Rochas Okorocha’s Ministry For Happiness And The Animal Farm Called Nigeria

By Reno Omokri
Rochas Okorocha, a man who has spent more money on statues than he has on living human beings has now appointed his biological sister as “Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfillment”. What sin did Imo people commit to deserve this embarrassment as their Governor? And this Rochas, a man that so wants his people to be happy that he creates a ministry for happiness for them nevertheless delays their salaries and pensions. And when his unpaid workers and pensioners take to keke riding to augment their income, he bans that too.

*Governor's Rochas Okorocha

Apparently, Rochas has provided enough statues to make them happy! And the so called commissioner for happiness is anything but a happy camper. One could even ask whether she is commissioner for happiness or commissioner for ANGER? Her public comments since her appointment projects RAGE rather than joy. Perhaps she should have been made Imo state’s commissioner for DEFENSE?

The Deepening Crisis In Libya

By Lansana Gberie

As Libya crisis escalates, the UN and the AU search for solutions.

Perhaps no major political or humanitarian disaster is as overlooked as the ongoing crisis in Libya. For example, although the New York Times in September 2017 published a total of seven articles mentioning Libya, only one of them touched on the violence ripping it apart. Even the Times’ gesture merely highlighted the latest permutation of the US government’s foreign military decisions.

The article, by Eric Schmitt, cited the Pentagon’s Africa Command and stated that the United States military had carried out a half-dozen “precision strikes” on an Islamic State training camp in Libya, killing 17 militants in the first American air strike in “the strife-torn North African nation” since Donald Trump was inaugurated as president.

Dr. Alex Ekwueme: A Tribute

By Uzodinma Nwala

The day was Thursday, August 13, 1998. The setting was a meeting of the nascent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which just metamorphosed from the activist group, G-34, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. The agenda was to decide on the policy of the emergent party, especially power-sharing and rotation of the presidency.

*Dr. Alex Ekwueme

The buildup started much earlier with Dr. Nelson Mandela of South Africa’s second visit to Nigeria to meet with Gen. Abacha, after his 1995 release from prison. He was here to advise Gen Abacha to loosen his tight grip on Nigeria and allow the air of democratic freedom to flow in. His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, had earlier undertaken a similar mission, albeit with no success. Mandela had specifically called for the release of the likes of Chief M. K. O. Abiola, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Shehu Yar’Adua, Ken Saro Wiwa and his Ogoni colleagues. But, Abacha was adamant on Nelson Mandela’s entreaties. Even though his trip to Nigeria produced negative results, Dr. Nelson Mandela, the world-acclaimed doyen of revolutionary struggles in Africa, was prepared. He did not relent, he had a Plan B. Mandela turned his attention to Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups, asking them to come to the rescue. He invited them to South Africa, hoping to inspire them to take to militant opposition. 

Buhari’s Mission To Kano: Loud Dress Rehearsal For 2019

By Martins Oloja

There is no need discerning the president’s body language about 2019 presidential election declaration anymore. Did you read his leaps, or hip lips? The taciturn Muhammadu the soldier and Buhari the politician will surely run – as long as his health remains stable as it is at the moment. The Mission to Kano, his stronghold, last week was a loud dress rehearsal. And the people of the ancient town have signalled to the only politician they can trust to take the plunge again. He has been told (in Kano) that even ten Wazirin Adamawas can’t remove any steam from the political support that the epitome of loyalty called Governor Umar Abdullahi Ganduje can guarantee for him in 2019.

*President Buhari in Kano. Right is Gov Ganduje

Ganduje is indeed a politician in whom there is no guile. Buhari can always trust him to deliver more than two million votes in 2019. What is more, we may have been carried away by some infantile sentimentality in the southern zone that some extreme hunger and pervasive poverty in the land now can erode the Buhari’s once solid base in the core north. Some boisterous social media analysts may have told us that no one wants to hear about Sai Baba slogan again because of anger nurtured by hunger in the north. This may not be true, after all.

Between Gov Ayo Fayose And Gov Nasir El-Rufai

By Abraham Ogbodo

I have an award for good governance to give and the choice of a winner is between Governors Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State. One is APC and the other PDP. On this alone, I am seeking to be properly guided in this difficult choice to escape the charge of partisanship. It will also be unwieldy if too many factors are loaded into the assessment. I have therefore limited the scope to recent happenings, like the way the two governors have engaged workers in their respective states. 

*Govs Fayose and El-Rufai

First, Kaduna State. Governor el-Rufai woke up one morning and sacked 22,000 primary school teachers in the state. Less than a week after and when the furor of the first massive sack had not settled, there was a follow up with the sack of more than 4,000 workers across the 23 local government councils in the state.

Altogether, some 26,000 persons were made jobless (and perhaps, homeless too) in less than two weeks. According to the governor, the sacked workers had been profiled and found to be grossly unfit for public sector operations in Kaduna State. Naturally, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) failed to appreciate the argument of Governor el-Rufai that the 22,000 teachers failed basic test for competence and had become more of an affliction on than a solution to the pupils. The council workers were mainly sacked for redundancy.

If Nigeria Makes The mistake Of Bringing Back Buhari In 2019!

By Femi Fani-Kayode
In both 2008 and 2012 I warned the world and particularly Africa and the Middle East about the evil of Barack Obama. No-one listened. In 2011 I warned the world about the consequences of removing Muammar Gadaffi for Africa and the Middle East. No-one listened. In 2015 I warned the world and Nigeria about supporting and electing Muhammadu Buhari as President of our country. No-one listened. 

*Femi Fani-Kayode

In 2016 I warned Nigeria and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) about making Ali Modu Sheriff National Chairman of our party. No-one listened. In 2015 I told the world that Donald Trump would win the nomination as flag-bearer for the Republican party and that he would go on to win the American presidential election in 2016. No-one listened.

In 2016 I warned Nigeria and the world that Buhari’s health would present a major challenge for the rest of his tenure. No-one listened. In each of these cases I have been proved right. Now I shall give two more warnings and whether anyone listens to me or not takes absolutely nothing away from me. Mine is to pass on the message and it is left for those that hear it to accept it or not. 

The first is that if Nigeria makes the mistake of bringing back Muhammadu Buhari as president in 2019 that will be the end of our country as a viable, cohesive, tolerant, medium-power democratic nation-state where the rule of law, the principle of equality and the most fundamental civil liberties, human rights and basic freedoms for the individual are guaranteed and respected. Worse still she may NEVER recover. 

President Trump’s Recognition of Jerusalem In 2017 And Judah Ben Samuel’s Prophecy

By Ogan Steve

The proclamation of Jerusalem as the Capital City of Israel by President Donald Trump yesterday, the 6th of December, 2017, is a Jubilee gift to the city, to Israel and all lovers of the Jewish nation. It came on the 17th day in the Bible 9th month of Kislev, a time of birth and rebirth.

*Israeli-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and US President Donald Trump 

It signals the final stages of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ based on an ancient prophecy by a Jewish-German Rabbi. Judah Ben Samuel was a German Rabbi who as far back as the 12th century accurately predicted the tides and times of Israel and Jerusalem. He was prolific as an author and pious as a consecrated follower of God. Using “Biblical calculations” and astronomical observations, Judah Ben Samuel prophesied that the Ottoman Turks will conquer Jerusalem and rule the city for eight jubilees. According to the Rabbi, “Afterwards, Jerusalem will become no man’s land for one jubilee, and then in the ninth jubilee, it will once again come back into the possession of the Jewish nation – which would signify the beginning of the Messianic end-time.”

How Rich Are The Super-Rich In Nigeria?

By Dan Amor

I think it was John Paul Getty, the American-born British billionaire, philanthropist and heir to oil industry fortune, who quipped, when asked how rich he was: “No one is really rich if he can count his money.” In Getty's days, anyone with one million British pounds (or even one million dollars) was rated as “rich” and anyone with more than five million pounds was “very rich”.

*Adenuga and Dangote

Above that and you were in the “super rich” category, and when you got above the fifty million pounds level, you rated as a “can't count”. Nelson Bunker Hunt, who with his brother inherited a fortune even greater than Getty's, was a “can't count” man before he tried to corner the silver market. Asked by a Senate Committee how much he was worth, he snapped, “Hell, if I knew that, I wouldn't be worth very much”.

We Totally Condemn The Massacre Of Nigerians In Numan By Fulani Militias – The Middle Belt Union

Press Release

The Middle Belt Union totally condemn the massacre of Nigerians in Numan by Fulani militias. We hold the government of President Muhammadu Buhari responsible for this crime against humanity. There were plans to massacre by Fulani herdsmen in reprisal attack over attack on Fulani village by an alleged Bachama militia, but the government of Adamawa State and the federal government did nothing about it. We have reasons to believe that the government allowed this to happen deliberately as everyone saw it coming.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration have not only protected both local and foreign Fulani herdsmen/militias and defended them, but kept making excuses on their behalf, trying to paint these incessant terrorist attacks as communal clashes instead of terrorist attacks, when local law abiding peaceful farmers are being painted as the aggressor thereby encouraging the Fulani militias who know they can get away with any crime anywhere in Nigeria.

We thank the Sultan of Sokoto for his statement on the barbaric incident in Adamawa. The Sultan sternly told the government to protect the people as it is their duties and responsibilities to do so and to arrest perpetrators.

The Buhari administration has completely failed in handling the Fulani herdsmen problem and kept aggravating it by their inactions and utterances. 

We, the people of the Middle Belt, want to show our disaffection by saying that if the government refuses to take immediate action and arrest the terrorists, we would mobilize our people against the ruling government in the coming election because it will be that the government does care about us.

By George Onmonya Daniel,
PRO,

The Middle Belt Union

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RELATED POST

Stop These Savage Killings In Adamawa!

Stop These Savage Killings In Adamawa!

By Mike Ozekhome

The state of Adamawa lies in the northeastern part of Nigeria, with its capital at Yola. It was carved out in 1991 from part of Gongola State, with four administrative divisions, namely Adamawa, Ganye, Mubi and Numan. It is one of the largest states in Nigeria and occupies about 36,917 square kilometres.

The great people of Adamawa State are mostly renowned as farmers. This is reflected in their two notable vegetational zones, sub-Sudan and northern Guinea Savannah zone. Their cash crops are cotton and groundnuts, while food crops include maize, yam, cassava, guinea corn, millet and rice. The village communities living on the banks of the rivers engage in fishing, while the Fulani are cattle rearers. Little wonder that all these have been encapsulated in the slogan of the state, ‘The Land of Beauty.” A visit to the state will not be complete without going to Mubi. Mubi’s clement weather is scintilatingly accommodating for human habitation and Nuhu Auwalu Wakili’s Palace will keep your memory of the state at all times.

Nigeria: The Last Chance For PDP

By Fred Onyeoziri

A Political party is an association of interest organizations competing for the power to govern in a national society. And the major strategy for that competition is elections. It is winning the election that gives the party the power to govern.

In the context of a free and fair election, commitment to the interest of the party is the condition for winning success for a party.

PDP’s failure to enforce respect for the party’s interest was the major reason it lost power in 2015. It allowed all manner of private interests – impurity, imposition, factionalism, god-fatherism, and money politics – to distract it from enforcing respect for the true interest of the party. 

Anambra: Why Gov Obiano Was Re-elected

By Ray Ekpu

In any election incumbency packs a punch. The incumbent always has something to show, completed projects to flaunt, ongoing projects that are nearing completion or even ones that are on the drawing board. He has the paraphernalia of the civil service, the MDAs, the contractors, women and youth groups hired and unhired, all of them are often in the corner of the incumbent. The incumbent is also seen as a bird in hand, the reality not the dream, the person on the job not the one who wants to be on the job. In most elections, all of these factors often work in favour of the incumbent.

*Gov Obiano

It worked for Chief Willie Obiano, the newly re-elected Governor of Anambra State. As all incumbents normally do, Obiano published a long list of his completed projects and asked that the public should crosscheck and establish for themselves the veracity of his claims.

Anambra, Gov Obiano And The APGA Revolution

By Ifeanyi Afuba

A new Anambra State is in the making. It is an evolving society in which the government-citizen pact is growing roots. The cultivation of this social progressive force reached a new height with the resolution of the November 18, 2017 governorship poll. Some say the journey started with the revolt of the Chris Ngige regime shortly after it came to office in 2003. I disagree.

*Gov Willie Obiano

Yes, there was an attempt at a new consciousness but it was circumstantial, narrow in objective and largely driven by sentiment. The radical shift came with the reclamation of Peter Obi’s stolen 2003 governorship mandate. That democratic empowerment ushered in the season of citizen-centred governance. But, after eight years of this wind of change, the road of renewal ran into fresh challenges from both predictable and unexpected quarters. Governor Willie Obiano’s programme of consolidation and expansion soon met with opposition from not just the old order, but foundation members of the movement. Consequently, the November 18, 2017 poll effectively became the plebiscite on which road to travel. 

Libya: The Slave-Trading Capital Of Africa

By Israel Ebije

Activities of slave merchants trading off migrants stuck in Libya have earned the country a reputation once an exclusive preserve of countries like Italy, France, Portugal, Britain and Spain, which shipped Blacks from Africa in 1492 to work in farms as slaves. While it was marginally understandable for the Whites to subject Blacks to slavery based on the repugnant concept of racial superiority, the Libya notoriety is abysmal, condemnable and bereft of explanations. Their victims are sold for as low as $400 to a lifetime of hard labor. 

Libya has an estimated one million migrants locked up in various dungeons across the country. They are funded and equipped by European Union and Italy, to stop the migrants from crossing the precarious Atlantic ocean where an estimated 5,000 refugees have died in recent years. The administrative willpower of the Libyan government is put to question amidst accusations of complicity in the heinous slave-trading. The quest to get free labor to make extra money from migrants has made the slave market lucrative, with cartels expanding in the bestial trade on daily bases.

Let’s Stop Talking About Corruption, Please!

By Anthony Akinwale

Let’s stop talking about corruption. Let’s do something about it, something intelligent, something within the bounds of the law and fairness, something devoid of selective sanctions, propaganda and media trial. The recurrence of corruption as a theme in coup day speeches and in maiden speeches of successive military strongmen who, by force and not by a constitutionally granted mandate, took over reins of government in Nigeria, challenge us to act and not just to talk.

On January 15, 1966, that bloody day of the first military coup in Nigeria, Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu declared in his coup day speech: “The aim of the Revolutionary Council is to establish a strong united and prosperous nation, free from corruption and internal strife….Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low  places that seek bribes and demand 10 per cent; those that seek to keep the  country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or  VIPs at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds.”

Alex Ekwueme: Philosopher And King; Visionary And Practician

By Chido Nwangwu

“To honour him whom we have made is far from honouring him that hath made us.” It was Michel de Montaigne, the 16th French philosopher and writer who wrote those magnificent words. I think and know Dr. Alex Ekwueme as one of those who hath made us.

*Ekwueme

Those were my first words of acceptance of the request that I served as keynote speaker at the August 24, 2012 international event celebrating 80 years of a great, impactful and purposeful life.

Ide Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, born October 21, 1932, was both philosopher and king; visionary and practician; philanthropist and resourceful role model for millions.

It was a great privilege for me to appreciate Dr. Ekwueme — respectfully, to his face in his esteemed presence. It was a continuation of my trans-generational commitment to appreciating and honouring outstanding leaders and persons who continue to make a difference and inspire our commitments. 

The Resurgence Of Boko Haram Attacks: Implications For the Nigerian State

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
One of the major backdrops upon which the Buhari administration came to power was the promise to defeat or rather crush Boko Haram within the first three months of APC’s government. There is no doubt that the Boko Haram insurgency group has been at war with the Nigerian State for about seven years now. The major reason for the insurgency is to create a pure Islamic Caliphate in the core north of Nigeria. For the insurgents, the secularity of the Nigerian State has become a huge hindrance to the puritanical pontifications of Islam and only the creation of a pure Islamic state would pacify them. For them, western education is evil and a major source of pollution to Islam. 

It was for this reason that the group initiated its earth-scorch policy of annihilating anything in its path to achieving this goal. The result has been the massive destruction of lives and property and crippling of the economy of the core north. The government of former President Jonathan was perceived to have been timid and clueless in containing the scourge of the insurgent group and in the run-in to the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, the issue of Boko Haram became an alluring political campaign matter. 

Mugabe: Sleeping With The Dragon-Queen

By Dare Babarinsa

Finally, Robert Mugabe is separated from power. One impertinent journalist was said to have once asked the perennial president: “Mr Mugabe, when are you going to say bye-bye to the people of Zimbabwe?”

He replied: “Where are they going?”

*Robert and Grace Mugabe 

 Finally the people of Zimbabwe, who once regarded him as the ultimate hero, left him. It took a non-coup by the Zimbabwean military and the nudging of South Africa to convince Mugabe that the game has ended and it was time for the big masquerade to return to Igbale, the portal of the dead. What years of diplomatic isolation and protests by fractious opposition could not achieve, Grace, Mugabe’s graceless dragon-queen achieved. She wanted a dynasty and sought the hero to make her the queen after his long reign must have ended. She worked hard to change the tide of history using the old weapon of bottom-power to her advantage. She failed.

Lessons From Robert Mugabe’s Fall

By Georgina Asare Fiagbenu

We have just witnessed the end of the Presidency of President Mugabe. It is very interesting that today we refer to him as the former leader of Zimbabwe when a few weeks ago he was still President of that country and legally had more months to rule.

*Robert and Grace Mugabe 

During the last few weeks of Mugabe's rule, there was so much coverage about him than any other African leader. Getting attention on channels like BBC, CNN and Reuters is not for nothing. News on Robert Mugabe sells like tea to the British and beer to the Germans.

I am not sure that they are interested in him because he is the oldest President in Africa. It appears the West was looking forward to the day Mugabe will leave for them to ensure the reversal of some of his unfavorable decisions.

Tribute To Ekwueme: A Dream Embraces The Ages

By Pat Utomi

Hypocrisy may be the hallmark of political culture in Nigeria. It was evident when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was called to Higher Realm, as we lamented the “greatest President we never had.” With Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, gentleman, intellectual and great champion of fairness and balance in public life, it is even more sad watching the rush to praise on his demise. The rush of words of praise, plenty by those who toiled to prevent Nigeria from profiting from his leadership skills and installation of decency in public life, makes those not challenged with memory loss wonder about the essence of character in Nigeria. Do we truly look at ourselves?

*Dr. Alex Ekwueme 

I had the privilege of knowing the great man fairly well in good and in challenged times and learnt to gauge his stoic but sanguine personal disposition. His place as boss, mentor in my own run tells the story of who he was. As many very powerful engaged in frenzied lobbying for position when he was Vice President he asked I be invited to his home. A group of young Ph.Ds were being evidently pooled for his office but he wanted my position to come from the President. He had made the recommendation to President Shehu Shagari without my having any clue such a thing was in the offing.