US Election 2009: For Senator John McCain, Nigeria's PDP Beckons!

(First published October 22, 2009

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

No matter who is announced winner of the American presidential election after November 4, 2009, what would never remain in doubt is that this is one election that would be far-reaching in redefining the political and social scene of the United States. As the campaigns rage and voters package their decisions, virtually nothing would be spared the raging fire of large-scale transformations sweeping through the US, as cherished and pampered myths are exploded, resilient pretensions and hypocrisies unmasked, and obstinate, enduring obsessions and habits badly scalded and shredded.

 *Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

For instance, a distinguished statesman like former president Bill Clinton whose non-racial credentials had been so well-acknowledged that renowned African-American novelist, Toni Morrison, had to describe him as the “First Black President” is still in his Harlem office hurting because of the serious bruises on his well-cultivated image as a result of the racial remarks he had let out during the primary contest between his wife, Hillary, and Senator Barack Obama. 

A recent report suggests he is still nursing his wounds and hoping that Obama would publicly defend, clear and help him brush off the racist dent now prominent on his image,   as a compensation for the rousing endorsement he gave Obama at the Denver Democratic Convention. 
On his part, Senator John McCain has so badly dishonoured himself by the kind of crude and ugly campaign he has conducted so far that  people are wondering whether this was the same man who began to lay enormous emphasis on character and decent politics after recovering from the “Keatings Five” scandal which nearly sank his political career.

*Senator John McCain, US Republican

Presidential Candidate (2009)

 I am glad that I am only an observer, and not a registered voter in this election, else, I would have found myself in a very big dilemma.  Obama may be young, intelligent and charismatic, but I am not a big fan of his. In fact, if I am a registered voter, I will not cast my vote for him. But if he eventually manages to get my vote, it would be a vote against McCain (who is unredeemable in virtually every respect), and not for Obama. Obama’s views on abortion are ones I cannot in all good conscience overlook. The almost callous, emotionless manner he declares in the paper he authored as president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990 that government has more important things to do than “ensuring that any particular fetus is born” makes me very sick indeed.

Not too long ago, Obama was also quoted as saying that he would not allow any of his daughters “to be punished with a child” just because “she had made a mistake.” And so, to protect his daughter from the responsibilities that ought to go with her action, another innocent, tender, helpless child (though yet unborn) should be cruelly, heartlessly and gruesomely sacrificed?

But the Republicans have not helped my dilemma by choosing McCain as their  flag-bearer. The way McCain has conducted himself so far in this election shows he is not ashamed to embody all that could be wrong about politics and politicians.  His crude methods, fired by raw desperation, carried beyond the fringes of decency, have been most revolting to many people, even in his own party. His campaign brazenly lies and distorts facts with ease, and all his claims about character and decent politics are now proving to be overly fraudulent.  

*Sarah Palin, Alaska Governor and
US Republican  Vice Presidential Candidate (2009)  

McCain enjoys being addressed as a “maverick” and “Straight-talk” politician, and his running mate, Sarah Palin made heavy weather of this maverick tag when she answered almost every question posed to her during her debate with Senator Joe Biden, her Democratic Party opponent, by restating that McCain was a maverick. In fact, at one point, she called him a “consummate maverick.”

One person thoroughly sickened and offended by this unending false characterisation of John McCain is Ms. Terrellita Maverick, the 82 year old San Antonio lady, who, according to New York Times columnist, John Schwartz, “proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.”

Ms. Maverick, member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas could not just understand how McCain would claim that he is a maverick among the Republicans.  
“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again,’ ” she said.

*Senator John Mccain And Mrs. Cindy McCain

To better understand the phenomenon that is John McCain, let’s recall the story of Carol, his first wife.  McCain, then a 28 year old navy pilot had in 1965 married Carol, who reports say was “a successful model.” After their daughter, Sidney, was born, he left for Vietnam at the end of 1966.

But his plane was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam. He remained a Prisoner of War (PoW) in the dreaded Hoa Loa Prison for five years.  During the Christmas holiday of 1969, Carol was involved in a terrible accident that put her through multiple surgeries as a result of the severe injuries she had sustained. She eventually learnt to walk again, but had to limp because one of the legs had become shorter. She equally gained some weight in the process, thus losing the willowy figure that once gave her a stunning look.

In March 1973, when McCain was released, and received in the US as a war hero, he scored a fast one on the American public by telling reporters how much he still loved Carol despite the effects of the accident on her.

*Carol Mccain: The Wife John McCain  Dumped

Having lost his chance of becoming an admiral (his father and grandfather were admirals), McCain turned his eyes on politics and equally rekindled his wild taste for strange women. In fact, he has admitted he was unfaithful to Carol as he had girlfriends at this time. But when he met Cindy Hensley in Hawaii, he devoted the next six months in extramarital affairs with her for, perhaps, one principal reason: Cindy, a former rodeo model, was daughter of Jim Hensley, the highly connected and extremely wealthy Arizona beer distributor. 

Thus, while Carol waited at home for the husband she trusted and loved so passionately, McCain and Cindy played Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton all over the country. He eventually dumped Carol to the shock and dismay of many people, and married Cindy, the beautiful blond and heiress of the brewing giant, and moved to Arizona, where his new father-in-law offered him a job, and gave him the necessary connections that put him on the fast lane to political ascendancy. 

*Former US President, Bill Clinton and His Wife, Senator Hillary Clinton  

Commenting on the character of John McCain, Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam, told UK’s The Mail On Sunday: “I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit. When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better. This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.”

Some old acquaintances of McCain’s interviewed by The Mail On Sunday portrayed him “as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field,’ just the same way it is now feared that he,  as   US President, could also abandon the pursuit of national causes if they do not advance his personal and selfish interests! The other day, he refused to answer a question at a town hall meeting if he had ever cheated on Cindy. Instead of answering the question which was asked him repeatedly, he began to talk about his son serving in Iraq.

*Barack and Michelle Obama

As an old political warhorse who always finds ways of securing the understanding and accommodation of the American people and wriggling out of career-sinking troubles, and whose Vietnam heroic stories have sometimes been questioned here and there, the only thing still rekindling some hope on the McCain candidacy is, perhaps, the white skin covering his body.

With his rather poor choice of Alaska Governor, Ms. Sarah Palin (who is now proving to be a huge liability and raising serious questions on his capacity for quality judgment) as running mate, and even some of the other impulsive decisions he had made of late like suspending his campaigns to join the bailout talks (where he eventually contributed little or nothing), suddenly conceding defeat and pulling out his campaign from Michigan when he saw he was not making any headway — a decision that baffled even Republicans who feared it could make it easy for Obama to secure the 270 electoral votes he requires to win, and his uncritical adoption of “Joe The Plumber” as a symbol for lampooning Obama’s tax policy, mentioning him about two dozen times during the last presidential debate only to realize later that the man he had raised to celebrity status was not even a registered plumber and also owed arrears of taxes.

His attempt to turn Obama into a scary figure is backfiring, lowering his esteem before many people instead, and attracting more sympathies and  support for Obama. Indeed, because of the consistent false claim by Ms. Palin that Obama is  “palling around together with terrorists,” people now shout “terrorist!!” once Obama is mentioned during McCain campaigns, and McCain is having serious trouble stopping that.

 How would McCain repair his damaged honour even if he wins this election? How would he explain that just to win an election in a do-or-die fashion, his campaign had to stoop so low to falsely label his opponent a terrorist just because Obama had served on a number of education boards in Chicago with Bill Ayers, a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, who many years ago, when Obama was only 8, had set bombs targeted mainly at properties to protest American military campaign in Vietnam.  

Well, it is clear that McCain would surely lose this election, but he needs not to worry. A more fulfilling job would be waiting for him in Nigeria in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where his unedifying talents and crude strategies would be better appreciated.

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scruples2006@yahoo.com

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The Return Of NewtGingrich

NIGERIA: No Doubt, This House Has Collapsed

(First Published Tuesday, February 6, 2007)


By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye


This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen — Prof Chinua Achebe

“Something startles where I thought I was safest” – Walt Whitman
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A couple of months ago, the Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, came to the Independent to meet with top Editorial staff of the newspaper. The meeting commenced with the normal ritual of introductions, and as my brother, Mr. James Akpandem, the Managing Editor, who introduced the Independent team, got to me and said: “This is Mr. Ugochu—”, the minister cut in: “I kno-ow him! He is the angry man!” And the whole room erupted in loud laughter.   

When later it was my turn to speak, I began by saying that there was somebody else whose column, “Conversations of the Angry Man”, appeared every Monday, that I was not the person, and that the minister was, perhaps, mistaking me for him. This caused another round of loud laughter, with someone raising his voice above the loud mirth: “You are angrier than the Angry Man!”  To make sure she was actually referring to me, each time the minister, in the course of her speech, recalled an incident that offended her, she would say: “When I saw that, I became angry, but not like him!” And she would point at me or use a gesture to indicate she was referring to me. At some point she said: “I am even more angry than you are. That’s why I am doing what I am doing to change the situation. It takes someone who is really angry about the situation of things to do what I am presently doing at the Ministry of Education.” 

Now, I do not think that what I feel about the dilapidated state of Nigeria is anger. I would rather say that I am deeply pained. I am deeply pained that a nation like Nigeria could be practically abandoned to rot away by a gaggle of heartless and conscienceless men who have managed to get themselves into power. Nigeria today presents the perfect picture of how a country could look like in the absence of any form of government. I agree with Prof Chinua Achebe that Nigeria today is too dangerous for silence! In fact, in this country, everyone is on his or her own. Virtually, no one  in Aso Rock today wakes up each day with genuine thoughts about the welfare of the citizenry.


Olusegun Obasanjo: Not A 
Laughing Matter, Please!

Whatever one occasionally sees in form of motions or semblance of actions are mere political stunts enacted solely to give the masses the impression that some form of governance is in place in Nigeria, and to let them know that very soon, elections would hold, and they would be required to come out to vote, so that their turn-out could be used to justify the outcome of the hideous rigging that would surely be perpetrated.  We live in a country where the government has become perennially incapable of causing any form of cheering news to occur. One thing anyone can predict with unfailing accuracy in Nigeria is the failure of this government in virtually every aspect of our national life. My kind prayer for those who think I am exaggerating here is simple: May God help you to survive to tell the story any time you find yourself in any of those very perilous situations that bring home to you the rude reality of the dangerous state of Nigeria.  

On New Year’s eve, my entire family and I would have perished, but for the mercy and intervention of God. We were travelling to the East on the very mischievous and perilous Lagos-Benin Expressway. It should have been a very joyous, pleasant ride by a happy family through the country-side, observing the beautiful forests and enchanting hills, all sandwiched between several villages and towns, under a clear bright sky, but for those cruel potholes, which were purposely left there by those who should eliminate them, to ensure we never for once have any cause to be happy in Nigeria.

As we approached Okada in Edo State, we became captives to a most stressful and terrible traffic hold-up, caused by the horribly bad road which the authorities had deliberately refused to repair, and we were made to crawl in this suffocating trap, amidst curses and over-boiling anger from fellow drivers, and the heart-rending cries of children who could not understand why anyone with blood running in his veins could subject them to such a heartless torture, for about five hours. When it seemed we had escaped this one, we ran into yet another, an even more complicated one that delayed us further. As the sun gradually shed its brightness and receded to its lonely, dark-blue hut, and a canopy of darkness eagerly sought to enfold and blind us, I began to pray that we escape the unyielding trap before it became really dark, because, given the reputation of that area with hoodlums, I could imagine what would happen to those still trapped in the midst of that thick, intimidating forest  when the darkness becomes really thick and murky.  


Obiageli Ezekwesili: Also Angry!


We eventually escaped as it became darker, and into further adventures on that road amidst impatient, angry drivers, many of who were, like us, unduly tasked by the nightmarish, manmade affliction we had just left behind us, and whose tempers had been driven to the edge by the excruciating experience. In short, the road became a mini-battle ground, and to cut a long story short, as we entered Asaba, when it had really become dark, we had an accident that severely damaged my car, knocking it into a very violent and benumbing coma. But thank God who is our only Hope in this unmanned jungle called Nigeria, we all escaped unhurt, including my two-year old son, who was picked up from the floor of the car where he had fallen from the back seat.

My wife who had removed her seat belt at that instance to attend to the kids who were already freezing with cold smashed the windshield with her head. But although her head was decorated with very tiny bits of broken glasses, she sustained no injuries. It was a miracle. As we got out of the vehicle, and discovered that no one was hurt, gratitude to God welled up in my heart. Indeed, we may not have a government, but we have a God! Sympathisers came and helped push the  badly wounded car out of the road. When they saw that no one was hurt, they all dispersed.
Suddenly, we were there, all alone, on that lonely stretch of land, under the freezing cold, abandoned to our fate and ourselves.

I looked this way and that, and it became clearer to me again, that in Nigeria, you are always on your own. Whether you lived or died is entirely your business!  As we waited for the friend I had called up in Asaba to come and “evacuate” us from the accident scene, my four year-old daughter began a lamentation:   “Now, Daddy’s car has spoiled, what are we going to do? We won’t go to the village again. How will my Daddy go to work again? What are we going to do? Daddy’s car has spoiled, what are we going to do?”  She was saying this and crying bitterly.



These were simple lines any child can compose and render, but her very sad, mournful tone that lonely, cold, sad night, and the deeper meanings and disarming imageries her words conveyed broke my heart.  I had never seen her in that mood before then, and even as I write now, I wish with all my heart that nothing would ever happen again to make me see her or anyone in that mood.  Her words appeared like sad poetic lines, written with pale colours on that lonely stretch of dark land. So, if I had died in that accident, that’s how my children would have been mourning me? My thoughts ran really wild. 

Now the question I am forced to ask is: even if there was no road at all on the place we now have the Lagos-Benin Expressway before 1999, is nearly eight years of being in office not enough for any focused, people-oriented and compassionate government to construct a befitting and safe road for the use of Nigerians? There is absolutely no reason that can justify the horrible state of that road,  the callousness and cruelty of those in power.But for the clearly avoidable traffic hold-up that delayed us for several hours, nothing would have made to me embark on such a hazardous night-journey with my family, and be caught up in  the kind of “war” the drivers engaged in on that road that night.

I was even planning to spend the night in Onitsha, because, it was even  more suicidal to enter the more dangerous Onitsha-Owerri Road, still in very bad shape, at night, to compete with the ever furious trailer drivers.Yet, this is the same road President Obasanjo used to flag off his campaign in the East in 2003!

Many have died on these roads and no one, except the countless orphans, widows and widowers they left behind to lick the deep wound of their sudden, violent departure are feeling it. After eight years in office what exactly can the Obasanjo government show for the incredibly huge revenues that have accrued to it since 1999?



 The roads have degenerated to mere stretches of cruel slaughter-slabs; the hospitals have become waiting rooms to cold and lonely graves; indeed, it is a big shame that after eight years of wasting the nation’s resources on frivolities, Alami and Bamaiyi, are receiving court orders to go abroad for medical treatment, just as government officials and their families do; schools have decayed so much that no person who can afford it can risk having his child in a Nigerian school. No, they would rather send them abroad, and that includes Ghana! Very soon, people would start sending their kids to Liberian schools and patronizing Somali  hospitals!  

Also, Nigeria has never been as insecure as it is now!  If you were told some years ago, specifically before 1999, that a time would come when both the police and the people they are hired to protect would all become a mass of helpless, hapless, vulnerable and frightened victims of a growing army of an all-conquering and seemingly invincible hoodlums, would you have believed it?  But that is exactly the case today?

We are the sixth largest producer of petroleum, but what do we have to show for it? No fuel filling at stations, no functioning refineries, nothing. While corruption has been institutionalised, and leaders are building wealthy dynasties with stolen funds, the killing hunger in the land is driving Nigerians to roast themselves alive while scooping fuel from pipelines obviously vandalized by NNNPC staff and their collaborators. 

Nigeria is still trapped in suffocating, blinding, thick darkness, because, the Obasanjo Government, after nearly eight years in power is still talking about 3,000 megawatts, 10,000 megawatts, while industries are closing shop in Nigeria and relocating to better-managed countries like Ghana because of the unending crises in our power sector, thereby compounding the already worsening unemployment situation. Everyday, this government invests energy and resources only to explain away its failure, and declaring phantom achievements. 



Look at the situation in the Niger Delta. For years, the place was neglected, while money realized from there, at the expense of the people’s lives, sources of livelihood (fishing and farming), were squandered on damnable vanities, “woman friends” and building of ungodly  and contaminated dynasties, that will surely meet with calamity in the near future. Now, the nation is paying greatly for that profligacy. The place has become unsafe for oil exploration. The Filipinos have just barred their nationals from coming to work in Nigeria any more. Many more countries may follow suit. The situation will compound further, and those who have accumulated stolen wealth may not have any peace or space to enjoy it. Na so this world be! 

Indeed, this house has collapsed. I do not envy the person who will take over from Obasanjo. The person will inherit an angry, hungry, impoverished and frustrated populace, wilfully plunged into unimaginable hardship by a regime that behaves as if it was  contracted to visit untold punishment on Nigerians.  Indeed, the next president will take over a collapsed country. And the people will pour their impatience and frustrations on him, because the suffering will become worse, as the impact of Obasanjo’s  ”reforms” ( i.e., selling off Nigeria’s prized possessions to self and cronies) begin to be felt. No doubt, what we see now, is but the beginning of protracted nightmare, what with all the talk about continuity. It is that bad.

  scruples2006@yahoo.com 

Condoms, HIV/AIDS And You

[A Rejoinder To The Article, Nigeria’s Last Virgins] 

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By Dr. Anthony Odoh

Some time ago, I met a friend who had just come back from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camp in Borno State, Nigeria. He had thoroughly enjoyed the vagaries of camp life and was eager to share his experience with me. At a point, however, he got a bit upset. Some representatives from UNICEF, he informed me, had come to the camp to address the corps members. His complaint: “They could not even bring some paracetamol for our headaches and pains from the drills; they only bombarded us with condoms…” 

This is indeed a sorrowful trend in the fight to curb the HIV/AIDS epidemic which has been ravaging the world for more than 2 decades now. According to the estimates from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 37 million adults and 2.5 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2003. This shows more than 50% higher values than those projected by WHO in 1991 using the data available then. In 2003 alone, some 5 million people became infected with HIV. At the end of 2005, an estimated 38.6 million people were living with HIV, with 4.1 new infections and 2.8 million deaths. In Nigeria, a greater percentage of HIV transmission results through sexual intercourse. The concomitant presence of Sexually Transmitted Diseases/Infections also increases the risk of spread since a disrupted skin surface offers a wider portal of entry for the virus.    

Nigeria’s Last Virgins!

(First published Tuesday, February 6, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
If you are a parent or grandparent, whose children or grandchildren are enrolled in Nigerian schools, and you read this article, and decide that the current attempt by a tiny clique of clearly depraved minds within the nation’s educational system, to carefully disrobe Nigerian kids of their prized innocence and healthy mind and titillate them to perdition should not attract your unreserved indignation, conscious action, and, in fact, public outrage, then, just know that you are not qualified to answer a parent anymore. 

In fact, your children and grandchildren will certainly wake up one day to curse your memory for watching passively while some desperate fellows, for totally self-serving reasons, subjected their tender minds to vile and ungodly lessons that are carefully and solely designed to make them become animals in human skins.

*Weep Not, Child!

A couple of months ago, when I was shown the topics to be treated under the subject called “Sexuality Education” or “Sex Education” which tender children in both junior and secondary schools in Lagos State are now being forced to learn, I could not imagine that anyone outside a mental home could be wicked enough to design a subject with such insidious contents, even for the kids of his worst enemy! In fact, as I think about it now, I consider the introduction of that subject in our schools the worst case of child abuse – brazenly endorsed by the nation’s education authorities and unleashed on today’s kids like a poisonous live snake. What kind of madness is this?

Nigeria’s Perpetually Diminished Assembly

(First published Tuesday, September 4, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

 Last Sunday (September 2, 2007) , The Guardian carried an interview with Professor Pat Utomi in which he lamented that contrary to every expectation that the 2007 electoral exercise might somehow console the nation with some form of improvement in the quality of lawmakers that would be dumped in the National Assembly, Nigeria still, sadly, found itself saddled with a class of legislators that is ten times worse than any it ever had. The worst evil “those who conducted the last election did to Nigeria” he said, was  “to put in place a National Assembly that is 10 times inferior to the one we had before.  The last Assembly was bad enough, but we were supposed to make progress from there. Most societies would make progress and in the next elections get better. But what we got is a much more inferior National Assembly this time around.” 

Indeed, Pat Utomi spoke my mind on this issue! Any reader of this column would easily recall that in several essays here, I have never been able to contain my sorrow and deep pain over the quality of lawmakers we end up with each time, and how such a misfortune continues to sabotage our best expectations for progress and development, since all it does is to extend generous incentive to the Executive to celebrate its insufferable ineptitude and directionlessness with indecent fanfare. As our decadent politics and the mostly base characters that star in it continue to inflict the nation with grossly underweight and light-minded fellows as lawmakers, that is, individuals who neither have any acquaintance with sound ideas nor the capacity to appreciate the gravity of the assignment they are supposed to be performing in Abuja, what the nation gets in return can only be retrogression and unchecked decay. What has remained sadly true is that for most of the lawmakers who had diminished our legislative chambers with their uninspiring presence these past few years, their real reason for showing up in Abuja was just to scramble over dirty naira notes like wanton street boys over balls of akra suddenly falling off the tray of an indiscreet hawker. Indeed, these were mostly down-and-out fellows dusted off from here and there, easily excited by such little things as a sumptuous lunch with the president, and they emerge each time from such encounters feeling so high that they forget their very important brief in Abuja. In  them, we found the best example of a prodigal House in hapless nation! And if indeed, as Prof Utomi reminded us last Sunday, the present set of lawmakers is ten times worse than the others before them, then the future, dear reader, is indeed scary. We are already seeing the signs, aren’t we?  


Everyone can now appreciate my pain and sadness. Nothing seems to change in our National Assembly, whether it is their strange mindset or the way their leaders are always handpicked by external forces and imposed on them. When Anyim Pius Anyim became Senate President by the “vote” of one man, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was not even a member of the National Assembly, and he began to place his godfather’s interests over that of the nation, I lamented here in an essay I titled: “The President Obasanjo Gave The Nigerian Senate.” Anyim had ensured the Senate remained an appendage to the Executive, until he fell out with Obasanjo, due to a clash of their individual interests. When Adolphus Wabara also came on board, through the same route, that is, by the decree of the same man, and then continued to lead the Senate through the same path of irresponsibility and unproductivity, I also cried out in another essay captioned:  “Wabara: How Long Shall We Suffer Thee?”

 In fact, until the inauguration of the present National Assembly, Wabara’s Senate had remained the best example of a rudderless, unfocused and totally purposeless Assembly. It was a Senate which believed in nothing, stood for nothing, without any sense of history, and clearly had no plans of changing anything or achieving anything. 


Now, virtually everyone recalls with refreshing nostalgia the dignity and sense of direction the former Senate President, Mr. Ken Nnamani brought to the business of lawmaking in Abuja, but as far as I could remember, his tenure had practically made little or no noticeable effort to transcend the Anyim/Wabara demoralizing paradigm until on Wednesday, September 1, 2005, when I focused my sad eyes on the drab National Assembly over which he was presiding and screamed in this column: “Where Is the Senate President?”

Prof. Pat Utomi: Disappointed With An Underperforming Assembly


 Although the article, unfortunately, attracted a very abusive rejoinder from Nnamani’s media adviser, there were also rejoinders from several Nigerians who shared my frustration and pain over the almost lifeless National Assembly he was leading, while a ruthless civilian dictator rode roughshod on Nigerians.


Please, permit me to quote the concluding paragraph of that essay:

 “As an implacable Executive drives the nail hard on a hapless populace, the unspoken question everywhere is: Where is Senator Ken Nnamani, the President of Nigeria’s Senate and leader of the National Assembly? Does he ever pause to ask himself the real reason why he is in Abuja? Has he ever told himself that his office demands more ennobling engagements than supervising the cutting of cakes at society weddings and chairing some multitudes of largely unedifying events?  What is his response to the undisguised programme of perpetual impoverishment which the current government is executing with chilling dedication? What can Nnamani say is the achievement of the National Assembly under his watch? Where is Nigeria’s Senate President? Sorry, he is on a permanent leave.” 

Now, I refuse to take any credit for Ken Nnamani’s sudden recovery of his focus, which caused the National Assembly to start showing a sense of direction and purpose, thereby reclaiming the respect and confidence of Nigerians. Who am I to move a whole Senate President? All I keep insisting is that I consider the National Assembly a very essential and strategic institution in any nation, and how it chooses to discharge its constitutionally assigned roles may sink or advance the progress of that nation. That is why, during the dark years of Obasanjo, when he operated in utter disdain for laws and decency,  I had heaped greater blames on the National Assembly. Indeed, I do not think that other nations whose rulers try to behave like human beings waited until they had elected angels into office before they began to get quality leadership. It was clear to me that if by any stroke of misfortune  America suddenly found itself with the kind of legislature Nigeria regularly gets,  President George Bush will make the Obasanjo disaster pale to total insignificance. In fact, each time I look at Bush, the picture I see is that of a thoroughbred dictator held on a strong leash by a responsible Congress. What this means is that leaders can be compelled to rule responsibly if countervailing institutions and relevant laws are strong enough to keep them within the bounds of reason, patriotism and decent conduct.  

So, Obasanjo was able to ride rough-shod on hapless Nigerians and impoverish them as suites his fancy because, he was merrily aware that the principles of Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, which differentiates a democracy from a dictatorship never made any meaning to the good-for-nothing and totally debased National Assembly headed by the light-minded fellows he personally handpicked and installed. All we had got were a gaggle of disoriented and misdirected lawmakers, who idled away at Abuja at huge expense to the nation, while the people whose well-being they were supposed to safeguard were grossly brutalized, impoverished and re-enslaved by a irremediably wayward Executive. In fact, at one point, after examining the quality of National Assembly Nigeria was cursed with, I had to commend Obasanjo for resisting the temptation to totally become another Idi Amin, because, from all available evidence, there was no Assembly with the requisite will and patriotism to scuttle such a vile ambition. 

Well, the expectation had been that all these should have since become part of our dark, distant history. But, unfortunately, in 2007, we are still stuck with an even worse variety, a species no one could have imagined would still be with us at this time and age. Whatever modest advancements Ken Nnamani may have recorded in his time have been rudely reversed, and the nation dragged further backwards. While small countries like Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, are all advancing and refining their electoral processes and strengthening the instruments of democracy in their domains, Nigeria is still a willing captive to the backward, vile fancies of a few prehistoric men, who, it would seem, have vowed to ensure that Nigeria never moved forward. 


In 2007, we have a Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, who are there, not because of any special qualities or superior ideas they may possess, but because some fellow, whose eight year siege on Nigeria now ranks as the nation’s worst trauma, thinks they should be there, to solely represent his narrow interests. That’s where we are, dear reader, and if you watched the recent nausea-inducing farce they called Senate screening of ministerial nominees, and saw how would-be ministers in whose hands the nation’s destiny would soon rest were either merely entertained with perfunctory and even frivolous questions, or just asked to “take a bow” and go, you would then appreciate what Pat Utomi was saying about the quality of lawmakers we are stuck with today.    

Senate President, David Mark, may even be sincere, and probably wishes to preside over a Senate which Nigerians would happily respect, but these are hardly enough. One may be sincerely wishing to assist another person to make some meaning out of the directions for administering a life-saving drug written in Greek, a language both of them are blissfully unfamiliar with. His good intentions notwithstanding, he would be of no real help to the other person. That’s how these things go. I appreciate Mrs. Patricia Etteh’s admirable struggles to move the House of Representatives forward. But it is also easy to see that she is already overwhelmed, like the fellow battling to interpret Greek words he is unfamiliar with to another person. It is usually a pitiable spectacle. 


One admires Etteh’s zeal, courage and struggles to take charge of the situation, but how long can a nation in crying need of persons with sound ideas wait for perpetual learners. Well, a child confronted with a highly complicated toy can only dismantle it, to bring it to his level. That is exactly what is happening in the National Assembly today. And so, instead of bright ideas and quality lawmaking going on, we only hear bellyaching tales of pursuits of vanities and revolting contract scams and other obscene tales. And mind you, this will continue to assault our sensibilities until we decide to put our fifth eleven aside and go for the first. But can we?

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scruples2006@yahoo.com

Nigeria: Madam Speaker Plays Her Level

(First published Tuesday, August 28, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

The first time I heard her name was a couple of weeks or so before the inauguration of the present National Assembly. At that time, rumours had begun to make the rounds in media circles that former President Olusegun Obasanjo, intent on still holding the nation to ransom from his multi-billion naira farm in Ota, Ogun State, was bent on imposing a certain Mrs. Patricia Foluke Etteh on the nation as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Although there were widespread concerns about her obvious intellectual and political limitations, and in fact, hushed disapprovals even within the PDP’s unwholesome “family” and among her would-be colleagues at that time, nobody could stand on the way of the Emperor and Conqueror of Modern Nigeria.

And so, at the end of the day, a conquered nation watched dumbfounded as Foluke Etteh, propelled only by the fearsome determination of the Emperor and Life Leader of the PDP behind her, timidly emerged from one dark hole to become the Speaker of Nigeria’s Lower Legislative House, while, another Obasanjo unabashed loyalist and comrade-in-arms, David Mark, was pronounced Senate President.  

Well, if there is any consolation in the whole monstrous set-up, it may be detected in the growing optimism that Etteh, and all other vestigial remains of the Obasanjo nightmare, are today in several strategic positions solely to continue reminding us of the primitive state of our politics. By their predictable failure of character and leadership, they would, hopefully, succeed in awakening in us the capacity to feel deeply mortified that even in Africa today, Nigeria appears to be the only nation still left behind in what is clearly the slimy pit of jungle politics.

So, as Etteh and Co. play their level in our politics and governance, they can only help to continually shock us into the harsh realization of the extent of our country’s backwardness, and our folly in resigning ourselves to the insidious dictations of a few men of tunnel vision and unwholesome intentions, who, having conquered the nation by force of arms, have imposed on us our fourth eleven as leaders, for the simple reason that they can always be trusted to place their narrow interests over and above those of the nation. No, wonder Nigeria has become a perpetual embarrassment to Africa and the entire Black world.  

I am not surprised at Etteh’s strange understanding of the essence of public office. She is only playing her level. To expect her to ascribe to some higher ideals in leadership and politics would amount to stretching her modest intellectual and moral properties beyond their malleable limits. For her, public office is just one more prized opportunity to play the “big lady” and wallow in profligacy at public expense, nothing more, nothing less.

In Nigeria, Yar’Adua Reigns, Obasanjo Rules

(First Published Thursday, July 12, 2007, Less Than Two Months After Umar Musa Yar'Adua Was Sworn In As President Of Nigeria)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

At various formal and informal discussion points across the country, and on listserv and discussion boards on the cyberspace, Nigerians are not hiding their deep pain and frustration that the obnoxious Third Term Project which they unanimously and disdainfully rejected not too long ago has been so smoothly and successfully imposed on them with such brazenness and flourish that seem to dare anyone who is not comfortable with the set-up to find himself the shortest route to hell. 

The demoralising situation as we have it today is simple: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua reigns in Aso Rock; Olusegun Obasanjo rules Nigeria from Ota.



The Radiance Of A 'King': Was The Real King
Hiding Somewhere? (pix:BBC)


It is a classic case of post-colonial Indirect Rule. The “Emperor and Conqueror of Modern Nigeria” is still perfectly in-charge and has no intention of leaving any one in doubt about that. He has merely delegated Umoru, one of his very loyal “boys” to stand in for him at Abuja to implement his orders with maximum accuracy. So, while this “accredited Servant-leader” treads softly within the hallowed ambience of Aso Rock Villa with the title of “President” timidly attached to his flowing agbada, full Presidential powers reside at some cozy corner of a multi-billion naira farm in Ota, Ogun State . 

What makes the matter even more revolting is what clearly looks like the utter helplessness of President Yar’Adua, a 56-year-old former academic and two-term governor, with enormous powers of State at his disposal, before such a repugnant affront from someone who now sees himself as some kind of “Senior President”, as somebody pointed out last Friday. This is very sad.

Now, even though Yar’Adua became president through what has been widely described as the worst election in human history, the only hint of consolation in that horrible, broad-day electoral robbery was the hope that by May 29, 2007, Nigerians would be rid of the flamboyant incompetence, and pugnacious person of Aremu Obasanjo, the man whose entire energy in the past eight years appeared to have been solely channeled into the accumulation of so much unearned resources to build himself the wealthiest dynasty this side of the sea, while the country he was supposed to be ruling decayed beyond what anyone would have imagined was possible. Nigerians just wanted a breath of fresh air, an entirely new face, but unfortunately, they have been shortchanged once again. The man they had become sick and tired of, and thought had gone for good, is still very much around. 

It is not only Yar’Adua that appears so helpless. For the past one week, I have read several columns on this matter, and all I have seen are passionate appeals to former President Obasanjo to, please, leave Yar’Adua alone to rule Nigeria the way he deems fit. Now, this makes no sense at all. Should we be begging an ex-president, obsessed with a grand illusion of boundless powers he no longer possesses, to leave the man with the real, statutory authority and powers alone to function? No, wait a minute! This would have been most laughable if it was not such a serious and pathetic matter, with far-reaching consequences to the survival of our nation.

Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umar
Musa Yar'Adua: Who Actually Rules (Reuters)

As the nation’s opinion moulders weep and beg Obasanjo to, please, take his retirement in good faith and quickly dump himself in the unedifying company of failed leaders where he ought to feel very comfortable, and allow Yar’Adua free hand to conduct the affairs of the nation, what none of them appears to be asking is whether Yar’Adua himself is even desirous and eager to be rid of the overbearing influence of Obasanjo? Is he really ready to take charge? Are we sure that the “Servant-leader” is not even too grateful that Obasanjo’s meddlesome and looming shadow are providing perfect alibi for what is gradually appearing as his stark visionlessness? I would certainly want to know those great ideas of Yar’Adua’s which Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness is preventing him from unfolding! The truth, as we know it, is that Yar’Adua never wanted to be president, and so, he never sat down to draw up anything that vaguely looks like a blueprint for the country’s redemption. When he was conscripted by Obasanjo and imposed on both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Nigerians at a time elections were merely a couple of weeks away, he was too preoccupied with the thought of winning elections to have any time to concentrate and think about how he would rule Nigeria.

And so when he eventually became President through the “Iwu-ruwuru” elections that took place last April, one of the first statements he made was that he had no plans of becoming a “Jack-of-all-trade” President. A nice statement though, except that it left a bold hint that the man who uttered it was already feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of Nigeria ’s problems.  

Quite early, Yar’Adua began to make a singsong of the “Energy Challenge”, how he was going to confront it headlong, overcome it, and give Nigerians an uninterrupted power supply. This, if you would remember, formed the high point of virtually all his usually terse, uninspiring campaign speeches. It is more than forty days now since he became President, and the impression of him out there is that of a pitiably confused leader groping his way through an impenetrably dark alleyway. I am yet to encounter anyone with the slightest hint of how he plans to confront the ever-worsening “Energy Challenge.”

All he did the other day, to the consternation of many Nigerians, was to summon the same gaggle of failed “experts” in the Ministry of Power, the same people that ensured that Nigeria remained submerged in pitch darkness throughout the eight dark years of Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, and ordered them to either come up with a blueprint on how to solve the nation’s energy crises immediately, or he would declare a State of Emergency in the power sector? So, with all the talk about tackling the “energy challenge” headlong, the Servant-leader had no clear idea what to do? So, all these while, his hope had been on the same dead woods that could not achieve anything for a whole eight years? What a shame! I am sure, that it is equally becoming clearer to him that the Niger Delta problem which he promised to solve in a couple of months is much more complex than he had imagined.

No doubt, Obasanjo is clearly enjoying the show, filling a gaping power vacuum that clearly exists. When he said that the reason for his “reforms” in the “PiiiiDiiiiPiiii” was to change it from a Movement to a Party, where discipline would reign, so that his successor would not encounter the massive indiscipline he suffered, it was clear he was merely erecting an out-of-office power base for himself. He handpicked his comrade-in-arms and loyalist, Brigadier-General David Mark, and made him Senate President and installed a certain Patricia Etteh as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Next, he shoved aside Tony Anenih and installed himself as the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) Chairman, and equally formed and became Chairman of what he calls PDP Legislative Agenda Committee whose business, we’re told, would be to vet the bills to be presented by PDP Senators and House Members. Already he is the “Life Leader” of the PDP.



Nigeria: The Ultimate Loser

In the light of the amended PDP constitution, the Party (read Obasanjo) is supreme, and even higher than both the president and the governors, and can dictate to them. And to underline this fact, Obasanjo recently summoned a meeting of the governors in Ota. That those wishing to be ministers had to lobby at Ota instead of Abuja is no more a secret; ditto for the fact that the list of the ministerial nominees were delayed until it was approved by Ota.

So, it is true that Obasanjo still rules Nigeria , but he is doing so, because Yar’Adua thinks he should. Or put another way, it suits Yar’Adua to still have Obasanjo in charge, while he enjoys the perks of office without the responsibilities that go with them. And at the end of the day, when another four years of devastating failure must have been successfully enacted, Yar’Adua can conveniently come up with the theory that he was not allowed to implement his ‘superior ideas’. So, please, no one should insult our intelligence any more with the old wives tales about how helpless he is before an overbearing ex-president! Because he knows full well that if he truly wants to halt the entire charade, he can. Even this morning!

What, for instance, stops Yar’Adua from threatening to resign and giving as reason his unwillingness to have history credit him with the disastrous outcome of another man’s decisions? It would be interesting to see how Obasanjo would respond to this challenge. Either way, both Obasanjo and the PDP are losers. At least, Yar’Adua would be able to redeem his name if he is forced to make good his threat. After all, he never wanted to be president.

 Again, he could dust up the PTDF file and set up an Independent Commission of Enquiry to look into its management and, in fact, the whole Oil Ministry since 1999, and follow it up with a pledge that anybody implicated, “no matter how highly placed” would face the full weight of the law! The heavens would not fall.

Nor should he fear impeachment by the Obasanjo foot soldiers in the National Assembly, because the mere thought of its implication to the contentious issue of power shift would effectively kill the thought in the legislatures. Even if they now impeach him and his deputy, both Obasanjo and the PDP are still at loss.   So,  that option would remain unattractive to them.  

So, please, spare me all these tales about Obasanjo’s overbearing influence on Yar’Adua, as if both the Inspector General of Police or Chief of Army Staff reside and take orders from Ota. Truth is: Yar’Adua is not yet ready to take over power. He should be sincere enough to tell himself that. When he is ready, we will know. He is still content with merely reigning in Aso Rock, while ‘Senior President’ Obasanjo rules Nigeria from Ota. That’s probably what he wanted from the beginning. What a sad situation.
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scruples2006@yahoo.com

First Published Thursday, July 12, 2007

Yar’Adua, Please, Fix Lagos-Shagamu-Benin Expressway

(First Published June 19, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

The Lagos-Shagamu-Benin Expressway is in a very horrible state. Although it has deteriorated quite beyond what anyone could have imagined was possible in a country ruled by human beings, no one can recall any meaningful attempt made in the past few years to halt its progressive decay. Indeed, the unmissed, out-gone regime of Gen Olusegun Obasanjo was unable to conceal the fact that the rehabilitation of that road was not part of its priorities.

It instead found more pleasure and fulfillment in erecting several signposts bearing the scary photograph of Gen Obasanjo and the shameless lie that it was rehabilitating the road. In addition, the irremediably corrupt and inept regime also awarded mouthwatering contracts to one or more of its cronies to build some brightly painted bungalows at several points along the road, as offices or observation posts for its clearly phantom road maintenance agency workers who were supposed to be rehabilitating the road. Well, those fine buildings are not entirely useless now. They provide comfortable shelter for criminals, lizards, snakes and other wild animals.   

Bad Spot At Ore: Along Lagos-Shagamu-Benin Expressway( Pix: NVS)                                                                 

I was on Lagos-Shagamu-Benin Expressway last week and my experience was most traumatic. Even though we took off quite early, about 8.am, from Lagos, with a very sound, new vehicle, I was only able to get to my destination in the East by about 8.00pm. Yet, this was a journey that should, ordinarily, not have taken more than six-to-seven hours or even less!

The traffic hold-up, which I understand is an everyday trauma for regular users of that road, can hold somebody at a spot for several  hours. Because of the very deep holes that adorn the road, big vehicles are always spoiling, being stuck or falling down on the road, thereby rendering the lane involved impassable. Motorists would now be left with the option of using the other equally bad lane. And because of the usually heavy traffic on the road, the hold-up witnessed daily on that road is an experience not even a demonized mind can wish for his worst enemy.  

The reputation of this road as the bloodthirstiest slaughter-slab in the nation has since been firmly established. The accident scenes one encounters each time one uses the road are so many, that they can cause even the warmest blood to congeal. It is so benumbing. It is so frightening. What a shame! 

Last week, somebody showed us a village footpath through which we avoided most of the traffic jam. We had to pay some very unruly young men (and even women) who had mounted roadblocks on those footpaths to collect tolls from the strangers who had turned their once serene village into a busy thoroughfare. The behaviour of the young men made some of the travelers to begin to entertain fears about their lives. Indeed, if somebody had not shown us that village route, maybe, judging from the kind of traffic jam I saw, we would have been trapped there till past midnight.

 The other day, some people returning to Lagos spent a whole two days on that road, because, both lanes were blocked by big trucks who had either spoilt while trying to crawl past the deep holes on the road or fallen down. Man-hours were wasted in an already prostrate economy. Lives were cut short as people developed hypertension, just because they decided to make a journey in a country somebody claims to be ruling.  

These days, those who are trapped in those terrible hold-ups have become easy preys to daredevil armed robbers/rapists, who descend on them once night falls.

 So how long would this madness, this hell-on-earth, continue?  How long will Nigerians continue to witness avoidable bloodshed on this road? When will users of this road stop developing High BP and Hypertension, because they are trapped in a horrible hold up all day long, punished by the implacable sun, and tormented by the fear of what may befall them once night time comes? 

Considering the importance of Lagos-Shagamu-Benin Expressway, as the only link between the West and the East, and several parts of the South-South, and the volume of daily business transactions that take place between these two zones, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, must show right now that he wants to fix the road without any further delay. The matter is too urgent. It just cannot wait. Yar’Adau should in fact declare his State of Emergency on the road, award the contracts for its rehabilitation to several construction companies, and let Nigerians know which company is responsible for any part of the road. 

As we approach the so-called “ember-months”, the volume of traffic on that road is bound to almost triple. What then would the situation be like?

Many people from the East and the South-South will use this road during the Christmas and New Year period. On no account should Yar’Adua allow Nigerians to taste the kind of hell they experienced on this road last December and January. I would remember that during that period, my family and I spent nearly twelve hours on that road before we could even get to Asaba, and were involved in accident when it was pitch dark, from which God delivered us, even though my car was badly damaged.  Many other people were not as “lucky”. Many have worse tales to share, while many more are not even alive today to tell their stories of woe. Mr. Yar’Adua must intervene immediately and halt the daily bloodshed that is going on that road. The deaths being recorded on that road daily have almost surpassed what is being experienced at some warfronts. 

I would suggest that Mr. Yar’Adua, if he truly means to be a man of the people, should take a trip on this road urgently to have a feel of the daily trauma human beings with blood in their veins like him experience everyday. That is what patriotic leaders do in every properly run nation. Unfortunately, during his notorious reign, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo tried as much as possible to avoid any contact with the bad Nigerians roads. He would alight from his Presidential Jet and step into a waiting helicopter to either go to his farm or any other place.

I just hope Mr. Yar’Adua has not allowed Obasanjo to pass this most atrocious habit over to him. Only recently, when he came to Lagos, Yar’Adua was reportedly flown from the airport to Dodan Barracks in a helicopter, thus, robbing himself of a good opportunity for a direct acquaintance with the horrific federal roads in Lagos.

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scruples2006@yahoo.com
www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com
June 19, 2007