According to Sahara Reporters;

Umaru Yar’Adua’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ojo Maduekwe, got more than he bargained for in New York today on his latest ministerial junket allegedly to discuss the inclusion of Nigeria in the list of nations in involved in terrorism. The Minister who spent N2.7 billion on foreign travels last year alone, arrived in New York York accompanied by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign affairs, Umar Bature. Maduekwe’s misery started upon arrival in New York as the US State Department refused to meet with him. Saharareporters had reported yesterday about a trip to Nigeria by Mr. Johnny Carson of the department to meet with Goodluck Jonathan, in view of Yar’Adua’s prolonged absence from office, the nation’s disappearance from international reckoning, as well as her increasing religious crises and the uprising in the Niger Delta region.

Mr. Maduekwe had banked on meeting with the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban ki-Moon, a meeting he hoped would open the door to the presence of Ms. Susan Rice, the US Permanent representative at the United Nations. But all those hopes and permutations collapsed, as Mr. Maduekwe ought to have known in Abuja, as the US was in a mood to meet the Foreign Minister of a country whose president had disappeared for two months.

Only yesterday, Mr. Maduekwe admitted what was worse the BBC program Hard Talk. He told the presenter he had not spoken to Yar’Adua since he left Nigeria on November 23 2009, and could not explain where he was getting his instructions.

That embarrassing experience meant that Maduekwe embarked on his US trip determined to turn up a semblance of success, turning to the Nigerian diplomatic staff in New York to get him a top-level appointment at all cost. Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Professor Joy Ogwu, was at Maduekwe’s Millennium Plaza Hotel this morning, but apparently did not have good news for her boss.

In order to ensure that some report went to the Ministry of Information in Abuja for rebranding and propaganda purposes, and to the Nigeria Television Authority for “news” that he had been hard at work in the United States, Mr. Maduekwe directed the diplomats to organize an emergency press conference for him at the UN. The UN Journal for Friday, 22 January lists no press conference for Nigeria or Mr. Maduekwe.

But Mr. Maduekwe, who could have chosen to speak to the “Enough Is Enough” rally being held by Nigerians in front of Nigeria House on the other side of the same city block, decided to hold a conference, any conference.

When Saharareporters got wind of it and tried to attend the conference, we were told that no conference was listed for Nigeria in the building. Through persistent investigation we found out the “secret” conference, where he had set up shop trying to bamboozle a few journalists about the “progress” being made in Nigeria and puffing arrogantly about his credentials as a capable hand in the vision of “Mr. President”.

It then got to Question Time, and the balloon was about to burst. Saharareporters asked the Foreign Minister where he had obtained the mandate to be junketing around the world at the expense of Nigeria’s poor and exploited, especially in view of his confession that he had not spoken to his principal for 60 days.

Shocked, the minister became angry and refused to answer our question. Angrier still, and forgetting he was at the United Nations in New York, not the Foreign Ministry in Abuja, he called on the security in the room to ask if something could be done about our reporter.

When it became clear to him that our reporter could not be removed from the room just because he asked, he lost his composure and pretence to diplomacy at the highest level. “You’re a miserable guy,” he told our reporter, “You are miserable…if you don’t think I am competent, come home (to Nigeria) and take up something, ”

The Minister is billed to return home tonight after raking up another $2,000 bill for his Millennium Plaza suite for Nigeria’s Permanent Mission to the UN and the Nigerian consulate to clean up. The hotel bill will be much higher than this because there were other “officials” checked into the hotel as part of Mr. Maduekwe’s entourage. The Foreign Minister will also leave behind the nation’s diplomats, who have yet to receive their staff salaries since December 2009.

In New York today, there was no sign of the Senate Chairman on Foreign Relations, Jubril Aminu, who was earlier said to have been on Mr. Maduekwe’s entourage. But the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission yesterday called Saharareporters and denied that its chairperson, Mrs Farida Waziri, was in any way associated with the Minister’s visit.

I think its time for a revolution, cos our leaders cos nothing but pains to Nigerians. How can we get these fools out of our system?,