Nigeria: At A Pro-Propaganda Rally

By Dan Amor

I'm not your run-of-the-mills television freak or enthusiast. Due largely to the nature of my job, which is basically guided by the need to beat deadlines, I hardly have time for over-indulgence in leisure and other niceties. Whereas my wife and kids occasionally feast on the television screen for either of their usual sops- Zee World, or Nickelodeon, yours sincerely would always lock himself up in the study writing an editorial or a column. 

Yet, since January this year (2018), I have occasionally squeezed a few minutes of my limited time in my little room to watch CHANNELS Television's flagship programme, SUNRISE DAILY. On occasions, viewers are treated to a crossfire which usually features a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and another of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who are made to argue on a topical issue of public concern in a moderated atmosphere.

Nigeria: Defectors As Jesters

By Dan Amor

It is a sickening reality in Nigeria that defection, the act of leaving one political party for another, also known as carpet –crossing or what the eminent poet and humorist, Uzor Maxim-Uzoatu called “Jumpology” (the political act of jumping from party to party), has been elevated to the height of a national ideology. 

This glamourisation of political prostitution by Nigerian politicians signals the death of commonsense. Before the December 2013 defection of 37 members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in an open show and fanfare, four PDP governors had led the way in a much more rehearsed, media pampered braggadocio in November 2013.

Pini Jason – A Date Still Fresh

By Kanayo Esinulo

It happened in the morning of May 4, 2013. Pini Jason was already beginning to recover from surgery which his doctor considered necessary and urgent. He had no choice but to submit himself in obedience. But days before he left Abuja for Lagos, we kept talking not just about the impending medical tour to Lagos, we also discussed the rampage of Boko Haram in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, a city he said he visited a number of times and developed so much love “for its streets lined with trees and flowers, but which these rascals are now destroying.” He told me how beautiful and peaceful Maiduguri was each time he visited the city either on official duty or on holiday. 

*Pini Jason 

We talked of other things like Jonathan’s response to the terror group, and then we would return to his health. “I am not feeling too well,” he said repeatedly, but kept assuring me that his doctor was certain that the surgery would come off pretty well. 

How Nigerians Consume Poison Daily

PLEASE NOTE THIS SUBMISSION BY PROFESSOR AFOLABI OLUWADUN, PROFESSOR OF MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY, OLABISI ONABANJO UNIVERSITY, AGO-IWOYE, OGUN STATE ON THE DANGER WE FACE WITH SOME COMMON FOODS AVAILABLE IN NIGERIA!

Dr. F. Abayomi Oguntoye

I promised to write about what is killing people in Nigeria today. Nigerians should be focused on solving this problem which are causing most of the cancer going around now:

1.) Ripening agent for banana and plantain. Because people are in a hurry to harvest their bananas and plantain, they spray it with Calcium Carbide. This is a ripening agent which makes the plantain to ripen very quietly. It is extremely hazardous to the human body as it contains traces of arsenic and phosphorus.

Sexual Immorality And Social Decay

By Promise Adiele

Isidore Okpewho’s novel, The Last Duty illustrates the grim demand for sex in exchange for money and sundry items of survival in a war situation. In the novel, Toje, the conceited, narcissist Urukpe chief, in a dire demonstration of callousness, incriminates his business rival Oshevire for allegedly conspiring with rebel soldiers. While Oshevire is in detention leaving his wife Aku and only son Oghenovo, Toje unconscionably takes advantage of his absence, offers Aku food and money in exchange for sexual gratification to revive his infirm manhood.

Faced with hunger and starvation, Aku gives in to Toje’s morbid sexual request much against her own convictions. In the same vein, the sub-plot of Festus Iyayi’s novel, Violence recounts how Adisa, Idemudia’s wife succumbs to Obofun’s sexual demands in order to raise money to pay her husband’s hospital bills. Her immoral act becomes inconsequential as the hospital bill is paid by her husband’s friends Osaro and Omoifo by the time she arrives at the hospital with the filthy lucre. 

Abraham Adesanya And His Unfinished Business

By Dare Babarinsa

Papa Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya cherished his role as the leader of the Yoruba. He knew it meant danger and sacrifice but he embraced his assignment with enthusiasm. Now that he has been with the ancestors for a decade, it is fitting to ponder on his ministry and the main assignments that dominated the final years of his crowded and productive life. Papa Adesanya was trained as a lawyer and pursued a career in politics, but his real vocation was leadership.

*Abraham Adesanya 

Adesanya was one of main leaders of Afenifere, the mainstream political and cultural movement of the Yoruba people which came into existence after the demise of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the first Premier of the defunct Western Region and leader of the Yoruba nation. In the roaring 1950s, Awolowo became the first leader to govern almost the entire Yoruba country since the time the princes departed from Ile-Ife at the dawn of time. He made efforts to bring the Yoruba of the North, then in what was called the Ilorin and Kabba Provinces, (now Kogi and Kwara states) into the West. His effort was frustrated by the combined forces of the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroun, NCNC. At the London Constitutional Conference of 1958, both the NPC and the NCNC preferred that the issues of new regions and the adjustment of regional boundaries be deferred till independence. 

Nigeria: Herdsmen’s Endless Blood Lust (2)

By Lewis Obi 
[Read Part One Here]
In October 2000 when General Muhmmadu Buhari literally paralysed the Oyo State Government Secretariat numerous “lorry loads” of angry Fulani cattle rearers, his grievance, as he told the Oyo State Governor Lam Adesina, was that “Fulani cattle herdsmen and merchants are today being harassed, attacked, and killed like in Saki. In the month of May 2000, 68 bodies of Fulani cattle ‘rearers’ were recovered and buried…some arrests were made…in the massacre and they were immediately released without court trial. This was said to have been ordered by Oyo State authorities. The release of the suspects gave the clear impression that the authorities are backing and protecting them to continue the unjust and illegal killings of Fulani cattle herdsmen…”

*Buhari 

Governor Adesina tried to reassure the general and called the heads of the Federal agencies in the state to give their assessment. The Police Commissioner spoke first to the effect that Gen. Buhari must have been misinformed, his figures exaggerated. The Director of the Department of State Security (DSS) spoke at length and stated that “…you (Gen Buhari) said 68 people were killed and people driven away. I am not saying there were no killings, but they cannot be more than five.”

New Worship Centre: Lessons From Deeper Life Bible Church

By Banji Ojewale

“I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich higher learning and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America did I understand the secret of her genius and power”

– Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian and political writer

*Pastor W.F Kumuyi

One of the numerous instructions we took away from the dedication of the new ultramodern Deeper Life Bible Church at Gbagada, Lagos, last week was that society or its institutions do not need supermen, showy billionaires and extra large resources to excel or secure an entry in the record books. All what is required are ordinary men and women driven by uncommon passion to aim for extraordinary goals. No organization rises or transcends on the sheer labour or wealth of its so-called super-rich.

Nigeria: Herdsmen’s Endless Blood Lust (1)

By Lewis Obi 

“The moment the prerogative of violence slips away the hands of government into an unknown body, there is no government into an unkown body, there is no government … we have been challenged with Boko Haram for so long and now it is (the) so called herdsmen…”  

     – Dr.Ahmadu Ali, former Education Minister, ex-PDP Chairman.

The unnerving part of the current herdsmen blood lust is its regularity.  It is impossible to open the pages of a newspaper without a hair-raising report in one part of the country or another.  When it is not about a man butchered to death in his farm in Delta State, it is the night invasion by the herdsmen of a rural community in Benue State, suddenly awakened from sleep by gunfire, then the pandemonium, the flight of the villagers, and the burning of their homes.  Overnight they have become homeless, in need of security, a shelter and sustenance.  These are exactly what rural folks dread.  They don’t want to depend on charity; they work all the time and are tied to the land. 

Historical Key (F) To Understanding Buhari And His Caliphate Jihadist Fulani Republic Of Nigeria

By Chinweizu

sundoor999@gmail.com

290917

*Chinweizu 

Introduction

In my view, much of the criticism of Buhari by  Nigerian secularists and believers in democracy, misses the key point. They see him as a president who is failing in his job as a democratic leader. In so doing, they proceed, in their complaints and criticism and hopes, from a radical misperception of Buhari, and in false expectation that their criticism will change him. Buhari is not a democrat come to fix Nigeria, play by the rules of the constitution, or entrench democracy. And no amount of criticism for failing at democracy will change him. So these critics are wasting their time.

If you still don’t understand that President Buhari is a Jihadist war leader waging war on Nigeria and its democracy, or if you don’t understand the Jihadist mentality and mission, then everything else you know about Buhari will only compound your confusion. So let’s try to see Buhari’s actions and inactions through the Jihadist lens.

Only when we understand that Buhari is A FULANI JIHADIST PRESIDENT OF THE FULANI REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, and that he is on Jihad against Nigeria and its democracy, will we understand that no amount of criticism from the democracy standpoint will have any effect on him. Can you imagine an armed robber stopping his robbery in mid-operation because of moral objections made by those he is robbing? Or a cat stopping its catching and eating of mice because of howls of objection from the mice?

Questions Trump Should Ask Buhari To Expose His Corruption, Mismanagement Of Nigeria

By Reno Omokri

Contrary to the lie that the constantly fallacious Buhari administration published in their press release, President Muhammadu Buhari will not be the first African leader US President Donald Trump will meet at the White House.

*Presidents  Trump and Buhari 

President Trump met Egypt’s Al-Sisi at the White House on April 2, 2017. President Trump has also met Rwandan President, Paul Kagame on January 26, 2018, though not at the White House, but at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he said to Mr. Kagame it is ‘an honour to have you as a friend’!

But the question remains, how desperate does the Buhari Presidency have to be to boast that meeting Trump at the White House is a great achievement, and then go on to lie that it is the first meeting the US President is having with an African leader at the White House. Pundits of international affairs know that President Buhari is actually going to the United States to be reprimanded.

Nigeria: A Lazy President Calling Youths Lazy

By Frank Ijege
I meet and interact with youths on a daily basis and I can tell you that they are not lazy; majority of them have gone to school and there are no jobs to engage them. Many others want to go to school, but cannot because public education has been placed at a level that no child of the poor should aspire for.

*President Buhari 

Joseph is a graduate of Sociology, with a second class upper division. This is what we here, call good result. After national service, ‎no job was forth coming. He opted to go back to school for his master degree, which he obtained with a distinction. This was two years ago. No job. No nothing!

The Allure Of The Humanities

A Lecture by

Chuks Iloegbunam

on the occasion of the 2018 Grand Alumni/Friends Homecoming

of the Faculty of Arts

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.

April 26, 2018.

*Iloegbunam

“Our history strongly suggests that we need to moderate strength and power with discretion and diplomacy, not only among our leaders but also among the generality of our people. It is not weakness to recognize the value of discretion. It is foolhardiness to choose death (or something close to it) in place of life.” 
– Michael J. C. Echeruo.

I decided to open today’s discussion with the above quote from Professor Echeruo’s A Matter Of Identity, his November 1979 foundational lecture of the Ahajioku Lecture Series. The reason is that it encapsulates the theme of my presentation, which is that E’kesia n’obi, ekee na mkpuke.

But, first of all, permit me to deliver to protocol its due. I count myself privileged to stand before you today, even if to do a job outside my professional territory of operation. I am a journalist who, by virtue of political appointments, has operated within governmental circles in the last 15 years. I have never been a teacher, not even a nursery school teacher. Yet, I have been pressed into service here, to deliver a disquisition to those whose primary and professional responsibility is the impartation of knowledge. In my view, it is like taking coal to Ngwo, Nigeria’s Newcastle! It has its risks and thrills. Theoretically, I could be ordered at any point of this assignment to return to wherever I came from, my thoughts and pronouncements considered no better than garble to the educated ear. On the other hand, I could be tolerated, in which case my representation could form a pedestal for firing crusts in order to extricate diamond. That would be thrilling.

When Will This Barbarism End? – Nigerian Catholic Bishops

A Statement Issued by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of  Nigeria (CBCN) in the Wake of the Murder of Two Priests and their Parishioners During the Celebration of the Holy Mass, in Mbalom, Benue State

President Buhari meeting with Nigerian
Catholic Bishops 

We have received with deep shock, sorrow and utter horror, the gruesome, grisly and dastardly murder of two Catholic priests along with fifteen of their parishioners in the early hours of the morning of Tuesday 24 April 2018. These innocent souls met their untimely death in the hands of a wicked and inhuman gang of the rampaging and murderous terrorists, who have turned the vast lands of the Middle belt and other parts of Nigeria into a massive graveyard. Their unrestrained mayhem has become a metaphor for the untimely death that is now the fate of many of our fellow citizens today.

Excess Crude Account Is Not President Buhari’s ATM

By Ochereoma Nnanna

The Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, under the chairmanship of Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State is in the pocket of President Muhammadu Buhari. To be fair to the President, he never made any effort to pocket it.

*President Buhari 

 Buhari has been very avuncular to the governors irrespective of their political parties, offering the states financial bailouts and refunding them their Paris Club debt overpayments. He has done well on that count. Apart from Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State who has chosen to be outspoken as an opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governor, most of the others were very sympathetic towards the President in the darkest hour of his illness some months ago. Even opposition governors volunteered to go and see how he was recuperating in London. The governors feel so cosy with the President (except on the issue of herdsmen’s attacks) that hardly does a day pass without one or two of them tramping the Aso Villa corridors. Governor Yari, for one, virtually lives in Abuja, perhaps to be closer to the President. Senator Kabiru Marafa has accused him of preferring his post as the Chairman of the NGF to his elected mandate as Governor of Zamfara State. So, if Yari and the NGF are in Buhari’s pocket, it is because they crawled in there by themselves not because of presidential manipulation. 

Nigeria: Blood On President Buhari’s Hands

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Buoyed by the high approval rating he received from the misguided Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, President Muhammadu Buhari has readied himself for more foreign validation ahead of the 2019 election.

But the next rendezvous for validation does not remain in the United Kingdom. 

*President Buhari 

It is in the White House of President Donald Trump in the United States. Beyond the communiqué on the pledge of bilateral fidelity, Trump would have rendered inestimable service to the world and particularly Nigeria when he takes note of the tragedies in the country that have heralded this meeting. Trump must note that he cannot engage in meaningless banters with Buhari while the latter’s country is choking under the carapace of Fulani herdsmen’s terrorism. 

Thus, the meeting should provide Trump an opportunity to bring this wayward African leader to the path of probity. Of course, before Trump, Buhari might attempt to disparage Nigerian citizens as criminals and lazy. He would justify the incarceration of Nigerian citizens in U.S. prisons and laud Trump’s immigration laws that are meant to send foreigners home. He would massage Trump’s ego for agreeing to sell 20 Tucano warplanes to Nigeria whereas his predecessor Barack Obama refused to do that. Buhari might regale Trump with tales of the gains of his anti-corruption campaign. But all this should not make Trump to miss the opportunity to tell Buhari that blood is on his hands. After all, Buhari would never listen to the counsel of his Nigerian people. But he would listen to Trump because he considers him as the chief representative of a version of life that is beyond the reach of Africans. Or how do we explain the excitement that Trump is magnanimous enough to open the doors of the White House to Buhari? 

Nigeria: Lying As Cornerstone Of Govt Policy And Programme

By Alade Rotimi-John

In local Nigerian parlance, stratagem or the plan for deceiving otherwise trustful people is rendered euphoniously and even metaphorically as “lie, lie” or “connie, connie” (both of them amusing and melodious phraseology for graphically depicting the foible of cunningness, craftiness or guile). The Nigerian political or governmental practice has been largely characterised, particularly these four or so years, by an observable trend in posturing or cunningness by officials of state. These ones have perfected the art of refusing to take personal responsibility for their bumbling, blundering trajectory even as they lament or heap their failures on some extraneous or exogenous circumstance, situation or personage. 

As is normal with the nature and manner of a facile or convenient resort to lie-telling, every excuse or reason for the happening of one event or another, embarrassingly conflicts with an earlier expressed position taken on the same subject matter. Two or three clear indications are visibly discernible. The actors are not unanimous in their explanation of the occurrence of the event for which they speak for the same principal; they operate at cross purposes; and they betray their lack of co-ordination in a situation where coherence is key. For them, to begin to take personal responsibility is also to begin to recognise or admit that Nigeria is on the verge of a self-annihilating precipice even as they are in charge. Courage is up-turned as integrity no longer counts and little store is set for accuracy. 

President Buhari And The ‘Approved’ $1b For Arms Purchase

By Chris Akiri

About a fortnight ago, the head of state, President Muhammadu Buhari, summoned all the security chiefs in the land to Aso Rock villa, where he gleefully, categorically and unambiguously announced to them that he had approved the sum of US $1 billion for the procurement of military hardware to strengthen the armed forces to prosecute the war against insurgency in the North-East more effectively. 

This announcement, which was made in the full glare of TV cameras and broadcast nationwide, elicited a deafening and rapturous applause from the security chiefs present.

 
Responding on behalf of all the security agencies, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-General Tukur Buratai, who was obviously beside himself with joy, expressed his unstinting gratitude to the President, assuring the latter that the money would be spent judiciously for the purpose for which it was approved. 

As far as the President and the security chiefs were concerned, it was “c’est fini”, a fait accompli: the next step was the chiefs to begin to withdraw the approved money from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), a controversial creation of the former, much maligned ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)!  

But then a cacophony of criticisms and unabating furore erupted everywhere in the country about the unilateral, unconstitutional and illegal approval by the President of such a humongous amount, any amount, of money, not in an Appropriation or Supplementary Appropriation Act. 

President Buhari’s Unguarded Tongue

By Ray Ekpu

It is obvious that President Muhammadu Buhari does not always filter his words before they come out. If he filters them at all he does not fully appreciate the connotative and denotative meanings of the words he uses. All words have meanings, and can be subjected to literal or metaphorical interpretations. We have had several occasions when the President’s handlers have accused the public of misinterpreting or misunderstanding, or misconstruing what the President had said. Sometimes they claim that the president’s words were taken out of context or have been stretched to achieve a political purpose. I sympathise with the President’s minders who have to lick the vomit from time to time to make the President look as presidential as presidents are expected to look.

*President Buhari 

The recent Westwinster episode is the latest in the series of presidential gaffes. The President was at the Commonwealth Business Forum in the UK recently. The forum is described as “a truly unique and historic opportunity to promote and celebrate the very best of the Commonwealth to a global audience.” In an answer to a question he reportedly said that “more than 60% of the population is below 30, a lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare, education free.”

Kofi Annan @ 80: Memories and Reflections

By Professor Kingsley Moghalu

To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to go there ­– Kofi A. Annan

The quotation above reflects my worldview. But these are not my words. They belong to someone much older and wiser, and whose mentorship and friendship has taught me many lessons in life. I salute Kofi Annan of Ghana, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations and my boss of many years, Nobel Laureate and renowned global elder statesman as he turns 80 on April 8, 2018. 

*Kofi Annan

On a recent visit to Mr. Annan at his Foundation’s offices in Geneva, Switzerland, I was pleasantly surprised to see him just as spritely, well-kept and un-aged as I had last seen him several years ago. In 2009 I had met him at his office in Geneva to let him know I had decided to resign from my UN system career and was going into the private sector as the founder of a global strategy and risk management consulting firm. As someone who always had the courage to launch out in new, versatile directions during his 35-year UN career before he became Secretary-General, he was very encouraging of my decision to seek new horizons. Later that year, he telephoned to congratulate me on my appointment as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Incidentally, the unplanned journey to that appointment began at a World Economic Forum dinner in Cape Town, South Africa at which Annan, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and I had been among the guest attendees.