The APC and its suicidal PDP dance of shame

Bola Ahmed Tinubu

The jury did its job and has since gone to sleep on the Peoples Democratic Party. The question now is not whether the party is guilty as charged; the question is about the length of its punishment. The crux of the matter was how much the PDP had failed Nigeria. The defendant, the PDP, claimed it has had only 14 years and several trillions of naira to change Nigeria, but the 112 million poor Nigerian souls insisted the PDP had to go. The jury decided and granted the wish of the Nigerian masses.

The PDP has failed Nigeria! It failed us yesterday, it is failing as we speak and it has borrowed enough money to get the future of our children started on the path of failure. Some political parties fail you today but they offer you hope of success against tomorrow, the PDP fails you today with enough doom and gloom to last into many tomorrows. Anyone who argues against this will one day argue whether an above-the-law petrol cabal truly deprived Nigerians of trillions of naira in 2011. That the PDP has failed is a documented scroll in the archives of time, sealed by the laws of Medes and Persians, under the weight of the trillions of naira stolen since 1999 and being embalmed by the blood of innocent Nigerians lost to the politics of “do-or-die” enshrined by the forefathers of the PDP.

Except for those who share genetic traits with the Israelites of the wilderness era, most Nigerians do not think we need another 26 years of the PDP to complete a 40-year period of walking in a barren wilderness. The Israelites had God at their beck and call; we have God as our kalokalo, making money from the poor in His name. Fourteen years is enough and by 2015 it’d indeed be 16 years of brigandage, of blood and bullets, of waste and economic hemorrhage. Sixteen years of dilapidated infrastructure, of hospitals without drugs, of schools without students, of universities without lecturers. It would be 16 years of the ugliest display of nonsense since the word came into existence in 1799. Nigerians want change so bad, but they must wait till 2015 except President Goodluck Jonathan resigns, which will never ever happen or there is an Egyptisation of our Nigerianised democracy. Which also is a rarity considering our peculiar nature of “suffering and smiling”. God forbid, but the top hierarchy of our military has become fat so that one sef no go happen.

2015 would be about one thing and one thing only; Change. Any individual or political party that wants the trust of Nigerians in 2015 must come in the form of change. This is where the All Progressives Congress is currently failing itself. You cannot come promising to be an angel, yet appear in a garb with horns.  While the APC continues to form, the Action Congress of Nigeria, one of the bigger parts of its whole has since lost its way in its use of the media. The ACN has allowed the mediocrity of the PDP to drag it down. The PDP has nothing to lose, it is right there in the mud but instead of the ACN to stand away dignified, it keeps going down the muddy path of the PDP.

The PDP may be foolish and clueless in the art of effective and productive governance, but it is wise enough to know that it cannot afford to discuss policies with the opposition. The PDP cannot afford not to talk dirty. Logic will fail it, decorum will fail it, only distractions can save it. This is where the ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change and the rest of them have lost it. You cannot beat the pig in a game of dirt. Where you expect the APC through its forming parts to offer the alternative, it comes in the cloak of the same, the PDP. “PDP accuses APC of being Muslim” and then the APC goes ahead with something like, “Worry about the decaying carcass in your front yard.” The engagements have followed this path. Of course it’d take a Nigerian without the independent ability to see and think to accept that the APC is set up to be a Muslim party. There are just as many Christians and Muslims in the APC leadership team save for the odd number. What the APC and its constituents must understand is that the PDP will not seek to engage them on ideas or policies; it will engage them in distractions and ijakadi. In this game, there can be only one winner and you already guessed who.

If the APC wants to be taken seriously, there are realities it must take without kid gloves. Bola Ahmed Tinubu may be politically powerful but he is not the type you want to represent your image. He has not been proved to be corrupt but there is a strong perception of corruption around him. He set the foundations for the current transformation of Lagos State but he also ensured his and the future of his family are well taken care of. It is alleged that taxes, roads and hospital payments in the state somehow have their way of keeping his wealth well-milked. The APC needs him but it does not need him publicly displaying his obvious might. The Ekiti State issue was avoidable. You don’t tell anyone to step down; let democracy decide. You cannot claim to be different from the current order by doing things according to the same order. The democratisation of the APC would be its biggest argument for genuineness and brand differentiation. Let democracy decide. Always.

On another side, you cannot come to Nigerians in 2015 on the altar of change by presenting the same sacrificial animals that have kept Nigeria at its feet. The APC cannot continue to take every Tom, Dickhead and Lootocrat that comes from the PDP just because it wants to show it is the new bride. If they are not careful, the old bride will look like the new bride if it continues to shed its ugliness on the cosmetic table of the new. The APC must define itself and set out a political ideology that sets it apart. If you must take from the PDP, take the part of it that looks good to Nigerians, not old losers who lost in the PDP power game.

The APC itself must know that it is not the ideal. It is at best a pragmatic solution to Nigeria’s current leadership quagmire. At its best, with a developed political ideology and democratisation, it would only be the lesser ugly of two beasts. We need not fool ourselves, this is not the politics we want but this is the one we are stuck with for now. Nigeria needs a viable alternative to the PDP hegemony. We are desperate for change but we will not close our eyes to the glaring failings of those who paint their faces with the colours of change, but have the nucleus of the old order. If the APC does not show itself to be different from the PDP in truth and in deed, we might as well prepare for another four years of PDP in 2015. The only thing worse than that would be a PDP led by the incumbent, globally renowned, incompetent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

- Japheth-Omojuwa

Punch

Muhammadu Buhari at 70

 by: Mohammed Harunna

Penultimate Monday, i.e. December 17, General Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state and perennial presidential contender since 2003, turned 70.

An austere person, his birthday celebration was to have been low key to begin with. However, in apparent deference to the national mourning over the tragic death in a helicopter crash the weekend before of Sir Patrick Yakowa, governor of Kaduna State where he is resident, along with former National Security Adviser, General Andrew Azazi, and four others, the general virtually cancelled the celebration.

That virtual cancellation of his birthday bash on account of the previous weekend’s national tragedy spoke volumes about the man’s essential humanity, something Nigeria’s dominant southern media, his nemesis, had done, and continues to do, almost everything it can to tear into shreds.

This media has done virtually all it can to portray the general as a stone-hearted, tyrannical, parochial and religious bigot, unfit for election as a civilian leader. In truth he is anything but.

Instead he has been a victim – along with each and every Northerner, with the possible exception of General Murtala Mohammed, who has held power in the country, from the Northern premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and the country’s first and only prime minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, through President Shehu Shagari to Generals Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalami Abubakar – of a sustained media propaganda which has succeeded in creating the popular impression that the Northern elites believe Nigeria is exclusively theirs to rule and ruin.

As with all successful propaganda, this negative portrayal by the dominant Nigerian media of the Northern political elite, in mufti or khaki, is not entirely without basis; Northerners have ruled this country much longer than those from the other regions and their record in government, generally speaking is, to put it mildly, difficult, if not impossible, to defend.

However, again as with all successful propaganda, the kernel of substance has been mixed and padded again and again with lots of half-truths and even barefaced lies.

Take the case of General Buhari as an example. As I said, the man, like all Northern leaders of the country, has suffered more than his fair share of malicious propaganda. There is, however, a major difference between his case and the rest; he never really enjoyed any honeymoon with the media from the time he emerged onto the national arena as minister of petroleum in 1976 up to the time he became head of state in 1983 – and even well beyond.

Dr. Aliyu Tilde, one time Friday columnist with the Weekly Trust and now a co-publisher of the online newspaper, The Premium Times, accurately captured the general’s hate-hate relationship with the Nigerian media in his rested column in the Trust of July 6, 2001, which he entitled “The Seven Sins of Buhari.”

Tilde’s piece was in apparent response to my earlier article in the Daily Trust which was critical of the general’s controversial remarks in Sokoto ahead of the elections in 2003 about how Muslims should vote.

For that article, Tilde lumped me along with others who he said disliked Buhari for no worse crime than committing “seven unforgivable sins” in their eyes. These sins, he said, were that the general was a northerner, a Muslim, honest and transparent to a fault, popular with the masses, apparently disliked General Babangida (his army chief who overthrew him in a palace coup in 1985), enacted Decree No 4 which criminalised embarrassing any government official, and served under the much condemned General Abacha.

“Briefly,” Tilde said, “these are some of the sins that Buhari committed and for which he is too arrogant to repent. If he could change his habits and become deceitful and corrupt, he cannot change his birth, his history and his faith. After all he is not a politician and does not need our votes.”

Obviously Tilde was speaking tongue-in-cheek. Buhari, as he said, could hardly change his birth and history and, like most adults, was unlikely to change his faith. And with the exception of the general’s well-known grouse against his former army chief and his enactment of Decree 4, his other “sins” were really universal virtues. Again even his worst enemies could not but acknowledge that he served as executive chairman of the Petroleum Task Force under the much-condemned Abacha with distinction and transparency.

Even then his virtues never endeared him to the rump of the Nigerian media and by extension much of the Nigerian public. The source of this bad blood between the two dates back to his job as minister of petroleum. Under his charge the media circulated a story that 2.8 billion Naira of our oil revenue had gone missing. A judicial panel that looked into the case concluded that it was all rumour. In the end otherwise respectable Nigerians like the late Tai Solarin and Chief Gani Fawehinmi that had claimed Buhari was culpable could not prove their claims. Instead Solarin, for one, had to admit that it was a piece of gossip he picked up on a bus!

That, apparently, did not stop the media from continuing to peddle the falsehood as fact right up to the moment.

Predictably when the man became head of state in December 1983, following the overthrow of the Second Republic under Shagari, he enacted Decree 4 under which two reporters of The Guardian, Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor, were jailed for a leaked story on the appointment of a new high commissioner to the UK which the government found embarrassing.

As if the N2.8 billion false story was not bad enough, the media went to town with another one about the Emir of Gwandu and father of his aide camp as head of state, Major Mustapha Jokolo, going to Murtala Muhammed international airport to clear 53 suitcases for the emir at a time the general had closed our borders with other countries to stem the smuggling of currencies and other contrabands.

That, like the so-called missing oil money, also turned out to have been blatant falsehood. The general’s ADC was at the airport alright to receive his dad who was returning from a trip abroad, but the suitcases belonged to the large family of a former ambassador who was coming home to serve as the general’s chief of protocol.

Obviously this fact was poor copy for a story so the media decided to spruce it up a bit in order obviously to sell well. To date the lie, like so many distortions that have caught the imagination of the public, has simply refused to go away.

At the time Tilde wrote about the general’s “seven sins,” the man had repeatedly said he hated politics and politicians with a passion. As head of state he had certainly left no one in doubt as to what he thought of them from the way his regime tried and jailed virtually all of them, many of them many life times over.

The general must have therefore surprised even himself when in 2002, he announced to an astounded public that he was joining politics. Since then he has become a perennial presidential candidate; three times in 2003, 2007 and 2011 he ran for the job and three times he lost in elections that got progressively worse.

The last one triggered one of the worst political violence in the North – except for the 1966/67 riots – especially in Kaduna his state of residence, a violence which the authorities naturally blamed on the general’s pre-election warnings that any attempt to rig the election will be resisted by the masses.

As with the elections themselves he also lost his cases against the ruling party in the courts. After losing his case last year an apparently frustrated Buhari told the world that it would be the last time he will stand for election. It was all reminiscent of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the other perennial loser of elections for the leadership of this country, when he told The Guardian in one of his most exhaustive interviews shortly after losing the massively rigged 1983 elections to President Shehu Shagari, that he was done with politics in Nigeria because he was convinced the country would never experience genuine democracy in generations to come.

Unlike the late venerated chief, however, the general seems to have changed his mind about not ever offering himself to serve as leader; in an interview in the Saturday Sun (December 22), he said in effect that he would if given the chance.

His party, he said, has been in serious talks with the two leading opposition parties for merger. At the same time he has, he said, been under tremendous pressure from his huge following to rethink his stand. “If,” he said, “they give me the ticket or recommend me, I will consider it.”

The general at 70 is obviously now a different man from the one who, until barely 10 years ago, was absolutely sure he will never want to be a politician. It will be a miracle if, as a politician, he ever gets a fair shake from a media that has harboured deep prejudice against him essentially because, like Awolowo whose mirror image he is, he is given to speaking bluntly.

It is a measure of his dislike by the rump of the Nigerian media that the same quality they had seen as virtue in the late chief they have treated as a vice in the general.

 TheNation

Watch Out, Kate! Even The Queen Talked Back To Her Mum (VIDEO)

Lest you think that Queen Elizabeth II is all manners and no sass, let us introduce you to a rarely-seen queen, one that resembles your typical moody teenager.

We dug up this clip of the queen and her mother, the late Queen Mum, attending a horse race (like British royals are wont to do). Funny enough, their rapport is not much different than our own relationships with our mums -- we talk back more often than we'd like to admit. It goes without saying that the queen was much more graceful and well-mannered while doing it, though. Here's how the exchange went:

Queen Elizabeth II: "Do you know I haven't watched from a pair of binoculars for ages? Look at it -- pouring with tears!"

Queen Mum: "Oh dear."

Queen Elizabeth II: "I always watch on television..."

Queen Mum: "It's the emotion, perhaps."

Queen Elizabeth II: "No, no! I watch on the television. No, mummy, if you look into the wind like that...

And then we lose what she's saying, since we're not up on our Britishisms. The point is, no amount of good breeding can fight nature. So prepare yourself, Kate Middleton.

WATCH:

They grow up so fast, don't they?

HuffingtonPost

PHOTONEWS: After Police Attack, Pro- Amaechi Lawmakers And Supporters Hold A Rally

Supporters of Governor Rotimi Amaechi and the 27 lawmakers on his side met on the grounds about the government house in Rivers State.
Several of the supporters mobilized from around the state had been beaten and harassed by the police as they waited to protest against five
lawmakers that tried unsuccessfully to remove the substantive speaker yesterday.

Saharareporters

I Don’t Want Your Job! Oliseh Tells Keshi

A former captain of the Super Eagles, Sunday Oliseh, has lashed back at Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi over comments he made against him at the weekend. Oliseh, who responded through his blog, asked Keshi to learn to accept constructive criticism.

Last Saturday in Kaduna, Keshi lashed out at Oliseh for saying that there were too many unexposed home-based players in the Confederations Cup team. Oliseh said it affected the team’s performance in the FIFA event.

Writing via his blog on Tuesday, the Belgium-based Atlanta ’96 Olympics gold medalist said, “Keshi is a good coach. In fact he is the most successful coach Nigeria has had in the past decade and by winning the Nations Cup 2013 he boarded the ship of achieving coaches.

“But one quality that successful and long lasting coaches have is that they have always had a nose to differentiate constructive criticisms from destructive ones and act on them even if they do not agree in public. Ever since our nation triumphed at the 2013 African Cup of Nations our Super Eagles have been struggling, relatively, and has failed to consolidate on this landmark success due to the fact that we do not have continuity and there has been this obsession to experiment and overpopulate the team with more home grown players.

“Ever since I expressed my personal disagreement at the huge number of local based players that represented Nigeria on Supersport thousands have clearly stated their understanding and agreement of the point of view just as some, Keshi included, have disagreed and made some regrettable comments. This I feel is quite unfortunate and personal.”

Oliseh argued that he remains one of those at the forefront to improve the Nigerian league while telling Keshi he does not want the Eagles post.

“My belief is not that we should not use home based players. If Sunday Mba was not at the Nations Cup I do not think we might have won it, at least like we did. He however was well surrounded by Victor Moses, Emmanuel Emeneke and made his contributions productive and easier. We saw how this poor boy struggled at the Confed Cup just four months after doing us proud in South Africa.

“I can understand that Keshi feels threatened by the possibility of sacking and back stabbing, but my comments  should not be seen as coming from a possible successor unless one is desperate, which  I thank God I am not. His job is the last thing that I or my family need.

InformationNigeria

Nigeria: Lamido - PDP Ticket Won't Guarantee Jonathan Second Term

BY CHUKS OKOCHA, SHOLA OYEYIPO AND AISHA WAKASO

• 
  

Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, at the weekend said President Goodluck Jonathan had more hurdles to scale in realising his yet-to-be declared second term ambition than just clinching the presidential ticket of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Lamido, who is speculated to be nursing a presidential ambition, while fielding questions from journalists at the Jigawa State Government House, Dutse, said the president would have to win the 2015 presidential election to make his ambition a reality, irrespective of the posturing by his supporters who are threatening others over his re-election.

His counterpart in Niger State, Dr. Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu, has also said the North, which has indicated interest to reclaim the presidency in line with the PDP zoning policy, which was disrupted by the death of the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, would negotiate well to protect its interest in the 2015 elections.

The scheming for the realisation of Jonathan's second term ambition is at the root of the multifaceted crises bedevilling the ruling party and is considered as the major factor responsible for the leadership crisis in the party, which has led to the resignation of some members of the party's National Working Committee (NWC).

Efforts to reconstitute the NWC, with the plan to hold a special national convention at which new NWC members will be elected, have been stalled by a crisis of confidence among the party leaders.

Already, the list of Adamawa State delegates for the convention is causing ripples as the name of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who vied for the party's ticket along with Jonathan in 2011, is missing on the list.

On Jonathan's rumoured second term bid, the Jigawa State governor warned that the continued agitation by elder statesman and Niger Delta leader, Chief Edwin Clark, and ex-militant, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, that the president must serve a second term violates the electoral tenets of democracy.

He said: "If you are saying his party must give him the ticket, it is okay. They can say so. But it doesn't mean he is going to win the election. But when you say he must win the election, then what are you talking about?

Nigeria

Affordable Malaria Treatment Still a Bitter Pill to Swallow

I ALMOST died of malaria," recounts Oluwadamilola Agbajo, Miss Nigeria 2010. "I was in school at the time, and was so … see more »

allAfrica.com

100,000 Children Are Forced Into Prostitution Each Year

By Marina Fang

Source: Shutterstock

At least 100,000 children are used as prostitutes each year as part of the $9.8 billion U.S. sex trafficking industry, according to a new report from anti-trafficking group Shared Hope International.

Child sex trafficking has long been an acknowledged problem. According to the Department of Justice, forty percent of all human trafficking cases opened for investigation between January 2008 and June 2010 were for the sexual trafficking of a child. Victims on average are between the ages of 12 and 14, although some can be as young as nine, as estimated by ECPAT USA (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes), an anti-trafficking organization. But as the State Department recently condemned Russia and China for exceedingly high rates of human trafficking and harboring sex slaves, the report is a reminder that sex slavery and human trafficking is a domestic problem as well.

The report, presented during a hearing before the the Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking and the Congressional Caucus for Victims’ Rights on Monday, flagged the varying and severe rehabilitation needs of these sex trafficking victims, who can be denied care for anything ranging from special health needs, drug addiction, to severe mental health diagnosis and/or suicidal symptoms. Sex trafficking victims can be particularly vulnerable, since traffickers tend to target those who already have a history of abuse.

Of particular concern are male and transgender victims. None of the 43 organizations surveyed by SHI provide services specifically for male victims:

None of the organizations that responded to the National Colloquium Provider Survey provide specialized services exclusively for male victims of DMST; 36% provide services for females only. Fifty-eight percent of responding organizations could provide services to males, females and transgender youth. Six percent stated they could provide services to male and female youth but did not indicate they serve transgender youth. The survey results did not reveal exactly how many programs offer residential services for males and transgender youth, but the clear majority of programs provide treatment specifically for female victims.

Panelists also discussed the importance of empowering survivors and instilling in them a sense of autonomy and personal freedom. Victims of sex slavery are subject to an immense amount of control and oppression, and sex traffickers “use violence, threats, lies, false promises, debt bondage, or other forms of control and manipulation to keep victims involved in the sex industry.”

TP