AS THE NYAKOS AND FINTIRI APPEAR BEFORE ABUJA FEDERAL HIGH COURTS

The former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, and his son, Abdul-aziz, are currently facing trial at a Federal High Court in Abuja for different cases of alleged corruption. The Nyakos and others are standing trial in a 37-count charge bordering on criminal conspiracy, stealing, abuse of office and money laundering to the tune of N29 billion preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as they are alleged to have at various times between 2011 and 2013, used five companies – Blue Opal Nigeria limited, Sebore Farms & Extension Limited, Pagoda Fortunes Limited, Towers Assets Management Limited and Crust Energy Limited to commit the alleged fraud. As their trial continued, former acting governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri was also arraigned before an Abuja High Court on similar but different charges. Mr. Fintiri was last month arraigned by the EFCC on a five-count charge bordering on money laundering. He was said to have defrauded the Adamawa government to the tune of N970 million and 4.8 million dollars when he was the governor of the state for three months. As is to be expected, each of the cases has been unique in hearing and other processes that will lead to the determination of the case. In the case involving Abdulaziz Nyako, the court last month, ordered the EFCC to pay the sum of N12.5 million being exemplary damages in favour of the senator for unlawful freezing of his account and illegal detention. This is because the judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, held while delivering judgment in the fundamental rights enforcement suit, that Senator Nyako, was detained in the custody of the commission in excess of the period prescribed by law. The court in the same judgment also held that declaring the younger Nyako ‘wanted’ without evidence of crime is tantamount to a breach of his fundamental human rights by the EFCC. Justice Evoh Chukwu of the Federal High Court Abuja in a similar vein blamed the EFCC for delaying judgment on former governor Nyako’s case. This was after the counsel to Nyako, Yakubu Maikyau said they needed to study a document tendered by the EFCC counsel because it was voluminous before going on with the cross-examination which justice Chukwu sustained explaining that the document should have been served to Nyako’s counsel, Maikyau long before now, adding that the fresh document amounts to delay of judgment.  But before the conclusion of the case, Justice Chukwu who was handling the trial of the former Adamawa State governor and his two children as well as other major cases like the trial of former officials of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), Sani Lulu, Taiwo Ogunjobi and others died. The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, then re-assigned the case to Justice Okon Abang following the death of Chukwu in June. The case was initially scheduled to commence afresh by way of re-arraignment on July 7. However, the court could not sit due to the extension of the Eid-el-Fitri holiday announced by the Federal Government on July 5, further delaying the case as the EFCC will now have to re-arraign the former governor and his son before Justice Okon Abang on September 12, 2016. Even as the matter has dragged due to no fault of the accused persons, it is pertinent to point out that the delay in dispensing with the case, which the late judge complained about is set to further aggravate with the processes, as the new judge handling the case needs time to appraise himself with the facts of the matter. But of serious concern is another coincidence, having to do with the fact that the wife of the former governor, who is a step mother to the other accused person, who are both being arraigned, is also a judge in a federal High Court in Abuja. Previous cases that are similar in nature have raised concerns in the past and it will not be out of place to ask certain questions if only to ensure a fulfillment of a vital requirement in the dispensation of justice, which is seeing that justice is not only done but seemed to be done. Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last governorship election in Rivers State, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, not long ago raised an issue out of a similar coincidence when the wife of a former governor of the state, Justice Mary Odili, who is believed to be close to Governor Nyesom Wike, a party in a matter that went to the Supreme Court, was serving as a judge when the apex court delivered its judgment. Peterside said "credible information" confirmed that Wike had met with the Supreme Court justices that sat on the matter at different places before the judgment was delivered stressing that Wike himself confirmed during his thanksgiving service that former governor of the state, Dr. Peter Odili, and his wife, Mary (a justice of the Supreme Court), were his advisers. He said, "Despite my acceptance and temperate public comments on the verdict of the Supreme Court on January 27, 2016, Wike, by his unguarded utterance last Sunday, seems to give credence to the pervading doubt being expressed on the judgment in public space especially in the media”. "For the record, in his speech at the church service, Wike probably forgot that he was on live telecast when he stated: 'Let me thank our former governor, Dr. Peter Odili (husband of Supreme Court Justice, Mary Odili). He will call me midnight to tell me what to do....he will say go so so place." I took all his advice, and here we are today." Though Wike reacted by saying Peterside was crying wolf and trying to incite President Muhammadu Buhari and the military against the governor and the people of the state, the point made by Peterside cannot be waved aside. Parties usually feel uncomfortable if they notice any development that would erode their confidence in the impartiality of the courts and the court, when such issues are raised usually obliges in order to give a sense of justice to all. It is to avoid such accusations and doubts in the judicial system that it becomes imperative to point out that having both Nyako and his son, tried before an Abuja Federal High Court when a member of their family is a judge within the same precinct should call for concern. Not only that, but there is also the need to draw attention to the case of the former acting governor, Fintiri, coming in an Abuja Federal High Court for the same reason. Fintiri it was who played a major role as speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly that led to the impeachment of Nyako in 2014. If the coincidence in the case of Nyako and his son can be ignored on the basis that the facts of the case would speak for itself, that of Fintiri should bother any unbiased mind due to the no love lost relationship between him and members of the Nyako family. It would therefore not be out of place to allay the fears of those who for good reasons harbor such concerns in order to deepen the faith of the citizenry in the judiciary.

ADAMAWA STATE: LET THE GAMES BEGIN

There has been a great deal of discussion of late about the “re-defection” of Nuhu Ribadu and Marcus Gundiri back to the APC fold.  The cacophony of voices and the amount of bile generated is enough to drown a walrus.  It is causing the APC boat to list and my prayer is that this will not cause the boat to capsize.  It is exactly these same issues that caused the PDP boat to go under, which of course the APC profited from.  At least in Adamawa State.

A year ago, the people of the state entrusted the APC with the governance of the state and by extension their destiny, despite the presence of “heavyweights” in other parties – Nuhu Ribadu in PDP, Gundiri in SDP and Ahmed Modibbo in the PDM.  The trust reposed on the party and its gubernatorial candidate is an extraordinary responsibility that most of our politicians don’t appreciate.  This piece is not about condemning or condoning anybody or any person’s acts of commission or omissions but only a contribution to the debate on the motives of our politicians in moving from one boat to another without compunction. 

It is no news that the PDP boat has long capsized.  This may be attributed to its baggage of impunity, haughtiness, immorality and other unwanted gear it loaded from all the ports it passed along in its sixteen years of kleptocratic governance.  The PDP, which continuously ruled Adamawa State between 1999 to 2015 hasn’t experienced smooth sail since 2005 when the fight between Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar kicked off.  The electorate swept aside the PDP in 2015 and voted in the APC.  In my estimation, the PDP in Adamawa State simply morphed into the APC, with all its baggage, and now the chickens appear to be coming home to roost.

The “re-defection” of Nuhu Ribadu to the APC appear to have ruffled some unsettled feathers in the state because some local politicians, who have been calling the shorts and flexing their local political muscles, in the state believe they will lose their relevance once the more urbane, cosmopolitan Ribadu and the other defectors get settled in. The noises coming out of Yola is akin to punching the panic button or waving a red flag at a mad bull.  Let’s look at the whole brouhaha and try to interrogate the reasons behind the frothing in the mouth by government officials.

Nuhu Ribadu and Marcus Gundiri along with some of their supporters decamped from the PDP and the SDP respectively ‘back’ to the APC last week.  This should not be motive enough for all the spilling of blood we are witnessing.  The unstated reasons may not be unconnected with the control of the party by the various camps trying to position themselves for 2019.  Many people believe Nyako is trying to reinvent himself through Ribadu while BD Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, is trying to get a foothold, which he now lacks, through Gundiri.  Those who are jittery can be found in the Atiku camp, which hitherto have been enjoying total control of the APC in the state with unqualified support from most of the citizens, whose choices have been narrowed.  To someone like Atiku, the control of the party and government in Adamawa state is his main political life support since his sacking from Abuja by Bola Tinubu.

The Atiku crowd may flatter itself in believing that no one will wrestle control of the party because they are in control of government machinery.  They should ask Goodluck Jonathan how ineffectual that could be.  The haste in punching the panic button by top government operatives the moment it became apparent that Ribadu and Gundiri are ‘re-defecting’ is indicative of the insecurity of those pulling the levers of governance in the state.  Any government worth its name will gladly welcome the duo into its fold – as a matter of fact go out of its ways to woo them.  I am at a lost as to what the group is scared of.  Nuhu Ribadu may be a brand name in the fight of corruption in Nigeria, but that brand has lost its lustre long ago when he chose to associate his name with those he accused of being monumentally corrupt and inept in the past.  For him to be relevant again, he must prove he is a reborn Ribadu of days gone by, when his name struck fear in the hearts of thieves.  He still has three years to do so. But then those associated with his re-entry into APC are still before the courts to clear their names on allegations bordering on what he fought against as a policeman.  He will be well advised to avoid repeating his 2015 faux par.

As to Marcus Gundiri and his alleged sponsor, the SGF, the jury is still out.  Gundiri has been a constant occurrence on Adamawa political landscape but easily fades away immediately elections are held.  We have seen this same pattern of politicking with both the late Wilson Sabiya and Dr. Bala Takaya.  The moment elections are over they vanish into thin air only to resurface when the bell is tolled for polls.  The stress of playing opposition politics, which may keep the government on its toes, is not for them; ideologies and manifestoes are something for “lesser” politicians who don’t have a pool of votes.  I hope they do not intend to play such politics that was their wont in the past because the days of such archaic thinking is long gone.  Though the SGF have been active in politics at the national level, he is barely known politically in Adamawa State and this may be his opportunity to make him known.

The PDP listed and capsize because we reached a stage in our political development that Nigerians began to believe that getting the party’s ticket for any elective office is sine quo non for winning any office; many believe that the party is “undefeatable” and “indestructible”. Many people joined the party in droves for fear of being left out of the “loop”.  The weight of those who were running to the umbrella coupled with its hated culture capsized the boat.

I am afraid the APC is listing now, particularly in Adamawa state where everybody want to sit on the starboard while the stern is empty at the moment.  The first shots of 2019 have been fired.  We have a three year marathon competition ahead of us.  We will see who are the long distance runners and who are merely 100 metres dash specialists.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

HIDING BEHIND A FINGER

I have hesitated to acknowledge the misgovernance in my home state – Adamawa – for some very personal reason though this may sound contradictory to some as I have been an advocate of good governance right from the inception of the current political dispensation in 1999.  Too often jokers appear on the state’s political landscape, strutting around with bravado and flexing their muscles, forgetting the ephemeral nature of power.  I hesitate to comment on such characters for the simple reason of being careful not to ascribe to them a significance they do not deserve.

Freedom of speech is sacred and this includes the freedom to waste one’s time.  There would have been no harm in such talk – beyond the fact that one could find so many endeavours more profitable than writing on a government that seems to have nothing to its credit apart from grandstanding on the pages of newspapers and even this had to be done through phantom organisations.  It wouldn’t have been necessary to pen this piece, if the ludicrous had not become tragic and fraudulent.

The people of the state suffers through the crass and trite actions of the government that to all intents and purposes is piloted by the Chief of Staff to the governor, whose concept of governance is the display of raw power acquired through serial betrayals.  There is an air about the inanities done, which the governor and his COS do, with an “in your face” attitude.  You can see it in their smirking faces; feel it in their insolent voices whenever they deem it expedient to address the people.  Typical example is where the COS was forced to explain to aggrieved farmers what happened to the N2billion collected from the CBN on their behalf.  The delivery of the “explanation” was uttered as “revelations” and insolently demanding acceptance by those who felt cheated by the government and its operatives; it was done with an air of conscious effrontery, giving the impression that the speaker knows what he is doing but all that came through was a display of boastful power.

Two weeks to the inauguration of a new government and the subsequent house cleaning expected to take place in all government houses across the country, the Ngilari administration is running from pillar to post trying to create the impression that it is under siege from only God knows where.  Bala Ngilari and his advisers are turning Ahmadu Fintiri and the State House of Assembly as the bogeyman the people must fear and run away from.  We have seen increased media visibility and hype from groups, which the administration believe they can hide behind, and poke their sticky fingers into the eyes of the people of the state.  In trying to run from their shadows, Bala Ngilari and particularly his Chief of Staff are unwittingly creating evil – an evil that may ultimately consume them.  The deleterious effect of their action will only further push the people of the state further than they already are from them.

It happens, upon rare occasions, that perfidy too great to comprehend is visited on hapless people.  Here, we can observe the evil that is crushing our people.  When Fintiri, with a sense of humanitarian duty, made a mighty effort to rescue the people of Adamawa from the clutches of nepotism, underdevelopment and kleptocracy, the egotism and insecurity of a small group blew that unique opportunity for the people to experience physical development and drink from the fountain of good governance for the first time in all the years that democracy was restored.

When the state is torn by gigantic problems, seeking answers to questions that hold the survival of the citizens and improvement of their living standards, the governor and his Chief of Staff are busy hiring mudslingers to attempt to diminish the stature of the Speaker.  His crime?  His singular act of undressing them for the public to see them in their nakedness.

Chubado Tijjani, as most people have not heard of and most likely may not hear of again after the expiration of this government, is the Chief of Staff to Bala Ngilari.  When listening to people talk about the Chief of Staff, I became interested in speculating the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves.  Have you noticed how righteous he sounded when addressing the issue of the N2billion agric loan collected from the Central Bank?  Have you observed the patronising inflection in his voice while trying to justify this particular theft?

New facts emerged as to the scandalous level the Ngilari administration is dragging the state downhill.  His COS, who is behaving like the de facto governor, impetuously tried to justify stealing.  I don’t know how one can describe a situation where the COS claimed that the government spent N700million to “feed” Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).  Kashim Shettima, the Borno State governor, who stoically bore the brunt of the insurgency that displaced the people and the chief host to the largest number of IDPs among all the states in the northeast, spends N4million monthly to feed them.  Contrast this with Adamawa government’s claim of spending N700million.

The recourse to the public court with a rehash of half-truths by the government is pathetic.  The organisations put up by the government to denigrate Fintiri and the House of Assembly and who go by different names are neither progressive nor have any integrity.  They are just guns for hire who litter the state looking to survive anyhow possible.  They would have done well by advising Ngilari to take Fintiri to the EFCC just like the Estate agent who bought them two apartments in Dubai and who, in their characteristic parsimoniousness refused to pay him his fees, took them to the Commission and for which the Chief of Staff has been a regular guest to the Commission in the past two weeks.  The Speaker would then have been made to account for all the “financial recklessness” he committed in his eighty-six days in office.  The attempt to factionalise the legislature is in bad taste so also is projecting Ngilari as a meek and humble person – so also is Jonathan but look at where Jonathan has taken us.  Ngilari’s second-rate imitation of Fayose’s rupture of the legislature failed because many people saw through the ruse.

Fintiri empanelled a Judicial Commission of Inquiry, headed by a High Court Judge to look into the financial transaction of the Nyako administration, which Ngilari was a deputy governor.  I strongly advise Ngiiari to do the same rather than engaging in this cat and mouse game.

Fintiri is guilty in my book.  He is very guilty.  He shouldn’t have embarked on projects that were neglected by a government in which Ngilari was a deputy governor; he shouldn’t have made the mistake of demystifying governance by running an open and all-inclusive government when he knew very well that it is anathema to very many people.  He is guilty as charged and must therefore bear this cross for the rest of his life.

While our brothers and sisters are saddled with hunger, diseases, homelessness, murdered hopes and aspirations, the government is funding phantom organisations with the connivance of a media destroyed by the ubiquitous brown envelop to bring down a man whose superiority over them is not in doubt.  What are they hiding?  For now, it is only the Chief of Staff that is summoned by the EFCC to explain some financial transaction.  Soon the toga of immunity will be removed from Ngilari’s shoulders – then we will know how meek or humble he is.

What are they afraid of? What or what are they trying to hide by deflecting people’s attention from their government’s atrocities?  You can’t hide behind a finger.

THE ABLE AS INFERIOR TO THE INCOMPETENT

Adamawa is a state that has been serially raped since the inception of the current political dispensation sixteen years ago with a break here and a respite there.  While most states are moving forward the state appears to be perpetually in the reverse gear moving downhill.  The last eight years have been harrowing to the citizens of the state to say the least.  The state was in the firm grip of carpetbaggers for seven of the eight years and was briefly rescued by some dream merchants who attempted to resuscitate it by Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) technique.   The dream merchants were shunted aside by selfish, incompetent, power-grabbing allies of the carpetbaggers and sadly enough their inheritors are about to take over from the current crop of pretenders.  These pretenders aren’t ready to go quietly though they know they have time barely enough for packing their belongings out of government houses and offices.  In the last days of their administration, they are more concerned with surpassing the records of Stella Oduah, the delectable former Aviation Minister of the bulletproof BMW fame.

It makes no sense for a government that is on its way out and effectively in its lame duck period to recklessly “buy” two SUVs for the scandalous sum of N180million – irrespective of whether the vehicles are missile or bulletproof.  To top it all, another 50 Hilux pick-ups were bought for N400million.  Are you serious?  This nonsense taking place under the watch of a supposed ‘man of God’?  Anyway, this is beside the point.  The serious stuff began with trying to circumvent due process while committing this economic felony.  In clumsily trying to cover their assess, the government of Bala Ngilari sacked the director of the state’s Public Procurement Bureau and ganged up with disgruntled political pimps in the State House of Assembly to re-enact the 16 is greater than 19 doctrine of Goodluck Jonathan.  Nine out of twenty five members of the state Assembly were allowed to use the Government House Banquet Hall as temporary legislative chamber to purportedly “impeach” the Speaker, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri and “elect” Jerry Kumdisi as the new “speaker”.  Ngilari, a lawyer with almost 40 years post call experience, superintended this illegality.

The drama unfolding in the state in the past two weeks made me looked again at the jokers in the Adamawa Government House, masquerading as leaders – Ngilari and his foot soldiers.  I came to the conclusion that they are either poor students of history or they failed to grasp the significance of democracy or even the offices they are occupying.  My conclusion is that their behaviour is a concrete illustration of a comic paradox.  Instead of responding to the essence of his responsibilities, he is devoting his time and public resources in trying to trivialise his predecessor; beholden to a perceived struggle for the control of the soul of local politics in their local government, where his predecessor is the top dog.  And this does not have any direct bearing on good governance in the state.  The current altercation between the executive and the legislature, stoked by the executive’s financial recklessness and administrative impunity, is an alibi by the governor and his side kick to “deal” with the speaker once and for all, thereby making him a political ‘nobody’ in their domain.  It is my believe that the speaker has transcended where they are trying to reach and far away from their grasp.  His political influence spreads across the state.  Ngilari and his sidekick only succeeded in diminishing the status of the governor of Adamawa state.

Bala Ngilari and his people (including the carpet baggers and the inheritors) are scared shitless of Fintiri and his band of dream merchants because in his short spell as acting governor, he has succeeded in showing the people of the state that government can work.  He went beyond the probable and made the people see the possible.  His style of governance was devoid of contempt, which the people were used to through impunity by past administrations.

The intrinsic significance of the Ngilari government lies in the philosophical fact they understand nothing about governance and government.  They swim in emptiness, content in the power they wield, though they do not understand how it could be used to better the lives of the ordinary man, whose love they crave.  Unlike Fintiri, the man they are trying to bring down.  Thus it is only the crass opportunist or ignorant that may think they are worthy of the offices they now occupy through legal gymnast and Other Peoples’ Interest (OPI).  In my view, they are just a corollary of astronomical incompetence whose sole achievement in the final analysis may be summarised thus – “they came, saw, were overwhelmed and perished while all the time being engaged in trying to destroy the legacies of their betters’.  They will perpetually be beholden to the unconditional acceptance of the premise that if I cannot perform, let the house come down on all of us.  They want us to celebrate mediocrity as being superior to competence; forcing the people of Adamawa state by sheer propaganda to accept “non-acceptance” – the sacking of the Director general of the Public Procurement Bureau and Jerry Kumdisi as leader of the legislative arm of government.  Accepting that 2 SUVs costs the government N180million.

Ngilari should be made aware that in this office one had to be competent – there are no alternatives or mitigating considerations.  But our governor failed to realise that the acceptability granted his predecessor by the people of the state was earned and was neither coerced nor contrived.  The acceptability of Fintiri wasn’t based on affection but as a recognition of his sterling qualities as a leader.

To paraphrase one philosopher – it is not my intention to be a fly swatter, but when the fly acquires delusions of grandeur, we have to blow the whistle on the pretentious noise made by the fly.  The actions of this particular fly since perching on the exalted seat of the governor of Adamawa state amounts to political embezzlement, which may just be a cover for incompetence and thievery.  It appears deliberate malice has taken control of the thinking faculties of Bala Ngilari and his key advisers.  They should be well advised to mark their time and disappear from our political radar.  I hate writing obituaries but I hope this is not an eulogy to Ngilari’s political career.

The able can never be inferior to the incompetent.

A DESPERATELY DESPERATE LIAR AS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

Goodluck Jonathan has no regard for Nigerians and therefore doesn’t believe it is wrong to look us in the eye and lie to us.  Much as I respect the office of the President, I must confess the office has been so diminished by the president occupant of the Aso Villa, that it does not deserve the respect of any self-respecting Nigerian.  At every given opportunity, Jonathan has been embarrassing the country and Nigerians, all in his desperation to retain power by all means possible.  We have been forced to listen to the president’s fables in the past five weeks after he and his security goons forced Attahiru Jega to shift the general elections earlier scheduled to take place in February.  Not content with churning out barefaced lies by him and his crude spokesmen, Jonathan has upped the ante of embarrassment by lying against a fellow country’s leader and to the international community through his interview with the BBC.

Before the dust settled on the Moroccan phone call scandal, Jonathan told Will Ross of the BBC that he is not desperate to win the 2015 election, something I find insulting to me.  If he is not desperate to win the election then can he explain the unnecessary tension he has been subjecting us to in the past six months or so?  It will be a herculean task to attempt to list all the desperate moves Jonathan made in order to win the 2015 election by crook – he doesn’t care about the ‘hook’.  But let us attempt to itemise them, anyway.

The contrived “adoption” of Jonathan by all the organs of his party, the PDP, which culminated in his coronation as the sole candidate for the presidential election, was purely because of his desperation to avoid facing a credible – or even an alternative – candidate in his party.  The party and its apparatchik made sure no one was allowed to challenge Jonathan because of the fear of rejection by his party men.  If this was not a desperate move, what is?  The INEC fixed February 14^th, 2015 as the date for the presidential elections but the commission was forced to eat humble pie by Jonathan and his party because they saw defeat facing in the face and the only thing they came up was the insecurity boogie.  The elections were shifted in order to give Jonathan and the PDP more time to corrupt the system and the populace.  If this is not desperation, what is?

We have seen the heightened level of criss-crossing the country including Jonathan’s temporary relocation to Lagos and the states of the south west while Namadi(na) relocated to Kano and Kaduna, distributing money like confetti to voters.  They were unmindful of the damage they were doing to the electoral process.  If this is not desperation, what is?  The series of fictional documentaries produced and directed by his campaign team (which is made up of people with questionable characters) trying to smear the presidential candidate of the APC and the leadership of the party falls into the desperate pattern which must have been directly approved by Jonathan himself.  If this smear campaign is not desperation, what is?  The newfound bravery of our armed forces in attacking and chasing Boko Haram insurgents from hitherto occupied towns and villages after six years of running from the rag-tag insurgents says a lot about the government’s commitment or otherwise in fighting the scourge.  We suddenly have the “ferocious” Boko Haram elements running with their tails between their legs at the sight of the Nigerian army.  It took the smell of defeat before Jonathan got serious about the sanctity of human life, if this is not desperation, what is?

With a naval force and the Civil Defence, Jonathan decides in his wisdom to outsource the protection of our shores and pipelines to criminals who are euphemistically called ex-militants by a media wowed by brown envelopes and sectional mind-set.  These are the same guys who routinely break the pipelines and steal oil, yet are now rewarded for their criminality.  This comes barely two weeks to the presidential election.  May I suggest that since there are oil depots in Maiduguri, Bauchi, and Yola – areas considered spheres of influence of Boko Haram – the protection contracts should be extended to Boko Haram and other militants in Plateau, Nassarawa and Benue states to make the reward system for treason and murder national in outlook.  This is not desperation but an avenue for creating employment for youths from a section of the country to the detriment of other areas.

Then the persistent call for the sack of Jega as INEC chairman before the conduct of the 2015 elections.  The calls range from pseudo-statesmen like Ekwueme, to old militants like Edwin Clark, to oil thieves like Asari Dokubo and Tompolo and those with blood on their hands like Gani Adams.  These are Jonathan’s current bedmates whose main bond is the prevention of General Buhari from winning the elections and sending them to oblivion or the gulag, where they rightly belong. 

Not desperate?  Try this.  In his desperation to cling to power, Jonathan is not loath to use the ethno-religious card, unmindful that this road may lead us to Kigali.  With the Abidjan scenario becoming more real to Jonathan, he would rather that Nigeria take the Kigali road.  His dim wife has been traversing the country inciting jobless, hungry youths against the opposition and in the process insulting her betters.

Jonathan is desperately desperate and he shouldn’t deny that.  For a chief security of a country to be seen hob-knobbing with treasonable felons like Asari Dokubo, Gani Adams, the MASSOB guys and the rest of the oil thieves a few days to a national elections says much about his frame of mind.  Though Jonathan and his wife have been trying to give new meanings to certain actions like corruption and stealing, they can’t change the meaning of desperation.  They are desperate to cling to power at whatever cost to the nation and Nigerians shouldn’t make the mistake of lowering their guards believing that Jonathan is not desperate.  The wife, who wants to remain the First Lady, but behaves like an unrefined street food hawker, in her characteristic dimness, let out her fears of facing her just desserts when she said she is not ready to feed her husband in jail.

It was Gbagbo’s desperation that plunge Ivory Coast into a needless war in 2010; it was also the insensitive insults by journalists and politicians that led to the massacre of over 800,000 innocent souls in Rwanda in 1994.  Nigerians should be mindful of desperate politicians who would rather the country disintegrate than them losing the paraphernalia of office.  The Jonathans have done enough damage to an already fragile union.  Let’s boot them out of the Aso Villa on March 28^th before they take us down the road to Kigali.

NIGERIANS DESERVE PDP

The 2015 electoral campaign exposed the Peoples Democratic Party for what it is – a party peopled by bigots, thieves, irredentists and people without honour or decency.  It also exposed the chieftains of the party as liars and shameless.  The campaigns further exposed the rest of Nigerians as cowards who deserve the PDP.  Since the beginning of the campaign, Nigerians have been inundated with uncouth speeches, outright lies, blackmail and harassment of opposition politicians and hallucinatory fable tales by certified schizophrenics.  We have been bombarded with hate-filled documentaries on respected individuals by a party in the throes of death.  A section of the country was ridiculed and insulted by a woman who cannot even spell the word ‘refinement’ and may not even recognise it where it is written for her.  In all this, we kept quiet.

Were General Muhammadu Buhari not to emerge as the presidential candidate of the All Peoples Congress (APC), I don’t know how PDP’s campaign was going to be because their whole campaign is centred on the APC candidate.  The whole machinery of the party and Jonathan’s campaign organisation are deployed towards destroying the hard-earned reputation of the ascetic General.  Nigerians were treated to what can only be politely described as a pack of lies by a group whose stock-in-trade is becoming clear to all of us to be no more than irredentism.  The fulcrum of their campaign has been Buhari from the get-go and it remained so throughout the campaign period.  Telling lies comes naturally to these people and impugning the character or reputation is no big deal to them because they neither know the meanings of the words nor do they possess the qualities.  Their god is lucre and they believe the same for all of us.

The latest attempt to malign Buhari and may be turn him into a hate-figure to his millions of supporters is the ridiculous charge that he promised four western countries to scrap the Anti-Gay law passed by the National Assembly.  The irony is lost on those making this patently false accusation that they were the ones who accused Buhari of being an Islamic fundamentalist and that both the dominant religions practised in Nigeria clearly prohibits same-sex marriage and the punishment for doing so explicitly spelt out in the holy books.  It is the likes of Funny Kayode, who made the accusation that opposed the Act in the first place, while wearing the borrowed robes of human rights activism.  So if Buhari is an Islamic fundamentalist, how could he have promised to scrap a law that to all intents and purposes conformed to the dictates of the Shari’ah Law they accused him of intending to implement on the country once he is elected.  How low can these people go in their desperation to cling to power?  Actually, do they have a ‘low’?

As if attacking Buhari and the opposition is not enough, the president and the PDP have now resorted to attacking national institutions.  Attahiru Jega, the Chairman of Independent (?) National Electoral Commission (INEC) is pilloried on a daily basis for insisting to not only go ahead with the rescheduled elections, but to also use Card Readers in the authentication of voters.  In their desperation to scuttle the elections, Jonathan and his party are not loath to attacking the very fabric of our unity.  Not being satisfied with the verbal assaults targeted on hapless Nigerians, they released the uncouth wife of the president on us, who in her verbal diarrhoea cannot differentiate between the good, the bad and the ugly.  In an unusual clarity, she unwittingly let out the nation how northerners are perceived in the Aso Villa, yet some unscrupulous politicians are asking us to support the PDP.  Patience and her husband take pleasure in denigrating our cultures, customs and institutions and they do this in a period when they need us most – at least our votes to help legitimise their misrule and kleptocracy.  The tell whoever care to listen that our Emirs and Chiefs, the very custodians of these cultures and customs, are there to be bought and sold by the highest bidders and to prove this insult, Jonathan has been going round the country and allegedly dropping huge amounts of money in the various palaces where he is received.

The clearest indication that Jonathan and his PDP doesn’t care if Nigeria will break up today is their resort to ethnic champions (militias, for lack of a better word).  These are men and women who took up arms against their fatherland for personal gains and not for any altruistic cause as they are now exposed for what they are.  We have seen the likes of the Niger Delta militants forgo any pretence to environmental protection once the amnesty allowance began trickling into their bank accounts. “Pipeline protection contracts” and other juicy add-ons were given to sweeten the ‘sweetheart’ deals between these blue collar criminals and their white collar colleagues in government.

Thank God for the Moroccans, the Gooddluck Jonathan gang have been exposed for what they are – a bunch of thieving liars.  Knowing fully well that Jonathan did not speak on phone to the Moroccan monarch, they went to town with a story that a phone conversation took place between Jonathan and King Mohammed VI.  The no nonsense King ordered the immediate recall of his country’s Ambassador to Nigeria and issued a press statement, which in essence, called the Nigerian ruler a liar.  Shame of a nation!  We may soon see a press statement from Funny Kayode accusing the opposition APC of orchestrating this national embarrassment.  Since they are used to lying to Nigerians without being forcefully challenged to substantiate the wild allegations they constantly make, they believe they will get away with their lies on the international forum because of diplomatic ‘correctness’.  All discerning Nigerians should “shine their eyes” and know them for what they are.

To further compound their stupidity, General Martin Luther Agwai was fired from his position as SURE-P Chairman for daring to tell the president that change is inevitable.  This is the president who recently bemoaned that “80%” of his advisers give him bad advice.  Do you wonder why they give him bad advice?  With the help of treasonable felons like Uwazuruike, Gani Adams, Edwin Clark and co. Jonathan is lining up Jega for the Agwai treatment and all you hear from Nigerians is a deafening silence.  Jonathan and gang got away with suspending Ayo Salami; they practically bundled Sanusi Lamido Sanusi from office for calling them thieves and they fired Agwai via a press statement for failing to harken to Patience’s admonishing of not uttering the word change at the pain of being stoned – so he got stoned by her husband.  Still we kept quiet.

Now they are organising protests in collaboration with their ‘contractors’ against Jega conducting the 2015 general elections – which they have morbid fear for.  The chick of it.  We are behaving like mumus in the face of this assault against common sense and decency.  May be we all deserve the PDP.

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.