2015: A damned bloody presidential prediction!

Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a former Head of State shoots from the hips and does not suffer fools gladly. For three consecutive terms, he has run for election with the hope of beating the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and for three times he had failed. Despite announcing recently and in the aftermath of the 2011 election that he is done with the race, Buhari has in the past few days stirred the Hornet's nest by predicted bloodshed in 2015 if, in his views, elections are rigged "again". Coming at a time Nigerians are still struggling with the general insecurity in the country, not a few are worried that the General may belaying the foundation for another round of bloodletting. EMMANUEL ENYINNAYA APPOLOS, reports.

"If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon will all be soa Red in blood."

With the above quote, former Head of State, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, sounded a blood chilling warning about the conduct of the 2015 presidential election, which is three years away.

Buhari ran for the presidency in 2003 against former President Olusegun   Obasanjo   on   the platform of the All Nigeria eoples Party, ANPP and lost. He fought the battle from the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal to the Supreme Court and lost. In 2007, he came out again on theplatform of the ANPP and ran against the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua. He lost again. He also fought up to the Supreme Court andlost by a split decision of four to three against Yar'Adua.

But that battle separated him from his then party, ANPP, following the party's decision not to follow him on the court journey. Thus, when he came out again in 2011, he ran against President Goodluck Jonathan, on his own platform, a special purpose vehicle called the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, a party he founded himself.

In all the three elections, Buhari believed that the PDP rigged him out from winning the elections. He also believed that the courts' decisions which went against him were influenced by the PDP. He is angry. He appears frustrated by his inability to fulfill the dream of ruling Nigeria.

The last time he made such a comment, during the 2011 presidential election that he lost to Jonathan, Nigerians indeed, paid with their blood. At the flag off of his campaign in Kaduna in March 2011, Buhari had told his supporters to lynch anybody who attempted to rig the 2011 election. He had said, 'Tbu should never leave polling centres until votes are counted and the winner declared and you should lynch anybody that tries to tinker with the votes".

He went on to lampoon the PDP for misruling Nigeria since 1999. In his words, "We are internationally recognized for corruption, inefficiency, business uncertainty and infrastructural decay. For 12 years., the PDP government has failed to tackle all these problems in spite of the resources at their disposal. We can and we must reverse these trends." He said the first step to achieving that was for Nigerians to vote PDP out. "They are finished. They have passed their sell-by date1'

Soon after, the blood of scores of southerners flowed as the Independent National Electoral Commission announced Jonathan the winner of the election. A massive crisis erupted in major cities of the north, leaving in its wake death of thousands ofinnocent Nigerians, mostly from the southern part of the country with many of them being Youth Corps members, who were posted to serve on the compulsory one year national service. Their major sin was that they worked as ad hoc staffers of the INEC in the election. Since then, blood has continued to flow unabated in the north.

The latest being the bloody onslaught unleashed on churches, government establishments and public places in the north by Islamic insurgents, Boko Haram. As far as Nigerians can remember, two things stand out in the battle between Buhari and the PDP, which led to his latest outburst.

One: Jonathan defeated Buhari in 2011 through the massive votes of Nigerians. Two: Buhari said blood would flow if he didn't win. He lost and, as predicted, blood did flow. During the week, Buhari trod the beaten path and declared that 2015 would be bloody. He went further to identify three types of Boko Haram operating in Nigeria,   and  described  the Jonathan administration as the biggest Boko Haram in the country.

Buhari told members of his party who visited him in Kaduna, that "since the leaders do not listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the North can do".
He added: "I will like to quote Prof. Ango Abdullahi, who said there are three Boko Harams, including the original one, led by Muhammed Yusufu, who was killed and his supporters tried to take revenge in attacking the law enforcement agencies and politicians.

'There is another developed Boko Haram of criminals, who steal and kill. The biggest Boko Haram is the Federal Government." He went further to drum it into the ears of his followers, perhaps the same people who decoded his speech in 2011 that: "If what happens in 2011  should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon will all be soaked in blood."

Jonathan, who failed to ensure that the masterminds of the post 2011 election crisis in the north, were brought to book, has decided to engage Buhari in media war this time, describing the Daura, Katsina State-born soldier-turned-politician's comments as 'unbecoming of a former head of state.' Jonathan's response to Buhari contained in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Communications, Dr Reuben Abati, reads: "The attention of the Presidency has been drawn to unfortunate statements in the media made by former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) in which he allegedly predicted bloodshed in 2015 and labeled the Federal Government-led by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as "the biggest Boko Haram".

"But perhaps the most unfortunate part of the statement was the portion in which Buhari said that, "Since the leaders now don't listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the north can do." "We find it very sad that an elder statesman, who once presided over the entirety of Nigeria? can reduce himself to a regional leader who speaks for only a part ofNigeria.

"We now understand what his protege and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir El'Rufai, meant when he wrote in a public letter in October of 2010, telling Nigerians that Buhari remains "perpetually unelectable" and that Buhan's "insensitivity to Nigeria's diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known."

"Who can know Buhari better than his own political associate? Come to think of it, as the CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 election, how many states in the Federation did he visit to campaign for votes? Buhari never bothered to campaign in the southern part of the country and consistently played up the North-South divide to the chagrin of patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians.

"As the results revealed, Nigerians will never vote for anyone who wants to divide the country. Is Buhari going to continue to be a sectional leader? "The Federal Government led by President Jonathan is not Boko Haram. Boko Haram means Western Education is sin. "That being the case, one wonders how a government that devoted the largest sectoral allocation in the 2D 12 budget to education could be said to be Boko Haram.

"Between 1983, when Buhari forcefully seized power from the democratically elected administration of President Shehu Usman Shagari, and 2012, no other administration has committed the same quantum of resources as the Jonathan administration to education in the part ofNigeria that has witnessed the most Boko Haram-related insecurity.

"Only on April 10,2012, President Jonathan commissioned the first of 400 Federal Government Model Almajiri Schools, equipped with modern facilities such as a Language Laboratory, Qur'an Recitation Hall, classrooms and dormitories as well as a clinic, vocational workshop, dining hall and quarters for the Mallams. "As Nigerians read this, more of such schools have been completed.

We now challenge Major General Buhari (rtd) to tell Nigerians what he has done, whether in his capacity as the head of a military junta or in his private capacity, to bring education to vulnerable children. If he cannot live up to this challenge, perhaps he has to reassess who really is Boko Haram.

"Buhari claims that the Federal Government does not listen. Such an accusation ought not to emanate from a man overthrown by his own hand- picked colleagues in the military for refusing to listen to advice and behaving as if he had a monopoly ofknowledge.

It is on record that the Federal Government led by President Jonathan is a listening administration hence its decision to pursue all means of resolving the Boko Haram insurgency including through dialogue. "When Buhari says that "if what happens in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, 'the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood", we hereby state that it is Buhari himself who does not listen. He has obviously refused to listen to the Nigerian People, the European Union, the Commonwealth Monitoring Group, the African Union and a multitude of independent electoral monitors who testified that the 2011 elections were free and fair and "the best elections since Nigeria returned to civil rule."

"Indeed, such a reaction from Buhari is not totally unexpected since he has become a serial election loser who has never taken his past election defeats graciously even when such elections were generally acknowledged to be free and fair. "Still on the issue of Boko Haram, we wonder what locus a man whose party's Secretary General, Buba Galadima, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in December, 2010, that the Federal Government is underestimating the support base of Boko Haram, has to accuse a government that has been threatened on camera by the leaders of Boko Haram of itself being Boko Haram? "Major General Buhari (rtd) also boasts of his knowledge of the Petroleum Industry because of his time as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum. We wonder why he did not boast of the infamous scandal that occurred in that ministry where under his watch; billions of Naira (in the 1970s) were reported stolen, a matter which led to the setting up of the Justice Ayo Irikefe panel.

"Finally, we wish to make it known to Buhari that given his reference to "dogs and baboons", perhaps his best course of action would be to travel to the zoo of his imagination because President Goodluck Jonathan was elected by human beings to preside over human beings and it is human beings who will determine what happens in Nigeria at any material time not "dogs and baboons". If the president reserved any respect for Buhari, his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not. It toed the path of Mr. President in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Oliseh Metu, where the party also described Buhari   as   a   'blood   thirsty Eolitician   who   relishes loodshed.'

"We condemn in no uncertain terms, this shameful call for the spill of blood of innocent Nigerians to acquire political power.

We need to remind ourselves that on April 21, 2012, Buhari was reported in the media as predicting a bloody revolution in 2015. The reports in the national dailies quoting the same retired General as repeating that blood will flow in 2015 is another build-up to Buhari's relish of funeral train.

"It is unfortunate that at this time of grave security challenge, while Nigerians are burying their dead and counting their losses, Gen. Buhari, who wants to rule them, is further inflaming the orgy of violence. What a blood thirsty leader in Buhari" "It is on record that Nigeria is yet to recover from the huge losses it suffered due to such reckless and
Erovocative remarks by Buhari efore the 2011 general elections which led to a spate of bloody post-election violence across six states of the federation," PDP said.

Meanwhile, it will be recalled that the report of a 22-man Sheikh Ahmed Lemu-led Presidential Committee on Post-Election Violence, set up by President Jonathan indicted Buhari.

According to reports of the panel, Buhari's provocative remarks played a role in the bloody violence that led to the death of 10 members of the National Youth Service Corps, (NYSC) and hundreds of others after last April's presidential polls. "Provocative utterances by many individuals and the widespread charge by prominent politicians including the CPC presidential candidate to the electorate 'to fuard their votes' appeared to ave been misconstrued by many voters to include recourse to violence which they did.

However, a long interactive session was held with the CPC presidential candidate and five member delegation of the panel, led by the chairman, in the office of the CPC presidential candidate in Kaduna on 14th September 2011. It was discovered that he himself was a victim of the violence and of the destruction of his property the photographs of which were given to the said delegation," the panel's report said.

Apart from Buhari's utterances, the panel also said that the government's failure to implement reports of past commissions and panels on ethno-religious and political crises also contributed to the postelection violence and urged the government to implement the reports.

However, Buhari, through his spokesman, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, denied making inciting utterances, saying that the panel and the Federal Government were executing a
Pre-determined agenda since the DP and President Jonathan had earlier accused the CPC of being responsible for the mayhem even before the panel was raised. "Before the panel was set up, President Jonathan and the PDP had accused the CPC of being responsible.

"They have to prove that Buhari's utterances ignited the violence. There was no comment that he made beyond that people should defend their votes. The Independent National Election Commission (INEC) said people should vote, wait and defend their votes. Buhari did not say anything than people should protect their votes. They have an agenda they are executing. They are working on a script, Odumakin said.

Though, Jonathan who received the report himself then, vowed to implement the recommendations of the panel no matter the individuals involved, insisting that "the culture of impunity would be erased by the government and heavens will not fall". Months after he made the vow, nothing has happened. The panel advised President Jonathan that "people indicted by the committees and commissions concerned should be prosecuted. These recommendations are based on what the panel observed from many victims of those previous disturbances who are nursing reprisals and have only been waiting for the slightest excuse to move into action which some of them did during the 2011 election violence and civil disturbances".

Responding, President Jonathan said: "I assure you, on our part, we will follow your recommendations. You did mention that one of the problem is that when recommendations are made   to   government, government hardly implements them.

They will make speeches, make pronouncements, then the media will carry it, then they lock them up, though some recommendations may be difficult for implementations".

However? it is obvious that Buhari might not be alone in this blood thirsty adventure as his party CPC, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) have all applauded Buhan. The National Publicity Secretary of CPC, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin said that Buhari only reiterating what, in their view, many Nigerians had been saying for long.

"They are merely talking balderdash; what General Buhan has said is what many Nigerians have expressed. Remember Professor Wole Soyinka had said election rigging is violence against people and that they have the right to confront violence with greater violence". PDP colluded with Professor Atahiru Jega's INEC to foist Jonathan on us. That's why we are battling with this clueless government. There must be sanctity of votes of Nigerian electorate.

"What Buhari was trying to say is that, it would not be business as usual. So, only the guilty should be afraid of retribution. It is certain that retribution is coming. So, why shouldPDPbe afraid"? On its part, the ACF responding through its national publicity secretary, Anthony Sani, said Buhari's comment was nothing new as he noted that many eminent Nigerians including former President Olusegun Obasanjo had also inferred as such.

"Buhari has not said anything that has not been said before. What people are saying is that he should not nave said it because he has mass appeal among the people." For CNPP's Mr. Osita Okechukwu, "The problem on ground now is due to the fact that many of those holding elective positions were not elected by the people, in actual fact. Therefore, they don't have any sense of accountability and responsibility towards the people." As expected, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) also backed Buhan in the verbal fight. The party in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed in Osogbo, Osun State, reiterated that the 2011 general elections remain the most systematically-rigged polls in Nigeria's history, irrespective of the so-called endorsement by some visceral foreign election monitors.

"We hold no brief for anyone, but it is true that if elections are rigged, as they have been so shamelessly and brazenly done by the PDP since 1999? naturally, people will react, and in doing so, it is impossible for anyone to predict how far things can go. This is what, in our opinion, Gen. Buhari warned against. If the presidency and the PDP have no intention to rig in 2015, why are they so worried about the consequences of such action? "The 2011 elections also left Nigeria divided along ethnic and religious lines, more than at any other time in the history of Nigeria, hence no one should tell us about the polls being the best since Nigeria returned to civil rule, just because some self-acclaimed monitors said so!" ACN said.

Can the ACN be taken seriously in the talk about systematic rigging of the 2011 elections? If the 2011 election were systematically rigged, then the question should be: how did the Bola Tinubu controlled  party   systematically fot control of the southwest in the 011 election, yet its presidential candidate, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu lost in all the ACN states but for Osun State. Who systematically rigged the ACN presidential candidate out, even in Lagos State? For now though, Nigerians are waiting anxiously to know the next step that will be taken in the verbal war between Buhari, his supporters and the PDP.

How 1975 coup dragged Nigeria backwards, by Asiodu

FORMER Special Adviser to President Shehu Shagari on Economic Matters, Chief Philip Asiodu, at the weekend lamented the state of the nation and said the promoters of the 1975 military coup truncated Nigeria’s quest for true development and leap to a world power.

According to the retired permanent secretary who is now the chairman of the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries, if those who took over from the Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s administration had continued with the development plans, which the regime laid out in the 1975 to 1980 National Development plan and also did not indulge in mass sack of civil servants, the country would have been a developed nation now away from where majority of the population live in poverty.
Speaking at the 2012 yearly general meeting of the council in Lagos at the weekend, Asiodu, a former Economic Adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, maintained that it was at that point Nigeria deviated from the road to development and has not recovered till date.
“The whole position is that when you have no plan, you cannot achieve anything. The coup against Gowon did two terrible things on the country, though the two leading members of that cabinet were members of Gowon cabinet, who approved the 75 to 80 National Development Plan. We were going into pulp and paper metallurgy as well as agro-allied to create a good base for our industrialisation and ensure job creation.
“But when we had that coup, not only the plan was abandoned, 10,000 civil servants were removed. And that destroyed the confidence, non-partisanship and courage in the civil service. In my time in the civil service, you can tell a minister sir, you want to do this, here are three options, and he knows you are advising him objectively, your commitment is to him and the country to succeed.
“That coup destroyed the leadership of the civil service, destroyed the people who could have been custodians of check and balances, who can say, you cannot do this or that. That was when Nigeria diverged, we were at par with Malaysia and Singapore. Today, we are 40 years behind them. We started assembling cars before South Korea, but today we are importing cars from South Korea. Should that be? But go abroad, in many universities or any institutions, Nigerians are there and on top. The coup truncated that plan.”
Asiodu called on politicians and bureaucrats to imbibe the value of responsiveness to what the people need and be always guided by the desire to want to help to lift Nigeria to a certain development platform for the benefit of the majority.
He recalled that “our founding fathers, Azikwe, Awolowo, and Balewa, the campaign then was, give us independence and we shall improve the condition of the people, and they showed it.
“As soon as we had regional government in the West and the East, there was tremendous increase in the number of farm settlement scheme, expansion in school, award of scholarship to competent deserving ones to go abroad and construction of dams as well as commitment to the drive to improve the condition of life of the ordinary man.
He called for better commitment to the state by elected officials and politicians, recalling that to accelerate development immediately after independence, Balewa and other elected officials cut their salaries by 10 per cent in order to save for developmental projects. He said it was ironical that now, about 74 per cent of the budget is spent on recurrent expenditure.
“At one time, education alone got more than 40 per cent of the budget of the Western and Eastern regions because that is the key to development. But what is it today? We are now spending 74 per cent of the resources on recurrent expenditure and overheads of, may be, 300,000 government officials and a paltry 24 per cent on education, health, manpower and power,” he lamented.
The elder statesman noted that in spite of the huge fund that had come into government coffers, no spectacular projects had been executed since 1975 when there were less fund. The government then executed most of the landmark projects in Nigeria today.
“We are saying the path we are following, this recurrent expenditure fueled by how much we are paying our officials is not sustainable. I believed the leadership should realise that what we are doing is not sustainable,” he said.
Asiodu maintained that what is being paid the elected officials cannot be justified, noting also that the current quality of the civil service is poor and no government can achieve result with a poor civil service, so the country must return to international norms in its civil service procedure.   According to Asiodu, the country does not need more than 18 ministries to drive its development plans. He said with that, Nigeria would be better coordinated and manage the level of waste in governance.

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Your Aspiration for 2015 Is Ill-Adviced: Open Letter To Gen. Muhammadu Buhari

By Salihu Moh'd Luman

Sir, I am a citizen of Nigeria, from what is known geographically as the Northern part, and by my training and upbringing, I am taught the virtues of respect for the elder and obedience to responsible and accountable leaders. Coming from Zaria, I have grown up to understand that trust and honesty are important pillars for leadership and this, in cases of aberration, leads to dissent as a result of leadership failure, which always find legitimacy in the absence, or perceived weakening, of these pillars. This leads to the rise of injustice and descent to immorality and criminal conducts in society, giving rise to crisis of confidence and overall anarchy, as we have witnessed in Nigeria over the last few decades.
On December 31, 1983, when you spearheaded the overthrow of the Alh. Shehu Shagari led Second Republic, one of the justification for the coup was the ‘crisis of confidence afflicting our nation’. The reality before us since 1999, as Nigerians, is that we continue to face this crisis of confidence. In fact, if your coup speech is to be replayed, word for word, it will reflect present national conditions. And like in 1983, the yearning for change is evident in the conduct of our politicians which you so lucidly captured in your 1983 speech as follows:
“It is true that there is a worldwide economic recession. However, in the case of Nigeria, its impact was aggravated by mismanagement. We believe the appropriate government agencies have good advice but the leadership disregarded their advice. The situation could have been avoided if the legislators were alive to their constitutional responsibilities; Instead, the legislators were preoccupied with determining their salary scales, fringe benefit and unnecessary foreign travels, et. al ,which took no account of the state of the economy and the welfare of the people they represented. As a result of our inability to cultivate financial discipline and prudent management of the economy, we have come to depend largey on internal and external borrowing to execute government projects with attendant domestic pressure and soaring external debts, thus aggravating the propensity of the outgoing civilian administration to mismanage our financial resources. Nigeria was already condemned perpetually with the twin problem of heavy budget deficits and weak balance of payments position, with the prospect of building a virile and viable economy.
“The last general election was anything but free and fair. The only political parties that could complain of election rigging are those parties that lacked the resources to rig. There is ample evidence that rigging and thuggery were relative to the resources available to the parties. This conclusively proved to us that the parties have not developed confidence in the presidential system of government on which the nation invested so much material and human resources. While corruption and indiscipline have been associated with our state of underdevelopment, these two evils in our body politic have attained unprecedented height in the past few years. The corrupt, inept and insensitive leadership in the last four years has been the source of immorality and impropriety in our society.”
With very minor editing and emphasis, these would aptly describe our reality today. The only fundamental difference was that, unlike in December 1983, our political reality today is in spite of your active partisan involvement. Active partisan involvement to the extent that you were the strongest opposition Presidential candidate and one of the political parties that contested the last general elections (2011) was a party you organized, promoted and fielded candidates for the elections. The party today has a serving Governor for Nasarawa State, Senators, House of Representatives members and many members of House of Assembly in many states under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). The fact that, based on performance or conduct of these elected CPC representatives, I can not differentiate them with PDP representatives, is the source of my worry. I am therefore writing you this letter as a contribution to the process whereby we must critically evaluate our actions and honestly provide leadership to the process of moving our people and nation forward.
Let me quickly admit here, in the effort to move our people and nation forward, our primary task must be to develop the capacity to fight oppression and injustice. This requires a capacity to live above board, in other words, the capacity to live exemplary life as a source of moral authority, if you like discipline, which has today come to be strongly associated with your leadership qualities. To that extent therefore one would expect that the CPC state government of Nasarawa will be a model and a source inspiration for Nigerians. Alternatively, we should have a situation where CPC legislators would be “alive to their constitutional responsibilities” and would not be “preoccupied with determining their salary scales, fringe benefit and unnecessary foreign travels.” Unfortunately, we are not able to make this assertion. Perhaps, it is still very early since there is still three years ahead of us.
It is with these issues in mind that I believe it is important I write you. Your recent declaration as reported by News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on April 13, 2012, to the effect that you will be contesting the 2015 elections compelled me to, not just write to you, but make my views open to the public. In making my views open the public, I am conscious of my limitations as an ordinary citizen and to that extent, therefore, my views will not enjoy the benefits of wide publicity and acceptability.
Consistent with my upbringing, I intend to state my views honestly, truthfully and with the utmost respect to your person. Also, consistent with the training of my parents and teachers, I will, with the best of intentions, convey to you my feelings with high sense of obedience to you as a 70 year old person, who has not just paid his dues but who has remained the only surviving leadership model for my generation. I say this with every sense of responsibility and conscious of the fact that I am not a member of your party and did not vote for you in the last general elections. In fact, I am a member of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and contested the 2011 elections as the Senatorial Candidate of the party for Kaduna North.
I am sure with this disclosure you may be tempted to dismiss my views. However, being the leader you are, I also expect that you will at least read the letter before you pass your final judgment. I will therefore proceed to state why I believe your declaration to contest the 2015 Presidential election will not lead us to the desired changes we all aspire to have for Nigeria.
First, as I inferred above, your party, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) is not different from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In fact, the truth is that it has been taken over by what I can call the PDP virus based, on the fact that the only serving Governor of the party was a member of the PDP and only decamped to your party after being denied the opportunity to contest on the platform of the PDP. As a result, his team (Commissioners and members of the State House of Assembly) are predominantly PDP.
In addition, the representatives of the party in the National Assembly (Senators and House of Representatives) have not differentiated themselves from the dominant conduct of PDP members. They have in fact joined the PDP club of legislators to enjoy fat salaries and benefits. They are part and parcel of unaccountable and corrupt legislative order, whose business today is predominantly to resort to blackmails and intimidations with several reported allegations of corrupt practices. Arising from this, we have a national assembly that is unaccountable, whose budget is known only to its members. It is not only CPC representatives that are accomplices to this ugly reality. Representatives of ACN, Labour Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and all other opposition parties are equally guilty.
The second issue is the fact that the result we have today is a product of the way your party recruited its candidates for the 2011 elections. I am one of those who sincerely believed that you lost the party at the point of its formation, because you were not able to control the process that led to the emergence of leaders of the party. This gave rise to a situation where those who emerged as the leaders of the party at national, state, local government and ward levels are people with the same orientation of PDP, orientation driven by the greed and lust for money and power that has dotted our political landscape today.
On account of this, the party leadership openly courted and facilitated the emergence of known PDP members as candidates of the party for the 2011, people whose core value system is completely at variance with what you stand for and represented. There are of course other situations where people that may not be PDP but are known to have openly fought against you between 2007 and 2011 in your former party, All Nigeria People Party (ANPP), people who have undermined your leadership and sabotaged your cause, became the dominant players in CPC based on the opportunistic strategy of winning elections. Many have won the 2011 elections with your endorsement and are today as guilty as the PDP people you are spearheading the fight against.
The third issue relates to your inability to convert your mass followership into electoral victory in states and at other levels. I expect the response that this is on account of PDP rigging machine. I believe there is PDP rigging, but I also believe that the PDP rigging machine overpowered your popularity because of internal poor party administration, which led to cases of injustice. The case of Katsina and Kano states are good example. It is clear that your party lost the Governorship election in Katsina State because of mismanagement of the party primary. Otherwise, how do you account for a situation where the CPC won majority seats in the State House of Assembly and National Assembly but lost the Governorship election? If the party can defeat PDP at those levels, why was it not able to defeat the PDP at the level of Governorship?
The case of Kano is worse. Being a state where the CPC was very popular, it was a tragedy that the party only contested the Governorship and Presidential elections. This is because all the candidates for House of Assembly, House of Representatives and Senate virtually withdrew from the contest on account of perceived injustice to Alh. Mohammed Abacha who won the party primary but was asked by the party national leadership to withdraw for Col. Lawal Ja’afaru Isa.
Related to this, is the recent case of Kebbi State. Citizens of the state were shocked when after winning a court verdict from the electoral tribunal nullifying the 2011 gubernatorial elections and ordering re-run, the CPC leadership in the state, including the gubernatorial candidate decamped and withdraw from the re-run election. The ACN gubernatorial candidate also did the same. This was possible because the CPC leaders are in the first place PDP in content and substance but finds their way into CPC in order to pursue their greed and lust for power and money.
My fourth issue has to do with the failed attempt for the merger of opposition parties under the National Democratic Movement (NDM) initiative in 2009 and the alliance between the ACN and CPC in 2011. Without going into details, the accounts that is open to the public was that you opted out of the merger negotiations having succeeded in registering the CPC. With respect to the failed alliance of 2011, the account was that while the ACN was ready to withdraw its Presidential candidate, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu in favour of your candidature, the CPC refused to concede the position of Vice President to the ACN.
All these accounts have not been refuted by either you or the CPC leadership. If anything, they were rationalized. Now my worries have turned to fear. This is because I have so many questions that are bothering me. These are: now that you have declared to contest for the 2015 elections, will you have a new approach in the runoff to 2015 or it will be another repeat of the 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections – experience whereby ordinary citizens have very high expectations that you will be able to provide leadership for the electoral defeat of PDP? Will your campaign be driven by the same team of administratively incompetent and politically naïve and deceptive people who have failed to develop a national outlook and expand your support base to cover all parts of the country?
This leads me to my fifth point Sir. As a Northerner, to that extent do you intend to use your aspiration to first throw up credible contestants for political offices in the North, contestants that upon winning elections would spearhead the socio-economic, educational and political development and material transformation of the region for the benefit of the teeming Talakawas? Remember, your political presence alone is a determinant of who win and lose elections in most parts of the 19 states of Northern Nigeria. This will not be an issue at all if your party leadership, your campaign team and other candidates that would be fielded by your party are to have the same coloration or even minimal resemblance to your values. This way you will have a team that sings from the same page and are sensitive to the interests of the masses of the people of Nigeria at home and abroad who are hoping for a new day to dawn for the betterment of their country.  Unfortunately, this is most probably not going to be the case. The truth is that most of the members of your party’s leadership, your campaign team and party candidates are PDP in every respect – they are masquerades parading in borrowed garbs as they care not a whit for the people, but for their own selfish interests. Some of them are even worse than PDP. They will not only emerge as candidates of your party but they will be promoted by you and aided to win elections.
I make this argument with the benefit of experience. It has happened in 2003, 2007 and 2011. You will recall that in 2003, ANPP defeated PDP in Kano with your blessing. It is now history how the ANPP government in Kano between 2003 and 2011 mismanaged and squandered public resources to the point where the people had a sense of missing the PDP government of 1999 – 2003, which partly accounted for the second coming of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, no thanks to the mismanagement of internal processes of your party, CPC. Similarly, Alh. Isa Yuguda won the 2007 governorship elections in Bauchi with your support. Again, it is now history how Isa Yuguda defected back to PDP shortly after the 2007 elections. Since the emergence of the CPC government in Nasarawa following the 2011 elections, there have been speculations around the Nasarawa governor, Tanko Al-Makura planning to go back to PDP. Although there has been constant denial by your party leadership at both state and national levels, this speculation has remained stubborn.
What this point out is your inadvertent contribution to the phenomenon of bad governance in Nigeria. This needs to be addressed. And looking at the simplistic, intellectually frail and reflectively naive ways you have announced announce your declaration to contest the 2011 elections, it is important we draw your attention to this fact. I call it simplistic, intellectually frail and reflectively naïve because the announcement does not come with critical evaluation of your experiences and a commitment to change the ways you played politics in 2003, 2007 and 2011. If that happens, the result is most likely to be the same – the PDP will again overpower all opposition, including your very humble self and our tragedies and woes will continue.
My sixth point, relates to the fact you will be 73 when the 2015 elections will be conducted. Looking at your personal life, I believe you are sincerely troubled by the absence of alternative leadership in the country and this is what propels you to continue, in good conscience and with good reason, to offer yourself. In evaluating this issue, I think it is really unfortunate that our national situation is almost pushing you to follow the inglorious path of the Robert Mugabe’s and Abdullai Wade’s of Africa. With the administratively incompetent and politically naive team that you have currently in place, based on my analysis above and if past experience is a guide to future possibilities, the probability that your Presidential candidature for 2015 will be overpowered internally by forces of reaction and retrogression and externally by the vampire PDP machinery is very high.
What do we do therefore? Do we simply just surrender to PDP without a fight and to that extent ask you to withdraw your interest in contesting for the 2015 Presidential elections? If we ask you to withdraw, would that not simply translate to abdication of our responsibility to our people? What then are the options before us?
Sir, these are not easy questions to answer, yet we must answer them convincingly. First, we must on no account surrender to the pestilence that is PDP – from 1999 to now, they have constituted the worst nightmare and disaster of Nigerians. On no account should we allow a situation where we inadvertently facilitate the continued rule of PDP in anyway. To that extent, therefore your aspiration to contest the 2015 Presidential elections must be discouraged because of two fundamental reasons:
a)    The first is that the same altruistic reasons driving your aspirations will not regulate the structures of your campaign and would not be able to fight against the emergence of greedy and corrupt politicians who will be embraced by you and supported to win the elections.
b)    The second reason is that your aspiration would blur our peoples’ vision as they will not be able to see beyond you.
Sad as it may seem, and probably unpalatable as it may seem, I must therefore submit that our society will benefit more without your aspirations for 2015. In the circumstance, it is my hope that you will consider changing your role to that of leading the negotiation process towards strengthening the capacity of opposition parties in Nigeria. Events in nearby Senegal should serve as a source of inspiration. To strengthen opposition parties in Nigeria would require a strategy that would throw up completely new candidates at all levels in 2015, including especially the Presidential elections. Your moral authority to serve as the facilitator of this will engrave your name in the sands of Nigerian history as one nationalist who sacrificed everything, including his personal aspirations and ambition to ensure that the monster called PDP is defeated.
I am convinced that members of CPC who are pushing you to contest don’t wish you well and you should not listen to them. In the event that you listen to them and contest the 2015 elections, in the manner you did in 2003, 2007 and 2011, history and future generations of Nigerians will be justified if they turned out not to be kind to you. In fact, for those of us in the North, we will be justified to be aggrieved with your decision, especially given the quality of leadership your aspirations has nurtured and imposed on our people at other lower levels.
My conclusion therefore is to remain a member of the ACN in spite of my respect for you. In remaining a member of the ACN, I am conscious of the challenges facing all of us in the North. Part of it includes the fact that arising from my inability to join your party, I will remain a political orphan in my constituency with greater probability that my candidature will not attract your support no matter his/her credential and therefore may not win election. Unfortunately, my party (ACN) leadership at national level appears to be operating in a comfort zone and as a result may only start prioritizing the development of my party structures in my constituency when it is too late.
Admittedly, I must recognize that the problem of administrative incompetence and political naivety, which define your party, CPC, also gets manifested in different ways in my party, the ACN. One of the ways it gets manifested is the inability to recruit new membership in other parts of the country outside South West and Edo. While it is a reflection of the failings of many of us from outside the South West and Edo to encourage and nurture positive disposition towards the development of party structures, it must be recognized that the dominant approach is to look in the direction of aggrieved politicians in PDP who may have resources to expend in the development of structures of the party.
This is a fundamental problem because what it means is that our opposition parties in Nigeria, inclusive of your CPC and my ACN, share the same political culture with the PDP, culture which you aptly describe in your 1983 coup speech as resulting in problems of indiscipline and mismanagement of resources thereby leading to loss of confidence. Therefore, at this stage, what should occupy our attention is not individual aspirations but that of doing the hard introspective, reflective and proactive work of sanitizing our parties, such that they are distinctively different from the PDP and in 2015, without you contesting for the Presidency, a credible Nigerian can be thrown up. In addition, with your towering charisma, you are the best person positioned by history to facilitate the unity of all opposition parties in the contest for 2015.
The element requiring the unity of opposition parties must not be taken for granted, especially with the experience of 2011 where information available to the public was that CPC/ACN failed because Pastor Tunde Bakare, your running mate, refused to accept to step down. I am convinced that it was your tacit prodding that encouraged Pastor Tunde Bakare to adopt a hard line stance and refused to consider making the much needed sacrifice. I am also tempted to argue that it was your towering charisma that gave Pastor Bakare the courage and cover to be able to undermine a patriotic national calling of the time.
Many would also emphasize the point that my ACN national leadership also undermined the patriotic national calling of that time by failing to forgo their demand for the substitution of Pastor Tunde Bakare with their nominee. These are all true but very convenient arguments. My position is that the alliance couldn’t have worked out because of two factors. I believe the parties negotiating the alliance (CPC/ACN) were not deeply committed to the negotiations and to that extent hardly see the negotiation in terms of defining the kind of government that would have taken over from the PDP. In other words, and this is the second issue, if there were discussions of governance programmes, they were only secondary. As a result, the main focus was just the 2011 elections.
This leads me to a more substantive issue, which informs my objection to your aspiration to contest for President. To the ordinary people, their belief is that if you win the Presidency you will be able to fight against corruption and injustice in the country. Given the configuration of your party CPC and all those directly driving your campaigns and aspirations, it is debatable if you can be able to fight any ill in the Nigerian society, not least corruption as a President. This is the crux of the matter and all those who are quick to cite your performance as Head of State between January 1984 and August 1985, should ask themselves the following questions: does your campaign team and current CPC leaders share your vision and have any commitment to fighting corruption? Do they even have any difference with the PDP you are fighting? Can you be able to replicate the same governance policies and approaches under the 1999 constitution as amended?
As my elder and leader, I will urge you to sincerely answer these questions. I am convinced that given your honestly will not allow your personal aspiration to influence your answer. I am also convinced that your aspiration is more challenging for those of us in the North. Therefore, I must admit that your aspiration also means a challenge for the political survival of many of us in the North. Without any doubt, it also raises question about the capacity of politicians in the North to assert their independence. Rather than follow the bandwagon, I draw inspiration from Mallam Aminu Kano’s 1950 Memo where he proclaimed that “I have seen the light in the far horizon and I intend to march into full cycle, either alone or with anybody.” The task, therefore, for many of us from the North who genuinely want to move our nation and society forward, is to be able to follow the direction of the far horizon and march towards the full cycle. Whether it is a journey we will make alone or with other fellow patriots, it is a task that is necessary and politically obligatory for our survival. I do hope you will reconsider your decision and give us leadership in this journey. Otherwise, as your loyal children, we have learned the appropriate lesson – go against the current in the service of fatherland!

Buhari/Tinubu On A Joint Ticket 2015 Election? By Sunday Njokede

Buhari and Tinubu

By Sunday Njokede

My crystal ball tells me that ex-president Buhari will contest the 2015 presidential election. The biggest puzzle for now is. Who would be his running mate? Would Mr Buhari’s choose Bola Tinubu the onetime governor of Lagos? Or, would Buhari still field his former running mate Pastor Tunde Bakare?

President Jonathan and PDP would be working tooth and claw. Fasting and praying. Making sure ex-president Buhari commits the blunder of nominating Bola Tinubu as his running mate for 2015 presidential election.

The onetime US president George Bush Jr. had done likewise in 2000 US presidential election. Mr Bush had prayed and hoped to have an “undisciplined” Howard Dean as challenger. Mr Dean was the former Democratic Party front-runner.

President Bush had described Mr Howard Dean the erstwhile governor of Vermont uncomplimentary like this - he: “... was loud, shrill and undisciplined.” I refer you to page 287 line 21 of Mr Bush’s book titled ‘Decision Points.’

The reason President George had wanted to have the former Democratic frontrunner was because he thought he was unmarketable to the people of USA during the 2000 presidential election. Plus, he opined he was a bad market for his Democratic Party as well. With such an opponent Mr Bush had calculated to beat him flat-out and hands down with cakewalk.

Immediately George Bush figured out that Mr Howard Dean was a fall man he could walk over on Election Day – the former president started working tireless for Howard Dean to be nominated by the Democrats. But reverse was the case. Wherefore John Kerry emerged as President Bush contender.

It is the tradition all over the world. Every candidate or political party who is going for election is looking out to have an opponent with questionable behaviours. Rivals with dirty characters are well sought after. In that.  You could beat them with baby-ease in any election before the cock crows.

It is on this ground that Mr Jonathan and PDP would be hustling day and night to make sure Mr Buhari picks Tinubu as his running mate for 2015 presidential election. Everyone is aware that the Lagos rascal is full of corruption and crap. The fisherman from Bayelsa knows as well that the Lagos rascal has more ills on his private account.  That is. The ex-governor from Lagos is a backstabber and a cheap betrayal.  For the avoidance of doubt, go and ask the erstwhile EFCC torchbearer Mr Ribadu. He will tell you how Bola Tinubu and the ACN brought him up and down during 2015 presidential election. Mr Tinubu had quickly turned Mr Ribadu’s boyish smile into a frown in the last minute of 2011 election.

The PDP knows that anything with Tinubu’s name would not fly Nigeria-wide in 2015. Mr Tinubu is no more than a local champion restricted to South West popularity alone. Mr Buhari would be robbing upon himself and sharing in Mr Tinubu’s curse if he goes with him in 2015.

For your information! We are hearing and reading from the grapevine. That ex-president Buhari and Bola Tinubu are readying to do a joint ticket in 2015 presidential election. The news reporting the duos 2015 joint ticket dotted the newspapers few weeks ago.

The question now agitating the minds of every concerned citizen is. Hail Mary! What is it that Buhari and Tinubu have in common that both would be on a joint ticket as president and vice-president respectively in 2015? Sanity and conventional wisdom dictates that. Before any duo agree to duet as running mate on the same platform in any election or contest. Both of them have to have plenty positive and socio-centric things in common going on for them.

To cut a long story short. President Bush’s example should be telling indication to President Buhari. With the caveat that such as Mr Tinubu who has a drag on him are unsalable to the Nigeria electorates. I more so would like to tell other opposition parties to steer off Tinubu however. As we move on closer by each day to 2015 election. The ‘Lagos rascal’ is up to no good. He has a thing with corruption and misdoing which is deeper than the ocean.

My only prayer is that Mr Buhari would not wake up one day. And proclaim that God mandated him in a dream to run with Tinubu in 2015.  The former president had once left us his fans disappointedly ice cold when. Out of nowhere, he told the world he divinely had left President Jonathan to God for cheating and rigging him out of 2015 election.  He had begged God to take revenge on President Jonathan just like that. We had hoped for and expected Buhari to go full hog slugging it out with Jonathan man-to-man in court. What has God got to do with rigged election? If not that man would take his destiny into his own hand.

If God would tell Mr Buhari to choose a running mate, let it be Pastor Tunde Bakare again. A combination of Mr Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare during last election drove Jonathan and PDP into panic attack. They are yet to recover from that shock and awe. There is nothing that scares the PDP more than the gathering of decently incorruptible people. And each time credible people are standing election against PDP operatives, they get heart attack. Now that president Buhari has said he is likely to contest 2015, the PDP would need a bypass to mend their broken hearts. Don Williams might be right after all that “some broken hearts never mend.” Mr Buhari should be upping the stake for 2015. So that PDP continue to have heart attack.
 

Yes, Jonathan has delivered for his friends – El-Rufai

BY Henry Umoru
Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, has since his informal exit from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP transformed into one of the leading voices of the opposition. A chieftain of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Mallam El-Rufai in an interview reviews the performances of the Goodluck Jonathan administration and profers his suggestions. Excerpts:
DO you agree with the PDP that the federal administration has delivered on its promises?
Yes, they have delivered on insecurity, they have delivered on insolvency of the federal government, they have delivered on the division in the country, they have delivered on depletion of social capital; I don’t know what they are celebrating. I think they can celebrate because they stole 2 trillion of subsidy money and they are stealing some billions in pension.
I think they have delivered, but for themselves not for the Nigerian people. The PDP and Jonathan have every reason to celebrate because they have wiped out our foreign reserves, wiped out excess crude account and they all own houses in Abuja and Lagos. So, they have every reason to celebrate but go to the local market and ask many Nigerians whether the plight of this year is better than the plight of last year and the answer will be very clear. Nigeria has become much worse under Jonathan’s watch. So, I don’t know what they are celebrating.
Do you imply that Nigerians are regretting voting in Jonathan?
I don’t know. Every Nigerian must have a view on this. I don’t think his no shoe story and all that got him elected. I don’t think he was elected, I think they rigged their way into power and if they were using the power for good, it will not be too bad.
Waiting for God’s judgment
But the power is being used to perpetrate fraud against 168 million people and those that voted for him should ask themselves whether they have done the right thing and those of us that did not vote for him but our votes were stolen and added to him. We are waiting for God’s judgment.
Do you believe the opposition is strong enough to take power from the PDP?
When the time comes, the opposition will be strong enough. People think the opposition is just political parties, those who think so are in the dream land; opposition is Nigerian people, Nigerians whose lives have been much traumatized, that is the opposition and at the level of political institutions, we are here to organize our ourselves into a united and formidable opposition, I hope we get there.

Mallam El- Rufai

How organized are you the opposition parties?
We are organizing, I don’t want to say more than that.
Elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark had said while marking his birthday that Jonathan will contest in 2015. As a northerner, what is your take on this?
I am not a Northerner, I am a Nigerian. I don’t see myself as a Northerner, I don’t like those affiliations; I don’t believe in that, I believe I am a Nigerian and I see every Nigerian from whatever part, language and religion as a brother. Again, that is what is wrong about our country. I don’t think the constitution disqualifies Jonathan from contesting, I don’t see any problem in that.
Only the constitution and the electoral acts defines who can run and who cannot run and I don’t see anything in the constitution that disqualified Jonathan from running, but what he is not entitled to do is to rig the election and impose himself on Nigerians because if that happens we will respond.
It is as simple as that. You can deceive me once, but I will not allow you to deceive me twice. If you deceive me once, then the next time you do it, I will react. That is it. Edwin K. Clark is entitled to his views and I agree with them because any Nigerian who is above the age of 30 with a secondary school certificate is qualified to run for president and unless he runs more than twice. So, he is entitled to run.
How far has the CPC gone in reforming itself?
The CPC is young, we were registered in 2009 and before we could settle down, we had to contest election and yet, our presidential candidate got over 12 million real votes, not the Jonathan fake votes.  We have organizational issues in the party as a young party, we are not 13 years like the PDP, we are just 3 years, so, these kinds of issues can happen and we are addressing them and part of what I am doing is to get some of these issues sorted out and we are working on them. The party is working on its internal problems and we will overcome all these issues to ensure that PDP stops destroying Nigeria.
Back to the government, as a former Minister you worked with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, where do you think in the next one or two years the government should concentrate on and Nigerians will be happy for it before the next election?
There are three or four fundamental issues where this government has failed woefully in the last 2, 3 years because Jonathan has been around not for one year, but for about three years. They have failed in providing security for the people which is the primary reason for having a government. They should look at what they have been doing in the last one year and correct it. That is one. Second, they have not managed the economy well.
This country is broke, the federal government is unable to pay federation allocation on time, they are unable to pay salaries on time, we are in May, April salaries have not been paid.  There should be reduction in level of corruption and fraud in the amount of fund leakages so that the liquidity in the economy will be restored. Stealing should not be the full time job of people in government. They should work and manage the economy.
The third is that these endless promises to improve the electricity must stop and deliver some results. Electricity generation has not improved from the level we left it which is about 3,200 megawatts in April 2007. It has not changed; in fact it has gone down once in a while.  Finally, they should think of the 6 million babies we make every year and begin to think of their future. People without hope are capable of anything; the government should level the playing field. These are the four areas I will advice them to look at. I am not their Adviser.
Will the North allow President Jonathan to run in 2015?
It is not up to the North or anyone to allow anyone to decide, Nigerians decide who they want as President and there was great consensus at a time that the presidency should be ceded to the South and no credible Northerner contested the office. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
These are some of the decisions people make for the unity, peace and good governance of the country. I don’t believe we should be selecting our presidents on the basis of where they come from. I have said this overtime, I think we should look for the best qualified person for the job and where you have a decent person doing the right thing, everybody benefits – North, South, East and West, Muslims and Christian, Hausa, Igbo Yoruba, Ijaw, everyone, we can all benefit from good governance.
Your former boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo recently decried the level of corruption where he was quoted to have alleged that members of the National Assembly are rogues and armed robbers, do you agree with him?
President Obasanjo is a very thoughtful and experienced person, I am sure before he made the statement, he had the facts and I think Nigerians know what he meant and they all know the National Assembly members, the allowances they take that they are illegal. Obasanjo knows what he is talking about. I don’t believe that everyone in the National Assembly is bad, there are many decent people there but there is something wrong with the National Assembly. I don’t know what Obasanjo said but whatever he said, he must have his reasons and his facts.
How would you access the 7th National Assembly?
Disappointing, for me this National Assembly has not done much. There are many legislations that have been lying there forever like the Petroleum Industry Bill which has been in the National Assembly since 2008. The most important legislation that will reshape our oil industry has been lying there. It was the Senate that first had the resolution on investigation of fuel subsidy fund, but at the end, it was the House of Representatives that took the lead and did good work in that regard.
I think the overall performance is disappointing though I will say Farouk Lawan has helped elevate the quality of the House of Representatives. I think under Tambuwal, the House of Representatives has become more reflective of the wishes of Nigerians than the Senate.
What do you think should be the outcome of the report from the House of Representatives?
I think a few things are clear, the report identified the companies that collected public funds without supplying anything. I think they should be asked to refund that money back before you go any further. You don’t need any investigation. But no action is being taken along that line. I heard that the anti-corruption agency has got the report and I do hope that all those involved in doing the wrong things will be brought to justice as quickly as possible.
On Boko Haram, what is the way forward?
I don’t know it is a complicated issue with many dimensions. Unless you have all the information, it is very difficult to make any permutations and conclusions, but what I do know for sure is that the current practices of the government have failed. There are strong suspicions among us that the government is behind some of these violence including Boko Haram and the government has not done anything to apprehend some of those behind the violence.
They are losing the battle in the heart and minds of the community where the so called Boko Haram is supposedly operating and I think they need to rethink their strategies. The government should stop it, they should stop complaining and they should stop behaving as if they are victims and just solve the problem.

Heartless Lamido Sanusi By Yinka Odumakin

By Yinka Odumakin

I was one of those who opposed the appointment of Sanusi  Lamiido Sanusi as the Central Bank Governor when the late Umaru Ya'aradua nominated him for the exalted office in 2009.
My reason for considering him unfit for the office was not because he lacked the knowledge and intellect for the office but rather because I found him impetuous and his thoughts on national issues showed a narrow man whose lenses do not see beyond the prism of his  own agenda.
His thoughts on other nationalities in Nigeria were either rude,condescending and when at his best patronising.
Anyone who doubts the above should read most of his sabre-rattling views and commentaries before he became the CBN Governor.The Number 1 banker for the country should not be a man with such strong political views which negate the liberal mindset that is required to handle the apex bank.
He eventually assumed the office of the CBN Governor and has since carried himself about with all the swagger of an aristocrat and in the process did a lot of incalculable damage to the economy  through his whimsical actions  whose results are already staring us in the face.
Dele  Sobowale  in his piece titled "Another Banking Crisis Coming Up" in VANGUARD of May7,2012 rightly opined that If anyone had asked Sanusi Lamido Sanusi three years ago his choice between becoming the Emir of Kano and the Governor of Central Bank; he would have chosen the former." But like Prince Charles of Britain, whose mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 1952, and is still going strong, Lamido too must wait indefinitely to pursue his ultimate ambition – which does not include being remembered as a great banker. Banking was just something to do while waiting.
That was why, unlike his predecessor, he did not lobby much for the job; instead the job came looking for him. That might have explained his distractions and his aloofness bordering on arrogance."
In what appears a glimpse into Sanusi's mishandling of the banking sector I quote Mr Sobowale copiously:
"When Sanusi took over,he proceeded to dismantle the Soludo legacy. And although, there is no indication he intends to erect a monument, he will all the  same. The crisis might occur before he goes to Kano for the coronation. It is brewing with a fury known only to beer  Brewmasters.
Most banking crises start from one incident, a breach of the rules and regulations, in one bank which benefits a few people; gets copied by other banks or is repeated by the same bank until it becomes routine. The current case involving the former Managing Director of the defunct Intercontinental Bank, Plc and the former governor of Kwara State is one of the two examples which will be examined today to round up this warning.
As stated last week, if the allegations are proved beyond reasonable doubt, the the Governor of the Central Bank must bear a significant portion of the blame for appointing someone whose track record had been revealed as questionable in the past.
At the moment the focus is on one allegation pertaining to granting waivers to Senator Saraki’s firms under questionable circumstances and releasing the securities for the loan prematurely; thereby leaving the bank holding to thin air for its exposure – N9 to 11 billion worth of it. One can only pray it is not true; for the sake of Mr Alabi; more for the sake of Senator Saraki and for the sake of the Nigerian banking sector.
That incident raises several questions to which this writer already has some answers. The first is, was that the only loan handled in this manner? If not, how many more loans are involved? For those who might not grasp the implications of those questions, let me quickly explain
The next question is for the Central Bank to answer. Are there no guidelines which must be followed before a bank can grant this magnitude of a waiver? If, yes, were they followed and did CBN examiners to the bank check these? If not, how could the examiners have missed this huge write off?
The more you look, the more it can be seen that the CBN was somehow derelict in its duties and its responsibilities to the shareholders of the bank who had no say in the appointment of the Managing Directors. And, if it was careless in one case how can the stakeholders in the banking sector have confidence that this is an isolated case. Information reaching me suggests  it is not.
When we turn to the pension scandal, one is appalled and the heart melts. Here the rules and regulations guiding deposits by individuals, as well as opening of accounts are so clear that no banker can claim ignorance of them. There is the “Know Your Customer” principle and the mandatory requirement to report deposits of one million or more into an individual account.
Yet virtually all the banks conspired with old and new customers to launder stolen pension funds belonging to millions of individuals. Even with the rather lenient penalties attached to these offences, the banks face billions of naira in penalties directly; and billions more in claims from affected groups indirectly.
In these cases we are not talking about a few individuals but a systemic and pervasive violation of the laws. The bankers who have appeared at public hearings have sounded like people interested in passing the buck and running for the border than people certain of their innocence. Heads, again will roll."
Sanusi, this time, should not be allowed to single-handedly appoint new Chief Executive Officers to replace those who might be implicated.
The obvious question; to which there is also an obvious answer is: why did so many bankers risk their careers and the fortunes of their banks by engaging in widespread money laundering? The answer is “they were desperate”. Both individually and as banks people had become desperate.
Retrenchment occurs every day sending hundreds of bankers into the job market and an uncertain future. Most, on account of loans taken, would depart with very little. Under the circumstances, it was easy to bend the rules, collaborate with pension fund thieves and hope to put away something for the future.
Diminished job security is one reason for the collective violation of banking rules and regulations. The negative variances between projected revenue and profits also act as catalysts to law breaking. When deposit targets are not being met, bank managers become vulnerable to dubious deals.
Most succumb hoping that the violations can be concealed through a combination of other deals with CBN staff, creative accounting and complaisant auditors. Some of the tell-tale signs are there when depositors spend long hours at branches trying to withdraw money.
Also, when your bank “fails” to clear local cheques deposited within three working days, or out of state cheques for almost a week, into your account – especially on week-ends — you should suspect deliberate delay by the bank. Or when salaries paid into your account “have not been processed”. Invariably, it is not just a few customers; it is every customer who is subjected to “go slow” treatment.
Like all the previous bank crisis, this too started slowly, by a few bank managers in a few branches and regional offices. Suddenly, the exception became routine once again in Nigerian banks. But, as appetite grew with eating, it became an all-comers affair. Now virtually all the banks were consumed by it.
The CBN had been issuing threats to deal with all the banks involved. That is akin to wanting to close the gate after the cows have fled. To start with the bankers opening dubious accounts did it deliberately and were paid for their “services”.
Furthermore, a lot of the funds deposited and which, if reported as required by law, would have been recovered intact have been spent. A great deal of the stolen funds and the bribes to the bankers have vanished; but the banks are liable.
Once again, the question is: where were CBN bank examiners while all these were going on? Increasingly, what these cases reveal is a governor and group of Executive Directors who have been derelict in their duties; who have not been supervising the banks and who have allowed another crisis to develop so soon after the last one. Like drunken sailors on shore leave our bankers have stumbled from one crisis to another – thanks to poor supervision this time."
Our dear aristocrat has in words and actions confirmed the position of the columnist that he is just marking time at the CBN while waiting for the current Emir of Kano to transit so he can fulfil his long held ambition of becoming the next emir  of Kano.
At the peak of the fuel subsidy crisis early this year ,another columnist, Tunde Fagbenle ; in an exchange with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had nicely cautioned him against his undisguised ambition of getting turbaned as Emir while there is a reigning one.The following exchange took place between Fagbenle and SLS as published  in Fagbenle's column of SUNDAY PUNCH of March 25,2012:

“I know you’ve set yourself the ‘supreme ambition’ of becoming the Emir of Kano (the stool of your grandfather), though I think it is impolitic to have declared such ambition so soon while the incumbent is still alive (well, by my Yoruba custom, that is!); but I would want to see a movement that can help in bringing someone like you, Oshiomhole, Fashola, and, even, Okonjo-Iweala to run Nigeria. What a great country that would be!”
Regards,
TF
From SLS
“
Thank you very much, Tunde.
“Starting from the lighter note, it was not so much a declaration of ambition. In our own part of the world, the emir takes it for granted that every prince wants to be an emir and in fact, it would be a sad day if a prince, when asked his ambition in life, ranked another office higher than the throne of his ancestors."
It was in showing that his ambition of becoming an emir  ranks higher than being CBN governor that he dipped his hands into CBN purse to donate N100m to the victims of Boko Haram in Kano when the apex bank had not made any such donation to the many victims of terror strikes by Kano.
It is from the same mindset that a CBN governor who ordinarily should not be heard except on monetary issues granted an interview where he said that the reason why Boko Haram is on rampage is the skewed "derivation" formula in the country!
The final moment for the total unravelling of SLS came with his arrogant display of insensitivity and soullessness by going ahead with his being turbaned as Dan-Majen Kano at a period the burnt bones of 160 Nigerians who perished in the Dana crash are still being sorted in Lagos mortuary.Given the mood of the nation a man who understands the responsibility of his office would have lost nothing by postponing the event for at least two weeks.
Aside from the general grief the nation is enmeshed in,  9 people who worked under SLS at the CBN were among the 153 passengers who died in the ghastly crash.The deceased persons are Amiaka Rapheal and Antonia Attu, both Senior Managers; Bamaiyi Adamu, a Senior Supervisor and Talmata Muhammed, an Assistant Director.
Others are Ibrahim Yusuf, Principal Manager; Kim Norris, Special Adviser to the CBN Governor on Banking Supervision; Mutihir. I., Deputy Manager and Samuel Mbong.
Sanusi was not reported to have visited the crash scene where eight of his staff lost their lives.All that mattered to him was the chieftaincy he was about to take.I argued with a friend who was invited to Kano  but made up his mind not to go given the tragedy that occurred,on Thursday night that the SLS I have studied would still go ahead with the ceremony.My friend was still optimistic that a last minute cancellation would take place.Sadly I was proved right.
Shame on heartless  Sanusi and his soulless guests who have shown us that tragedy means nothing to them.Does the blue blood in SLS's veins so royal it cannot be touched by the sorrows of others?could that tragedy not have happened to any of us? Would the emir change his mind altogether if he had asked for a shift of date?How cold would these fellows be if they had to take actions that involve the lives of people behind closed doors if they can merry while the nation mourns?
To SLS I commend the words of John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi:
"Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness"
May the souls of the CBN8 (who most likely would have been in Kano to celebrate their 'Oga' had they not perished) forgive SLS for this display of utter insensitivity.
 

The Horizon by Kayode Komolafe.

Kayode.Komolafe@thisdaylive.com

For Paschal Bafyau

Although the body of labour leader Paschal Myeleri Bafyau will be buried this weekend  in his hometown, Lamorde,  Adamawa State, his legacy in the movement that produced him  will be a matter for deeper reflection for a long time. Even before the funeral rites begin there have been well-deserved tributes to the essential character of the fallen comrade since he died on May 15 at 65. The thread that runs through  most of the  testimonies to his career is that he was committed to the labour movement  till he had  his last breath.

Bafyau’s   tenure as the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was truncated in 1994 when the military government of General Sani Abacha dissolved the congress along with  the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) which spearheaded  the struggle for the validation of  the results of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections won by Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola. However, Comrade Bafyau was never distant from the labour movement. It was a fitting testament to his life-long commitment to labour that 14 days before his demise, Bafyau was at the May Day rally in Abuja. He reportedly raised  issues about the shape and  direction of the movement with other labour veterans including his predecessors  Comrades Hassan Sunmonu and Ali Chiroma on that occasion.   

For now, it is safe to predict that history will even be kinder to his memory than the contemporary verdict would  concede. This projection is premised on taking a long view of history. In may respects, Bafyau was a veritable study in what the Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, categorised as the “role of the individual in history”. When Bafyau’s critics (especially from the left of the movement) stress the point that as NLC’s president he compromised labour interests in dealing  with the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida, they often ignore a dialectical issue. As a matter of fact, Bafyau emerged in November  1988 as congress’s president as a compromise candidate because the two factions that went to conference to elect him saw in  him virtues of compromise.

That was why he was able to forge a solidly united congress from the wrangling of the “Democrats” and “Marxists” who went their different ways from the ill-fated  Benin delegates’ conference held earlier that year.  The root of the contradictions between the expectations of his comrades on the left and his leadership style  could be traced to events which constituted a prelude to his emergence. For clarity, Bafyau was certainly not your archetypal labour militant; but  the man was undeniably a rugged and calm trade unionist. He worked closely  with  Comrade  Sylvester Ejiofoh of  the then civil service technical workers’ union  on the left and got on well with Godwin Uluocha of the telecommunication workers’ union  on the right.

   From his days as the general-secretary of the Nigeria Union of Railwaymen till he led the labour centre, NLC, Bafyau defended the fundamental interests of the working class. So, any judicious assessment of his remarkable career must acknowledge that his leadership engendered unity of the NLC in the congress which in turn nourished the organisational integrity of the congress. It is, therefore, an ironical  twist  that at the time of Bafyau’s death cracks are noticeable in the  organisational wall of the congress. That goes to show that unity should  not be taken for granted. Leaders should work for it.

Bafyau led the NLC in a deliberate style. He worked assiduously to widen the material base of the organisation. The organising principle was that for NLC to carry out its activities the organisation should be on a financial terra firma. It should be in position to pay the highly qualified cadres  employed as career trade unionists in the service of workers. The labour centre  should be able to generate the means to fund its programmes independently. 

The resources to execute this policy were bye-products of the problematic relationship of NLC with the Babangida regime. Unfortunately, the policy met a public relations debacle. Although, the policy was hardly contested within the formal structure of NLC, there were fierce criticisms from the larger labour and progressive movement. For instance, one famous criticism of the funds from the military government into the coffers of NLC was made by  the  nationalist, Chief Anthony Enahoro, who described  the arrangement as “subversive generosity”.

However, the results of the Bafyau doctrine  as attested to by the  NLC in its  tribute are the 12-Storey Labour House in Abuja and   Labour City Transport. A fund was  instituted  for regular labour education for cadres and  the defunct Labour Bank (LACON) was also founded. Most of these remain monumental assets of NLC and not Bafyau’s private estate. Indeed, as the NLC pointed out in its statement, at his death Bafyau lived in a rented bungalow in Abuja.

Now, it is expected that  left-wing cadres in trade  unions  should  be conscious of the limitation of economistic struggles without political action.  But Bafyau  was  more  interested  liberal democratic politics. Perhaps more than any other cadre of his generation Bafyau  was enamoured to heeding the admonition of Comrade Eskor Toyo that “ you  should get involved in the politics of your country”. Bafyau was never content with being on the margin of politics. He embraced the Babangida tortuous transition programme with  a lot of enthusiasm. He and Alhaji Ibrahim Halilu of the  bank workers’ union were labour nominees   into the 17-man Political Bureau that conducted the  political debate preceding the programme. 

  Bafyau and Chief Frank Kokori of NUPENG fame also represented labour in the Constituent Assembly that debated the 1989 Constitution. Under his watch, the NLC came with a Labour Party rated as Number 6 out of the dozens of organisations struggling for registration in 1989. There  was a vigorous debate within  NLC on how labour should get involved in politics with many of Bafyau’s comrades insisting that  NLC should be  organisationally  intact as a labour centre and that it  could not be converted into a party

. Among those on that side of the debate was one of Bafyau’s deputies, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, now Edo State governor. When the military government decreed  into existence the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), it was natural for Bafyau to be part of SDP which was said to be a  “ little to the left”. Bafyau was actually the favourite  as the running mate to Abiola in the 19933 until the SDP governors insisted that their former party National Chairman, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe,  would be the party’s  vice-presidential candidate. It was consistent with this political orientation of always playing in a larger field  that at his death Bafyau was a strong member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was always politically active.

Beyond trade unionism and politics, Bafyau was a good man. He had no bile. A man of modest taste, he was demonstrably selfless. He was a Nigerian patriot.
Our condolences go his very accommodating wife, Jessica, and their three daughters – Tariko, Taniel and Dadieno.