Pursue Justice, Not Retribution – American Lawyer Tells Buhari In An Open Letter

President Muhammadu Buhari

Aso Rock, Abuja Nigeria

Dear President Buhari:

When you visited the United States Institute of Peace last July, you pledged that you would be "fair, just and scrupulously follow due process and the rule of law, as enshrined in [the Nigerian] constitution" in prosecuting corruption.

Such loftiness is laudable. As the Bible instructs in Amos 5:24: "[L]et justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." 

But to be just, the law must be evenhanded. It cannot, in the manner of Russian President Vladimir Putin, be something that is given to punish your enemies and withheld to favor your friends. If so, the law becomes an instrument of injustice bearing earmarks of the wicked rather than the good.

In the United States, you declared a policy of "zero tolerance" against corruption. You solicited weapons and other assistance from the United States government based on that avowal. But were you sincere?

During your election campaign, you promised widespread amnesty, not zero tolerance. You elaborated: "Whoever that is indicted of corruption between 1999 to the time of swearing-in would be pardoned. I am going to draw a line, anybody who involved himself in corruption after I assume office, will face the music."

After you were inaugurated, however, you disowned your statement and declared you would prosecute past ministers or other officials for corruption or fraud. And then again you immediately hedged. You were reminded of your dubious past by former Major General and President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who succeeded your military dictatorship. He released this statement:

APC: Always Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory!

By Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba

This party, APC, has this habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Every time.

1.   It won a clear victory during the presidential election with overwhelming support from all segments of Nigeria with the possible exception of SE/SS. World leaders praised the new APC president and saw a new and different Nigeria. His stock rose beyond the clouds.

*Tinubu and Buhari 

For four long months he could not form a government; made no speeches on the direction he would take the country to; was unable to present the legislature any supplementary budget; resorted to dictatorship by being a sole administrator; gave an unrealistic time frame for defeating Boko Haram (December 31, 2015), was unable to articulate his foreign policy as he addressed an empty United Nations Assembly; performed miserably in press conferences he had; demonstrated lack of knowledge as he could not tell which country is governed by Ms. Angela Merkel or what title she holds; showed that he was not aware that the Soviet Union no longer exists; etc. It was a complete failure each time he went abroad. The APC executive failed even before he started. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory

2.   If the executive was struggling to find its footing, the legislature was seen flat on its face. They had no clue when the inaugural meeting of the legislature was scheduled and so all but a handful were present when the Senate and House was called to order; and not present as congressional elections were conducted and therefore left open to seasoned PDP to impose officers on the majority. Thus the Senate and House leadership became a 50/50 sharing of senior offices for APC and PDP. When they realized that the animals have been late out of the gate the party started playing immature games and bickering and making self-destructive moves. The legislature like the executive snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

3.   As if the failures of the Executive and the Legislature were not enough, the ineptitude has now carried over to Kogi State. The unfortunate death of Mr. Audu so close to the election called for a leadership that is quick on its feet, but the party was/is led by a giant with clay feet. A good leader could have quickly found a substitute gubernatorial candidate or tried to stop INEC from proceeding with the election. A court action could have bought them some time to find another candidate, but the brainless, inept APC sat on her hands and an election was conducted. But their candidate was dead and only the living can be elected.

President Mugabe Clamps Down On Gays

THE Zimbabwean government has reportedly clamped down on foreign gays and lesbians attending the International Conference on Aids and STI’s in Africa (ICASA) in Harare and seized their workshop material at Harare International Airport, NewsDay has learnt. 

*President Robert Mugabe and his wife, Grace 

This came as suspected State security agents yesterday pulled down an exhibition stand mounted by the group to display and house its members and sex workers at the conference venue.

The exhibitors were later allowed to display their wares, following massive protests and lobbying by local and international human rights groups.

Addressing a pre-conference workshop for key people, Kene Esom, the executive director of African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR), said the confiscation of most of their material by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) had disrupted the group’s programmes.

“The material is still held because the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority is still conducting an assessment on them. The challenge is that we have attended many conferences of this nature and we have never been required to pay duty on such conference material, especially when you had bid to host the conference,” Esom said.

“As you can see, it has impacted on the quality of the pre-conference because we have agenda material and information material for interaction, which we haven’t gotten.”

Esom said when Zimbabwe won the bid to host the conference, his organisation made an effort to lobby Health and Tourism ministers, as well as the National Aids Council (NAC), among other stakeholders, to guarantee the non-discrimination of key populations such as transgender people.

[VIDEO] We Are Not Gays - Mugage 

Will The Chibok Girls Ever Return?

By Maxwell Adeyemi  Adeleye

A graveyard silence enveloped the nation of Nigeria on the 15th day of April 2014 when the despicable news of the kidnap of 276 female students of Government Day Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State hit the blogosphere. The girls were said to have been abducted by suspected Islamic Fundamentalist Group, Boko Haram.

A series of protest trailed the kidnap saga aftermath the failure of the immediate past administration of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the Nigerian security formations to rescue the girls from their abductors.

The incapability of Jonathan’s administration to unravel the misery behind the controversial kidnap of Chibok girls led to a wild condemnation and rejection of his reign within and outside the shores of Nigeria.

This singular factor indeed, contributed massively to the defeat of Jonathan at the polls in 2015 presidential election. The kidnap saga was a good campaign PR for the opposition desperately searching for central power. It was a well greased campaign that collapsed a political dynasty embedded with incumbency.

The hitherto loved, cherished and valued Jonathan by the international community because of his intellectual humility and erudition became a recluse character decorated with a legendary muffler of cluelessness, ineptitude and clumsiness.

In Nigeria, various groups advocating for the release of the missing Chibok girls emerged. Journalists, Activists, Social Commentators and Analysts within and outside the shores including myself descended on Jonathan and his security chiefs through our pen and voices.

Kogi: Faleke Rejects Nomination As Bello's Running Mate

Read Mr. James Abiodun Faleke's letter to the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun rejecting his nomination as Alhaji Yahaya Bello's running mate in the December 5 Supplementary Governorship election in Kogi State:  

“Re: My Purported Nomination As Deputy Governor”

“Information at my disposal from the National Secretary of our party, the All Progressives Congress, and my telephone conversation with your good self, confirmed to me that the party had issued INEC form and submitted my name as running mate to Alhaji Yahaya Bello in the forthcoming unusual and strange supplementary election scheduled for 5th December, 2015, covering 91 polling units in Kogi State to elect a “supplementary governor”.

“Mr. Chairman, you may recall that an election was conducted on the 21st November 2015, in which I was running mate to the late Prince Abubakar Audu: I therefore remain fully committed to that joint ticket which received the blessings of the party leadership, including your good self, evident from your attendance at the campaign rallies to ensure total victory for your great party through which the people of Kogi State massively and overwhelmingly voted for us.

An Apple Nigeria Needs To Eat

By Reno Omokri

For the second time in her existence, Apple Inc, the company founded by the two Steves (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) has been certified as the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalization of $772 Billion.

As I read the news on various news platform, I was struck by the comparisons of Apple with Nigeria and lessons we as a people could learn from this intellectual behemoth.

The first comparison would be that Apple is a company built on ideas. So for instance, while an American company like Ford is an epitome of the success of the industrial revolution age, Apple on the other hand is the poster boy for the knowledge worker age.
And nothing depicts this as dramatically as the fact that the former most valuable company, ExxonMobil, has a market capitalization that is only half of Apple’s ($382 Billion).

The first lesson for Nigeria then becomes that if our hopes for the growth of our economy is dependent on oil, ExxonMobil, the biggest oil company in the world, is a glaring example that we will continue to play second fiddle to those nations whose hope for the future is based on knowledge. Oil gave birth to ExxonMobil, knowledge gave birth to Apple. Go figure!

And when you look at the math, you would see that the numbers are preaching to Nigeria in a way that words cannot.
For one thing, Apple, today employs 115,000 people who together are paid more than all the approximately 40 million employed people in Nigeria make in a year.

The above should probably put Nigerian Governors on notice that their plan to reduce the minimum wage from ₦18,000 is an intellectually lazy idea that will cost them more than it would cure them.

Secondly, in 2015 Apple has made $215 Billion so far. This figure looks set to increase with the expected sales boost from Christmas. In comparison, Nigeria has made 10% of that amount in the same period.

The Biafran Truth and the Illegal Trial of Nnamdi Kanu

By ‘Remi Oyeyemi

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

  – Arthur Schopenhauer

“I’m for truth, mo matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”

–  Malcom X

With trepidation, I have been watching the subtle descent into dictatorship by the administration of Muhammadu Buhari. I have been watching with disgust President Buhari’s war against freedom of speech. I am very concerned about desperate attempts by President Buhari and his sentries to muzzle the voice of self determination. I am very upset that a government of All Progressive Congress that claimed to love freedom is engaged in deliberate subjugation of innocent citizens who happens to have different views about the state of the polity.

*Nnamdi Kanu

I am very concerned that an innocent man is being denied his freedom. I am scared that an innocent man is being subjected to illegal detention. I am not comfortable that an innocent man is being tried for desiring freedom for his people. I am very disturbed that a non-violent man is being inflicted with unwarranted and undeserved travails. I am worried that a lot of unwary observers who are not properly schooled in the elementary tenets of democracy are vilifying an innocent man.

Nnamdi Kanu is an innocent man. He has not committed any crime to make him deserve the kind of treatment being meted out to him. You do not have to like Nnamdi Kanu. You do not have to agree with him or his desires for his people. But no one has the right to deny him his fundamental human right to be free. No one has the right to deny him the right to self-determine his destiny as he sees it or wants it. No one has the right to shut him up because they do not like what he is saying or because they feel threatened by what he is saying.

Mr. Kanu’s exploits are known to all and sundry.  His desire is to have a homeland for his people. His desire is to free his people from the shackles of Nigeria. His desire is to see his people get to the promised land of Biafra. His dream is to see his people in control of their own destiny. His desire is to have a say in who governs him and his people. His desire is to ensure that no oligarchy or neo-oligarchic interests within the Ndigbo homeland is able to hold his people in bondage. His desire is to be able to water the tree of liberty for his people. There is nothing criminal in or about all this.

In all this, he has only employed semantics. He has only deployed sophistry. He had only appropriated the airwaves to be able to reach his people. He has not acquired arms. He has not killed anybody. He has not declared any armed war against anyone or organization. The only war he has ever declared is against the continued subjugation, enslavement and denigration of his Igbo people. It is a war of idea. A war of and for the minds of his people to see what he is seeing, to desire what he is desiring, to dream what he is dreaming. And he is doing that peacefully. He has been able to make his case to the majority of Ndigbo and the youths of that nation who are indeed the future of Biafra.

He is mobilizing his people to engage in the struggle to be free from their enslavement by the Nigerian State. He is making a clarion call for his people to stand up for their rights and self determine their destinies, or collective destiny. He has been innovative. He has been peaceful. He has been determined. He has been methodical. He has been deliberate. He has been consistent. He has persevered. And he is making sacrifices. There is nothing criminal in or about this.

Biafra: A Home Truth

By Chuks Akamadu

THE current pro-Biafra wind blowing across the length and breadth of south- eastern Nigeria and some contiguous parts of the south-south geo-political zone reminds me of the timely warning of the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido. Not too long ago, the banker- turned traditional ruler was reported to have cautioned the nation on the grave danger in failing to pay proper attention to the worries of Ndigbo, noting that this generation of Igbo youths would likely dare the Nigerian state in an unimaginable manner since they neither suffer from a hang-over of the Nigeria/Biafra civil war – having not witnessed it, nor do they harbor any memories of that darkest page of Nigeria’s story book.

I would like to add that the present crop of Igbo youths grew up with a be- ware-of-the-enemy-within mindset, a siege mentality and a vanquished orientation, all of which combine to leave them in highly inflammable state. To make matters worse, the environment where they were nurtured was (and still is) rich in lack, rich in deprivation and rich in hostility. It is little wonder, therefore, that they willingly received the strange dogmatic exhortations of an Nnamdi Kanu and his Radio Biafra as food (holy sacrament, if you like) to their drained souls.

Elsewhere, I had argued that who I see on the streets clutching Biafra flag are not Biafran patriots – and they are not Biafra enthusiasts either; they are frustrated youths who are at war with a system that appears irrevocably committed to shrinking their individual prospects of survival and forecloses their chances to prosper.
Fortunately for them, the Radio Biafra hate ministrations capture, in significant ways, both their corporate imagination and existential realities whilst Nnamdi Kanu’s present duel with the law has offered them a window for self-expression.

Jumbo Pay In Nigeria: The Final Solution

By Banji Ojewale

Far north of Nigeria, a state governor directs all public officials to withdraw their children from private schools and move them to government-owned ones. About the same time, the celibate daughter of a former Vice-President just sworn-in as a commissioner in one of the troubled north-eastern states forswears enormous wages and allowances waiting for her. Later, a pressure group somewhere in a state down south calls on the authorities to ban those in government from travelling abroad for medicare, whether for therapy or for checkup. Let them do it here in Nigeria. Much earlier the nation’s Spartan president and his equally abstemious deputy announce a cut in their pay.

*President and two of his ministers: Amaechi

 and Fashola 

It’s all in the air; the change aura suggesting times have changed. It’s a lean dawn when you can’t lean on government again. These are days that tell you a lean government is itself seeking where to lay its own lean and languid head.

Let us comfort and heal this land, battered and violated like a woman over the decades by so-called lovers who have only milked her dry out of her beauty.

A diet of half measures won’t deliver this broke and broken nation from the salivating and insatiable palate of these public office holders and their fellow carrion eaters.

Chibok Girls Never Existed!

By John Darlington

In the run-up to 2015 general elections part of the campaign promises of the All Progressives’ Congress was a double assurance that should they have our votes and be voted into power the abducted girls in the dead of the night from a school dormitory at Chibok will be rescued and reunited with their families. This sounded encouraging and thus drew the attention of Nigerians and the international community.

The then federal government under former President Jonathan was seen as none other than a clueless regime that must be jettisoned at all costs and this was followed by growing impatience as the nation waited anxiously for May 29 to send the administration packing and as luck would have it this was achieved by instrumentality of the ballot box in the general elections that took place on March 28 this year.

*Oby Ezekwesili: What happened to the once very active Bring Back Our Girls Campaign? 

‘Chibok girls’ as they are fondly called was used to score cheap political points and so much noise was made. The former President everyone would recall had his reservations when the news of the ‘abductees’ first hit the nation’s airwaves. It soon made news headlines and was widely reported by the world press and former President Jonathan was given two options either he produces the girls which his ‘cluelessness’ has occasioned or immediately relinquishes his hold on power.

Several demonstrations by Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora commenced to pressurize President Jonathan to produce the abductees. I too was enraged in no small measure against the seeming inaction of the former administration under President Jonathan considering the agonizing pains the parents were passing through over the sudden loss of their children to the devil-may-care jihadist insurgents.

The All Progressives’ Congress held tenaciously to this Chibok story and had everyone taken in that gave them that magnetic pull. As luck would have it, the elections were held which, reports say, they won by a landslide. Buhari assumed the reign of power on May 29, 2015, and six calendar months on nothing has been said about the Chibok girls or the efforts in place to rescue them from their abductors and the story is gradually disappearing like a fading star in the firmament.

The babel of voices that trailed the abduction of the girls have suddenly become extinct and the parent’s like receding hills have thinned out. Ah… this brings so many things to the mind of this author. Could we have been fooled with the Chibok story by a cast of neophyte actors to solicit for votes all in a bid to get to power? Did they really deserve our votes? Life appears to be going increasingly uphill in Nigeria since they took over power about six months ago amid pleas for patience by the Nigerian regime in Abuja and this leaves me astounded in no small measure.

What about what looked like sponsored protests at the period under sad review? Who were the people whose services were retained? How much were they paid for this massive fraud, hypocrisy, and a range of elaborate deceptions?

This writer can infer that lies, deceit were designed on whose back they rode to power in that nothing has been heard about the parents nor the relatives of the purported abductees. Buhari who capitalized on the Chibok story to attract our votes has suddenly gone as quiet as he could be. This is very disheartening!

Now the question is: Were there ever abductees from a secondary grammar school dormitory at Chibok? Why has the fiery noise eventually thinned out? Were the Chibok girls mere non-existent spooks and phantoms, a mere hallucinatory, delusional fantasy designed to bamboozle the generality of Nigerians in a criminal bid to solicit for votes? We have a burning desire to know.

Iyoha John Darlington, a scholar, social activist, public commentator on national and global issues writes from Turin, Italy.

Corrupted Anti-Corruption War In Nigeria

Denja Yaqub

No doubts, the dawn of the Mohammadu Buhari Presidency has changed the corruption surge in Nigeria, even as anti-corruption laws and institutions are still very weak and lacking in both capacity and will to curb the spate.

*Buhari
Corruption is unarguably Nigeria’s worst problem, every other problems including unemployment, sits on the trivet of corruption and all we urgently need is a serious government that is committed, beyond words, to the battle against the plague.

President Mohammadu Buhari’s promise to fight corruption during his campaigns and his anti-corruption pedigree certainly gave him majority of the votes that shot him to power as most Nigerians are eager to clear the global dent on our collective image and he needs to ensure he goes beyond mere declarations by strengthening all structures and institutions that can effectively wipe off corruption or at least reduce it.

Since his emergence as President, the only weapon that has been fighting corruption is simply his name. His name has become anti-corruption law, agency and court. Individuals, organisations and government agencies have adopted a culture of self-control; some people who had diverted public funds to their private vaults have been reported to have quietly returned the funds to government. Indeed, the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai publicly said a former public officer, whom he didn't name, had contacted him to facilitate the return of money he stole while in government during Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency.

On The Just Concluded West African Power Industry Convention 2015

Matters Arising (Part 1)

By Idowu Oyebanjo

The just concluded West African Power Industry Convention (WAPIC 2015) event held from 23rd till 26th November 2015 at Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos was a strategic hub for stakeholders looking for collaboration and joint solutions to the intractable challenges bedevilling the electrification of the West African sub-region. The main focus was the status of the Nigerian Power Sector reform. Some of the key conclusions from the event are highlighted below:

1. There is an urgent need for the new Minister in charge of Power to put together a team of technocrats with proven expertise to review the status of the power sector reform with a view to establishing and possibly dismantling bottlenecks in the entire value chain of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Nigeria. This team, which must be apolitical, will review existing laws, policies and processes as they affect the dismal performance of the reform despite humongous amount of investment in the last 20 years. Serving as a "system architect", it will take a holistic view of the entire system from end-to-end, ensuring synergies between parallel and hitherto conflicting activities which have more often than not led to policy reversals and summersaults creating thus far the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity experienced in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) to the sheer embarrassment of all stakeholders.

 2. To be able to sustain NESI, there is an urgent need for a clear focus on localisation and capacity development for the power sector work force by strictly implementing the Nigerian Content development regulation, establishing a power academy (university for the power sector) and apprenticeships that fit into the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs Levels 1-6), as well as  provide funding for training and research grants focusing on specific areas of need of NESI.

President Buhari’s Six Months Of Deceitful “Change” – Gov Fayose

Press Release 

Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has described the last six months of President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration as that of “deceitful change,” lamenting that the President was destroying the image of Nigeria and its people for cheap international recognition.

*Gov shopping for foodstuff at a local

 market 

The governor, who also described the claim by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, that the ministry do not have details of any fund recovered from officials of the immediate past government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan as a vindication of his position that the President was not saying the truth, said Nigerians must ask the President where the so-called looted fund was paid and who made the payments.

He said: “If the Ministry of Finance is not aware of any recovered fund, it is either those who purportedly made the refund did so by loading cash into Ghana-Must-Go bags and dropping the bags in the President’s bedroom or the fund was lodged into the Central Bank without records.

Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said “the only areas President Buhari has recorded tremendous achievements are areas of political persecution, disobedience of court order and desperate bid to turn the country to a one-party state as evident in the Kogi State election, which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), headed by Buhari's kinsman staged managed and muddled up.”

Does President Buhari Have A Conscience?

By Femi Fani-Kayode

''Aside the 105 soldiers killed by Boko Haram, additional 34 soldiers were killed 2 days ago but it wasn't in the news''- Deji Adeyanju.

I concur with Mr. Deji Adeyanju. The most heartless and reprehensible thing that our government could have done is to cover-up the fact that 105 of our soldiers were killed by Boko Haram a few days ago. To do such a thing is simply evil.

A soldier ought to be honored in death and this is especially so if he dies in the course of doing his duty and fighting for his nation.

The government has not only dishonored them by not acknowledging their sacrifice but they have also buried them in the wilderness like rabid dogs.

This is wickedness of the highest order and President Buhari, his Chief of Army Staff and his Minister of Defense should bury their heads in shame.

Anyone that buys the lie and propaganda that the 105 soldiers never died and that they are still alive is a compound fool or village idiot.

Will the military also deny the fact that a few days ago 34 of our soldiers were killed by Boko Haram? These boys died for their country. Why deny them?

I am outraged by the fact that a soldier will sacrifice his life for his country yet the citizens and authorities of that country don't even appreciate it.

Pictures of the dead bodies were posted on social media. Everyone in the military knows that those soldiers are dead. It is an open secret. Yet because government denies it so many people just choose to believe them.

The truth is that Boko Haram must have used chemical weapons in the attack.When you look at the pictures of the dead bodies this is obvious. It was probably mustard gas.

All we want from the military is the truth. If 105 soldiers were not killed then how many actually were?

Biafra Is A Challenge, Not A Solution

By Emeka Asinugo

The current agitation for the unconditional release of the director of Radio Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and the resuscitation of the Biafra nation became more intense after Kanu was arrested during his visit to Nigeria from the UK about a month ago. Before then, the Nigerian government had nothing to worry about a rather distantly located “pirate” radio station and whatever influence it may have been exerting on any section of the country.

Because I recently wrote about Nnamdi Kanu and the Biafra dream, I would not have liked to be dragged into the issue of Biafra any longer. But after listening to my colleague Emma Agu addressing the Biafra issue on YouTube, I was obviously disturbed. Mr Agu and I worked in the defunct Nigerian Statesman newspaper in the early 1980s and I know that he is a respected veteran journalist.

I was disturbed because I know that the Biafra issue is not a matter anyone can conveniently wish away or easily dismiss with a wave of the hand. Biafra was a reality. It happened. And that is perhaps why, in his wisdom and foresight, the universally respected Igbo writer, Professor Chinua Achebe, wrote his last book and titled it “There was a Country”.

Indeed there was.

The Nigeria-Biafra war ended about 45 years ago. And if you take a cursory look at what is happening, you will find that the people demonstrating in Nigeria and Overseas about Biafra and Nnamdi Kanu are all below 45 years of age. Most of them were possibly born in the Biafran side of Nigeria during the war. Their birth certificates say they are Biafran citizens. Those of us who live in Europe and America know what that means. We know the value and importance of birth certificates.

Some of these people who were born in Biafra could have witnessed what happened to their families during the war with the eyes of childhood. And the experience could have remained indelible in their minds. When the war ended, Nigeria did not address this issue of Biafran birth certificates. So, as far as those children born in the Biafran side of Nigeria during the war are concerned, they are Biafrans.

Soon after the war, General Yakubu Gowon introduced his ‘3Rs’ – an acronym for reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction. It was his vision of implementing his National Development Plan [NDP], following his “no victor, no vanquished” declaration at the end of the war. 

It is 45 years since. Yet, most Igbo who were either born in Biafra or fought on the side of Biafra are yet to be reintegrated and fully rehabilitated into the Nigerian mainstream. Some of them come from the Igbo heartland. Others come from such riverside areas as the Niger Delta Region. Marginalization which was the foundational cause of the Nigeria-Biafra war is still very much the problem of the nation.

If President Buhari Succeeds As A Leader, PDP Will Be History

Garba Shehu 
I have been amused, reading a number of jokes concerning the frequency of the President, Muhammadu Buhari’s foreign trips.

Questions have been raised about why so many visits, and what are the benefits Nigeria is getting?

I will make it clear from the beginning that the critic is entitled to his and her opinion and nothing said here is intended to silence him or her.

Criticism goes with the territory and as it is often said in a wisecrack, if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen.

President Muhammadu Buhari came into office under the mantra of change. While Nigerians are yearning for change, you need someone who will set up the infrastructure, both at home and abroad for it. President Buhari is busy doing that.

The change is manifest in where he visits and what he does.

In the delegations accompanying him abroad, President Buhari has slashed the numbers, bringing them down to a tolerable or the bearable minimum.

He went to the United Nations General Assembly in September with an unbelievable 32 officials in his delegation. These included his cook, his doctor and luggage officer.

His predecessor in office went to the same meeting with 150 officials and family members the year before.

Wherever they are given government accommodation and feeding, members of President Buhari’s entourage receive reduced allowances, thereby saving the government some money.