Truth is bitter

In the name of God, the Beneficent and Merciful.

Your Excellency, The President of Nigeria. Peace and the mercy and blessings of God be with you.

Dear Umaru Yar’adua

First congratulations on your nation’s 49th Independence Day Celebrations, I am writing you this letter on behalf of the loving people of Saudi Arabia and myself. I need not emphasis to you the place of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not just on you as a person but the fact that we represent the ground for billions of faithful and peace-seeking Muslims.

The next few lines I pen to you would be painful—the reason being that it is the truth and I dare say, you and I know that the truth hurts. I have been told and warned by my kinsmen that I am not saying anything new but I will still say it. Let me start with your recent visit to my domain. Your countrymen are sickened and cannot fathom the reason why you would abandon the UN General Assembly for the second time just to come for a University commissioning.

As it regards that I will skip for now. Do you know reasons why you were welcomed by a governor…well let us leave that to local gossip? Your absence is sad because it is one of the many reasons that you and your countrymen and women are not taken serious. If you recall early in the year you had complained to them and the world that it was unfortunate that the world did not reckon with you and your nation during the G-8 summit in London. Here was an opportunity to try and remedy the serious image problems you have with other nations by confronting their leaders face to face. This I think you missed…and your citizens I believe feel same. You told me that you minister for foreign affairs would handle the UN but I disagree with you.

The minister I am told flew to the US from Brazil where he had gone for negotiations on how the nation can achieve the 6,000MW power generation by December. It is sad that at 49 years and with a population of approximately 150milliion you are still battling with generating a mere 6,000 MGW. I gathered that no part of Nigeria has a one-hour uninterrupted power supply for a seven-day week. Since your assumption of office you have been on hijra to my domain on three occasions and this excludes the hajj you have come to perform. Can’t recall when we suffered a power outage last.

One of your revered writers a certain Wole Soyinka's said that "the man (Yar'Adua) is on permanent sabbatical". "… A permanent sabbatical from critical national duty,”. This I see as an insult because no one in my domain dares insinuate that of me. Your nation is adrift and all is not well and citizenry do not see any concerted effort at solving these issues. You came to commission a university, and mysteriously some 90 public universities are shut down in your country. Most of your states are battling with primary school teachers’ strike.

At 49 years you do not have a University in the top 1000 Universities listing, none of your public schools can be certified as first class. And I hear that most of your lieutenants are products of these schools that you and past governments have allowed to decay. On your other visits, you have been treated and attended to by some of the best the medical field has to offer in my domain, and each time I wonder to myself…why can you not build such in your country. Do you think if I was sick I would come to Nigeria for healthcare, .? (subhannallah) Allah forbid that much you know. I am told that nothing works in your land and despite all the opportunities. You have continued to remain a nation of misplaced priorities and dashed hopes.

The Kingdom of Saudi is faced with its own troubles which are peculiar to us and some problems which you are familiar with. However we continue to tackle them. But I gathered that you are massaging your issues rather than deal with them headlong. In my domain we deal with corruption too, but be rest assured that our tolerance level is low. We do not hesitate to cut with sword the erring part, hand, eye, or ‘that part of the body’.

This results in serious human rights questions but we do not murder or assassinate journalists or opposition people either. Many people I have spoken to from your land say they had hope in you, but that after just two years…they called you go-slow, later it was snail, now they have resigned themselves to fate. I have my integrity and that of my people to protect; besides it is not in my place to say, yet I will ask. What is the place of your wife in government …is she a feminist, is she the only wife you have? I have no problem with all these but if she is indeed the de-facto president…then there is a problem? On a scale of preference we have long shifted our attention to the likes of South Africa, Ghana, and Egypt and recently tiny nations like Namibia, Mozambique are not left out. I do not envy the enormous problems you face but I am saddened that you have not solved any. You have not improved on a faulty electoral system that brought you to power. Your banking sector we hear just underwent partial oncology but the real cancer is still there.

Some of your elites now build helipads and move around in helicopters in cities like Port Harcourt, Onitsha to avoid kidnap and your roads remain hellish and all we hear is that the Federal and state governments are perpetually engaged on whether it’s a federal or a state road while people die on these roads. You have at 49 years some of the best brains in various fields but you have not been able to harness their potentials. There are several policy somersaults by various functionaries of your government and these paints you in bad light. You rule of law mantra has been questioned by the lawlessness of those underneath you and then people find out you are in the know. Your citizens are suffering loss of appetite, fatigue and memory slip at what best government practices are.

Infact I am told that citizens rejoice when government officials do what they are supposed to do because the reverse is the case. I am even told that there is a phrase used…’the man stole but he worked too’. Even in hitherto familiar terrain like soccer I hate to say that soon boys from my kingdom will beat your team whether super eagles or gentle doves. I gathered you never plan for anything in your nation anymore and the inevitable happens…you all fail. I have not proffered any solution to you in this Independence letter, so also have I left out many other issues and my reason is that I do not intend to insult you but awaken you. You have the manpower, the resources.

You can if you want to, my fear is, a doubt that you and your people want to. Leaders in the past have refused to take counsel and have never bothered about any legacies, I do not know if you want to be any different or will be different. I do not know if you will read this or an aide will browse through it as usual. Bisalam King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz

NB: As at press time it could not be ascertained if indeed the 85 year old royal father wrote this letter, but the contents are very correct. And our sources say that the Villa is not taking it lightly.

The Politician And His Cyber Battles PDF Print E-mail
Written by Daniel Elombah
Thursday, 11 June 2009 18:00

Daniel Elombah

Inside one of the NASS offices of Mr Dimeji Bankole, the (dis)Honourable Speaker of the Nigeria House of Representatives, you will find fresh faced young men, fresh from the university, each with a laptop on his desk, typing away and chatting online as if his life depends on it.

In this secret room into which hardly anyone is let in, on any given day, their numbers could range from three to five; googling, browsing and typing sharp responses. What are they searching and replying to? They are looking for any negative internet story on their boss, Mr Dimeji Bankole. Their job is to read, digest and marshal appropriate responses.

Bankole is not the only Nigerian politician with his ear tuned towards what Nigerian ‘internet warriors’ are up to. From the Anambra State Governor Peter Obi to the Ogun State helmsman Otumba Gbenga Daniel even down to the members of the House of Representatives, paid assistants are constantly online, in the Nigerian forums on the internet, using tools that range from intimidation and propaganda to counter what they perceive as snide attacks on their benefactor.

Why have our self anointed ‘looters of the commonwealth’ left the natural use of Press officers and media assistants to release information to the Nigeria media or court the home press?

The simple reason is that they have perfected the art of killing negative stories locally. The poverty of the local journalists and the harsh publishing environment of the Nigerian Press have made the Nigerian publishers devise ingenious methods of survival and still declare profit.

A Nigerian journalist that could only speak anonymously in the course of my researching this story said that their editors have discovered that they could in fact make more money from the stories they are paid to kill than from advertising and the news they publish.

In this business, he went on to say, there are no retainerships; each new story is a fresh business with a different price - the bigger the impact of the story, the higher the amount.

Another journalist confided in me that during the period of the Elumelu REA electrification scandal, most newspaper houses even including the Guardian and Champion Newspapers made brisk business. According to him, the biggest payers were Liyel Imoke and Dimeji Bankole.

In fact, in the National Assembly for example, there is a clique of journalists whose remit is to organise such hatchet job, he said.

“now imagine you are correspondent, you have painstakingly researched your stories, and dutifully filed them to the headquarters of your publishing house in Lagos and wakes up the next of morning expecting to bask in the glory of your exclusive scoop, but your hard hitting scoop is nowhere in the news! You call your editor to find out what is wrong - perhaps, DHL failed to deliver, only to have your editor say to forget that story.

What? You exclaim, “What about all my efforts”? Then your editor barks over the phone, “is that the only news in town that you could find”?

“Imagine the insult my brother”, he concluded.

Unlike the local pressmen however, the internet news reporter is faceless, how then could the Nigerian politician use the almighty naira to control him? They therefore use propaganda, intimidation and planted stories to misinform and obfuscate issues – the only tool at their disposal.

I have been a victim of these efforts, so I should know. When I started Elombah.com, my modest blog site, I merely intended to indulge my love of the freedom to express myself that internet blogging brings. Little did I know that I would gradually be drawn into the murky waters of the Nigerian Cyber wars.

You can only wonder at the speed with which Bankole threatened fire and brimstone against Saharareporters when they published the article- ‘Speaker Dimeji Bankole, His Father, and Two Brothers Involved in Electrification Scandal’. Before you could spell Jack-Robinson they have released a press statement online and threatened legal action within hours of the article. Before Nigerians could read the article the next morning, Bankole and his goons were already at work.

Another aspect of the scenario played out when the news of N250 million cash seized from Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi hit the airwaves. By 2pm of the 2nd of June 2009, the ‘miss’-Governor was very busy at Planet One in Ikeja sharing money personally to the Guild of Editors, so as to kill the publication of his money laundering activities. But while he was busy dolling out money, an internet thug-of-war had reached advanced stages on various Nigerian Yahoo groups, between Valentine Obienyem, Peter Obi’s media assistant and Phill Chinwuba and others until the bought-over Nigerian Press was forced to start reporting the event.

We are currently witnessing another internet war between the supporters of Gbenga Daniel and Festus Keyamo on the one hand and their antagonists- I am yet to confirm whether they have Dimeji Bankole’s blessing - on the other. The issue this time is the Press conference by Mr Tunji Eggetokun, Speaker of Ogun House of Assembly, who addressed a press conference along with Barrister Festus Keyamo claiming that his election was withdrawn without his consent.

It was Dele Momodu that wrote on his ‘The Search for own Obama’ Series that:

“The mood of the Nigerian nation today will be the waterloo of our ruling elites. The search for our own Obama has already started as a battle on cyberspace. It is amazing how Nigerians worldwide are warming up for the battle ahead. They are determined to cause a bloodless revolution in their own country, and demonstrate that we are no donkeys. They are networking like never before, and discussing issues that can move us forward. The economic meltdown has been a blessing in disguise. Many Nigerians abroad now want to return home. But there is no good home waiting to embrace them. Our leaders think Nigeria will never change. I laugh. Since they are incapable of gauging this mood, their cataclysmic fall will reverberate across the world. It would remain one of the greatest miracles of this century. But it shall come to pass”.

One Anambra Legislator simply told me: 2010 is around the corner, so what do you expect? Evidently, Like the hardened careerist politicians they are, the Nigerian Politician is determined to manipulate and influence the cyber battles, they don’t want to be caught napping.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/danny-elombah/the-politician-and-his-cyber-battles.html