Dokubo Asari’s Sinister Dance

 By Ochereome Nnanna

True friends of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should call him aside and whisper wisdom into his ears with regards to his dalliance with Niger Delta “repentant” militant and self-acclaimed “Biafra fighter”, Dokubo Asari. This is not the first time I am raising this issue on this forum. And which way you look at it  this “friendship” is bound to end in regret. Not much was known of the relationship between Tinubu and Asari until the latter confessed in several media outings that Tinubu once helped him when he was facing the consequences of his armed activities in the creek.

*Asari

Dokubo Asari can posture as anything, depending on the direction his current interest is looking. We call it  anywhere belle face  in popular Nigerian parlance. Asari’s garrulity especially in the social media has laid bare almost everything about him for those who care to pay him any attention. He claimed that his grandfather, a hunter, migrated from Abam in Abia State to Kalabari land. According to him, the hunter magically transformed into a slave merchant specialising in selling his fellow Igbo to the White man. Mind you, he has never provided any proof of his claims. Asari is more of mouth. In contrast, Tompolo is more of effective action.

They Sell The Needy For A Pair Of Shoes

 By Owei Lakemfa

I woke up at the weekend to a letter by Professor Ibrahim Adamu Yakasai of the Bayero University, Kano. He had on March 25, 2023 performed a civic duty as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Returning Officer for the Tudun Wada/Doguwa House of Representative elections.

He had announced with his professorial authority that Ado Doguwa of the All Progressives Congress, APC, polled 39,732 votes to defeat his closest rival, Yushau Salisu Abdullahi, of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, who polled 34,798 votes. Now, in his letter, he makes a different declaration: that the previous verdict he declared was false, but that he had to do so because his life and those of other electoral staff were endangered. He said the collation area was under siege and he was “completely traumatised, hopeless and confused”.

2023 And Southeast Presidency: Quislings Beware!

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

This is an election season like no other. Everything is defying logic. For instance, how does one explain the fact that when the All Progressives Congress, APC, decided to sell its presidential nomination form at a whopping N100 million, an amount so outrageous in an economy where the minimum wage is N30,000, and many thought the only reason for the ridiculous hike was to scare aware “unserious” aspirants, that was when every Tom, Dick and Harry, joined the fray.

With the latest declarations on Wednesday of Senator Godswill Akpabio, Minister of Niger Delta, in Akwa Ibom, and Dr Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State, in Abuja, there are now at least 14 aspirants jostling for the APC ticket.

Toxic Dust On Orlu-Owerri Road

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Recently, I visited Imo State and was on the Orlu-Owerri road. It is heartwarming that the road is being rehabilitated because in August when I used it on my way to a wedding, it was in such a dilapidated state.  

But, sadly, the insensitivity of the firm handling the reconstruction work is turning what is otherwise a laudable project into a traumatic experience for the people. The dust that envelopes that road all day is so thick that even though most vehicles switch on their headlights on bright afternoons, it is still very difficult for drivers to see oncoming vehicles just a few meters away.

*Gov Uzodinma flags off the reconstruction of Orlu-Owerri Road

And because of this thick cloud of dust, the motorists practically “drive blind”. One wonders what it is usually like driving at night when the dust and darkness merge to compound the situation. I shudder to imagine the implications of this.  

But this is not even the really scary part of the story.

Under Uzodimma, Imo State Has Gone To The Dogs

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Let me be clear from the onset. I am neither a fan of Senator Rochas Okorocha, former governor of Imo, nor his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, who he wanted to impose on the state as his successor. Okorocha knows that for a fact because I told him to his face in Owerri that he was a big disappointment to Ndi-Imo who preferred him to his predecessor, Ikedi Ohakim, in 2011.

Uzodinma and Okorocha 

I told Okorocha that if he didn’t mend his ways and provide the people the quality governance he promised while he was out on the hustings, history will be unkind to him. Of course, he ignored my unsolicited advice and doubled down on the shenanigans that became the hallmark of his administration. He capped the political tomfoolery with the attempted imposition of Nwosu. Uche Nwosu’s political ascendancy was tied to his filial relationship with Okorocha, whose first daughter, Uloma, he wedded on January 5, 2013 while he was serving as the commissioner for lands and survey.

Imo: In Search Of The ‘Hope’ In Uzodinma

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Now that Nigerians appear to have tried their best to put behind them the controversial Supreme Court judgment that made Mr. Hope Uzodinma the Governor of Imo State, the great task before him now is to hasten to convince Imo people that the apex court has not brutally forced a very bitter and impuissant pill down their throats, but, that, he is, indeed, that governor they have always hoped for, who will change the face of Imo for good! 

*Gov Uzodinma and President Buhari 

He does not have the luxury time. A delayed performance might begin to sow in the minds of the people the toxic thought that the pill they have swallowed lacks the power to solve the several debilitating maladies weighing the state down. And if their worst fears are eventually confirmed, it would then amount to another hope devastatingly betrayed (if you will permit the pun). And the cost, politically, might be too high for Mr. Uzodinma.   

Well-meaning Nigerians are becoming increasingly worried that the courts are brazenly usurping the power of the electorate to choose their leaders. They are beginning to think that the ever-swelling number of court-crowned leaders constitutes a dangerous threat to our democracy and a frustrating and discouraging experience to the masses who take the pains and defy the often very harsh sun and rain to vote. Why bother to vote when, eventually, the decision on who occupies the office will be decided by about five or seven judges – none of whom may even come from the state or constituency in question? The danger is that the people are often alienated from the leader since they are increasingly finding it difficult to convince themselves that they are being governed or represented by somebody they chose.

Nigeria: Reducing The Cost Of Governance

By Anthony Akinola

Agitation or call for a reduction in the cost of governance has been rather perennial. I wrote on this very topic sometime in the 1980s for the London-based West Africa magazine. I had then called for a reduction in the number of senatorial seats per state, which then was five. I had also called for a reduction in the number of ministers and advisers-all these in the Nigerian Second Republic.

*President Buhari and Senate President Lawan

I would later follow up this discussion with a memorandum to the Ibrahim Babangida-led Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), sometime in 1986, in which I suggested that senatorial constituencies could be limited to what is now 3 Senators per state. 

Nigeria: A Year Of Unmet Expectations?

By Bolaji Tunji

In two days time, precisely May 29, the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration of President Mohammadu Buhari would be a year old in office. Being the tradition in this clime, it’s a time to take stock, to find out how the administration has fared in the last one year. Has the administration been able to meet the hopes and expectation of Nigerians who denied the Peoples Democratic Party that continued hold on power and placed their hopes on the APC and General Buhari.

*President Buhari 

That Nigerians had a lot riding on this administration was not in doubt and they had justifiable reason for that. APC had promised them what they felt they were not getting from the PDP government. A new life, a new Nigeria where fuel prices would be about N40 a litre. Where the mass of the unemployed and the aged would be paid a certain amount of money every month and  school children fed at least once a day. It was an administration that fed on the hope and the desire of the people with a promise to ensure that the hopes and aspirations were met. And the Buhari administration made history, unseating a sitting government. President Buhari’s victory at the polls marked him as a dogged, consistent fighter.

He had contested for the highest office in the land on three different occasions before victory eventually came. That in itself is historical. I can’t recall any serious Nigerian politician being that dogged. His tenacity endeared him to many Nigerians, his victory was thus assured especially when Nigerians had grown disenchanted with the PDP government . His victory also signaled the end of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) dominance of the political landscape. Recall that the party had boasted, in its heydays that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years. It could only rule for 16 years, losing to the progressive elements which in itself is equally historical.

Incumbents, with so much at stake, hardly lose election while the conservative elements have always aligned to hold the mantle of leadership of this country. It was under this epoch that President Buhari became the president, a feat that had proved impossible until a merger of his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) with the Action Congress of Nigeria and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) spearheaded by the Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha. The rest is history, as it is usually said.

Buhari’s Foreign Travels

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

 In arriving at the fact that the nation throbs with a plethora of questions over the necessity of the foreign trips of President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidency succeeds in feeling the pulse of the citizens. But it clearly underestimates the difficulty of stemming the impatience of the citizens by offering justification for the president’s travels. The citizens may not have wholly aligned themselves with the Emersonian disparagement of travelling as a fool’s paradise since those who made England, Italy or Greece venerable were not peripatetic. But the urgency of the need to solve the country’s myriad of problems at home and the unsavoury memories of the globe-trotting of past political leaders  have crashed what was left of the brittle confidence in our leaders’ fascination with overseas’ trips.

*President Buhari 

Our leaders have left the stark records of not sparing a thought for the suffering poor citizens. Instead of staying at home to consider strategies for taking the blight of poverty off the people, they are rather attracted to a life abroad at the expense of their states or the country. This is why they travel abroad to attend birthdays of their cronies and paramours. Some even travel abroad to organise weddings for their children or they are guests at the weddings of their friends which they have sponsored. In some worse cases, such travels have been used as opportunities to negotiate how to stash slush funds in foreign accounts. But our political leaders justify such travels as opportunities to bring foreign investments to the country.

Still, travelling abroad is a means of escaping from the problems at home.  Our political leaders have no problem with leaving the citizens to writhe and wither away under the weight of the crises sired by the former’s misbegotten governance. And when they are overseas, they do not bother to copy the good things they see there. They do not pay attention to how through transformational leadership, what would have been a barren country is turned into an investors’ delight. Nor do they observe how on account of the fact that leaders live by example, the citizens are ready to obey the laws of the country that would redound to the peace and good of all. What our leaders are only interested in as they travel abroad are the homes that are the exemplifications of modern architectural  ingenuity. They would come home and then loot the treasury in a bid to replicate these architectural masterpieces for their private use.

For a Nigerian leader who travels to the Vatican and takes a photograph with the pope, his or her day is made. Then such a leader would now strive to push the photograph to the front pages of major newspapers in the country. A political leader does this perhaps because he or she would like the citizens to know the opportunity he or she  has just got to put the name of their backwater carrying the beautiful title of a state or country on the map of the world. It could also be to gleefully announce to the hell-bound citizens that their leader is on the way to heaven.  For some politicians, putting the pictures on the front pages of newspapers is not enough. Billboards must be erected in every strategic corner of the state to announce this treasure trove. This was exactly what Governor Rochas Okorocha did in Imo State after taking a photograph with President Barack Obama during a visit to the United States.

The Semantics Of 'First Ladyship' In Nigeria

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

When I saw the headline in a national newspaper last weekend indicating that the federal government had “abolished the office of First Lady,” I hastened to read the report thinking that President Muhammadu Buhari has finally gratified the wishes of many Nigerians by terminating the overly wasteful, distractive and illegal position usually assumed by the spouses of our rulers.  

*Aisha Buhari 

Anyone familiar with my writings would easily recall that I have remained unrepentantly opposed to that illegal “office” behind which many spouses of Nigerian presidents, governors and even council chairmen hide to squander public resources, wield obscene influence and almost run a parallel administration. You could, therefore, imagine my excitement on seeing a headline that seemed to suggest that an end has finally been put to the whole revolting glamorization of illegality and frivolity.  

But I was brutally disappointed. What Buhari did was merely to “abolish” Six and replace it with Half-Dozen. His wife will now assume the “Office of the Wife of the President” instead of that of the “First Lady.” It is, however, doubtful if a mere name-change would introduce the slightest hint of departure from the notorious preoccupations that have over the years distinguished the contraption referred to as “First Ladyship” in Nigeria.  Perhaps, we were all expected to applaud this new chapter in the book of “Change,” but if you ask me, I think that somebody is merely trying to imply that we are a country of numbskulls, quite incapable of realizing when we have been fooled.    

Why I Quit The Presidential Race - Tambuwal

By Aminu Waziri Tambuwal 

A few days ago, precisely on Friday the 14th of November,2014 a group of friends, associates, colleagues and admirers cutting across all ages, ethnic, social, religious, political and geographical divides presented to me the Expression of Interest and Nomination forms for me to participate in the presidential primaries of the All Progressive Congress (APC) for the 2015 Presidential Election. 

On that auspicious occasion, being profoundly humbled, I requested for a little more time to conclude my last round of the series of nationwide consultations which indeed I was just about to conclude.

Let me state that the 14th November event was neither an accidental nor sudden happenstance, rather it was another high point of similar goodwill surprises I had experienced in the last two years when I started receiving in audience, colleagues, individuals, groups and delegations of prominent Nigerians on this subject matter

I wish to seize this occasion to commend, most highly, these patriotic and selfless colleagues, admirers, individuals and groups for their sacrifice, diligence and single-mindedness in the pursuit of what they honestly believe is in the best interest of our fatherland. I am fully aware of the physical, financial and intellectual resources all of you have expended in this regard besides the sheer volume of valuable time and the travel risk of crisscrossing to compare notes and confirm projections. Indeed I can not thank you enough.