DANCING ON THE GRAVES OF THE NYANYA VICTIMS

 

My heart goes out to the families of those who were senselessly slaughtered by the representatives of Lucifer in our midst.  One cannot fail to empathise with the bereaved who moments earlier had waved goodbyes to their loved ones – children off to schools, parents going to search for the elusive bread, hawkers targeting early morning travellers and the ubiquitous Okada riders ferrying these people to the motor park.  The scores that died that early Monday morning were full of life and plans for the week and were cut in mid stride by madmen without the fear of God in their ice-cold hearts.  It was a wicked act that should be condemned by all.  The outpourings of grieve by Nigerians for those who lost their lives in the blast have no precedence. Even the normally ambivalent Jonathan visited the scene of the bomb blast with herd of clowns.  The presidential visit itself is unprecedented in the history of his blood soaked administration.  My heart equally bleeds for the parents of those students abducted in Chibok, Borno State, in the evening of the same day the bomb blast took place in Nyanya. School children who were abandoned by an uncaring government and its security agents.  The parents’ grief is doubled by the fact of not knowing whether their wards are dead or alive.

After the initial anger and sadness one feels for these senseless acts, one is forced to make comparisons with previous loss of lives and the consequent federal government reactions.  The spate of bombings that began in Abuja on October 1^st, 2010 may appear to have gone full circle with the Nyanya bomb blasts.  According to some estimates, over 40,000 people have been killed in the various ‘theatres’ of war in the north, yet Goodluck Jonathan never deemed it fit to visit and commiserate with the families of the victims.  The only exception to the president’s apathy of visiting these troubled spots was his visit to Kano in January 2012 when the city came under siege for more than three hours.  In February this year about fifty-nine school children were massacred, some were even burnt, yet the president was at that time enjoying a glass of wine or two in Abuja at the so-called Centenary Dinner.  Also this year while the president and Shema of Katsina were dancing away in Katsina, over one hundred and three people were killed in Faskari.  Yet the president jetted away to Abuja without even a cursory glance towards the hapless villagers.

In the north east we have seen how whole villages were razed to ground and completely erased from the face of the earth and the only reaction from Abuja is to blame the victims for their misfortune.  The people of the northeast have been under siege for the past two years and the government’s response is the increased militarisation of the zone by imposing an unnecessary state of emergency on three of the states.  Ironically, more people are killed under the state emergency than before it was declared. Goodluck’s only visit to Borno and Yobe States, the epicentre of the insurgency in the north, came after governors of the All Peoples Congress (APC) visited Maiduguri and wandered around the city thereby stealing the thunder form right under his clayish feet.  Residents of both Maiduguri and Damaturu regretted the President’s decision to visit their states.  The visit turned out to be bad luck for the residents of the capital cities because they were locked in for the duration of the visit.

My grouse this morning with Jonathan and the northern Quislings in his entourage stems from the insensitivity and heartlessness displayed by organising a rally in Kano to “receive” Shekarau in to the PDP.  While the relations of those who lost their lives in the Nyanya blast are mourning the loss of near and dear ones; while parents are gnashing teeth and wailing over the abduction of their wards and daughters by hooligans and killers, Jonathan, Shekarau, Aminu Wali and Mohammed Abacha were dancing with blood soaked feet to a funeral dirge rendered by Sani Danja.  The irony of Shekarau and Sani Danja sharing the same podium is lost on Shekarau, who in the past banished the artist from Kano.  Much as I try to grasp the message Jonathan was sending to the world and the grieving parents, I couldn’t come up with an acceptable explanation for myself.  My conclusion therefore, is that Jonathan doesn’t give a hoot about the lives of Nigerians and may even not be averse to dancing on their graves if that may advance his political cause in his perverted logic. 

How can any sensible leader lead a carnival of merriment in celebration of “capturing” a spent politician, barely 24 hours after the horrendous act in Nyanya?  What will it cost the PDP to delay the carnival to a more auspicious time when the mood of the nation is more on the up?  How can a caring parent be singing and dancing less than 12 hours after people who the government claimed to have defeated in the past abduct about 200 female students?  Labaran Aku’s explanation on why they refused to shift the rally flies in the face of reason.  How can paying respect to the souls of the departed be construed as giving-in to terrorist?  My only consolation is in knowing that Jonathan and his wife are both adopted by foster parents and they in turn adopted a daughter.  The compassion between parent and children may, to all intents and purposes alien to them.

The president’s prompt visit to Nyanya also brought to fore another aspect of his administration.  No matter the number of people killed in the northeast, no matter the level of destruction wrought on the region, Jonathan will never consider it necessary to glorify the hapless people with his ‘august’ presence.  That the lives of the people living in Abuja are different from those living in other parts of the north.  I believe northerners irrespective of ethnic stock, creed or ideology will realise how their president perceives them.  It isn’t about creed or tribal marks – it is about the geography of where you come from.

As for the Shekaraus, Walis, Abachas and the Sani Danjas, let Labaran Aku write a film for them to act and to be directed by either Bafarawa or Reuben Abati.

May God safe us from these modern day Draculas.

THE NATION’S MINDSET

The Editorial of The Nation newspaper of Friday March 14^th, 2014 is another instant of deriding anything northern that has been the hallmark of our media industry dominated over time by those from the other part of the country.  The north has become used to such mindsets of seeing nothing good from this part of the country.  Such thinking is what can be rightly said to be responsible for the stunted growth the country has been experiencing.  This is exactly why Nigeria is perpetually a country of potentials.  Sadly, such interventions by these regionalist writers are more often than not shallow, pedantic and lack any scholarship.  It is directed to a gullible audience and unfortunately they achieve their expected results. 

Whoever wrote the Editorial failed to do justice to The Nation as an institution trying hard to project itself as a national media organisation.  The vitriolic deportment of the Editorial against Dr. Bugaje’s revealed a mind made-up long ago to shoot down any idea initiated and pontificated by anyone from this side of the divide – because whoever listened to and chose to understand Dr. Bugaje’s position wouldn’t have written what was written as The Nation’s opinion that day.  It exposed the haste in condemning the message and the messenger without actually grasping the import of the message.  If the writer of the Editorial or the Editorail Board of the paper had cared to digest what was delivered, the context of the delivery and the circumstances that informed the delivery, then they wouldn’t have rushed to make fools of themselves and the tendencies they represent. 

In the course of presenting his paper, Dr. Bugaje veered off his prepared text and spoke ex tempore on an issue that is of concern to northerners – the unending blackmail of the region by those who believe they are “oil producing states”.  With facts and historical figures, Bugaje debunked the concept of “oil producing states” and also attempted to inform those who wished to be informed that the northern region is now turning its attention to human capital development in order to build a society based on ideas, innovation and creativity.  That the north should wean itself from the shackles of oil is not in doubt.  Be that as it may, he also laid bare the “false sense of entitlement” by those who believe that they are “oil producing states”.  The exposure of their spurious claims might have been responsible for the angst displayed in the editorial.  I fail to fathom why the discussion of oil always elicit abusive responses from who falsely believe they are the only ones entitled to it.  They are entitled to anything and everything the country has to offer in all its nooks and crannies but oil is off limits to all.

Bugaje only tried to educate the uninformed that there are only oil producing countries and not oil producing states.  Last time I checked, there is no Nigerian state that is a member of OPEC.  This is what is unpalatable to “oil militants” and their godfathers.  Another issue raised by Bugaje is the dwindling nature of oil as an asset and its negative effects on the environment in contrast to intellectual development.

I wonder how Dr. Usman Bugaje’s submission at the Kano Summit of Northern Elders could be termed ‘dangerous’ if mischief is not intended.  A mindset that has been nurtured on a diet of laziness cannot in all honesty doesn’t possess the moral high ground to accuse one nurtured on hardwork of tilling the soil of preventing the country from realising its potentials.  I am baffled as to how a mindset that makes the dependency of rent-collection from oil explorers could accuse the one who has always survived by the fruits of his labour.  What The Nation wants its readers to believe is that those who Bugaje represent should not be heard talking about the injustices in the country.

Well, The Nation should do well to educate us as to the labour and efforts put in by the inhabitants of the Niger Delta in burying the hydrocarbons lying beneath their feet that has formed the basis for the arrogance and insultive and condescending behaviour exhibited to the other component parts of Nigeria.  Is it not funny at the dawn of Goodluck Jonathan’s Conference, the Editorial is talking about a “fraudulent sense of entitlement” that has “historically undermined robust economic activities across the country”.  Funny in the sense that the hydrocarbon deposited by nature in almost all the West African sub-region, but which successive governments refuse to explore and exploit in other parts of the country, is what is engendering this “fraudulent sense of entitlement” on a people who doesn’t have a clue as to how the deposit find its way to their backyard.  The Nation should have dedicated its Editorial to what Bugaje’s paper portends for a people who want to appropriate the hydrocarbon under their soil to the exclusion of other Nigerians, yet want to enjoy everything the Nigerian nation provides to them. 

It is ironical that those advocating for a “true sense of entitlement” where hydrocarbons are concerned, will in the same breath pontificate on the enforcement of Section 43 of the Constitution (the right to acquire immovable property in any part of the country).  if as the Editorial said Bugaje’s thesis is “antithetical to the fundamental principles of federalism”, then we are in serious trouble.  What can be inferred from the Editorial is more “hogwash” and more “dangerous to the fundamental principles of federalism” than Bugaje’s   submission.  The removal of the onshore/ offshore dichotomy by a legislature that was bought and stayed bought to pass the Bill in total disregard of a Supreme Court on the same issue is more dangerous to The Nation’s concept of fundamental principles of federalism.  This Act effectively redefined who has international borders as known in all international laws and conventions.  This is what is dangerous and this should be what The Nation should have had the conviction to editorialise on.  This is a law that effectively implied that Nigeria doesn’t have borders along the Atlantic shores but its component states, (the units so graciously created by the country).  this doesn’t appear dangerous to the Editors at The Nation, but a statement of fact by Dr. Bugaje is what constitutes danger.

What is clear to me from the editorial is that the mind that pens it only see a united monolithic southern Nigeria but cannot accept the existence of its northern counterpart with intellectuals and scholars making informed submissions.  If the intention of the Editorial is to bring the issue of a sense of entitlement, true or false, then by all means let it be on the table.  We don’t have a quarrel with it.  All we ask is that all issues should be on the table, to be discussed and agreed on. 

The fact that the north constitutes 72% of the landmass of the country cannot be wished away but have to be accepted as a matter of fact.  We have seen how first, Festus Odemegwu, the dismissed National Population Commission (NPC) Chairman, and then Tony Nyiam, a dismissed Colonel, have been trying their best to discredit the population of the north.  They might have succeeded in convincing some of their naive listeners, but certainly this cannot change the facts of the matter.  I see this Editorial in the same light – create doubt in the minds of the gullible as to the total landmass of the north – the maxim of “a lie repeatedly told will take the garb of truth”.

The country will do well for itself by investing more on human capital development than on an asset that is fast dwindling.  The 21^st century is a century driven by ideas, knowledge and innovation and not by “crude” oil.  The success of Bill Gates and Carlos Slim attest to this.  The discovery of shale oil should be concern to those flaunting oil as a high horse to be ridden and thumb oily noses at the rest of us. 

Bugaje only sounded a cautionary note to the discerning and therefore deserved a round of applause and condemnation for him and his people. 

KONDUGA & IZGE: CLOSING THE DOORS OF REASON BY DOYIN OKUPE

 

While killers are rampaging in the north east, particularly Borno state, massacring innocent villagers and itinerant traders, Goodluck Jonathan was either genuflecting before the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero or clownishly beating a drum in the palace of the Alafin of Oyo or trying to score with the Christian population by snatching a photo opportunity with the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.  The president had neither time for the survivors of this modern day holocaust nor a sympathetic thought to those who lost their lives and property.  The president’s mien only projected a one-track mind – how to extend his stay in the Aso Villa, not the security or sanctity of the lives of the country’s citizens.  We have seen how Kaduna was “won” in 2011. We therefore pray that we won’t see a repeat of what happened then.  Interestingly, despite the prominence given by both local and international media organisations on the massacre, the president and the presidency kept mum and didn’t deem it worth their intervention.  The loud silence from Jonathan and his handlers is indicative of the value the president placed on the lives of our people.  Until Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state, addressed State House in Abuja.  That was when the presidential attack dog, Doyin Okupe, poured insults on the victims.

What I find incomprehensible is that insurgents dressed in military uniforms, carrying military grade weapons and operating with military precision have been attacking communities under state of emergency with all its attendant military restrictions, yet no one is arrested and no prior information regarding such attacks.  The Nigerian intelligence community, seemingly so effective in apprehending the likes of Nasiru El-Rufa’I for being “politically incorrect” can’t seem to provide information that will lead to the apprehending of these insurgents, or at least pre-empting the attacks by moving troops to such identified areas.  Or are we to infer that the non-deployment of troops to these areas that are prone to attacks?

The case of Konduga appears to be very incomprehensible because the town is a stone’s throw from Maiduguri where incidentally the JTF and the 7^th Division of the Nigerian Army is headquartered.  In his hastily incoherent response to Kashim Shettima Okupe claimed Konduga is at the foot of the Mandara hills.  This shows you the level of ignorance on the part of those supposedly responsible for our security as political leaders of the country.  Granted Izge is at the foot of the Mandara hills, but does that give Okupe and his boss the excuse of not sending troops to rout the insurgents?  In the case of Konduga, it was reported that the killers operated between 5p.m to 12 midnight without hindrance.  This was happening just about 35 kilometres.  The people living around that corner of the world conveniently forgot Baga so quickly and it is proving to be their peril.

I have always had my opinions about Boko Haram and its shadowy leadership.  I am yet to be convinced about certain things and explanations from the government pertaining to the existence, operations and sustenance of this murderous group.  For example, I am yet to be convinced that Mohammed Yusuf was not executed to allow for the takeover of the brand name he made popular to be used for black operations.  The total absence of a successful prosecution or conviction of anyone caught either in the act of committing terror or in possession of guns and Improvised Explosive Devised (IEDs), makes a bold statement on the seriousness of the government to bring these killers to book and bring to an end this unnecessary and wanton human sacrifice.  Before you mention Kabiru Sokoto, I want you to reflect where he was arrested – was it in the theatre of war or in the comfort of his bed?  Here I am talking about the likes of the lady caught in St. John’s Cathedral Bauchi; the Delta fellow caught in the act of setting fire to a Redeemed Christian Church in Yenagoa; the guys caught with a cache of arms in Jos; the eight guys arrested in front of the COCIN Church, Miya Barkete in Bauchi state with explosives.  Jonathan’s reaction (or non reaction) to the recent violence gives life to the theory that Orkar’s (Tony Nyiam) project of excising some of parts from Nigeria is still very much alive.  Pretending otherwise may be dangerous for anyone from this part of the Niger.

Okupe can yak for all he cares, but I pity the likes of Ahmed Ali Gulak and Dauda Birma, because their villages are shouting distances from the nucleus of the war- more so for Gulak.  The bulk of the survivors of the Izge massacre had to relocate to Gulak to preserve their lives.  While their people are killed daily the likes of Gulak and Tanko Yakassai are competing to be identified with those the victims feel don’t care whether they live or die.  Bottom line is that the whole of the north is today under one form of attack or the other – north east is under the control of the Boko Haram; north central is now a theatre of war between farmers and herders; a large swath of the north west is under the control of bandits.  Northerners have lost faith in the government and the current crop of northern leaders.

Northerners see a federal government that cares less that they are reduced to a society beset with broken families, violent crime, and drugs.  They see a federal government willingly dividing the society by ethnicity, religion, and huge disparities in income.  This wasn’t what the populace bargained for in 2011 when they were cajoled, harassed, induced or suborned to vote for Goodluck Jonathan. They long for a peaceful life in which they may provide for the basic needs of their families, and enjoy the respect due to all mankind regardless of their ethnicity, religion, position, or wealth.  What they see is that their goals for a more just and compassionate society thwarted by the Quislings among them as personified by the likes Gulak and Yakassai, who pursue wealth and power regardless of the cost to their fellow human beings.

Human or material lost leaves them to either be burying relatives, friends and acquaintances or rebuilding a life shattered.  They see few opportunities to earn a living because most opportunities are withheld for militants of the Niger Delta and their godfathers. They see these Quislings and their sponsors remaining silent when their villages are pillaged and destroyed; when loved ones are killed and businesses destroyed.  What they are confronted with in most cases is denigration in the biased media, which serves to maintain these Quislings.

I just pray the activities of the likes of Doyin Okupe, Ali Gulak and their associates will not close the doors of reason permanently.  May God deliver us from this current holocaust and the Quislings and Goerings among us. 

JONATHAN’S YEA SAYERS IN THE NORTH: SAME OLD CROOKS

Last week, three people from the north were in the news for diametrically opposed reasons.  While Mallam Nasiru El-Rufa’i was in the news for his fifteen hours detention for the offence of having the audacity to advise Goodluck Jonathan on the consequences of rigging next year’s elections, Tanko Yakassai was on the other hand inaugurating his latest moneymaking venture of ‘adopting’ Jonathan as the candidate of his part of the north.  As a side attraction, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s appearance before the Senate added spice to a week that proved to be educative to all.  Incidentally both Yakassai and Sanusi Lamido are from Kano.  While the two younger men – El- Rufa’i and Sansusi are critical of the government’s handling of political and economic issues, Yakassai was trying to outdo Labaran (M)aku in praising the government of Jonathan as the best thing to ever happen to Nigeria and that Jonah should be allowed to contest next year.  As a rider, the old man added for good measure that anybody from the north who has political ambition must shelve it now.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the Central Bank and the Banker to the government, accused the government of systematically haemorrhaging the country’s finances through the methodical robbery in the oil sector superintended by Jonathan’s darling Minister, Deziani Madueke, overseen by another untouchable amazon of the cabinet, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, who is a master of obfuscation.   Sanusi’s memo is an “ad memoire” to the letter he earlier wrote Jonathan alerting him of the theft at the NNPC (as if he doesn’t know).  The new memo to the Senate alerted Nigerians on another disappearing act of $20billion dollars from the NNPC and how the scam is perpetrated through a non-existent kerosene subsidy.  This is in addition to the $49.8billion said to have vanished into thin air last year.

Sanusi’s uncommon action was a very patriotic action alerting Nigerians and the world on the dangers Jonathan’s administration posed to the country and that nobody should do the mistake of trusting the man again with the destiny of the country.  The underlying message in all of Sanusi’s communications is that Jonathan and the ‘gang’ have neither shame nor compunction when it comes to fleecing the country.  Their understanding of fiscal federalism begins and ends with their pockets.  Jonathan is not averse to stealing or behaving contrary to the laws of the land.

While Sanusi was waving the economic red flag for Nigerians to see how low we have sunk fiscally, Nasiru El-Rufa’i was a guest of the SSS, our modern day Gestapo.  His offence?  He advised the government to conduct a credible election in order to avoid crisis.  The government has never been comfortable with anyone telling it the truth and it is becoming apparent that their reaction is becoming very predictable – unleash the security agents against such spoilsports.  The definition of a subversive has now being changed from what we know it to whoever is against Jonathan’s recklessness and his ambition to rule us whether Nigerians like it or not.  We have seen Asari Dokubo calling for war against the north in the event Jonathan is not returned as president next year and daring the security agencies to arrest him.  After El-Rufa’I’s fifteen hours detention, and condemnations from within and without the country, Dokubo was invited for a 30-minute tea chat.  This clearly shows that Dokubo is more important than El-Rufa’i to the government, Nasiru’s acknowledged brilliance notwithstanding.  A thug has more relevance than an acknowledged accomplisher.

While Sanusi and El-Rufa’i are undergoing their separate mental and physical ordeals in the hands of Jonathan’s kinsmen, a senile old man was inaugurating what he called Northern Elders Council (NEC).  Tanko Yakassai, a man who have been in the political field since the days of NEPU in the first republic, is embarrassing himself in public by denouncing all those having beef with Jonathan on how he is running the country.  It matters little to Yakassai that the north where he claims to be an “elder” has been brought to its knees by the same Jonathan he is campaigning for.  It matters little to him and his coterie of political contractors that the name Jonathan is akin to destruction of the same magnanimous north that made it possible for an unknown tailor to dance on the national political scene.  It matters not to Tanko Yakassai, Yusuf Mamman, Hassan Adamu and the rest of the gang that Jonathan’s kinsmen threatened to ostracise Raymond Dokpesi and his media empire when he agreed to be Babangida’s campaign Director General in 2010 before he beat a hasty retreat to their laager.  All that matters to them is how much they will make from their latest venture, no matter the terms and conditions attached in the MOU.  To them the north is another commodity to be bought and sold for their personal pecuniary gains.

I believe they are envious of (M)aku and Gulak, which may be responsible for their floating of the NEC.  My problem is that I did not see a single elder among them.  May be in a circle where you have Asari Dokubo, Edwin Clark, Boyloaf and the rest of the creek rats, then they may call themselves elders.  In my part of the north, none of them qualify to be known and addressed as elders, unless we have another definition of what an elder is.  The difference between this group and the militants of the Niger Delta may not be much.  While Asari & co. specialised in breaking of pipelines to steal oil, Yakassai and his group have been in the business of breaking peoples’ hopes and expectations.  They are specialists in breaking their region to the applause of their enemies.

If the bunch is what should be called the “elders of the north”, then the north is doomed.  May the good Lord safe us from this contraption that is more a Northern Elders Crooks than Northern Elders Council.  Thank God we have the authentic Northern Elders Forum.

A CONFERENCE OF JONATHAN’S NOMINEES

With the proposed composition of “The National Conference” as outlined by Pius Anyim in his news conference at the unveiling of the modalities for the conference, there seems to be no point in convoking the conference at all.  It will be cheaper for the country and easier for Goodluck Jonathan and his pipers to commission the ‘Nwabueze Committee’ to draft a new constitution incorporating all and everything they demand and submit same to the president for ratification.  This way, it will be easier for them to restructure the country in their image.  They can then inform the National Assembly for their information after the draft has been ratified and proclaimed as the constitution for the country.  I would presumptuously suggest the committee be headed by Ben Nwabueze with Tony Nyiam as secretary and Asemota as vice chairman.

In a conference to be made up of 492 delegates, the president is to theoretically nominate about 114.  The 114 include delegates from All Peoples Congress (APC) states whose governors had earlier indicated a resolve to boycott the conference.  When you add these to the ones to be nominated by PDP governors, you will have a conference of PDP delegates, who will then be expected to provide the 75% required to pass whatever the president needs to be passed.  Nigerians will then be presented with a document that is PDP in all its ramifications.   Jonathan and his cohorts are not going to leave anything to chance.  They are therefore ready to rig the process ab initio.    Where you have the president given the power to nominate 46 delegates; federal government to nominate 26; this is just same difference to me.  And then the president is to nominate for states where the governors may decide to boycott the jamboree.  Therefore, with the president’s direct nominations, the federal government’s “share” and the anticipated boycott of APC states and the nomination of the chairman, vice chairman and secretary for the conference, it is enough to make the whole shindig non-representative and therefore not better than the much maligned defective ‘military constitution’ it is supposed to fix.

Knowing the president’s pedigree and his notorious apathy to other parts of the country, and the antecedents of his closest advisers, one doesn’t need to be a stargazer to guess the outcome of the talk show.  The barely hidden agenda of Jonathan for the restructuring of the country has never been in doubt.  I salute the steadfastness of those hiding behind the cluelessness and incompetence of the man to actualise their lifelong dream of shaping Nigeria into their own narrow vision of what it should be.  The nomination of Nwabueze (later replaced with Asemota) and Tony Nyiam in the Advisory Committee gave an indication as to how the president wants the country to look like post the conference.  When an Igbo irredentist, later replaced by provincial ethnic jingoist whose horizon has never gone beyond the creeks of the Niger Delta; and a frustrated, dismissed military officer whose career was truncated by his misadventure in breaking up the country in the past, then you need to look far to understand what Jonathan wants.

The proposed manner, in which the delegates to the conference are to be selected in my opinion, is just another way of adopting Nwabueze’s proposal of being allowed to write a draft constitution for the country.  this allegation was not denied by either the president or Nwabueze.  If on the other hand, the conference is not meant to achieve a predetermined outcome, then why won’t it be shifted till next year, well after the general elections to enable INEC conduct elections on the basis of federal constituencies so that Nigerians will have a genuine peoples’ constitution – a demand that we have been inundated with in the past 20 years.  While it is generally agreed that our current constitution has some defects, the product of Jonathan’s conference will be worst than what we  now have in all its ramifications.  But I am assuming the president truly wants to fix a defective document and not impose his will on Nigerians. 

The adoption of nominations by the president presages the gravest danger to the north, particularly at this stage when they believe the north is on its knees politically and economically.  Some of those whom the president is allowed to nominate are what are referred to as ‘statesmen’, but who defines a statesman? Why should the president be allowed to nominate ‘statesmen’ for the zones? Do I qualify to be called a statesman?  Using universally accepted definitions of a statesman, do Edwin Clark, Tanko Yakassai or the Chairman of National of Road Transport Workers qualify as statesmen.  In my humble opinion, the trio all belong in the same category.

The excuse of not electing delegates to the conference doesn’t hold water, to me anyway.  If we can find $49.8 billion to steal, I don’t believe it could be hard to find N22 billion for INEC to conduct the elections for the delegates. We all know Jonathan and his chorus singers are scared of elections and will do whatever it takes to avoid going to the polls.  They believe bringing out oafs like Asari Dokubo from time to time will scare people into allowing them do what they want with peoples’ destiny.  While the klutz is threatening the country and our security men are applauding him he is investing in far away Benin Republic just to proof to you he doesn’t have confidence in the country.

If we are truly serious about restructuring the country, we should hold off the conference till after next year’s elections to enable INEC conduct elections for delegates for the conference.  A conference peopled by Jonathan’s henchmen will only be a conference for Goodluck Jonathan and his people.  No sane society can accept anything churned out by such a body.  A word is enough for the wise.

THE POLITICS OF ETHNIC NATIONALISM

The campaign of hate and the popularisation of hate speech in Nigeria is a legacy of Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign tactics which many people failed to see it for what it was because we were blinded by one sentiment or the other.  It first reared its head in the final days of the late Umaru ‘Yar Adua, his former principal.  After the death of ‘Yar Adua, it became Jonathan’s mantra – with his no shoes slogan saturating the airwaves and the print media.  We all forgot that most of us went to school without shoes.  Most of us were blind to the real meaning of the slogan – it was a barb directed at most Nigerians.  The other oft repeated refrain was Jonathan’s ethnic minority status and his religion.  These were presented as if there were people out there who are against the candidature/ presidency of Goodluck Jonathan on the basis of these two issues.  With the connivance of our security agents, Jonathan made it back to the Aso Villa.  The man’s true colours began manifesting.  All the credentials one need to be accepted into the president’s inner circle is your hatred for the north.  Apart from the likes of Edwin Clark, Reuben Abati and Asari Dokubo, Igbo leadership was falling head over heels to outdo all.

Igbo jezebels like Stella Oduah and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala were brought on board and given sensitive ministries to head.  They have so far discharged their briefs with diligence, may be surpassing their expectations.  The duo have effectively “igbonised” their respective ministries by ensuring that all departments and agencies under their ministries are headed by Igbos to avoid for a situation where a non Igbo may prove to be a spanner in the works.  Two examples of Oduah’s “success” may suffice here.  She worked extra hard to make Mallam Aminu Kano Airport redundant and one would not be wrong to rename the Nigerian College of Aviation, Zaria as Biafran College of Aviation because 90% of the management staff in the school are all Igbos.  Not to be outdone by Stella Oduah, Okonjo-Iweala ensured that almost all agencies and parastatals in the Finance Ministry is headed by an Igbo man or woman.  The Nigerian Stock Exchange, Securities & Exchange Commission, Bureau of Public Procurement, Budget Office, Debt Management Office, etc.  No one cares that the actions of the two damsels is in direct contravention of the Federal Character principle which is easily laid on any northerner who had the guts and the gumption to try something akin to equity.  But knowing the whole Igbo leadership and followership will stand by them and give them covering fire; they trudged on not minding whose ox is gored.

The recent revelation by the Nigerian Customs Service that the country lost about N1.4tr to waivers and concessions under Okonjo-Iweala’s watch put a question mark on the woman’s much vaunted integrity and economic expertise.  It only proves that she is not averse to telling lies under oath as was recently shown by her response to the House of Representatives Finance Committee.  With a straight face, she claimed waivers and concessions granted to some people “only” amounted to N170.7bn.  This was a woman whose arrival from the World Bank was heralded with a lot of hype on her numerous qualifications from Ivy league business schools around the world.  Nigerians were made to feel honoured that such a personage has “stooped” to be in our midst and be Finance Minister, a position her paid pipers made us believe is beneath her.  That she is sacrificing a career at the World Bank to come and fix a broken country and a battered economy.  I had cause to point out then that wasn’t it ironical that Christine Lagarde, the then French Finance Minister, was on the verge of leaving her post to take up the Managing Directorship of the IMF, the junior partner to the World Bank, while our own Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was resigning as the Managing Director of the World Bank to be a minister of a third rate rentier economy like Nigeria’s.  What we were not conveniently told was that she was a Managing Director - one of three Managing Directors - and not the Managing  Director.

While Madam Wahala was holding brief as our “Co-ordinating Economic Minister”, $49.8 billion got “missing”.  She presided over the voodoo explanations that Nigerians were subjected to without blinking her eyes.  For daring to question Okonjo Iweala’s integrity, we got heaps of insults from the Igbos.  We do not know whether the monies were stolen on behalf of the Igbos or not – what we know is that this huge amount of money got missing when Okonjo-Iweala is sitting pretty tight as the ‘Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy’.

We have also seen how the issue of Stella’s kleptomania is turned into an ethnic rather than a national issue as the Igbos went on a threat-issuing spree.  Another instance of this Igbo politics of threats is the announcement by Professor Ango Abdullahi that the Northern Elders Forum is contemplating filing of a case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Ihejirika, for atrocities committed by his troops in the country’s fight against insurgency.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the Igbos have a separate agenda from that of other Nigerians.  The threat by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) eastern region that the north should be prepared for a tribal war in the event the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) carried through its intention of taking Ihejirika to the ICC is very revealing to the unbiased.  What are the Igbos afraid of, what are they trying to hide?  Was Ihejirika an Igbo or a CAN, eastern region, Chief of Army Staff?  Was he not a Chief of Army Staff of the Nigerian Army?  Were there things that the former COAS did at the behest of the Igbos and the eastern region CAN that they are scared may be laid bare by a trial?  Or that people of Igbo extraction should not be held responsible for their actions or inactions, commissions or omissions while in office?

The fire of ethnicity and religiosity ignited by Jonathan in his 2011 campaign has turned into a conflagration with groups from the former eastern region trying to re-enact their despicable actions of January 1966, which took the country through a needless civil war.  While his kith and kin are insulting the rest of the country, Jonathan is busy summoning from pulpits across Abuja.  Nigeria will not survive another war and going by the beatings of the drums of war by the president’s supporters, we have to pray hard that one isn’t thrust on us.  An amicable parting of ways as happened in the defunct Czechoslovakia,  may be in the best interest of all concerned.  We can go our separate ways without a single shot fired and with everybody’s integrity intact.

It is also high time northern leaders across board wake up to the ;ossibility of such inevitability.  The display disdain, hatred and raw animosity is becoming more and more provocative.  It is apparent that what Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Okoro and company began on January 1966 and which Tony Nyiam, Jonathan’s white-haired boy, tried to finish in April 1990 but failed must be completed for these people to be satisfied.  The inheritors to the ‘five majors’ diabolical blueprint believe there won’t be more auspicious time than now – with a pliable and guillible president on seat – to realise their lifelong ambition.  Arewa, Ronu!

DANBABA SUNTAI: THE POLITICS OF RELIGION

Sometimes in December 2013, there was a news item in the newspapers to the effect that Danbaba Danfulani Suntai, the elected vegetating governor of Taraba State will be attending a Church service at the Dunamis International Church in Abuja.  According to the reports, all security arrangements have been completed including the installation of body scanners at the entrance of the Church.  Congregants were given thorough body search to forestall anyone with any unwholesome intention gaining entrance into the Church.  Alas, all the arrangements came to nought as Danbaba failed to turn up.  The explanation was that the service was very close to his flight schedule back to Jalingo, the Taraba state capital.  The man was to later “appear” at a crossover service on new year’s eve that was fortuitously witnessed by columnists who only accompanied friends to Jalingo from other places.  It was also reported that the governor went to his office and clearly remembered the things he wanted to do before his unfortunate accident.  A miracle of no mean proportion, if you ask me.  This is apart from the contrived “sightings” of this eighth wonder of the world.  For God’s sake, Danbaba is not Harley’s Comet to be sighted by a chosen few.

From all that has been happening in Taraba State since the ‘return’ of Danbaba in late August from his treatment in New Jersey, it is becoming glaringly clear to all that those who appropriated the man to themselves don’t give a hoot to his health status so long as he remains alive to give life to their ambition.  With a conniving and acquiescing wife, Danbaba is gradually being turned into a religious symbol rather than the politician that was voted as governor by all the people of Taraba State.  He is now usurped by a few to the exclusion of the rest of the people of the state.  He has being taken to everywhere bar the most important place of all – the State House of Assembly complex – lying next door to where he is imprisoned by those who love him and the state the most.  We have seen pictures of the man at a fishing pond and at the church but we are yet to see him at either the state’s legislative House or the NUJ Secretariat in Jalingo.

Their recent junket (pilgrimage?) to Abuja to see T. Y. Danjuma and Goodluck Jonathan “preparatory to Danbaba’s resumption of office”.  I wonder why go to all this trouble when they can simply walk the man into the legislative chamber to address the lawmakers and may be as an aside address the Correspondents’ Chapel in Jalingo instead of going to Abuja just to see T. Y. Danjuma, Goodluck Jonathan and then “address State House Correspondents”.  What purpose could the trip to Abuja serve that won’t be served by convincing those who elected him as their governor or their representatives in the state House of Assembly?  What is so important in visiting Taraba’s biggest masquerade and not the Speaker of the State’s House of Assembly?  How can addressing State House Correspondents be more useful than the correspondents in Jalingo?  Why are they scared in giving Danbaba unfettered access to his “people” – those that put him in the government house in the first place?

It may appear to objective minds that Danbaba is a hostage to religious bigots masquerading as politicians whose objective is to maintain the political strangle hold they have on the state.  The issue of good governance, the Taraba people or Danbaba’s recovery is of no significance to these vultures that are not averse to amplifying our religious fissures as long as they maintain their grip on the state.  Their attitude so far has shown that Danbaba symbolises religiousity not politics.  I would have advised them, ex gratia, to go the whole religious hog by paying homage to Ayo Oritsejafor, our numero uno religious ideologue.  They have succeeded in polarising the state along religious lines, which may not be of significance to them but it should and ought to be. 

If power shift is all that matter to these clique, why are they fixated to taking Danbaba to churches only and not other places that matter like the legislature or even the occasional State Executive Council meetings?  Are we to inteprete the actions of some few bigoted people as representative of the majority of the people of southern Taraba?  Can the Muslims of Taraba be fair to their Christian brethren by thinking that the shenanigans of these conceited few is the mind-set of Christians in the state?  Have these modern day “Turaiast” realise the implication of their actions on a state that is struggling with developmental problems?

Walking Danbaba Suntai to the State House Assembly will do all of them a whole more good than the merry go round of churches and visiting figures in Abuja, who cannot stand the heat at the national level and scampered to the comfort of their laagers to unnecessarily generate their own heat on a smaller platform.  Those hired to write on witnessing “miracles” on the night of the crossovers are doing more harm to Danbaba than good.  They are also doing more harm to the political and social cohesion of Taraba state.  Danbaba Suntai is mortal – he is human for God’s sake – with all human frailties and fallibilities.  Why are we trying to make him something else?  One of the unintended consequences of the clique’s desperation is to show the world that Danbaba was only a governor for the Christians to the exclusion of Muslims.  I don’t want to believe so.

Another unintended consequence of their actions is the unmasking of T. Y. Danjuma as a religious bigot and not Sardauna’s heir, as mistakenly believed by so many across the vast north (yours sincerely inclusive).  History presented an opportunity for T. Y. to play a statesmanlike role in resolving the stalemate in his state, but he chose to be on the side of those whose motives are far from noble.  The old general had gone down notches on the scale of respect people use to have for him across all divides.

Danbaba’s health status should be resolved post haste by all serious people irrespective of creed or ideology and should not be left in the hands of unscrupulous politicians looking for relevance or fading old men trying to play god.