The Theory Of A Great By Hannatu Musawa

Hannatu Musawa

Columnist: 

Hannatu Musawa

The 19th century historian, Thomas Carlyle was a promoter of the Great man theory, the philosophical concept that the history of the world was primarily shaped by the individual decisions and orders of great men and personalities. His viewpoint was based on the premise that every event in history stems from the choices made and the acts done by influential individuals who used power in a manner that produced an important historical impression. While the majority of modern day philosophers diverge from this Great man theory with the idea that several world events emerge from a series of separate developments, it goes without saying that those separate developments must have been created by the decisions of individuals. Proponents of this chain of thought tend to attribute a character of inspirational personal attributes and almost a heroism to those individuals that may have shaped history. Among the men who shaped history, it is those that exhibit a sense of decency and struggle for the betterment of the majority that time will inevitably judge as heroes.
One man of such greatness was the late great Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, who died four year ago on the 5th of September 2009 at age 71. Only a handful of times in recent history was Nigeria thrust into the throws of great grief and mourning than with the passing of this great and wonderful beacon of truth. As we mark the four year anniversary of his passing, Nigerians are still united in despair and desire to pay utmost respect to this ordinary, yet extraordinary man who soared above his peers and dedicated his life to altruism and candour. Like very few in this country, Chief Fawehinmi stood as a brilliant, bright shinning light in a land literally and morally steeped in darkness. He was the very essence of duty, of compassion, of justice and selfless humanity. He represented hope to a people sinking deep in despondency and became the role model of what a good leader and a good Nigerian should be.
For much of his adult life, Chief Fawehinmi stood his ground on all that he believed in. He stood tall and confident against a decayed institution because he was one of the very few Nigerians who actually ‘came to equity with clean hands’. Oh and how solid the ground Chief Fawehinmi stood on was! His ground was his ethics, his knowledge was his power. And he used that power to do good, alot of good, to shun evil and take individual responsibility for his actions. Up till the time he faced death, he never abandoned any of the qualities that made him so great or the elements that were to become the basis of his life and legacy. In many respects, Chief Fawehinmi belonged to an exceptional, almost extinct few, such as Herbert Maculey, Aminu Kano and Micheal Imodu, whom had the creed and represented the remnant of an old specie of true nationalists that stood up for the marginalised and fought for the heart and soul of Nigeria.
There is an old saying that goes; ‘a person never misses the water till the well runs dry”. Whereas this may be the case in most situations where people do not appreciate what they have until it is gone, this wasn’t the case with Chief Fawehinmi. Through his work, from his struggles, due to his sacrifices, we have always known the gem we had in this precious Nigerian son. From the time he took up his first case in 1965, it was evident that he was aware of the need for social justice and he used the rule of law to advance this cause. He was an unrepentant democrat and an advocate of a better Nigeria for the greatest majority of the people. His whole life was given over to helping the poor, the needy, the downtrodden and standing for the truth.
Not only was he largely responsible for the mass registration of political parties in our system by taking INEC to court for failing to register smaller parties, he made giant strides in the legal practice, that was his mainstay in life. The greatest contribution arguably to have been made to Nigerian legal practice is the establishment of the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports, which he researched and developed for the enhancement of the jurisprudence of the practice. But for Chief Fawehinmi’s contribution in this respect, Nigerian court practice would still have been left at the mercy of foreign law reports, which he has always asserted as being not relevant or helpful to the development of our autochthonous case law. Without doubt, Chief Fawehinmi did spectacular things, wonderful things. One wonders what the story of Nigerian legal practice and sincere human rights development will eventually be now that he is gone and one hopes that his contributions to the practice of law and human rights will continue to endure.
This grand commander and defender of human rights did much to advance the cause of Nigerian students throughout his career; even having a rule in his chambers that no student would be charged fees when they came for help. Whenever a student was unjustly expelled for challenging certain policies in our universities, Chief Fawehinmi was always ready to face the institution and enforce the student’s right through the court of law. From the University of Nigeria, NSUKKA, to the the University of Lagos, to the University of Maiduguri, Chief Fawehinmi provided students in distress with the legal, financial and ethical support they needed, and even at a time he converted his chambers into the headquarters of the of National Union of Nigerian Students.
Of all the ironies about the life of Chief Fawehinmi, maybe the greatest was the fact that at the time he died those who disagreed with him ideologically and in principal were the first to position themselves as chief mourners. One can only imagine how Chief Fawehinmi would have felt at the flood of foes and friends that trooped to his residence to pay homage to his memory and eulogize him, especially those that were responisble for his incarceration, persecution and maltreatment while he was in the flesh.
Despite the fact that in his lifetime, he had on one occasion disagreed with the Nigerian Bar Association, he was a staunch and dedicated member of the goals of which the association was established for. The Nigerian Bar Association owes Chief Gani Fawehinmi a compelling obligation to ensure that all the good work he did in his lifetime would not become otiose. The history development and struggle of student unionism cannot be complete without mentioning his unrelenting and unflinching support for them. The leader and lone voice of opposition in Nigeria is well and truely gone! It is our hope that the community of the present day nationalists will not be dismembered due to the exit of this great humanist.
One of the greatest legacies left by Chief Fawehinmi was the path of truth, honesty, nobility, selflessness, patriotism and integrity that he laid for us; that he showed us.
Late chief Gani Fawehinmi belonged to the largest human family, his immediate biological family, the student unions, the Nigerian workers, the courageous voices of the genuine opposition in the political spectrum and the international human rights community that recognised him for his unaloid pursuits of the rights of every human being. As we mark the anniversary of his passing, we thank God for the life of this great Nigerian and it is our hope and prayer another Gani-like personality will continue his legacy. May his soul and the souls of all the faithfully departed rest in perfect peace.
“Chief Gani Fawehinmi, only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without. The strength of the message you gave us through your struggles compels us to be grateful that you came along. Without your God-given sense of passion for your beliefs, Nigerians would likely be wrapped up in ignorance and unmitigated deception. Continue to rest in peace, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. You truely did the best you could. Those of us you touched will never forget you. May your friends and family continue to feel God's peace on them and may your legacy help Nigerians change their destiny. We give thanks for your life”.
The critics of Carlyle’s Great Man theory were staunch in their belief that reducing history to the decisions of individuals is utterly primitive reasoning because every man in history was a product of their social environment and before a man can remake his society, his society must make him. Perhaps this is a more likely notion, especially when one considers other aspects of life such as economic, societal and enviromental influences which are just as or more significant to historical change. However, despite one’s view as to what determines history, it is without question that once every so often humanity is blessed with the highest specimen of man. Without more reasoning Chief Gani was truely one of those men. While we don’t have to wait for history to tell us his effect on this country or the legacy he left us with, the general theory is most likely be that, “Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi will simply always be one of the greatest men Nigeria has ever seen!”
Saharareporters

Pastor J Of God’s House, Abuja Accuses Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of Adultery

This article written – by a certain clergy who claims to be Pastor J of God’s house – is in response to the alleged scandal between Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of COZA and Ese Walter, the supposed victim.
Enjoy…
For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.”
Isaiah 9:16 . Let them alone: they be leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Matt 15:14
I was going to be silent on this sad, pathetic but true (in many shades) allegation against Pastor B and his popular and trendy ministry. My silence was borne out of respect for the kingdom of God and things that pertain to God. But all this changed when I heard the horrific tales of people who had been through the mess of this blind man, and the fact that he had no moral motivation to deny or accept the allegation; all he showed on Sunday was a demented swagger and perverse talk.
My sole purpose in writing this piece is to open the eyes of the world and believers to the hypocrisy and nonsense behind the pulpit, and to plea that these wolves and blind men stop deflating the faith of people who Christ died for. I am a Pastor, a full time minister at that, and I shall not sit back while
the name of my God, the ministry, and the works of other shepherds is brought to disrepute by the activities, action and inaction of a few blind men behind the pulpit.
I am tired of the nonsense of religion crying out, “touch not my anointed”; does this mean we cannot rebuke ourselves when we err, this much Paul did to Peter when he erred in Galatians 2:11 “But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed”. It is therefore pertinent that I rebuke the wolves in shepherd’s clothing’s. It is time to set the record straight, and please don’t sell me the bullocks of judge not, I haven’t said anyone is going to hell, but of course if they don’t change, they have only one path.
It is high time we told the truth, which is plain, simple and without coloration. The stories of Franca and Ese is not only true but they are just a few tales of the tantalizing sex escapades of this clergy. This has been a recurring decimal in the ministry of the clergyman. This wasn’t the first time these stories will come forth, for those old COZA members, for those who were there when he was in Ilorin, when the church moved to Pipeline Road, Ilorin, having left Kwara Hotel, they will remember there was a time when the Pastor was suspended from ministering by his Father in the Lord, Rev Oset of Canaan Ministries. Rev. Oset sent guest ministers to the church every Sunday after that, but still Pastor B in his deceit will still minister in the pretence of introducing the guest minister, while he exhorts for minutes. I therefore laugh in mockery when He says his wife loves him, the woman has no choice. His core circle of Pastor Wole (Ilorin Chapter, the only man who maybe clean), and Pastor Flo (COZA, Lagos) knows of this fact, little wonder Ese said Pastor Flo said he knows about their adventures in that hotel room in London.
This is not the story of a hater; I don’t want or envy anything he has. He cannot ever have what I have and carry; neither do I crave for what he has. I am sure no one in the city of Ilorin, where this man started is bemused by these stories, no one who finished from the University of Ilorin during the period of 2003-2008, and was not a blinded COZA member can be mightily shocked at these revelations. I have heard tales of many more victims, I even heard from a woman who knows five friends who were victims, I saw it online the other day of a guy who said he formally works for him and he knows up to 130 people, outrageous as it may sound that too is true. Rev Oset in true conscience cannot deny the knowledge of these negatives. But we are a nation of hypocrites and religious folks; we ask no questions of leaders, so they can hide under the canopy of religion, even when they are filthy. Anyone who asks is rebuked by those who say, the bible says pray. It is sad that those who say pray themselves have not prayed. But Pastor B is just a decimal in an ever mounting number of wolves in the Church of Christ.
Someone told me yesterday that this can’t be the end of him and his tyranny, because even in Ilorin in those days, the allegation was rolled under the rug. On Sunday, August 25, 2013, the man leading certain blind men under the veil of religion and ‘spiritism’ said God told him not to say anything, he then said they are preparing a robust response. Who is fooling who? We must not keep quiet and watch the bride of Christ, the church, rubbed and undignified in mud and slime by a filthily rich pastor who thinks he can do anything and get away with it.
It is a pity that we run sensational press and media outfit in this country, and that our press is blinded by religion. If this were to be ‘saner’ climes the press would by now be researching, there would by now be investigative journalism. The truth would be dogged up and resurrected to life. For this is not about a mistake that a Pastor made, it is about a filthy man’s way of life.
And then about, “teaching a new level of grace’; please be reminded that Grace is not a license to sin, rather it empowers us to live above sin. Romans 6:1-2 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” In my years of being a Christian, studying God’s word, preaching the gospel, listening to sound teachers, I have not heard of a grace that gives permission to sin. Stop being deceived, grace is the new dispensation, according to Hebrew 8:6-12, and under grace we do not follow any written code, law or traditions. That is done away with. The tablet of Moses is over with. But we are not reckless sinners; we are under a new covenant based on better promises. God’s law is written in our minds and hearts. We live according to His dictates. The Holy Spirit and our conscience convicts and judges us respectively. This is the only way we live a holy life. God’s strength and empowerment is the grace to do according to that written by God in our hearts and minds.
I write this with a heavy heart, though I wish I never had to write this, but I pray this madness stops. I know many who have stopped going to church, many whose faith has been derailed by the act of madness of this man, and many blind men like him. If they are not going to heaven, let them stop taking men out of the straight and narrow. No one understands the pain in meeting a man, whose faith has been derailed by a man who was supposed to help establish him. For such a man, words can’t bring him back, the best we can do is to pray and hope. I indulge the clergy to be of a higher moral standard.
My candid advice to the church at this end time is that the church must grow in knowledge; it’s high time we stopped bamboozling you. You must stop making idols of men. You must stop making men such as I, substitute for the Holy Ghost. Honour us; revere us… but that is where it ends. Without the Call, the Oil, and the Holy Spirit; we are mere mortal. But know for sure that this too shall pass; only the truth of the Gospel of the Kingdom abides forever.
For Pastor B and his sense making COZA people, remember the word of Christ in Matthew 15:14. How many of you even live life bearing the fruit of righteousness. Stop being blind, the ditch is close by. Look into this case, ask your pastor questions, seek genuine answers and not emotional rhetorics, hold him responsible, and do not forget the word of God, “then shall they know if they follow to know…” I am sure evidence abound. Seek to know from some key PCU members (who may need to be deposited in Gods ICU). Its time you hear not only about grace, but HOLINESS without which no one will see the Lord.
Finally don’t bother praying against me, I can say like Paul, “For me to die is gain, to live is Christ”, but I cannot even go now, because I am yet to fully finish the task set before me. Don’t waste your time using misguided scriptural interpretation. This I write is true, and I am sorry if you don’t like it. Your Pastor, and every other wolf whose conscience is not seared knows it is the complete true.
God bless you.
God bless His Church.
God bless Nigeria
From
Pastor J
God’s House
NaijaUrban

PDP plunges into deeper crisis as peace effort fails

Sani Tukur

The party is to hold new talks on Tuesday

Nigeria’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party plunged further into crisis on Monday after a reconciliation effort by President Goodluck Jonathan and the party brass failed to bring back to the party’s fold a splinter group that broke free on Saturday, and that now insists it is the legitimate PDP.

The Abubakar Baraje-led faction of the party, backed by seven governors, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and more than three dozen serving federal lawmakers, asked a Lagos court on Monday to dissolve the PDP executive led by Bamanga Tukur, and restrain its officials from parading themselves as leaders of the party’s national executive.

The new faction said it represented the legitimate PDP and announced plans to immediately inaugurate an office in Abuja, and brushing aside the Tukur-led party, recognized and backed by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Coming amid intense efforts by Mr Jonathan and the party’s leadership to intervene in a crisis that has terribly humiliated the governing party, the measures by the Baraje-led breakaway faction signalled the party was up for even more turbulent days ahead as it struggled to mend its fractured ranks.

A meeting between the president and the aggrieved governors late Sunday, and a series of consultations that continued through Monday, ended without success, party officials said.

The governors have accused the president and Mr Tukur of “hijacking” the party machinery, imposing their candidates as officials, and going after dissenting members including governors such as Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers state. Mr. Amaechi was suspended by the party.

At the Sunday meeting at the presidential villa, the governors reportedly spoke “frankly” about those concerns. An expanded talk, which will include former heads of state, and former leaders of the party, is to hold on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the party, Olisa Metuh, who was re-elected on Monday told reporters the party’s crisis should be over by Tuesday after the meeting.

“Consultations on what happened on Saturday and all issues therein are ongoing at the highest level of the party in this country. We are going to take the decisions and the reasons behind the decision after tomorrow’s meeting,” Mr. Metuh said.

But indicative of how speculative that plan may turn out after all, the Baraje faction of the party on Monday instituted a case before a Lagos High court asking the court to sack the Bamanga Tukur-led executive of the  ruling party.

The faction said in a statement by the National Secretary of the new faction, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, that the case was a demonstration of the group’s determination “to effect a change and stem the slide of the PDP”.

Mr. Oyinlola named the plaintiffs in the case to include himself, factional chairman, Abubakar Kawu Baraje, and factional Deputy National Chairman, Sam Sam Jaja.

The Baraje-led faction, according to Mr.  Oyinlola, is asking the court to restrain chairman of the other faction, Bamanga Tukur, its Deputy Chairman, Uche Secondus, Women Leader, Kema Chikwe, and Publicity Secretary, Olisah Metuh and others from parading themselves as members of the national executive of the party.

They also sought a motion exparte asking for leave to serve the defendants outside the jurisdiction of the court. Parties are to return to court on September 9 for initial hearings.

The legal action represented a surprising twist for a party that has faced months of internal turmoil, suspended two of its governors, sacked its national executives, and is now tackled by two newly formed, but potentially formidable opposition parties.

Governors of the platform of the All Progressive Congress on Monday welcomed the new turn of events for the PDP, and praised the “courage and resilience” of the seven governors who staged a walk out from the PDP’s special convention on Saturday before naming a new parallel leadership for the party.

The 11 APC governors said the splitting of the PDP, and the emergence of a faction led by the party’s former acting chairman, Abubakar Baraje, was a “necessary and inevitable result of repressive rule of the PDP”.

“Recent events, first with the orchestrated crisis in the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), suspension and expulsion of PDP leaders, including serving governors without fair hearing and complete demonstration of lack of tolerance and respect for different opinions are signposts of crisis that should unavoidably result in the split of any organisation,” they said in a statement on Monday.

The Baraje group said it was encouraged by the “overwhelming support” from party faithful across the country on its mission to “salvage the party”, and pledged a sustained campaign that will enthrone “justice and fairness” in the troubled party.

“We also appreciate the efforts of leaders of the party, particularly President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo who, we note, have scheduled a meeting of the party elders for this week,” the party said in a statement. “We respect the elders and will be guided by them, even as we stress that we will not abandon the ideals of justice and fairness that gave birth to the new party leadership under Alhaji Baraje.”

By late Monday, more members of the PDP had openly identified with the splinter PDP group. Twenty six senators said in statement they were part of the new initiative to “reposition” the party.

“By this decision that no doubt provides a soothing balm that will calm frail nerves in the party, you have written your names in gold and will be remembered in our political history as men that stood to save the party and Nigeria’s democracy,” the lawmakers said of the governors and Mr. Atiku.

Mr. Atiku had earlier come under attack from the presidency which accused him of failing to protect a party he was so “indebted” to.

“I was surprised because Atiku is supposed to know more than another person that there is no party like PDP. He left PDP and went to ACN and he came back to PDP, because he discovered that outside PDP there is no party, so he had to come back and he was even given the waiver to contest the primaries election in 2011,” Ahmed Gulak, special adviser to the president on political matters, said on Monday.

“Atiku should be grateful to PDP. Atiku is indebted to PDP and the best way to continue to pay the debt is to protect PDP,” he added.

In his response, sent by his media aide, Garba Shehu, Mr. Abubakar said he does not dispute the fact that he is indebted to the PDP; but that the best way to continue to pay that debt is to protect PDP.

“That is exactly what I am doing: Protecting the PDP,” the former vice president said.

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How to Become an Overnight Billionaire in Nigeria, By Femi Aribisala

Femi Aribisala

If you want to get rich quick, here is the Nigerian blueprint. But please, don’t tell anyone I “wiki-leaked” this highly-classified national secret to you.
With only some 50 years of independent national existence, Nigeria is a country reeking with “new money.” The overwhelming proportion of the millionaires and billionaires in the country are “nouveau-riche;” they became rich literally “overnight.”
We are talking of people whose wealth does not go beyond a generation. Indeed, the fantastic wealth of Nigerian billionaires like Femi Otedola scarcely goes beyond ten/fifteen years.
Not only does Nigeria’s wealthy few have a short history, they often have a short future as well. The money comes “miraculously” and goes just as “miraculously.”
In my youth, S.B. Bakare was the celebrated Nigerian tycoon. Highlife stars and juju musicians eulogised him in their records. But ask a young Nigerian today who S.B. Bakare is, and I can bet my bottom dollar he has never heard of him.
S.B. has fallen off the radar and so has his wealth.
It is not identifiable by any major industry or enterprise. His descendants may still be in litigation over the dregs of his estate, but undoubtedly it is nothing to write home about again. Certainly, nobody is singing about S.B. Bakare today.
There are now new pretenders to his throne.
New dawn
Time was when wealthy Nigerians built something, developed something, or made something. At that time, the rich were truly captains of industry.
Alhaji Sanusi Dantata made his fortune in the era of the groundnut pyramids in the North; buying and shipping them for export.
Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu had Nigeria’s largest fleet of inter-city “mammy-wagons.” He also imported “panla” (dried fish) on a large scale.
Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony had a tanker fleet and a pioneering charter airline.
Emmanuel Akwiwu, hauled oil-rigs and supplies for British Petroleum.
Chief Timothy Adeola Odutola produced bicycle tires for the growing army of Nigerian bike-riders.
But thanks to oil, much of Nigerian wealth is no longer the product of such ventures.
Yes, we have billionaires like Ibrahim Dasuki and Mike Adenuga who can still be rightfully described as highly enterprising. But even more significantly, we have tycoons who came into wealth through “wuru-wuru” and “mago-mago.”
These men are hardly Nigeria’s Bill Gates. On the contrary, they don’t have a clue what to do with their dubious wealth, and they are ignorant about wealth-creation.
As such, they add little of value to the Nigerian project. Their praises may be sung today by their horde of parasitical hangers-on, but they will not be remembered for good when they are gone. As mysteriously as their wealth materialized, so will it vanish.
These men became rich through some of the following tried and tested methods, which can be relied upon to lead to one’s inclusion in the Nigerian Book of Irrelevant Rich Men.
If you want to get rich quick, here is the Nigerian blueprint. But please, don’t tell anyone I “wiki-leaked” this highly-classified national secret to you.
1. Rob a bank
This strategy has gone through some transition. Bank-robbers used to be men of the underworld who held banks hostage at gunpoint and then made off with the cash.
However, it was soon recognised that this approach has distinct disadvantages. You might get arrested and jailed. Even worse, you might get shot. It also became apparent that banks carry limited amounts of cash.
Therefore, a successful bank robbery of this violent kind might only land you perhaps 50 million naira tops, which is not even enough to buy or build a house in Banana Island.
There is a better way to rob a bank with far limited risk. Simply establish a bank.
When you establish a bank, you can rob the bank every day without a gun. When people deposit money in your bank, they don’t know that they are handing over their life-savings to a thief.
You then rob the bank you establish in a number of imaginative ways.
For example, you can lend money to your bank and then charge it a very high interest-rate. Better still, you can borrow billions from your bank and simply forget to pay it back. Or, you can use the money deposited in your bank to buy houses and then rent them out as branches to your bank at exorbitant prices.
This approach is guaranteed to make you a few billion naira until the EFCC policemen come calling. When they do, you can quickly fall sick, spend a few months in Deluxe Hospital Hotel and then relocate to your village to enjoy your wealth, never to be heard of again.
2. Join the PDP
This one is a sure banker. As a member of the greatest party in the history of Africa, you will be given a credit-card to spend Nigeria’s oil wealth.
If you are not getting enough attention in the party, make a lot of noise. Abuse Tinubu on the pages of the newspapers and call Buhari an idiot. Insist that Goodluck Jonathan should not only run for re-election unopposed in 2015, there should be a constitutional amendment to make him a life-president.
This is a tell-tale sign that you are hungry; and the powers-that-be will soon invite you to “come and chop.”
As a distinguished member of this great party, the opportunities open for you to set yourself up for life are considerable. For example, you can start collecting billions for petroleum subsidy and simply not import any petrol whatsoever.
You can get the government to change all car license-plates nationwide; and then become the sole supplier of the new license-plates.
You can ask the president to make you the sole importer and distributor of diesel for the entire country. Of course, this might also entail that you become the chairman of his re-election campaign, to which you duly make a handsome contribution.
Alternatively, you can ask to be chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority.
Nobody will bat an eyelid when, within a matter of months, you have a fleet of cars, have two or three houses in Asokoro, and own four hotels in Dubai.
You may even kick out your wife and marry a fourteen-year-old “Suzie” befitting your new status.
You have arrived as one of Nigeria’s celebrated rich men. But keep your eyes on the ball. Don’t get distracted or carried away. The enemies of Mr. President must always remain your enemies.
3. Start a mega-church
This one is pure genius. Peradventure you lose your job or fall on hard times. Don’t go into depression. Just start a church. Make it a purpose-built church.
Think of something that men need. Tell them you have the anointing to provide it. Tell them whoever wants to be a billionaire should come to your church.
Start a few of your messages with “Thus says the Lord.” Then teach your congregation the everlasting principles of sowing and reaping.
Make sure they understand that if they really want God to bless them financially, they first have to give you as much money as possible.
Create a special prayer group for millionaires and billionaires. That way, if they get any new government contract they will attribute it to the efficacy of your prayers and credit something big into your bank account.
Tell everybody to give you their “first-fruits.” That is a code word for their entire January salaries. Then come up with imaginative offerings to collect, such as “prophet’s offering,” (you, of course, being the prophet); “Father, Son and Holy Ghost offerings;” “Jesus will do it offering.”
Very soon, you will be flying your own private jet to preach your gospel in Ilesha; you will be wearing white Armani suits and jerry-curling your hair; you will be collecting gate-fees for new years’ eve services; billionaire thieves and robbers will be queuing up to see your private-secretary on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway; and you will be inviting Bill Clinton to open your multi-billion naira Tower of Babylon in Osapa-London.
In short, you will be living large. For good measure, you will also be slapping demons out of poor bewitched damsels with impunity.
4. Become a mule
There is high demand for this job. There are many politicians and men of timber and caliber looking for mules; men who can keep stolen money for them, or smuggle it to safe havens abroad.
This is a highly lucrative job because for every ten billion naira you smuggle, you can pocket one billion. Don’t get greedy and come to the conclusion that you can make off with the entire loot. That is a sure way to have assassins on your tail. Before they kill you, they will first break your legs.
If you are caught while smuggling money abroad, you can easily escape and come back home dressed as a woman. Then you can get a national merit award.
If you are a mule for a president or a governor, you are set up for life. You will get 24 hours military protection so that no petty thief can come near you.
You will get to travel all over the world. You will get free medical check-ups, so that you don’t just fall down one day and die. That would be disastrous, especially if your sponsor does not know exactly where you kept his loot, or if he does not have the password to the secret account you opened for it in the Bahamas in the name of Ali Baba.
Obituary
I remember the story of a former Nigerian Head of State who allegedly kept a billion dollars with a mule. Then the mule had a stroke. Every effort was made to get him to say just a few words, namely the number of the account where the loot was stashed; but to no avail.
After a few months, the man died. This “national” calamity has prompted the review of the conditions of service of mules. There are now two new, strictly prohibited, clauses. Mules must not have strokes, and under no circumstances should a mule presume to die. If he does, his generations yet unborn will suffer for it.
(P.S./N.B. If you have perfected other Nigerian approaches to quick wealth than these, don’t hesitate to let me know. I promise to keep the matter strictly confidential.)

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'SUNTAI SHOULD BE ALLOWED TAKE A DIGNIFIED EXIT FROM POWER' - by: Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson, a public affairs commentator and medical doctor in the United States, in this piece, argues that Taraba State Governor Danbaba Suntai deserves his rest outside of power

No greater disservice could have been done to Governor Danbaba Suntai than the poorly choreographed, C-rated movie of his return to work than what we saw at the weekend. First, let me commend the wife for a job well done. She must have been through emotional hell and back on account of the man’s air accident and of course the touch-and-go health crisis for a while. From Jalingo to Abuja to Germany and then the USA, Mrs Suntai ought to be commended.

Any woman, who has been through the hell of caring for a terminally or critically ill spouse, will be able to identify with this woman. The emotional toll is beyond description. The fear, the uncertainty, the trauma of watching one’s husband slip in and out of coma is not what anyone should trivialise. I am sure Mrs Turai Yar’adua knows what I am talking about.

It throws a woman into grief, fear of the unknown, pain of loss. Stages of grief are not what any sane or normal human being wants to deal with. I went through it five years ago when my husband was in stage 4 of congenital heart failure. I got stuck in stage 2, stage of denial. Even when I knew that we were counting down, when ejection fraction was less than 20 per cent, I still refused to accept it was over. I tried to play God. I was not willing to accept the inevitable. And guess what, I practise medicine in the best part of the world. It was just human!

So, in a way, I empathise with Mrs Suntai. However, that is where it ends. I was not and still not the spouse of a high profile public official, so when my spouse finally slipped away while I was not looking, I calmly walked away without playing Hercules. In my case, I walked into the Emergency room with a heart rate of more than 180/min. I ended up in ICU a few days later. I was inconsolable. I was afraid of being alone. I was distraught beyond words.

So, when I saw pictures of Suntai as he de-planed in Abuja, I knew someone was being mischievous, insane and indecent. The pictures of him as he alighted from the plane did more damage to him than whatever they meant to achieve. For four years, I was a trauma person. I cared for those boys from the fields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and those demons were awakened as I saw Suntai. His gaze into space, his look of a deer in a headlight, showed a man who was struggling with post-traumatic brain injury (PTBI) The fact that he needed two to three people to coordinate his gait was a damning evidence against him, evidence that he was not ready to be a state chief executive.

So, what is Post TBI? They are symptoms patients experience for weeks, months, years at times; post traumatic brain injury is secondary to brain injury. Simple. Some of these symptoms may have manifested, others will present over the years. Post-TBI causes a variety of symptoms beginning with cognitive deficiency as we saw in Suntai in Abuja. His handler was obviously whispering to him, as he de-planed, trying to re- orient him as to where he was.

The man was definitely not cognizant of his location. He stared into space, he looked surprised, and he had the look of a deer in a headlight. He was wondering where he was. He exhibited cognitive deficit. Indeed, if compelled to do more, he would not have been able to do so. Indeed, his wave was something that must have been practised severally while in rehab in preparation for the charade that they put up in Abuja. These people could not go lower than that even if they tried.

PTBI will present with sudden irritability, mood swings, sudden outburst of speech, sometimes inappropriate, memory loss, disjointed speech. Hopefully, this man, who is obviously not part of this caper, will not be subjected to public humiliation while his handlers are trying to prove a sick macabre point. He will be thoroughly embarrassed in public and will make him slide into deeper depression which is one of the signs of PTBI.

Mood swing, fatigue, seizure, incontinence of bladder and bowel is not uncommon in PTBI. Seizure, both grand and petit may present. Perceptual motor disorder, somatosensory disorder is not uncommon in PTBI patients. No matter how we may want to slice it, this man has no capacity to occupy the office of governor any longer. His pictures on arrival in Nigeria totally nailed him. Unfortunately, there is no established cure for PTBI.

There are treatments to alleviate some of the effects of PTBI. Because they are not able to articulate their own needs or symptoms, medicine has a tough time managing them sometimes. PTBI patients suffer confusion, they are tongue tied as Suntai is presenting. Because, the public does not have access to his medical profile, we can only safe guess that he is in the sub acute stage of his TBI. His neurologic presentation, gait, albeit unsteady and ocular motor presentation amongst other things, are the parameters used for putting him in the sub acute stage of PTBI.

Because of his extended hospital stay, it is obvious he suffered severe closed diffuse axonal injury. Symptomatology associated with such injuries was what we saw on his return drama to Nigeria. Needed rest, isolation from his welcoming crowd, close gait and speech monitoring indicated ataxia, (movement disorder) speech disorder (fluent and non fluent) which his handlers were trying to hide, Aphasia which he no doubt suffers will certainly prevent him from addressing his State House of Assembly and was why he did not address the press nor take questions from them at the airport. I feel like screaming stop this mess at his handlers.

The way it is, this man is being manipulated. He is like a puppet on a string manipulated by evil puppeteers. The right thing to do is to leave him alone to conclude or rather continue with his medical therapy. He has made history as a governor and until the end of the world, his name will be in our history books as being the governor of Taraba State at one time. There is no need forcing this unwilling, unconscious horse to the stream. Being alert with poor neuro score is not enough criterions to manage a state as the chief executive.

Hopefully, that will register with Prof. Jerry Gana. Suntai has no capacity or capability to rule a state anymore. It is painful, it is difficult, but it is the truth. His handlers and the evil people in the PDP can deny it all they like, but that is the truth.
It has nothing to do with politics. It does not matter who rules the state. What matters is probity. We have obviously not learnt anything from the Yar’adua debacle.

It is only in Nigeria where people are free to be off shore governors and presidents. The crude nature with which we lust for power is beyond human comprehension.

Power belongs to God alone, and it is given to people to hold in sacred trust. Nothing more.
But because access to power translates to grand scale theft of public funds in Nigeria, it becomes a do-or-die affair.

Suntai should be allowed to take a dignified exit from power for his sake, that of his family and most of all Taraba State.

This piece first appeared in The Nation newspaper on Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Time to Behead the Monster of Prejudice

Guest columnist By Chidi Odinkalu

Prejudice has become profitable in Nigeria. It’s boom season for ethnic entrepreneurs and, indeed, for sundry purveyors of hate. These traders in prejudice do not inhabit any special corners of Nigeria. They are everywhere and they profit from nearly everything. They cut across generations, class, gender, and creed. Nothing escapes their attention and everything is sooner or later an ethnic conspiracy or an excuse for a slur on an identity group.

To be fair, these profiteers in prejudice have received a lot of help recently. Governors in different parts of Nigeria who swore to defend the Constitution of Nigeria have resorted to removing Nigerians from one part of the country to another under various artifices from security to specious humanitarianism. Others have sacked workers in the public service of their states based on claims that the affected workers are supposedly aliens from neighbouring states.

All this takes place notwithstanding that Nigeria’s constitution expressly prohibits discrimination on grounds of place of origin, ethnicity or sex. The same constitution entitles all Nigerians to move freely and live anywhere within the country.
Yet, women have routinely lost access to and preferment within the public service because they married spouses from outside what is supposed to be their state of origin.

It gets worse:  prejudice feeds extremism. When a bomb goes off in No-Man’s Land or a security operation somewhere reports mass casualties, the beer-parlour – and even predominant policy – inquiry no less, often turns on the ethnic or sectarian identities of those affected.

Most no longer seem to harbor the capability for pause to mourn the collective injuries to our country, to share in the grief of people like who must mourn the loss of loved ones or to transmit solidarity or compassion to communities living under the weight of victimization.
Transcendentalism is no longer a requirement for leadership. To have a place at the table of leadership, you must corral and bring along a filial collective tied to nativity.

Co-existence has acquired new enemies. Online chat rooms and electronic communities have not helped. There is a frightening electronic traffic in prejudice and vituperation. It is as if some electronic platforms are designed to spike their own traffic metrics by deliberately promoting echo chambers in prejudice.

All this traffic in prejudice misses one essential and obvious point. In Nigeria, there are only two tribes that matter: the rulers and the others. The former are an overwhelming minority. The rest of us are “the others”. And when you are “the other” in Nigeria, anything can happen to you.

The idea of an “overwhelming minority” sounds inherently self-contradictory but not when you look at it closely. In a democracy, the majority supposedly confers power. In reality, a minority necessarily exercises and profits from it.

In Nigeria a narrow band of interests has always controlled our patrimony. The membership of this narrow band comes from all over the country. When the going is good, they care little about the others. When they encounter the occasional difficulty in carving up our patrimony, they enlist others in manufactured divisions of ethnicity and sect. And they litter the land with red meat for profiteers in prejudice.

All over our laws, being poor is criminalized. The law establishing the Abuja Environmental Protection Board describes hardworking women selling agricultural produce or seeking other legitimate livelihood in daytime as “solid waste” and renders them liable to arbitrary arrest.

Unemployed persons are punished for being “idle and disorderly”. Poor people in the wrong place are “vagabonds”. And those who suffer mental disability are “lunatics” or “mad people”.

What is notable in the recent one-way traffic in Nigerians across state borders is not where those affected come from or the race or ethnicity of those who think that the response to our admittedly profound social or political pathologies is the internal banishment of other people. It is rather that the victims are all generally poor people. To underline this point, they are also rendered nameless. As a category, we call them “beggars”.

It is as if being called a beggar is good reason for being put beneath humanity and beneath the protections of our constitution.
When states banish motorbike operators from the roads, the main reason they give is that such “beggars” constitute threats to security.
When banks preclude persons with disability – whose deposits they happily collect - from their transaction and service halls, it is because such “beggars” are unsuitable to be seen in their corporate spaces.

And when we exclude people who do not look like us from our various neighbourhoods, we call them “beggars” too.
In all these instances, we deploy these usages to excuse our inability to care or show compassion. Yet, the only thing that is beggared by all this sniffing at people who are not like us is the possibility of mutual co-existence in a viable country.

The use of the word “beggar” to describe fellow human beings and citizens says everything about the pervasiveness of status as the defining influence in how Nigeria is now organised. This is not chosen by nature nor ordered by any ethnic or faith group.

As a policy tendency, the idea of civic entitlement, that citizens are entitled as a matter of right to certain minimum guarantees of well being and due process is now under threat in our country. This must be resisted by all who wish Nigeria well.

Difficult as it may seem, there are many ways to fight back. Leadership is important. We must offer support and incentives for aspiring leaders who are genuinely committed to promoting transcendental and non-discriminatory values and find ways to exact political penalty for those that fail to do so.

The law has a role to play. We must review our laws and remove from them provisions that penalize poverty or being different.
It also time to think about criminalizing hate speech and related crimes of purveying hate.

Related to this, proprietors and promoters of electronic communities must begin to assume greater responsibility for traffic on their platforms. Agreeing a voluntary code of good practice could be a good beginning. The National Human Rights Commission can mediate this.

Pejoratives, like “beggars”, must be discouraged in our public communications. Every person has a name and group pejoratives of this sort are themselves violations of dignity and the inherent worth of every person.
As a menu of options, this is only a beginning. There are lots more that we could do. We can at least resolve around one goal: It is time to end the open season on those who look different from us.

•Odinkalu, an expert in human rights and migration law, is the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission.

ThisDay

Between Muhammadu Buhari And Lamido Sanusi

BETWEEN LAMIDO SANUSI AND MUHAMMADU BUHARI When Mr Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and General Muhammadu Buhari(Retd.), former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change(CPC) , are mentioned in the same sentence, few words come to mind: discipline, austere, lanky, fair-complexioned, sharia, Fulani. These areas of convergence of the two men are very obvious. In other respects the two men differ remarkably. In the mid 1970’s when Buhari was already a Federal Minister, Sanusi was just a secondary school boy. In other words, the two men are generation apart in terms of age.  Furthermore, while the Kano prince is known for talking too much, the retired General is not a man of many words. Apart from both being Fulani, their tested abhorrence for corruption and its various shades is perhaps the most striking similarity between these two men. Even before he became apex bank boss, when Sanusi’s name is mentioned in the banking sector, pen robbers and ‘book cooks’ shivered. His ‘let’s do it the right way no matter the consequence’ attitude was well known. Little wonder those that knew what he can do did everything possible, including, as we heard, raising funds running into billions, to forestall a Sanusi CBN governorship. Like a moving train that cannot be halted, the former First Bank boss trumped his adversaries and the obstacles they planted on his way. The rest, for the book cooks, is now history. While Sanusi’s name sends shivers down the spines of these private sector ‘miracle workers’, the mention of Muhammadu Buhari unsettles both public and private sector thieves, real and potential. They know what he can do, having done it before. Unfortunately, majority of Nigerian politicians fall into this class. Like the banking sector thieves did to Sanusi for which he triumphed, the lootocrats in the political space are already planting barricades everywhere to stop a Muhammadu Buhari presidency. They are okay with the status quo. They don’t want an end to the current kleptocratic system. They want our roads to remain deplorable. They want public service to remain corruption-infested. But I have a message for them: Hurricane Buhari, like Sanusi Tsunami, is unstoppable. The time for change has come. Like Sanusi, Buhari has been accused of religious and ethnic bigotry. He will Islamize the economy. He has come to pursue a northern agenda. So they said of Sanusi. But just after a year, the same Sanusi became an hero. He became the most admired Nigerian. We saw his efforts, his sincerity even if he made a couple of mistakes. Media houses fell on one another to give him awards. Columnists and opinion writers praised him to high heavens. His efforts were recognized even at the global stage. Buhari, like Sanusi, is also coming under widespread suspicion and mistrust, but I have confidence that the song will change too if Buhari is given the chance. Buhari is fearless, courageous, sincere and admirable. I am strongly positive that if Nigerians vote for Buhari, we will not regret it just as we are happy today that Yar’adua ignored the public outcry and went ahead to appoint Lamido Sanusi as the man in charge of the nation’s monetary policy. Interestingly, the most incisive article I have read about the man Buhari was written by no less a person than Mr Sanusi Lamido Sanusi himself.  In an essay titled ‘Buharism: Economic Theory and Political Economy’ , written in July 2002, in the run-up to the 2003 presidential elections, Sanusi, in his impeccable intellectual best, deconstructed the man Buhari and his ideals. Unlike previous writings on Buhari that dwelled shallowly on his personality and religious beliefs, Sanusi delved into his economic and political ideology. The wide-read CBN boss, then a Manager in UBA, wrote: “The reality, as noted by Tolstoy, is that too often history is erroneously reduced to single individuals. By losing sight of the multiplicity of individuals, events, actions and inactions (deliberate or otherwise) that combine to produce a set of historical circumstances, the historian is able to create a mythical figure and turn him into an everlasting hero (like Lincoln) or a villain (like Hitler). The same is true of Buhari. There seems to be a dangerous trend of competition between two opposing camps aimed at glorifying him beyond his wildest dreams or demonizing him beyond all justifiable limits, through a selective reading of history and opportunistic attribution and misattribution of responsibility. The discourse has been thus impoverished through personalization and we are no closer at the end of it than at the beginning to a divination of the exact locus or nexus of his administration in the flow of Nigerian history. This is what I seek to achieve in this intervention through an exposition of the theoretical underpinnings of the economic policy of Buharism and the necessary correlation between the economic decisions made and the concomitant legal and political superstructure”.   “Within the schema of discourses on Nigerian history,” he wrote further, “ the most accurate problematization of the Buhari government is one that views it strictly as a regime founded on the ideology of Bourgeois Nationalism. In this sense it was a true off-shoot of the regime of Murtala Mohammed. Buharism was a stage the logical outcome of whose machinations would have been a transcendence of what Marx called the stage of Primitive Accumulation in his Theories of Surplus Value. It was radical, not in the sense of being socialist or left wing, but in the sense of being a progressive move away from a political economy dominated by a parasitic and subservient elite to one in which a nationalist and productive class gains ascendancy. Buharism represented a two-way struggle: with Global capitalism (externally) and with its parasitic and unpatriotic agents and spokespersons (internally). The struggle against global capital as represented by the unholy trinity of the IMF, the World Bank and multilateral ‘trade’ organizations as well that against the entrenched domestic class of contractors, commission agents and corrupt public officers were vicious and thus required extreme measures. Draconian policies were a necessary component of this struggle for transformation and this has been the case with all such epochs in history. The Meiji restoration in Japan was not conducted in a liberal environment. The Industrial Revolution in Europe and the great economic progress of the empires were not attained in the same liberal atmosphere of the 21st Century. The “tiger economies” of Asia such as Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand are not exactly models of democratic freedom. To this extent Buharism was a despotic regime but its despotism was historically determined, necessitated by the historical task of dismantling the structures of dependency and launching the nation on to a path beyond primitive accumulation. At his best Buhari may have been a Bonaparte or a Bismarck. At his worst he may have been a Hitler or a Mussolini. In either case Buharism drawn to its logical conclusion would have provided the bedrock for a new society and its overthrow marked a relapse, a step backward into that era from which we sought escape and in which, sadly for all of us we remain embedded and enslaved. I will now proceed with an elaboration of Buharism as a manifestation of bourgeois economics and political economy." In his concluding paragraph, Sanusi wrote: “Having said all this let me conclude by saying that if Buhari gets a nomination he will have my vote (for what it is worth). I will vote for him not, like some have averred, because he is a northerner and a Muslim or because I think his candidacy is good for the north and Islam; I will vote for him not because I think he will make a good democrat or that he was not a dictator. I will vote for Buhari as a Nigerian for a leader who restored my pride and dignity and my belief in the motherland. I will vote for the man who made it undesirable for the “Andrews” to “check out” instead of staying to change Nigeria. I will vote for Buhari to say thank you for the world view of Buharism, a truly nationalist ideology for all Nigerians. I do not know if Buhari is still a nationalist or a closet bigot and fanatic, or if he was the spirit and not just the face of Buharism. My vote for him is not based on a divination of what he is or may be, but a celebration of what his government was and what it gave to the nation.”  Interested reader may google up the full article. I do not know whether Sanusi still holds this opinion about Buhari, but one thing I’m sure of is that his current boss will not be comfortable with this endorsement. Like Sanusi promised ahead of the 2003 elections, I will also vote for Buhari. Not only that, I will mobilize within my very modest means to contribute to the actualization of Buhari presidency.  Apart from Buhari’s impressive economic orientation stressed by Sanusi in his intervention, I believe if our national attitude changes, which a Buhari presidency can achieve, other things will fall in place. Now is the time for a bloodless revolution which the Buhari ticket represents.  I spread the message of hope when there was widespread suspicion about Sanusi’s appointment as manager of the Nation’s economy, today I am proud many people have now seen what I saw earlier in Sanusi. Now it’s Buhari. Will you, dear reader, join me in spreading the message of hope again? Suraj Oyewale Victoria Island, Lagos February 4, 2011