prepared to put on its thinking cap, prepared to listen, be pragmatic and innovative in handling the myriad of problems confronting the nation.

The last thing we need right now is a leadership that is in denial, a leadership that revels, like the ostrich, in burying its head in the sand, thinking that nobody is seeing it. The last thing we need in this country is a leadership whose only solution to the problems is to point fingers of blame at others. Unfortunately, this is the leadership we have right now.

My second confession is that I am really afraid for this country’s fate under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch.

My worry was not informed by the frightening numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday, August 31, which finally confirmed what many already knew – that the economy had slid into recession or that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at a woeful –2.06% performance did worse than expected. It was –0.36% in the first quarter.
The fact that $1 exchanged for N425 last week with a potential of going beyond N500 before the end of the year, while inflation rose to 17.1 per cent in July from 16.5 in June is scary, but didn't worry me much.
Ditto the unemployment figure which increased to 13.3 per cent from 12.1 per cent and investment inflows which dropped to the lowest levels at $647.1 million from $710 million.

These figures are the natural consequences of the otiose and impractical monetary and fiscal policies of the Buhari administration. Discerning Nigerians and members of the international community didn’t expect anything different.

But as grim as they are, what worries me most is the puerile antics of some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including Buhari, and APC National Chairman, John Oyegun.

It baffles me that those who claim to be our leaders can actually indulge in such laughable political shenanigans.