Nigeria @ 60: Our Leaders Have Failed The Founding Fathers

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

To fight against untruth and falsehood,

…to fight for our memory;

for our memory of what things were like –

that is the task of the artist.

A people who no longer remembers

has lost its history and its soul.

–     Alekzander Solzhentsyn 

With trillions of revenue in Naira, mostly from crude oil sales, agricultural exports, solid minerals, sundry taxes including Value Added Tax (VAT), from the ‘60s till date, it is a crying shame that Nigeria is currently the world capital of extreme poverty! And that it still parades some of the most disturbing and dismal figures in the Human Development Index (HDI) across the globe. 

*Awolowo, Azikiwe, Balewa 

According to Oxfam Report, between 1960 and 2005, about $20 trillion was stolen from the treasury by public office holders. This amount is larger than the GDP of United States in 2012 (about $18 trillion).The Report goes further to state in categorical terms that the combined wealth of Nigeria’s five richest men, put at $29.9 billion could end extreme poverty at a national level. Yet, more than 112 million people are living in poverty in Nigeria, while the country’s richest man would have to spend $1 million (N386 Million) every day for 42 years to exhaust his fortune! So, what does this mean to you and yours truly? 

America In Coma!

 By Theodore Dzeble

 “The American president was the quintessential repository of stately virtue, democracy, legitimacy, wealth, elegance, majesty, and freedom! Like the women of Jerusalem who cast down their garments on the highways for Christ’s motorcade, American presidents before Trump enjoyed such audacity of praise that even the angels coveted!”

*President Trump

Since 1788 when the Constitution of the United States of America was adopted (it was the very first formal blueprint of modern democracy), America’s democratic governance, (albeit unfolding in stages) became the city on the hill that inspired all leaders and nation-states. America was the dream everyone wanted to experience.

Is Nigeria A Mistake?

By Julius Oweh  

Of the three prominent early Nigerian na​tionalists, it was perhaps Nnamdi Azikiwe, the great Zik of Africa and a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah who believed in the unity and corporate existence of the nation. The other two, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo at one time or the other expressed their reservations about the unity and oneness of the country. It is on record that Ahmadu Bello described the 1914 amalgamation as a mistake, while Awolowo described Nigeria as a mere geographical expression. 

*Buhari 

At the height of constitutional conferences that paved way for the nation‘s independence, Bello was quoted as saying about  the north ‘we are not going to be part of Nigeria again‘. The most powerful politician of the north at that time only had a change of mind when Awolowo explained the concept of federalism to the Premier of northern region.   I am embarking on this political voyage so that you can truly understand the situation and why after sixty years of independence, despite the abundant human and material resources, Nigeria is still the butt of dirty diplomatic jokes around the globe. 

Me Celebrate Nigeria At 60? Sorry, No!!

By Mike Ozekhome

Many Nigerians at home and abroad, including elder statesmen and women, rights activists, NGOs, journalists and social media czars, have severally called upon me in the last one week to comment on my personal feelings about “Nigeria at 60”. I had hitherto resisted this invitation, lest I painted a horrifically gloomy picture of despondency. However, because the questions will not stop cascading in like a torrential rainfall, I am now compelled to share my honest, but very modest, thoughts about Nigeria at 60. I am extremely sad about Nigeria at 60.

                                             *Chief Ozekhome

Very, very sad indeed. Surely, a 60-year and above old man or woman, is already a senior citizen; a grandfather, or grandmother. I am one. This means such a man or woman has grown; or is at least, presumed to have grown, in maturity and development. But, I am sad that Nigeria, “our own dear native land” (words taken from the beautiful lyrics of the unfortunately discarded old National Anthem), has neither developed nor matured. 

Nigeria: Sixty Years Old Empire Of Vampires

 By Gbenro Olajuyigbe

Kings of empires were historically imperial, feudal lords. They were fearfully revered. They could decide to take their baths with bucketful of another person’s blood if they wanted.

They were the law, the empires and the emperors – trinity of terror! To drive home the omnipotence of their cruelty, one of the wives of the Alafin in the Old Oyo Empire, due to familiarity, tested the potency of such power. She playfully ridiculed the king while naked by saying ‘ I don’t know why people fear  a man with small organ like you?’ Alafin responded, ‘you don’t know?”. 

How Organized Labour Deceived Nigerians

 By Reuben Abati

I was very skeptical when the current leadership of Organized Labour in Nigeria objected to the decision of the Federal Government to withdraw fuel subsidy and hand over the pump price of petrol to the forces of demand and supply, also known as market forces. Labour, represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and their affiliates and privies in civil society, further threatened that they were opposed to the hike in electricity tariffs.

They issued a statement in which they railed against neo-liberal policies, bad timing, and the insensitivity of government. They made heavy weather out of the hardship that COVID-19 has imposed on the people and why any form of additional taxation that could pressurize the people would be utterly unacceptable. Deregulation of the downstream sector is not a new subject in Nigeria. Removal of fuel subsidy is an old subject. Only the dumb and the deaf would deny being aware of the persistent argument that a functioning electricity sector in Nigeria would unleash the country’s energy and potentials, through the values derivable therefrom: saving of costs, creation of jobs, a value-added SME, an improved manufacturing sector and a happier, more productive citizenry. 

In 2012, when the Jonathan administration announced a full deregulation of the downstream sector and removal of fuel subsidy, Organized Labour aligned with opposition politicians and turned the argument on its head. They called out their troops and a thoroughly hypnotized political class, and workers’ community, fostered tension and instability in the system.

Seven Years Without My Father!

 By Adaeze-Mcphilips Nwachukwu 

Dads play important roles in every step their children take. They are like warriors who will fight battles for the sake of their children’s happiness. However, some children grow up without a father; some lose their dad because of death. Some are not given the chance to spend their entire life with their father. Being away from your father or losing him forever may cause you to feel empty and incomplete. The sadness that fills your heart is very upsetting. Missing my dad and knowing I may never see him again is so painful to me. 

                                     *Late Mcphilips Nwachukwu 

MISSING MY DAD

Dad, I keep thinking about you never knew that being fatherless, would make me feel so much pain. I miss you Dad.

It hurts to think that you are not here anymore. Although I cannot help it but at times I smile with tears in my eyes when I remember how we cherished each and every moment when you were alive. I miss you Dad!

Selfish, Insensitive and Irresponsible Leadership Caused Our Defeat – APC Edo

 The Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has congratulated Governor Godwin Obaseki of the Peoples Democratic (PDP) for his victory at the September 19 governorship election held in Edo State.

In statement signed by the state chairman of the party, Anslem Ojezua, the party said that although the election was “acclaimed to be peaceful, orderly and transparent,” what led to their defeat was the mismanagement of the process leading to the election by a “selfish, insensitive, arrogant and irresponsible leadership.” 
 The statement reads:  

 “We join President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Caretaker Committee of our great Party to congratulate Governor Godwin Obasekl and his Deputy Rt. Hon. Philip Shalbu for their victory at the just concluded Governorship election in Edo state” the chairman said.

“The election has been generally acclaimed to be peaceful, orderly and transparent. The people of Edo State have made their choice. In a very clear and unambiguous manner.

God-wins, Edo And Lessons Learnt

 By Reuben Abati

The pundits who had predicted the outcome and the nature of the Gubernatorial election in Edo State got it all wrong. The Edo 2020 election may well prove to be a turning point in the management of elections in Nigeria, and if not, there are certainly lessons to be learnt from it. It was in every sense a rude awakening for both the actors in the drama and the community of observers who witnessed and monitored the election. 

                                                           *Reuben Abati

Pundits predicted that the election would end up as war, a do –or die affair and that there would be blood-letting in all the state’s three Senatorial Districts. That didn’t happen. An official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was shot in Etsako Central LGA, another person was macheted and given a cut on the face. In Orhionmwon LGA, a person was killed. In Egor, Ovia South West, Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo LGAs there were reports of skirmishes involving vote buying, and physical assault, but on the whole, the election went on peacefully. There were fears that voters would stay away from the polling stations, out of fear and anxiety, for indeed, before election day, September 19, campaign rhetoric was febrile, hate speech dominated political talk. The people had every reason to be afraid. 

Comrade Oshiomhole: What Next?

 

By Ozodinukwe Okenwa

The gubernatorial election in Edo State has come and gone (last weekend) with the victor and the vanquished emerging. The incumbent Governor of the state, Godwin Obaseki, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 307,955 votes across the 18 local government areas of the state to defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu who scored 223,619 votes according to the figures announced by the INEC’s Returning Officer, Prof Akpofure Rim-Rukeh.

Why Buhari Should Listen To Obasanjo And Soyinka

 By Charles Okoh

I don’t envy President Muhammadu Buhari. The sheer enormity of the burden on the leader of a nation like Nigeria is certainly not a thing to trivialise or dismiss with the wave of the hand. Before Buhari’s emergence as president, there were issues that threatened the very existence of the nation and had eaten deep into the very fabric that should hold us together. All these issues preceded the administration of President Buhari. True. 

                                                 *Obasanjo and Buhari

However, and sadly too, nothing much is being done to build this slowly but steadily disintegrating and dysfunctional nation. Every of those fault lines that threaten the nation are daily accentuated by the action and inaction of the Buhari regime. There is a clear lack of willpower to arrest the decline. To this end, we have been regaled with stories of denials and blame trade that will ultimately do no one any good. 

Law That Gave Maximum Powers To Gov Uzodinma Was Doctored – Dep Minority Leader

PRESS RELEASE 

 By Hon (Barr) Frank Ugboma

Some Sections in the recently gazetted Administration of Criminal Justice  Law (ACJL) came to me with rude shock. 

As the Chief Sponsor of the Bill, I have had cause to search through all the documents that cumulated into the Bill. I must say that I have done this repeatedly and have equally taken further pains in reaching out to my colleagues in the House. I must admit that they have each expressed shock over the sudden obnoxious sections of the Law more particularly Section 484 of the said ACJL of Imo State. 

For the avoidance of doubt, the Bill I presented had about a total of 372 Sections. How and where it was amended, recreated and reshaped into Section 484 and beyond remains a mystery and a legislative wonder of our time as what I presented and circulated to my colleagues during plenary, both in the First and Second readings did not contain such obnoxious and embarrassing Section 484. Neither was it deliberated in the House Committee of the whole. It indeed never existed in the House. 

Cry Not For Northern Nigeria!

 By Yakubu Mohammed

Apparently, the North deserves pity. But is it worth crying for?  Whichever angle you want to look at it, and through whichever prism you want to look at the Hobbesian state of its conditions today, the inevitable conclusion is that the North has nobody to blame but itself.

In its heydays, with good leadership that was imbued with sound vision, the North was united and monolithic in more senses than one. And relatively, it was more economically viable, self-confident, arrogant even.

But today, it is at war with itself, thanks to rabid ethnicity and religious bigotry with a system that wallows more in mediocrity than merit. Home to soulless insecurity with Boko Haram and other assorted criminals, armed bandits, kidnappers, cattle rustlers and herdsmen, both local and foreign, unhinged, the once united and peaceful North has turned into a hot bed of grotesque abnormality.

Wole Soyinka To President Buhari: The Roof Of National Edifice Is On Fire!

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Between ‘Dividers-In-Chief’ And Dividers-In-Law 

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By Wole Soyinka

I am notoriously no fan of Olusegun Obasanjo, General, twice former president and co-architect with other past leaders of the crumbling edifice that is still generously called Nigeria. I have no reasons to change my stance on his record. Nonetheless, I embrace the responsibility of calling attention to any accurate reading of this nation from whatever source, as a contraption teetering on the very edge of total collapse. We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples, supposedly bound together under an equitable set of protocols of co-habitation, capable of producing its own means of existence, and devoid of a culture of sectarian privilege and will to dominate.

*Soyinka and Buhari 

On Africa Day, May 2019, organised by the Union Bank of Africa, I similarly seized an opening to direct the attention of this government to warnings by the Otta farmer over the self-destruct turn that the nation had taken, urged the wisdom of heeding the message, even while remaining chary of the messenger. That advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears. In place of reasoned response and openness to some serious dialogue, what this nation has been obliged to endure has been insolent distractions from garrulous and coarsened functionaries, apologists and sectarian opportunists.

When Will Nigeria Stop Fuel Importation?

 By DAN AMOR
Sometime ago, the former Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke hinted that the Federal Government had planned to stop the importation of refined petroleum products in 24 months. I had said in this column then that if that ambitious plan was not met, Mrs. Alison-Madueke should be prepared for a legal battle with concerned Nigerians as her wild goose chase would amount to perjury, a criminal offence since she made the statement under oath in her official capacity as minister of petroleum resources. The truth, however, is that our government officials make statements just because they have to read out something to the expectant public for the fun of it. 

There is usually not substance or truth in their mouths. Otherwise, why would the former Minister predicate the stoppage of importation of refined petroleum products on the turn-around maintenance of the four decrepit refineries? She knew that even if the four traditional refineries were to function optimally their total output would still not meet the demand for local consumption. All things considered, the business segments of the society and the consuming public that suffer the brunt of petroleum products importation would have jubilated at the pronouncement of the then Minister in far away Vienna, Austria. 

Why Character Matters In Politics

By Patrick Utomi

One of the sad paradoxes of Nigeria’s political journey is the current widely held view that in politics anything goes. To explain the most disgraceful personal conduct, it seems ‘okay’ to just say ‘na politics na’. 

                                                                     *Prof Utomi 

This dominant vice of politics, as the art of the indecent, rather than the art of the possible, which is dominant in contemporary political culture in Nigeria is exactly opposite the core issue in Western political thought and history. There the central issue has been morality or public virtue, as Montesquieu calls it. 

The great escape from misery for Western civilisation, beyond Angus Deaton’s case for the contribution of health care and the discovery of the germ theory of disease, has largely come from freedom that democracy offers. 

How To Hold Elections Safely And Uphold Democracy During The COVID-19 Pandemic

By Nic Cheeseman

Free and fair elections face a new kind of threat. In addition to scheming leaders and compromised electoral commissions, there is now the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In response, a new report published by the British Academy sets out how elections can be held safely and democratically amid COVID-19. Edited by renowned political scientist Sarah Birch, it covers a range of topics, including how to establish health protocols and manage the risk of election violence. The report sets out the options for international election observers.

*Election Day in Benin Republic 

This is critically important because despite the health crisis, there will be no letup in controversial elections – starting with Tanzania in October and the United States in November. International observation will not insulate these polls from malpractice, but it will make it less likely and allow it to be exposed.

Yet the kind of observation carried out by the Carter Centre, European Union , Organisation of American States, and other international organisations requires flying large numbers of people between countries. It is therefore one of the election activities threatened by the pandemic.

The Disinvitation Of Nasir El-Rufai By The NBA

By Tony Ademiluyi

Mallam Nasir El-Rufai came into the public limelight in 1999 when democracy returned back to the country after a sixteen year hiatus of military misrule. The then President Olusegun Obasanjo made El-Rufai the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) which was saddled with the gargantuan responsibility of disposing some of the assets hitherto held by the government to private investors. It was as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory that his name became permanently etched in the minds of many Nigerians as he had the ambition of restoring the original master plan of the city.

 

*El-Rufai

Many houses including those owned by prominent Nigerians were bulldozed as the then diminutive minister spared no one and took no prisoners. Some of his die-hard supporters pushed his name forward as a possible successor to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 after the alleged failure of the latter’s third term bid. For some reasons best known to Baba Iyabo as the former President is fondly called, he settled for the Late Umaru Musa Yar’adua who was then governing Katsina state. El-Rufai went into political winter for eight years after his former boss’s Presidency and he was hounded by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to give an account of his eight-year stewardship especially as the minister. He went on to write his memoir – ‘The Accidental Public Servant’ which was an interesting read even though some critics accused him of hagiography.

Six Million Nigerians Flee Boko Haram Terror Attacks In 10 Years, Says Report

By Adelowo Adebumiti

In the last 10 years, an estimated six million Nigerians have fled their homes for fear of extermination, abduction, and other forms of treatments by the Boko Haram group in Nigeria, a recent report has revealed.

The report, titled, ‘Managing Internal Displacement Crisis in Nigeria: Toward Global Best Practices in Guaranteeing the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) through the Media’, was published by Journalists for Christ with support from the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and the Waldensian Church’s Otto Per Mille.

The research, which is a follow –up of an earlier project titled, ‘Monitoring Media Reportage and Portrayal of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs): Cases studies of Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya’, stated that in the Northeast alone, the decade-long attacks by the group have displaced over 1.8 million people.

According to the study, the Internally Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) estimates the total number of IDPs in the country between January and December 2018 to be above two million with Borno State alone accounting for 1.4 million of that figure.

India: Celebrating An Economic Giant At 73

By DAN AMOR

India has been celebrating since penultimate week its 73rd independence anniversary as a democratic nation having been juristically established on August 15, 1947 after several decades of British colonialism. But the great Indian nation did not begin only about seven decades ago. Rather, it is the proud beneficiary of several millennia of great and memorable history, culture and civilization. Indian independence movement began in 1857 spanning 90 years before achieving self rule in 1947. 

As the enterprising people of India celebrate their bold attempt at shaking off the yoke of British imperialism and economic strangulation, yours sincerely is pleased to join millions of people, nations and organizations all over the world to congratulate this wonderful and spicy nation on her march from poverty and despair to a position of preeminence, respect and pride. It would not be an overstatement to say that the transformation of India is not only a challenge to the sub-continent of Asia but has also provided a shining example for most other countries still battling with the vagaries of underdevelopment, militarism, poverty and corruption.