The Post-Election Agenda By Ayo Obe By Ayo Obe My original topic for this meeting had as its title "The challenges of democratisation in Nigeria". My thoughts on that subject had begun with the observation that "the trouble with that kind of topic is that one is tempted to dwell only on problems". But having since been advised that I should address "The Post-Election Agenda", I am still - in the actual situation in which Nigeria finds itself - obliged to start by accessing some of the problems that confront the nation. The most urgent of these is the problem of security, or rather, insecurity. You probably all know what this means: terrorism of the kind that kills indiscriminately in pursuit of the goals of Boko Haram following hard on the heels of terrorism that claimed to have been undertaken to protest the injustices suffered by the people of the Niger Delta since ... well, since before Independence. A murderous sectarian war in Plateau State, in and around Jos. Kidnapping on such an industrialised scale that it reduced a major commercial town in the Eastern part of the country to a ghost town. Nigerians have seen the kidnapping phenomenon move from political protest with posturing by kidnappers for CNN and virtual rest cure complete with "man no be wood" provision for the kidnapped and everything eventually resolved from the bottomless pockets of the oil industry, to a vicious business in which the victims, if they emerge alive at all, are subjected to beatings and near starvation in captivity while frantic relatives sell everything, including cars and even houses, to meet the demands of the kidnappers, all the while in fear of the law enforcement agencies to whom they ought to be able to turn for succour. The national conviction - reinforced by the failure of the Christmas Day bomber to detonate his underpants - that "Nigerians can never be stupid enough to engage in suicide bombing" has been rudely shattered by the bombing of Force Headquarters in Abuja, the head office of the Nigeria Police Force, and the bombing of the United Nations building. Although there are still some diehards who are trying to prove that the bombers in both those incidents were not really suicide bombers, but were just delayed ... taken unawares and had probably planned to escape before detonation, the majority of the population considers itself put on notice by the boast of Boko Haram that it has trained 100 suicide bombers who will launch a wave of similar attacks now that Ramadan is over. As terrifying as these new threats to security are for Nigerians who are also no longer confident that they are peculiar to specific areas, be it Maiduguri, Jos or Aba, and of course, Abuja (where the only half unserious complaint is that the wrong people - ordinary Nigerians - are being targeted instead of the looters and freeloaders whose depredations have created the army of jobless young men who make up the cannon fodder for those behind the increased security threats) the country already faced huge challenges which the nation can hardly afford to put on hold while it deals with the security challenges. After all, while the indignation that met the Atlas Cove bombing in Lagos at the hands of Niger Delta militants (again, wrong target!) is now replaced with "they better not try it here" bluster from Lagosians, the fact is that not only must life go on, but that the development agenda must be pursued, and pursued vigorously for that matter in Lagos and the many other parts of the country - the majority - which have not suffered the kind of indiscriminate killing attacks of Boko Haram and indeed, in those parts which have. The issues remain the same: electricity, jobs, agriculture, education, health, roads and the whole transport infrastructure. In the words of one commentator on the occasion of President Jonathan's 100 days in office (it being understood that this refers to the post-inauguration period, not the 500+ days that he has actually been in power as President): "The president is at the head of perhaps the world’s most expensive bureaucracy. Elsewhere, governments are downsizing and pruning down costs; but in this country, the reverse is the case. The President must take a stand on reducing the cost of governance. Unfortunately, perhaps in an attempt to please everyone, he is creating additional structures of government, and he is being imitated by governors in the 36 states. The impression is also rife that the president is not rigorously tackling the key problems of Nigeria. The fire ignited by the introduction of the new minimum wage is still smoldering, with organised labour spoiling for a fight. And now, the judiciary – the last hope of the common man – is in crisis. Agriculture, which should create employment and reduce the cost of living, is not receiving sufficient attention. For an agrarian society, what is our agricultural policy? Almost all federal roads are in bad state, and the prospect of a modern railway system, which would have created employment for thousands of Nigerians, is still a dream. Nigerian education is degrading, with massive failures at public examinations. Health care delivery has not shown much improvement. No one expects quick solutions to these problems, but 100 days is long enough time to signal the direction of connective policies.". (Editorial comment in The Punch, 6th September 2011) Others who commented on the President's 100 days also mentioned the issue of corruption, but here too, Nigerians have become tired of 'fights' against corruption which not only fail to defeat corruption, but also bring every other aspect of the nation's agenda to a stuttering halt. Before I proceed further, I should make it clear that I am not a member of Goodluck Jonathan's inner circle. He marked his 100 post inauguration days in office with a statement which emphasised that he had promised less but, according to his spokesperson, "delivered more". The content of that delivery however, won little applause from the Nigerian people. Yes, it included matters like slight improvements in the public electricity supply, but on the whole, the President has been congratulating himself for matters that cannot, as another commentator* put it, by any stretch of the imagination constitute "achievements". Since Mr. President has hardly set himself any benchmarks, it is difficult to really say what his agenda is. The list of issues referred to above are hardly new in Nigeria, indeed, they crop up with depressing regularity. But what to do about them? Yet such training remains vitally important if the myriad security threats to the country and its citizens are to be contained. It is all very well to invite the FBI to assist in the investigation of the UN bombing, but the FBI is here, in the United States. If the first responders in Nigeria have no knowledge of how to preserve a crime scene because they are not trained to do so, the FBI may be ineffective. Perhaps we can still remember the embarrassment of the NPF in 2006 when Scotland Yard was called in to investigate the assassination of Funso Williams (a contender for the PDP Lagos gubernatorial ticket), and had to wait outside while the family member who had locked up the room was sought. Our own policemen had not even taken control of the crime scene, through which the whole world and his wife had traipsed for a goggle. Naturally, the detectives from London pronounced the eventually opened crime scene "hopelessly compromised". A series of political murders including that of Federal Attorney-General Bola Ige remain unsolved, with barely even the pretence at investigation. But even more than crime detection, the NPF needs urgent training in the prevention of crime, and to find means of doing this that neither breach human rights nor bring normal life to a halt. For example, last Saturday, President Jonathan was in Lagos with his National Security Adviser Patrick Aziza for the wedding of one of the latter's children. Major roads in Lagos were closed down in the name of security, with mini-trucks full of soldiers careering up and down the place. Lagosians should perhaps be grateful that this time, the disruption was on a Saturday; previous presidential trips to the commercial capital have left the whole place grounded with the working population resentful and convinced that to our rulers, only their own safety is important (yes I know that that is probably what they do think, but they should have the decency to pretend otherwise,) On Sunday my daughter and I were stopped in the name of 'stop and search'. Well, it is possible that Boko Haram is using women in trousers and tee shirts to carry out their nefarious activities, but I can't quite shake the feeling that the inspector just wanted to ogle my daughter who is young and beautiful. In short, a much more sophisticated approach is needed, and any post-election agenda must address the gross deficiency of police training. We have only to see the trajectory of how the Boko Haram group was converted into the terrorist outfit that it now presents as by the inability of the NPF to make out a forensic case that will lead to convictions in court, to understand that Nigeria simply can not continue with the half-trained police force that is now possesses. Yes, Nigerian police may win plaudits when sent on overseas missions (at least, that is what they tell us and that is what we hear about them) but on such missions they are possibly less involved with the kind of policing that is required for their home country right now. The post-election agenda cannot be only that of the President and the Federal government. In education it is true that or universities have lost a lot of ground and that the quality of the graduates produced is unreliable without further testing, but the figures for literacy rates across the country showed an alarmingly high proportion of children in the northern states who are unable to read or write in any language. The blame for this must be laid squarely at the feet of the Governors of those states. Which is not to say that at only 60% literacy, the figures for the southern states are anything to write home about, while the federal government also needs to explain its shameful inaction over the wholesale looting of the funds for nomadic education. But even though the army of unemployed graduates presents not only its twin tragedies of wasted lives and possible security challenges, an even bigger army of uneducated children growing up into adulthood only multiplies and projects those tragedies into an already uncertain future, and any Governor with eyes in his head ought to be making it a priority to immediately arrest and reverse that situation. They have more than sufficient means to do so. I will mention agriculture, not because of the obvious issues about fertiliser, but because a government that is alive to the projected population growth for the country cannot afford to play ducks and drakes with its agricultural policy, talking sentimental whatnot about groundnut pyramids and regrets about how Malaysians came to collect palm oil nut seedlings from Nigeria in the 1960s, and instead to start - like yesterday - to create the structures necessary for those who are willing to invest their time and talents in increasing the agricultural yield for the country, from the top and the whole approach to agricultural finance to the bottom and the kind of training that that huge army of unemployed young people, boys and girls but most especially the boys, need to make them employable in a genuinely revamped agricultural sector, not just a pretend agriculture on the top of which a few Zimbabwean farmers are plumped like cherries on a yet-to-be-baked cake. The other item that ought to be on the post-election Agenda is the Constitutional issue. By this, I do not mean the six year term that Jonathan so unwisely introduced into the national discourse at such an inopportune time, but the question of what happens in Nigeria after him. Will he, like those who have ruled Nigeria before him, do so as though there's no tomorrow, in an "après moi le deluge" fashion? Or will his goal be the devising of a formula that will be fair to all when he is gone? It was certainly part of what he wooed ethnic groups such as Afenifere and Ohaneze with before the elections. Because it will involve reducing the power of the presidency, this might require a strength of character that President Jonathan's admirers and supporters, and even the rest of us, his hapless subjects, are only left hoping that he possesses. A brief 100 days has shown us that the few promises that were made during the election season are meaningless to the President. Yet if the issue is not tackled when, as he eventually must, Jonathan leaves power, the condition of the South-South and for that matter, the rest of the ordinary people of Nigeria, will be as bad as it ever was, or worse. Of course, the four areas that I have concentrated on are not the alpha and omega of what needs to be done. The economy and infrastructure are too obviously cases needing attention to require further mention and in any case, I can say little about either save perhaps that the government's ambition of becoming one of the 20 leading economies in the world (which frankly, with our population is really a very modest ambition in any case) is in danger of being meaningless to most of the Nigerian people, and that a more people-oriented government should be thinking more along the lines, as they are in countries like Zambia or Kenya, of joining the ranks of middle-income countries and - admittedly against the grain of trends in most countries - really tackling income disparities. I have said before that our 'big men' have a tendency to measure their height by the distance between themselves and those at the bottom, rather than their closeness to the ceiling. 'Trickle down' economic policies have barely worked in the West. They certainly won't work in a Nigeria where an uneducated majority is in no position to catch the drips which in any case, are not falling on them. Nigeria's growth must be specifically skewed towards boosting the lowest in our society precisely because we have no genuine social security or welfare safety net. Of course, there are other issues that must be tackled. But we have seen multi-point agendas before and we know what happened (or rather, did not happen) to them. This is enough to be going on with, and the right place for me too, to stop talking. Thank you for your attention. |
Monday, 5 December 2011
The Battle for National Survival – FULL Excerpts ...But If I may tell you the truth, though we are all living in denial including those in government sand the people of this nation, shouting peace, peace, when there is no peace. I’d like to let you know that Nigeria lies critically in the intensive care unit of the universe. We are under a severe attack by the twin forces of corruption and violence. The same forces that brought the wrath of God upon the earth of Noah in what you and I call the flood of waters...The presence of violence and corruption -you cannot separate violence from corruption. Unintelligent men talk from both sides of the mouth – they do not know what they are saying. Look, it is unlike Nigerians to commit suicide by bombing themselves. A little while ago in the midst of serious suffering, economic disaster, and joblessness, Nigerians were voted the happiest place on earth, because no matter how difficult it is, there will still be a cousin, there will be an uncle, there will be an aunt, there will be a friend somewhere you can go to. When Nigerians become suicide bombers, you should be saying Come Lord Jesus! Because it means the hazardous times prophesied by Paul through the Holy Spirit that in the last days perilous times shall come. There will be no perilous times if there are no perilous people. And those who are looking for ways to blame Buhari-Bakare for the violence and for the bomb; the table knife I have on my table is just for food – I can’t kill chicken. General Buhari might have been a soldier, a General and a former Head of State – I don’t see him stirring up all this kind of nonsense that is going on. Those who dig their hand deep into corruption are the ones who orchestrated the violence upon our land...Because a people that are pushed to the wall must react one way or the other...But my real issue is this; corruption is ravaging this nation, has eaten deep into the fabric of this nation, and violence is already here, as a twin devil. In the present dispensation, it does not matter where you hide, it does not matter how tall your security measures or how toughened they have become, it does not matter who is watching (guarding) you, remember it was the private guards of Indira Ghandi that shot her. And when the justice of God will start, the mill of God grinds slowly but surely. It does not matter where you hide, whether Aso villa or Ass villa, you will be shot where you are, except you right the wrongs. Hell on earth – that is what Nigeria has become, Hell on earth! Hell on earth – that is what this nation has become. This is hell on earth!! Just imagine how many people have died since the advent of the PDP. Go back to Obasanjo’s regime, join it to Yar ‘ Adua, and bring it to the crescendo of Jonathan, and see how life is no longer of any value in our nation. Rome burns, Nero fiddles [1] It is the mercy of God that we are not yet completely consumed. The way it is going, you will hide in your house, and to come out will be difficult. And all those lovely cars you have, you might need to go learn how to ride Okada[2] - except the Lord of heavens will intervene in our situation. There is fear – palpable fear, everywhere. The president - they can even write it on paper, in the newspaper, that they have strengthened security around the president – how about the citizens you are meant to serve and protect – they can die? You can live..? Because you mother has two heads. Nigeria lies critically in the intensive care unit of the universe. We are under attack by the two forces of corruption and violence. We are in a state of anarchy and lawlessness. These are diagnosis, as I taught on the 7th of August. Major economic crisis is knocking at the door, all the arms of the government, and virtually all of them, the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary are in disarray. T o compound the matter, the leadership of the nation and the people, are living in denial, saying one thing in public and fearfully wondering in private, looking for a way of escape from our present national dilemma. Our hitherto esteemed elders, like a drunk on the brink, are making fools of themselves everywhere. God is not going to fix Nigeria until he fixes his temples. Judgement will begin from the house of the Lord – those who pervert the truth, and see the hand of God in wrongs – they will pay dearly for it. You can write it in capital letters IT IS TOO LATE. You all see how politicians think – many of them have their brain under their foot. They just trample upon it – they treat symptoms and leave the real root or the cause of the matter. They have forgotten that years of neglect, years of abandonment, years of fatherlessness, “motherlessness”, “directionlessness” in a nation will raise children who are lawless, and who don’t care whether they live or die. And they will be prepared to take anyone down to the grave with them including the society. What you have seen is the tip of the iceberg – a people deprived and pushed to the wall, will be ready to die but they will take you with them. And they will target your most noble institutions, children, wives...You wait and see. The President had better keep his mother, in the villa and not let her go to Bayelsa because they will kidnap your mother and nothing will happen – they have kidnapped the mother of a governor, they kidnapped the father of a star footballer, who then is your mother? That is the stage of anarchy that we are in – that they have not landed in your house is still God’s mercy. They are looking for your son and are looking for your daughter, because you did not read the handwriting on the wall, and they read it that you are their problem – that what should come to them, in terms of education, in terms of medical care, in terms of infrastructural development, in terms of job creation, you are the one that sat on their money – Anenih, OBJ, all of you that have one time ruined this nation cannot go down in peace. It is not possible! You will not go down in peace!! Because they will rise up against you...I refuse to be angry... If they had perceived in their hearts that God brought them into a position of authority and exalted them for his people, like David knew, they would not have behaved the way they behaved, they will not be stashing the resources of this nation in foreign banks, and still walking free and calling the shots, and now becoming drunk to call themselves fools and greater fools at seventy and beyond seventy. Is it not a shame that Nigerians are idiots presided over by fools? ...Because we now know the quality of those who ruled us. It would take idiots to have fools ruling them. Just say it quietly and accept, don’t say it loud, “ I accept, I have been an idiot” for there is no way all this nonsense should have been going on...Look at places you would consider stable, like Tunisia, only one citizen got fed up, poured petrol on himself, set himself ablaze, before the fire could go down, the president had run away – just one citizen...Mubarak had been in power for over 30 years, he thought he was in charge, he waiting to make his son his own successor. Ordinary young people began to text themselves and say ‘enough is enough!’ and they went there, not for one day, not for two days, not for one week, not for two weeks. They kept on there, staying there, by the time you ask Nigerians to sacrifice for one hour; they are looking for bathroom – Idiots! O ye foolish Nigerians, who has bewitched you? Except the blindfold is removed from your eyes, your university certificates, papers are like toilet roll – worthless because it cannot fetch you any job – Idiots! The bible says the profit of the land is for all – where is your own share, idiots?! Your roads are un-passable, you take pride in ‘I better pass my neighbour’[3], buy useless 1 KVA generator polluting the atmosphere, making noise everywhere, calling yourself Mr Big shot, idiots! My message is to you Nigerians today, because, fools have ruled you for too long a time, and all we will do is sporadic, haphazard, demonstration s in the street, “we are going to Fashola’s office – we will march there” and Fashola will give us a pep talk. We will give him a letter for him to give to the president, Idiots! Has it worked at any time? Time has come for Nigerians to rise up – East, West, North and South, and to say “Enough is Enough!” I have told you before that my marching days are over – I am putting the toga on again, we are going to pull this house down and rebuild it in the name of Jesus! Enough is enough! I don’t care what happens – this is my destiny, this is my life. If you cannot stand the heat – get out of the kitchen, Idiots! Were you not the same people saying “we did not vote for PDP, we only voted for Jonathan”, idiots! How do you separate one from the other, idiots? Is it not your elders in the church that saw the hand of God in massive rigging and called the Lord Jehovah , “Jehovah Rigger” ? Idiots! How long are you going to endure this banditry? They have stolen your heritage, you are now begging for crumbs from the master’s table. My God will always have a witness. Is there a witness in the house today? I feel like breaking the microphone and preach no more. I feel like going away far from the madding crowd, or maddening crown for it looks like we have lost our minds. Our children have no future. Every father will have to create his own business for the survival of his own family. And when we say let’s rise, you’ll be the first to cal us ‘Area Pastors’[4] , because you too refined...Your house will burn! You go check the bible, Your wives will become harlots, Your children will be slaughtered on the streets, this is what Amos said!! “But, let justice roll like water” I think I will come back to finish this. You see, I got to a place where I began to examine “are Nigerians really human beings?” “Are they cows?” “Are they dogs?” “Are they cowards?” “Who are Nigerians?” “Is this what you designed from the beginning?” “Is this the great nation you had at the back of your mind – that will save Africa” “ Is this what we are made up of , that we are talking from both sides of our mouths, that we have no vision, that we have no future, and we just sit in temples, in churches, in congresses, in conferences, collecting people’s money, idiots?!” Let it begin from the house of God! Let it begin from the temple!! Let the leaders rise, let us march, let us take over back our heritage from bandits!!! America’s hand is deep in the confusion that is going on in our nation. America’s hand is deep in all the rigging. Their experts came here to help INEC to pervert justice, and they left this shore thinking that they are bigger than us, but God is bigger than them! Oh Jehovah is stepping into the terrain, in the name of Jesus. Nigerian youth, arise! Nigerian women, arise!! Nigerian men, arise!!! Take back your heritage. It is a shame that those who were dependent on public money, and went to public schools, and were given opportunities, through the Ministries of Education and Finance, in their states and the nation are the ones scuttling the future of our children. They have stolen us rotten. If I were to give scholarships to all children, I would become broke. But it is not my responsibility; I can only do my best for individuals that I know. Imagine that we had no visionary leaders like Awo, I won’t stand before you today. MY father had several children. They didn’t have the opportunity I had, because by the time that I was born, Awo started free primary education. It wasn’t sophisticated. There were no nursery rhymes. The classrooms were not fantastic. We used pit latrines. We crossed streams to go to school. But we were taught – a – aja, b – bata, d – doje, e – ejo, e – eye, f - fila, gb – gbaguda, etc, etc. And the likes of Mrs F. A Alabi would come to our English class, ‘to’ takes present tense e.g to go, to come, to dance, to jump. Have and had take participles – ‘have you drunken the water?’ ‘You have played well’ Did takes present tense – ‘did you hear me?’ I have never forgotten. That was the way we were taught. We did not know how big Africa was then. And I hadn’t had the privilge to go through the north, the south , the east, the west, the central of Africa, I knew my continent. I know my nation. And God has privileged me to see the nations of the world. But back then, even nations I had never been, we were taught Some rivers in Africa, Some rivers in Africa Nile, niger, Benue , Congo, Orange, Lipopopo, Zambezi. We did not know the nationns, we knew the rivers, we were taught simply and we stood at exams. We didn’t cheat, we were not writing things on our thighs, we were ot begging lecturers to pass us, nobody was writing our exams for us, we were properly taught and this is who we are, by the grace of God. I didn;t go to King;s college, I didn’t go to St Finbarrs, I did not go to London School of Economics. There are people that went there here. I did not go to Cambridge, I didn;t go to Oxford, I dind’t go to Yale. Ahhhhhhhh. But bring their professors, and let us match wit, and I will show you what God has done through Awolowo for me. Who remembers Awolowo today for the houses he built? Shameless Obasanjo retired from government, and built a house they cannot live in for 10 years before it collapses. Who will maintain it? I tell you who will – reptiles, lizards, rats, cockroaches and cobwebs. If you doubt me, go to Ile-Oluji and see the house of Fajemirokun, and what became of it. And point to the house of Da Rocha today, and show me the hotel built by Bobby Benson. You understand me? Show me where it once stood. I want to see the rocklanders built by Akogun, Harold Shodipo in front of Olumo rock. Where are these buildings today? Gone with the winds...because the people you did not build, will destroy everythng you are building now, idiots! You have a fool ruling over you. He does not feel your pain. He does not understand what you are saying. He is living on ogogoro[5] 24/7. This is not new. When God is about to deliver a nation, He allows this kind of thing to happen. It’s not new. He will allow his people to be ridiculed, he will allow the enemy to insult him, so he can put on his armour, and step into the terrain. I will continue from here next Sunday. Oh yeah, until I finish this, there is no going back. That idiotic mentality, of you getting crumbs from what is rightly yours, of your water being sold to you, of a foreign agent of a world bank coming here, telling you your subsidy will be withdrawn and will only take 4% of our largesse and over-expenditure, and bloated governemnt and you say nothing? Every one of them will become lubricants to this revolution. You are goin to say someting, your voice is being restored back to you, Nigerians are going to rise, young and old, male and female. We are takin gour heritage back. I knew this day was coming when I packaged all the atrocities of Jonathan and led four men to Aso vila, and sat with him, and put in his hand in writing, why the SNG and the people we influence will not support Jonathan; put in his hand! And I said to the group, I will never return here except there is change. From that day, nobody can call me to come there. Do you understand me? I said so , and I meant every word of it. If I am doing this because i am seeking popularity, God of heaven knows, if I am doin g this because i am looking for power or I am looking for attention, is this the way to look for attention? When I had red carpet to enter to go into the villa at any time? On that last day, he packages $50,000 to give me crumbs from the master’s table, trying to give me part of what is mine, I am not a fool! We will take everything back from you. You are an unprofitable servant! We are casting you from the seat of power!! And so it is said, and so it is settled!!! [1] To occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis. The source of this phrase is the story that Nero played the fiddle (violin) while Rome burned, during the great fire in AD 64. (Courtesy – The Phrase Finder) [2] Refers to commercial motorcycles used as vehicles for hire in Nigeria. The name Okada was borrowed from Okada Air, a now defunct local airline in Nigeria. (Courtesy Wikipedia) [3] ‘I better pass my neighbour’ is the name given to the smallest generator on the Nigerian market. It’s very noisy and can only 'carry' a few appliances; but it’s cheap. Courtesy Nigerian Church Online on facebook. [4] Believed to be coined from the terminology “area boys”. Area boys (also known as Agberos) are loosely organized gangs of street children and teenagers, composed mostly of males (but with a few females), who roam the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. Courtesy of Wikipedia. [5] Ogogoro is a west African alcoholic drink, usually brewed locally. It is most popular in Nigeria, where it is known as the country's homebrew. It is also known as akpeteshe (often shortened totesh), Sapele water, Kparaga, kai-kai, Sun gbalaja, Egun inu igo meaning The Masquerade in the Bottle, push-me-push-you, and/or crim-kena, Sonsé("do you do it ?" in Yoruba language). Other Nigerian epithets include: ufofob [Calabar], robirobi [Abeokuta], baba erin [Ilesha], etonto [Pidgin English], wuru [Ijaw], Udi Ogagan and Agbakara [Benin] and Aka mere, Agbagba [Urhobo], as wellOHMS (Our Home Made Stuff), Iced Water, Push Me, I Push You and Craze man in the bottle (Courtesy of Wikipedia) |
SSS probes Buhari over poll violence   Written by Nuruddeen M. Abdallah  The sources said the thinking in government is that there is a discernible link between Buhari’s speeches on the hustings and the election violence that trailed the presidential election. Buhari lost the election to Jonathan, but as soon as the results were announced violence flared up in about 10 states in the North. Government officials alleged Buhari’s insistence that voters should guard their votes had encouraged people to go on rampage as soon as it was announced that Jonathan had won the election. But Buhari and his party, the Congress for Democratic Change, had since dismissed the claim, saying that some prominent religious figures as well as the head of the electoral commission Professor Attahiru Jega had also asked voters to guard their votes. Daily Trust learnt that the investigation by the SSS began a few months ago and it had taken undercover agents to some electronic media organisations asking for Buhari’s campaign speeches and jingles. At least one of the electronic media organizations had declined to oblige the request, according to our sources. The request was then routed through one of the regulatory agencies, but it was not clear whether it was obliged. One television station, which co-incidently aired most of the CPC presidential candidate’s campaign rallies and jingles, reportedly turned down the security outfit’s demand, citing “ethical reasons.” Daily Trust also learnt that at the same time a parallel search for Buhari’s campaign tapes were going on by a group of lawyers in Abuja. They were going about inquiring from journalists how they could lay hands on such footages. At least four journalists confirmed they were approached and asked if they possess any recordings of Buhari’ campaign tapes, and if not whether they could ask around for them. But the lawyers couldn’t succeed with them. One of the journalists consulted by these lawyers told Daily Trust that the lawyers approached him recently requesting him to provide them with “some of the tapes of Buhari campaigns, particularly in the northern part of the country where he made inciting statements.” “One of the lawyers who approached me said that some of his colleagues are planning to drag Buhari to court over the recent bomb blasts and general insecurity in the country. They therefore wanted me to provide them with the tapes where the CPC presidential candidate made inciting statements, urging his supporters to resort to violence if the elections were rigged,” the journalist said. The source added that the lawyers were also ready to pay some tangible amount of money “for the service he would provide.” He told Daily Trust that they were ready to pay any amount “provided he would give them the tapes and even serve as a witness when the trial resumes.” SSS spokesperson Marylyn Ogar did not respond when Daily Trust called to get her comment on the matter. Questions sent to her phone on October 8 on the issues were also not answered. When Daily Trust contacted Buhari, his close aide confirmed that the CPC leader is aware of the plot. “The General has received some report over the SSS plot to implicate him,” the aide who spoke in confidence said. “Buhari is not bothered about what they are doing because all his campaign speeches were not made in secret; they were publicly made. Therefore, he has nothing to fear about whoever is investigating his political speeches,” the aide said. |
| 100,000 policemen carry handbags for wives of moneybags *Police Service Commission boss laments Written by Chris Agbambu, Abuja Wednesday, October 19, 2011 IT has been revealed that out of the 330,000 police staff strength, over 100,000 are attached to individuals, to be carrying handbags for their wives.
The chairman, Police Service Commission (PSC), DIG Parry Osayande (retd), who made the revelation on Tuesday while addressing the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, said that it was regrettable that only 230,000 policemen were left to police 150 million Nigerians. According to him, "are these 150 million Nigerians supposed not to be protected, if only a few fortunate individuals are being protected by over 100,000 policemen?" The chairman said that he had made it clear on several occasions that a special force be trained to serve as guards, because the use of policemen for that purpose had become a status symbol. He said that the police required surgical operation for the nation to get what it deserved. On his own part, the Deputy Senate Leader, Abdul Ningi, said that it was unacceptable that over 100,000 policemen were attached to a few individuals, leaving other Nigerians to their fate. He admonished the commission to rise up to its responsibility of repositioning the force, as its function was constitutionally provided and must not be usurped by anybody. Speaking further on the way forward for the Nigeria Police, Osayande noted that Nigerians had waited long enough to have a police force that would meet their aspirations, adding that even though government had commenced the reform of the police through the implementation of the government's White Paper on the MD Yusufu Presidential Committee, not much of its impact had been seen. On the factors militating against the force, the chairman named misuse, misapplication of available resources and lack of accountability through award of bogus contracts and outright diversion and misappropriation of the meagre resources. Also, he attributed failure to plan and lack of vision as some of the problems confronting the force. The chairman disclosed that corruption had assumed a great dimension and seemed to have been institutionalised, as some of the officers and men who engaged in the practice had been found to collude with and, sometimes, shield criminals, rather than prevent crimes. Some policemen, according to him, had been found to facilitate the escape of criminals from lawful custody, obtain money from suspects for closure of case files or to derail the cause of justice, escort contraband, steal from suspects and accident victims and supply police weapons and uniforms to criminals. |
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PDP playing dirty politics - Dan SuleimanWritten by Abbas Jimoh Saturday, 13 August 2011 00:00 Air Commodore Dan Suleiman, (rtd) a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and had been a member of Gen. Murtala Muhammed’s Supreme Military Council and also a former military governor of Plateau State. In this interview in Abuja, he says that it is wrong to zone the PDPs national chairmanship post to North East on religious basis. He also complained about his exclusion from the BOT’s meetings. Excerpts. As a founding member and a member of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), why are you not attending BOT meetings? This issue of BOT is very painful to me because I am one of the founding fathers of the party and the BOT. I have been a regular member of the party and a constant attendant before I went to Moscow. But since I came back from Moscow, I have discovered that I have not been welcomed to the BOT. When did you come back? I came back July 2010. I attempted to attend two of the Board of Trustees meetings and to my surprise, I found that the meetings are now being held in the villa rather than in Transcorp Hilton which used to be the venue of our meetings before I travelled to Moscow and invitations are no longer extended to people as it use to be. When Jerry Gana was the secretary of the BOT, he will write to you as a member of the BOT to invite you to the meeting, giving you the date, the venue and the agenda of the meeting; but these days, I discovered they mainly announce it through the media and you will find your way there. So, whenever I got there to enter the venue of the meeting, they will embarrass me by saying that my name is not on the list of those invited. When that happened twice, I said I will no longer disgrace myself. So, I wrote a letter of complaint to the then PDP national chairman through our North East zonal chairman, Paul Wapama, I did not get any response. This is why I fail to attend because I don’t want to be embarrassed by going to the meeting where I will be told that I am not invited when I am a founding member and nobody has charged me with any offence. The only thing that kept me away from the BOT meetings for four years was when I was serving my country in Moscow. Having come back, I thought I will be welcomed back. I have seen others who served in the past, especially people in my own state as Ambassadors and came back and joined the flow of the BOT meetings. Did you also reach out to the national leadership of the party rather than reach out to only the North East zonal chairman of the party? Yes, that is the best thing to do, through the zonal chairman. I wrote through him. I have made calls to the BOT secretary, Abdullahi Adamu, the former governor of Nasarawa State asking him why this error. He said that my name was not on the list of those handed to him when he assumed office as secretary of the BOT. That is how far I have gone. Well, the secretary himself told me that he has realized the same problem. Why do you think this is happening? I think it is some of the dirty politics that they are playing in the party. If you are a person who speaks your mind, what the people do is to set you up. I discovered that I was not the only one but at that time, anybody who was vocal among the BOT members was excluded from the meetings. The day I went there, I found that there are other members who were standing outside after being asked to stay aside for clearance. So, we waited for about an hour or so. When the clearance was not forthcoming, we left. I don’t think I am the only one who was targeted. I remember that even Bamanga Tukur complained to me once that he was excluded from meetings. So, from the ugly political manipulations, they weed out those whose voices are considered to be either hostile or too critical. Now that the PDP is set to elect the national chairman of the party, which has been zoned to the North East, your zone, are you interested in vying for the post? Two things arise from the question. First of all, it is being resolved to let the North East have the slot because if you are looking at the present dispensation, the North East don’t have any top post. The zone’s top post have been the SGF before, now it has been shifted to the South East. So the North East deserves that post. To me, I think the idea of zoning it to the North East is very much in order but there is a lacuna here. I didn’t attend the National Working Committee’s (NWC) last meeting but I heard that the decision was taken that the position of the chairman of the party is expected to be zoned to a muslim. If that is correct and if that is the case, then it is a very dangerous precedent and I reject that in all its totality when you begin to zone party offices on religious basis, then we are treading on dangerous ground. That is why I have objection to that provision if it exists. I believe there are christians as well as muslims who are eminently qualified and eligible in the North East to run for the post of the chairman of the party. There should be a level playing ground and everybody who is qualified whether a muslim or christian should be allowed by the PDP to run for the post and not to restrict to it to a particular place. Are you gunning for the post? No, I am not interested in the post. I was once a chairman of a party, the UPP. It was the UPP that merged to form the PDP that is how I became a member of the BOT. Let them resolve the fear first of all, not necessarily me, but I will tell you I know people both christians and muslims who are competent. What is your take on the six year tenure? Let me tell you something, the idea is a good idea. This idea of a single term, as far as I am concerned as a person, I think is something that I would have supported at a given time, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. In fact, it is going to help resolve the problem of election malpractice concerning incumbency. However, what is wrong is the way it was presented. The idea shouldn’t have come direct from Mr. President at this time that is why it is creating suspicion. There should have been a tactical way of bringing those issues to the public and so that the public now creates it and then it will become a national consensus from there, the president will take up the matter. I think it would have carried some weight and will now have less acrimony. I believe in the idea if it is well articulated, presented and taken to the National Assembly because at the National Assembly, the elected representatives will be there to listen to the debate. I support a single tenure to avoid these crises we are having in the states. How would you rate the performance of Governor Murtala Nyako? It has been dismal, Nyako himself claims that he has recorded successes since assuming office. If that is true, he should not be afraid of a free and fair elections, yet, he is the one perpetrating this idea of lopsided representation by handpicking people to various posts, that is not good. Chairmen of local governments who were duly elected, Nyako’s administration has been arranging their disengagement by removing them arbitrarily and imposing candidates, is that true good governance? |
Insecurity: ‘Government mismanaged US security report on Nigeria’Written by Seyi Gesinde Sunday, 23 October 2011 The security report, as purportedly released by the United States during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, had predicted that “Nigeria will collapse as a sovereign state by the year 2015.” But speaking against government’s insensitivity to the report, the Adamawa State governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako, was quoted to have frowned at the manner by which the Federal Government handled the situation, by an online news medium, The Will, while addressing journalists recently in Adamawa. He wondered why government did not further probe into the situation. Nyako was also quoted to have supported the appointment of three separate Accountant Generals of the Federation, instead of only one that manages the country’s treasury. According to him, aside the one managing the federal account, he said there should have been one to manage state governments’ account, one for the local government. “You know, I was not happy the way we handled the situation. “If your friend says you are in trouble, you are entitled to ask him why he says so. Now if the U.S thinks we may disintegrate by the year 2015, for me, being positive about is more helpful. “I may ask them why they think we may disintegrate by 2015 and the assistance they could give us to make sure that we remain one country especially when they think it is in their own interest and the interest of all of us that we remain one country. “Now, definitely we are in difficulties in terms of economic activities which to some degree have adversely affected our wellbeing and security,” Nyako was quoted to have said. He was quoted as saying that in his state, Adamawa, government would reshape the situation of things. “In Adamawa here, I believe that the stage we are as of now is that we are in very good shape, I believe by the year 2015 we are going to be even a better state than we are now. “We are going to begin to create wealth from the various activities we have embarked upon in agriculture in particular and indirectly through the skills acquisition facilities we have created. “So I am very optimistic and whenever I attend the meeting of governors, I think the governors have realised that we have a big task before us to secure the nation, and our individual states. I am very happy that our president is also aware that the Federal Government has a lot of responsibilities in this regard and also needs the support of the state governors. “The president has been giving a listening ear to the governors in their need for support to make sure they do a better job. “I believe that we will, like somebody said, be in very good shape and better position to deal with our circumstances in the future leading up to the year 2015 and be better than we are today. “I think the warning is good; it has given the sensible ones the time to examine what they are doing and make amends to make sure that we and our people understand the challenges our modernising society is facing. “We are not the only ones facing these difficulties. Europe is facing huge difficulties, and you can see the financial situations they have to deal with now, “Nyako said. |
The Problem With Nigeria Is You And Me!By Prince Charles Dickson Nigeria, ideally is one of the best places to live in, it is not a Police State like so-called Western Democracies. In Nigeria I can urinate anywhere and not get fined or arrested, I can get a ladder and climb the electricity poles and effect a change of power phases, that is if the problem is not from the nearby power transformer which anybody can repair with dry wood. For a government that prides itself in placing transformation as its agenda and keeps spending billions for power it is interesting to see how there is no improvement, it is equally mind boggling and baffling that the available power supply is not paid for by both government and the governed including me. Many persons for good reasons had seen in Jonathan nothing but good luck including you and me, an opportunity for a reawakening despite the roguery and treachery of the PDP. A lot of us had lost hope in the system, the structure, the leadership, but with each passing day, it is becoming obvious that Nigeria may be just an empty plastic cup, to light to hold a cup of coffee cold or hot, because the problem is you and me. I voted because he was South-South, he was Christian, was Niger Delta, he had a smile, for millions like me and you who never had met him, he seemed a nice guy--well quite early in the morning we are living witness to the result, from labour strikes to expected subsidies and a deteriorating state of security. I am writing this essay about us because lately I have discovered that I have tried hard to write nice stuffs about leadership, but that is a hard ask, I criticize a lot and hardly give solutions, my reason, simple, there are enough solutions to Nigeria's multi-dimensional problems, enough to fill an American Congressional Library. Until I am ready, until you are ready, the solutions would remain utopian. I have watched us being reminded of the successes of far Malaysia and lately nearby Ghana, a success that was championed and achieved simply because of purposeful leadership, a leadership and people that have collectively gone about bringing economic prosperity, industrial strength, intellectual pride and dynamism. Unfortunately I am part of a circus, of both leadership and citizenry. A new Nigeria cannot unfold, with fast paced infrastructural development, rapid push in human resource development, healthcare delivery, when of the approximately 150,000 graduates expected out this year, only 4% possess a chance of a job, with time the remaining 96% slowly became an unemployable lot with redundant qualifications and no form of entrepreneurial educational, is it not easy to see how we are part of the problem. Today's Nigeria, lacks education, health and development with all the wealth, we are breeding terrorists, frustrated young men, sad mothers, senior citizens that daily curse the nation because we have refused to give them their dues, children without a hope for the future in light of public school utilities. The Nigerian big man makes a law, those wanting to be Nigerian or already big men proceeds immediately to look for a way to break the law; he explores loopholes and escape clauses, like the Immunity clause used for stealing. Ordinary Citizens would do it their own way, they will jump queues on no-excuse, they will do u-turns on an expressway, stop in the middle of the road to say hello to a long lost friend without parking. How can I say I am not the problem, when in power I love affluence and will do anything to stay put. In religious matters, I fake it; in business, my cheques bounce. In the civil service forget the noise of 'servicom', files get missing and only re-appear when you, and I mean you reading this is given the right price. The pain of this essay, is we know that we are the problem and rightly so too, but how about the Nigerians in their millions that want to be good for the right reasons. Those Nigerians, not easily understood because they will not give bribes, all their actions are in line with tradition, society's good norms and rationality. They largely are old now, although a few young ones and most times reside in rural areas, though a few stay in urban areas. They are generally good and untribalized, they believe in the principles of live and let live. These Nigerians are neither the bottom power women nor the moneybag men like you and me. They strive daily to remain patriotic and committed to the Nigerian dream despite the reality, they are disciplined and are hardworking, and they battle the stark reality that as patient dogs they may never have any bone left. These set of Nigerians suffer the Nigerian experiment because of the larger majority's inability to curb greed, inability for me and you to be fair and rational towards other peoples perspectives, opinions, positions and interests. My continuous inability to make sacrifices for the common good, and your unwillingness to respect our institutions means that if others do not stand as a people and resolve to fight for what rightly belongs to Nigeria, the problem with Nigeria will continue. Time will tell. |
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