NASS: How Wrong Is Obasanjo?

 By Tonnie Iredia

Once again, former President Olusegun Obasanjo (Obj), has visibly shown his disgust for the disposition of the nation’s legislators especially those at the federal level. The week before, Obasanjo told a team of six legislators who visited him in Abeokuta, Ogun State that many individuals currently holding public office lack the necessary character to lead the nation adding that some of them in the national assembly ought to be behind bars or even face the gallows. Exactly 10 years ago, the former president had alleged that the national assembly was ‘a den of corruption occupied by a group of unarmed robbers.’ 

*Obasanjo 

With the level of information that a former president can garner, it is probably time for the nation to begin to interrogate the rationale for the damaging comments Obasanjo keeps making about our lawmakers. Unfortunately, responses to the criticism from both the national assembly and some Nigerians who appear to have an axe to grind with Obj, cannot help the legislators.

Robert Mugabe: Double Celebration At 91?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Last Saturday (February 21, 2015), President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the oldest head of state on planet earth, turned 91. He has ruled Zimbabwe for 35 years – since 1980 when the country gained independence from Britain.

Supported by wife, Grace, and children, Mugabe 

cuts his 91st Birthday Cake on 28 February 2015

 at Elephant Hills, Victoria Falls

For many years now, Mugabe’s birthday bash has become a big, lavish event in Zimbabwe – a country where majority of its 14 million people live below the poverty level. This year’s celebrations which will be held a week later on February 28 will, according to reports take place at a “championship golf course at Elephant Hills, a plush hotel resort with spa, pool and tennis courts near the Victoria Falls.”  

The ceremony is estimated to cost about US$1million (one million dollars) and part of the money is being sourced from the citizens. There were even reports that some impoverished villagers are also being compelled to “freely donate” money so that Mugabe could have his big party. Zimbabwe’s Daily News quotes the head of the Progressive Teachers’ Union, Mr. Raymond Majongwe, as saying that teachers all over the country are being forced to part with between one to ten dollars (depending on the status of the school where one is teaching) to fund the very expensive feast. This has however, been denied by Tongai Kasukuwere, the Finance Secretary of the ruling Zanu-PF’s Youth League who urged anyone “being forced to donate to the gala [to] report to the police.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has, however, dismissed Mugabe’s birthday party as an “obscene jamboree.”