By Dele Momodu
Fellow Nigerians, please, allow me to remind you of an article I wrote in 2014 titled IN SEARCH OF MATHEMATICIANS. It was a simple calculation and permutation I made about how Major General Muhammadu Buhari was going to defeat the incumbent President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in the 2015 Presidential election. As at that time, the confidence level of the Buhari camp was still quite shaky, indeed it was quite low.
By Dele Momodu
As far as I’m concerned, they are merely exercising their inalienable rights of freedom of association, speech and movement. However, I have serious issues with only one man, President Muhammadu Buhari who seems to be the Talisman that they all credit with their defection. It is because of him they all turn into turncoat, notwithstanding their previously avowed aversion and derision of this same personage that has been the butt of their ridicule or denigration.
By Charles Okoh
The recent upheavals generated by the bold move by Governor Nyesom Wike of the Rivers State to contest the right of the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) to continue collection of Value Added Tax, has brought to the fore several issues that are germane to the success or otherwise of the nation. The current skewed federal structure is largely responsible for the stunted growth of the nation. For those who mean well, the parasitic structure we operate as a federation cannot be in the ultimate interest of the nation.
The Rivers State Government had obtained the judgment of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt Division (coram Hon. Justice Stephen D. Pam, J.,) delivered in Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/149/2020 (Attorney General Rivers State v. Federal Inland Revenue Service & Anor) on 9th August, 2021 upholding the constitutional authority and competence of the Rivers State Government to impose, charge, demand, and collect VAT on taxable goods and services within Rivers State and declaring that the Federal Government through the FIRS has no power to impose and collect VAT within the state.
By Norah Okafor
At exactly 1:36am, I was alerted by my brother that there were armed robbers at my gate trying to make their way into the compound. Because it was an electric fence, I didn't bother enough because I felt they won’t be able to make their way in. Alas, I was wrong. 2am on the dot they made their way into the compound.
They came prepared. Over 25 of them with two Hilux buses, masked and dressed in black upon black. A huge one climbed the fence, with a plier and immediately cut off a few of the wires, jumped into the compound and with an axe, broke the gate key open and, zoom, they made their first entry into my apartment.
As a nude sleeper, while they tried to make their way into the compound, I found something to wear while my brothers and I were thinking of a way of escape. The worst case scenario for me was that they might rape or take the only valuable available (a car key), so I prepared my mind.
By Ochereome Nnnanna
I only listen to what President Muhammadu Buhari has to say because as a journalist, I have no choice. The difference between him and General Ibrahim Babangida is that when Babangida talks, his words mean several things at the same time. He can escape through one of the routes and still claim he did not deceive you. If you know how to read Babangida’s lips, he won’t be able to deceive you.
But Buhari’s is a case of sometimes saying one thing and doing another, and sometimes doing what he says. This second attribute gave the “Buharideen” the opportunity to brand him as Mai Gaskiya or man of his word. This branding was used to deceive millions of gullible Nigerians in 2015. We warned Nigerians to beware, but the Buharideen called us “wailers”. Now, look who is wailing!
By Owei Lakemfa
Alhaji Tanimu Yakubu was Special Adviser
on Economic Matters to President Umaru Musa Yar’adua. Before becoming one of
Nigeria’s best Presidents in our leadership-challenged country, Yar’Adua was
Governor of Katsina State and TY, as Yakubu is fondly called, was one of his
cabinet members for three years from 1999.
When TY was preparing that administration’s first budget in Katsina State, he studied the past trends in the government support for agriculture. He discovered that annually, 80 per-cent of the agriculture budget was allocated for fertilizer procurement.
Given the fact that there are a number of
clearly identified necessities of agriculture, he decided to research why
fertilizer alone was consuming four fifths of the agriculture budget.
He appointed consultants to carry out a survey amongst farmers in the state to generate a list of their actual needs; they were 20 items. Then, a second stage of the survey was carried out for the farmers to rank those needs from the most to the least important. The result was shocking. The farmers listed fertilizer as the 13th in their list of their needs! Desertification was ranked number one, extension service, two and market/profitability, three. The farmers did not even identify subsidy as a requisite.
By WF Kumuyi
I never knew that the words The Defender of the Faith were part of my name and calling. We were in Singapore for a conference with attendees from different parts of the world, and my humble self was required to give series of messages.
After I finished the series, one of the ministers came and asked me if I knew the meaning of my name, William. I responded that I never thought about it.
Actually, when I was a young Anglican and I was to be
christened, my father asked me what Christian name I would love to bear. I said
I would love to bear the name Johnson. There was a Johnson in our community who
was very vocal, fervent, bold and courageous and I had learnt to appreciate
him.
It was agreed that I would be Johnson. But then when we got to the Church something else happened. As the ceremony was being performed the minister said "This boy shall be called William". I wondered why I had to bear that name.
By Obi Nwakanwa
When presidents make state visits, there’s always a fanfare of drums, iron clatters; a flourish of trumpets; a tumultuous crowd of flag-waving, and patriotic people eager to welcome them and show them some love.
I’m not sure what Muhammadu Buhari, president of Nigeria was looking for, when he visited Owerri recently, but that was not what he got.
He did not get some love. He got empty streets. There was not much of a crowd. The people all over the South East had stayed in their homes. President Buhari was free to come to the Igbo heartland, but the Igbo universe was indifferent.
Now, you cannot beat that for organized civic action. First of
all, the president arrived in very ill-fitting clothing.
That was the beginning of the public relations faux-pax. Buhari is normally a well-turned man. No one has ever accused him of a lack of sartorial sense. If anything, his clothes sit well on him. He likes them well-made. But not this one.
Press
Release
Anybody Caught Using The
Name Of IPOB To Enforce Non-Existent Sit-At-Home Order Will Be Treated As A
Traitor — IPOB
We the global family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by our great leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, wish to reiterate once again, that we have no other sit-at-home order after 14th September. Any other purported sit-at-home including the suspended weekly sit-at-home on Mondays does not exist in the dairy of IPOB. In fact, after September 14, there is no other sit-at-home this week. Any contrary news or speculations to this effect should be ignored.
Anybody trying to enforce any sit-at-home order using the name of IPOB is a saboteur, and does so at his peril. If we catch anybody disturbing the peace of Biafrans or residents in Biafra land under the guise of enforcing non-existent sit-at-home order, such a person regret his actions because he will receive the reward of traitors.
By Wendy Igwema
It all happened one morning, 4am to be precise, on the 28th of October 2020. We were just waking up from sleep in our home in Torino. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. When I opened I saw about nine Italian policemen. One of them was a woman. I asked them what they wanted. ‘We want to take your husband in for questioning’ one of them said to me. They said they were arresting him on mafia-related crimes in Italy. They proceeded to search the entire apartment and they did not find what they were looking for.
(pix: Remonews)
As they took my husband away, I requested to go with them to their station but they refused, saying that all they want is to interview him. They said they would let him go afterwards. Before they took him away, my husband called his lawyer, and told him about the presence of the police in our house. He advised that we closely watch them so they wouldn’t plant anything in our house. We did so.
By Dan Amor
Every real nation state is an historical product. It is, in Marx’s celebrated phrase, “the official resume’ of the antagonism in civil society”, but under historically determinate circumstances. As such, it is the product of the historically specific constellation of class relations and social conflicts in which it is implicated. It may, therefore, indeed, it must, if it is not to rest on its monopoly of the means of coercion alone, incorporate within its own structure, the interests not only of the dominant but of the subordinate classes. In this quite specific sense, then, every real nation state has an inherently relative independence, including, as well, the independence to understand the dynamics of its made-made domestic crises. In consequence, therefore, the general characteristics of the Nigerian nation state today may be seen in terms of the enormity of its domestic crises and social contradictions.
Therefore, those who murdered Nigeria, and are still killing its residues include, but not limited to: a big and comprador bourgeoisie that has abdicated its political aspirations and allied itself to semi-feudal interests; a disoriented small and medium bourgeoisie made up of a certain class of professionals and intellectuals, potentially revolutionary, but which hesitates to renew the struggle for its national liberation. There is a sleeping working class which is supposed to be the prime revolutionary force but which cannot define clearly its trade union tasks and political aims. There is a large crowd of youths, the student body that constitute about 60 percent of the national population, which has abdicated its responsibility of serving as light to the national ideal due largely to intellectual dishonesty, ignorance or docility arising from poverty of ideas.
By Obadiah Mailafia
Nigeria is dying. A dying elephant, encircled by vultures and hyenas. Waiting to feast on the carcass. A fractured, broken nation. The ghost continues to limp aimlessly in the shadows. The question is: Who will bury it?
Every
nation is born with a peculiar glory. Britain isn’t the most powerful nation on
earth; but its name somehow evokes a certain radiance. The same goes for Japan,
Germany, France, Switzerland, Russia and Sweden, to give but a few examples.
There is this aura and prestige around some nations that speaks for them more
than macroeconomic indices such as GDP, per capita income and external
reserves. The very essence of national greatness.
Our glory once irradiated the nations. Nigeria was an illustrious country. Our naira was at par with the pound sterling and was stronger than the American dollar. Our armed forces acquitted themselves with distinction in international peace-keeping operations. When we spoke, the world listened.
By Charles Okoh
From all indications, President Muhammadu Buhari is hell-bent on breaking the country. A president who is desirous of building an egalitarian society where the rule of law is supreme cannot consistently be insisting on having his way even when it is obvious to all discerning minds that the path the president is toeing is fraught with troubles that are capable of tearing the nation apart. It is not a mark of strength that a leader insists on always having his way and never caring a hoot how the people feel and yet Buhari claims he is exercising the mandate given him by the people.
Since coming to office, the president has pursued only the agenda of the Fulani cattle breeders. That he is their patron cannot explain why he insists that it is only what pleases the pastoralists that he will spend eight years of the nation’s time and resources pursuing. The country is grappling with various challenges too numerous to mention, yet the president seems to be wasting his time creating more conflicts and disputes among the people he claims to be leading.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
President Muhammadu Buhari never ceases to confound. Even his
most strident supporters, who are ever willing to cut him some slack, are
gradually but inexorably coming to the inevitable reality: he is a study in
hypocrisy.
His claim to higher
standards is a ruse. Too often, he fails to follow his own expressed moral
rules and principles.
I will come back to this shortly.
On August 19, the
National Security Adviser (NSA), Maj-Gen Babagana Monguno (rtd.), reported
Buhari as telling his Service Chiefs that he was not ready to leave office a
failure.
Two days earlier, the Nigerian army claimed that at least 1,000 Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) members had surrendered and army spokesperson, Brig-Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu, said the terrorists would be received, processed and passed on to the relevant agencies of government for further assessment in line with extant provision.
By Charles Okoh
For about two weeks, the nation has witnessed the activities around
the 80th birthday of former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. For
some, especially those who have had direct dealings with him, it has been a
flurry of praises for the man whom many have come to know as the Maradona and
affectionately referred to also as IBB or the evil genius.
Babangida has the unenviable record of aborting what everybody has come to accept as the best thing to happen to our electoral evolution as a nation. He scuttled the June 12, 1993, presidential election which he midwifed and for which he received accolades for organizing the best election ever held in the country.
First, it was Babangida in an interview with Arise TV, where he clearly spoke like the intelligent man that he is. He also showed that apart from the troublesome leg which has practically left him immobile, he did not disappoint with his intelligent responses to questions put before him. His ability to vividly recall all events around his life as a soldier and a military president even at age 80 stands him out as a brilliant officer. He clearly stands out among his peers and his understanding of issues within and outside the country you can hardly find that with many of our leaders today.
By Dan Amor
To live on this sinful earth for 80 years (whether it is original or official age) is no mean achievement, especially in these terrible times when conditions have sapped real life out of comparative existence leaving the average lifespan of a Nigerian at just 55. But here is General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (retd.) celebrating 80 years with pomp and pageantry in the midst of family members, friends, associates, former colleagues and country men and women. Since Tuesday August 17, his date of birth, Nigerians from all walks of life have paid tributes to this former military President, from varied perspectives.
It is only natural that we greet such a human dynamo with overwhelming gusto. Happy 80th birthday anniversary to General Babangida. I have read big, meaty, skillfully conceived and carefully executed tributes to the gap-toothed former maximum ruler, constantly relating them to the larger story. Some have treated his story with compassion and with a critical probing pen and have achieved brilliantly their aim of following Babangida’s long journey out of the innocence of his turbulent years. Yet, since men must do their work in warmer temperatures, cold light may not be a sufficient condition for the study of men’s lives.
By Tony Eluemunor
Please take your mind back to 1990 when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
invaded and annexed Kuwait; the price of crude petroleum jumped because the
ensuing war disrupted oil supplies. A totally unforeseen windfall, earning for
Nigeria $12.1 billion. But did the windfall benefit Nigeria? A report put it
thus: “Fiscal discipline broke down once more (because) established budgetary
procedures were by-passed and the strategic planning processes that had been
established under the Structural Adjustment Programme were largely ignored. Of
major concern was the expenditure of the oil revenue without any budgetary
authorization.”
*Babangida
This huge amount of money was fluffed away though Nigerians had
by then been suffocating under SAP for four whole years! And wait for this; the
1991 budget suffered a deficit spending of N35.5 billion. It was as though
that oil bonanza never happened.
I know that those who celebrated former Military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) as Nigerians best ruler as he turned 80, never failed to mention the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND) the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN) the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DIFRRI) and others as programmes and bodies he established. But have they told us how such benefitted Nigeria?
By Banji Ojewale
It has been claimed that an archetypal Nigerian politician’s perfect pastime is preying on poor people in their milling millions. When he invites the manacled, malleable and mesmerised masses to the campaign grounds, all the politician offers is a table of yet more death-dressed promises that drug his listeners to buy into his boast that he could construct concrete castles in the air. Opiated, ossified and overpowered, the citizens believe him and cede their loyalty to the vote-hunting orator: their world is trapped in the man’s bottomless pocket.
Now, it isn’t inconsiderate to put a good number of some of our religious leaders in the same cage as those politicians, given the cognate experience in history and in our clime. They pull crowds to draw the world back to the age of Johann Tetzel, the 15th Century German friar notorious for raising money for a church building in Rome. He sold to the gullible people so-termed relics and souvenirs of departed saints like Peter, John, James, Paul etc. and claimed that if you possessed those items you were excused from temporal punishment for your sins. Supported by the Church leaders of the day, Tetzel called his merchandise, Indulgences. There is a tradition, disputed though, that Tetzel also held that these Indulgences could secure peace for friends and relatives who had died in rebellion to Heaven.
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
The best value sincere friends and associates of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami, can inject in his career now would be to ensure that he schools himself to always speak sparingly and recognise the need to regularly deploy more time and effort to benefit from informed legal inputs before responding to very serious issues. The office he occupies is such an important and strategic one whose submissions on legal controversies Nigerians can confidently rely upon. It is always very disheartening whenever his interventions on very weighty national affairs are easily faulted by Nigerians, including even street traders and roadside mechanics.
When the 17 Southern
governors met in Asaba on May 11, 2021, and announced a ban on
open grazing behind which gun-wielding Fulani herdsmen had for several years
now hidden to commit various atrocities like brutal rapes of women and
daughters, wanton destructions of crops, maiming or killing of farmers and the
invasion and razing of communities, AGF Malami had rushed out to describe the
governors’ resolution as “unconstitutional” and “dangerous.”
On Channels TV, Malami
pronounced: “It is about constitutionality within the context of the freedoms
expressed in our constitution…For example, it is as good as saying, perhaps,
maybe, the northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts
trading in the north.”
The magisterial carriage with which this obviously very pedestrian and preposterous intervention was delivered must have deepened the astonishment of many Nigerians. How can a “learned gentleman” (least of all the AGF) compare violent herdsmen who appear to derive hideous animation from wantonly destroying farmlands and visiting their owners with diverse destructions and violations to motor spare parts traders who peacefully hire shops from their owners, pay taxes to government and undertake their business in ways that do not inflict any harm on anyone?
