Dede1:

When delusional freaks joined the politicking in Nigeria, I get hilarious. Dr. Sam Egwu is a reputed physician who has practiced medicine in institutions of renowned world standard. Please can someone explain the derogatory heap of the person of Dr. Sam Egwu? The vita curriculum of the education minister-appoint can not and would not pale in comparison to those who had held position before now.        

So that was why I switched on to Channels and saw Sam Egwu at the Senate clearance.

He was being asked how he felt coming before the Senate of the National Assembly, bowing before the president of the Senate and asking to be cleared to be a minister of the Federal Republic.

An exaggerated summary of the discussion went like this. You were governor of Ebonyi State when Pius Anyim was president of the Senate of the National Assembly. The chair before which you have taken a bow is occupied by the president of the Senate, the country’s third most distinguished personage.

That chair was occupied by one of your own, a distinguished senator from Ebonyi State. Anyim Pius Anyim suffered all forms of indignities in your hands. You harassed him so much he discovered that his home which would have been a safe haven had become the hell he had to run away from.

Because of you, he did not ask to come back to the Senate because you ambushed him at home. Even in Abuja, you hounded him from pillar to post and may have influenced the destruction of his house by El Rufai, acting on orders from you-know-who.

Now, before our very eyes, you are bowing in front of a chair whose occupant you did not hesitate to destroy. Can you tell the distinguished members of this hallowed chamber why they should consider you as a fit and proper person to be endorsed to assume office of minister of the Federal Republic?

Sam Egwu may not have expected that type of frontal attack, but he was not to be outdone in countering with an explanation that would persuade the distinguished senators to forgive him his trespasses and save him from the embarrassment of rejection.

He may have heard of the story of a nominee for office of minister in the 80s who was asked to recite the second stanza of the national anthem and was so embarrassed he forgot which was the correct anthem, the one that says tribe and tongue may differ but in brotherhood we stand; or that which calls on all compatriots to arise and obey the call of Nigeria. He produced a smile that may not have emerged from his heart but was meant to put the lie to the claim that he ever had anything against Pius Anyim.

He said Anyim was his brother. That is not that they had the same father and mother or that they came from the same village or senatorial district. But that they were quite close. They shared the same dreams, being in the same party, the Peoples Democratic Party.

They attended the same church and even when there was some little misunderstanding, their mutual friends sat both of them down and they shook hands and shared kola nuts and palm wine.

You may have seen some drama in the way I have told you what happened at the Senate, and you may have identified some touch of humour and light-mindedness in the telling.

Which, to you, ought to have improved my appetite! But what followed was what killed my taste for food. Sam Egwu was telling the Senate of the National Assembly, the highest law-making body in the land, that there was what they called the Ebonyi formula which ensured that they won all the seats in Ebonyi State for the PDP.

He said he orchestrated the scheme. He said he handed electoral materials to the senators and left them to moderate the elections in their electoral districts so that they could choose who they wanted to win elections from those districts!

He said he did that for Pius Anyim as he did for other senators. If he had had any serious problems with Pius Anyim, he would not have handed the electoral materials for his senatorial district to him.

otukpo:

NIGERIA IS NOT DOOMED.
THERE IS HOPE
LET'S ALL STOP BEING NEGATIVE.

Sky Blue:

@debosky, what i find most infuriating about the article you referenced was not what you highlighted, No. What i found most irritating about the article was how the choosing of a minister was not based on his/her competence but was based on "who fought who in the past". HOW DISGUSTING? The arrogance of PDP never ceases to amaze me. Must everything happening in the country revolve around the infights of the PDP and their different squables? Yar Adua - result of PDP infighting and party struggle. Etteh Gate Imposition, Ibori, etc. WOW. It is really irritating when people loose focus of the issues and make it about something that it shouldn't be about. So we are basically being told that the criteria for being a minister is not having any fights with anyone in the PDP. I am not saying Sam Egwu deserves ministerial position, it is bigger than that. How on earth could the selection of a minister degenerate into personal squabbles? Nigerian offices hold no respect whatsoever. Is the future of Nigeria going to forever depend on the tantrums and moods of the PDP and some select individuals? WOW. When PDP sneezes the whole country goes up in flames. It ought not to be so.

ritapearl:

Short of words! Let's give them time and see how they perform.

With these kind of people what hope do we hav for Nigeria,
The president was so "Wise" to put the only qualified candidate (Dora) in a wrong ministry.