Few articles in print can be as troubling as “The Spiritual Side of Aso Villa,” published by former Nigeria presidential adviser Reuben Abati on October 14.

Mr. Abati’s account portrays the Nigerian seat of power under Mr. Goodluck Jonathan as having being under spiritual bondage, and suggests that performance was impossible.

The situation was so bad under Mr. Jonathan that staff were always falling sick, according to the account. Men routinely reported they had become impotent, and their wives comforted themselves with sex videos and toys. Mysterious fires were common in homes of villa staff.
It was so bad that someone warned the writer that he was “coming to the villa using Lux soap, but that most people around the place always bathed in the morning with blood. Goat blood. Ram blood. Whatever animal blood…He said there were persons in the Villa walking upside down.

A pastor told Abati the villa was full of evil spirits and too much human sacrifice. Someone always died. People “lost daughters and sons, brothers and uncles, mothers and fathers,Faulty presidential aircraft, one enduring a bird strike in Kenya. In Norway, a helicopter bearing President Jonathan almost crashed.

Abati, who twice in the article claims not to be superstitious, fields far-reaching conclusions: “When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine…When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public…”

His most important one is probably this: “Should I become President of Nigeria tomorrow, I will build a new Presidential Villa: a Villa that will be dedicated to the all-conquering Almighty, and where powers and principalities cannot hold sway…in the United States, Presidents live like normal human beings. In Aso Villa, that is impossible…No Nigerian President should be in spiritual bondage because he belongs to all of us and to nobody.”

That last point seems to be an effort to make Nigerians accept that the squalid picture the writer paints of the Jonathan presidency applies to Muhammadu Buhari, who assumed power famously declaring that he belongs to everybody and to nobody.

Abati’s article’s should have been written in 2011, somewhere between June and November, that first half-year in office when he discovered it was impossible for Mr. Jonathan to succeed. This is the import of his story.

Since neither he nor any of his so-called troubled colleagues found the strength to quit, his dissertation is laughable, at best. A lot of Mr. Jonathan’s initiatives were well-received. He did not run into trouble because they were poor. The devil, pardon the imagery, was always in his failure to implement.

The Freedom of Information Act, for instance, was one of his early, and celebrated efforts. But in practice, neither he nor any of his senior officials honoured it.

Similarly, in July 2011, Mr. Jonathan announced an anti-corruption “war,” saying he would begin with a comprehensive audit of the finances of all Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies, with effect from 2007. For four years thereafter, he never implemented it.
This was not new. That year, I documented how Mr. Jonathan, in an effort to win the election, bathed every nook and corner of Nigeria with promises. Not only did he fulfill none of them, in November 2014 at the launch of his presidential campaign in Lagos, he lied that he had fulfilled ALL of them.

In February 2015, Abati himself, in response to the Economist’s dismissal of Mr. Jonathan’s re-election hopes, backed that position, claiming Mr. Jonathan had “worked very hard to fulfill all the major promises he made to them on assumption of office.” There is a comprehensive contradiction between the energies Mr. Jonathan and his staff spent in trying to remain in power and the claim that uncontrollable forces were preventing them from exercising that power.

The truth is that power is a strange aphrodisiac which lures the unwary into forgetting that its flip side is responsibility. Ibrahim Babangida, Aso Rock’s first occupant, didn’t want to leave, neither did its most prominent occupiers so far: Sani Abacha and Olusegun Obasanjo. Are we to take it that the same gremlins that encouraged them to underperform and to betray also insisted that they must be forced to leave?
Jonathan is known as Nigeria’s luckiest politician. He virtually sneaked into the presidency, unnoticed. But by his own admission, even as vice-president, he declared his assets in 2007 only because President Umaru Yar’Adua forced him.

And then he found in his hands presidential power, that is: the opportunity to transform his country forever. What did Jonathan do with it?
“A colleague called me one day and told me a story about how a decision had been taken in the spiritual realm about the Nigerian government,” Abati writes. “He talked about the spirit of error, and how every step taken by the administration would appear to the public like an error.”
Error? Jonathan swore never to declare his assets. He didn’t give a damn. He conferred respectability on stealing.

He granted state pardon to the corruption ex-convict, Dipreye Alamieyeseigha. He armed the National Security Adviser (NSA) with slush funds. Arrogant and deliberate howlers, obviously but in no wise spiritual.

Jonathan’s embrace of corruption enhanced the decay of our military. The disaster of Chibok was magnified because the Jonathan government first chose to deny the abduction. Was that a wonderful decision misunderstood by the public?
Jonathan was not hampered by extraneous forces, but by a lack of vision, motivation and strength. He ran a bazaar, not a responsible, responsive outfit.

For example, Doyin Okupe was appointed Special Adviser in 2012 because Abati himself was said to have demonstrated no ability to “defend” the First Lady from critics. For that position, the former medical doctor explained last July that NSA Dasuki gave him N50m upon his appointment, another N50m in October 2014, and N10million monthly. To do what, you wonder.

Okupe also said he had a staff of 23, of which about half had at least university graduate degrees. How did one attack dog multiply so darkly and expensively?

People were sick in Aso Rock? Sorry o! But people are sick all over Nigeria, their miseries of diabetes and hypertension and cancer compounded by incompetent and malicious governance. Unlike Aso Rock, they often lack diagnosis or treatment, and cannot travel to Germany. Families are dying of hunger, and in road crashes, robberies and kidnappings.

Let us be clear: Bad governance is not a victimless crime. It is a weapon of mass destruction. Bad policies are bad policies, such as Buhari not identifying powerful looters and speedily prosecuting them. Nigeria should not erupt in joy because he is trying to sell only two executive jets instead of at least five.

Leaders should not spend power on themselves and their inner circle, and when it is gone, attribute their failure to people who walked on their heads. We like to cite the US, while conveniently forgetting that in that country, the licence Nigerian leaders take in Aso Rock would put the president in jail within one week.

And our people have a saying: If the man who slept indoors says he saw a ghost, what should the man who slept outdoors say?

• sonala.olumhense@gmail.com
• Twitter: @SonalaOlumhense

http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/columns/the-demons-of-president-goodluck-jonathan/168135.html#PoleqbIzzjFeePfO.99

ok Let me guest the name of the demon, it is called ogogoro, kainkain, dry gin.The demon that turned a shoeless man a drunk and ineffectual buffon to the point that even in foreign land he went on drinking spree that got him admitted to hospital while he missed important meeting he was there for. I laugh when I hear people put up lies to defend his disastrous and very corrupt regime.

Funlordjnr:

Abati and his boss jonathan are just 2 big idiots!
No be only spirits na gandolf been dey run the villa sef.....Nonsense!

Demons everywhere.

No wonder they commissioned a spiritual contractor in Sokoto,the man with an ancestral faced mark (Bafarrawa) with over 2 billion naira to chase Boko boys.

And i have been wasting my spiritual talent all this while in Lagos fa. For say i knew this before Jona election na my robe i for wear go Aso rock for spiritual cleansing....demon for see nween!

Efcc for search tire cos my own payment na raw cash, no bank transfer, no bureau de change ...

I Don't Believe in Ghost Stories

Seriously, Abati didn't think that ish through at all.. demons & principalities indeed!!!!

Ineptitude & abetting grand scale public purse pilfering + lack of foresight on the kind of legacy he wants the history books to showcase about him are/ were the only demons that affected him..

Wait, I'll read when I wake up...This sleep still dey sweet me

I dont think there will ever be any regime in Nigeria as useless, unmotivated and corrupt as Goodluck Jonathan's tenure. Every pain Nigerians are facing today is because of the slowpoke's lack of vision and political will. Shame!

modath:
Seriously, Abati didn't think that ish through at all.. demons & principalities indeed!!!!

Ineptitude & abetting grand scale public purse pilfering + lack of foresight on the kind of legacy he wants the history books to showcase about him are/ were the only demons that affected him..

One should write based on facts as opposed to conjectures.
For a start let us compare corruption under the rulership of Ebola Owu (who is now the navigator of the Association of ProgreTHIEF Criminals, APC) with that of Jonathan's administration. Shall we


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2467944_obasanjotransparencyrating2004_jpegf577f3dadf99ddddb409ec370bb5548d


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2608719_transparencyintl_corruptionimprove2014_jpegd841e1e015b6b1cdf5ddd85e12d9bfb5

blackpanda:
I dont think there will ever be any regime in Nigeria as useless, unmotivated and corrupt as Goodluck Jonathan's tenure. Every pain Nigerians are facing today is because of the slowpoke's lack of vision and political will. Shame!

Another LIAR liar zombie spotted.
Maybe you have another meaning for vision and political will since the evidence of Jonathan's five years in office do not align with your comment above.


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2419425_image_jpeg9f360c5ab7736510df54c882e9dbf188

Nigerians To Get Loans For Locally-Assembled Cars
July 4, 2014

From November, Nigerians will be able to purchase brand new cars assembled in the country without having to pay in full for them as the Federal Government’s vehicle acquisition finance scheme would have taken off then.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, made the announcement at a press conference in Lagos on Thursday.

According to the minister, the Federal Government is currently discussing with local and international financial institutions on how to make the scheme achieve the aim of making made in Nigeria cars affordable.

Though the details are still being worked out, our correspondent gathered that the government was encouraging the partner banks to make available loans for vehicle acquisition at not more than 10 per cent interest rate repayable over four years.

Aganga said, “The government is working on an affordable vehicle acquisition scheme, which will be launched in four months’ time. We are looking at an affordable interest rate of not more than 10 per cent against the current interest rate regime in the banks, which is over 20 per cent.

“We are currently engaging local and international financial institutions to provide the funds. People should be able to pay over four years at 10 per cent. We are still discussing; we have not yet finalised the details.”

However, the minister ruled out the option of the government providing the seed fund for the scheme, explaining that the banks would rather fund it, but that the government was working with them to reduce the interest rate payable on the vehicle acquisition loans.

The attraction for the banks, according to him, is that the scheme will represent a commercial opportunity for them, as many Nigerians will be able to buy brand new vehicles assembled in the country, with the multiplier effect of more citizens being employed by the assembly plants.

Aganga gave an assurance that the local vehicle manufacturers and assemblers had enough capacity to meet the expected upsurge in demand for new cars and would not increase the prices of their products.

According to him, the Nigerian Automotive Industry Development Policy will create thousands of direct and indirect employment opportunities by ensuring the revival of moribund vehicle assembly plants in the country and will raise the standard of living of the citizens.

The minister was joined at the briefing by the Executive Director, Nigerian Automotive Manufacturers Association, Mr. Arthur Madueke; Managing Director, PAN Nigeria Limited, Mr. Ibrahim Boyi; Managing Director, Leyland Nigeria; and Director-General, National Automotive Council, Mr. Aminu Jalal.

Aganga used the occasion to deny insinuation that the tariff on imported vehicles had been increased to 70 per cent, adding that importers of new and used vehicles, who had keyed into the new automotive policy, would only pay 35 per cent of the vehicles’ costs, while those outside the arrangement would pay an extra 35 per cent levy.

He said, “The rumour that the Federal Government has increased the tariff on imported cars to 70 per cent is incorrect and misleading. The Nigerian Automotive Manufacturers Association has already assured the government and all Nigerians that there is adequate stock of imported vehicles and that its members have not, and will not, increase the prices of imported vehicles.

“Nigeria is the only country in the world where used vehicles were not banned following the introduction of the new automotive policy. This is because President Goodluck Jonathan, before announcing the new policy, had taken into consideration the current socio-economic conditions of the average Nigerian and will not want to come up with any policy that will inflict more hardship on them.”

Aganga added, “The new automotive policy has been structured to encourage Original Equipment Manufacturers to invest in Nigeria to create jobs and develop our economy because we realise that for every car that we import into Nigeria, we are creating jobs for other countries.

“After consultations with all the stakeholders in the automobile industry, the government came up with different tariffs, which include zero per cent for Completely Knocked Down vehicles; five per cent for Semi Knocked Down 1 vehicles, and 10 per cent for Semi Knocked Down 2.”


From: http://www.businesstodayng.com/nigerians-to-get-loans-for-locally-assembled-cars/

plainol:
Demons everywhere.

Even sex demons of the night as opined in the thread below!
Our spiritual stupidity is unrivaled.

https://www.nairaland.com/3423180/incubus-succubus-sex-demons-night



www.nairaland.com/attachments/2881064_23015862301371mrbeaninotellupng25c4955d40e3462_png058f85876085f9171ace8711304fe9b0

anonimi:


One should write based on facts as opposed to conjectures.
For a start let us compare corruption under the rulership of Ebola Owu (who is now the navigator of the Association of ProgreTHIEF Criminals, APC) with that of Jonathan's administration. Shall we


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2467944_obasanjotransparencyrating2004_jpegf577f3dadf99ddddb409ec370bb5548d


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2608719_transparencyintl_corruptionimprove2014_jpegd841e1e015b6b1cdf5ddd85e12d9bfb5

Anyone with half a brain knows that the ranking was corrupted like money spray on traditional rulers

oduastates:
Anyone with half a brain knows that the ranking was corrupted like money spray on traditional rulers

Ebola Owu and his darling madam Due Process were members of Transparency International's board oh.

https://www.transparency.org/whoweare/organisation/advisory_council/0/

http://www.thefutureafrica.com/menu/obiageli-ezekwesili-nigeria/


Abeg find something sensible to say, please.
Were the facts below also corrupted


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2829397_screenshot201412071133571_jpeg8e776d1183226bc80c2560544562a452

...F A C T.. C H E C K ...

'Obasanjo and Atiku in 8 years built one UNIVERSITY each for themselves....Bells and ABTI.
They built NONE for Nigerians.

Jonathan and Sambo in 4 years built 14 (FOURTEEN) new universities for all Nigerians.
NONE for themselves.

NOTE: OBJ and ATIKU are now consultants/sponsors/piloters/members of APC....



www.nairaland.com/attachments/2023224_106334837960003637540871239247822158463153o_jpega322806fc65b78cc91e1dd619380fecb

Sourced from: https://www.nairaland.com/2146237/why...ive/4#30711260

blackpanda:
I dont think there will ever be any regime in Nigeria as useless, unmotivated and corrupt as Goodluck Jonathan's tenure. Every pain Nigerians are facing today is because of the slowpoke's lack of vision and political will. Shame!

A donkey thinks and acts more critically honestly. How could a man who's inebriated 247 be given such enormous responsibility as to run a nation as intricate as Nigeria.

Even his tacit abdication of responsibility for NOI and his other mistress Opolo Eyes didn't do much to fix his inestimable deficiencies.

A mistake I hope we never ever repeat in this country, jonathan.

Abati is one big ol clown as well. The question Abati should answer is, given his persistent encounters with the demons, what exactly kept him at his post and prevented him from leaving? Was he working to kill the demons or did they conquer his senses, making it impossible for him to take such a decision?

Smh.

Please Lalasticlala, Seun, Mynd44, this article should be on the fp.

Abati and his boss jonathan are just 2 big idiots!

No be only spirits na gandolf been dey run the villa sef.....Nonsense!

Lol........

Abati needs to stop watching Nollywood movies; they seem to be having a pernicious effect on him.

Jonathan is gone, let him be jare, but for aso rock i know there is too much blood there trust me