Nigeria: The Making Of Supreme Confusion

 By Chidi Odinkalu

Most people do not know or remember that, strictly speaking, there were and remain no official results for Nigeria’s 2007 presidential election. Organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the vote itself occurred on April 21, 2007 under Maurice Iwu, a professor whose academic discipline coincidentally was alchemy. His main qualification for the position of Chairman of the INEC was that he was close to President Obasanjo’s fixer, Andy Uba.

The results began trickling in the following day. Under Nigeria’s Constitution, a winner of a presidential election must secure the highest number of votes in addition to winning a minimum of 25% of the votes in at least 24 of the 36 states of the federation. What this means is that it is impossible to declare a lawful result in a presidential election until the results in at least 24 states have been computed.

As Gov Akeredolu Steps Aside

 By Dan Agbese

The centre did not quite fall out in Ondo State. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu has done the right thing even if reluctantly. He persuaded himself to end the needless crisis and take another medical leave and very reluctantly leave the state in the hands of the deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, as acting governor.

*Akeredolu 

The State House of Assembly has formally confirmed him in that position. This was the eventuality the governor had risked his health to fight. I join the people of Ondo State in heaving a huge sigh of relief. 

Buhari’s Frivolous Medical Trips Abroad

 By Charles Okoh

When the presidency announced that the out-going (thank God) President Muhammadu Buhari would be visiting the United Kingdom for the coronation of Charles III and his wife, Camilla, as King and Queen Consort of the United Kingdom penultimate Saturday, something told me that the presidency was telling its usual lies and that the president ultimately was going for a medical trip. And I said that openly to those around me.

*Buhari 

Now, the president is human and like every other human being, is liable to fall ill and deserves all the best the country can give as a nation to its president. But I dare ask, must the best healthcare be delivered outside this country? What image is the president portraying of Nigeria to the larger world? That we can’t even treat his dental challenge locally?

Bola Tinubu’s Verbal Miscues

 By Rotimi Fasan

The question of how age may have slowed down the physical and mental abilities of Bola Tinubu, the All Progressive Congress, APC, presidential candidate, rendering his claim to the presidency an untenable proposition, has continued to generate debates among Nigerians.

*Tinubu

While he has responded that he is both mentally and physically fit to take up the task of steering the ship of the Nigerian state as president, he has also not been slow to remind his critics that the presidency is neither about brawn nor is it a contest to choose the strongest man in the world. 

You Have Stayed Long Enough On This Mountain

 By Sola Ebiseni  

True as Solomon said: “The race of men under the sun is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but time and chance happen to them all.” Yet that was conventional wisdom before the days of John the Baptist from whence and until now, even the kingdom of heaven and greater so for the earth, suffers violence and only men of violence take it by force -a declaration by He who is unquestionable. 

Whether by chance, as preached by Solomon who had everything, fighting no war like David his father, but nevertheless got a blank cheque from God after sacrificing his assets which today would make him a billionaire, or by Christ whose sacrifice is his precious life, no glory comes without taking a step. 

The Niger Bridge Traffic Agony At Christmas

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

As the Christmas and New Year festivities draw near, millions of people will travel home to join their kits and kin to celebrate the occasion. Mass movement of people from the North and South-West to the South-East is a common feature of this season. Heavy vehicular traffic of goods and people is the norm. There is heightened fear and apprehension by millions of travellers to the South-East in particular, who must cross the now infamous Niger Bridge at Onitsha to reach their destination.

Harrowing tales of suffering, pain and anguish by travellers heading eastwards from the West at the bridge are commonplace. As a matter of fact, the Niger Bridge experience is like a nightmare at Christmas. While it may take a traveller about eight hours from Lagos to Asaba, at the height of the chaos, the same traveller may spend between five to eight hours before crossing the Niger Bridge from Asaba to Onitsha and vice versa. Over the passing week, some travellers from Lagos going to the South-East slept over at Onitsha due to the killer traffic jam at the head-bridge.

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.

Hopes Fading For Buhari’s Regime, Unless…

By Hector-Roosevelt Ukegbu

Early last year, in the run-up to the 2015 general elections, this writer argued in two newspaper articles that Nigerians should vote for then presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari and against Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and the then-ruling PDP. I pointed to the massive systemic corruption in the Jonathan government and how this was seriously impeding economic growth and miring the hapless citizens in poverty.

*President Buhari and VP Osinbajo

I called the entire Nigerian government system a vast criminal enterprise. In truth, my whole premise of advocating support for Mr. Buhari was not for his vaunted economic management skills, but for his self-discipline, for his circumspect way of life, for his nationalism. My belief was and still is, that Mr. Buhari was the lone person in Nigeria’s political firmament capable of slaying the hydra-headed monster called Nigerian corruption.

My belief remains that if corruption is crushed, economic recovery will come, and so will improve all other indices of human growth among the people. President Muhammadu Buhari while he met with the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury and the most senior bishop in the Church of England, Justin Portal Welby, Monday. The crash in world oil prices has thrown a wrench in the wheel of Nigeria’s economic recovery even as the battle against corruption proceeds. It pains me, as I am sure it pains lovers of the Nigerian people, that the Buhari/APC government appears to be willy-nilly trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The people are groaning under the unfamiliar burdens of severe fuel scarcity (something that the Jonathan government had largely gotten rid of in the recent past). They also contend with declining electricity generation, making worse an output that was already abysmal (reportedly from sabotage of gas pipelines that send feedstock to generating plants), and serious shortages of hard currency (due to reduced oil export revenue inflows). Which way out now for the Buhari/APC government?

Buhari And His Praise Singers

By Victor Anya

It is indisputable that the greatest undoing of the President Muhammadu Buhari-administration is his praise singers. Since he assumed office on May 29, 2015, they have been moving from one television and ra­dio station to another speak­ing vehemently in support of whatever decisions he has taken so far. His supporters who have the flair to write are also keeping the newspapers awash with opinions defend­ing his actions too.

*President Buhari

Recall, when Buhari wasted six months searching for his proverbial saintly and incor­ruptible ministers, the praise singers eulogized him to high heavens insisting it was the best decision ever taken by any Nigerian President. But when the names of the “angelic ministers” were re­leased, the same people were perturbed and disappointed. Within the six months of searching for the sanctimoni­ous ministers, Buhari ran the country as a sole administra­tor and the poor management of the economy are the pains Nigerians are reaping at the moment.

By November 2015, when he clocked 181 days, Presi­dent Buhari had travelled to 12 countries under the de­lusion of seeking foreign in­vestors. By May 2016, he has made 26 foreign trips! With the scenarios painted above, one can imagine the num­ber of foreign trips he would make at the end of his four-year tenure in 2019. Reports had it that Buhari spent about N64 billion on foreign trips alone in just one year in of­fice!

Since May 29, 1999, he re­mained the greatest critic of successive administrations. He criticised former Presi­dent Olusegun Obasanjo for his excessive foreign trav­els. He took the same hard­line position against the late former President Umaru Yar’Adua, but his criticism became more acidic and ven­omous against former Pres­ident Goodluck Jonathan’s foreign journeys. As the Pres­idential candidate in the 2011 general elections under the defunct Congress for Pro­gressive Change (CPC), one of the political parties that merged to form the All Pro­gressive Congress (APC), he chided Jonathan over his for­eign trips. CPC spokesman, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, stat­ed: “It is conventional wis­dom that charity begins at home. Unfortunately, Pres­ident Jonathan has not im­bibed this. Where did the in­cessant shuttles of Obasanjo’s eight years lead us to in terms of foreign investment? Did it positively affect our balance of trade?"

Former National Chair­man of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), now part of APC, Chief Bisi Akande, chastised Jonathan for his foreign trips too. Akande spoke through Mr. Lani Baderinwa and said: “We are not saying he should not travel abroad, but the mood of the country should dictate his sojourn abroad. The Bra­zil summit is likely to benefit Nigeria, but of what use is the summit when Nigerians are being killed on a daily basis?”

It is therefore baffling that the same people who con­demned Jonathan for his for­eign travels are extolling Bu­hari over his excessive travels even in the midst of inces­sant massacre of Nigerians by Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen.

No doubt, the purported N64 billion that President Buhari has spent so far on foreign trips is a misadven­ture which ought not to, giv­en the antecedents.

Time To Review Nigeria

Alabi Williams

When some concerned intelligence quarters in the U.S advised that 2015 could be ominous for Nigeria, not many people took the concern to heart. Some even jeered at the peep as another meddlesomeness of the West. There was sufficient time between when the alert was issued way back in 2006 and 2015 for some reasonable measures to be put in place to shame the doomsayers, assuming that was all there was to it. There were also no signs that the matter was handed to local intelligence units to interrogate. In the absence of a concerted official position on the prediction, individual politicians swore to high heavens that Nigeria had come too far to disintegrate. Private citizens, as usual, launched into prayers to ward off the forecast from hell, and to possibly return it to those who sent it.

(pix:nigeriancurrents)

Year 2015 has come and gone and the house has not fallen, even though we did not do anything special to reinforce its structures. Glory be to God. But how long can the house continue to stand when there are no deliberate efforts to prolong its lifespan, except to hope and pray? But citizens continue to do a lot of other things to hewn at its foundations and the leadership refusing to hearken to calls to retool for enhanced cohesion and greater performance.

Until three weeks ago, the most disturbing news item was that of herdsmen who prowled communities of Benue, Enugu, Oyo, Delta and everywhere, unleashing terror on armless victims and setting their homes ablaze. Skirmishes between herdsmen and farmers had gone on for decades, but such were settled with sticks, and perhaps bows and arrows. Herdsmen used to carry local guns for hunting animals. In those days, herdsmen travel for kilometers in search of grazing lands and they did not seek to drive local farmers away to inherit their lands. If there were skirmishes, they were isolated and were within the capacity of community leaders to manage.

But as if to hasten the U.S prediction on disintegration, even if not within the 2015 timeline, herdsmen of recent years leave no one in doubt about their notion of a country. They want to operate like doctors with borders, roaming without inhibitions of law and space, trampling on territories and annexing vast swathes, even ancestral lands. They went to Plateau and left behind desolation and deaths. Then they went with temerity to Kaduna, south of the state and inflicted collateral damage on the local population. Then they went to Nasarawa, where prevailing internecine suspicions among local tribes aided their exploits. Then they crossed into Benue, Kogi, Ondo, and Oyo and were unhindered, even though they made front pages when they visited chief Olu Falae. It was in Enugu, and of recent Ekiti that their accomplishments received more than the usual feeble condemnations of the past.

Dambazau’s Bigotry

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

With people like Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau in the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, it is no wonder why the much-touted quest for positive change has remained a mirage. If Dambazau who is the Minister of Interior had ever made any pretentions to being pan-Nigerian, this façade has been exploded by the recent appointments he made in his ministry for Nigerians to comprehensively apprehend who he is: A bigot who is only beholden to the narrow interest of his tribe and religion.

*Abdulrahaman Dambazau

Dambazau attained a top rank of a lieutenant general before he retired from the military. He also served as the chief of army staff. For a person with such a breathtaking military career that was rendered possible by his country, we would have thought that he had developed a broad vision of the nation. After all, it is commonly believed that the military institution is impervious to the fissiparous tendencies in the larger society. And this is why former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari do not brook any objection to the existence of Nigeria as one entity as long as they have a role to play in deciding the fate of the nation.

It is regrettable that Dambazau does not see his being in public office as an opportunity to serve the whole nation. He rather sees it as a means of favouring only those with whom he shares ethnic and religious affiliations. This was why when Dambazau made appointments in his ministry, he only considered those who shared his religious and ethnic ties. Brazenly, Dambazau appointed only northerners as heads of all the paramilitary agencies under his ministry. The agencies are the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), whose new Comptroller-General (CG), Mohammed Babandede, hails from Kano State, where the minister is from and the Nigeria Prison Service (NPS) where Ahmed Ja’afaru of Bauchi State is the Controller-General. Before now, Abdullahi Gana from Niger State had been the head of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) while the Controller General of the Federal Fire Service (FFS) was Joseph Anebi from Benue State in the North-central. At the NIS, Dambazau opted for his preferred candidate Mohammed Babandede.

Genocidal Actions By Successive Nigerian Governments

By Mike Ozekhome

Genocide In The Creeks

We continue today, government-driven acts of genocide across Nigeria, over the years.

The Setting
It was a hot afternoon at the Palace in Oporoza, Gbaramatu Kingdom, Delta State. Dateline: May 14, 2009. The kingdom is of Ijaw (Izon) nation that contributes nearly 70 per cent to the nation’s economy. It is also the 4th largest ethnic group in Nigeria, after the Hausas/Fulanis, Igbos and Yorubas, spread across Bayelsa (a whole state), Rivers, Edo, Delta, Ondo and Cross River states. The Oporoza community was in a festive mood, for the Amaseikumor festival, with influx of hundreds of guests into the community, to partake of the presentation of the staff of office to the king, the Pere of Gbaramatu Kingdom, HRM, Ogie III. It also marked his one year anniversary on the throne. It was about the same time that nearby city of Warri was to be inspected by FIFA delegates, towards considering Nigeria’s hosting of the 2009, under 17 World Cup. Umaru Yar’Adua was president. Air Marshall Paul Dike was Chief of Defence Staff.

Suddenly, three low flying helicopters emerged from the serene skies. The people gawked, awed, clapped, salivated, believing erroneously the helicopters bore dignitaries to add to the glamour, razzmatazz and panache of the royal ceremony. But they were wrong, dead wrong. The helicopters were actually harbingers of death; deadly gunboats, deployed by the Joint Task Force (as ordered by then President Umar Yar’Adua), to mow down Gabaramatu Kingdom. The kingdom came under a hale of bombs, the Palace inclusive. Two naval warships identified as “NNS Obula” and “NNS Nwanba”, 14 gunboats and four Air Force helicopter gunships completed the awesome armada of the JTF codenamed “Operation Restore Hope.” About 3, 000 troops were involved in this genocidal warfare that targeted the Ijaw enclave that housed the dreaded “Camp 5” and “Iroko Camp.”

Ironically, one of the villages destroyed, Oporoza, had hosted the crew who made the movie, “Sweet crude.” But the crude was now sour.

 Genesis Of The Crisis
The Niger Delta is buried in the creeks. Fragile, swampy and neglected by successive governments after the discovery of oil at Oloibiri in 1956, the people felt short changed. Where they asked for fish, they were given stones. When they asked for bread, they were given bullets. Like in the ancient Mariner, they have “water, water everywhere, but none fit enough to drink.” They defecate in still, spirogyra-infested ponds from which they also drink. The perennial gas flaring leaves cancerous skins and diseases. Aquatic and agrarian life is completely destroyed. The black gold, rather than be a blessing, has thus become a curse. There are no roads, hospitals, schools, infrastructure. No nothing! The people live in pains, pangs, sweat, blood, exploitation and crude marginalization.