As the ping-pong blame
game over corruption charges unfolds between two former military generals – incumbent
President Muhammadu Buhari and erstwhile counterpart, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo –
what matters at the end of the day is that the cause of justice should be
served; that such public funds brazenly stolen be recovered back into the
national till and the culprits be made to pay for their crimes against the
Nigerian state. And more importantly, that such funds be judiciously utilized
to lift the quality of life of the average citizen.
The significance of this clarion call is
hinged on the fact that successive administrations have made promises in this
regard but much more has been said than done. Indeed, discerning Nigerians are
tired of being regaled daily by accounts of humungous sums of money so far
recovered from thieves of state. The issue took a new dimension when the All
Progressives Congress (APC), administration went to town to list the names of
the public treasury looters( without any of their members) and the huge amounts
of money recovered.Monday, June 4, 2018
Friday, June 1, 2018
Nigeria: Of Lawmakers And Bribe-Takers
By Olusegun
Adeniyi
From the judgement of a Federal High Court
sitting in Lagos which orders President Muhammadu Buhari to “urgently instruct
security and anti-corruption agencies to forward to him reports of their
investigations into allegations of padding and stealing of some N481 billion
from the 2016 budget by some principal officers of the National Assembly” to
damaging allegations by both former Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister
for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the spotlight is now
on our federal lawmakers who are being perceived as no more than cheap
bribe-takers.
The situation is not helped by the
widespread knowledge that the National Assembly has become the watering hole of
high-maintenance ex-governors, semi-literate political contractors, wanted
international criminal suspects and some yesterday’s men who are now in
desperate need of economic empowerment. Yet, in a situation where lawmakers behave
like gangsters, the various executive bodies like ministries and agencies will
begin to see their assignments in transactional terms as oversight becomes a
ritual of appeasement of the greed of committee members and the budgeting
process, which ordinarily should be a serious assignment, degenerates into an
annual bazaar.
*Senate President Saraki and House Speaker Dogara |
Unemployment, Corruption And Nigeria’s Youth Dilemma
By Matthew Ozah
America
during the era of slavery to escape to freedom. Indeed, Nigeria ’s
youths were captivated and entangled with the APC’s change bait to escape
joblessness and live a good life. As we all know, the APC promised to create
millions of job and pay unemployed graduates a stipend of five thousand naira
monthly among other mouth watering promises which are still in wait three years
on.
Their story is very pathetic and heart-breaking: You cannot help
but feel sorry for Nigeria ’s
youth. At every step the Nigerian youth wonders where he or she is going and
why. They worry about unemployment and cost of living as the creeping inflation
following the recent economic recession which has raised prices of commodities.
In the face of all these challenges, youths across the country are determined
as they struggle to make themselves relevant by acquiring university education.
However, being a graduate does not save one from enlisting in the
army of unemployed people. The strong expectation and desire to be gainfully
employed saw the youth entangled with the All Progressives Congress (APC) change
trap. The sound of ‘change’ that engulfed the entire nation then, was like the
midnight drumming sound Alex Harley described in his book: Roots, which led
some slaves in Thursday, May 31, 2018
As Ebola Returns!
By Tayo Ogunbiyi
Ebola is a dreadful
disease that once ravaged the West African coast, leaving in its trail sorrow,
tears and blood. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) data, at its
peak, Ebola had over 10,000 victims in West Africa .
The WHO records further reveals that 9,936 people in Guinea ,
Liberia and Sierra Leone
contracted the disease. Nigeria
also had her own share of the Ebola brouhaha, no thanks to the dastardly
escapade of late American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer.
After weeks of scary Ebola episode, Nigerians
were understandably over-joyous to hear the news that the country was certified
Ebola-free. While the Ebola trauma lasted, 19 cases were recorded out of which
eight died and 11 survived. Aside the number of lives it claimed and
attendant psychological trauma, the Ebola ordeal came with lots of economic
losses. Arabisation Of The Nigeria Police?
By Paul Onomuakpokpo
As though to prove the sceptics wrong, the country suffers no
deficit of evidence of its descent into anomie. This is underscored by the fact that what
seems only plausible in the provenance of macabre fantasy easily becomes
reality.
It sounds implausible that a country and its
leaders would do nothing while citizens are being killed and pillaged. But this
is the reality in Nigeria
- Fulani herdsmen are busy raping, maiming and killing citizens.
Even places of worship that should have served as refuge from bloodlust and
plunder have become the prized targets of the herdsmen.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Security Under President Buhari’s Watch
By Kolawole Anthony
Nigeria was literally and
practically handcuffed by subsisting, budding, consuming and persistently
explosive acts of terrorism, local armed conflicts, militancy, violent
separatists’ agitations, ethno-religious conflagrations and other
insurrections. They did not only disturbingly assail and crippled Nigeria , but
had morphed into threats to regional insecurity threats.
The first official covenant a leader makes with the people, on
the first day of official function is security of lives and property of the
citizenry. It is neither negotiable nor subject to compromise under any guise.
A law
abiding and peaceful nation is the panacea to uninhibited development and
prosperity. It is the primary essence of governance. And the capacity of the
Armed Forces anywhere in the world is gauged by its capacity and competencies
to assist the President to defray internal and external aggressions against its
country. But the military abdicated on this basic constitutional responsibility
under the last administration.
And the
consequences were quite grave. No Nigerian can agree less that Nigeria was on a
precarious cliff of total breakdown of law and order, by May 2015, when
President Muhammedu Buhari took the reins of office.
Burdened
by an extremely weak Military, prior to the ascension of the Buhari Presidency,
Nigeria
replaced its peaceful soul with almost everyday violence, deaths and agonies
from terrorism. Dominantly at the home front, Boko Haram Terrorists (BHTs)
obstinately pulled the cord of disunity and disintegration of Nigeria . It
went paranoid and regrettably unchallenged in the organized atrocious acts and
heinous crimes against Nigerians. But Buhari has smothered the fire.
Why Federalism, Confederalism Or Restructuring Is Not Enough
By Chinweizu
22may18
The Federalism of
the First Republic ,
of the 1963 Constitution, is being demanded by some as the solution to Nigeria ’s
problems. The proponents of this view seem to think that once Nigeria returns
to that constitution, with possibly some slight modifications, they and their
interests will be protected, and their cherished “One Nigeria” can go on.
*Chinweizu |
But they are
mistaken, I think.
They haven’t
considered why that constitution failed them. If it failed them before, can’t
it fail them again?
Like the 1963
constitution, the 1960 Constitution limited the powers of the Federal
Government to Defence, Foreign Affairs, and a few other items.
Monday, May 28, 2018
2019: Why We Must Vote In Young Nigerians
By Dan Amor
At the
dawn of civil rule in 1999, after about fifteen years of uninterrupted military
gangsterism, rapacity and greed, there emerged on the nation's political
firmament, an assembly of politicians and professionals under the age bracket
of 50 years, the National Integration Group (NIG). The group's aim was
ostensibly to re-engineer the Nigerian public life and take over the mantle of
political leadership from the old brigade. There were, indeed, conflicting
reactions to the development.
*Gov Yahaya Bello of Kogi State: Nigeria's youngest governor |
While some Nigerians believed that the group had ulterior
motives, and therefore its mission preposterous, many believed and still
believe that amidst the despair that has enveloped the nation, there is an
obvious need to call to question the desirability of continuing with business
as usual. This issue has remained prominent in the upper reaches of our
national discourse especially given the woeful failure of the old generation of
politicians to improve the standard of living of the people and engender
positive development in the country since independence.
Paradoxica Nigeriana
By Dan Amor
Nigeria is a beautiful
edifice built with bricks of contradictions. Somewhere between the idea and the
reality hovers a huge geographical abstraction that beguiles the imagination.
Situated at the Eastern end of the Gulf
of Guinea , between the 4th and the
14th Parallels, Nigeria
occupies a total area of 923,768 square kilometres, slightly more than the
combined areas of France and
Germany .
From Lagos in the South-west to Maiduguri
in the North-east is the distance between London
and Warsaw .
*President Buhari |
Its population estimated at about 190 million, exceeds the
combined population of all other countries in the West African sub-region of
the Sahara . Endowed with enormous wealth, a
dynamic population and an enviable talent for political compromise, Nigeria stood out in the 1960s as the potential
leader of Africa , a continent in dire need of
guidance. For, it was widely thought that Nigeria was immune from the
wasteful diseases of tribalism, disunity and instability that remorselessly
attacked so many other new African states. But when bursts of machine gunfire
shattered the pre-dawn calm of Lagos its
erstwhile Federal Capital in January 1966, it was now clear that Nigeria was no exception to Africa 's
common post-independence experience.
Nigeria: Gen Gowon’s Desecration Of History
By Sunny Awhefeada
Nigeria ’s history has been so
abused and distorted that there is hardly a consensus on what constitutes a
genuine national narrative. Nigerian rulers have had to manipulate the history
of their record in office to suit their whim. History ought to be sacred as the
ultimate guide of a people. It is the unseen, but powerful propelling force
from which a nation derives inspiration in the tortuous odyssey of national
evolution. But when the history of a nation is subjected to deliberate
distortions then such a nation is bound to be moored to the past with the
people as captives. This has been Nigeria ’s lot.
Nigeria hosted the 8th
Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa last week. It was at that forum that Nigeria ’s
former military ruler, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) did what amounted to a
desecration of history. Hear him: “During
our time, we did not know anything like corruption”.
*Gen Gowon |
He went a great length
to buttress his assertion. Let us dream up an apotheosis for Gowon so that even
in his lifetime he could become Saint Yakubu Gowon! What Gowon told his
audience was far from the truth. The government he led from the hurly-burly of
1966 to the sedate ambience of 1975 was one of massive corruption.
If President Buhari Were A Patriot…
By Benjamin Obiajulu
Aduba
President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) is one of only two people who
have ruled Nigeria
both as a military dictator and as an elected president. In a country of about
100 million citizens, this is not an insignificant accomplishment. In Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs, President Buhari should be at the top, Self-Actualization
level. He should not have any more needs. If he were a patriot he should quit
right here and right now.
But he is
not.
If he
were a patriot he should read the warning signs.
1. His
most ardent supporters are showing signs of weariness. They still offer some
defense and protection for him but they seem tepid. Mr. Lai Mohammed can lie on
his behalf for only so much as his integrity begins to deteriorate. Even
Professor Aluko is now willing to accept that some of PMB’s actions/lack or
actions are mistakes. Mr. Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (former Defense Minister),
one of his richer and early backers has openly called for the North Central
(NC) citizens to buy arms to protect themselves as the government is unable to
do so.
2. The
massive demonstrations by Christians in Abuja
a few days ago show how deep the disgust of Christians with his administration
is. Christians constitute about 50% of Nigerians. When a leader loses the
support of most his nation, patriotism demands that he, the leader, steps
aside.
Nigeria: APC Congresses Of Blood, Tears And Sorrow
By
Ikechukwu Amaechi
Beleaguered Senator Din Melaye got a mischievous dig in at his own
political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Saturday May, 2018. Shortly after a contentious state congresses of the party, Melaye tweeted,
"Congratultions tot he 72 new state chairmen of APC. Everywhere na
double double. What a blessed party!!!!"
As at the time I stumbled on the tweet on Sunday morning, it had been retweeted
968 times with 2,103 likes.
Dr. Doyin Okupe, a chieftain of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), re-echoed Melaye’s tweet three hours later.
“36 states, 72 chairmen. APC! Going! Going. Who is d bastard now?” Okupe
tweeted.
Friday, May 25, 2018
For The Sake Of Nigeria, Our Nation!
By Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie
For the sake of our nation exposed to insecurity
by absence of governance, the time has come for us to differentiate
between a political jobber and a statesman. A political
jobber is a merchant who buys and sells loyalty in order to be in
power. He does not care about the morality of his
means. He would, therefore, do everything to win an election or be
declared the winner. His sole and ultimate objective is access to
power and to the perks of office.
But the ultimate aim of a
statesman is not power. It is service of the common
good. And even if he plans to win an election, he does not
transgress the boundaries of morality. He is fair in running for
office and fair in running the office. He works for the good
of the nation and for the good of its citizens. Rather than use or
threaten to use violence, he shares his vision with the citizens, respects
their right to share or repudiate the vision, and their right to decide through
an electoral process free of fraud or coercion. Political jobbers
manipulate the electoral process. Statesmen respect its
integrity. The choice before Nigerians in the 2019 elections,
therefore, is that of choosing between political jobbers and
statesmen. And, for the sake of our nation, we must make a right
choice this time around.
Cardinal Okogie |
Electricity: Unending Rip-Off Of Customers By Distribution Companies!
By Godwin Ijediogor
Some may call it
cheating, while others may see it as smart billing but it is nothing less than
fraud. The system of billing some electricity consumers, otherwise known
as estimated billing, adopted by the Electricity Distribution Companies
(DisCos) in Nigeria, is a clear case of extortion of consumers without metres,
whether prepaid or the old order. Ironically, the DisCos are unconcerned and
unrepentant, instead they are passing the buck concerning metering to
customers. Imagine living in a compound with four three-bedroom flats and while
three metred three flats get billed about N2, 500 each, the remaining one is
slammed N10, 000 estimated bill, just for one month, by Ikeja Electricity
Distribution Company (IKEDC).
Yet, the DisCos are reluctant to provide
prepaid meters or at least minimise the incidence of over billing or crazy
bills; just promises and no action. And the Managing Director
and Chief Executive Officer of Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC),
Adeoye Fadeyibi, tried to justify the action of the DisCos while speaking at a
town hall with residents of Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos (its customers), saying the
‘crazy bill’ was because distribution companies take the reading of electricity
consumption of customers who are not metered directly from the transformer. Gov Rochas Okorocha’s Swan Song
By Cos Nnadi
Its last notable civilian governor remains the
late Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe, who ruled the old Imo
State comprising the present-day Imo State , Abia State
and parts of Ebonyi
State . Since that
seasoned administrator, whose concern for the down trodden earned him the
appellation of ‘weeping governor,’ left the saddle 35 years ago, the state has
been unable to fill the vacuum. Those who succeeded him all failed to display a
similar sense of responsibility, intellectual depth, and social empathy.
The political rivalry in Imo State
is reminiscent of a dramatic form which depicts the circumstances surrounding
the fall of despots. The state has been in dire need of such a dramatic
conflict, blighted by a long history of poor leadership.
*Okorocha |
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Nigeria: The Past As President Buhari’s Utopia
By Paul Onomuakpokpo
Whenever President Muhammadu Buhari lifts the façade and allows us
a glimpse into the convictions that propel him, he leaves no room for doubt
that he is out of depth with the demands of his high office. At that moment of
supposed candour, Buhari rather recommends himself to us as a relic of an
antediluvian era that is far removed from the nuances of democracy and the
challenges and possibilities of contemporary life.
Buhari is fixated on
the valourisation of the past as an irreplaceable era that was full of glories
that neither the present nor the future can yield. Thus, Buhari yearns for that
past. He wants us to exhume that past because it held the secrets of an
Eldorado that are elusive to the present.Yet it is a past that the majority of
the citizens would like to consign to eternal oblivion because it only afflicts
them with searing memories. Indeed, the past that in the imagination of Buhari
provided a utopian state is in the reckoning of the citizens a dystopia that he
is recreating in the present.
*President Buhari |
Mad Rush For Expensive Rags!
Before now, these 'clothes' should have been
found at a madman's corner at some dirty, disused spot in Lagos,
for instance; or used as rags
in various homes – by people who no longer find them useful since they can no
longer be considered suitable attire for anyone still in possession of a stable
mind.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Nigeria: The Impending Implosion Of APC
By Reuben Abati
Just take the phrase: “impending” in the title above with a pinch of salt. I use the word because in politics as in life, things happen – as seemingly absolute situations become redeemable and what originally appears impossible could be the catalyst for fresh opportunities.
Otherwise, the truth is that the ruling Nigerian political
party, the All Progressives Congress is already imploding, it has in fact
imploded; the party is in the throes of a debilitating illness. The implosion
began almost as soon as the party assumed power in 2015.
Just take the phrase: “impending” in the title above with a pinch of salt. I use the word because in politics as in life, things happen – as seemingly absolute situations become redeemable and what originally appears impossible could be the catalyst for fresh opportunities.
The APC emerged as a special purpose vehicle – composed
almost entirely from second hand, used groups from the CPC, the ACN, APGA,
ANPP, and a break away faction of the PDP, known as new PDP (nPDP) – even if
there was nothing new about it, with the sole objective of taking power from
the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the then incumbent
President Goodluck Jonathan.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ Listed Among Ten Top Stories That Shaped The World
A recent poll conducted by the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) among “writers,
critics and academics” yielded the verdict that Chinua Achebe’s classic, Things
Fall Apart, published in June 1958 – which turns 60 this year –
qualifies as No 5 on the list of “ten top stories that shaped the world.”
Other
works on the list are: The Odyssey by Homer (8th Century
BC), Uncle
Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1952), Frankenstein by Mary
Shelley (1818), Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949), One
Thousand And One Nights by Various Authors (8th – 18th Century), Don
Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605 – 1615), Hamlet by William
Shakespeare (1603), One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967)
and The
Iliad by Homer (8th Century BC)
In a recent release, the BBC
said that the writers, critics and academics who participated in the opinion poll voted
these works “as the most influential and enduring works of fiction” ever published.
The 1985 Coup In Nigeria
By Ray Ekpu
The August 1985 coup
in Nigeria
was regarded as a palace coup, a smooth changing of the guards. I have no idea
if anyone died in the operation but the event itself has refused to die, thanks
to President Muhammadu Buhari. The victim of that coup, Buhari, has reminded us
from time to time that he was unfairly removed as the head of state and kept in
detention for three years by the Ibrahim Babangida boys. Let us roll back the
tape a little bit. On December 31, 1983 as Nigerians were at various prayer
venues asking God to make 1984
a better year than 1983, they had no idea that Buhari
and his co-conspirators were on the verge of removing a legitimately elected
civilian government headed by President Shehu Shagari.
*President Buhari |
Many Nigerians may
have been amazed at the scale of rigging in the October 1983 Presidential
elections but may not have expected a return of the military to the
presidential podium after 13 years of brutal military dictatorship. Nigerians
woke up on January 1 not knowing whether to say to each other a ‘Happy New Year’
or a ‘Happy New Government’ since they were uncertain what was in the belly of
the coup. One year and eight months later, Buhari was overthrown by the same
Babangida Boys who put him on the throne. Babangida now took over the
presidential chair and kept Buhari in detention for about three years.
Apparently, Buhari has not been able to bring himself to forgive or forget
since then.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)