#OSUNPOLL: Contestants sell themselves to the electorates…READ WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY

By most accounts, elections are usually preceded by political intrigues and subterfuges which may mar the processes and conclusion of the elections if not checked on time.

State of Osun

Political analysts observe that unlike in the past, recent public reactions to political developments, particularly on elections, tend to reinforce the fact that Nigeria’s democracy is becoming more stable.
They point at the recent governorship election in Ekiti State, in which the incumbent governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC), accepted his defeat by Mr Ayodele Fayode of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in good faith. Observers express the hope that the hitch-free and peaceful conduct of the Ekiti State governorship election will be replicated in Osun State’s governorship election come Aug. 9.
However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has repeatedly assured Nigerians that the Osun governorship election and the 2015 general elections would be free and fair. This assurance notwithstanding, observers insist that the contestants in the Osun polls should adhere strictly to the rules of the game by selling their programmes to the electorate and allowing the voters to make their choice.
In the lead-up to the Osun polls, the contestants have staged several political campaigns across the state, dishing out promises; all in the need to garner the electorate’s support. Although INEC has cleared 20 candidates of different political parties for the governorship election, observers, nonetheless, note that the election is somewhat a straight fight between APC and PDP candidates.
They argue that due to the antecedents of Gov. Rauf Aregbesola (APC) and Sen. Iyiola Omisore (PDP), the election is going to be a direct contest between the two candidates. They could, however, not rule out the possibility that a minority party may spring a surprise by producing the next governor of Osun if it has a populist, people-oriented manifesto.
However, the PDP has, on several occasions, vowed to replicate its victory in the June 21 Ekiti governorship election in Osun on Aug. 9. The PDP’s candidate, Omisore, has been trying to garner the goodwill of the electorate, explaining why he should become the next governor of the state.
“PDP will win Osun governorship election decisively because of the perceptible failures of Gov. Rauf Aregbesola’s administration in all spheres of government endeavours. “Till today, 87 per cent of Osun State has not witnessed any meaningful development at all. “The noise about road constructions is only limited to only two major roads; all the township roads and other Federal Government roads are abandoned. During our campaigns, we were forced to travel on very bad roads to reach the people. “Besides, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)-government in Osun has bastardised the education sector of the state.
“In fact, a couple of months ago, we asked Aregbesola to do away with his Opon Imo (computers distributed to students under the government’s e-learning programme). “He spent about N8.4 billion on the scheme. Opon Imo has few subjects with 87.4 per cent errors. There is no single illustrative diagram or graph in Opon Imo. “There is no single figure in its graph mathematics; there is no diagram for science subjects in Opon Imo. The same goes for all the students in JSS 1 to JSS 3. “So, there is a real confusion and the people of the state are fed up with it,’’ he added.
Omisore vowed to correct the anomaly if he was voted into power on Aug. 9. “With my experience as a former deputy governor and a senator for eight years; I believe I am the most suited for the job. “The main thrust of my administration’s policy will be on job creation, quality education, human capital development, infrastructure, health, roads, agriculture and commerce,’’ he added.
Omisore reiterated that he was on a “rescue mission’’ to bring good governance and pragmatic development to Osun and its citizens. He said that his eight cardinal programmes were aimed at promoting education, infrastructural development, transparency and accountability in governance, grassroots development and growth of the education sector, among others.
“Our primary focus will be on improving the wellbeing and social safety of the people; wealth creation and pensionable employment; agriculture, food security and rural development; peace and security and public service administration.
“We are going to fight poverty by giving young graduates jobs; we will also create small and medium scale enterprises to empower the people,’’ he added.
In the area of education, Omisore said that if voted into power, his government would invest massively in the education sector because of his belief that any investment in the development of education was a worthwhile venture.
“We are going to restore the quality of education in Osun; the management of public schools will be ceded to their original owners, if the people so desired. “The one-uniform policy of the government for all schools in the state will be abrogated and our women selling cloths and sewing school uniforms will be back in business,’’ he said.
Omisore urged the electorate to come out en-masse and vote for him, saying that they should all be involved in the ongoing campaign for a better society in Osun in a pragmatic way.
In a swift reaction to Omisore’s electioneering, Sen. Olusola Adeyeye, the Director-General of Aregbesola Campaign Organisation, stressed that the PDP victory in Ekiti State governorship election would never be replicated in Osun.
He vowed that Aregbesola would win the governorship election by a wide margin, saying that the massive turnout of people at the governor’s campaign rallies in towns like Iwo, Ikire, Ikirun and Ibokun was a clear testimony of the people’s support for his second-term bid.
“Just as people demonstrated their support for Aregbesola in 2007, they are visibly more committed to him, following his outstanding performance in his first term tenure of office,’’ Adeyeye said at a recent forum in Osogbo.
Besides, Aregbesola solicited the people’s support for the state government’s new education policy, while inaugurating some buildings at the Baptist Elementary Primary School, Ilare, Ile-Ife, recently.
He warned the critics of his administration and its education policy to be patient, insisting that the policy would produce good results in the long run. The governor stressed that the focus of the education policy was on promoting the wellbeing of teachers and students of the state’s public schools.
Aregbesola said that the government was planning to build 20 well-equipped high schools, 50 middle schools and 100 elementary schools. Mr Sunday Akere, the Commissioner for Information, said that the state government had committed the larger part of its financial resources to education.
He said that the government was also providing free meals for primary school pupils in classes one to four every day.
“The government has spent N900 million on the provision of free uniform to students across the state; it also spent N1.2 billion on Opon Imo and N14.8 billion on the construction of school buildings under its `O’ School programme,’’ he said.
Drumming up support for Aregbesola in the Aug. 9 election, Akere emphasised that his administration had recruited no fewer than 10,470 teachers. He said that the government was also paying N10, 000 monthly to elders, whose ages were above 65 years, in the state.
In his campaign, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade, the governorship candidate for the Labour Party (LP), pledged to provide free health care for pregnant women in the state if voted into power. He said that the focus of his qualitative free health programme, if he became governor, would be on pregnant women so as to reduce maternal mortality rate and ensure safe childbirths in the state.
Dr Eunice Adedayo, the leader of Women for Positive Change, pledged that women would support Akinbade in the election, adding that the manifesto of the LP was aimed at promoting the interests of the masses.
Other candidates who are contesting the governorship election on the platform of different political parties also made different promises to the electorate during their electioneering.
The candidates include Adeoye Adeyinka of Action Alliance (AA), Niyi Owolade of Accord Party (AP), Sunday Fajinmi of Alliance for Democracy (AD), Akintunde Adetunji of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Rafiu Anifowose of Citizens Popular Party (CPP).
Others are Jimoh Afolayan of National Conscience Party (NCP), Segun Adegoke of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Gbenga Gabriel of African Democratic Congress (ADP), Agboola Obasanjo of African People’s Alliance (APA) and Oludare Akinola of Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM).
Ganiyu Lawal of Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA), Funsho Bunmi of United Democratic Party (UDP), Ibrahim Adeoti of Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Victor Adeniyi of United Progressive Party (UPP) and Segun Akinwusi of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) are also vying for the governorship post.
Concerned citizens, however, appeal to the electorate in Osun to look beyond the pragmatics of the candidates’ rhetoric to specific areas which spur them to make informed choices on whom to vote for on Aug. 9. They also urge the candidate who eventually wins the election to live up to his campaign promises, particularly those that are aimed at promoting the people’s wellbeing. (NANFeatures)
By Kayode Olaitan,
Source: VANGUARD

EXPOSED: The main reason why Bishop Oyedepo visited Aregbesola few weeks to #OSUND-DAY…[PHOTOS]

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (right) and Founder, Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, during the Bishop’s Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun on Wednesday.

  

From left, Deputy Governor State of Osun, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori; Founder, Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo; Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his Wife, Sherifat, during the Bishop’s Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun on Wednesday.

As governorship candidates of political parties strategise for the August 9 governorship election in Osun State, the General Overseer of the Living Faith Church (aka Winners’ Chapel), Bishop David Oyedepo, on Wednesday, said the infrastructural renewal of Governor Rauf Aregbesola were affecting the people positively. He also declared that the new educational policy, which had culminated in the building of mega schools in the state deserves global applause.
Bishop Oyedepo, who made this known during a courtesy call on Aregbesola at the Bola Ige House, Osogbo, said that “any governance that is producing results and affecting the lives of vast majority of the people, must be deeply appreciated”.
While imploring the stakeholders to always be at the vanguard of peaceful co-existence, the clergy affirmed that “there is nothing like living in peace, working peace and promoting peace”.
According to Oyedepo, “there is nothing like peace in the whole world. We should always walk towards whatever will promote peace and peaceful co-existence among our people. Let us work for an atmosphere that encourages peace, which engenders growth and development. This is because life is all about promoting the well-being of the people”….READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Photos of the Governor, State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Founder, Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, during the Bishop’s Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun on Wednesday.

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (right) and Founder, Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, during the Bishop’s Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun on Wednesday.

From left, Deputy Governor State of Osun, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori; Founder, Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo; Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his Wife, Sherifat, during the Bishop’s Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun on Wednesday.

From left, Deputy Governor State of Osun, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori; Founder, Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo; Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his Wife, Sherifat, during the Bishop’s Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun on Wednesday.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE
OsunDefender

2015: Don’t recontest, cleric tells Jonathan

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By Our Reporter on July 8, 2014 · Politics

Ahead of the 2015 general elections a Christian cleric  and President, Eclectic Network, Rev Moses Iloh has asked President Goodluck Jonathan not to re-contest for the Presidency.
In an open letter to the President, Iloh said it is begining to appear thatit is either  Jonathan is elected for a second term or there would be no Nigeria.
Besides he stated that the polity under the present administration is steadily a worrisome dimension.
He said though President Jonathan  met the country sick, he can faciliate her healing or at least apply a soothing balm.
The letter reads in part :”You met us as one Nigeria – even though currently a very sick country. You can facilitate our healing and improve our lot by applying the “Balm of Gilead”. If you cannot heal and improve our lot, please apply a soothing balm: The “balm of Gilead”. The ongoing politics is perilous and portends nothing but intent towards the destruction of a nation.
“Mr. President: I persuade you not to run for election in 2015. You are already Mr. President and as ex-President, your privileges will be immense and kept alive for as long as you live. “You will also have the privilege of being a positive reference point for politicians because of your noble act in contributing to the preservation of your country Nigeria.
“The most unfortunate thing that has happened to Nigeria during your regime is the unfettered advantage and privilege given to hypocrites, evil doers, godless and dangerous folks who found their way into your choice team of senior advisers. They are vehicles of destruction. They are hell-bent on amassing wealth and destroying Nigeria. They desperately need another four years to accomplish their devilment.
Mr. President: the goings on in Nigeria polity under your leadership is progressively taking on new, worrisome and dangerous dimensions. It is beginning to appear that Mr. President Goodluck Jonathan is either re-elected in 2015 to rule us for another four -year term or there will be no Nigeria.
May it not be so please Mr. President!
The prevailing pattern of politics and governance in Nigeria is awkward, very irresponsible, heartless and treacherous.  It sustains a season of falsehood, deceit and confusion. These add up to one word: terrorism.”
While  urging  the President to emulate the leadership style of Jesus Christ,Iloh said  mischief makers in the country should  remember that there is  God Almighty, who is the final arbiter in the affairs of mankind.

Jonathan's PR offensive backfires in Nigeria and abroad

 

By Tim Cocks
LAGOS (Reuters) - Facing censure at home and overseas for a perceived failure to protect civilians from violent Islamists, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has launched an international media offensive to try to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor.
But those efforts have backfired abroad, where many greet his defense with scepticism, and at home, where he was slated for hiring U.S. public relations (PR) firm Levick for $1.2 million, in what critics called a waste of money.
Jonathan, and Nigeria as a whole, have suffered a worsening image problem since Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 276 school girls from the northeast village of Chibok, Borno state, in mid-April. Over 200 remain in captivity.
The attack overshadowed Nigeria becoming Africa's biggest economy after a GDP rebasing in April, and its hosting of the World Economic Forum in May. Security is a major headache ahead of national elections in February that are likely to be the closest-fought since democracy returned in 1999.
An opinion piece by Jonathan in the Washington Post last month - in which the president wrote "nothing is more important than bringing home Nigeria's missing girls," but added that he had to "remain quiet" for their safety - drew open scorn.
Soon after, the Washington Post's Karen Attiah published a satirical send-up of Jonathan's op-ed. Her piece included lines such as: "Nothing is more important than stopping the machinations of Boko Haram, except maybe my desire to keep up appearances and show the international community that Nigeria was winning the war against the group."
Analyst Bismarck Rewane, CEO of Lagos-based consultancy Financial Derivatives, thinks the president's timing was wrong.
"That op-ed backfired partly because the negative narrative was still so strong," he told Reuters. "But often the PR guys advising want the upfront fees and don't care about the result."
Jonathan's media team declined to comment on their PR strategy. A presidency source confirmed Levick's contract but said such PR initiatives were standard practice for governments.
"All over the world governments engage PR firms and lobbyists to achieve certain objectives within a particular time frame," the source, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
In this case those objectives involve reversing months of damaging publicity over the Chibok girls' abduction, magnified by a #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign that drew in celebrities including Michelle Obama and Angelina Jolie.
In the past week Jonathan's articulate and Washington-savvy Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has toured the world doing press interviews, for example with CNN's Christine Amanpour.
These often include earnest assertions that the Nigerian president is "doing his best" to get the girls back.
Ultimately, the bad publicity is unlikely to doom Jonathan's 2015 re-election chances. In Nigeria, patronage can produce a ballot win more reliably than perceived performance, analysts say, as was proved in last month's governorship poll in southwestern Ekiti state.
There, incumbent Kayode Fayemi, a well-spoken reformer with a track record of improving services was ousted by a populist former governor from the ruling party whose team gave out tens of thousands of bags of rice to voters ahead of the poll.

"BATTERED IMAGE"
Jonathan's supporters and the army - the defense spokesman did not respond to a request for comment - see PR as a key part of the war against Boko Haram. They view each negative report on the security forces or president as a psychological victory to the "terrorists". And there have been a lot of them.
First the military was pilloried for not protecting the Chibok school or responding quickly enough to a distress call. Then the absence of information on the girls' whereabouts - and a bungled statement from the military briefly claiming to have rescued them from which it later edged away - worsened things.
Footage circulating showing Jonathan dancing at a political rally in the northern city of Kano shortly after the mass abduction didn't help, neither did comments from Jonathan's wife Patience, in which she publicly told the protesting parents of the abducted girls in the capital Abuja to "go back to Borno."
"No PR firm can save Jonathan's battered image," Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), a Nigerian NGO, wrote in the local Premium Times website. "Forget the public relations firm and concentrate on the task ... The government did nothing for over three weeks."
Jonathan's administration says that is unfair, arguing it faces an enemy that is mobile over a wide, remote area and with a track record of wanton killing of civilians, so any rushed rescue could end up in a bloodbath. But few are convinced.
"Best wishes to Levick, merely the latest in a long line of Western image consultants that Nigerian governments have been known to routinely engage for miracle-working purposes," popular blogger Tolu Ogunlesi wrote in local daily The Punch last week.
Ogunlesi told Reuters that "this time the stakes are so much higher. You're dealing with a major national embarrassment."
A weak response is to always deflect blame for Nigeria's problems onto foreign elements, Ogunlesi added, such as Jonathan describing Boko Haram as al Qaeda in West Africa.

REVERSED PERCEPTIONS
Ironically, many of the characteristics for which Jonathan is now being publicly vilified - a perceived indecisiveness and weakness in the face of a determined foe - were what initially attracted voters fatigued with decades of bullying strongmen.
His initial humility, quiet demeanor, apparent openness to listening and an unpolished manner of speaking may at first have won Nigerians over. Now they cringe when he mumbles on international TV.
"He was something refreshing at the beginning," Nigerian columnist Cheta Nwanze told Reuters. "But the office of the president is supposed to carry a lot of weight. Damage has been done by his being exposed to ridicule."

WHAT DID THEY SAY?

By Sharon Faliya Cham

They said "the worst democratic government is better than the best military regime."
And did you believe them?
If you believe them I don't, and here is why:
1. All the military coups in Nigeria, except that of 1966 and 1976, were bloodless. But even when conducting local councils election in Nigeria civilians will murder people they perceive as hostile to their ambition and agenda. In fact, many civilian politicians in Nigeria always arm their thugs with sophisticated weapons to kill people, and to snatch election materials for falsification of election results!
The number of people killed in one local government election alone in Nigeria have already surpassed the number of people killed by military coupists in 1966, 1976 and any other coup that had any loss of life combined together!
2. Military regimes in Nigeria united Nigerians more than the civilian regimes. For example, Muslim military rulers posted Christian military officers to be governors of Muslim dominated states like Bauchi, Gongola, Kano, Borno, Gombe, etc. And in the same manner they posted Muslims to be governors of some Christian dominated states, and nobody complained. But today, corrupt civilian rulers and their evil collaborators in religious corridors will always emphasize ethno-religious sentiments for voters manipulations, which always leave their supporters looking foolish and stupid because they end up looting, looting and looting coupled with promoting demonic agendas that will help sustain their looting penchant.
Here, I must not fail to point out the fact that most church going tribes in northern Nigeria accuse all the former military rulers from the north and all northern leaders that are Muslims of marginalising them, but I find it cheap just as much as the allegations contain a lot of untruth. If those Muslim military rulers or northern leaders, as they are often called, have wanted marginalising northern minorities then I wonder how they could have posted Christians to be governors in states like Kano, Borno, Bauchi, Gombe and the old Gongola state. The current Plateau state governor, Pastor Jonah David Jang, who is now among the frontline ethno-religious bigots in Nigeria, was posted to be military governor in a Muslim dominated state by a Muslim military Head of State, and thereafter posted to govern Benue state. So also Professor Jerry Gana who is equally a frontline champion among those who always work to divide the people along ethno-religious lines was made what he is today by Generals IBB and Abacha but today he is among the most divisive elements in Nigeria, always leading the orchestra choir of ethno-religious sentiments and sectionalism.
If it were democracy all the way someone should kindly tell me how Christian soldiers that were of ethnic minorities could have become governors in predominantly Muslim states! Tell me how people like Colonel Yohanna Madaki, Col. John Madaki, Brigadier Chris Garuba, Col. Atukum, Lawrence Onoja, Group Captain Dan Suleiman, Wing Commander James Yana Kalau, Brigadier Dominic Oneya, Brigadier David Mark, Col. John Shagaya, etc, etc, etc, could have governed Muslim states. At best they could have been governors only in Benue, Kaduna and Plateau states if it were democracy, and even at that, how many years will they take in a queue to become governors, plus would other tribes in their own states even allow them become governors through popular votes? However, it is common sight these days to see people like Jonah Jang and Lawrence Onoja leading the vocals of the marginalisation choir! As a matter of fact, there were more Christian military governors and cabinet ministers under Muslim military Heads of State, and most of them were from ethnic minorities. In fact, when General Sani Abacha created Gombe state in 1996 the first governor he posted there was Wing Commander Joseph Orji, an Igbo and a Christian! Talk about national unity in practice! However, I mustn't forget to add that if General Sani Abacha were alive today, and wants to contest for the Presidency, the issues that will be brought up against him will not be about corruption or competence or incompetence but wild propaganda about an Islamic agenda because of his religious belief and the usual stuff about marginalisation of ethnic minorities.
Anyone who knows how to be a hypocrite or unthoughtful will be deceiving themselves that the Muslim Heads of State that posted these people to be governors in Muslim dominated states harbour an Islamic agenda against Nigeria, which is as baffling as it is ludicrous as much as it is laughable. At its best and its worst, it is mere falsehood and propaganda by entrenched bigots who want to perpetuate and perpetrate their bigotry that neither does them any good nor for anybody else.
Tell me how military rulers who had the military power to decree an Islamic agenda by fiat but didn't do so could turn round and do so in a democracy where every decision must be vetted and backed by the legislature and other interest blocs?
Pretty illogical, isn't it?
3. No military regime in Nigeria ever stole 20 billion dollars per annum. The worst case scenario was the charge against the IBB regime of looting 12.8 billion dollars in his eight years tenure or the 5 billion dollars Abacha was said to have looted in his five years regime. But now civilians have converted public funds into their personal estates or ATMs and do "not give a damn" about it! Shamelessness and dishonour have all become fine art, and the more shameless and dishonourable you are the more you get applauded by stinking hands from the rotten bodies of walking corpses that assume their walking ability to mean normality!
4. Violent crimes like armed robbery and illicit drugs trade were effectively checked by military regimes, but civilian regimes not only multiplied armed robberies and illicit drugs trade, they also added kidnapping, militancy, cultism, children and women trafficking, baby factories to produce babies for occultic use, and terrorism! Add to it the unsavoury fact that under corrupt civilian dictators, kids as many as close to 300 could be abducted at once by bandits in areas supposedly under the patrol of some 20, 000 soldiers!
5. No military ruler ever shut down any airport so that anybody should not fly except if there was a coup, but today corrupt civilian dictators command soldiers to shut down airports so that other civilian politicians in the opposition should not fly, or alternatively if they are already on air they should not land so that if the aircraft has insufficient fuel it should crash and kill them, and not only that, we have even reached the stage whereby a corrupt civilian dictator can order soldiers to stop some governors from entering another state by road, and the soldiers could even pointedly tell a governor that they would shoot him if he didn't comply! Yes, the same soldiers that "Boko Haram" thugs freely pass through their checkpoints in north-eastern Nigeria! Yes, the same soldiers who cannot rescue 276 poor schoolgirls from the evil clutches of some bandits! Yes, these same soldiers are the ones whose checkpoints are only effective against governors that the corrupt civilian dictator hates! Yes, the same soldiers that are chasing bombs and "Boko Haram" in newspaper pages and newspaper vans are the ones that are so effective against the rule of law and are also effective as "campaign managers" in a governorship election in a little state like Ekiti in south-west Nigeria!
6. It was never heard that Nigerian military rulers withdrew the security cover of any of their colleagues so that they can be assassinated, but now corrupt civilian dictators withdraw the security cover of civilian governors opposed to them so that they can be easily attacked by a killer squad!
7. Military regimes always present national budgets to the nation on January 1 each year, and they always try to implement it up to about 80% to 90%. But now, corrupt civilian dictators present budgets anytime they like, and they hardly implement more than 30% of their budgets, and you never ever know what has happened to the remaining money!
8. It was said that military regimes were against media freedom, and they even locked up some journalists and occasionally locked up some newspaper houses. That was true. But now, under civilian regimes, I have lost count of journalists that have been assassinated or abducted because of investigative journalism, and now we even see corrupt civilian dictators ordering soldiers to look for "Boko Haram" inside the pages of newspapers and hinder their distribution because "Boko Haram" are hiding inside the pages! Hahaha....
O yes, I remember vividly that a frontline investigative journalist, Mr. Dele Giwa the founder and publisher of Newswatch weekly news magazine, was assassinated through a letter bomb during the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida regime in 1986. But the point am making is, several journalists have also been murdered in the course of this pseudo-democracy in Nigeria. So, what's the difference?
9. Under military regimes, people were known to march on the streets to protest against bad socio-economic policies of government. Student unions were known to be vibrant and radical so much that Comrade Labaran Maku, the President of the University of Jos Students Union way back in time could lead students to riot on the streets and even burn and destroy both public and private structures. But now, under civilian dictatorships, the police and "Boko Haram" could be deployed to frustrate any protest and Labaran Maku could tag the protesters as members of the opposition parties who don't see anything good in the government of the day!
10. Under military regimes, wives of rulers never ever invited anyone for questioning. But now, under a corrupt civilian dictatorship, the wife of the President can hold court and illegally invite persons for questioning over something she has no power to exercise!
11. During military regimes, no military ruler ever appointed the Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Air Staff, Chief of Naval Staff, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) and Chief of the State Security Service (SSS) from the same religion. But now, under a corrupt civilian dictatorship, it has happened because of an agenda known only to the appointer and appointees!
12. Under military regimes, we have never ever heard an instance whereby accounts of a state government will be frozen for personal political vendetta, but now, under a corrupt civilian dictatorship, a drunken tyrant can just wake up one morning and order the EFCC to freeze the accounts of a state because he doesn't like the governor, or because the governor has factually exposed the truth about an ongoing genocide couched as War Against Terrorism but of which it is actually the "terrorists" that are having a field day killing people daily while uprooting their towns and villages!
13. We have never ever heard any military ruler training a secret killer squad abroad to assassinate one thousand people, but we have now heard it under a corrupt civilian dictatorship, and the signs are all there to see!
Oops! I almost forgot that General Sani Abacha was accused of having a killer squad named Strike Force, which was believed to have murdered Mrs. Kudirat M.K.O. Abiola. But between him and the one with a long list of one thousand people, who is deadlier?
Anyway, note that thousands of people from just a particular part of the country have already died, and are still dying from attacks by what they want us to believe as "Boko Haram"!
14. During military regimes, no cabinet minister dared use public funds to purchase private bulletproof exotic cars nor even spend billions of naira on private jets. But now, under a corrupt civilian dictator, a minister can spend millions of dollars on just two exotic cars while another can also spend billions of naira on private jets and still enjoy the protection of the corrupt civilian dictator!
15. No Nigerian military ruler ever traveled abroad on official function with outrageous numbers of delegations, but now under a corrupt civilian dictatorship, Nigeria's delegations that usually accompany the dictator always surpass that of any country several times over, which always results in waste of public funds!
16. During military regimes, universities and colleges were never shut down beyond a month or two due to strikes over funding, but now under corrupt civilian dictators universities and colleges can be shut down for up to a year due to strikes over poor funding while the corrupt rulers will be busy spending public monies on private jets, private luxurious mansions, exotic holidays and shopping sprees overseas!
17. We have never ever heard any military ruler in the history of this country dropping charges of financial corruption involving hundreds of billions of naira against anyone, but now our corrupt civilian dictators can just wake up one morning and announce State Pardon for notorious thieves and even drop proven charges of financial thefts against certain persons for their selfish political gains!
18. During military regimes there were only two arms of government - the executive and the judiciary; there was no legislative arm to make laws and to perform oversight over the executive. But now, under corrupt civilian dictatorships, the legislative arms of government have rendered themselves useless by basically becoming rubber stamps to the whims and caprices of the corrupt civilian dictators, which makes the legislative arm as good as absent as was the case during military regimes!
In other words, the legislative arms of government that were supposed to ensure checks and balances to institute accountability and probity in governance at all levels have failed woefully in Nigeria. What we have masquerading as lawmakers in Nigeria are a mere bunch of greedy, corrupt and intellectually lazy buffoons fawning and kowtowing to every thieving dictator also masquerading as the head of any tier of government!
19. And what is the difference between soldiers who just walk up to the seats of government power and seize power under the barrel of their guns and civilians who commandeer soldiers and other security organs to violently rig elections? They both used force, right? In other words, they are both dictatorships without legitimacy conferred by votes from the public, right? The 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections under reference here.
20. The military regimes of General Gowon, General IBB and General Abacha were accused of "not honouring their promises" to organize elections to hand over power to civilians. But what is their difference with dishonourable civilians who will sit in a room and trash out a power sharing agreement to alternate presidential political power between the north and the south, but when it is time to honour their collective agreement the ones in opportunistic positions will breach their own agreements without shame but with brazen impunity and dead conscience? They will tell you that the nation's constitution is supreme and that it guarantees them the right to contest, but they will not tell you that the same constitution has not forbidden people or parties or organizations from making mutual agreements that will engender inclusiveness and peace in the polity!
21. Some critics will usually say that the constitution handed over to civilians by the military is not a reflection of the will of the Nigerian people because the framers of the constitution were not chosen by the Nigerian publics. But what is the difference between that type and the attempt to write another constitution wherein a civilian dictator will chose majority of delegates that suit his fancy? Example, no delegate in the so called National Conference organized by President Jonathan was directly chosen by the Nigerian publics. Consider also that General Babangida's Constituent Assembly of 1988 had 563 members that were also not chosen by the Nigerian publics whereas President Jonathan's conference has 492 members also not directly chosen by Nigerians. Which one is more representative? Also, if the two were to have produced a constitution each, which one of the constitutions would have been written by "We The People"? Who voted for the writers to write a constitution for "We The People"? What is their difference?
22. Finally, which type brings more psychological trauma? Armed soldiers that seize political power because they bear arms or 'bloody civilians' who arm their thugs and miscreants with smuggled weapons to violently rig elections and then rule with illegitimate mandates, and then be arrogantly and boastfully lying against God that God gave them power?
That's why even if dictatorship were to be the form of governance in nations, at least benevolent dictatorship will be better than the corrupt and selfish dictatorship that is malevolent.
Do you still believe them when they say "the worst democratic government is better than the best military regime"?
On a final note, if what Nigeria is currently facing under a so called democratic regime can be attributed to democracy, then does democracy really serve Nigeria any good? And does the rubbish going on in Nigeria in the name of democracy do justice to the definition of democracy?
Countries like China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar and Libya have functioned very well under benevolent dictatorships, and, in fact, most of the great nations of yesterday and today grew from the roots of benevolent dictatorships, and, of course, America, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, France and Australia are good examples of countries developed under functional democracies even though some of them had their successful foundations laid by benevolent dictatorships.
Therefore, what does Nigeria really need to be properly run?
But let me contradict myself a little bit to say that democracy is good, but the reason democracy has failed us in Nigeria is we have allowed people who should have remained shoeless working as touts in motor parks to get into our nation's driving seat, and after sitting on the seat they could not bear the honour and glorious aura of the seat, which could have probably overwhelmed their sense of propriety and sobriety, and, in the end, their sense of unworthiness and inferiority complex has compelled them to think they can only assert authority and leadership by being bullish, and for anyone who stands in their way they consider such persons as fodder to be chewed by the bull, and that's why State Terrorism has become a weapon in the hands of such criminal bullies.
But then, there are thorns that cannot be chewed by the bull, and that's why corrupt malevolent dictators cannot always have their way without stiff resistance from persons eternally committed to principles of honour and integrity.
We as a nation all bear collective guilt in the failure of democracy in the sense that we have thrown overboard all the requirements that are standard in leadership recruitment. Rather we invented for ourselves factors and requirements borne out of our bitter souls that engender hatred for others and by extension for the nation, for when you hate fellow citizens because of their geography or what they believe in instead of their cultivated capability, competence and merit, then you are merely demonstrating your hatred for the nation, because you are all still bound together under same social conditions without exception.
At the end of it all you will merely have a nation ruled and governed by crime bosses instead of our very best citizens that are symbols of propriety, sobriety, honour and integrity, which becomes a mockery to your professed faith; your values and your belief systems for being part of the charade, and if you still have any modicum of conscience and self appraisal left, you will just realize that the criminal society which you helped to install has flatly deflated your honour, prestige and ego.
Ask a young virgin that was brutally raped by an outlaw how she felt after she was violated. That's how you should feel by being part of the establishment of a society run by crime bosses.
But then, who will save Nigeria?
I am scared the current roguish Transformation Agenda has breathed some very poisonous air that is not Fresh Air at all into the nostrils and lungs of our once vibrant and courageous military, and now they seem to have everything in common with the purveyor of the morally deficient agenda.
Somehow, the solution lies with the people being buffeted left, right and center by the same rogues they adore and cheer.

Femi Fani Kayode - Politically Hungry

   by Bernard Ezenagu Anyiam 

Reuben Abati was a man formerly, usually known for his firebrand criticism against the government. His insolent, denigrating verbiages against Dame Patience, isn't something to be easily forgotten.

Yet, suddenly, no sooner than later anyone could fathom it, Mr. Abati became an instantaneously, instinctive born-again, and transformed from a bashing critic, to an apostle of Goodluck Jonathan, even producing a ten-series epistle of the president. You can call it "praise singing"! He was finally rewarded with a position in the presidency, and his mouth ultimately shut up. An anti-government critic, became a pro-government attacking wolf!

Years before the advent of Reuben Abati on the list of serial "made in Nigeria" critics, there had been the likes of Tai Solarin, Dr. Beko Ransom-Kuti, Ola Onagoruwa, and of course, our ebullient prof. Wole Soyinka. All of these were compromised by the then government, with serious, lucrative appointments. A clear evidence that those men were apparently seeking political relevance. They certainly got it!

Today though, we have another person who for some time, has been politically isolated, and completely ignored. His name is: Femi Fani Kayode - a one time federal minister of aviation. A man who has since been known for his unrepentantly and now infamous "intimate relations" submission.

He has been a political flirt, changing political husbands and allegiance, as one changes hand gloves in a winter environment. Starting out with the ruling PDP, from which he was appointed by the OBJ presidency, which promoted the "politics of reward" and god-fatherism, he later prostituted with a new-born APC; daily bombarding his mentor party with opposition pronouncements. After a long wait for recognition, yet receiving none from Ahmed Tinubu, Femi (powder) Kayode, decided to make an "illegal" u-turn for a return to the PDP.

How best can one describe a doggy character in a human? A dog is well known for its filthy behaviour in vomiting, then turning round later to lick its vomit. It's not like calling a human being a dog, no, for that would amount to unparalleled denigration of a creature God made in His own image. But it won't be, and isn't out of place to compare Femi Fani Kayode's attitude to that of a dog.

Today, isn't it greatly ironical that, Mr. Kayode, whose short-lived allegiance to APC was highly celebrated by some supposedly honorable characters, is now praise-singing PDP, dancing makossa with GEJ, and ultimately labelling APC as "Almajiri United"? Note, some people made enemies for themselves in support or against Femi's switching. Today, how would these confront each other?

Practical advise is this: It isn't prudent for ordinary citizens to create unnecessary enmity amongst themselves for the sake of charlatans, jobbers, and shameless people who are ready and most willing to sacrifice their mothers for crumbs of bread. Nigerian politicians are Esau-like; a slice of bread and a red soup, is what it could only take to purchase their consciences. They are not for YOU!

Bernard Ezenagu Anyiam

Femi Fani-Kayode: the Hate Preacher and His Imaginary Audience

   

In all my playful attempts to pan the gimmicks of former presidential aide and Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, in social media, I was advised to redirect my interest to more profitable contributions to public discourse. A politically isolated man, clearly incapable of protecting the electoral deposit of any serious people or party, he seems permanently engaged in seeking whatever might pull him even a little bit out of isolation and attract the attention of both the people and the Establishment. The same Establishment to whom he remains, as I’ve heard members of it describe him, a drug-abusing desperado.
To refer to the politics and principles of Mr. Fani-Kayode as ”controversial” is undeserved praise, for controversy is often our perception of the things we do not understand. Nobody misunderstands this former Minister. For a man who wrote, without shame, actually unregretfully, that he had “intimate relationship” with women who are now other men’s wives, women who have now attained social relevance and political prominence, women who are now mothers training children to whom they hope to be seen as behaviourally perfect, women who are now role models and mentors to the younger generation, just to illustrate that he’s not a bigot since the ladies are from the ethnic group he was being accused of hating—there is only one adjective that accurately qualifies him: petty.
That Fani-Kayode and his ilk have found themselves in positions of power, where their decisions were relied on for policies to be implemented, is a scary realisation; they are responsible for the ruin that is our heritage. Their rise to relevance is a proof of the dangerous political opportunism in practice in Nigeria, one that favours a clique that comprises family and friends of families whose principals were once in charge of an affair in the country.
In his latest attempt to confuse himself, in one of his usually long, incoherent and verbose essays, “Goodbye Nigeria, Welcome Oduduwa Republic”, he took us down a memory lane that only exposes his absolute ignorance of the present trouble with Nigeria. He praises the Nigeria of Murtala Mohammed and Theophilius Yakubu Danjuma as the model, and of course he has every right to do that. Yet he remembers the middle-class, these are his family and friends, “whose wealth once knew no bounds and who . . . once owned the finest cars and properties in London, Paris and New York.” He also does not forget the globetrotting beneficiaries of Nigeria’s corruption who “once graced the streets of Belgravia, Chelsea, Hampstead and Knightsbridge.” Of the things that make a nation, or that are reminders that a nation has fallen, the former Minister highlights that our “ancestors studied at Oxford and Cambridge as far back as the 1800′s” and that our “inhabitants and various ethnic nationalities once ruled vast empires” and that our “progenitors contributed so much to the traditions, religion and culture of Ancient Egypt”. Of course, Ancient Egypt!
Perhaps his most embarrassing psychobabbles are those that come out in his quest to know “(w)hat has happened to our great intellectuals…” without even acknowledging that a Nobel laureate walks amongst us today and that there are many sound intellectuals at our ivory towers who, unlike him, haven’t been favoured to be invited for recognition or political appointments by the Establishment. Equally disturbing are his demands to know what happened to “…our men and women of courage and vision who once, like a collosus, bestrode the world” in a time where the Jelani Aliyus, the Chimamanda Adichies, the Abba Gumels, to name just a few, have made marks in inventions, literature and Mathematics respectively. Even at Facebook Inc., the owner of the social networking service, Facebook, where Fani-Kayode amuses his “friends” and followers, Nigerian-born scientists and engineers are employed to contribute to this evolution of the world’s biggest online community. That we have no institution to engage these masters of specialised disciplines for the development of our own country is a failure of this generation whose destruction, Fani-Kayode, and even his father, is a contributor.
But noteworthy in his thesis on a dysfunctional nation is where he, a threatened intellectual, propounds the reason we must see the existence of Nigeria as useless. Mr Fani-Kayode does not mention a single plight of the members of the lower-class who are the actual victims of mis-governance by the elite of which he is a member. What bothers Fani-Kayode cannot really be the “born to rule” posturing of the northern elite referred to as “the northern oligarchs” with whom he is close friends. What bothers him is obviously the fact that he’s been outsmarted in this political equation in which he has neither regional nor national value. His only value as a Nigerian is the fact that he’s the son of a one-time-long-ago Big Man who had afforded his son’s schooling at Redbrick institutions, easy wealth, globetrotting and, more than these, potential membership of the Establishment.
Fani-Kayode’s grouse is the impossibility of sharing a space in a nation “with religious extremists who slit the throats of children”, yet the security arrangements being undermined by these murderous terrorists were designed by the Establishment! As a one-time Minister of Aviation, he had his chance to collaborate with relevant agencies and organisations in building intelligent security systems through which these antisocials and terrorists could not have passed through without detection, talk less going on to threaten our existence as they are now.
Possessed by his characteristic bigotry, Mr Fani-Kayode, in disparaging the north and its intolerable terrorists does not admit that of the three Nigerian-born terrorists overseas, caught in the act, two are actually his kinsmen, fellow Yoruba who, like Shekau, have become throat-slitting Islamist terrorists. Last year, Michael Adebolajo, who asked to be called Mujahid Abu Hamza, and Michael Adebowale, who asked to be called Ismail Ibn Abdullah, were convicted of murdering – and I mean by slitting the throat – of a 25-year-old British soldier, Lee Rigby, in Woolwich, south London. The third, Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab, whose attempt to was foiled, is the son of a northern “oligarch”. Yet, as if these two kinsmen are not enough proof, in the same year, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ordered the extradition of a Yoruba man, Lawal Babafemi, to the U.S. to answer terrorism charges. The 32-year-old tribesman of Fani-Kayode has been declared wanted by the FBI for membership of the terrorist organisation, al-Qaeda. He’s also reported to be friends with senior members of Al-Qaeda, Anwar al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan. And he’s a citizen of Fani-Kayode’s imaginary Oduduwa Republic. A few months after the Woolwich Murder, two Nigerians, Abdullahi Mustapha Berende and Saheed Oluremi Adewumi, were arrested by the Nigerian secret police and charged with assisting an Iranian militant cell in planning possible attacks in Nigeria. I don’t know who Berende is, but Adewumi is unmistakably a Yoruba, Fani-Kayode’s kinsman!
Violence is not a bigot. It consumes every ethnic group, race, religion and political party, indiscriminately where there’s no trust and communication. Consequently, every bigoted and extremist element in the society is potentially violent, and following Fani-Kayode’s antecedents as a hate-preacher who has no convinced audience (yet), he’s guilty of all he’s accused the “born to rule” northerners of. Violence is the aftermath of institutional destructions, of which Fani-Kayode who’s been a regular “customer” of the EFCC, is not innocent. An act of terrorism is the effect of an evil ideology that consumes even the Yoruba, that has consumed Adebolajo and Adebowale and Adewumi and Babafemi, whose yet-to-be discovered bretheren may end us as citizens of the proposed Oduduwa Republic!
Fortunately, the Yoruba are not sheep, and thus any opportunistic shepherd imagining to successfully lead them even one mile into the valley of deceit is only being delusional. On different occasions, I told my friends, many of whom are Yoruba, that the Yoruba people are my favourite in Nigeria, being the most educated as portrayed and the most enlightened as I’ve personally observed. I have absolute confidence in their resistance to being hoodwinked by an individual’s or a group’s religious and ethnic pettiness.
So, I’m not surprised to see that Yorubas are among the loudest critics of Femi Fani-Kayode’s relevance-seeking stunts. Of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria, none has ever been as vigilant and critical of amorphous ethno-religious advocacies like the Yoruba. Don’t misunderstand this, but if Fani-Kayode were a northerner or a “Biafran”, the foot soldiers of his delusional campaigns for secession may have already dominated our space, all fanatically and franctically in solidarity with ”one of their own!”
Nigeria is what it is today because of the “neutrality” of the south-western people whose son was denied Presidency and yet, despite their expressed bitterness, they remain trustworthy believers in One Nigeria. If Abiola were a northerner or easterner, a second civil war might have just been coming to an end now. It’s a pity that Fani-Kayode has no idea that he’s from an ethnic group hard to polarise and play. In my next coming, if that’s indeed possible, I wish to be from a people so sane and progressive.
Nigeria has never at any time been under the rulership of a single ethnic group. The destruction of this country is a collective effort of the political elite whose membership cuts across every ethnic group and religion and region. The Civil War, for instance, was waged when the leadership of Nigeria was under a Christian Head of State and a Christian Deputy. But, to an incurably bigoted Nigerian, the war was a design of the northern Muslims to kill the “Christian South”.
We’re are our worst enemies, and an experience this week confirms that: I read that one million Mexicans – yes, 1,000,000! – converged just to say “#BringBackOurGirls”, in solidarity with Nigerians. Yet, here, at a similar “mass” sit-out in Abuja, the conservative estimate of campaigners has reduced to about 100. Yet, elsewhere I read:”According to Dermographia, the population of Abuja’s Urban Area as of 2012 is 2,245,000.”
Ours is a nation of one-hundred-and-seventy-point-something million cowards of which only the negligible and statistically powerless “point-something” are patriotic. This is why I feel that we deserve what’s happening to us. A functional nation is not built by amens and tweets alone. As a representative of the new generation, my dream is to see Nigeria rescued from the Fani-Kayodes who have employed ethnic, religious and regional sentiments to keep us perpetually against one another. May God save us from us!
By Gimba Kakanda