As Buhari Comes To Judgement…

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

President Muhammadu Buhari has come to judgment. After exercising presidential power, judgment follows. Pricked by pangs of conscience on the last Sallah Day, Buhari realised that he committed many injustices against numerous Nigerians during his eight-year reign. 

*Buhari 

Consequently, he apologised to Nigerians and begged for their pardon. “God gave me an incredible opportunity to serve the country. We are all human, and if I have hurt some people along the line of my service to the country, I ask that they pardon me… All those whom I have hurt, I ask that they pardon me,” said a seemingly remorseful Buhari.

Nigeria: INEC And The Presidential Election Flaws

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

The February 25, 2023 presidential election is a counterfeit of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Whereas June 12 is the freest and fairest election in Nigeria, the February 25, election is the most rigged and most robbed presidential election in Nigeria. February 25, was a brazen and barbaric display of impunity by INEC, which ought to be an unbiased umpire in an electoral contest.

*Buhari

The commission and its chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, flagrantly flouted INEC rules, which they made to guide the February 25, election? The BVAS and IReV were successfully deployed by INEC to upload the National Assembly election results, but not for the presidential election result, which was manually collated, thus enabling the INEC staffers to rig the election. Three days before last Saturday’s presidential election, Prof. Yakubu was reassuring all that INEC would deploy BVAS in electronically uploading the results of the election. Why, then, did Yakubu change his mind to transmit the results manually?

Elections, Terrorism And 2022 In Retrospect

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Nearly 645 people lost their lives in diverse circumstances across Kaduna State in the first six months of 2022. Speaking under the aegis of Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), the then acting President of SOKAPU Awemi Dio Maisamari had stated that the terrorists had not only captured and occupied Kaduna State but had been “running the government’ in the State since 2019. He lamented that most rural communities and villages in Kaduna State especially in Chikun, Kajuru, Kachia, Zangon Kataf, Kauru, Lere, Birnin Gwari and Giwa Local Councils had not only been deserted but occupied by the religious terrorists.

The Catholic Church tearfully will not forget the year 2022 in a hurry. In 2022 alone, 39 Catholic Priests were murdered and 30 abducted in Nigeria by terrorists. However Sahara Reporters reports that 145 Catholics priests were killed in 2022. Only God knows the number of Catholic Priests who would be murdered in 2023. Already one Catholic Priest has been murdered on January 15 2023. In fact, on January 14, 2023, Fr. Michael Olofinlade, a Catholic priest in Omu Ekiti, Oye Local Government, Ekiti State was kidnapped.

The President We All Need

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

We can no longer leave the fate of our country and our lives in the hands of political misfits who don’t have the foggiest idea that political leadership basically entails improving the welfare of the people. Almost everyone you meet these days in Nigeria says it, and, I dare join today in saying it: now is our chance to recover our stolen common wealth from the thieving imbeciles.

To this effect, many Nigerian voters across the different divides (the Nigerian young inclusive) have, unlike in the past, irrevocably resolved to vote for a presidential candidate of their choice who will build a new Nigeria, all things being equal, on February 25, 2023. The current Muhammadu Buhari government is a waterless cloud, carried along by the winds; a fruitless tree in late autumn, depraved, dead and uprooted; a wild wave of the sea casting up the form of its suffocating smell; a wandering and wicked crescent for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved for ever.

Can INEC Conduct Free Presidential Election?

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Lately, the INEC Chairman Prof Mammod Yakubu publicly promised that notwithstanding the gargantuan challenges facing the commission, it would conduct free and fair elections and deliver electoral justice in 2023.  “Only the votes cast by Nigerians will determine who wins and this is our commitment to the nation,” said Prof Yakubu.

Beyond mere verbal undertaking, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu led-INEC must truly and really conduct an impartial, free, fair and credible 2023 elections especially the Presidential election. Of all the elections the Presidential election is the crucial election which outcome will make or mar Nigeria. In fact guaranteeing peace, unity and stability in Nigeria in 2023 depends so much on the outcome of the 2023 Presidential election. Armed with their respective Permanent Voting Cards (PVCs) most young people across the geo-political zones of the country are poised to cast their votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice in the forth-coming Presidential election.

Nigeria’s Dysfunctional Banks

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

On a Thursday I went to one of the branches of a Bank to carry out a transaction on one of the accounts of our law firm. This particular account was opened about 17 years. And since the opening of the account, our law firm has been successfully operating without any hitches or hiccups. 

But this day after presenting my cheque at the counter, I was informed that “Sir, this account needs reactivation.” “Why the reactivation?” I queried. “Because it has been rendered dormant. It is no longer active,” the lady responded. What will I do to reactivate it? She pulled out a sheet of paper containing some bank requirements and said: “Sir, these are the requirements for reopening the account. 

Is The Judiciary Beyond Redemption?

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

To affirm that the judiciary is corrupt is an understatement. The judiciary is not just corrupt; the men and women entrusted with the affairs of the judiciary are suffering from a huge character deficit. It is painful that our judiciary has been constituted into an object of derision by the very people who should labour to maintain its prestige.

The level of official corruption and moral degeneracy at both the Bar and the Bench is alarming. It seems as if the judiciary is beyond redemption. 

While the Bench sickens for lack of moral renaissance, the Bar fairs no better. Regrettably, many members of the Bar lack the lowest common denominator of acceptable character. 

As regards the judiciary workers often loosely referred to as the judicial personnel-court bailiffs, Chief Registrars, Assistant Chief Registrars (ACR), court clerks, court messengers, court cashiers, court stenographers and so forth- their lives are ruled and governed by the civil service bureaucratic extortion.  

Shettima, Where Did Buhari Stop?

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

It is no longer news that Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s running mate in the 2023 Presidential Election, Kashim Shettima, has recently said that Nigeria needs a new President who would continue from where President Muhammadu Buhari stopped.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) party has woefully failed Nigeria in the last seven years and therefore should be voted out of power in 2023. Out of the abundance of the heart, we have been told, the mouth speaks.

*Shettima

How can Shettima be saying that we need a President who would continue from where President Buhari stopped. Where did Buhari stop, if I may ask Mr. Shettima? In festering corruption? Or, in insecurity? Or, in wooden-headed? Or, in cluelessness? Or, in imposing a corrupt and incompetent ex-Chief Justice of Nigeria on the country?
 
The most significant achievement of the Buhari government in the last seven years is to drag Nigeria into the membership of failed States.

Imagine the most populous and most richly endowed African country joining insignificant countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Myanmar as a full-fledged failed State. 

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.