Geoff Iyatse

For social media activists, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce’s tweet on the alleged loot of the late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, was too insensitive for a joke, which, perhaps, the lawmaker had in mind.

Murray-Bruce has taken to Twitter to express his disappointment with the current financial position of the Federal Government, thanking God that Abacha had stolen from the country.


He also sarcastically described the late military leader as a visionary, saying his loot had become the country’s “saving grace.”

He wrote, “Thank God for Abacha. In some way, he was a visionary. In this time of scarcity, his money being returned to us is now our saving grace.”

But this remark was one tweet his followers did not take lightly. Hence, the lawmaker has come under attack for making a jest of an offence that reportedly reduced the worth of the country and embarrassed its citizens.

For one, the presidential candidate of the KOWA Party at the 2015 poll, Remi Sonaiya, took the former NTA director-general to task, saying his remark was not in good taste.

“Hopefully, this was written tongue-in-cheek. But given the horrors we knew under Abacha, it may not be in good taste,” Sonaiya, the only female candidate that ran for the presidential poll, posted on her Twitter page.

Also, one Somi Ekhasomhi scolded the Bayelsa State-born lawmaker for attempting to make a joke out of a “crime” that has attracted condemnation from the public. She said the lawmaker’s Twitter handle was too important to be used to make statements that were opened to misinterpretations.

She noted, “He is being sarcastic. He too feels the need to mock those who say this with a straight face. But I agree that a senator’s handle is not the place to make a joke that is so open to misinterpretations.”

Tweeting on @buky, another social media user urged the lawmaker to delete the post, noting that it “is disgusting.”

“Please delete the tweet. This is a highly irresponsible and a slap on our face,” @buky posted.

According to Emeka Obasi, a social media influencer, Murray-Bruce would have avoided the unnecessary backlash if he paid attention to the public mood. He said the current challenges experienced by Nigerians did not encourage such jokes.

The majority of the online activists, who criticised the lawmaker, said his remark was an endorsement for corruption, a position that contradicts his “common sense” sermon.

Meanwhile, a professor of Political Economy, Pat Utomi, has also taken to digital media to express his concerns about the performance of the country’s economy, observing that nothing short of a “rapid response” from stakeholders and institutions will save the citizens.

Utomi is among the few Nigerian experts who have embraced the social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, to share their thoughts on national issues, including the economy.

Tweeting on the state of the economy from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, the political economist regretted the challenges investors in Nigeria faced, noting that there was the need to speed up efforts to improve on the country’s business environment.

According to him, the country needs a consensus among the elite on how it can sustain economic progress.

“I am at now in Dubai, just had indigestion served with someone reading story of investors leaving Nigeria. We need rapid response. (I) hate to think the recursive economy is back. We really need elite consensus on how to sustain progress in Nigeria,” he tweeted.

Utomi’s post from Dubai is like a call for a revolution, or so his teeming social media fans have perceived the phrase “rapid response.”

A response from one Oloopo Adeniji confirms this. Adeniji said, “Professor, you could start a movement and you can be sure that we, young ones, would follow. But you need to start one.”

Tweeting also, Emmanuel Ugwuanyi said Nigerians were waiting patiently for the Utomis to start doing something meaningful to announce to the government that they were not docile, as they often perceived.
http://www.punchng.com/murray-bruce-in-trouble-over-remark-on-abachas-loot/

Who his followers' reaction don help?

I don't know what this common sense man's ambition is. But that ambition is pushing him to say things that he thinks people want to hear.
More times than not, he makes a total azz of himself

mr common sense....

Some of these people just talk, no actions.
The fight against corruption should even begin at the National Assembly.

As politicians let's be proactive and pragmatic in our doings.

neutrotoba:
I don't know what this common sense man's ambition is. But that ambition is pushin him to say things that he thinks people wants to hear.
More times than not, he makes a total azz of himself

anyone who read that line would know he as just joking. I Dont see any sense in people taking it so serious.

adetayo234:


anyone who read that line would know he as just joking. I Dont see any sense in people taking it so serious.

thank you....some plpp will hold anything against, even when their is nothing to hold...everybody knows that the man was just teasing Abacha

Where is lalasticlala

Our Mr Common Sense needs this urgently, we have been saying it since but wailers wont agree... Brain transplant asap before oga Ben misyarn again

And Bubu who said Abacha.......... (complete above statement)

Send ya answers to zombie@cows.com.

The man na crowd follower...

He just repeated what some twitter users said earlier

Twitter lord

I thought Buhari said Abacha did NOT steal ni?
Anyway the PRETENTIOUS saint while at PTF must have stolen more than his then boss



www.nairaland.com/attachments/2733734_munch20150812080810_jpeg1d11e13a327d33cec402de71dc2a8eb7



www.nairaland.com/attachments/3441929_img20160227001458_jpeg3fecf627d6b5447631b348f011e59b5a

#baba send ur angel..... in TINTET's voice. ..no one's got brain anymore....nt even our common sense ambassador

shashasha

Oya na

And your hero did what?

TippyTop:
And Bubu who said Abacha.......... (complete above statement)

Send ya answers to zombie@cows.com.

anonimi:
I thought Buhari said Abacha did NOT steal ni?
Anyway the PRETENTIOUS saint while at PTF must have stolen more than his then boss



www.nairaland.com/attachments/2733734_munch20150812080810_jpeg1d11e13a327d33cec402de71dc2a8eb7



www.nairaland.com/attachments/3441929_img20160227001458_jpeg3fecf627d6b5447631b348f011e59b5a

you guys always know how to sidestep the truth.. topic is about the twitter Senator Murray Bruce's insensitive tweet about the abacha loot..you're talking about bubu's statement about the loot.. you guys reiterated that a million times..you've been heard..

question now is: do his wailing supporters like u agree with him indirectly that looting is good? who knows maybe he is planning to loot himself.. as his fellow party members did in the last 16years especially during GEJ's regime.

you wailers are even worse than some of the APC zombies.. mtchew

encryptjay:
Twitter lord

Na bad thing to have ILLITERATE as president oh.
If care is not taken we may all turn to brain-dead zombies who cannot read and/or understand what they have read.

BeeBeeOoh:

North East: Senate Turns Down Budget Proposal For Information Ministry..


ABUJA—THE Senate,  yesterday,  refused to treat the budget proposal for the Federal Ministry of Information due to lack of provision for media propaganda in the North East.

The Senate Committee on Information, which took the decision during the ministry’s budget defence, insisted that the ministry must not only rework but also re-present its budget with provisions for effective media propaganda in the North East.

The committee on information, headed by Senator Enyinaya Abaribe, PDP, Abia South, directed that the ministry should bring a budget that will cater for the needs of its media agencies. Abaribe’s directive was sequel to the observation raised by a member of the committee and senator representing Bayelsa  North, Ben Bruce, who had decried the non inclusion of budget for media operations in the North East, in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency. Bruce, in his remark, had pointed out that during the Nigerian Civil War, the media was effectively used to propagate relevant information. He therefore appealed that the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, and Voice of Nigeria, VON, should go and add the required component.

He said: “It would have made more sense for the information budget of the Army to be given to the Ministry of Information to equip these stations to be used by the military as a source of communication.

“For instance, if there is going to be an air raid in a particular area, we can warn the citizens to stay off that particular area".

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/02/n-east-senate-turns-down-budget-proposal-for-information-ministry/

ja

Hmmmmmm

Mtcheew ayam even tired of all these things sef. lemme listen to Eminem jeje

This is what happens when one spends too much time making noise on social media, instead of spending time delivering on his election promises.

I talk am

goodlifehyd1:
Our Mr Common Sense needs this urgently, we have been saying it since but wailers wont agree... Brain transplant asap before oga Ben misyarn again


www.nairaland.com/attachments/3630613_11_jpegf7f163af78812e58c4d3c47b4e396ae6

We know the Baba who is a specialist in misyarns as he suffers from "senior moments" aka Alzheimer's disease abi na Parkinson syndrome.
Please send the spare brain in your post to him in Aso rock.

An apple does not fall far away from the tree

But come oo! Is it d same Abacha dat we're told was not corrupt? If yes, did he become corrupt after his death? May be BMB is defending buhari. Bc if he was not corrupt certainly he saved d money knwing dat GEJ was weak n corrupt n dat he'd loot d money if he didn't take it beyond his(gej) reach. Bruce is right afterall we've told to support buhari blindly.

booqee:
you guys always know how to sidestep the truth.. topic is about the twitter Senator Murray Bruce's insensitive tweet about the abacha loot..you're talking about bubu's statement about the loot.. you guys reiterated that a million times..you've been heard..

question now is: do his wailing supporters like u agree with him indirectly that looting is good? who knows maybe he is planning to loot himself.. as his fellow party members did in the last 16years especially during GEJ's regime.

you wailers are even worse than some of the APC zombies.. mtchew

Two quick points =>

1) Kindly point out where he said or even suggested that "looting is good".
2) Ebola Owu spent 8 of the 16 years of PDP at the federal administration. Today he is APC navigator along with so many of the worstest elements from the old PDP. What were Ebola Owu's records in governance?

Nigeria's Obasanjo, his Untouchables, and the $16 Billion Power Scam


More from: http://www.africaundisguised.com/newsportal/story/nigerias-obasanjo-his-untouchables-and-16-billion-power-scam


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Keep away from Obasanjo, he wasted $16 billion on power Owie tells Buhari






Senator Roland Owie has blasted ex Pres­ident Olusegun Obasanjo over his perceived posture to influence the incoming administration of President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

Reacting to a Think-tank report submitted to Buhari by a team of technocrats put together by Obasanjo, Owie described the document as needless.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday, Owie, who is also a former Chief Whip of the Senate, asked: ”How can Obasanjo be preparing a blueprint for Buhari? A Bini parable says, ‘how can an impotent man get medicine for his brother, who suffers weak erection?’”

Expressing disappointment at Buhari’s romance with Obasanjo, Owie said “Obasanjo will tell the world that the solutions he prescribed for fixing Nigeria were ignored.”

Continuing he said, “I just read that Obasanjo’s think-tank has submitted a blueprint to Buhari. Blue what?

“I am shocked that great Nigerians of the likes of Prof. Akin Mabogunje, Dr. Idika Kalu and Dr. Christopher Kolade were involved. That Obasanjo is linked to the blue-print, it will be a document of blackmail to Buhari very soon.

“Wonders will never end! How can Obasanjo who allegedly wasted eight years in government pursuing perceived enemies, and tried to ruin the legislative and judiciary arms of government in Nigeria; wasted $16 billion on power and not a single kilowatt of energy was produced, destroyed Aladja Steel, Itakpe Steel, Ajaokuta Steel, NITEL, just to mention a few FGN parastatals, now begin to advise Buhari?

“How can Obasanjo, whose government received, in one year, a revenue equivalent of the total revenue that IBB regime received in eight years, yet, nothing to show for it, be handing over blue-print to the in-coming administration?

More from: http://pointblanknews.com/pbn/exclusive/keep-away-from-obasanjo-he-wasted-16-billion-on-power-owie-tells-buhari/

he may be right

Nigeria and Nigerians