Nigeria: From Looting To Sharing The ‘National Cake’

By Matthew Ozah

“Neighbour! How have you been? You seem a bit reserved these days. I hope there is nothing to worry about?”

“Hmm! There is so much to worry about in these perilous times. Even President Muhammadu Buhari is worried about 2019 elections especially with the way APC is metamorphosing. Well, as for me, my pocket is in recession and it is beginning to affect my blood pressure. Indeed, ignorance is a disease. You are here nursing agonizing distress while a scrum is receiving cash handout in your state from the Abacha’s recovered loot.”

*President Buhari 

“What are you talking about? That has got nothing to do with me and I feel let down for confiding in you about my discomfort?”

“Please pardon me jare! But how come you have not heard about the ‘Social Investment Programme,’ Buhari’s pet project to share the recently repatriated 322 million dollars Abacha loot among the poorest and most vulnerable households within 19 states in the country?” 

Gale Of Defections And The Buhari Factor

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

The coming together of political forces of the oppositional hue in the build-up to the 2015 general election portended a grave danger for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In any case, the behemoth, which the PDP typified at the time, had imprudently and lightly treated the ill-omened development and paid dearly for it.

*President Buhari 

The PDP was brought down in prostrate surrender to the supremacy of the rainbow coalition of opposition parties that formed the All Progressives Congress (APC) on which platform Muhammadu Buhari clinched his historic victory over Goodluck Jonathan. That defeat of an incumbent president was novel in the annals of the nation’s presidential elections. 

APC Spokesman, Abdullahi, Dumps Party

*Bolaji Abdullahi

Despite denying that he has left the All Progressive Congress (APC) only a few hours ago, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, has announced his resignation from the APC and the office he holds in the party.

He announced his decision today through his verified twitter handle:

“In view of recent political developments in the country and within the All Progressives Congress (APC), I have decided to resign my position as the National Publicity Secretary as well as my membership of the party with effect from today.

Nigeria’s Gunboat Democracy

By Sunny Awhefeada

There is a sense in which some commentators are right when they argue that Nigeria is not a democracy. Their argument is based on the reality that the military has remained more than a recurring decimal in Nigeria’s political life. When the soldiers blew apart the pillars that held Nigeria’s democratic structure in January 1966, a pall fell on the nation and, the tragic detour which came with that experience is yet to yield the ideals of nationhood. Since then, with the exception of a few promising years, Nigeria has been ruled by hooded men who view statecraft as a cloak and dagger engagement.

*Nigeria's President Buhari

The 1966 coup(s) birthed military rule for thirteen long years and when Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1979, the military adventurers didn’t give politics a wide berth. They hovered around and menaced the politicians. It was concluded then that Nigeria had two leading political parties; the then ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the Nigerian Army (NA). And in just four years after 1979, the army serenaded Nigerians with an end of year’s gift of martial music on 31 December 1983. The soldiers were back in power. This time, they held sway for sixteen tortuous years. Buhari, Babangida, ‘Bacha, ‘Bdusalami, all took turns to bash Nigeria. 

Jakande: Visionary Leader At 89

By Tayo Ogunbiyi

The concept of leadership has always been of tremendous interest to classical thinkers as well as contemporary political and management scholars as our world continues on the path of progressive evolution. On the other hand, visionary leadership theory rose to prominence in 1980-90s, and can be traced back to the political sociology writings of Max Weber and James Macgregor Burns.

* Lateef Jakande

Visionary leadership molds have a twin focal point on who a leader is as well as what a leader does, merging both the trait and behavioural theories of leadership. Visionary leaders are exceptional because they possess a deep sense of personal purpose coupled with an unshakable self-confidence in the ability to realise this purpose.

Special Status For Lagos Long Overdue

By Dan Amor

Alongside the experience of history and the role of national and international identity, the one theme that emerges in the evolution of cities throughout the continent of Europe is the impact of ideology, whether conservative, ecological, feudal or socialist. Past ideologies have created cities that are memorials to the divine monarch (Versailles), to the imperial mission (Vienna), and to utilitarianism and the pursuit of profit (Bradford). It has been suggested that the morphology of the city is not only the product of the civilization that houses it but also a factor in the creation of that civilization.

*Governor Ambode

At a more prosaic level, it is clear that in cities such as Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Helsinki, attitudes towards conservation, social housing provision and public transport reflect the contemporary dominant social-democratic ideology of the Scandinavian countries. In contrast, the development of many West German cities in the immediate post-war period occurred within the framework of a social-market economy and a certain rejection of planning resulting from the experience of twelve years of National Socialism.

I Celebrate Buhari For Killing APC

By Erasmus Ikhide

On July 31st, 2013 a day after All Progressives Congress (APC) was registered by Independent National Electoral Commission, I got a surprising call at dawn from the storming petrel, warrior of the pen, essayist and a poet who uses words like a sculptor, Mr. Odia Ofeimun with troubling apocalypse thus:

"Erasmus, do you know that Senator Bola Tinubu has sold Nigeria to the devil for accepting the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a few little known political parties". 

*President Buhari 

I was caught off balance. Moreso because I had barely retired from my study to the bed before my sleep was rudely ruptured by the call. 

Nigeria: July 29, 1966 In Retrospect: 52 Years After

By Dan Amor

"Life is terribly deficient in form.
Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way.
There is a grotesque horror about its comedies.
And its tragedies seem to culminate in farce."

– Oscar Wilde

The January 15, 1966 military coup and the concomitant tragic death, fifty-two years ago, of Major-General Johnson Thomas Ummunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi on July 29, 1966 in the hands of young Majors from Northern Nigeria extraction manifest the historical sense that creates a difference between mere politics and constructive statesmanship in Nigeria's turbulent history.

*Gen Aguiyi-Ironsi 

Aguiyi-Ironsi was a victim of our collective failure to appreciate the fact that, in any given society, personality is not a welter of primitive impulses but an achievement of the conscious will. Nigeria began its seemingly long and tenuous political walk towards self-rule and democracy in 1960. Vividly divided between the predominantly Muslim North and substantially Christian South, there is always a marked ethnic and religious tension in the polity with the Muslim in the North often hinting to their right to federal power. 

Is Nigeria Still In Recession? There Is Unbearable Hunger In The Land

By Fredrick Nwabufo

When economic syrups do not improve the health of a diseased economy, the medicine can be best described as fake, substandard, and voodoo-ish. Nigeria ‘exited’ recession in September 2017. At the time, the government made exorbitant promises, and bragged that it “rescued” the economy from the buccaneer manifestations of the Jonathan administration. I remember, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, made this a refrain at every official event.

*President Buhari and Finance Minister Adeosun 

But months after the ‘exit’, the economy has not improved. And there are no pointers to marginal economic recovery.

I will not buy that economic bullshit that ‘there are significant improvements, but that they will become visible in another one or two years’, because the government has sustained this lie for three years.

Forgery: Kemi Adeosun’s Disdain Without Remorse

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

From the way the federal government is hedging over the saga of the forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, it is clear that the felony is enjoying condonation by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari; otherwise, the matter should have been decisively dealt with by now and consigned to the dustbin of history. Or, put differently, Adeosun should have, by now, become history. 

*Kemi Adeosun 

But this is not the situation. The minister, who is in the eye of the storm, has taken refuge in feigned meekness and has, in fact, continued to benefit from the paraphernalia of her office, perhaps, in the hope that the matter will die naturally. This is not only nauseating but also treating Nigerians with disdain. It is obvious that the administration is acting true to type, either mollycoddling wrongdoers or vacillating before giving them the boot.  Adeosun is, without a doubt, being pampered; this is, perhaps, the reason she has not deemed it fit to show remorse.

New Ebola Virus Found In Sierra Leone

By Steve Jordan
A new Ebola virus has been found in bats in Sierra Leone, two years after the end of an outbreak that killed over 11,000 across West Africa, the government said on Thursday.  It is not yet known whether the new Bombali species of the virus – which researchers say could be transmitted to humans – can develop into the deadly Ebola disease. 

"At this time, it is not yet known if the Bombali Ebola virus has been transmitted to people or if it causes disease in people but it has the potential to infect human cells," Amara Jambai, a senior ministry of health official, told AFP.

"This is early stages of the findings," Jambai added, calling on the public to remain calm while awaiting further research.

Sen. Dino Melaye Kidnapped

The Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial Zone, Mr. Dino Melaye, was earlier today, July 26, kidnapped by yet-to-be identified   gunmen.

Mr. Melaye was on his way to Lokoja from Abuja when the kidnappers’ vehicle blocked his. He was due to appear before a magistrate court sitting in Lokoja in a case of alleged gunrunning brought against him. Mr. Melaye has, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. 

In a tweet earlier today, one of his colleagues in the senate, Mr. Ben Murray-Bruce from Bayelsa State, announced the news of Mr. Melaye’s abduction.

Supreme Court, Gov Wike And Joe Igbokwe's Hallucinations

By Dan Amor

The recent display of political infantilism by one of Nigeria's most colourless political jobbers and butt lickers, Joe Igbokwe should be seen for what it is: a revelation of plot by his sponsors to once more intimidate the Nigerian judiciary as we prepare for the 2019 general elections. He recently posted a comment on his Facebook wall alleging that the Rivers State Governor Barrister Nyesom Wike goes to the Supreme Court to buy justice after several killings in his state. Igbokwe, a riotous personality who speaks before he thinks, posted on his Facebook wall: "Wike will not have the audacity and temerity to kill again and run to the Supreme Court to buy justice", ostensibly referring to what would happen to the governor in 2019 when they would rob him of his victory.

*Gov Wike 

It is another invidious attempt by someone generally known to be a political rascal to blackmail the judiciary. What he implies is that the governor is a killer and the Supreme Court a place where justice is sold and bought. But it is yet another joke too expensive for them as the judiciary under the leadership of the current Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen can no longer be intimidated.

Nigeria Needs Another Mandela

By Emeka Nwachukwu

Nigeria, Africa’s largest producer of oil is endowed with enormous natural and human resources of over 180 million people – sufficient to place it among the first 20 developed countries of the world. But this is not so. Why?

Obviously, the nation has not been lucky enough to have dignified cum patriotic leaders who are committed to the needs of their citizens, besides enriching themselves, to the fullest, until their cups ‘runneth’ over at the expense of the poor suffering masses.

*Late Nelson Mandela 

This has kept citizens sweltered because despite the nation’s huge resource endowment, majority of its citizenry are subjected to abject poverty while unemployment and insecurity are growing faster than the economy. Currently under the administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led President Muhammadu Buhari, the nation seems to be at its worst in terms of insecurity with the increasing number of lost of lives in the North East attributable to attacks by herdsmen and terrorists.

Is President Buhari Truly A ‘Converted Democrat?’

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

 Delivering a lecture titled “Prospects for Democratic Consolidation in Africa: Nigeria’s Transition”, on Thursday, February 16, 2015, at the Chatham House, London, the then presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari, claimed he was a “converted democrat”.

*President Buhari 

“I have heard and read references to me as a former dictator in many respected British newspapers, including the well regarded Economist,” he intoned. “Let me say without sounding defensive that dictatorship goes with military rule, though some might be less dictatorial than others. I take responsibility for whatever happened under my watch.”

But he claimed that was in his earlier incarnation. He has morphed into a new being. “I cannot change the past. But I can change the present and the future. So, before you is a former military ruler and a converted democrat who is ready to operate under democratic norms.”

The applause was thunderous. Buhari claimed, without providing any proof other than the fragile reed of contesting three presidential elections, the results of which he repudiated because he lost, that global watersheds such as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, convinced him that democracy as a system of government was unassailable.

The international community was sucked into the fantasy and vigorously promoted his candidacy. Three years after taking oath of office, the ululation has quietened and many are scratching their heads for answers, which is a surprise. Did Nigerians actually believe Buhari’s self-proclaimed ‘Damascene moment?’ Isn’t it said that an old woman is never old when it comes to the dance she knows — that old habits die hard? Anyone who fell for Buhari’s ‘Damascus Road’ yarn obviously did not reckon with the Igbo adage that says no one learns how to be left-handed in old age. But there are some people who also argue that it was good Nigerians believed candidate Buhari’s shaggy-dog story.

If not, he would have most conveniently toppled Chief Obafemi Awolowo from his perch as best president Nigeria never had. The president can no longer lay any claim now or in the future to being the country’s messiah because, to borrow a cliché, the taste of the pudding is in the eating, and in three years Nigerians have had a mouthful of the president’s dessert.

What the Buhari presidency is doing is a norm-bursting power play that is endangering our democracy because it takes more than contesting elections to be a democrat. When the Presidency whimsically ignores court orders and dissenting voices are hounded by security agents, it sets a new democracy low.

Last week, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, told the Voice of America that the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, arrested since 2015 and granted bail multiple times by courts of competent jurisdiction, the latest being on July 2, 2018, cannot be released because a law that only himself is privy to, dictates that personal right can be violated on the altar of public good without telling Nigerians how Dasuki’s freedom of movement infringes on the wellbeing of Nigerians. In his hackneyed logic, to save Nigeria from itself, its laws that essentially regulate the conduct of both the government and the governed, must be violated. But Dasuki’s case is not peculiar.

Despite several court orders that the Shiites leader, Sheik Ibrahim El-zakzakky, his wife and other members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, IMN, be released from detention, government has refused to let go. Buhari is taking Nigeria down the path of tyranny. He has no respect for the judiciary and is highly contemptuous of the legislature. Egged on by duplicitous hangers-on, he holds the grandiose, but patently erroneous, belief that in a democracy only he should rule Nigeria. In flagrant violation of Section 80(2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which prohibits withdrawal and expenditure of public money except as appropriated by the National Assembly, the President recently withdrew $1 billion from the public till for the so-called fight against Boko Haram insurgency and $462 million for the purchase of fighter jets from the U.S. without National Assembly’s authorisation.

He cannot claim as George Washington, America’s first president, did in his letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham on January 9, 1790 that his “station is new” or to be walking on “untrodden ground,” because as Nigeria’s president in 2015, he is not re-inventing the wheels of democracy, which was what Washington did, literally. President Washington had no precedents to fall back on. Buhari has and, therefore, has no excuse for the pervasive impunity orchestrated by executive lawlessness.

Matters came to a head on Tuesday when security operatives, in an apparent bid to abort the mass defection of National Assembly members from the ruling APC to PDP stormed the Abuja homes of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu in the early hours. The idea was to ensure that they never left their homes and possibility to create the enabling environment for the President’s loyalists in the Senate to effect a regime change. That was bare-knuckle politics. As 2019 approaches, the gloves are off.

While they succeeded in putting Ekweremadu under house arrest, Saraki, who was to appear before the police same day for further investigation into his alleged role in the Offa robbery killings in Kwara State, outsmarted them. Expectedly, both the Presidency and the police have denied any complicity. In a statement late on Tuesday, the Presidency came out swinging against what it called relentless allegations of presidential interference in the affairs of security agencies across the country. “It is odd, strange and bizarre that while ordinary citizens can be called up to answer questions or be interrogated, the VIP cannot be questioned without the annoying insinuations of partisanship, persecution or outright politicisation,” the presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, said. “This country cannot achieve development when important cases are viewed through a political prism and the law is considered as being applicable to some, and not applicable to others. The law of the land is intended for all, not for the poor or those at the lowest rungs of the social ladder.”

The Presidency’s justification for the manifest impunity that now walks on all fours in the land barely passes the laugh test.

But even more ridiculous is the statement by the police claiming that the authorities did not deploy the personnel that besieged the two homes and suggesting that “the police personnel seen in pictures in the media were those in the convoy of the Senate President and others attached to him.” No-matter how anyone may wish to spin it, the events of Tuesday represent a significant ratcheting up of the attacks on Nigeria’s democracy.

Repression of fundamental rights being experienced under the Buhari government diminishes the sacrifices made by ordinary people who resisted military dictatorship, which he was a primary beneficiary. But one thing is certain. When roused, Nigerians don’t roll over. And President Buhari ought to know that. After all, he was there with General Sani Abacha when the late maximum ruler roused Nigerians with the same malevolent tendencies. How it all ended is still recent history.

$322m Abacha Loot: Separating Politics From Economics

By Emmanuel Obe

A lot of Nigerians have expressed their anger (and rightly so) over the planned disbursement of the $322 million recovered from the loot of the late Gen. Sani Abacha to 302,000 poor households in Nigeria.

*Abacha 

As the argument of those opposed to the planned disbursement goes, it appears unreasonable to just take out money and share out to people that did not work for it.

For them it makes no economic sense when that money, amounting to about N115 billion, could be invested in tangible projects that will generate revenue for government, employment for the youth and goods for the household. Some of the opponents of the policy have even gone ahead to recommend psychiatric tests for the government officials that proposed the disbursement on the grounds that it looked rather insane to share out money in that fashion.

How To Outlaw Counterfeit Drugs In Nigeria

By Kayode Ojewale

Drugs are medicines with physiological effects when taken which are used to treat illness, relieve a symptom or modify a chemical process in the body for specific purpose. On the other hand, fake drugs are drugs with low or wrong concentration of active ingredients, and in some cases with no active ingredient, packaged and marketed in deceptive manner. In clear terms, fake drugs are drugs which do not meet regulatory standards and approvals.

Drug counterfeiters release these drugs for sale at ridiculously cheap prices. This illicit act of drug counterfeiting by some unscrupulous elements in the society is not only worrisome and disturbing to the original manufacturers of the authentic products but also of great concern to the food and drug administrator and regulator in the country. 

Abacha Loot: Redistributing Illegally Acquired Funds

By Kunle Uthman

On December 4, 2017 in Washington D.C, United States of America, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Ambassador Roberto Balzaretti, Secretary of State and Director of the Directorate of International Law and Rachid Benmessaoud, Country Director for Nigeria, the International Development Association, IDA,  signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU.

*Gen Sani Abacha

It was between the Nigerian Government, the Swiss Federal Council and the IDA  “On the Return, Monitoring and Management of Illegally-Acquired Assets Confiscated By Switzerland To Be Restituted To The Federal Republic Of Nigeria.”

APC Crisis: Oshiomhole Is Becoming A Problem, Not The Solution

By SKC Ogbonnia

The most compelling attribute of Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, the new chairman of our great party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), remains the doggedness in which he organized protests during the democratic regime of then president, Olusegun Obasanjo. But events thus far are revealing the hard truth: trade union activism is far from party leadership. This point is that, Oshiomhole, who was brought in to stave off crisis and lead the party to victory in 2019, is already becoming a problem, not the solution. 

*President Buhari and Adams Oshiomole

Recall that the first turmoil that greeted Oshiomhole’s chairmanship was the splinter group, the Reformed APC (R-APC). Instead of exploring meaningful avenues for peace at the time, the new party chairman heightened the crisis by attacking the group’s credibility. To Oshiomhole, the R-APC was inconsequential, boasting that the party would win in 2019 regardless. He went further to dismiss the group merely as a “counter force” against “President Muhammadu Buhari’s resolve to fight corruption.” 

Terrorist Herders: Open Letter To Gov Godwin Obaseki

By Sylvester Odion Akhaine

Your Excellency,

I chose this medium of an open letter to reach out to you because of the existential danger presently confronting the peoples of Edo State. It is no longer news that Nigeria has become an open killing field stalked by so-called Fulani ‘herdsmen’, a roving band of terrorists acknowledged by the Global Terrorism Index as the fourth most dangerous terrorist organisation in the world.

*Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State

The crux of the matter is that while every community in Nigeria is alive to this danger posed by this band of terrorists and have openly rejected penetration projects variously referred to as ‘cattle colonies’ and ‘ranches’ advanced by their sponsors who currently control the levers of power at the centre, the governing elite in Edo state has maintained felonious silence over their forceful occupation of Edoland and murderous activities within. It is possible that the silence is induced by honest ignorance of the dynamics of the activities of these terrorists on your part and therefore requires some enlightenment by a recourse to some aspects of our history.