Active Citizenry: If Nigerians Don’t Hold Their Leaders Accountable, Who Will?

 By Olu Fasan

Nigeria is one of the very few countries where politics is the most attractive human endeavour, where holding a political office is more profitable than running a business. In Nigeria, politics is the quickest route to wealth, thanks to outrageous salaries and allowances – Nigeria’s federal legislators earn far more than their American counterparts – and corrupt self-enrichment.

In Nigeria, politics is largely a quest for private gain rather than public good. But nothing entrenches these perversities more than the lack of strong institutions and active citizenry. For not only do the system and the citizens allow wrong politicians to get to power, there’s virtually no institutional or societal pressure to hold elected politicians accountable. 

Rotimi Amaechi’s Glib Talk And Threat To Democracy In Rivers

 By Alabi Williams

Rotimi Amaechi, former minister and governor of Rivers State, at a public lecture on Thursday, October 26, sounded rather melancholic. For a man who has been in government since 1999, first as two-term speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly and later as governor for eight years, before he served as minister of the Federal Republic for another eight years, all on a platter, the privileges he amassed do not justify the grief he attempted to offload. And he was most unfair and incorrect as he tried to blame the polity’s woes on the people.

*Rotimi Amaechi

That same week, Port Harcourt was in turmoil as former governor Nyesom Wike vainly and desperately sought to protect a so-called political structure he claimed to have built. In a democracy, do individuals own political structures to the exclusion of the political party? And whose resources did he deploy to build the structure, Rivers’ taxpayers’ monies?

TheNiche Lecture: Why Does Nigeria Stride And Slide?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Thursday, October 26, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Nigeria’s foremost think-tank on foreign affairs, will host the 2023 edition of TheNiche Annual Lecture spearheaded by the TheNiche Foundation for Development Journalism.

The lecture series, TheNiche’s annual corporate social responsibility initiative, is aimed at fostering the much-needed but ever-elusive national renaissance. Nigeria is at a crossroads, no doubt, teetering on the brink, facing the abyss. And this is not about being a prophet of doom. All the indices of human development, without any exception, are not only pointing south but are getting worse by the day. 

Nigeria: Dousing Political Tension In The Land

 By Jideofor Adibe

Elections everywhere tend to be divisive. This is because mobilisation of support hinges on a successful creation of a simplistic binary of ‘we-versus-them’ dichotomy, which is then nourished by all manner of scaremongering. This is why political campaigns are often likened to wars without weapons.

In Africa, it is even more so where politicians seem to have taken literally the exultations by Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering pan-Africanist and Ghana’s independence leader (1957-1966), to seek first the political kingdom and everything else would be added unto them. In Africa, the allure of political office is exceedingly high. Apart from being perhaps the quickest means to personal material accumulation, there is a pervasive fear that the group that captures state power could use it to privilege its in-group and disadvantage others.

Is Buhari A Nigerian?

 By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa

The President of any country is the number one citizen of that nation, all things being equal. He is first amongst equals, being the one that all other citizens look up to for leadership and direction. The President is the first ambassador of the nation and so the rest of the world views the country through the President. It is no wonder therefore that most laws defining the qualifications of those who aspire to the office of the President have a major requirement that the aspirant must be a citizen of the country; he must carry the life and blood of the nation, which would be the engine of the patriotism that he takes with him to that exalted office.

*Buhari 

You can imagine the embarrassment it will cause any nation to discover that its President is a foreigner! In Nigeria, under and by virtue of section 131 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), ‘a person shall be qualified for election to the office of President if (a) he is a citizen of Nigeria by birth’. It is therefore an anathema for anyone to aspire to be elected as the President of Nigeria when he is not a Nigerian citizen through the bloodline.

The Constitution is deliberate in putting emphasis on the phrase ‘a citizen of Nigeria by birth’. In other words, Nigeria must run in the blood of the President and not just any type of citizenship. This is so because by virtue of section 26 of the Constitution, you can become a Nigerian citizen other than by birth, through registration or naturalization, but this category of citizens cannot aspire to lead Nigeria as its President. So, if it can be proved that anyone occupying the position of President of Nigeria is not a citizen of Nigeria by birth, then his presidency can be queried.

Buhari, APC And Freedom For The Abductees

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

It is obvious that securing the freedom of the abductees of the Abuja-Kaduna bombed-train is not the priority of the APC ruling party. Neither is it a priority of President Buhari nor former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi nor the APC Presidential aspirants. The only priority of President Buhari, the APC ruling party and APC Presidential aspirants at the moment is to re-capture political power in 2023. They have no human feeling for these abductees. I hate to address them as abductees.

*Buhari

They are not unknown abductees: they are our fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and, above all, our brothers and sisters who were victims of the Abuja-Kaduna-train bombing and abduction on March 28 2022 and who have been abandoned to be sorrowing and agonizing in the dungeon of their abductors. Had the Abuja-Kaduna train bombing and abduction occurred, say, anywhere in the western world or even Asia or other parts of the world, the CNN, BBC and the world media including the Nigerian media by now would have been bombarding us with the minute-by-minute analyses about the fate that had befallen the abductees and the efforts being made to secure their freedom. But this is Buhari’s Nigeria where life has become so cheap. This is Buhari’s government where the death and suffering of our fellow Nigerians do not matter to the government.

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.

Why Is Buhari Not Exposing Boko Haram’s Sponsors?

 By Reno Omokri

On September 21, 2021, Buhari’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, said the Buhari junta ‘is not interested in naming and shaming Boko Haram’s sponsors”. A month later, on October 21, 2021, Abubakar Malami, Buhari’s Attorney General of the Federation, said the Buhari regime had identified Sunday Igboho’s ‘sponsors’. We are watching!

Buhari and Malami

It is apparent to any unbiased observer that Buhari lacks the impartiality to be Nigeria’s leader. He is obviously a tribal irredentist. And his irredentism is seen in the way he treats terrorists and bandits who are almost 100% from his ethnic Fulani nationality, which is in stark contrast to how he treats people of other ethnicities.

We do not even need to look too far to see Buhari’s parochialism. The Nigerian Federal Government has three arms, the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary. And Buhari had abused his Presidential powers to ensure that all three of these arms are headed by Northern Muslim Males.

How Southern Nigeria Can Win 2023 Presidential Election

 By Dele Momodu

Buhari and Gov Akeredolu of Ondo

Fellow Nigerians, please, allow me to remind you of an article I wrote in 2014 titled IN SEARCH OF MATHEMATICIANS. It was a simple calculation and permutation I made about how Major General Muhammadu Buhari was going to defeat the incumbent President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in the 2015 Presidential election. As at that time, the confidence level of the Buhari camp was still quite shaky, indeed it was quite low. 

Why Nigeria Under Buhari Is World Headquarters For Extreme Poverty

By Reno Omokri

On Wednesday the 29th of August, 2018, British Prime Minister, Theresa May, visited Nigeria with a plane full of business people to help Britain make money in Nigeria. So meticulously choreographed was her visit, that she came with businessmen and women that sold or manufactured every item you could imagine from air fresheners to Scotch whiskey.

*Buhari 

Mrs May, who I met twice last year, demonstrated the main thrust of her visit by travelling with David Schwimmer, the Chief Executive of the London Stock Exchange. Her entourage to Nigeria was chockfull of business and industry folk and very lean on civil servants and politicians. In fact, only two members of her cabinet joined her on her African trip. If there was any spare space on the Royal Airforce Jet that flew her to Africa, that space was reserved for people who could bring jobs and capital to Britain.

President Buhari: Bye Bye To Anti-Corruption

Press Release

*Buhari 

Buhari: Bye Bye To Anti-Corruption

 War Says PDP 

The Letter by President Muhammadu Buhari which was read on the Floor of the Nigerian Senate on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, clearing the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal has finally confirmed our earlier assertion that the ‘Anti-Corruption War’ of the APC led administration is a ruse; a witch-hunting mechanism to harass PDP members and perceived enemies of this administration.

It is no longer news that all those who are serving in the government of President Muhammadu Buhari or who are members of his Party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) within the last two years of his administration have all been cleared of any wrong doing; notwithstanding documentary and other incontrovertible evidences to the contrary. The Presidency in today’s dispensation is the ‘Judicial Clearing House’ issuing clean bill of health to all accused corrupt officials who are members of the APC and friends of the administration.

It is quite disturbing that the President cleared his SGF of wrong doing despite the weighty evidences of his “Grass-cutting abilities” uncovered by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, implicating Babachir of complicity in the Award of Contract relating to the IDP Camp in Borno State amounting to over 200 million Naira.

It is more worrisome that Mr. President made light of the DSS Report which directly indicted the Acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu of several unwholesome and corrupt practices in the line of his duties. President Buhari saw nothing wrong in the Report but was quick to order the invasion of Judges homes in a Gestapo and commando-style following the Same DSS report. What a double standard! It appears that the APC led government is implementing two constitutions in Nigeria; one for the PDP and other opposition parties and their leaders while the other is for the Ruling Party, the APC and friends of this administration.

Again in 2016, General Tukur Buratai, Chief of Army Staff  was cleared of all accusations even with convincing evidence of owning choice properties in Dubai beyond his income; and also overwhelming evidence of misdeeds while serving as Director of Procurement in the last administration.

Obasanjo And His 25 Billionaires

By Remi Oyeyem

The brief exchange (as reported by the News Agency of Nigeria via PUNCH newspaper on October 30, 2016) between Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Mrs. Folorunso Alakija at the 2016 Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum last weekend was very instructive in so many ways. It was very instructive because it underscored the kind of mentality possessed by those who have had the chance(s) to govern Nigeria. Or it underscored the misfortune of Nigerians to have been governed by the kind of leaders they have had so far.

*Obasanjo: Celebrating his 25 billionaires? 

Mrs. Alakija, according to reports, had fired the first salvo accusing the Obasanjo administration that it “illegally took an oil block” allocated to her company after her family had “invested all” to “strike oil in commercial quantity.” Mrs. Alakija said the following in addition:

‘She said, “This oil block is in 5000 feet depth of water and was extremely difficult to explore. It took 15 years from the time that we were awarded the licence in 1993 till 2008 when we first struck the first oil.

“When this event happened, 60 per cent out of our 60 per cent equity in the business, was forcefully taken from us by the government of the day without due process.

We had to fight back by going to court to seek redress and it took another 12 years for justice to be served in our favour.”

Obasanjo in his response had reportedly explained that the “action of the government then was in line with the Mining Act which regulates oil prospection and exploration.” He insisted that it was “not fair” for Mrs. Alakija to claim that she was denied what was rightfully hers. Obasanjo –Onyejekwe added “I do not know you from Adam and there is no reason I would have denied you what rightfully belonged to you. So, you struggled, and you have struck oil. God bless your heart.”

Then Obasanjo dropped the bombshell:

“My delight is to be able to create Nigerian billionaire and I always say it that my aim, when I was in government was to create 50 Nigerian billionaires.

“Unfortunately I failed. I created only 25 and Madam, you are one of them.”

There is nothing unusual about Obasanjo’s failing to create 50 Nigerian billionaires as he intended. He has always failed Nigerians in every endeavour he has been involved. But the larger question remains the inability of our leaders to follow due process in exercising power. Our rulers often act as if they are kings of the jungle and that the laws of the land do not apply to them. They exude beastly instincts permeated with ruinous vendetta in manifesting congenital need to demonstrate crude power.

To Mrs. Alakija, until she was allotted oil wells, no one has really heard about her. She was never associated with any known business endeavour. She did not descend from any rich family or was previously married to a billionaire of credible means. She became a billionaire because she was allotted oil wells. She is emblematic of the mis-governance that has always characterized our clime. She got to be allotted oil wells in a system where nothing was ever fair and without due process. She only used her connections with our power aphrodisiacs euphemized as rulers, to get the oil wells.

Mrs. Alakija is a Yoruba woman. Like the retired General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma she got many oil wells because of her proximity to crude power in Nigeria. None of them is from Niger Delta. With the publicly available list of the owners of oil wells in Nigeria, the people of the Niger Delta have been evidently short changed. How many Niger Deltans became billionaire as a result of owning oil wells?

Rotimi Amaechi: Test of Buhari’s Anti-Corruption War

By Wale Suleiman

A judge is not a lawyer, and neither is he an advocate. A judge is a priest. His vineyard is the temple of justice. But a judge doesn’t make prophesies. He doesn’t have a crystal ball. He only makes pronouncements. But he’s guided, not by the gods, but by the rules that define justice. He is an interpreter of the law when justice is at stake.

That is why he is a revered priest because in his interpretation lies life and death. He must not succumb to the human whims, yet he is a human being. He must keep fidelity to the lifeless words of the law. That is why the law has been described as an ass. The law is a tyrant, and the judge is always a victim of that tyranny.

That is why dubious politicians don’t take chances. They find ingenious ways to sway the judge. They hire lawyers in good reckoning of the judges who act as go between, and dangle sometimes irresistible offers. Some judges succumb to the lucre and desecrate the temple. They compromise the law, and justice. This country has seen it often and often.

Thus when the Department of State Security recently raided the residences of some senior judges believed to have soiled their robes, many were not surprised. But many were scandalised only by the manner of the raid, which portrayed the system as crude and uncivilised.

But since after the raids, the tables have started turning and the hunters are becoming the hunted. The judges whose homes were raided started fighting back. It was Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal Capital Territory High Court who fired the first shot. He wrote a well-publicised letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, and Chairman of the National Judicial Council, NJC, explaining why he became a target of the DSS. He pointed fingers at the Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice as the man behind his travails.

He said his arrest was a revenge from Malami, whose arrest and detention he ordered over a professional misconduct while he was judge in Kano between 2004 and 2008.

But when Inyang Okoro, a Justice of the Supreme Court, made his own ‘pronouncement’, and narrated how Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transport, committed blasphemy, it was not only damning, it was earth-shaking! Okoro, in a letter to the CJN wrote that his ordeal was tied to Amaechi’s visit to his residence, alleging that the minister “said that the President of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress mandated him to inform me that they must win their election appeals in respect of Rivers State, Akwa Ibom State and Abia State at all costs.”

10 Reasons Why President Buhari’s No-Show In Ogoniland Is Bad, Bad PR

By Kennedy Emetulu

It seems true that President Muhammadu Buhari is not visiting Ogoniland for that much-publicised flag-off of the implementation of the UNEP Report on the cleaning up of Ogoniland and the Niger Delta. Honestly, this is a shocking and depressing development and it calls to question again the kind of advice President Buhari is receiving in Aso Rock. He may have the best of reasons or excuses for not going, but perception is reality in politics! Cancelling that visit is the last thing he should have contemplated today. Here are 10 reasons why it’s bad:

*Buhari 

(1) The Niger Delta Avengers have threatened that he shouldn’t come; not going there, despite the whole show of military force by the Nigerian Armed Forces for the visit of the Commander-in-Chief, hands the initiative to the Niger Delta Avengers. They have showed they control the agenda of his government and his own movement within the nation. Of course, the truth is nothing would have happened to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Ogoniland; but, again, perception is reality.

(2) The Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed talked up Buhari’s impending visit thus: “Buhari would return to Ogoniland where he inaugurated a fish pond in 1984 where the once flourishing pond regrettably had been destroyed by oil pollution. The Federal Government is coming back to restore the ecosystem to what it used to be and as such restore the peoples’ source of livelihood”. Obviously, mentioning that the president was going to Ogoniland again after his 1984 visit as a military Head of State in the circumstances of both visits was a way of making the case that between then and now life has been snuffed out of the environment there and Buhari is now returning life to the people and that environment with his visit. The symbolism would have been nice. But what have we now? The president is after all not coming!

(3) Buhari’s visit would have been the most significant thing in Ogoniland since the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and for Buhari, it would have been a personal victory and a personal exorcism of some sort as well. Remember that Buhari was General Sani Abacha’s head of the PTF that was spending the oil money at the time Saro-Wiwa was killed. Buhari supported that killing as part of that government and Nigerians and the world condemned it strongly. As the world knows, Saro-Wiwa’s main message was not the political aspect of the Ogoni case, but the environmental aspect. Saro-Wiwa was essentially killed because he drew attention to the environmental destruction oil exploration brought to the Niger Delta. As president, Buhari would have used this opportunity to show with his presence his genuine commitment to cleaning up Ogoniland particularly and the Niger Delta generally. With that he would have come a full circle from his Abacha days. He would have used his presence to call for the unity of the Ogoni and the Niger-Delta with the rest of Nigeria, so we all find solutions to the problems of lack of development and environmental degradation ravaging the area.

President Buhari's Federal Excuses Council (FEC)

By Reno Omokri

On January 22, 2016, I tweeted a joke which went viral. I had said that at meetings of the Federal Executive Council, the minister of information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, would address members and say 'turn to your neighbour and say, neighbour have you blamed Jonathan today'!
Yes, it was a joke, but like most good jokes, it had and still has a basis in reality!

The President and his ministers appear ill prepared for office and the evidence of this is their inability to take responsibility for the situation of things in Nigeria.

*Buhari 

Was it not John Burroughs who said "a man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else"?

Those words should be embossed on a plaque and placed in a very prominent location at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa.

Seeing this admonition weekly may help members of the Federal Executive Council take responsibility and stop acting the victim.

For example, Nigerians were shocked when the minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in December of 2015 that the Jonathan administration, which had left office six months ago, was responsible for the biting fuel scarcity the nation was and still is grappling with.

That statement by Mr. Lai Mohammed is a classic case of psychological projection (a psychological disorder characterized by a patient defending himself against his own unpleasant realities by denying the existence of the reality while at the same time blaming another for it).

And it gets worse. It is bad enough that this administration refuses to take responsibility for its own failures, it also wants to take credit for the success of others.

In a treatise bothering on megalomania, the publicity and communications team of President Buhari's office claimed the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (AKA TSA) as the major achievement of the first 365 days of the Buhari administration.

But for a government that prides itself on anti-corruption, that statement, fraudulent as it is, is dishonest and 'fantastically corrupt'!

First of all, the Treasury Single Account WAS NOT an idea of the Buhari administration and secondly the present government DID NOT initiate its implementation.

The TSA was conceived by the Jonathan administration and there was to be a staggered implementation because from an expert point of view, it was thought that if all Federal Government funds were suddenly pulled out of the commercial banking sector in one fell swoop, the shock on that sector would be so immense that it would trigger job losses and perhaps bank failures. It was thought that a gradual implementation would allow banks recover such that the baby would not be thrown out with the bath water.

Buhari, Nigeria Is Your Constituency

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

I am an advocate of merit. I believe that part of the problem of the country is that we have perfected putting square pegs in round holes. We sacrifice excellence on the altar of primordial mawkishness and nepotism with disastrous consequences.

I refrained from commenting before now on President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointments which favour the North more than the South because I thought it was too early to start reading meanings into his actions.

His critics allege that there is a tinge of clannishness in all his appointments. These allegations are not new. He failed in his earlier attempts to become the chief tenant of Aso Rock because of the perception that he has a mindset that is not nationally inclined.

Many Nigerians, particularly those from the South, distrusted Buhari. He is perceived to be too cliquish, narrow and insular in his worldview despite his military background.