A Bloated Government At A Time Of Extreme Hardship Most Unconscionable –Afenifere

 The Communique Issued At The End Of The Monthly Meeting Of The Afenifere Held At The Residence Of Our Leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo At Isanya Ogbo Ogun State On Tuesday 8Th Day Of August 2023

 1.00 Preamble 

The Afenifere held its regular monthly Meeting today, 8^thday of August 2023, at the Isanya Ogbo Ogun State, country home of our Leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo who presided over the Meeting which was attended by delegates from the member states of the Organisation.

After intensive deliberations on the state of the Nigerian Federation, the Meeting observed and Resolved as follows:

Tinubu, Abort The Suicide Mission To Niger!

 Professor Niyi Osundare's Open Letter To President Bola Tinubu 

Dear President Tinubu,

It all began as a roadside rumour before blasting its way to the front pages of Nigerian newspapers, and the talking points of the electronic media. Now it has become a news item discussed with torment and trepidation by many Nigerians still struggling to cope with the political dysfunctionalities, socio- economic problems, and numerous anxieties of present Nigerian life.

*Tinubu 

The ‘subject of discourse’ is the coup d’etat in Niger, our neighbour to the north, and the present plan by ECOWAS under your leadership to force the restoration of democratic governance in that beleaguered country. What has got many Nigerians talking – and wondering – is the inclusion of military action in the cocktail of options under consideration by the ECOWAS leaders. 

When The American Hawk Decides To Devour The Nigerien Chick

 By Owei Lakemfa

The threat of the mighty United States of America, USA, on Tuesday, August 7, 2023  to invade little Niger Republic is not for its love of democracy, Nigeriens or Africans. It is basically in the nature of hawks to circle the sky looking for prey, especially chicks. There were American and French troops in Niger before the coup because it is in the nature of black vultures, not only to target and kill small live animals, but also to have the patience to wait and devour carcases.

So, the July 26 military coup in Niger Republic is a pretext. The USA Acting Deputy Secretary, Victoria Nuland, in   threatening to invade Niger, declared in the usual American arrogant manner: “So we’ll be watching the situation, but we understand our legal responsibilities and I explained those very clearly to the guys (the new Nigerien  leaders) who were responsible for this and that it is not our desire to go there, but they may push us to that point, and we asked them to be prudent in that regard and to hear our offer to try to work with them to solve this diplomatically and return to constitutional order.”

Tinubu’s Ministers: A Bunch Of Political Rewardees And Cronies

 By Olu Fasan

One of the popular myths around Bola Tinubu, stemming from his time as governor of Lagos State, was that he had an uncanny ability to pick competent teams of technocrats to run the affairs of state. Indeed, some genuinely wanted Tinubu to be president and “run Nigeria as he ran Lagos.” But the myths have busted since he became president. Not only has he muddled through policy after policy, the famed gift for talent-spotting gravely eluded him as he unveiled a middling cast of ministers, characterised by two fundamental flaws. 

*Tinubu 

First, Tinubu will have the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s political history. With 48 ministers and over 20 special advisers and senior special assistants, with cabinet-level status, Tinubu will have the most bloated and unwieldy cabinet of any past president.

As Tinubu Intensifies War Against The South-East

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Monday, August 7, the Senate confirmed 45 of the 48 ministerial nominees sent to it by President Bola Tinubu. Surprisingly, it deferred the confirmation of three nominees – former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai; a former senator from Taraba, Sani Danladi; and a nominee from Delta State, Stella Okotete – because of undisclosed security concerns.

*Tinubu 

Tinubu transmitted the names of the 48 nominees in three separate correspondences to the Senate on July 28, August 3 and August 4, the last list containing the names of Mr. Festus Keyamo, former Minister of State for Labour and Employment from Delta State and Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, a replacement for Dr. Maryam Shetty, whose nomination was withdrawn. Many Nigerians are perplexed at the development because nominees ought to have scaled the security hurdle before coming to the Senate. Does it mean that the Department of State Services, DSS, and other security agencies did not do due diligence?

Nigeria: What Is The Future Of Our Democracy?

 By Dan Onwukwe

This is where our leaders miss it all: A President does not shape a new and personal vision of his country. He collects it from the scattered hopes of the citizens, past and present. This has guided nations that practice democracy every step of the way. It sustains every elected President. However, the question is: why is it that what has guided other democratic nations, and has sustained their democracies failed in Nigeria, and instead, has produced politics of hate and personal interest? 

The answer partly can be found in the fact that every nation is its own laboratory of democracy. As French political philosopher , Tocqueville said, “democratic men are more apt to complete a number of undertakings in rapidity than to raise lasting monuments of their achievements…; they go after success rather fame”. 

Road To Economic Recovery And Development In Nigeria

 By Osilama Emmanuel Osilama

I will like to call on the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his executive arm, and the new National Assembly legislators to seriously consider the urgent review and possible amendment of the Land Use Act that is over 40 years old and no longer useful to our present day economy. This will open up the real estate market to an endless possibilities of the huge capital of internally generated revenue that have been locked up in the space for so many years because of the provisions as decreed and enacted in the Land Use Act.

The truth is that our country is not getting the right value from her real estate sector and until our government takes deliberate steps in the right direction nothing will change. It is estimated that Nigeria holds between $ 300 billion to $ 900 billion of dormant capital in residential and agricultural land, while the high-value real estate market segment holds as much as $ 750 billion of value that can be unlocked.

Nigeria’s Bow And Lie-Lie Senate

 By Emmanuel Aziken

The recent decision by FIFA to directly pay Nigerian footballers in the ongoing Women’s World Cup tournament their bonuses must be considered a slap on Nigerians and the independence of the country.

*Akpabio

However, for many who consider the FIFA decision as an insult, the brag about sovereignty slips into stupidity after watching the charade officially dubbed the ministerial screening of ministers by the Nigerian Senate.

Let Me Breathe, I Don’t Want To Die!

 By Owei Lakemfa

Two different but related cries ring in my head. “Let the Poor breathe” and “I don’t want to die.” The first is the cry across the country as the masses are being suffocated by inflation and over 90 million poor get hungrier.

*Dr. Vwaere Diaso

The second is the plaintive cry of young medical doctor, Vwaere Diaso, whose calling is to save lives. However, when her life was in danger with her limbs broken by an heartless system, her blood flowing from various parts and she knew her life was ebbing and she desperately needed help, her dying cry to her colleagues was: “I don’t want to die.”

Bola Tinubu’s Risky Niger Gamble

 By Farooq A. Kperogi

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu a few days ago wrote to the Senate to inform it of an impending “Military build up and deployment of personnel for military intervention to enforce compliance of the military junta in Niger should they remain recalcitrant.” This is a dangerous, ill-advised, potentially self-destructive gamble Tinubu would do well to give up because it has the potential to consume not just him but also Nigeria.

*Tinubu 

I detest military regimes because I am repulsed by any system that imposes unequal, predetermined structural limits on the aspirational compass to leadership. It is for the same reason that I despise the unearned, inherited authority that monarchies represent. Everyone should, at least in theory if not in practice, have the latitude to aspire to the highest level of leadership in the land. Military rule limits leadership to professional people, as monarchies limit leadership to bloodline.

Chasing Rats In Niger Republic

By Ochereome Nnanna

When the immediate former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, came to power in January 2017, he took stock of the situation the country was in. Over the decades, warlike America had become war-torn though the fighting was always on foreign land. It spends an average of $1 trillion on defence and wars annually. Its troops were mired all over the Middle East and Asia, especially in such countries as Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Trump, who campaigned on a mantra of Making America Great Again, MAGA, decided to de-escalate belligerence. The troops must come home. America must make peace with its traditional foes – Russia, China, North Korea and others. America must suspend its “big brother” role to the European Union and let them shift for themselves, at least for the time being. America must rebuild the coal-fired energy sector and revamp abandoned towns. America must rebuild its broken philosophical and cultural foundations and become America once again.

Panacea For Gender-Based Violence

 By Adeze Ojukwu

Violence has become the new norm for most communities, countries and continents. Sadly, women tend to disproportionately bear the brunt of these criminalities. There is ample evidence that violence against women seems to be escalating despite the global campaign against such violations. This is quite unfortunate, considering that many women leaders and activists are fighting, vigorously, to end all forms of ancient and modern barriers deliberately established by societies to devour females and their rights. 

The on-going FIFA Women’s World Cup, being hosted by Australia and New Zealand, provides not just an elixir for entertainment but a veritable window to celebrate female football czars, at the Mundial. Featuring at the highest global all-ladies football competition, as in all world tournaments, is no mean feat. 

Before Marching To Niamey, Let Us Pause

 By Owei Lakemfa

The new military rulers in Niger Republic, the country which marked independence day on Thursday, August 3, 2023 have a Sunday ultimatum from the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. It is that they give up power and restore elected President Mohammed Bazoum to power or face serious measures, including possible invasion.

ECOWAS also imposed sanctions, including border closures, a no-fly zone and the freezing of Nigerien assets. The options seem to be that if former Presidential Guard head, General Abdourahamane Tchiani and his boys do not give up power by that day, ECOWAS would either add more sanctions and pressure, or invade Niger. The issues are, however, not as straight forward; there are many complications, including foreign interests.

Nigeria: The ‘Demise’ Of The Peoples Democratic Party

 By Olu Fasan

Once upon a time, a political party bestrode Nigerian politics like a colossus. It governed Nigeria for 16 years and vowed to rule for 60. But it’s utter hubris. Buffeted from crisis to crisis, a deep rot set in, then an existential decline. Charles Darwin famously said that any organism that cannot adjust to its environment will become extinct. In the struggle for existence, it’s survival of the fittest; only the strong organisms will continue to exist, the weak will succumb to extinction. That’s the story of the Peoples Democratic Party!

In truth, PDP is not dead, not extinct; it’s still alive, albeit on life support. Thus, it’s more appropriate to say that PDP is dying, that it’s on a deathbed. The undertakers and political vultures are circling, and whether the party can survive, whether it can escape extinction, depends on how it handles Nyesom Wike and his gang of renegades. 

Nigeria: Is There A Reason To Be Hopeful?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Is Nigeria making progress? Is there any reason to be optimistic about the future? These are the questions that continue to concentrate my mind as the country and its leadership continue to fumble. Ordinarily, I am a very optimistic person with a positive outlook on life. I would rather look at a half of a glass of water and see it as half-full than half-empty. But wishing Nigeria the best or being hopeful that things will get better does not necessarily translate to reality. The vehicle that transports hope to the destination of reality is positive action.

*Tinubu 

Esther Boyd, the Editorial Director for State of Formation, an offshoot of the Journal of Interreligious Studies, JIRS, in a 2016 article, “Hope is an Action,” wrote: “Hope as an action means pushing boundaries, dismantling barriers, and taking steps – however small they may be – one by one, towards the better that we’re hoping for. To hope for something means to strive towards it, to build it if it doesn’t already exist, and to keep moving forward.” But hope, as Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher and cultural critic, once noted could be “the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torments of man”.

New Private Universities: No Shortcut To Quality Education

 By Levi Obijiofor

Anyone who is not baffled by the blunders committed by clueless political leaders who governed Nigeria since independence in October 1960 must be in deep slumber. Two weeks before the inauguration of a new government on May 29, 2023, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the establishment of 37 new private universities. That decision by the Muhammadu Buhari government flew in the face of reality.

You have to wonder the kind of reasons that convinced the FEC to endorse the new universities in a country in which existing universities are struggling to find and hire qualified teaching staff, to provide quality teaching and research, to establish good libraries, and to provide high-speed Internet and other resources that would enable academic staff and students to achieve their teaching and learning objectives.

African Leaders And Public Funds

  By Jason Osai

Desirous of foreign loan to invigorate the ailing Nigerian economy, a Nigerian President set off from the sprawling, multiple mansion presidential lodge in Aso Rock, Abuja to London for a meeting with his British counterpart. Driven in a 36-car motorcade of stretch limousines and other luxurious cars to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), he boarded one of the ten presidential jets and zoomed off to London. 

At Heathrow Airport, two stretch limousines, some SUVs and six despatch riders are at his service including a retinue of staff from the diplomatic mission who virtually “drop to their knees to catch every drop of his sneeze”. At No 10 Downing Street, Mr. President is ushered into the modestly furnished office of his host, the Prime Minister (PM) of Great Britain. The PM lives in an equally modestly furnished apartment in the same building on a street that is open 24/7 to everyday traffic for everyday people, a rather striking contrast with the maximum security exclusivity of Aso Rock, far away from the reach of everyday Nigerians. 

Senate And The Poor Next Door

 By Andy Ezeani

The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as with most public institutions in the country, hardly gets embarrassed with anything or under any circumstance. Were it otherwise, the upper chamber of the country’s National Assembly would have ended last week with its tails between its legs. It ought to. But that was not so. On the contrary, the lawmaking institution embarked on a bullish pushback against an obvious gaffe that it ought to feel thoroughly embarrassed at. 

*Akpabio and Tinubu

The strenuous effort last week, marshalled by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Yemi Adaramola, on the umbrage taken by some citizens at the seeming mockery of the poor on the floor of the Senate led by the Senate President himself, was quite pathetic. Couched in highfalutin language that came across more like a students’ union composition than any purposeful communication from such height, the Senate missed an opportunity to cast a better image of itself. 

Climate Change And Threats Of Another Pandemic

 By Adeze Ojukwu

Another deadly pandemic is imminent. In fact, it looms large. It is scary. It is dreadful. The world is rattled. Environmentalists, researchers, doctors and policy makers are agitated. Questions about the when, why, how of the omnious outbreak and other flustering posers are mounting at various high-level interventionist global conferences. Indeed, this verdict remains a reality, that cannot be easily waved away. 

Director General of World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Adhanom Ghebreyesus, handed down this grievous news, at the just-ended 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. He said, “The threat of another variant emerging that causes new surges of disease and death remains, and the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential remains.” 

Killings And Killings Everywhere!

 By Okey Anueyiagu

Every second that we watch, read, or listen to the news, all that confronts us is the disastrous impact of the killings in our communities and around the world. The harm that these killings has caused us, is incalculable and extremely consequential. Decades of evidence and damning revelations have exposed this phenomenon, and its devastating effect on Individuals, families, communities and humanity, as utterly disdainful.

Today, it is crucial to acknowledge our individual and collective roles in catalyzing the millions, upon millions of lives, mostly of innocent people, that have been willfully taken by the wickedness of their fellow humans. One must be forced to question the motivations that have created these far-reaching consequential disruptions to human lives and existence – are they actions motivated by political expediency, religious bigotry, ethnic and tribal hate, or racist motives? Perhaps these rampant killings are as a result of economic or monetary considerations, or by some other mundane reasons.