Is President Buhari’s Integrity Overrated?

By Martins Oloja

This thing called integrity is the most powerful weapon of mass distraction General Muhammadu Buhari’s point men used to win most supporters’ hearts in 2015. Yes, their intangible but lethal missile got us at our very point of our need as a nation. We had then really needed a man of integrity, a good Nigerian indeed in whom there was no guile. We wanted a clean and strong vessel who could rescue us from the years the locusts had eaten at least up to that point. And most of us found a man we could trust in the lanky General from Daura. And in March, 2015, the election agency we all believed said he (PMB) defeated the then incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan, who also meekly joined the nation in congratulating Mr. Integrity who trounced him to the delight of many.

*Buhari 

But is appears that barely two and half years after the election, the arrogant illiterate of the 21st century around ‘the man of integrity’ are making most of us to have a rethink that the integrity of the taciturn former head of state may have been massively overrated after all, just as Collin J. Browne, an organisational culture expert, noted in a 2015 classic titled, “Integrity is massively overrated”.

Meanwhile, the concept of “the illiterate of the 21st century” is not original to me too. It is to Alvin Toffler I have quoted several times here. The sociologist and writer on organization development and leadership says, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”.

Nigeria: Independence Without Culture Or Identity?

By Dan Amor

Culture is the artistic and other activity of the mind and the works produced by this. It is also a state of high development in art and thought existing in a society and represented at various levels in its members. But culture as a thematic focus in this piece, concerns the particular system of art, thought, custom, beliefs and all the other products of human thought made by a people at a particular time; in short, the way of life and identity of a people. This essay is therefore informed by the urgent need for a new sense of national identity and character in Nigeria.

What special qualities would distinguish the citizens of this country considered to be the largest and most populated black nation in the world? For instance, under the influence of Montesquieu, Abbe du Bois, and others the eighteenth century placed great emphasis on delineating national character. The Spanish, for example, were said to be brave, mystical and cruel; the English practical, phlegmatic shopkeepers; and the French refined, artistic, and immoral. Each nation was thought to have a special significance, a character, evident in its history, the impression made on travelers, its climate, and in the features of its land. Most nations possessed a long, mysterious past from which its character had simply come into being. The United States of America, on the other hand, could see its origins clearly and explicitly. Moreover, its people were largely British with minorities of Germans, Dutch, French, and others in some of the provinces. Yet, in curious, unselfconscious ways, these transplanted Europeans, even in early colonial days, seemed somehow a different breed of men.

$25 NNPC Scandal: Money For Buhari's Reelection – PDP

Press Release

NNPC’s 25billion Dollars Scandal And The Hypocrisy Of Buhari’s Anti-Corruption War

*President Buhari 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) wishes to express our shock at the loud silence of President Muhammadu Buhari on the humongous corruption scandal and other illegalities currently being exposed at the nation’s cash cow, the NNPC in which two of his henchmen, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru are the dramatis personae.

1. As a political party, we expect that the President, who prides himself as an indefatigable corruption fighter, would for once try to live above board, by genuinely allowing one of his own, accused of corruption, get properly investigated and prosecuted as a show of his impartiality in the war against corruption.

2. He should do this to correct the open impression Nigerians have about his so called anti-corruption war; that it’s just a tool of persecution of perceived enemies.

 3. We view the allegations levelled against Baru by Kachikwu as too grave to be swept under the carpet and we insist that the NNPC GMD must be treated like an accused who should not have the opportunity to influence investigation into his alleged misdeeds.

African Oil Producers Cannot Think Beyond Crude Oil

By Farouk Martins Aresa

Why do Africans wait until it is too late for our rescue? Right now most African oil producing countries are still fighting about which regions produce more oil. Areas that are not producing oil are exploring other regions for oil. Many of us lost our thinking faculties in hedonism, greed and are spread all over the world beyond value to Africa. So, No Thinking Beyond Crude Oil!

Only in Nigeria do looters go to court to recover loots or oil blocks! Oil became a curse in Nigeria. Many now wished oil were never discovered around their areas because of the devastating effect it had, leaving their land an environmental swamp. Farmers cannot cultivate crops and fishermen have been idled. Parents watched children restlessly forming gangs of kidnappers, thugs used by politicians and militias as a way to make a living and use the poor’s plight to enrich themselves.

Yet, all the planning to divest away from oil have not materialized after many years. Right now, it is a race against clean energy. Many countries have promised to stop producing automobiles that are powered by oil in about ten years or less. While fear has griped right thinking Africans, we are still waiting for African innovation in automobiles powered by other forms of energies like electric, water, hydrogen or just air. Our scientists are too busy looking for the next meal.

What Do The Igbo Really Want?

By Ike Abonyi

“Those who lie to Mr. President that he is doing well in building a nation are unfair to him. Since he became our President in 2015, we have not seen much of that leverage of the personality of the President to mobilise and unite” –Oby Ezekwesili

That is the red hot question in the country now. Everyone in and out of government, are asking the question and many are struggling to provide the answer. What has become very clear however is that there is no unanimity to the answer even among the Igbo themselves. But what really do the Igbo want in Nigeria? Is it possible pigeon holing their desires into one straight answer? Why is Igbo always the issue among all ethnic groups in the country?

John Nnia Nwodo,
President General, Ohaneze Ndigbo

Why are they the issue now after they were the issue 50 years ago? Why is everyone now talking about the Igbo and the Nigeria question? Why has the Igbo question dominated the nation’s political space to the extent that the President had to make two national broadcasts under two months on it. To effectively provide appreciable response to these whys, I intent to use a story illustration to further give insight into the problem and possibly reinforce and bolster the historical journey of this crisis.

Once upon a time, in one notable Kingdom, a strong King had emerged bearing in his bag grudges against a particular family in his Kingdom for causing the Kingdom to go to war against itself for which the King was an active player as a youth in the Kingdom’s army. The new leader’s relationship with this family in question has not been the best politically as the family did not support his emergence.

Because of his record as a no gobbledygook leader there was great fear and apprehension when he emerged as the King but he allayed the fear in his installation speech assuring the people that his past was already a prologue as they were seeing a brand new convert from what they use to know.

Buhari, Kachikwu And NNPC

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

No matter how much we strain to sustain the illusion that the President Muhammadu Buhari government is on the right track, we are often jarred into reality by his regular missteps and seemingly intentional negation of the common good. Buhari’s platitudes about patriotism and the indivisibility of the country notwithstanding, we are confronted with a situation where it is clear that he ignores the exploration of the opportunities that have frequently come his way to blur the fissiparous tendencies in different parts of the country.

*President Buhari and Dr. Kachikwu

We have seen this in his refusal to heed the calls for the restructuring of the country as a means of quelling agitations for equity that clearly threaten the unity of the country. Rather, Buhari has a penchant for regarding those criticising him for taking wrong decisions as courting government’s attention in order to be settled – a euphemism for bribery. But by making this argument, the government is rather indicting itself. For the government is only saying that public service in the Buhari era is still fabulously lucrative; a means of self-enrichment as it has not been made less financially attractive. If it had done this and public office had been rightly turned into just a means of serving the people with its attendant sacrifice, it would not have considered government officials as privileged Nigerians who other citizens are striving to join or replace.

Nigeria: Building A Nation Without Nationalists?

By Kayode Komolafe

While Nigeria marked the 57th Anniversary of her independence on Sunday one streak of the national mood was not explicit in the messages sent on the occasion. Here is the point: it is hardly fashionable anymore to wave the flag of Nigerian nationalism or defend the unity of the country as a matter of historical responsibility. The latest fad is that of championing ethnic, regional or religious interests at the huge expense of national integration and cohesion.

*President Buhari

The tragedy of the moment is simply that it used not be like this; a generation of Nigerian youths once made Nigerian nationalism their career. For example, the young men in the Zikist Movement proudly and selflessly fought in the spirit of Nigerian nationalism; they did not champion northern or southern interests. No, a century of British colonialism did not come an end on October 1, 1960 without a fight.

To be sure, there were no guerrilla fighters who went to the bush; but there were radical youths agitating in the cities. As the late Marxist historian, Bala Usman, used to put in his inimitable polemical fashion, the struggle for independence was for the nationhood of Nigeria and not for ethnic or regional divisions. In fact, 70 years ago, some of the young men were so immersed in the liberation of Africa such that Nigerian independence was expected to be the launching pad for the total liberation of the black people. It was not for nothing that the appellation of the chief inspirer of the young nationalists, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was not “Zik of Onitsha” or even “Zik of Nigeria.”

Nigeria Is A Lost Nation!

By Tijani Sheriffdeen

Countries around the world wake up every new day to do something different, and of course productive. They attend to the challenges their yesterday brought them, and draw brilliant inferences from them to improve on their today. When one understands this, one begins to wonder less why their tomorrow is always a lesson for many others. Nations around the world who mean to develop and grow don’t look down on anything, especially elements capable of irreversible and inerasable growth and development. Developed nations understand the impact every single member of a community has on that particular community, as such; they respect their contributions, suggestions and complaints when they come, because they are only meant to bring about growth or change when need be. Who respect opinions in Africa? Not to talk of Nigeria!

Nigeria is a country with over 180 million people, one of the facts we enjoy telling people, yet, with the status of a developing nation since ever. Why should a country have the number without it amounting to anything? Maybe this question is not as important as when we want to make the number we have count as a nation. Looking beyond population, Nigeria is blessed with bounteous natural resources, but it has only help in tearing apart our nation, rather than helping it gain good grounds. Maybe the only time Nigerians appreciate their ethnic diversity is when they have to come closer with Ayodeji Balogun (Wizkid) hit song titled “come closer.” Our ethnic diversity is a reason for us to worry as a nation, as if other nations are monotonous in this regard.

'Lewdpapers' Or Newspapers?

By Banji Ojewale

It troubles one to observe that Nigeria’s clean weekday newspapers metamorphose into lewdpapers at weekends. Saturday and Sunday when you look forward to domestic company with child-friendly weeklies, you are trapped in an oppressive nightmare, wrestling with nudepapers. They flaunt naked images of female bodies not healthy for impressionable young minds. But these expressive photos also harm the larger society with destructive far-reaching consequences: they devalue the dignity of our womenfolk; they offer false and ungodly standards about intimacy between man and woman; they trigger an unending chain of loose moral conduct among the youths and the adults.

We appear to have become quite tolerant of this creepy soft and hard pornography on the sacred pages of our newspapers. It used to be a coy feature in the gossip outlets and fashion magazines in the local media. Later, our submission to the decadent values of the capitalism of the Western world took us to an adventurous and bolder threshold that led to the publication of wholesale underground cover to cover magazines trading in sex.  

Osinbajo Panel Report: One Month After

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

When President Muhammadu Buhari cancelled the August 23, 2017, Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the first on his return from a 103-day medical trip to the United Kingdom, in order to receive the report of the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo-led committee, which was asked to probe the allegations of fraud against the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayodele Oke, some Nigerians were scandalised.

*VP Osinbajo and President Buhari 

And the reason was simple. The Council remains the highest policy making organ of the federal government and after a three-month absence from Nigerian shores, many had thought that the president would have had the urge to be brought to speed on the happenings in the country by those he entrusted with the responsibility of making the authoritative allocation of our collective values while he was away convalescing.

So, to such people, the reason for the cancellation was preposterous. What does it take for the president to receive a report? Is it no longer a matter of scheduling? Besides, that week’s cancellation would be the fifth time the president would be in the country but unavailable for the meeting of the Council which consists of himself, his deputy, Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief of Staff to the President and the ministers.

Nigeria: Eighteen Years Of Threatened Democracy

By Alabi Williams

After 18 years of democracy, we do not need to search very far to know how well the journey has fared. The glaring evidence of how troubled it has been is the very fact that we are still discussing the idea of a coup, no matter how embryonic and remote it may have been. That some people still nurse nostalgia for the salvation procurable via coups suggests that this democracy is not offering what it was programmed to deliver. There is sufficient amount of desperation that triggers a search for alternatives. Unfortunately, the one ready alternative people tucked somewhere in their psyche, is the military, with capacity to obliterate the present nonsense and begin afresh. Very tempting.

But many have rushed out to condemn the thought of a coup because of very ugly past experiences. The military has so debased itself that its original messianic capacity has been squandered. At the point it was forced to exit from civil governance, the military had transformed into a rampaging occupation force, abusing rights of citizens and stealing their money.

President Buhari: Stop Blaming Jonathan And Learn To Accept Responsibility

By Reno Omokri 

It is rather unfortunate that instead of sticking to the facts in its tiff with Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Federal Government decided to drag former President Jonathan into a matter he knows nothing about by stating that "We inherited a country in tatters- its economy, its security and its social relations. President Buhari deserves credit for rebuilding what has been destroyed."

*Buhari

Thankfully, no less a personality than the President's own confidante, Professor Itse Sagay, has revealed that the APC is an 'evil' party, built on propaganda. This recent statement by Garba Shehu only serves to corroborate that statement.

For one, President Muhammadu Buhari DID NOT inherit a country in tatters. Rather, on May 29th, 2015, the day he was sworn in, President Buhari inherited a nation that was the largest economy in Africa and the 24th largest economy in the world.

How Not To Spoil The Female Child

By Udodilim B. Ijeoma

The role of woman in life can’t be over emphasized. Her womb houses her fellow creature for nine months and, under a laborious process, delivers him. She nurtures him until he matures to tread his own path. He is very close to the mother than to the father. In the light of this, he is easily influenced by the mother. Much of what he learns or does is credited to the mother.

(*pix: Ventures Africa)

A good mother transforms her home into paradise for her family and other people with whom she comes into contact. Under a good woman, the wider environment blossoms in all endeavours. A female child develops into a woman. The entire society will swim in an ocean of bliss if the female child is brought up responsibly. Otherwise, sorrow and catastrophe will be the order of the day

To bring up the female child in the most responsible manner several factors are inextricably involved. As the first social unit she comes into contact with, the family sets the ball rolling. Sexual promiscuity which exists in some families today should stop so that the child will not have the impression that it is the normal way of life. The couple should keep their marriage vows by being faithful to each other under any situation. Also bitter quarrels that can degenerate into flexing of muscles should be avoided.

Nigerian Army And Human Right Obligations

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

It is no longer news that the Nigerian Army has commenced an internal military operation in the largely peaceful South Eastern states of Abia, Enugu, Anambra, and Ebonyi. They have not been withdrawn.

It is also no longer news that the key civilian population that inhabit this geopolitical entity of the South East of Nigeria stridently opposed the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to so deploy such heavy weapons and operatives in the streets of the South East states.

This deployment has clearly constituted a cog in the wheel of economic progress of millions of people in the South East of Nigeria who due to panic and social upheavals created by the activities of the Army had to shut down their business premises to be safe. 

Revisiting The Call To Revive Igbo Language And Culture

By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu

There is a bill before the Lagos House of Assembly tagged “A Bill for a Law To Provide for the Preservation and Promotion of the Use of Yoruba Language and for Connected Purposes’’ that seeks to make Yoruba language a core subject in schools and also to enhance the preservation of the language. The bill further recommends the translation of all the laws in the state into Yoruba language in order to get to its target.

The above move by the House is not in isolation. Previously, the Assembly had made moves to make teaching and learning of Yoruba Language compulsory in both public and private schools in the state. The measure was aimed at preserving and promoting the indigenous language of the South West from going into extinction.

Nnamdi Kanu: Nigerian Army Is In Contempt Of Court

By Aloy Ejimakor

This piece is a summary of the legal/other consequences of the Army's mid-September armed invasions of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu's homestead at Umuahia, Abia State. The state of affairs before the invasion was that Nnamdi Kanu was free on bail on a subsisting court order; his bail was not on personal recognizance but on a bond posted by a third-party obligor/surety; and Kanu was neither judicially-ordered to be re-arrested for breaching his bail, or on account of any new charges filed.

*Kanu

It is beyond argument that the invasion achieved complete routing of Nnamdi Kanu's home and caused fatalities and injuries to a yet to be determined number of people, including Nnamdi Kanu, who were present and trapped at the premises throughout the attacks. The invading forces also 'captured' an undetermined number of occupants of the premises, none of whom is accounted for to date. Most significantly, Nnamdi Kanu has not been seen or heard from since then.

The inevitable question that has arisen from the foregoing set of facts is this: What are the consequences of such an obviously deadly military action against an accused person who was free on bail? The following analysis will provide some answers.

South East Governors, IPOB And Politics Of 2019

By Nnedi Ogaziechi

These are not the best of times for Ndigbo. The people under reference are the very ordinary people in villages, clans and streets of major capitals of the five states in the region. These are the people that are literarily hanging on the edge of the precipice. The IPOB discourse seems to have created a deeply blurry view of who those to be held accountable really are.

*South East Governors and Leaders meet with
IPOB Leader, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu

It is politically safe to blame the federal government for marginalization, to complain about lack of federal presence as regards the chronic absence of infrastructure in the region since the end of the civil war. But then, IPOB comes on the scene and the governors are somewhat glad for the seeming ‘alibi’ for lack of a strong regional economic plan for development of both human and natural resources that the region has in amazing abundance.

Since 1999, there has  been several economic summits, conferences and fairs by both independent and state economic think tanks. Most of these conferences had been targeted at educating governors from the region to form a stronger regional bond that would be beneficial to the region economically, socially and even politically.

The idea has always been that if the governors of the region can manage to look beyond politics and think of development of the region for the people, there must be a coordinated and deliberate effort by governors of the five states to harness to the maximum the resources available to the states which by the way had worked in the past with the past visionary leaders of the region.

Why I Joined IPOB: The Elite Vis-à-Vis The “Crazy Youths”

By Nathaniel I. Ndiokwere

 Preamble

I was the senior prefect of Bishop Shanahan College (BSC) Orlu that final year and there was an important Mc’Nulty Soccer Final March between BSC and College of Immaculate Conception (C.I.C) Enugu, the two giant and prestigious colleges those days, East of the Niger. In the field of soccer competition BSC and CIC used to be great ‘enemies’. The Rev. Brother Lewis, the principal as well as the BSC soccer master or coach, just to demonstrate ‘holy disapproval’ of what was called those days ‘rough play’ and misconduct in the soccer field, did something students thought was an abomination. And on account of the principal’s action, BSC witnessed the biggest students’ riot in history.

*Msgr. Nathaniel Ndiokwere

Though not the referee, Rev. Brother Lewis decided to call for the expulsion of the BSC most important brilliant defense player, aka ‘Tiger’ from the field . BSC students and soccer fans could not understand the madness of the white Scottish principal! BSC continued the march with ‘minus one player!

Let me cut the long story short!

BSC was defeated by the visiting team and for the first time in the history of the College the students rioted, singing war songs and threatened to set buildings on fire. They went out of control and sang songs : “Lewis must go. Lewis in a criminal. Death to the Scottish pig!”

Restructuring Nigeria: Decentralisation For National Cohesion

By John Nnia Nwodo

Paper presented by President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo at Chatham House, London, on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 

Let me begin by extending my deep sense of gratitude to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, for inviting me to participate in this current series of discussions on Next Generation Nigeria: Accountability and National Cohesion. The involvement of this reputable British Institute in discussing and proffering suggestions for extant Nigeria’s problems is not only commendable, but I believe most relieving for the British establishment, who must understandably feel a deep sense of vicarious responsibility for putting together a country confronted with such grim future.

 

*John Nnia Nwodo

Nigeria became a united British colony by the amalgamation of its Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914. In 1960 it attained independence, fashioned a federal Constitution which had three and subsequently four regions as its federating units. The pre-1960 and the 1963 constitutions of Nigeria were fashioned by the people of Nigeria as represented by the leaders of their ethnic nationalities. The coup of January 1966 and the counter-coup of the same year occasioned by ethnic tensions and disagreements within the military-led our country to disastrous consequences.

Our first Prime Minister, Rt. Hon Tafawa Balewa and the then premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, as well as the then Minister for Finance Festus Okotie-Eboh, were murdered. A massive pogrom was unleashed on South Eastern Nigerians living in the Northern Nigeria. A sitting Head of State from the South East, Major General Aguiyi Ironsi and a governor from the South West Col. Adekunle Fajuyi were murdered. The military suspended our 1963 constitution and adopted a unitary system of government to fit their command and control structures. Opposition to this move by Southern Nigeria led to constitutional talks in Aburi, Ghana. The agreements reached at Aburi were jettisoned. War broke out and claimed more than three and a half million lives mostly from the South East.

Lai Mohammed Says US Non-Recognition Of IPOB As A Terrorist Group Is Unfortunate

Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, said in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) interview in London on Wednesday that the refusal of the United States’ government to classify the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist organization was “very unfortunate”.

*Lai Mohammed 

“That’s very unfortunate because if countries decide to pick and choose which organizations are terrorists and which are not, bearing in mind that terrorism has no boundaries, I think what we should do is, every country should work together to ensure that terrorism does not strive,” Mr. Mohammed told the BBC.