Integrity Matters In Politics: Britain Shows It, Why Not Nigeria?

 By Olu Fasan

Call it a tale of two countries. One, Britain, puts integrity at the heart of its politics and punishes any departure from it, as evidenced by the recent toppling of its prime minister, Boris Johnson. The other, Nigeria, lacks integrity in its politics and tolerates acts of impunity, as proven by the prevalence of vote-buying and other dishonest practices in its elections. The contrasting stories of both countries and the implications for Nigeria’s democracy are instructive and deserve our attention. Let’s start with Britain!

*Buhari and Johnson

In December 2019, Boris Johnson secured a landslide victory for his party, the Conservative Party. He won an 80-seat parliamentary majority, the party’s biggest for 40 years. Yet less than three years later, he was brutally defenestrated by Members of Parliament, MPs, from his own party.

Ironically, last week, the same Tory MPs gave Johnson a standing ovation during his final prime minister’s questions, PMQs, after a barnstorming speech, which he ended with the words: “Hasta la vista(goodbye; see you later), baby!”

So, within three years as prime minister, Boris Johnson was ousted from the job he coveted his entire political life. The question must be: Why? Well, here’s why. Conservative MPs admired Johnson’s charisma and electioneering skills, but they strongly detested his personal flaws, his perceived lack of integrity, and the latter feeling trumped the former. As one Conservative insider put it, “the principal reason for removing Johnson was to restore honesty to public life”.

Antimicrobial Resistance: Where Did We Go Wrong In Our Efforts To Help Humanity?

 

By Nana Afua Agyemang Mensah-Bonsu

Antibiotics were discovered in a stroke of luck almost a century ago like an answered prayer to the cries of mankind as lives were being lost to and heavily affected by (treatable) infections.

Unbeknownst to man, the discovery of antibiotics brought in its wake, poor antibiotic usage and practices which has led to Antimicrobial Resistance, a public health and healthcare menace taking us back to square one.

The first true antibiotic known to man is Penicillin. This was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist who returned from a vacation to find green mold (Penicillium notatum) growing in one of his petri dishes which contained Staphylococcus, bacteria known to cause boils and sore throats, inhibiting the growth of the bacteria.

Women Entrepreneurs In Africa Face More Climate Risks Than Their Male Peers

 

By Kate Gannon

The world's climate is changing. All of us will ultimately be affected by climatic shifts – but some will be hit harder than others.

On the African continent, for instance, small businesses are on the front lines of climate change. Over 50% of the African labour force works in agriculture, which is both very exposed to and dependent on climatic variability and change. But even businesses in urban centres are increasingly dealing with climate-induced challenges. These include unstable water and power supplies, extreme heat and flooding. These hazards interrupt processing and manufacturing activities. They also limit transportation of goods and make it harder to provide services to customers. And they increase the risk of unsafe working conditions.

HIV: A Looming Epidemic!

 Latest UNAIDS Data Paint A Grim Picture Of The Pandemic…

By Shobha Shukla

A new report, “In Danger”, launched by UNAIDS just ahead of the 24th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022) in Montreal, Canada, paints a grim picture of the global HIV epidemic. It reveals that during the last two years, progress in prevention and treatment of HIV has slowed down and resources have shrunk, putting millions of lives at risk.

As per the report, there were 650,000 AIDS related deaths in 2021, despite there being effective HIV treatment and tools to prevent, diagnose and treat opportunistic infections.

Also 1.5 million new infections occurred in 2021– over 1 million more than the 2025 global targets. This amounts to the smallest annual decline in new HIV infections since 2016 – a drop of only 3.6% between 2020 and 2021.

Cumulative Evidence Of Buhari’s Failure

 By Olayemi Olaniyi   

If you’re not in academia, there is a good chance you don’t know what the hell a Nomological Network of Cumulative Evidence means. I came across this rather prolix and strange phrase during one of the many podcast interviews granted by the Lebanese-Canadian Professor, Gad Saad, that I have been binge-watching for weeks now. Gad Saad is arguably the world’s leading expert in Evolutionary Psychology; a field that theoretically explains psychological structure through modern evolutionary context.

*Buhari 

According to Saad, to build a nomological network of cumulative evidence essentially means to provide a wide range of evidence across various disciplines to explain a theory. The results of this interdisciplinary voyage usually would lead to the same conclusion, hence, giving the researcher an airtight premise to support their case. He often cites how Charles Darwin used this framework in On the Origin of Species. Darwin presented a nomological network of evidence from geology, archaeology, biology, anthropology, and a mélange of other disciplines in support of his theory of evolution in his seminal book.

The Problem Buhari Created

 By Rotimi Fasan

One knew this was where we were headed; Nigerians too saw it coming, a situation where a group of bloodthirsty marauders could put a bounty on the head of the leader of the so-called giant of Africa, the most populous Black country on our planet, while threatening fire and brimstone.

But these are no group of braggarts. They often put their mouth where their money is and are far better at making good their threat than the Nigerian state under the present administration.

*Buhari 

Nothing could have been more brazen. That bands of undisciplined men that have chosen to make the forest and similar hideouts in the wilderness their home, could boldly advertise their plan to abduct President Muhammadu Buhari as well as Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, tells us nothing if not an account of official negligence and dereliction of duty on the part of President Buhari, who continues to issue ineffectual statements of intent and orders to the military and other security agencies to destroy the outlaw elements that have grown stronger by the day.

Shettima, Where Did Buhari Stop?

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

It is no longer news that Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s running mate in the 2023 Presidential Election, Kashim Shettima, has recently said that Nigeria needs a new President who would continue from where President Muhammadu Buhari stopped.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) party has woefully failed Nigeria in the last seven years and therefore should be voted out of power in 2023. Out of the abundance of the heart, we have been told, the mouth speaks.

*Shettima

How can Shettima be saying that we need a President who would continue from where President Buhari stopped. Where did Buhari stop, if I may ask Mr. Shettima? In festering corruption? Or, in insecurity? Or, in wooden-headed? Or, in cluelessness? Or, in imposing a corrupt and incompetent ex-Chief Justice of Nigeria on the country?
 
The most significant achievement of the Buhari government in the last seven years is to drag Nigeria into the membership of failed States.

Imagine the most populous and most richly endowed African country joining insignificant countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Myanmar as a full-fledged failed State. 

Most ‘Sexy Looking Girls’ Do Not Have Someone To Tell Them The Truth!

 
The following conversation took place between a grandmother and her grand-daughter.  

                           -------------------------

Grandma: Mutoni, where are you going? 

Mutoni: Grandma, I am going to Church. 

Grandma: Really? Please come and sit down and let's talk for a minute before you go. I think we still have ample time before the Church Service begins? Don't we? 

Mutoni: Yes, about an hour.  

Grandma: The way you are dressed, in fact, you look very sexy. 

Mutoni: (Smiling) Thank you very much ma.  

Grandma: Hmmmm, Mutoni, I can see you love that compliment. Please tell me, do you need someone to have sex with you? 

You Can Go Now Mr President!

*Buhari

By Dele Sobowale

“I am eager to go. I can tell you, it has been tough. I am grateful to God that people appreciate the personal sacrifices we have been making. I wish the person after me the very best” – President Buhari, Monday, July 11, 2022.

If that was a joke, Buhari, Public Servant Number 1, should know that, we are not amused. On the contrary, most Nigerians, his employers, take the entire statement as an insult from a servant who served so badly, those of us who, at first, believed in him, will spend the rest of our lives regretting we ever committed such a colossal blunder.

Despite knowing him to be a northern Fulani Muslim and sympathizer of Islamic fundamentalists, I worked tirelessly for his election in 2011 and 2015. To be quite honest, I was persuaded that the man had changed by the late Prince Tony Momoh – who was the Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, which Buhari led to defeat in 2011. I repeatedly asked Momoh if he was certain about Buhari; and received an affirmative response.

2023: The Catastrophic Error Of Muslim- Muslim Ticket

 By Sen Chris Ekpenyong

It is with great pains that I air my opinion on this issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket in Nigeria. Away from party and political interests, let us take a retrospective look at the idea. 

*Shettima and Tinubu

What the proponents of such a disastrous act are aiming is to further divide this country along our fault lines. What they are doing is against the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

When you look at Section 15 of our constitution sub section 1, it talks about what the political objective of a political party should be. It directly defines the agreement of our co-existent that is unity, peace and progress.

It stipulates that national integration should be the pivot of our existence as a nation and discrimination based on any sort such as religion, ethnicity, language, gender, etc., should be prohibition

Nigeria: Muslim-Muslim Ticket: Slight To Diversity

 By Alade Rotimi-John

Under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 particularly its section 14 (3), the Nigerian state is under an unwavering duty to ensure that:

“The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried on in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity and also to command national loyalty thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in the Government or any of its agencies”.

*Tinubu and Shettima 

Even though we have witnessed a glaring, unabashed abuse of this article of faith by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari these seven odd years, it will amount to complacent insensitivity for any person or group of persons aspiring to succeed it to self-gratifyingly propose a continuation of a befuddling Buhari “legacy in government”.

A Peter Obi Truth

 Today, Tuesday, July 19, 2022, is the birthday of former Anambra State Governor and Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi. 

We present here an excerpt from The Promise of a New Era, a book by Chuks Iloegbunam out in August 2022 

Until the run up to the 2003 general elections, I was unaware of Peter Obi’s existence. Our first meeting was in Asaba late in 2002, when Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu led an APGA delegation on a campaign trip to Delta State. I had travelled from Lagos to Asaba, to assist Prince Ned Nwoko, a friend from my London days, who was the APGA gubernatorial candidate for Delta State. 

Former Biafran Commando Colonel Joe “Air Raid” Achuzia led the Delta APGA reception team. With Ned exchanging pleasantries with some party supporters under a tree on the far side, I joined a handful of others who listened as Chief Achuzia stood by his car and delivered an impromptu lecture. This was happening on the grounds of the Grand Hotel, and while we waited for General Ojukwu’s team to arrive, Achuzia spoke on the need for everyone to always be on the alert for his or her safety. “If I got found today wielding an automatic rifle,” he said, “that would be trifling. I’ve gone past that age. But any of you young ones here with a job and salary for six consecutive months without acquiring an AK47 is foolish.” 

Looking back now, I wonder whether Achuzia spoke in that vein because he had foreseen the calamitous security situation that has now drowned Nigeria. Anyway, Ojukwu’s convoy soon swept into the Grand Hotel. With the visitors from Anambra State, we formed a sizable crowd that soon plunged into a brightly lit hall. 

Nigeria: Kuje Prison Down, Is Aso Rock Next?

 By Dele Sobowale

“I am disappointed with the intelligence system. How can terrorists organise, have weapons, attack a security installation and get away with it? I am expecting a comprehensive report on this shocking incident.” 

(President Buhari, at Kuje Prison, Abuja, July 5, 2022). 

Man proposes; God disposes. I planned a different article for today, titled, “Emilokan Brought Us Buhari And Anarchy” – a comprehensive catalogue of all terrorist activities for the month of June. But my colleague, Nnamdi Ojiego, had done a better job by publishing a more comprehensive report from May 1, 2022, in Sunday Vanguard of July 10, 2022, on page 24.

I challenge anyone who is not a candidate for a mental hospital to read Ojiego’s article without feeling that anarchy is definitely here. There was no single day in June 2022 when killings, kidnapping and mob violence by hoodlums and Fulani herdsmen were not reported. Katsina, Buhari’s state, was among the worst four. If you still have any doubt that the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Buhari have brought us into pure anarchy, then the two attacks occurring on the same day should get your brain working – if you have any. 

Nigeria Is Not An Emirate

 By Chidi Odinkalu

November 28, 1988 was a Monday. In Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT, a Constituent Assembly inaugurated by military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, had been in session for just over six months since May 11, 1988. At the helm as its chair was Anthony Aniagolu, then a recently retired Justice of Nigeria’s Supreme Court. He was a Christian from Enugu State. His deputy was Muhammadu Buba Ardo, then Chief Judge of Gongola State, who died suddenly in 1991, two years after the Assembly completed its work. He was Muslim.

*Buhari 

The Secretary to the Constituent Assembly was one Alhaji Babagana Kingibe, whom the country has since then got to know a lot more eloquently, a Muslim from Borno State. Kingibe’s assistant was Amal Inyingiala Pepple, who would rise to the height of the civil service in Nigeria, before retiring in June 2009 as the Head of Service of the Federation. She is a Christian from Rivers State.

In those days, Nigeria had 21 states: Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bendel, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Gongola, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Lagos, Nigeria, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, and Sokoto states, plus the FCT.

The Constituent Assembly, which Justice Aniagolu chaired, comprised 567 members drawn from all these states. A total 458 were elected, while 109 were nominated by the Federal Government, including the Chairman and his Deputy (both of them male), and drawn from the ranks of judicial figures, senior lawyers, titans of industry, traditional rulers, experienced public servants and administrators, academics and other professionals.

2023: Muslim-Muslim Ticket Is Worse Than Another Northern President

 By Olu Fasan

Unless there’s a miracle and a third force succeeds next year, Nigeria faces two disastrous choices. One is another president from the North succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari. The other is a Muslim-Muslim presidency, with a Muslim president and a Muslim vice-president. Nigeria would either have a President Atiku Abubakar, a Northerner, or a President Bola Tinubu, a Muslim, with a Vice President Kashim Shettima, also a Muslim. Either outcome would severely undermine the unity and stability of Nigeria, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. 

*Atiku and Tinubu

Truth be told, the best outcome for Nigeria is neither success for Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, nor success for Atiku, the candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Rather, the best outcome is victory for Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, and his respected technocratic running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, founder and pro-chancellor of Baze University, Abuja.

Nigerians Can’t Wait To See Buhari Go

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

President Muhammadu Buhari has finally admitted that he is overwhelmed by the job he craved and cried for. But Nigerians came to that conclusion long before him. Having waited patiently, albeit fruitlessly, for the president to deliver on his 2014 campaign promises, beleaguered Nigerians who are still wondering how they allowed themselves to be conned seven years ago, have, however, moved on.

They no longer place any stock on his ability to get the job done. Even members of his party – All Progressives Congress (APC) – are too ashamed of the mess Buhari has made of governance.

*Buhari

So, when the president quips that he is eager to go as he did on Monday when he received some APC governors, legislators and political leaders at his residence in Daura, Katsina State, he needs to be told that the feeling is mutual, Nigerians are more eager. They can’t wait to see his back in Aso Rock.

“I am eager to go. I can tell you it has been tough. I am grateful to God that people appreciate the personal sacrifices we have been making. I wish the person who is coming after me the very best,” Buhari said.

Of course, whoever that will succeed Buhari needs all the prayers because the damage is enormous but it sounded ridiculous hearing him lament the phantom toll official duties had taken on him.

When he talks about his personal sacrifices in running the country, it smacks of entitlement. The hubris is insufferable. Buhari thinks he is doing Nigerians a favour being president when he is not.

Nigeria: That Audacious Attack On Kuje Prison!

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

 “There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny. They should be setting the examples” -Edward Snowden

They come in with guts, grits and such a high level of gruesomeness to unleash terror on innocent Nigerians and yet go Scot-free! The dare-devil bravado of these unpatriotic elements cannot but ignite in you the urge to ask the million-naira question of who really owns this country, Nigeria? Right from 2009 the mindless mission of the terrorists (call them Boko Haram insurgents, bandits or ISWAP) has been to turn the apple cart against the peaceful cohabitation of the good citizens of the country, by deploying ethno-religious sentiments.

Unfortunately, they seem to be succeeding in the heinous crimes against Nigerians and smiling all the way to their blood banks! That brings in the pains, considering the several thousands of those who have lost their lives to their deadly attacks; others who have lost loved ones and thousands of those left to stew on in preventable anguish in several IDP camps. Add the humongous public sums budgeted every blessed year, surreptitiously to fight the insurgency and the pitiable plight of the people in the face of insurgency and the nebulous picture gets clearer. But, it is only part of their nefarious agenda to bring the indigenous people of Nigeria to their begging knees.

Boris Johnson Vs Donald Trump: Parallax Snaps

 By Ichie Tiko Okoye

There certainly was more outrage in his voice than the sadness he professed to feel at being forced to “give up the best office in the world,” when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson read out his resignation letter in an address to the British people last Thursday (06 July 2022). His resignation announcement came right after it finally dawned on him that a sizeable number of top government officials and Tory MPs were no longer interested in buying into the distracting conjuring tricks he was deploying in response to a recent slew of ethics scandals. 

*Boris Johnson

To all intents and purposes, Johnson has been the English equivalent of America’s Donald Trump. Both are charismatic front men with a knack for manipulating the media. Just as Johnson crystallised a decisive electoral victory with the memorable tag line of “Just get Brexit done!” Trump equally mesmerised American voters with his campaign psychobabble of “Make America Great Again!” – MAGA for short. 

Johnson and Trump are perceived to be born-winners with a cult following and mammoth fan bases. But truth be told, their popularity is more the result of political sleight of hand than genuine political pedigree. Both men are incorrigible liars, whether it is unabashedly looking their fellow citizens in the eye and spewing lies in furtherance of their own personal interests and agendas or momentarily succumbing to the malady of selective amnesia whenever convenient or spreading falsehoods about a “stolen election.” 

Muslim-Muslim Ticket: A Disastrous Error!

 By Babachir Lawal

I thought I will be able to avoid commenting on the disastrous error by my very good friend, Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his choice of a running mate.

I will be the very last person to stand in the way of my very good friend Tinubu’s path to the presidency. This is because, since 2011, my consuming passion has been for him to succeed Buhari as President of Nigeria. 

*Tinubu

It will not be true if I say that I did not see it coming. I have often read his body language, picked up snippets from several discussions with his lapdogs (some of whom, sadly, are Christians but most of whom are Muslims), and I have conveyed my reservations to them against the pitfalls of a Muslim-Muslim ticket towards which I sensed they were drifting.

As part of my obligation to him, a close friend, I had on many occasions argued the merits and demerits of both ticket permutations to him. 

Peter Obi And His Supporters

 By Promise Adiele  

Femi Osofisan’s play Morountodun derives its historical substratum from the Agbekoya uprising of 1969 in the Western part of Nigeria. Popularly known as the ‘farmers’ revolt’, the incident occupies an iconic place in Marxist revolutionary ethos which is why many critics describe Osofisan as a helpless Marxist writer, an emblem he unsuccessfully tries to discard. 

*Peter Obi

In 1969, while the civil war was raging in the Eastern part of the country, illiterate, uninformed, uneducated farmers, without any political structure, took up arms and fought the government in Western Nigeria. Their pain was manifold but they bore it with equanimity. They lived through deprivation, government irresponsibility, official rascality, decayed infrastructure, and many other aberrant social conditions. 

But a time came when the farmers could not take the pains anymore, they revolted. The immediate cause of their revolt was the introduction of higher taxes which meant that they had to pay more. Throwing all cautions to the wind, they adopted a guerrilla approach, fought the government and overthrew the prevailing superstructure. In the end, the government was forced to the negotiating table.