Ese Oruru Affair: Power Without Responsibility

By Louis Odion, FNGE
Though isolated, the recent budget-padding comedy in Abuja and lately the Ese scandal in Kano invariably underscore one acute elite affliction in contemporary Nigeria: an obsession to exercise power and the unwillingness to bear its responsibility. 

The pathology is what manifests today whenever President Buhari goes about issuing threat to deal ruthlessly with the "budget mafia" believed to have sexed up figures in the 2016 appropriation bill in view of the dust raised at the National Assembly. But a more honest response should have been an acceptance of responsibility ab initio by Mr. president on whose desk the buck stops. 

*Ese Oruru

Apparently following their principal's odd footsteps, ministers have, in turn, made a huge theatre of publicly disowning the numbers ascribed to their respective ministries, departments and agencies as if vetting the figures was not part of their briefs as CEOs of the MDAs to begin with. Health minister, for instance, swore "budget rats" ate up the documents he originally submitted. No one is ready to defend the allocation of N3.87b for capital projects at the Abuja State House Clinic while all the nation's teaching hospitals individually got peanuts. Or why a whopping N576m was earmarked for the construction of the residences of the Vice President's ADC and CSO among other outlandish entries. 

Taken together, the impression thus created is that whereas the government is exhorting the citizens with evangelical fervor to tighten their belts for an exceedingly lean year ahead, its own hierarchs are ironically busy loosening theirs to take more fat in their mid-sections. Not surprising, various conspiracy theories have since been mushrooming around the budget fiasco. Perhaps the most outlandish is the suggestion that the whistle was blown at the Senate by forces sympathetic to the embattled Bukola Saraki as a fight-back over his unfinished business at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. 

If true, that only begs the issue. In case the Buhari handlers don't know, they should be enlightened that the signature the president appended to the document before its presentation to the National Assembly on December 22, 2015 is tantamount to a proof of ownership and, therefore, a provisional claim of responsibility. Much more compelling is the obligation to admit that the seed of the present scandal was inadvertently sown with the inexplicable delay in constituting the federal cabinet last year. 

Hence, the initiative was inadvertently ceded to bureaucrats who, from experience, are hardly any different from buccaneers. In fact, Buhari unwittingly handed them the rope to hang him the very moment he announced in faraway France that civil servants were "the ones doing the real work" while ministers were mere "noise-makers", in response to then growing public apprehension over the delay in raising the federal cabinet. 

Ese's Abduction: Emir Sanusi Has A Case To Answer

By Femi Fani-Kayode

All those that are attempting to distort the narrative about the tragic plight of Miss Ese Oruru are evil and we commit them to God’s judgement. The facts are as follows. She is 14 years old and not 18, and she was abducted from her home. She did not leave her home freely or of her own volition. She was cruelly and wickedly carried away and stolen from her parents, family and loved ones and forcefully taken by complete strangers to a distant land that she had never been before on the other side of the country.

*Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa'adu Abubakar III and Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

This is not a love story about two inseparable young people: it is a story about pedophilia, child abduction, kidnapping, human trafficking, slavery, rape, impunity, wickedness and ritual sex, and Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has a case to answer. That little girl has been raped over and over again and she may well have AIDS, VVF or some other strange sexual disease by now.

Instead of sympathising with her and considering the fact that she may never be the same again in view of the physical and mental torture and trauma that she has suffered over the last few months, some misguided souls and shameless commentators have the temerity to come to social media and say that she was old enough to “get it”, whilst others say that she “loved it” and “wanted it”. I am utterly disgusted and appalled by these sentiments. Where is the humanity of those that speak and think like this? Where is their compassion and where is their soul?

May God judge them and may their own infant daughters be abducted, forcefully Islamised, raped, enslaved and kept against their will as a sex slaves in an Emir’s palace in the same way that Ese was.

Lechers And Child-Brides

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

ON any occasion when the facade of sophistication  and sensitivity to the needs of their fellow citizens crashes, our leaders are often  revealed as  a people who are scandalously ensconced in a notion of self-importance that negates the humanity of those outside the circle of their socio-political and pecuniary influence.  It is because they are deluded by this warped notion that they do not mind neglecting the poor citizens to wallow in their abject misery or deliberately inflicting on them policies that would seal their pulverisation and reify their overbearing sense of importance. 

*Ese Oruru - The Victim 

This is why our leaders steal the money meant for the improvement of the lot of the people, divert  the funds meant for buying weapons and yet send soldiers to the battlefield unarmed. But the citizens still appreciate the true worth of the life of the average Nigerian. This was demonstrated in the past few days by the outrage they expressed at the abduction of the Bayelsa girl, Ese Oruru, who was forcibly Islamised and married at the age of 13.

This outrage did not come from the leaders of the society who were complicit in the ordeal of the teenager.  It came from those outside the realm of power. And without this, those who had the power to set Ese free from captivity would not have bulged.  But  since there is  apparently  official complicity in the ordeal of  the minor, there is  the danger that beyond the outrage that has led to her release,  the culprits  would not be punished . 

And there is a worse danger in so far as a lack of punishment would spawn a recurrence of this aberration. For the case of Yunusa is only a grim upshot of the failure of similar acts of impunity in the past to tug the conscience of the nation and pave the way for appropriate sanctions.  If the Yunusas of our society are not merely serving as minions for some privileged persons, they have only demonstrated that they have learnt enough to appropriate for themselves an art their masters have deployed to satiate their lecherous appetites.

Why Biafra Is Giving President Buhari A Headache

*Kanu

"Dressed all in white, Nnamdi Kanu took his seat in the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, on February 9. Though he had been in detention for almost four months, the 48-year-old activist initially declined requests from court officers to agree to have his handcuffs removed. In an act of defiance, he raised his cuffed hands to the television cameras. It was hard to divine his intention, but the act and his angry expression suggested that he barely recognized the authority of the court he found himself in. Kanu, a dual British-Nigerian citizen, was arrested in Lagos in October by Nigerian intelligence agents during a visit from his home in London. Kanu leads the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)...”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE  

Onyeka Onwenu: Another Case Of 'That Ibo Woman'!

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Onyeka Onwenu was, on September 13, 2013, appointed the Director General of the National Center for Women Development (NCWD) by the Jonathan admin­istration. The all-changing Buhari government relieved her of the position last month.

 

*Onyeka Onwenu

On her ten­ure, she claimed thus in an open letter: “I served for two years and five months and did my best under very difficult conditions. We hard­ly had money to operate and the place was badly run down. Worst, there was low moral and lack of commitment among the staff. Most spent the day loitering and gossiping. Many would not show up for work or arrive 11 am, only to leave before 3 pm. Some were absent for months and were just collecting their salary at home. My administration changed all that. Most staff were turned around and became passionate about the work, appreciating also the changes they thought were not possible but were happening right before them.”

Is she correct? The answer would seem to be positive because, nearly two weeks after the claim, no voice has controverted her. This should cause botheration in conscientious quarters because she protests that her sterling service to the country was repaid with the objectionable coins of injustice: “There remained, though, a rem­nant who felt that the Center was their personal preserve and that the position of Director General should only go to someone from their part of the country. I was ini­tially dismissed as just a musician. When that did not work, I was tar­geted and abused for being an Igbo woman who came to give jobs to and elevate my people while side­lining them. When these detrac­tors could not provide answers to the spate of improvements we were bringing, they resorted to sabotage and blackmail. The first such salvo was fired when a Senate Commit­tee visited on an oversight mission a few months after my arrival. All three Generators at the Center were cannibalized, overnight, just hours to the visit.”

Onyeka stated in her open letter that, to begin with, she hadn’t lob­bied to be appointed DG-NCWD. Nor was she ever minded to grovel in order to retain the post. Once word arrived from above that she had had her day at the Center, she made to leave. “But some people were going to exact their pound of flesh. They organized some staff, mostly Northerners, invited the Press and set about to disgrace themselves. By mid-afternoon, while the Heads of Departments were putting together the hando­ver notes, they seized the keys to my official car, even with my per­sonal items still inside. Threats be­gan to fly. ‘That Ibo woman must’, ‘We will disgrace her.’ Their chief organizer, the Acting DG, went about whipping up ethnic senti­ments against me. Late 2015, the same officer had gone to the Cent­er’s mosque to ask for the issue of a Fatwa against me, claiming that I was working against the inter­est of the North. We nipped that in the bud by calling a town hall meeting and asking that proof be provided. The Fatwa was denied and peace reigned for a while. Po­lice was called in to the Center to escort me out and avoid bloodshed as I disengaged. Eventually, in the midst of insults and name calling, with an angry baying crowd, some of whom were brought in from outside, I entered my official car and left.” 

Buhari, APC Duped Nigerians - Fayose

APC Leaders: Tinubu, Buhari and Oyegun 

Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), duped Nigerians by obtaining their votes by trick, declaring that; “Everything Buhari and his party promised Nigerians when they were looking for votes, they have denied and it won’t be a surprise if one day, Buhari comes out to even deny that he was elected on the platform of APC.”

The governor described Buhari’s declaration that he would not pay the N5, 000 stipend he promised to unemployed youths in the country and Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s claim that creation of three million jobs per year was not promised by the APC as the peak of political 419 that the President and his party represent.

He said; “They have not fulfilled any of the promises they made to Nigerians. In fact, they have even told us that they never made any promise. It is close to one year that Buhari assumed office; no single job has been created. Instead of the three million jobs per year that they promised, what we have been witnessing is job losses, economic hardship and budget padding”

Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said it was more worrisome that President Buhari always choses foreign lands to make major policy pronouncements, asking whether Buhari has turned himself to Nigeria’s Diaspora or Online President. 

Unbelievable: Cut-Off Points Into Federal Unity Colleges In Nigeria

Imo -138;Yobe -2;Zamfra 4

Abia – Male(130) Female(130)

Adamawa – Male(62) Female(62)
Akwa-Ibom – Male(123) Female(123)
Anambra – Male(139) Female(139)
Bauchi – Male(35) Female(35)
Bayelsa – Male(72) Female(72)
Benue – Male(111) Female(111)
Borno – Male(45) Female(45)
Cross-Rivers – Male(97) Female(97)
Delta – Male(131) Female(131)
Ebonyi – Male(112) Female(112)
Edo – Male(127) Female(127)
Ekiti – Male(119) Female(119)
Enugu – Male(134) Female(134)
Gombe – Male(58) Female(58)
Imo – Male(138) Female(138)
Jigawa – Male(44) Female(44)
Kaduna – Male(91) Female (91)
Kano – Male(67) Female(67)
Kastina – Male(60) Female(60)
Kebbi – Male(9) Female(20)
Kogi – Male(119) Female(119)
Kwara – Male(123) Female(123)
Lagos – Male(133) Female(133)
Nassarawa – Male(58) Female(58)
Niger – Male(93) Female(93)
Ogun – Male(131) Female(131)
Ondo – Male(126) Female(126)
Osun – Male(127) Female(127)
Oyo – Male(127) Female(127)
Plateau – Male(97) Female(97)
Rivers – Male(118) Female(118)
Sokoto – Male(9) Female(13)
Taraba – Male(3) Female(11)
Yobe – Male(2) Female(27)
Zamfara – Male(4) Female(2)
FCT Abuja – Male(90) Female(90)

Patrice Lumumba: An Amazing Story

Malcolm X called him the most impressive black man ever to walk the African continent. Just six months after becoming the first prime minister of the newly independent Republic of the Congo (later called the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and two days before John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961, Patrice Lumumba was shot down by a firing squad. But Lumumba’s surprising path and sudden death serve as a powerful reminder that for political leaders in many parts of the world, true reform has only one major prerequisite: survival.

Few countries today are as troubled as the Congo, a land of 68 million nestled near the center of sub-Saharan Africa. Belgian invaders looted the country for almost a century, during perhaps the most brutal colonization in Africa. But Congo, rich in mineral resources like rubber, was once poised to be an African success story, thanks in no small part to the man his people called by one name: Lumumba.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE 

A Dying Nation, Its Travelling President And The Lying Party

By Jude Ndukwe
In the run up to the 2015 presidential election, leaders and members of All Prgressives Congress (APC) were very vocal in condemning the then president of the country, President Goodluck Jonathan, for every step he took. This even included attending churches on Sunday, Jonathan's religion's holy day of obligation. 

*Buhari

It was Babatunde Raji Fashola, the then governor of Lagos State and now Honourable Minister of Power, Works and Housing, that succinctly captured the mind of the APC leaders and supporters then when at the sixth Bola Tinubu Colloquium in Lagos some time in March 2014, he charged at his listeners by asking them if they wanted “someone who spends most of his time in church or mosque, or the man who is ready to spend his time on the job.” That was when life was very sweet as an opposition party especially with the tolerance level of Goodluck Jonathan. At least, Goodluck was spending his time in the country even if, in the hyperbolic words of Fashola, he was spending “most” of it in church.

However, fast forward to today, we have the same Fashola who is currently serving as a minister under president Muhammadu Buhari who would remain Nigeria's most travelled president for a long time in our history. So far, since his inauguration into office on May 29, 2015, President Buhari has traversed 24 countries of the world within a short period of 9 months.

Considering our scarce resources, this is too frequent, too costly and is a disturbing development as the nation is in its worst economic quagmire since independence. Never in the history of our nation even when we thought we faced economic recession and hyper-inflation has our exchange rate run on auto-devaluation as it is now. The prices of food stuff and basic items are climbing higher and out of the reach of the common man. The purchasing power of the citizens has been badly eroded while people are not only not getting employed, those who are employed are losing their jobs in droves.

The economy is at a standstill! No gainful economic activity going on anywhere. Infrastructural development that characterised Goodluck Jonathan's administration has since been brought to a halt; our revived agricultural sector is now in a speedy reverse course. While harmless and armless youths protesting peacefully within their constitutional rights are regularly mowed down by mindless security agencies in Zaria, Aba, Onitsha etc, the supreme court has come under several severe attacks from the ruling party as the Honourable Justices of the apex court have resisted the “body language” charm and refused to do the bidding of the party in some of the judgements given by the court recently. Kidnapping has not only returned but assumed a more dangerous and fearful dimension, and the security agents seem overwhelmed.

State Of The Nigerian Economy

By Nebo Ike
When the decisions of the apex court on the 2015 election petitions, in which the ruling party (PDP) got badly wounded was announced, an air of succor came to the party when Govs Wike of Rivers State, Darius Ishiaku of Taraba State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd) of Adamawa State, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State, and Senator David Mark of Benue South retained their seats.

*President Buhari with VP Osinbajo and
Finance Minister Mrs. Kemi Adeosun

Just about the same time its spokesperson Chief Olisa Metuh regained his constitutional freedom. Following simultaneously was PDP NEC meeting that saw Senator Alli Modi Sheriff as chairman, confirming the speculation that the party is bouncing high. However, the state of the economy worried PDP Think-Tank more than the allegation that its new national chairman was an imposition.

Legislation is one of the enabling environments for the rule of law, order, investment and good governance to flourish in any economy. There is no dearth of such laws in Nigeria. However, the economy does not look like one that benefit from those laws. Rather there is extreme poverty, hard times in the land and lack of commensurate growth showed by the economy. There is always scarcity of basic commodities needed by average citizens like kerosene, food items, communal facilities (Good network of road, Health and Education). Why do we have government from independence to 2016 that failed to deliver these basic infrastructures when government is a continuation of each previous one?

The situation on ground shows that no value is being added by successive government from 1973 when a Naira exchanged for more than a dollar, to now when almost N400.00 fetch only a dollar. It is clear that the productive sectors of any economy expand or contract its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The way successive governments have handled the economy gave rise to the present state where ghost workers syndrome has become a strangulating factor. Successful and buoyant economies are not a product of its GDP alone, but also as a result of legal protection of institutions and processes.

Extra Judicial Killings Of Igbo Youths By Nigerian Soldiers

By E O Eke

The lifeless and desecrated bodies of another batch of Igbo youth murdered by Nigerian soldiers on February 9, 2016 at National High School Aba, is another gruesome reminder of the brutality and high handedness with which the Buhari administration is addressing the non-violent protests by youths agitating for independent state of Biafra. When you view the recent massacre against the background that the victims were unarmed, were not violent and the crime was perpetrated by soldiers and police men from Northern  Nigeria, the significance and intention of the government becomes ominous. The use of disproportionate force and introduction of sectarian dimension raises serious concerns about the future of Nigeria

As the death toll of this unjustifiable pogrom rise, the silence of Igbo leaders is deafening. Why have Igbo leaders in position to reach out both to the government and protesters kept quiet? Is Nigeria is really a secular democracy? Has the governors, senators, members of the house of assembly and other elected politicians any real power to implement the will of the people and give hope to their wishes and aspirations? Are they aware of the Huge responsibility they carry on behalf of the people?

I am asking, how much more evil, bloodshed brutality and injustice do Nigerians want to see, before we act to stop this crime against humanity going in Igboland. The actions of the army is unconscionable. It is even more curious that the government withdrew soldiers fighting terrorists to murder non-violent protesters. The pictures of the atrocities are as nauseating as they are condemnable. They show the depravity of the minds behind them. It is difficult to imagine that the men responsible for these crimes have human conscience and what it takes to bear arms on behalf of a state.

There are neither reasons no justification for this massacre. It is even more disturbing that this is coming after we heard that President Muhammadu Buhari withdrew soldiers fighting Boko Haram and told them to go and deal with non-violent protesters in Igboland. It is happening as the president releases Boko Haram terrorists and Fulani herdsmen terrorising the country unchallenged.

(Army Frees 275 Boko Haram Suspects From Prison Friday, February 12, 2016)

Multiculturalism And The Igbo Identity

By Dan Amor
I would have loved to title our column this week, 'Buhari And The Igbo Question', but in order not to reduce this very important issue to mere verbalism by those who read banal political expediency into all serious issues, I plead that we settle for the above title.

*President Buhari 

 Multiculturalism has been the subject of cover stories of most international magazines including Time and Newsweek, as well as numerous articles in newspapers and magazines across the world. It has sparked heated jeremiads by leading American columnists such as George Will, Dinesh D'Sousa, and Roger Kimball. It moved William F. Buckley to rail against Stanley Fish and Catherine Stimpson  on "Firing Line." 

It is arguably the most hotly debated topic in the civilised world today – and justly so. For whether one speaks of tensions between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights, or violent mass protests against Moscow in ethnic republics such as Armenia, or outright war between Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia, it is clear that the clash of cultures is a worldwide problem, deeply felt, passionately expressed, always on the verge of violent explosion. Problems of this magnitude inevitably frame the discussion of multiculturalism and cultural diversity even among leading intellectuals across the world. Yet, it is unfortunate that, in Nigeria, the vexed issues of racism, nationalism and cultural identity are downplayed by our commentators and analysts because some think that they and their tribes are not directly affected.

Few commentators could have predicted that one of the issues that dominated academic and popular discourse in the final decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century – concomitant with the fall of apartheid in South Africa, communism in Russia, and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union – would be the matter of cultural pluralism in our secondary school and university curricula and its relation to the "Nigerian" national identity. Repeated experience and routine violations of the rights of minorities and the Igbo nation in Nigeria attest to the urgency of the scattered, and often confused, debates over what is variously known as cultural diversity, cultural pluralism, or multiculturalism. 

The greatest threat to the string that binds us together as a nation of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds and its social intercourse is not nationalistic cultural passions but our collective failure to discuss our differences and the arrogant manifestation of messianic impudence by our rulers who think that they possess the sole authority to dictate what should be talked about and what not to discuss in our country. Increasing incidents of violence are associated with ethnic differences in very many places in the world: Koreans and African-Americans in Flatbush, Brooklyn; Zulus and Xhosas in South Africa; Poles and Gypsies in Poland; the Tutsis and Hutu in Rwanda; the Hausa/Fulani and Igbo in Nigeria; and, of course, the fate of the Jews in Ethiopia and in the old Soviet Union.

Nigeria: A Government In Denial

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

My daughter’s nanny, Mama Ike, came to work recently with a mischievous smirk on her face. I couldn’t figure out what the matter was but it was apparent she was excited about something. Then, she blurted out.

“Oga,” she quipped, “Is it true that the president had run away?”

 “Which president?” I asked her, flummoxed.

“Our president, (Muhammadu) Buhari,” she riposted matter-of-factly.

“No,” I told her. “It is not true. “He is on a five-day vacation.”

I didn’t convince her as she held tenaciously to her piece of information, literally accusing Buhari of going on AWOL.

“Oga, are you sure? They said the man had run away ooo! In fact, the story in my neighborhood this morning was that the man had run away. Some boys living in our area said they had never seen or heard of this kind of thing before. That the president of a country would run away from office.”

I told her that it was not true but the incredulous look on her puckered face told me without any scintilla of doubt that she was not swayed by my explanation.

Of course, the president did not run away. It is unthinkable that such could happen.

Nkrumah’s Overthrow Regrettable

By ASP James Annan

The first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was unconstitutionally ousted from office through a military and police coup d’état on February 24, 1966. This year marks exactly 50years since the Convention People’s Party (CPP) government was overthrown.

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

According to declassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1999, the then US government had been trying to influence some people to overthrow President Nkrumah since 1964.

Apparently, Dr. Nkrumah was seen as an ally of the then Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the ‘Cold War’. But the pan-Africanist leader declared his stance and made the famous statement, “We neither face East nor West; we face forward”.

On February 21, 1966, President Nkrumah left Ghana for Hanoi, the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam, at the invitation of President Ho Chi Minh to resolve the Vietnam War. Ghana was left under the control of a three-man Presidential Commission.

Consequently, the CIA backed-coup in Ghana was carried out at the dawn of February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was still on peace mission in Asia.

Among the key figures who staged the revolution were Col. E.K. Kotoka, Major A.A. Afrifa, and the then Inspector-General of Police, Mr. J.W.K. Harley.

The famous coup-makers cited Nkrumah’s Preventive Detection Act, corruption, dictatorial practices, oppression, and the deteriorating economy of Ghana as the principal reasons for the uprising.

Nigerian Economy: Has Buhari Lost Grip?

By Bola Bolawole 

The advice by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, that President Muhammadu Buhari summon an emergency meeting on the economy appears on the surface innocuous but deep down, it is fully loaded and ominous.

*Buhari 

On a visit to the Dr. Josef Goebbels of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Soyinka called for an emergency conference on the economy to which people outside government circles will also be invited, such as consumers, producers, Labour unions, experts on the economy, University egg-heads, among others.

Note Soyinka’s exact words: “I think we really need an emergency economic conference, a rescue operation bringing as many heads as possible together to plot the way forward.” We must also note that the Nobel Laureate, being not just a man of letters but also one with an internationally-acclaimed mastery of the English Language, gingerly and delectably picks his words. He means the words that he uses; no idle or wasteful word is allowed.

So, look at the words he chose to employ in just that sentence: “I think we really need…” meaning that it was a carefully thought-out process that brought out his advice; he was not whimsical about it. He did not just wake up from the wrong side of his bed to begin to rant; the advice was his considered opinion.

Opposition Youths Protest Against Mugabe's Birthday Bash

*Robert Mugabe, with wife and children, cut his 92nd birthday
cake during a  'surprise' Birthday party for him by his staff 

A group of youths belonging to Zimbabwe's opposition have protested against plans to hold another birthday party for President Robert Mugabe in Masvingo this weekend.

Mugabe's staff held a 'surprise' 92nd birthday party for the president on Monday in Harare, complete with an elaborate cake, the official Chronicle newspaper reported.

A photograph posted to Twitter by Morgan Tsvangirai ally, Chalton Hwende, showed a small group of youths holding posters demonstrating along a major street in Masvingo. One of the posters read, "We want jobs not bash" in a reference to the birthday party, due to be held on Saturday in the drought-stricken province.

Said @hwende: "MDC-T Youths today [Tuesday] in Masvingo demonstrated against the hosting of a $800 000 (R12 million) Mugabe birthday party."

Movement for Democratic Change spokesperson, Obert Gutu, said he had heard that members of the party's youth assembly had staged a demonstration in Masvingo but he was unable to give further details.

He hinted that there would be more "activity" in the next few days.

Mugabe's first birthday party was actually not a surprise at all, the Chronicle reported the president as saying. "Every year, I now know that once I strike another birthday, this event is bound to follow," he said.

Footage of the party showed Mugabe and his wife Grace seated on a pink sofa while his staff sang several verses of Happy Birthday. 

Why Nigeria Needs A Reboot

By Jeff Okoroafor
Is the country better off today as it was eight, nine months ago when a well respected, self-disciplined and fearless man in the name of Muhammadu Buhari, walked into the Aso Villa and vowed to work tirelessly for his people? There’s definitely no justifiable or modest way to respond to this question without looking at facts and figures – unemployment rate and economic growth rate.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), unemployment rate in the first quarter of last year, 2015, jumped to 7.5 percent, compared to 6.4 percent reached in the fourth quarter of 2014. Third quarter of same year, 2015, pegged it at 9.90 percent from 8.20 percent in the second quarter of same year. Today, according to Trading Economics, unemployment rate has risen to approximately 26.0 percent. On the economic growth rate, the NBS report of 2015 indicated that the real growth rate of the monetary value of all goods and services produced in the country during the period of 2015 slowed to 2.4 percent Y-o-Y, down from 4.0 percent in Q1, 2015 and 6.5 percent in Q2, 2014. Presently, the percentage growth rate of our economy is 2.8 percent or approximately 3.0 percent. Based on these criteria, it is safe to state confidently, that the country is not better off today as it was eight, nine months ago when Buhari took over.

What Does Museveni’s Victory Mean For Uganda?

Yoweri Museveni was re-elected for another five years in Uganda’s recent elections, extending his 30-year mandate in the East African country.

The elections and results were not without controversy. At least one opposition supporter died in the run-up to voting on Thursday, while leading opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) candidate Kizza Besigye was arrested four times in eight days.

Kenyan Journalist, Linus Kaikai, Interviews Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, 

On NTVKenya, Nairobi, (May 1, 2011)
WATCH

The international community has provided a spectrum of responses to the elections, with the U.S. and EU criticizing the vote while Russia and Uganda’s neighbors Kenya and Burundi hailed the re-election of the 71-year-old president. While parliamentary results are not yet finalized, Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) looks set to retain its dominance in the legislature: The ruling party held 259 of 385 seats prior to the 2016 election, compared to the FDC’s 36.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE 

Yoweri Museveni: African Political Thug Or Democratic Realist?

*President Museveni

By Alexander Opicho
Observing the 2016 general elections in Uganda brings to the surface a strong controversy between political science and governance as social practices. The contest that was between Museveni and the two veteran opposition politicians, Kizza Besigye and Mbabazi has been concluded with violence and strong possibilities of future violence, in spite of the fact that it has left Museven as the winner to his now seventh term as the president of Uganda or his 31st year as the president of Uganda.

This has happened on the backdrop of age-long heavy poverty, abuse of human rights, joblessness and despair, tormenting fear, squalorism, shameful diseases like leprosy, punctured education system, palpable police brutality and hostility, corruption, brotherism, oppression of the press and rights to freedom of the speech as well as irritating culture of political falstaffity by President Museven as the day to day experience of the people of Uganda. What I mean is observing politics in Uganda will lead you to nothing else but to a conclusion that democracy is a beautiful paralysis of human hope beyond any diagnosis known to mankind today and tomorrow.

To be concise Museveni might have won the presidential elections or maybe he has not won, that is not the problem; the issue is how Museveni monkey-wrenched the entire electoral process by using police and military brutality to destroy all the fairness in the election process. Those that watched or saw Museveni using military power to terrorize and humiliate his key opponent Dr Kizza Besigye will be activated mentally to remember the former military dictators that extremely employed armies in police uniforms to mayhem the unarmed civilians, I mean to remember the likes of San Abacha of Nigeria, Arap Moi of Kenya and Idi Amin Dada of Uganda.

A Word For President Buhari

By Abiodun Komolafe

FOR those who care to know, I am a passionate supporter of the Muhammadu Buhari cause and that position is not about to change! As a matter of fact, my preference in the March 28, 2015 Presidential Election through which Buhari eventually became Nigeria’s first opposition candidate ever to defeat an incumbent president, was a product of my convictions and until I have sufficient reasons to change course, my preference remains on course. Be that as it may, surprise will be the appropriate word should I fail to make the list of the  ‘Cult of Wailing Wailers’ as a result of this piece which I believe is in the overall interest of my country.

*Buhari 

Whichever way the pendulum swings, the good news is that, within a very short time in office, Buhari has, to a great extent, succeeded in rescuing Nigeria from the jaws of a predatory elite and a band of merit-devalued interlopers who have for close to two decades deprived Nigeria of her gold and silver. However, this is not to say that I envy the president, not even with the scourge of impunity that has turned Nigeria into a morass of incensed screeches where priorities are misplaced with unimaginable perfidy and, responsibilities, shifted with unrivaled pomposity.

Like the Biblical ten plagues, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, passed through our land and all we could feel were pinches of hypocrisy and pains of stagnation. Its bunch of yo-yos insulted our collective intelligence with unimaginable artificiality and its crop of educated-but-politically-incompetent hands, “celestially” endowed to take care of the downtrodden, only used their “celestial weapons” to mortgage our commonwealth. And, as if the gods were angry, meanness replaced magnificence; and, in place conviction, we had deception.