Arms Fraud: The Real Enemies Within

By Terka Jam

Nigeria is indeed a powerful country. A country where things happen like it's a movie. For a long time, I have watched the revelations from the arms purchase scandal and the role of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Office of the National Security Adviser. I have had my reservations for inexplicable reasons. But the recent revelations have confirmed my suspicion. Who can be trusted to work in tandem with President Muhammadu Buhari to rid this country of corruption?

Leading an agency as sensitive as the EFCC requires two things mainly. You have to be strategic and dead to sentiments in whatever form or guise. But recent events in the EFCC and the Office of the National Security Adviser have made a mockery of the fight against corruption. You can't go to war without a strategy. It is beyond the media hullabaloo and social media hysteria. The Office of the National Security Adviser is as important as the air we breathe. But I have been really disappointed and pained and decided to put this piece together.

In truth, Nigeria has made considerable inroads in the fight against corruption, but with tiny input from the EFCC. I won't hesitate to give credit to the Department of State Security Service for very obvious reasons. Make no mistakes; I think one of the best decisions President Buhari has taken since coming into office was the choice of the Director General of the DSS and the attendant reorganisation witnessed. And one of the worst mistakes he has made also was the selection of the head of the EFCC and the choice of the National Security Adviser.

I will explain why. How can someone come out in the open to say some of his relatives were using his name to exploit people, and it ended there? That was what Mr. Magu said on the pages of newspapers. There was no account anywhere of him bringing those relatives to account for their despicable conduct. How can the National Security Adviser not be aware of that members of a highly sensitive committee under his watch are busy cutting corners and enriching themselves? What manner of anti-corruption war are we fighting? Your guess is as good as mine.

Halliburton Scandal: Between Governor Fayose and Aisha Buhari

By Jude Ndukwe
This week has been mired in official scandals. From the purported secret employment by the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) involving some high-ranking government officials, to the president’s academic certificate saga, the alarming freezing of a sitting governor’s account without a court order as required by law, the complete northernisation of Nigeria’s security agencies as follows: Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, North; Minister of Defence, North; National Security Adviser, North; Chief of Army Staff, North; Director-General of Department of State Services (DSS), North; Comptroller-General of Customs, North; Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), North; Comptroller-General of Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS), North; Commandant General of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), North, and finally crowned it with the appointment of another northerner, Ibrahim Kpotum Idris as the Inspector-General of Police; to the accusation and counter-accusation between Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and the presidency over the involvement of a certain Aisha Mohammadu Buhari in the Halliburton scandal that led to the conviction of a US Congressman, Williams Jefferson in 2009.

*Fayose 

While Fayose had called the attention of the world to the involvement of the said Aisha M. Buhari in the Halliburton scandal as contained in a Government Sentencing Memorandum from the US, the presidency has shown desperation in denying the issue by claiming, amidst very uncomplimentary language, that the Aisha referred to in the US document is not the president’s wife.

To further convince Nigerians about the true identity of the Aisha Buhari in question, a Nigerian international passport bearing the name Buhari, Aisha Mohammadu was hurriedly “packaged” and released to the public. However, on a closer look, it appears the said passport has only done more harm than good to the case of the presidency as it is replete with errors, too many coincindences and inconsistencies.

For example, it is too much a coincidence for the three names of two individuals to be the same as in this case even though the “Muhammadu” on the passport was spelt to read “Mohammadu” while the same individuals seem to hail from the same town of Daura as the president.

Also, it is absolutely impossible in our culture and Islamic religion for a woman’s given name to be “Mohammadu” as indicated in the passport making the rounds. The name “Mohammadu” or “Muhammadu” is usually associated with males and cannot be a name given to any female by anyone.

Furthermore, while the Halliburton scandal took place between 2000 and 2005, with Jefferson getting convicted in 2009, those who quickly made the passport did not put that into consideration as the passport’s date of issue reads January 2012, confirming fears in some quarters that the whole passport saga is an after-thought.

What this strange scenario has created is a lacuna that leaves Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, open and vulnerable to all manner of official ridicule and caricature as architects of such ridicule can always claim that they are referring to the other “Aisha Buhari” even when it is obvious that the person being referred to is actually the president’s wife. Suing for libel, slander and such other actions to claim redress of any kind becomes an exercise in futility as we now have two Aisha Buhari hailing from the same town in Nigeria.

This then leads us to the certificate saga of Mr President himself.

Biafra Haram And The Rest Of Us

Onuoha Ukeh

In the last couple of months, what could pass for President Muhammadu Buhari’s phobia for Biafra has been apparent. These days, he seems to always use every opportunity to talk about the failed republic. The vehemence with which he talks about it sometimes leaves one wondering what it is that makes him mad about Biafra. Is it the fact that the thought of Nigeria breaking up frightens him? Or that he thinks that if the agitators are left, they could actualise their dream? Or that he feels insulted that some people will have the audacity or effrontery to talk about a separate country when he is in charge?

*Buhari

Indeed, President Buhari may have talked about Biafra more than any other single thing. Three days ago, he took up the Biafra issue, yet again. Speaking at the breaking of fast for members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he had stated: “We need to reflect very seriously on what happened between 1967 and 1970, where about two million Nigerians lost their lives. At that time, as young military officers, you hardly heard of anything about petroleum or whatever money you got from it.

“Look at what Gen. Yakubu Gowon said: ‘To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done’ and every soldier, whether he had been to school or not, knew what the General meant. But we were quarreling with our brothers; we were not fighting an enemy, and somebody is saying that once again he wants Biafra.

“I think this is because he was not born when there was Biafra. We have to reflect on the historical antecedents to appreciate what is before us now and what we intend to leave for our children and our grandchildren.”

Last May, President Buhari also talked about Biafra. Speaking at the palace of Emir of Katsina, during his official visit to his home state, he referred to the promoters of the Biafra agitation as “kids” who were not born during the civil war.  According to Buhari, “today, Nigeria is a strong and united sovereign entity because some people laid down their lives for the country…At least, two million people died during the civil war, but, today, some people who were not born during the civil war are agitating for the division of the country. We will not let that happen.

“For Nigeria to divide now, it is better for all of us to jump into the sea and get drowned.”

On many other occasions, President Buhari had talked about Biafra. Each time he did, his impatience and anger were always betrayed. This, for instance, showed during one of his presidential media chats when he was asked about the detention of Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, even after he was first granted bail by the court. He had lost his cool and made pronouncements that directedly “convicted” the accused of the charges he was facing. He had said that what Kanu did was treason, even when trial was still on and verdict not delivered by the court.  As it stands, it is obvious that in Buhari’s world, Biafra, in thought, dream and action, is haram (taboo). In fact, sometimes I suspect that he wishes he could, with a stroke of the pen or brute force, erase Biafra from the consciousness of those who talk passionately about it.

Dealing With The Vulnerability Of Widowhood

By Fred Nwaozor  

On June 23, the world over commemorated the annual International Widows’ Day as stipulated and observed by the United Nations (UN). The International Widows’ Day is a UN ratified day of action to address the poverty and injustice faced by millions of widows and their dependents in many countries. The event invariably takes place on every day of June 23.

The day was established in 2005 by Raj Loomba whose mother became a widow on June 23, 1954, and the bereaved woman experienced the social intolerance and financial adversity that can befall widows. The establishment was made under the aegis of The Loomba Foundation to raise awareness of the issue of widowhood, which was thereafter formally adopted and duly approved on December 21, 2010 by the United Nations’ General Assembly under the leadership of the present UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. The proposal for the approval was tendered by President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon.

A widow is a woman whose husband has died, whilst a widower is a man who has lost his wife; thus, widowhood is a state in which a man or a woman, as the case may be, has lost his/her marriage partner. It is obvious that in any society in the world, anyone either a man or a woman found in a state of widowhood is regarded as a less-privileged, because his/her partner in whom he/she is well pleased has departed for eternity. But in Africa, particularly Nigeria, the most devastating aspect of widowhood is when a woman is passing through the ordeal.

In Nigeria for instance, on the average, a widow regardless of her status, is severely molested, intimidated as well as humiliated. The major plight faced by a widow in this part of the world is deprivation of her late husband’s property or possessions by her teeming in-laws. In this case, she could be banned from making use of anything belonging to the deceased, thereby making her appear like a mere slave in her matrimonial home.

In many cases, the widow in question could be accused of being responsible for her husband’s demise without minding the severe psychological pains and agony she is passing through. In some quarters, to prove her innocence, the poor widow would be mandated by the accusers to drink the water used in washing her late husband’s corpse; a practice that obviously seems highly irrational and barbaric.

The Hijab Controversy In Osun

By Wale Sokunbi

Osun State is once again in the vortex of a storm over a ruling by a state High Court which granted students in the state the right to wear the Muslim female covering, the hijab, to school as part of their fundamental human rights. Since that controversial ruling by Justice Jide Falola on June 3, Nigerians have been inundated with pictures of students of other faiths, especially Christians, going to school in religious vestments such as cassocks, choir robes and the like.

The implication of this ugly situation is not lost on Nigerians. It is a recipe for anarchy, as students of all faiths may decide to start coming to school in their different religious apparels, and it would not be out of place to see student adherents of our traditional religions coming to school with their red and white apparels, divination beads, palm fronds and calabashes filled with kolanuts, red oil and other items that they could insist their faiths mandate them to take to their places of instruction. On a lighter note, our courts would, indeed, be hard pressed trying to determine the veracity of such claims, which would be a monumental waste of their precious time.

On a more serious note, it is unfortunate that the matter of school uniform has become a big distraction in the state. It is worrisome that at a time when all attention should be focused on the problems bedeviling the nation’s education sector, especially the sorry state of public schools and the declining performance of students in public examinations such as the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), some Nigerians appear more worried about the scarf, hijab or beret that students in government schools are wearing to school.

Although the use of accessories associated with a particular religion could amount to a subtle promotion or propagation of that particular religion in the public school system, and the state judiciary should not be seen to be promoting the use of the paraphernalia of any religion in schools, the leaders of other faiths in Osun State need a more measured response to Justice Falola’s controversial “hijab judgement.”

Mrs. Bridget Agbahime’s Horrific Butchery(1)

By Mike Ozekhome

Introduction
Few weeks ago, 74-year-old Mrs. Bridget Agbaheme was brutally murdered in cold blood. She had her head gruesomely decapitated from her body in Kano. Her alleged ‘blasphemy’ was that she objected to an ablution by some muslim youths, right in front of her shop, at Kofar Wambai market, Kano, in broad daylight. As Nigerians join their brothers and sisters in Islam all over the globe to observe the holy month of Ramadan, the question can now be asked: Is violence the true tenet of Islamic religion? Does God or Allah need to be defended, or protected by us, mere mortals, who are his creation?
Twenty-four-year-old trader, Methodus Chimaeje Emmanuel, was also killed in Pandogari, Rafi LGA, Niger State, for alleged blasphemy. In Kakuri, Kaduna, 41-year-old carpenter, Francis Emmanuel, was savagely attacked for not participating in the ongoing Ramadan fast. Recall also that Gideon Akaluka, a young Igbo trader, was, in 1995, hideously and horrendously beheaded in the same Kano, allegedly for desecrating the holy Quran. His decapitated head was grisly paraded about on Kano streets, on a pole. I cannot remember the perpetrators, who were initially arrested ever being prosecuted.

*Ozekhome

Nigeria Is Multi-Religious, Not Secular
Nigeria’s Constitution abolishes theocracy. Some erroneously call this secularity. No. Nigeria is not secular, agnostic, atheistic or irreligious. Rather, Nigeria is multi-religious. Section 10 of the Constitution laconically provides: “The government of the Federation or a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion”. Section 15, inter alia, prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion. Section 38 allows freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to change one’s religion or beliefs. When Sections 10 and 15, therefore, specifically mention “religion”, it means we are a religious country, not a secular one. Indeed, the preamble to the 1999 Constitution specifically says Nigerians have “firmly and solemnly resolved to live in unity and harmony, as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God…” Our National Pledge ends with “so, help me God”. The penal code that operates in the northern part of the country is influenced by Islamic principles, while the criminal code that operates in the southern part of Nigeria is greatly influenced by the common law and Christian religion. So, Nigeria, whilst not adopting a particular religion, as state religion, is neither secular, atheist, nor irreligious. Rather, it is a multi-religious country that believes in God Almighty. However, blasphemy, even if any, was committed, in the above episodes, is only a demeanour under Section 204 of the Criminal Code that is punishable with two years imprisonment, not death.

Wrong Interpretation Of The Holy Books
Most fanatics and fundamentalists interpret the Holy Bible and Holy Quran wrongly. For example, they erroneously rely on the Quran, 8:12, which states: “When your Lord revealed to the angels, I am with you. Therefore, make from those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore, strike off their heads, and strike off every fingertip of them.”
On the surface, if taken literally, this would appear to mean that the Quran expects violence to be a divine command intended to inspire terror. No. The explanation from knowledgeable Islamic clerics is that the background to this command was within an actual war situation, dealing with the spoils of war, at the battle of Badr in the year 624. It is just as unfair, therefore, to generalise from this verse and say that the Islamic Religion encourages or condones killings, as it is unfair for critics of Christianity to say that the latter is a violent religion, merely because Christ had said, ‘I have not come to bring peace but a sword’. But, everyone understands that Christ did not mean this literally, or willed that the statement He made be taken out of context. He was merely speaking metaphorically.
In the Holy Quran, 5:32, we are warned: “Whoever kills a person (unjustly)… it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he has saved all mankind”. In the Holy Bible, we are admonished “thou shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13). The consequence of violating this sacred injunction is that, “he that killeth with this sword must be killed with a sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10).

Unveiling The Hijab

By Ray Ekpu  

Hijab, the veil that Moslem women wear which covers the head and the chest, is being gradually unveiled in Osun State with an immense potential for katakata. Here are the facts: Recently the Osun State Moslem community filed a case against the state government urging it to allow Moslem female students to use the hijab in public schools. Justice Jide Falola of the Osun State High Court on June 3 this year gave a verdict that Moslem female students should be allowed to wear hijab in all public schools in the state because it is their fundamental human right. The Moslems gave the verdict a storm of applause.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the state says it will do two things: appeal against the judgment and mobilise Christian students to turn up in schools in their full religious regalia which will include choir robes and full white garment ensemble, the trademarks of some of the feuding mainstream and Pentecostal churches.

The State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, who has been in the trenches with his workers over nonpayment of their salaries, is now in the eye of a different tornado. The state government fully aware that the state may explode in a rage of religious combat is now fretting like a fuzzy storm. The truth is that even though the governor is a Moslem the state is almost evenly divided in population between moslems and Christians and the invocation of the hijab as the ultimate expression of fundamental human rights for female moslem students has convulsed the state because the Christians suspect rightly or wrongly that this may be a first step towards the Islamisation of schools in the state.

 The security agencies have invited the Moslem and Christian leaders for a meeting to avoid a breakdown of law and order. The twist in the tale is that, truly speaking, these public schools are not public schools. They are schools that were founded and funded by Christian missionaries which were forcibly taken over by military governments when they ruled the roost. In some states, these schools have been handed over back to their original owners but that is not the case in Osun State. That is perhaps the meat of the matter.

The hijab is gradually becoming a major subject of public discourse in Nigeria. It is perhaps time to fully address or undress it. In December last year, a group of Moslem youths under the aegis of Moslem Youths in Da’wab wanted the hijab introduced into the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme. They went to the headquarters of the NYSC to protest against the ban of the use of the hijab for female Moslem corps members during the orientation period. They said that the rights of the female corps members were being infringed upon if they were not allowed to use the hijab. The then Director General , Brigadier General Johnson Olawumi, told them that he was a respecter of the rights of all corps members but that the ban was for security reasons.

It did not apparently occur to these youths that the NYSC is a national institution that had been in existence since 1973 with its rules, regulations and a nationally identifiable uniform used throughout all the states of the federation. It didn’t also occur to them that since terrorists had made the hijab an instrument for suicide bombing something had to give if people’s lives were to be guaranteed by the NYSC authorities. It did not also dawn on them that in the hierarchy of rights the right to life is the pre-eminent right that stands atop other rights or freedoms. However, the Director General gave them a reason that was difficult to counter. They may not have been satisfied but they have been quiet since then.

Elephantiasis Of The Scrotum

By Chuks Iloegbunam

My late mother, Gwamniru!, bless her soul. She used to tell us, her children, during discussions on placing a finger on the truth of any circumstance or situation, that a man accused of suffering from hydrocele or elephantiasis of the scrotum had his job neatly cut out. If his scrotal sac wasn’t a mighty calabash filled with fluid of indeterminate composition, he enthusiastically stepped into the market place, abruptly shed his clothes, and danced in a number of directions, thereby convincing ora na eze, or ira ni igala, or the mighty and the lowly – in short, all comers – that his accusers were disreputable scoundrels.

 

*Buhari

Of course, the people, whose voice was the voice of God, would never deny the evidence of their own eyes, to wit that the man allegedly accursed with the deadweight of pumpkins in a difficult portion of the human anatomy was, in fact, free of any such encumbrance. No one, except the deranged or those previously afflicted by a touch of fencham – characters never to be taken seriously – would ever again charge that, between his thighs, was an outsized, water-laden keg, the sort that impeded movement, and made the unsurpassed joys of strolling such a nightmarish contemplation.

Thus, if you accused Chuks Iloegbunam of owning no university degree; if you swore that all that grammar he purports to blow on newspaper pages was gathered listening attentively to white men and women during his decade-long sojourn in the United Kingdom, or assiduously garnered by reading innumerable thrillers of the James Hardley Chase vintage, he would have, a straight and direct path to refutation. Chuks Iloegbunam would readily produce his degree certificate, signed in 1980 by the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ife (now, Obafemi Awolowo University) Professor Cyril Agodi Onwumechili, and two others – the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and the University Registrar. If rats, blasted vermin, had eaten up his certificate, or fire’s incendiary flames had reduced it to ashes, he would drive for less than three hours from Lagos to Ile-Ife, and get the revered institution’s authorities to give word that he had, indeed, earned a degree there.

If, instead of taking this easy and rational course of action, Chuks Iloegbunam chose rather the labyrinthine and prohibitively expensive option of hiring a dozen or more advocates, attorneys, barristers, lawyers and solicitors, to bring down the courthouse with a torrent of polysyllabic casuistry and sophistry that is bereft of the tiniest particle of evidence, to the effect that he has a B. A. (or a Begin Again), he would, of course, cause the raising of a million eyebrows. He would lead people into thinking that work was no longer being carried out on the appointed site. He would incite people, his detractors and supporters alike, into the avoidable temptation of thinking or believing that he was no more than a butterfly pretending to be a bird. The entire development would leave him somewhat like dirty linen indecorously spread on a clothesline next to a busy thoroughfare. The surprised, the alarmed and the outraged may then have no alternative than to consider the viability of posing that kind of question found in Blackie na Joseph, a 1960s folksong by the inimitable crooner Okonkwo Asaa, alias Seven Seven: “Is this your residence that we have entered, or is it some other person’s residence that we have entered?” So asked the village belle, Blackie, upon venturing into would-be lover Joseph’s house, only to find the place filthy and disordered!

Truth About Power Supply

By Adisa Gbadamosi

 In   terms   of   the cause   of poor   electricity   supply ravaging   the nation   presently a blunt statement from the  the office of the Minister   of Power, Works   and Housing , Mr.   Raji   Fashola, provided an answer.   The statement   which was issued by one of his aides stated that it was immoral to expect   the Federal   government to   blame electricity   distribution   companies   called Discos   for the poor   electricity   supply   in the nation.

The Power   Minister  was responding   proactively   to the news   that   the House   of   Representatives had   invited   him and stakeholders in the electricity   industry for  a meeting to   explain the   cause   of   power   failure   in  the country. The   press   statement   was   therefore   meant   to   apprise   the legislators before   he  showed   up    in   the   House   for   grilling on   the subject . In   effect   the Minister   killed   the proverbial   two   birds   with   one stone. He   answered   the   question of the legislators   from   afar   as it were.   He   also   allayed   their   fears      also   at   a  safe   distance   on the   mistaken   notion   that   the Discos   were the culprit of the poor power supply  experienced  in the country .

Let   me state   clearly   as a keen   observer   of the   power   sector and its development that the pronouncements   and statement   of   the   Minister is candid,   informed   and   most   patriotic.

In  particular,   I urge   our law   makers   to   emulate these   virtues   even   as they grandstand to nail   perceived   culprits   for   the poor   supply   even   though      the cause   is well   known   to   all   Nigerians except   perhaps   our   legislators   and   trade union   leaders . The   Minister’s   statement   pointed out some facts .The   first   was   that pipeline vandalisation had   disrupted   and decreased   electricity   supply   massively   nation   wide   and power   generation , and transmission      had   suffered massively   and such   distribution   had   been   scanty   all over the nation . 

The State Of The Nation

By Olusegun Adeniyi

Following a recent column which apparently did not appeal to a particular reader, he sent me a tweet that when next I have no important message to convey, I should just simply not write. Today is one of such days and I have decided to follow his advice. The point really is, even if I choose to write, what is there to write about that would be appealing to readers? For instance, the same friend who suggested yesterday that I could write on the crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)–whose national secretariat called “Wadata Plaza” has been turned to “Wahala Plaza”–also warned me to be careful now that the party is being invaded almost on a daily basis by some Boko Haram Avengers!

*Olusegun Adeniyi

However, even when I have elected not to write about the issue, I still consider it amazing that some PDP governors, in their cold calculations to hijack the party, would be naïve enough to believe they could use and dump a tested politician like the former Borno State Governor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. While they told Nigerians that Sheriff was brought in to complete the tenure of Alhaji Ahmed Adamu Muazu which ended three months ago, Sheriff now says the deal he had with them (when they came to “beg him”) was to chair the party till 2018!

Nevertheless, it is interesting that the Senator Ahmed Markafi-led PDP national caretaker committee would alledge, as it did yesterday, that Sheriff was being sponsored by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to scuttle PDP’s chance in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State. After storming the PDP secretariat on Monday with thousands of his supporters with a “court order” he has refused to produce, Sheriff specifically announced plans for the Edo gubernatorial election and appointed a committee for that purpose. While PDP leaders are now pointing accusing fingers at the APC for the crisis, the pertinent question is: Were they not warned?

In February this year, the Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said the emergence of Sheriff as PDP National Chairman was a good omen for the APC. “We are happy because we believe in the long run he would work for us…Looking at the antecedents, the history of the chairman himself, we all know he is a cross carpeter. He is always on the move in changing from one party to the other. Even when he was in All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) for eight years, he was working for the PDP. Even APC started with him, and then he went back to PDP and we were happy. I am sure in the long run he would work for us,” said Gandoje just four months ago so why should I be concerned about a problem foretold?

Okay, I know there are readers out there who may remind me that if indeed I want to write it doesn’t have to be about the PDP crisis, especially since Osun State is again in the news, this time over the controversial wearing of Hijab by female Muslim students during school hours. To be sure, I am following the sordid drama as some Christian leaders goad their wards to also begin to wear “coats of many colour” to school–garments for Boys Brigade, Girls Guide, Choristers and others. I have seen interesting photographs of what Osun schools have been turned into but I cannot write on the issue now because I am still waiting to hear from Sat Guru Maharaji who is yet to give instructions on how children of his adherents in the state must now dress to school. And then worshippers of Ogun, Sango, Obatala etc must also be bracing up with their own apparels.

NASS: An Anniversary, A Farce

By Alabi Williams  

This 8th National Assembly, on June 9, rolled out drums to mark the first anniversary of its inauguration; it was an eventful year. It was a year when the current leadership of the legislature, particularly the Senate, weathered severe storm sowed by it, but watered viciously from the outside. Their resort to celebration and arrogant chest-thumping was not so much about how the NASS quickly transformed the business of lawmaking within one year, and how that had made the country more governable. It was also not about how well life has become more meaningful in the last one year for ordinary Nigerians. It was more about Bukola Saraki, the Senate president and how he managed to survive the plot by his own party to wrest the mace from his grip.

*Speaker Dogara and Senate President Saraki 

Remembering how deftly Saraki and his loyalists valiantly engineered that parliamentary maneuver to take over the leadership sure deserves several backslaps. It was a historical move; hence the entire anniversary plenary was dedicated to recollecting how the tricks were played, and to bond together in the assurance not to break ranks, despite the shift in the battle from the floor to the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

The effusions were quite entertaining. Senators took turns to pour encomiums on that scheme and how deft hands have kept it from slipping. Minority leader and former governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, poked fun at how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) helped to install and stabilize Saraki, while his party tugged at his cloak to unmask him. Dino Melaye, ever boisterous, promised Saraki would never be unveiled, despite the distractions from outside. It was all smiles on the face of Saraki, whom he praised to high heavens.

 Indeed, victory is sweet, and for some, it does not matter the schemes that were deployed to fetch it. But there were some in the Red chamber who sat demurely all through the proceedings. They knew it was sham, but they have to live with it and wait for another time. They were outsmarted on that morning of June 9, 2015, when they followed another summon to the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, instead of coming to the NASS after President Buhari, who allegedly issued the invite, had proclaimed the legislature.

The truth of that mix up will take time to unravel. Those who sent sms to invite APC senators to ICC knew what they were up to, to apparently distract the larger chunk of members from participating in the election of presiding officers. And the few APC senators, including Saraki, who shunned the invitation, and decided instead to sneak into the Red Chamber well disguised, also knew what they intended to achieve. Either way, what was at play was plain crookedness and not chivalry. The Senate has remained haunted since that episode, unable to be majestic and to rise up to the crucial challenges of a changed political atmosphere. Despite their huff and puff, they have not affected governance in any remarkable way.

Some people saw it coming in the manner the party in government was artificially and untidily strewed. In 2014, APC was all about how to win elections. There was no time and foresight to indulge in the luxury of an audit to test the integrity of its component units. After it won election, the next legitimate aspiration of members was how to allocate the booty. By that time, it was too late to enforce orders. Saraki and some people decided to help themselves to plum offices.

Between Ibe Kachikwu and Rotimi Amaechi

By Abraham Ogbodo  

On the whole, nothing had significantly changed about Rotimi Amaechi. He was still himself; unable to contract his expansive ego onto a back seat and listen to others speak sensibly in Uyo last week. He used the occasion of the Town Hall Meeting in Uyo to discuss the perennial issues in Niger Delta to open his dry advocacy on the Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State, and state, with all the emphasis he could bring to bear, why the university must remain scrapped.

*Rotimi Amaechi

Not one to retrace his step no matter the inappropriateness of his locus, Amaechi explained that the development of the institution is overpriced and that the cost of acquiring land alone for the university, which he puts at N13 billion could buy half of the city of Lagos. The accompanying sarcasm only helped to underscore his contempt for a facility, which he termed wasteful and does not in any way add to the resolution of the larger issues in the Niger Delta. He was characteristically sanctimonious, finding the point about budget and prudence stronger than the overall purpose of a university.

“I am not against the Maritime University, Okerenkoko. My argument about Okerenkoko is that the land alone is N13 billion. If you give me N13 billion, I will buy half of Lagos. That N13 billion has built the university already. What to do: let the EFCC retrieve the money and release the money (to us). If they bring the N13 billion, I will build the university for them,” Amaechi said with a magisterial finality.

Like a jester in a typical Shakespearean setting, I am sure, Amaechi only meant to amuse the Uyo audience and nothing more. But things just got terribly out of hand because he refused to act as a true jester who usually knows when to perform and when to hold back.

Altogether, I do not think that the Uyo town hall was a comic interlude in the fast-pacing Niger Delta drama for some jester to perform. I mean, here was a platform to discuss the very serious issues of the day, including the serial bombing of oil infrastructure by a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), that has caused crude oil production to plummet from 2.4 to 1.2 million barrels per day. And here also was an Amaechi, a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and former governor of the oil rich State of Rivers proclaiming a financial wizardry that could make him buy half of Lagos (not Lagos Street in Port Harcourt) with N13 billion or establish a functional maritime university in the swamp of the Niger Delta with all the attendant ecological challenges.

Amaechi was joking, no doubt, but he chose the wrong time to joke. People don’t crack jokes when serious business is still going on. The Uyo town hall was not a relaxation joint for jokes. And this was underscored when Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Dr. Ibe Kachikwu took the stage. He created a tonal and content variation that unmasked Amaechi as a flat character, suited only for flat roles. Kachikwu returned the discussions to serious mode.

Buhari: The Obstacle To War On Corruption

By Remi Oyeyemi

“…. whoever that is indicted of corruption between 1999 to the time of swearing-in, would be pardoned”
– President Mohammadu Buhari on March 11, 2015 at a Campaign rally in Kaduna
 
“The right thing to do is to probe at least the administrations from 1966 when this level of corruption and criminal wastefulness of resources started…”
– Balarabe Musa, Former Governor of Kaduna State
 in The Sun  of July 25, 2015.
 

Buhari 

It is becoming increasingly clear that President Mohammadu Buhari really has no interest in fighting corruption. It is embarrassing and disappointing that President Buhari conveys confusion and contused confidence about the war on corruption. The defeat of corruption is the greatest desire of Nigerians. It is why Nigerians felt that he should be given a chance after rejecting him at the polls three previous times. So far, President Buhari has not been able to come up with any clear cut policy, rules and guidelines as to how he plans to fight corruption.
 
In fact, evidentially, the most challenging obstacle to fighting corruption in this present dispensation is President Buhari himself. President Buhari has raised obstacles to the war on corruption so that it would be impossible to prosecute. This would help him and his friends could keep their loots. Any hope that corruption would be decimated if not brought to its knees by President Buhari is not just dissipating, it is fast disappearing. One more time, Nigerians have been taken for a ride.
 
In a document titled “I Pledge to Nigeria” released during the campaign, President Buhari made the following promise to Nigerians:
 
“I pledge to publicly declare my assets and liabilities, encourage all my appointees to publicly declare their assets and liabilities as a precondition for appointment. …. I pledge, as Commander-in Chief, to lead from the front and not behind in the comfort and security  of Aso Rock, to boost the morale of fighting forces and the generality of all Nigerians.”
 
 So far, President Buhari has failed to fulfill this promise to publicly declare his assets. What this refusal to declare assets publicly means is that he has skeletons in his own closet. He is hiding something from Nigerians. He is not as poor as Nigerians have been made to believe and he is probably embarrassed to openly let Nigerian know what he has illicitly accumulated.
 
It would be remembered that on Wednesday March 11, 2015, in Kaduna, President Buhari had promised that he would not probe anyone who was engaged in corruption up till May 29 when he would be sworn in. As far as he was concerned, according to that speech, you can steal all you want up till his swearing-in as president, you would be left untouched. This gave an impetus to more stealing toward the dying days of President Goodluck Jonathan administration. He has by his utterances and actions so far created confusion about what he planned to do about corruption. It is difficult given some of his actions so far if this was not a deliberate act of obfuscation to undermine the war on corruption on the part of President Buhari himself. Now, he has turned around to insist that he would only probe Jonathan’s administration as if corruption just started six years ago; as if Nigeria just came into existence six years ago. What a balderdash!

Buhari Is Nigeria’s Problem, Not Its Solution

U.S newspaper, Wall Street Journal, published an article on Friday, June 17, 2016, by former US Congressman, Pete Hoekstra, titled “Buhari Is Nigeria’s Problem, Not Its Solution”. In the article, he said President Muhammadu Buhari selective war against corruption, inflexibility, poor lack of focus and vision is at the root of worsening condition in Nigeria:

*Buhari

The article is reproduced below: 

“Nigerian President Muhummadu Buhari writes of building an economic bridge to Nigeria’s future (“The Three Changes Nigeria Needs,” op-ed, June 14). It’s hard to see how his administration’s inflexibility, lack of vision and reactive approach will achieve this. Mr. Buhari notes that building trust is a priority for Nigeria.

“But an anti-corruption drive that is selective and focused on senior members of the opposition party creates deep political divisions. Meanwhile, members of Mr. Buhari’s own cabinet, accused of large-scale corruption, walk free. Seventy percent of the national treasury is spent on the salaries and benefits of government officials, who make upwards of $2 million a year. As for Mr. Buhari’s ideas to rebalance the economy and regenerate growth, his damaging and outdated monetary policy has been crippling...”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

Buhari And The Challenges of Sainthood – A Rejoinder

By Remi Oyeyemi

I have just finished reading the powerful article by Sonala Olumhense with the heading “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Sainthood.”  Being one of those that I read their articles almost religiously (and I have been following him since his days in The Guardian), I am not unaware that he is a very fervent supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari. He really believes in him. The only thing is that he is not fundamentalist in his belief in the President.

*Buhari 

That he is not fundamentalist does not surprise me. This is because he embodies a mind that is thoroughly developed. A mind translucent in its broadness that it can conveniently encapsulate fervent belief about an idea or a person while simultaneously endowed with the clarity to be critical in a subtle manner; driving home his point forcefully with unequalled succulence.  He has a mind cocoon in intellect. With that kind of mind, dogmatism has nowhere to dodge.

Mr. Olumhense probably drank some Champagne when President Buhari won the last elections to celebrate. If he did, it was not undeserved. President Goodluck Jonathan drove Nigerians nuts for the better part of his tenure. So, to Mr. Olumhense, like millions of other Nigerians, the new President Buhari represents the beacon of new hope and advent of a new era. He was, it seems, a new opportunity to save Nigeria from herself and her peoples. 

Mr. Olumhense’s article in question put on the table series of unfulfilled promises on the part of President Buhari regarding certain actions he was going to take relating to the war on corruption.  He believes it was a “serious embarrassment” that President Buhari failed to release to the public the list of those who have looted our commonwealth, especially, the one given to him by the US government. The list was said to have included information about “names of many corrupt Nigerians, and the location of their stolen funds.” Mr. Olumhense had believed President Buhari’s “punchline” announcing “his deadline for the publication of that list of infamy: May 29.”

 Mr. Olumhense’s frustration flipped open as follows:

“The only problem is that the day arrived, and he made the anniversary speech without including that much-anticipated report.
 
“But such was the tension and the anticipation surrounding the expected announcement that everything in his speech had actually become secondary to it. The ensuing national outrage compelled the government to declare that the Ministry of Information would make the announcement four days later.
 
“Again, however, that date yielded no such report. As the world now knows, the ‘announcement’ finally arrived at the end of that week through the office of the Minister of Information. But while it was informative as to what has been recovered, the report identified none of the corrupt former officials involved.”
 
Evidently, Mr. Olumhense was in despair about the inability of President Buhari to keep his promises made on the war against corruption in several fora.  Assessing the aftermath of that debacle, Mr. Olumhense ruefully commented as follows:
 
“In effect, it means the corrupt elements have won another round, leaving corruption in control, while the government lost a wonderful opportunity it may never regain.”
 
Then he opined correctly as follows:
 
“Perhaps most of all, the events of that week left President Buhari‘s credibility in a fog, and his road to political  sainthood  as broken as a federal Nigerian highway.”

The reason for this level of disappointment on the part of Mr. Olumhense is that he had put more stock in the hyping of Mohammadu Buhari in the days leading to the last presidential elections. His omission in properly interrogating the know-how and qualifications of Buhari in those heady electioneering days made him unwittingly gullible to the propaganda of a possible “Saint Buhari.”
 
Without any doubt, Mr. Olumhense is still holding on to some straws of hope that somehow, someday, someway, President Buhari would change from who he really is and fight this corruption war the way he (Olumhense) has been made to buy hook, line and sinker – without favour or fear. This is an impossibility because President Buhari is innately nepotic. He flits, fibs and feints. He cannot change. Even, if he tries, he won’t be able to change. He is like a leopard that nature has rendered congenitally unable to change his spots.

Modu Sheriff: The 'Chairman' At Bay

By Dan Amor

You must be aware of the current travails of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, the former governor of Borno State and immediate past Acting Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose lot we no longer envy. At first, this politician was seen by a section of the PDP Governors Forum as a messiah who would help recoup the glory of the party having lost out in the intricate power calculus that was the 2015 general election. Indeed, he had a cult following in these matters.

*Sheriff 

The followership comprised awed admirers of this controversial politician as well as those decidedly unfamiliar with the man but adored him for his proven intrepidity, his loquaciousness and his heroic willingness to speak truth to power no matter whose ox was gored. Everybody knows how Sheriff, a master in the art of political defection or what one humourist called “jum- pology” (the art of jumping from one political party to another) emerged as chairman of the party. Despite the disdain with which many party faithful held him, some thought that, given his enormous financial energy and his ethnic affiliation, he would help stabilize the party within an interim period of three months during which his committee would superintend a national convention.

That was not to be! Due to his legendary loudness and implacable capacity to advertise his ego coupled with his incredible personal ambition and intellectual as- sumptions, party stakeholders especially the Board of Trustees members, former governors, National Assembly caucuses, state chapters and youth councils started suspecting his subterranean moves as he was incapable of uniting the diverse forces to- wards one direction. The fear was that Sheriff had planned to maintain a vice grip of the party till 2018 and then turn himself to a phony presidential candidate. This resulted in the stern opposition Sheriff encountered by party members who did all they could to redeem their party’s image by invoking its constitution to organ- ize a fresh national convention in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital last May at the expiration of Sheriff ’s interim tenure.

The convention attracted all the notable members of the party including Sheriff who agreed to the convocation of the convention in tandem with the party’s constitution. He was to bolt out of the convention venue when he sensed that all his permutations would not hold water. As a party determined to redeem its battered image and forge a united front towards providing alternative platform for Nigerians to effect lasting changes in all ramifications, there was an amazing bout of consensus.

The outcome was the emergence of Senators Ahmed Makarfi and Ben Obi as Chairman and secretary, respectively, of a new Caretaker Committee that would pilot the affairs of the party and conduct another convention after ninety day. Having lost his interim National Working Committee chairman- ship, Sheriff returned to the drawing board to plot some divisive means of throwing spanners into the works of the party. Whereas the Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee’s effort at reaching out to stakeholders is gathering momentum, Sheriff emerged from his co- coon, broke into the party’s national headquarters and declared himself the national chairman. Even erstwhile protégés and fanatical admirers of this Borno-born politician began to shudder. Outraged, the massed punditry of the vibrant and ever-crusading Nigerian press came out in full cry. A spectacle, this: the “Chairman” at bay! And since the new caretaker committee chairman, Makarfi and his secretary, Ben Obi have the sympathy of the Press, having been accorded full mandate by all stakeholders in the party according to its constitution, the world now knows that Sheriff is a spoiler. On Wednesday June 15, all the papers in the country circulated Makarfi’s revelation that Sheriff is a pimp who has made himself a willing tool in the hands of the ruling All Progressives Congress to destabilize the PDP.