THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST BOKO HARAM: FOUR YEARS LATE

President Goodluck Jonathan is irritatingly boring and endlessly annoying in equal measures.  For a Commander in Chief to come out and tell Nigerians that he underestimated a threat like the Boko Haram is the height of irresponsibility.  This same man who is now telling us he underestimated Boko Haram was the same man who declared state of emergency on three north-eastern states on three different occasions for a total of eighteen months.  If he underestimated Boko Haram, why did he declare the state of emergency that was ruinous to the people and the area all this while?  His state of emergency only emboldened the insurgents to take control of a swathe of land the size of Belgium and spread over the three states under the emergency rule.  For those living in the three states it was a case of double jeopardy - bombings, killings, and abductions by the insurgents and harassment by the military.  I think Jonathan believed all Nigerians are either stupid or naïve.  In my view, he either has an addled brain or we are all dander heads.

How can the federal government that Jonathan is the Commander in chief be voting one trillion Naira consecutively for four years to the military and yet tell us that the military lacks the requisite equipment to fight a rag tag army that started out as a gun-snatching bunch of miscreants?  In a period spanning over four years, we have been told the same yarn while 15,000 souls perished and properties worth billions of naira was destroyed.  While we are told that the military has no equipment to fight the insurgents, our military fat cats are competing with the politicians on who drive the flashiest cars, no doubt procured from the votes meant for the purchase of military hardware.  I therefore find it rather strange that Nigerians of all hue are falling head over heels to praise the military on the current offensive against the Boko Haram – where were the military all this while? 

Within this period, with Jonathan as Commander in Chief, Baga was wiped off the map and many local governments fell to the insurgents.  We witnessed how big towns like Mubi, Bama, Gwoza, Gamboru, Baga, etc. was occupied for long spells by the insurgents with no effort by the government and its military chiefs to liberate them before now.  Where did the president and his military chiefs get the balls for the new tactics – in the past they usually hold a position and wait for the insurgents to attack.  They only ‘repel’.  When the February elections were shifted, Nigerians were given a timeline within which the insurgency will be brought to an end and this time the government appear to be on target.  Unlike before.

I was flaberwhelmed and overgasted (or is it the other way round?) to hear that the Borno Elders Forum, those who have been calling on Jonathan to act but had all their pleas fall on deaf ears; those who were shouted down by Jonathan and his chorus singers; those who have been on the frontline of the scourge, are now the lead vocalists in praising the military for doing what they were supposed to do ages ago.  Why do they choose to act now after much of the region is destroyed either physically or psychologically?  After over 15,000 lives were needlessly lost; billions destroyed in houses, businesses and man-hours lost at their ubiquitous but useless roadblocks.  After many businesses had to fold up because of curfews and restrictions of movements; after wholesale massacres and dislocations of entire communities with family members scattered all over the north.

Nigerians should ask Jonathan and his military chiefs for explanations as to the new found courage and equipment for tackling the insurgency that they couldn’t do in four years.  They should be asked to explain the new found resolve, courage, determination, weaponry and balls – yes, balls – to reclaim territories which they hitherto failed to do; they should tell us where they got the nous to invade the Sambisa forest, which they repeatedly told us is impregnable.  They should tell Nigerians how an army that was running away from the insurgents overnight got transformed into a fearsome fighting machine, driving fear into the hearts of hardened killers who now dress like women, just like Alamieyseigha.  But most importantly, they should tell us, which Shekau is the president ordering the army to capture alive.  Marlyn Ogar, the garrulous spokesman (woman?) of the DSS told Nigerians last year that Shekau was killed in Konduga and his body displayed for all to see. 

I cannot comprehend how a military that stood by, feigning helplessness, not long ago, can be praised for doing their job four years late.  I am yet to be convinced that an institution like the Nigerian military, revered abroad for its prowess, will woefully fail in its primary responsibility of defending the territorial integrity of the nation could be praised.  I fail to see how I am supposed to be grateful to those who intimidated, harassed and even question my humanity.  I am at a loss on why I am expected to canonise an army that more often than not act like the Boko Haram, at least in the northeast.  I am but a poor Nigerian whose humanity was diminished by those holding guns on our highways while terrorist were having field days in the towns. 

What do I tell a parent whose daughter have been abducted for almost a year with no hope of seeing her again?  What do I tell a family that lost a child to the marauding killers?  How am I supposed to look someone who lost his worldly possession because of the inaction of the government and its security apparatus and tell him that the military is doing well for him?  How do I tell an orphan to put his trust in a government that stood by while his parents were butchered?  I cannot in all honesty and with a clear conscience say kudos to our government and the military for discharging their statutory responsibility of protecting the lives of the people and the territorial integrity of the nation four years late.

No sir, Mr president, I am not buying into this latest vote-getting scam.  Not at the expense of those traumatised by your inertia.

FAYOSE & THE BUHARI HEALTH “WATCH”

The audio recording by one captain Sagir Koli of the Nigerian Army that went viral on how officials of the PDP and the government used the army to rig the 2014 Ekiti state gubernatorial election and the interview granted Sahara Reporters by the same Army officer, made clear to me the fixation of Ayodele Fayose with General Muhammadu Buhari.  Fayose was the beneficiary of the rigging scheme which sent Kayode Fayemi out of the Ekiti government house and he is scared of what will happen to him in the event Buhari wins the rescheduled 2015 presidential election.  He would rather General Buhari die before March 28^th than see a Buhari presidency with him possibly ending in jail.  This is because the revelations in the tape are tantamount to a military coup against Fayemi and the Ekiti people.  The coup was carried out using the Army led by a Brigadier General and orchestrated by two Ministers of the Federal Republic.

General Muhammadu Buhari is in the UK right now engaged in a working visit, meeting with British politicians, policy makers and captains of industry with a view to selling himself and his programmes. He may also use the opportunity to show the English that he is not the ogre the PDP is making him out to be.  Almost everybody who happened to be at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport saw the General queuing up to join the British Airways yet Fayose still insists that Buhari was flown out in an air ambulance.  How morbid can some people be in their desperation?  How can someone be so fixated with another’s state of health to the extent that one could be this reckless?  What transgression have the people of Ekiti committed to deserve this monster as their governor?

Fayose have a history of rascality and that may be responsible for his impeachment during his first incarnation as the governor of Ekiti state.  He also had a murder case hanging on his neck before the PDP exhumed him from his political Siberia and imposed him on the good people of the state just so that the PDP will have its way in the forthcoming elections.  The confessions of the Army captain and the admission by some of the participants to the treasonable meeting that returned Fayose as governor means little to the president and his party because the people are of no concern to them.  If the president really care about the people of Ekiti state in particular and Nigeria in general as he claimed, Fayose should be in jail by now, with Jelili Adesiyan, the Minister of Police Affairs and Musiliu Obanikoro, erstwhile Minister of State, Defence, keeping him company in the dungeons.  But in the president’s usual ways of “not giving a damn” about you and me, he dismissed the recording with a wave of his magisterial hand.  While Adesiyan remains a member of Jonathan’s cabinet, Obanikoro is nominated to the same cabinet in complete disregard to the outcry in respect to the roles they played in the Ekiti elections.

Fayose is a violent man and desperate man at that.  This is a man who violated the sanctity of a courtroom by invading the court while in session with hoodlums and slapped a judge and nothing happened to him.  If such a man has consistently being talking about death of the presidential candidate of the APC and the party kept quiet, then something must be wrong.  In his desperation to see Buhari dead, it has been reported that he has followed the General to the UK for only God knows what.  It was also earlier reported that Fayose hired some people in London to trail Buhari wherever he goes and it wasn’t denied.  Yet the APC is taking all this lying low.  Am I missing something? When a man of such violent tendencies threatens my chicken, I will make sure he will never sleep again.  Has he been consulting babalawos who assured him Buhari will die of a sickness to be cast on him by them or what? 

The consistency and stridency in the claims of Buhari’s illness should not be taken lightly by the APC.  In the event any harm befalls him we know who to hold responsible.  If the president is chicken to act on such nonsense, Nigerians have to be prepared to defend their integrity and safety when those in authority decides to play God over our affairs.  We have seen how all those around the president have been threatening the corporate existence of the country without any of them being dragged to the office of the Department of Sleaze and Scoundrels (DSS).  The difference between Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and Fayose is that where the Niger Delta oil thieves have been threatening the country in the event Jonathan lost the election, Fayose have been threatening Buhari’s personal safety and existence.  Am wary of a man who still has a case of murder hanging over him making such statements and even made it a vocation to trail the man he believed should throw him in jail.

Fayose keeps repeating that the Buhari will never be the president of Nigeria and he says this with a certainty of someone on terra firma.  What is giving Fayose this level of confidence that Buhari will never be the president of this country?  Is it any fetish assurance he is relying on or is it going to be another snivelling Brigadier he will use to stop Buhari?  I think Nigerians should ask him these questions and his fixation with Buhari’s health status.  The media must put him on the spot to lay bare his sources of confidence on the APC candidate’s health condition and not just follow him around sheepishly lapping all the nonsense he dishes out to them.  Last time I checked he wasn’t Buhari’s Doctor.

The likes of Fayose have gradually weakened the unity of the country because of their deliberate insensitiveness.  The man and the characters that populate Jonathan’s administration and campaign team are jeopardising the unity of the country to the applause of the president and to the chagrin of patriots.  If we allow them to continue tugging at our fault lines, then we deserve them. 

GOODLUCK JONATHAN IS A COWARD

 

President Goodluck Jonathan is a coward.  Or how do you honestly describe someone who came to office through democratic process and is now doing everything possible to scuttle the same process that brought him to the office?  In his reckless adventure, he is not averse to bringing down the house on everyone.  His Rottweilers turned their poisoned tongues on former president Olusegun Obasanjo for giving them straight – that the Jonathan gang are taking Nigeria on the same path Gbagbo took Ivory Coast before the French intervened and saved the country from a needless civil war.  For lack of anything to say, the presidency, the PDP and Jonathan’s mudslingers resort to vile language to answer critics of the government.  Anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy and should not be spared the acidic tongue of Funny Kayode, Doyin Okupe, Reuben Abati or the dinosaur known as Edwin Clark and gang of oil thieves masquerading as Ijaw patriots.  Now Obasanjo has left the party for our neo-carpetbaggers and he did that in a very dramatic manner – he tore his PDP membership in public.

Goodluck Jonathan has a deceptive mien and works hard to promote his image as a God fearing harmless man who will never allow the spilling of blood by anyone for him to remain a day longer than constitutionally allowed in office.  But under this timid and docile exterior lies a cunningly dangerous man who can comfortably superintend the extermination of hundreds of thousands if that will guarantee his continued occupation of the office of the president.  We have seen how he keeps mum while his associates insults the rest of the country and go as far as threatening war in the event he loses the forthcoming elections.  While opposition figures are fair game to a compromised security apparatus, Jonathan’s friends must be given protection to rain abuses on us poor folks.

 Goodluck Jonathan left no one in doubt that he is a going to be a sectional president right from the get go but we all ignored the danger signs and we are now paying for it.  We all remember the October 1^st, 2010 bombing at the Eagle Square, an act that was claimed by MEND only for Jonathan to exonerate the group well before any form of investigation commenced.  His reason being that he knows his people and know that they cannot do what they claimed to have done, the then spate of bombings and kidnappings in the Niger Delta notwithstanding.  And so began the serial bombings, killings and general insecurity in the north with the president wringing his hands and projecting an image of a besieged leader who cannot do anything.  His supporters with his active support and prompting went to town with the implausible story that the north is killing its kindred just because they don’t like his face.  They refused to see the danger staring them in the face by their divisive tactics and mindlessness.  While the rest of the country was forced to be defending themselves against manufactured charges, Jonathan and his people are stealing the country blind.  And this is where we can locate the need to scuttle our hard won democracy.

The level of theft under the Jonathan administration is unparallelld in any modern day country – the buccaneers of the 17^th and 18^th century will surely be turning green in envy wherever they are.  They will look like angels compared to Jonathan.  This is the first government in the chequered political history of Nigeria to turn over the federation’s purse to a few selected people to do as they wish.  Some few individuals became so powerful they believe they can determine the economic and political fate of the over 170 million Nigerians.  The likes of Deziani, Okonjo Iweala, Sambo Dasuki, Edwin Clark and their minions with a covering fire from Ayo Oritsejafo, are so enmeshed in stealing (not corruption, mind you) that they cannot afford to leave office and remain free.  This is fundamentally the reason for the postponement of the elections and the plan to abort it altogether ultimately.

The insecurity alibi that was used to arm-twist the INEC in shifting the elections was put to test by the visit of General Muhammadu Buhari to Maiduguri yesterday and the massive turnout by his supporters effectively put to lie the claim by the military (Esau’s voice) of not guaranteeing the security of voters.  The youth of Borno under the auspices of Civilian JTF provided security to the APC presidential candidate when he announced his plan to visit Chibok – that traumatised community which the cowardly Jonathan couldn’t find the guts to visit even as he is the Commander in Chief.

In their ill-advised adventure to delay their day of judgement, they are ready to plunge the country into chaos just so that the elections cannot hold.  The mayhem visited on the people of Gombe on Sunday the 15^th of February 2015 falls in line with the regime’s thinking.  The attack came a day after the military are supposed to have launched a “massive” attack on the insurgents terrorising a corner of the northeast.  I have always been sceptical about the military’s tactics in this war against the insurgents – why is it that the military have never attacked them in the past and only waits for them to attack first before they “repel” them?  How are the insurgents able to move around freely without the fear of being molested by the soldiers manning the many roadblocks in the region, while innocent passengers are daily subjected to one form of harassment or the other?  Are we to expect more attacks between now and March 28^th, so that the government may have an excuse for invoking section 135 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended)?  This section, in conjunction with section 180 (3), section 64 (2) and section 105 (2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) may be the government’s jokers in trying to extend the agony of Nigerians by six months “in the first instance”.  And these sections, whose total effects may be used to extend the tenures of all elected persons, may be Deziani’s immunity clauses.

We must be vigilant.

SNPA & NDPVF: SAME DIFFERENCE

Alex Ekwueme’s major claim to national prominence was his serving the nation as a vice president in the second republic.  He went into hibernation after their government was overthrown only to resurface as a delegate to the Abacha organised National Conference in 1995, where his major contribution was the proposal for the balkanisation of the hitherto three regions into what he called “six geo-political zones”.  We all thought Ekwueme was a nationalist and a statesman who got the short end of the stick from a military lusting for power and an unappreciative political class.  When he floated the Institute of civil society in 1998, we all rushed to join believing the man was a Nigerian at heart not knowing he is a closet Biafran.

I was therefore shocked by the vituperations contained in the press statement released by the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly to find the name of Ekwueme as one of the signatories alongside Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu and Edwin Clark.  Their statement came on the heels of another one by unrepentant militants, issued from the Bayelsa State Government House.  The press statement by those who may otherwise be statesmen in more civilised climes was to all intents and purposes an intimidation and blackmail on the person of Professor Attahiru Jega the INEC Chairman and Nigerians.  While every Nigerian was well aware that the president wanted the February elections cancelled for no discernible reason other than self-preservation, the threats and intimidation were unnecessary and uncalled for.  The tone and language of the Ekwueme press statement was not substantially different from the one earlier issued by Edwin Clark, Tompolo, Dokubo and Boyloaf.

The Jonathan administration is the most divisive government ever in the history of this country and I say this with all sense of responsibility.  This government succeeded in balkanising the country along all its known fault lines and is continuing to do so just to achieve its selfish ends.  We have seen how it has courted, nurtured, pampered and protected hate merchants and hooligans and exalted them far and above their fellow law abiding citizens; we have seen how hate speech has developed into a trade for some unscrupulous people.  Nigerians were treated to the most divisive campaign ever in the political development of the country led by our neo Goebbels Fani Kayode and the chief proponent of Janjaweed politics, Olisa Metuh.  The duo and Doyin Okupe seem to derive joy and satisfaction in pushing Nigeria towards the road to Kigali while the president stand by watching with amused satisfaction. 

It is to this group that Ekwueme decided to lend his name – not as a Nigerian elder statesman but as a regional champion.  Nigeria is finished if the likes of Ekwueme will allow their names to be associated with barefaced lies, which are easily verifiable.  We thought his horizon goes further than those of Edwin Clark and Okorunmu because of the exalted office he was privileged to occupy in the past.

Those who signed the press release know very well that all the allegations contained in their release are baseless and without foundation.  And this can easily be verified, like I said earlier.  The allegations seem to have been cooked in the presidency’s dirty affairs department but in the Southern Nigeria Peoples’ Assembly’s haste to do the presidency’s bidding, they threw decorum and decency to the dogs and issued a tissue of lies knowing them to be lies to an already tensed country, no thanks to their off-springs – the militants.  Jega’s reputation and the general consequences of their action are of no significance to them.  As for their reputation, it doesn’t exist.

Basking in their earlier pyric victory of blackmailing Jega into suspending the long overdue constituency delineation exercise because it didn’t favour them, they have now embarked on the most dangerous leg of their irredentist campaign and the whole country seem to be stupefied.  The campaign against Jega and INEC now seem to be a systematic and continual chiselling of Jega’s reputation and integrity until such a time that Nigerians lose faith and confidence in his ability and that of the Commission to consduct a credible election.  Their logic appear to be, “since they failed worfully in their efforts to destroy Buhari’s reputation and people pulling power, why not destroy that of the umpire.”  And in this, there is no discernable difference between Ekwueme, Dokubo and FunnyI-Kayode.

The truth behind their press conference and other actions is gradually unfurling for all Nigerians to see.  It was clearly to find an excuse of postponing the February elections and they have succeeded – to an extent.  Sadly for them, due to the incoherence nature of their ill-plans, they couldn’t find common ground as to why the elections must be postponed – is it because PVCs have not been properly distribute or insecurity in the northeast or logistical problems as par Fani-Kayode?  They couldn’t agree on one thing even among their small circle. 

The Ekwueme group appear to be competing for recognition with the militants whose understanding of democracy begins an ends with Jonathan remaining in power until kingdom come.  Their threat of taking up arms against the rest of the country rings hollow to someone like me who is living in the north and has been living with war in one form or another since the ascension of Jonathan Goodluck to the office of the president.  Breaking up Nigeria wouldn’t be a big deal to the average northerner and may in fact welcome such a development, so I don’t think it is still an issue whether the country remain the same or not to most of us.  Insulting one’s cultural values, religious beliefs and most of the things cherished by one has already broken up the country, so no amount of threats will make most of us change our political beliefs.  Though it is immaterial to them that Jonathan is a total failure as universally agreed, it is very crucial to those who still loves the country, warts and all.

Either by acts of omission or commission, the federal government has brought the north to its sorry knees.  Its agents provocateurs persistently denigrate the north and its leaders; its economy destroyed and its territory under the boots of murderers on a rampage unchecked by a federal army more interested in mounting roadblocks in towns and cities, molesting the poor than engaging the murderers.  While the north is bleeding from all its economic and social veins, the president’s supporters are inflicting more cuts on the country and the region.

Now that Jonathan has gotten his wish by pre-annulling the elections and shifting it to march, what is in store for the north?  Can we continue along these destructive paths by wallowing in self-pity or do we have at least the mental capacity to stand-up to those bullying us? 

Unsavoury comments have been making rounds like the replacement of Professor Attahiru Jega with the younger brother to governor MImiko.  Such allegations should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand because we have seen how the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was eased out of office for blowing the whistle about the sleaze in the government.  He who is down, fears no fall.

USTAZ NAMADINA, LET’S DEBATE

Vice President Namadi Sambo (aka Namadina), the one half of the Jonathan/ Sambo ticket hails from Kaduna State.  This is no news.  It is also no news anymore that the guy have been going round the country pretending to be reciting Al-Fatiha in his effort to woo the Muslim voters in the mistaken belief or mischief that Goodluck Jonathan is not acceptable to them because he is a Christian.  I am not aware if anyone had ever doubted that.  His recitation of the Fatiha and his attempt at appealing to the religious sentiments of the northern voters, whose minds have been made to kick him out of the Villa, appears pathetic and dangerous.  In his desperation to remain the lapdog of those holding the president and the presidency hostage, he was (is) oblivious of the danger in his antics – putting a tinderbox at the brittle feet of an already polarised society.  But thank God, instead of establishing his religious bonafides, the man only succeeded in exposing his ignorance.  Allah wadan naka ya lalace.  The buffoonery must be maintained in order to divert the attention of his constituents from his disastrous failure.  It is now apparent to all, including the clown, that he is an unmitigated catastrophe to us.

The vice president might have resorted to these base levels because there is nothing he can tell or show his immediate constituency (the north) on what their government did for the region or even Kaduna State.  While he was busy escorting Patience Jonathan to parties and jamborees, the northern region was systematically decimated in all spheres due to the policies of a government he pretends to be the second in command.  The northeast is ravaged by Boko Haram, the north central is devastated by a contrived farmers/ herders' clash and the northwest is overwhelmed by banditry.  In this situation, how can the people thrive?  It is a race for survival daily for the inhabitants of Namadina’s region and the plight of the people is of no concern to him.

While Goodluck and Namadina are beating their chest on the political hustling telling those who care to listen to them how they have developed the north by establishing almajiri schools and ten Universities in the region, majority of northerners are dying from hunger, banditry and insurgency.  Incidentally they forgot to tell us how many of us are almajiris or for how long ASUU went on strike and even the amount of money pumped into these Universities for research and infrastructural development.  The fact that the Goodluck Jonathan administration decided to establish what they call almajiri school is denigrating to me as a person.  This policy appears to give credence to how the creek rats like Asari Dokubo see all northerners.  But I have a question or two to Mr. Namadina on how their government treats issues of development and progress of the north and northerners.

They claimed on several of their campaign stops to be interested in human development of this sick part of Nigeria – the leeches and the parasites.  That is okay.  I will like to take just one human development institution in Kaduna which was conceived and started by the late ‘Yar Adu’a – the National College for Petroleum Studies, Kaduna.  This is a project that was conceived to train management level and middle cadre officers for the Petroleum industry.  Billions has already being expended on the project.  Sadly, this laudable project was stalled from the day Jonathan and Namadina took over.  Kaduna is the home state of Namadina and a lot of their children would have had the opportunity of being trained in the sector since the Petroleum Training Institute, Warri is a no go area for products of “almajiri” schools.  Or at least since in their magnanimity they have established almajiri schools and almajiri Universities in the region, they would have completed this massive project and convert it to an almajiri technical institution.

The vice president is unmindful of the number of people whose livelihoods have been permanently destroyed because the government deliberately starved the project of the needed funds – the contractors, the suppliers, the petty traders and the construction workers who were all engaged in one way or the other when the project was on-going.  Some contractors have been permanently incapacitated by the government’s failure to pay them for work done.

Another project, also in Kaduna, with life changing and saving implications for the people is the abandoned 44 Army Reference Hospital.  This project was also started during the ‘Yar Adu’a period.  It is supposed to be a United Nations referral hospital for troops deployed under the UN around the flashpoints of West and Central Africa.  The hospital has also been the referral centre for the inhabitants of Kaduna since the relocation of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital from Kaduna to Shika in Zaria.  With the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan and Namadina Sambo, the hospital is now of the abandoned projects that litter our landscape.

I am not sure Namadi Sambo truly knows what development means - what can be defined as social service or provision of infrastructure.  He is either clueless or deliberately wicked.  Take the case of the Zaria Water works.  His company, Nalado Construction Company is the major contractor for the project and Zaria is his supposed hometown, yet he couldn’t give them water after collecting billions of naira from the state government for that purpose.  At one time he was the contractor and the client – owner of the construction company and governor of Kaduna state. 

What happened to the Kudenda power station that is supposed to generate 215MW for the comatose industries in the state? Yet to be completed.  Gurara?  The textile industry resuscitation fund? Need I say more?  These are issues to be discussed and explained as campaign issues not reciting the Fatiha, which in any case have been faulted by students of tajweed.  These are issues to be debated at your crooked debates organised by your agencies and hirelings.  These are the things your sidekick, Ramalan Yero should explain to the poor, long suffering people of the state and not making inflammatory statements.

These projects are all located in Kaduna the vice president’s home state.  For someone like me coming from Adamawa State, the rehabilitation of the Gombe – Numan – Yola road is of paramount importance to me.  This project was awarded by the late Umaru ‘Yar Adu’a but unfortunately the project died with him.  Those who ply the road know what I am talking about.  I do not want to take up all the issues that are supposed to be addressed by the vice president but failed.  The size of the whole region may be heavy for him  - but Kaduna?  While they are busy accusing General Buhari of running away from ‘their’ debate, we are inviting them to our debate.  Please address the issues raised above and then let’s start talking.

May be you can enlighten us on why the east – west road is a permanent fixture on your weekly Federal Executive Council meetings while the Gombe – Numan – Yola road was consigned to the dustbin; may be we can learn more on why the insurgency in the north east is still on while your government spends billions on an open-ended Amnesty programme for oil thieves; on the distinction between the almajiri school and the conventional school, who should attend which and the need for the segregation; on why over N670billion was allocated and released for projects in the Niger Delta region in the 2014 fiscal year and only N26billion for the northwest.

Mr.  Namadina, let’s meet at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna for a Town Hall style debate for us almajiris to be enlightened by your imperial self.

Afri-Projects Consortium NPOM Press Statement

 

It is political campaign season again, and it comes with the usual peddling of mischief and smear by hatchet players who do not give a care whose reputation is marred. Our attention, sadly, has once again been drawn to a statement, issued by the Director of media and publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Chief. Femi Fani-Kayode. The statement contains what we consider to be unfortunate, wild and irresponsible slander, this time not only against the name of our firm, Afri-Projects Consortium, but also, most disturbingly, the person of our departed friend, colleague and brother of blessed memory, the late Salihijo Ahmad. Mr. Fani-Kayode refers to the late Salihijo Ahmed as “the witness that could have nailed Buhari about the graft that took place at PTF … but died under mysterious circumstances”. Once again an old and archaic report, which has long been over taken by events and discredited, is being bandied in a desperate effort to rubbish the accomplishments of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) which operated in the years between 1995 and 1999, under which our firm, Afri-Projects Consortium, served as Management Consultants.

We have had occasion sometime in November 2002 to respond to a smear campaign related to this same report. As we have always stated, ours is a professional firm. Our name represents and associates with a large group of patriotic Nigerian consultants whose primary aspiration is the pursuit of excellence and professional integrity. We are a non-political organization and would ordinarily opt not to respond to such innuendoes that have political intent. We also believe that the members of the Board of Trustees of the defunct PTF were all persons of towering character and esteem. Their names were a roll call of honour and integrity: Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd.) – Executive Chairman, Mallam Yahaya Gusau, Alhaji Ahmed Talib, Chief Rufus F. Giwa, Prof. J. P. Clark, Prof. Chimere Ikoku, Chief D. B. Zang and Chief Tayo Akpata. All of them, except Gen. Buhari and Prof. J. P Clark, have passed on to the great beyond. Their integrity and blessed memory cannot possibly be denigrated by the exuberance of a director of media and publicity of a political campaign. Nonetheless, we are compelled to respond to this hubris, not only to protect the honour of our late colleague Salihijo Ahmad, but also in defence of hard work of hundreds of professionals and conscientious staff who toiled day and night during the PTF years to give the nation their best in the delivery of meaningful projects.

The PTF was scrapped by then President Obasanjo in late June 1999 shortly after his inauguration on 29th May 1999. He set up an Interim Management Committee (IMC) headed by Dr Haroun Adamu, to wind it up. The IMC went into a frenzy of investigation of the PTF operations and submitted a report in early 2000. That Haroun Adamu report, which is now being referred to, was a report lacking in credibility and undertaken with pre-conceived notion of uncovering imaginary "sleaze" by any means. For instance, the Committee report accused our firm of over invoicing our professional fees, and recommended that we refund N2.4 billion. Up till that moment we had received fees amounting to about N2.67billion, an amount less than 1.5% of the total value of PTF projects and programmes under our management. We had provided consultancy services spanning 4 years full time, involving over 350 highly skilled professional and support staff, at offices and sites located all over the country.

President Obasanjo fired the Haroun Adamu led Committee in March 2000 for incompetence, and amidst serious charges of embezzlement. Several hundreds of millions of Naira of public funds stolen from the PTF were actually recovered from some members of that Committee.  In the subsequent year following the dissolution of that Dr. Haroun Adamu led IMC, two other Committees were assigned to continue the investigation of the defunct PTF. It was under the headship of Malam Adamu Waziri (former Hon. Minister of Police Affairs) however that a final and comprehensive report was eventually submitted to the President. Not only were all our responses affirmed, but the government team also accepted the validity of a substantial portion of our outstanding fees. Part of these fees was approved and subsequently paid.

The PTF certainly underwent some of the most rigorous investigations carried out on any agency. Having gone through three investigative committees and several audit firms over a period of about 24 months, none of the principals of Afri-Projects Consortium was ever indicted of wrongdoing. As it is, Chief Obasanjo himself has now affirmed that the PTF headed by General Buhari was indeed probed and nothing amiss was found. So, where is the so-called “graft” that the late Salihijo

Ahmad would have exposed?

We have had nothing but the highest regard for Gen. Buhari and the other members of the Board of Trustees of the defunct PTF. Their names and personalities still remain embodiments of integrity and selfless service. We expect that politicians like Femi Fani-Kayode should learn to respect the worth of our past and present heroes. The late Salihijo died in Abuja on Monday 5th July 1999, barely a week after the appointment of the IMC headed by Dr. Haroun Adamu and about seven months before they filed their discredited report. We therefore demand that they should leave the deceased’s soul rest in perfect peace, as we pray to Allah to grant Salihijo Ahmad’s soul Al-jannatul Firdaus. Ameen.

Afri-Projects Consortium as a Firm and its consultants and associates have till today continued to lead active and successful professional lives. Since 1999, we have moved on to make contributions and perform important professional duties on projects and programmes in public and private agencies and organisations. Our principals have held public offices in all the past three administrations. We have undertaken several national and international assignments and are leaders in our respective professions. We are proud that our integrity has withstood the most exerting scrutiny, during and ever since the PTF years.

We wish to state that our firm, Afri-Projects Consortium, related with the defunct PTF in a professional and principled manner. We discharged our services to PTF conscientiously giving our best; and after its scrapping stayed around and engaged to give account of our services, and we did so creditably and satisfactorily. That was what our sense of duty dictated to us; it is what the late Salihijo Ahmad would have wished us to do.

Signed:

ü Engr. Nuruddeen A. Rafindadi, FNSE. Past President, ACEN - Partner

ü Alh. Murtala Aliyu, FNIQS. President, NIQS. - Partner

ü Engr. A. Dahiru, FNSE. – Managing Partner

ü Ms. Amina J. Mohammed. UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Post-

2015 Development Planning.– Partner (Rtd.)

Afri-Projects Consortium.

29 January 2015

FEMI FANI-KAYODE, DAN ULASI: I WISH YOU THE SAME

The PDP has lost it – I mean any sense of decency – that is if they ever had it.  A party claiming to hold certain values and ethos cannot be behaving in the manner the party, its presidential candidate and its presidential campaign committee are behaving.  The character traits they have been exhibiting since the day Buhari won the APC presidential primary election is no better than any unlettered, uncultured, uncouth and primitive inhabitants of rodent infested creeks.  I hasten to beg the ready to excuse my language and choice of words but if the reader can tolerate the barbaric, nihilistic behaviour of the PDP, I beg him to forgive my decision to descend into the gutter and meet the likes of Femi Fani-Kayode and Dan Ulasi in their habitat.

I really pity Femi Fani-Kayode.  I pity him for a lot of reasons, but mainly for his inability to be ashamed of somersaults and I also fear for him that he may not have a relapse of his well documented “psychological breakdown”.  The man is truly an animal without shame.  But my heart goes out to those Nigerians who listen to and then go ahead to quote Fani-Kayode.  I thought it is only a Jonathan Goodluck or Namadi(na) Sambo, who for lack of a better thing to do listen to Fani-Kayode.  This is a man who was once committed to a mental institution in Ghana, now the lead spokesman of our president.  Does this not tell you about the character and comportment of our president?

With Reuben Abati pretending to be urbane and Doyin Okupe struggling between blaspheming Jesus Christ (AS) and identifying himself a bastard, a certified schizophrenic was drafted to be the president’s chief attack dog.  A man without scruples or sense of decency is our president’s trusted mouthpiece.  Knowing the well documented mental instability of Fani-Kayode, I have hesitated to join issues with him in the past, but I must do so now because I believe the man is overstepping the bounds of sanity and may ultimately drag so many of our undiscerning into his world.  I have never taken Fani-Kayode serious because I am of the opinion that taking him serious may mean joining him in his loony world.  Here is a man who vacillates between fantasy and reality so often that he lives more in the fantasy world than in the real world; a man who could easily change his mind on strategic issues and so frequently without batting an eye, yet is today at the forefront of the Jonathan campaign organisation as its spokesman.

Femi Fani-Kayode likes to believe he is the “stormy petrel” of today’s politics in Nigeria; but he is not.  He is just another political jobber, permanently looking for relevance and pocket change.  This is a man who proudly “kissed and told” on his relationship with Bianca Onoh, Nigeria’s Ambassador to Spain.  Flaunting his immorality is not enough for him but he has now taken the job of denigrating perceived enemies of Goodluck, insulting the president’s ‘betters’ and behaving like a “motor park tout” that he is, in the words of his principal.  Fani-Kayode did it before – he was Obasanjo’s chief attack dog during the former president’s second term.  This was after Fani-Kayode castigated the Ota farmer endlessly as if Obasanjo was his only vocation. 

Dan Ulasi, a former (?) Anambra State Chairman of the PDP is pushing to the frontline of Jonathan’s hate merchants to be recognised.  It appears he want to outdo Fani-Kayode at being the chief foul mouth of the PDP.  Having lost out in the power struggle in the vampire-invested PDP, the man is pushing hard to be counted.  To so be recognised in their world of negativism, he is ready to disturb the dead by telling lies and talking ill of the dead, something that is un African.  All in his efforts to ingratiate himself to Jonathan.

What the two had in common is their ability to look Nigerians in the eye and tell them bedtime stories, which they know, are lies.  They have thrown everything at General Buhari including the kitchen sink without him batting an eye.  Much as I was pained by the blatant lies they bandy around, I consoled myself that the General and his party had the machinery to respond to the fabrications.  What raised my dander about these two unsavoury goons is their reference to the late Salihijo Ahmad, a Director in Afri-Projects Consortium, the management Consultants to the defunct PTF.  In their desperation to discredit Buhari on behalf of their principal, they were not loath to lie about the dead.  While all the mud they threw at Buhari refused to stick, they have now exhumed a discredited phantom “report” which indicted Buhari about a missing N25billion from the PTF while he was the agency’s Chairman.

If the duo and the PDP are so sure of their facts, why don’t they invite Obasanjo, Haroun Adamu and his Interim Management Committee to come and tell Nigerians what they know about the “missing” billion.  Afri-Projects Consortium, the consultancy firm purportedly indicted by the report is still around and willing to be suborned.  It is noteworthy that the same Obasanjo made Mallam Murtala Aliyu, the current President of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveying (NIQS), a Minister after the Haroun Adamu led IMC was sacked for corruption.  I also know that Dr. Ochi Achinuvu, the Director of Programmes in the PTF during General Buhari’s watch became a Federal Permanent Secretary and is now a member of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign council.  Another Director of the Firm, Amina J. Ibrahim headed the MDG office from where she now serve on the staff of the United Nations Secretary General as Special Adviser.  So why the insinuations?

Knowing all the principal actors are alive, I wonder of what value dragging the name of the late Salihijo Ahmad will be to the electability or otherwise of their candidate.  The attempt to introduce “mysterious death” or “suicide” by the late Salihijo is the height of irresponsibility.  Desperation doesn’t mean madness, though I know Fani-Kayode has a history of madness, I can’t be certain of Ulasi.  The late Salihijo Ahmad will be turning in his grave if he is to know that such characters are taking his name in vain.  He wouldn’t have come anywhere near the Jonathan gang for all the money in the world because he was an epitome of uprightness and virtuousness.  He doesn’t suffer fools nor related with the uncivilised.  I am sure there are many people all over the country and across every known divide who will willingly come out to testify on the character of the late Salihijo.  If it is a curse or a wish, just the like the death wish on Buhari by Fayose, I wish them the same.

The late Salihijo Ahmad was a deeply religious man and therefore the thought of committing suicide will not even cross his mind.  For these misfits to impute either a “mysterious death” or “suicide” to him is unacceptable in every sense of the word.  In Ulasi’s fables, the late Salihijo Ahmad and Buhari’s wife were from the same parents.  For the benefit of the discerning, the late Salhijo Ahmad has no filial relationship in any form and neither Buhari nor Salihijo ever claimed so. 

Nigerians should be aware, that what do Jonathan’s associates and ‘spokespersons’ exhibit during this campaign is what we should expect in the unlikely event that Jonathan wins the February 14^th election.  May God forbid that.  Asari Dokubo, Tompolo, Boyloaf, Namadi Sambo, Goodluck Jonathan, Olisa Metuh, Femi Fani-Kayode and Dan Ulasi.  This a preview of Jonathan’s cabinet.  Birds of the same plumage…