₦airaland Forum

The criticism against the 2007 elections was not limited to Nigerians alone. Almost all the international organisations that observed the poll condemned it. How do you explain that?

They had a misconception of what happened. You cannot judge an election by one incident. Nigerians led them on and when the sing-song started, everybody joined the chorus.

But most importantly, I offended those international agencies. I refused that Nigeria’s election would be monitored. Maybe they can come as observers but you have no business being election monitor. It is only Nigerians that can do that. You remember I also set up an Election Monitoring Board and said only Nigerians can monitor and certify our elections.

I asked: who monitors British, American, Russian and Chinese elections? I think probably I am a Nigerian of a totally different class. I do not accept being inferior to the white man. So, they said I was arrogant. I worked in their best institutions for years and some of them were under me. So, what is it that they are going to tell me that I cannot get from my brothers? What is it? So, from that point, I offended them.

I offended them again when I refused to make the voter register to be an all-for-all issue. Third, I offended them because I also said no foreigner should get contract. Ask the president, when they travel, these foreign heads of state give them letters asking for projects in Nigeria. All presidents do it. They use foreign policy as enhancement of their economic interests. I know of two presidents that sent letters to me through our own president asking for projects. I refused all such requests. It is not enough that you want to serve your country, you must have the courage to do the right thing.

READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/icymi-2007-polls-my-story-by-maurice-iwu/

APC government has turned Nigeria into a bandit country – bandit in quote – where someone will wake up, gather a group of people, obtain a court order, and go to invade the house of one of the highest people in this country ostensibly searching for incriminating materials. And on being caught, will turn around and say we were actually sent by a member of this government in high standing.

And the member of government in high standing turns around to say, I do not know you. If everybody concerned – the DSS, EFCC, Police, Office of the Attorney General – say we don’t know, how can this be possible except if the country is no longer in anybody’s hands. It is now whatever you can get away with, and it portends very grave danger for the country and for everybody who lives in this country. Because what it means really is that anybody can go, procure anything, show up in my house and say we have come to take you or we have come to search you, or whatever and you don’t even know and there is no way you can legitimately confirm whether they are real or not.

On that day that it happened, we were in a meeting, which involved PDP governors and the news broke and everybody was calling and Governor Nyesom Wike said he was on his way there and then the other governors were now calling the different heads of the security outfits and everybody was saying, we don’t know. How could that be?

So, I agree with Governor Wike that it was simply an effort to intimidate the judiciary. In other words, if you can do that to a Supreme Court Justice, then who are the rest of all the judges down the line to the Magistrates?

I will end with this. There is this apocryphal story and I don’t know whether it is true or not but it paints the picture Nigeria. It has to do with the opening lines of the speech of one of the Professors that was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

And this was supposed to be in the 1980s, not now. He was giving his farewell address and he started it with the Christian hymn, “All things bright and beautiful.” The next line is, “The Good Lord makes them all,” but he now puts in that second line, “Nigeria kills them all.”

“All things bright and beautiful; Nigeria kills them all.”

Look, if we don’t have a leadership that comes in to redirect this country, I tell you that all of us will regret the day that we brought this (Buhari) government into being in 2015.

READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/abaribe-explains-relationship-with-nnamdi-kanu-ipob/

I don’t see APC winning anything in 2023. And the matter is also simple. We will ask Nigerians, are you better off since APC came to power than when they were not in power?

And Nigerians are going to answer that question. And I don’t see how Nigerians are going to say that they have been better off. If you had employment and because of the failure of APC in governance, you no longer have employment, are you going to be happy with this government?

If in the past you could travel easily but now you can no longer do so, are you going to be happy with this government? If you could have a sense of security around you but today you are no longer able to do so are you going to be happy with the APC? If you could eat three square meals and now you can only afford one, are going to be happy?

So, there are too many things that Nigerians are going to have to consider when they are going to cast their ballot in 2023. What do you do in a situation like that? What you do is that you no longer say let me continue in suffering, let me continue in poverty. No! There is no way they can paint it.

Visit: https://www.thenicheng.com/level-of-sleaze-in-buharis-govt-mindboggling-abaribe/

On Thursday, November 19, 2020, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, addressed a press conference in Abuja to debunk the damning report of the Cable News Network (CNN) on the brutal assault against #EndSARS protesters by the military at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020.

Nigerian youths who were protesting against the brutality of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a police unit established to combat armed robbery, but which went rogue and became synonymous with unlawful killings, torture and extortion of innocent citizens, were massacred by security agents.

CNN alleged in the report titled, “They pointed their guns at us and started shooting: How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement,” that peaceful #EndSARS protesters were massacred at the tollgate plaza by Nigerian soldiers who were drafted by the government to quell the protest.

Lai Mohammed was in his element. It is not for nothing that he has been dubbed the “Joseph Goebbels” of the Muhammadu Buhari regime. But what people fail to realise is that if Goebbels, the minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich under Adolf Hitler, was alive today, he would have been Lai’s student in the inelegant art of disinformation.

READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/endsars-panel-time-to-draw-a-line-in-the-sand/

For too long, Nigeria has had leaders who would rather hire dozens of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) and head to court than produce their secondary school certificates. Leaders whose educational attainments are matters of conjecture. Too many times, dubiously sworn affidavits have sufficed for authentic certificates.

And the consequence of all those characters sauntering in the corridors of power is there for everyone to see.

But in Soludo, we have an economics professor and a former governor and chairman of the board of directors of the CBN who wears his intellectual skin so proudly.

Some will be waiting for him to fail, so that they will be presented with good talking points on why good education should not be a prerequisite for leadership.

If Soludo does not yet appreciate the enormity of expectations, two WhatSapp texts I received this morning might help.

As soon as the results were announced, a friend from the Middle Belt, who relocated to the United Kingdom because he couldn’t stand the mess that leadership has made of what used to be the promise of Nigeria, wrote:

“Now, Nigeria has a governor!!! May he be the pivot of Nigeria’s turnaround to the path of progress in all fronts. Anambra has won the race ahead of Nigeria by getting a good head to run things.

“I am just in awe at this development, I never thought it would be. This phenomenon gives aspiring intellectuals a great chance to come into politics. The narrative has now changed. A doer elected to office has changed the song.”

The second text came from a statesman from Anambra, an accomplished technocrat who retired having worked in the upper echelons of an oil company.

“God has granted Anambra a leadership that will surely make a difference, another lease of life. I pray that Soludo’s leadership impact in South East (Alaigbo) will be significant.”

On October 20, my column was titled ‘Why Anambra needs Soludo’.

Anambrarians defied all odds to heed the clarion call. The ball is now strategically placed in the court of Charles Chukwuma Soludo. I wish him all the best!

READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/anambras-ball-in-soludos-court/

Five years after the midnight raid on judges’ homes in 2016, law enforcement agents again invaded the private residence of the country’s second most senior judicial officer, Justice Mary Odili, on the preposterous and bizarre allegation of illegal activities.

Barely one year to the 2023 elections, Justice Mary Odili, who may well become the CJN by the time the elections are held is being hounded and Nigerians are behaving as if they are surprised and pleading with Malami to carry out an investigation.

Good luck Charlie, as Ghanaians would say. But, mark my words, this is only the beginning of Justice Mary Odili’s ordeal. What happened to her is not an accident. Those who orchestrated this assault will not rest until she gets the Onnoghen treatment. The corruption allegations are loading and when they are unleashed, we will be out on the streets once again, gyrating to the lyrics of Buhari’s anti-corruption orchestra.

Déjà vu!

Truth be told, Nigerians have overindulged Buhari’s executive indiscretions.

READ FULL ARTICLE - https://www.thenicheng.com/mary-odili-ordeal-consequence-of-overindulging-buhari/

Malami, who would rather not name people already exposed by the United Arab Emirates as sponsors of Boko Haram terrorists because, according to him, “Naming and shaming of suspects is not embarked upon as a policy by the federal Government out of sheer respect for the constitutional rights of Nigerians relating to presumption of innocence,” has no qualms naming and shaming alleged sponsors of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho, a Yoruba Nation agitator.

To Malami, terrorists who shot down a Nigerian Air Force Alpha Jet, seized antiaircraft guns from the Nigerian military, detonated explosives on the Abuja-Kaduna rail tracks, breached the security of the Nigerian Defence Acadeny (NDA), killing two officers, have constitutional rights which lesser mortals like Igboho don’t have.

The AGF who said the Buhari government cannot name and shame suspected financiers of terrorism before they are tried and convicted because “shaming remains a consequence of judicial conviction,” gleefully pronounced Kanu guilty before trial.

Malami may think he is smart, but he is only hiding behind his finger as Nigerians are seeing through his fiendish theatrics and political maneuvers aimed at demarketing Ndigbo before the 2023 polls. That is not how to be a country’s Chief Law Officer.

READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/malami-how-not-to-be-an-attorney-general/

The tendency to blame Kanu or IPOB for the insecurity in the Southeast is what is driving the insecurity, because it forecloses every effort that should have been made to identify the true culprits.

Another problem is this tendency to quickly resort to military options, which in and of itself fuels another genre of insecurity, this time coming from the State itself. So, my recommendation is this: Stakeholders need to get beyond shenanigans and sit across from one another and tell themselves the truth. The scapegoating won’t help anybody.

Historically, sit-at-home is a nonviolent form of civil disobedience. It was deployed with remarkable success against the British Raj in India by Mahatma Gandhi. At the time in India, I think Gandhi was asked if it was necessary, and his measured response was that it was a necessary evil against the greater evil of British oppression.

In their reaction, the British colonialists saw it as the greatest sign ever that Indians were never relenting in their quest for freedom. And what did the British do? They abandoned their usual course of levying force and rhetoric against the people and resorted to dialogue. So, the issue is not whether any sit-at-home is necessary but why the authorities are not deploying the facility of a dialogue to containing it.

VISIT: https://www.thenicheng.com/nnamdi-kanu-dialogue-is-the-way-forward-says-lawyer-aloy-ejimakor/

I have heard some people say that Soludo should be held vicariously liable for whatever they deem as the failings of the APGA government under Governor Willy Obiano. That is laughable. Soludo is not yet the governor of Anambra State. He is only aspiring to be. In any case, why are the same people not holding Andy Uba liable for the failings of the APC governments at all levels across the country?

It is absurd that given our experience with Buhari, some people are still suggesting that a man who has not shown any capacity to deliver on transformational leadership be made governor with the hope that he will surround himself with technocrats who will do the work. That is political heresy.

Nemo dat quod non habet, is a legal rule, which means that no one can give what he or she does not have. That is the brutal truth about life which some people do not want to admit.

In 2015, even those who had come to the conclusion that given Buhari’s antecedents as a military head of state in the mid-1980s, he did not have what it takes to govern a democratic Nigeria voted for him all the same, hoping that miraculously, he will recruit those who have capacity to do the work. Nigeria has not recovered from that miscalculation and will not recover in the near future.

The nature of power, particularly in a Third World country like Nigeria, is such that men without capacity are reluctant to hire their superiors in intellect. It takes a man of intellectual refinement and civilization, someone endowed with an uplifting quality of excellence in thought, manners and taste, who does not suffer any inferiority complex to do that. Anambra needs someone who is hungry to be remembered for his generosity and civilization after his tour of duty at a time like this when Ndigbo are at the crossroads of national politics. That is the quality Soludo brings on board.

Electing a mediocre and hoping that God will by a stroke of luck endow him with the capacity to govern is tantamount to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That is the definition of insanity. Anambra State is too strategic to the South East that ndi-Anambra cannot afford to accelerate the drive on the road to Imo. It will be too tragic a mistake.

Read: https://www.thenicheng.com/why-anambra-needs-soludo/

“Nigeria is collapsed already. We are in anarchy. How many of them can travel from Abuja to Kaduna? Let them just continue this nonsense for three more years and they won’t be able to walk on the streets of Nigeria. They better submit to this thing now to save themselves because they will be lynching them on the streets of Nigeria. The way this country is going, that is what you will see happen. They better seize this opportunity to rescue themselves. They don’t know what happened to Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania?”

“I just think that the quality of leadership we have in Nigeria is not smart enough to see through the consequence of their behaviour. They act on the emotion of the moment and they sentence their country to many years of servitude.“

“We are expecting that these two – APC and PDP – will implode. These are gangs of thieves looking at how to share money. They will fight and it will implode. Invariably they will implode. So, let us create something to build a new Nigeria. That is what the process is for me.”

Visit: https://www.thenicheng.com/__trashed-6/

As Dr. Christopher Kolade, Nigeria’s former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, aptly noted in his October 31, 2019 interview with TheNiche, “The only person that doesn’t know we are fighting corruption is corruption itself.”

Even what could have been achieved in raising agricultural output is blunted by the unmitigated violence visited on hapless farmers by terrorists, making food security a mirage.

Not only that, as Premium Times newspaper noted recently, “Despite its professed commitment to developing the agricultural sector, and indeed investment in the sector, agriculture has grown at the weakest rate under the Buhari administration than any other government since the return of democracy in 1999.”

According to the online newspaper, while the sector grew at an average of 15 per cent in the past five years under Buhari, it grew by 133 per cent under the Obasanjo administration; 19.1 per cent under President Umaru Yar’adua and 22.2 per cent under Goodluck Jonathan’s government.

So, why is Buhari ratcheting up his success rhetoric? The answer is simple. He knows his time is up and wants to write the history by himself. How wrong. The verdict of history is inevitable. No distempering or whitewashing changes it.

And no-matter how hard leaders try to manipulate the verdict, they fall flat because history is inscrutable. It is like a sphinx.

The good thing, though, is that while Buhari wallows in self-glorification, Nigerians, who obviously know better, have moved on. For so many, his horse of failure has already bolted from the stable and people are already calculating their losses from their bad political investment in him in 2015.

READ FULL ARTICLE: https://www.thenicheng.com/buharis-nine-priority-areas/

"My main agenda is to ensure peace in Nigeria. We need the unity of this country. We need a country with law and order. Most importantly, we need a country that will start being productive, start creating jobs, start employing and giving hope to its citizens. Presently, what we have is a case of hopelessness."

"A father must leave a better place for the children. That’s why he sacrifices to make life better for them. That is what leadership should be. A leader should be able to bequeath the future generation a better society than he met it. If he is not building that better society, he is not a leader."

"Societies are changed by leaders and subsequently by the followers, especially when they insist. If the leaders are visionary, they can drive the process. But Nigeria is in a double crisis; the leaders are problematic, the followers are problematic. So, it’s a double crisis. The followers are not insisting on the leaders doing it right. In other places, they would have insisted on leaders who would do it well."

"Leadership is not one person. When you talk of political leadership, people think it is the president, governor or local government chairman. That’s not it. It is the body, the collection of all of us. So, when you aggregate all of us, you find out that the greater number which is above 60 per cent of the class, are incompetent and don’t have the capacity. They shouldn’t be there at all."

READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/exclusive-over-60-of-the-political-elite-are-incompetent-dont-have-the-capacity-shouldnt-be-in-leadership-peter-obi/
- Peter Obi

Our response to the Buhari presidency and the demons it has unleashed on the country may be the last chance to get it right.

But it won’t be by mere wishful thinking. As 2023 beckons, there must be a conscious effort to walk away from Buhari’s tunnel vision and nepotism.

Conscious effort must be made by all to build a nation around a vision that promotes common good. Fairness, equity and justice must be the pivot around which any agenda to save Nigeria revolves because sustenance of the Nigerian Federation demands a union of equals.

The hubris of the former military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, who recently claimed during an interview on Arise Television that he and fellow travelers on the boulevard of deceit had decided, unilaterally, on the country’s indissolubility no longer suffices.

Neither is the rest of Nigeria prepared to continue tolerating the puerile tantrums of ungrateful immigrants such as Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), whose father, Alhaji Baba Ahmed, a Mauritanian cow seller, only came to Nigeria from Mauritania in 1920.

Baba-Ahmed still goes to his home country, Mauritania, for family celebrations, the same way Buhari goes to Niger Republic to felicitate with his first cousins.

Yet, all that indigenous peoples of Nigeria get from these dual nationality citizens are insults, which is why Baba-Ahmed would have the effrontery to tell the rest of the country that, “We will lead Nigeria the way we have led Nigeria before. Whether we are president or vice-president, we will lead Nigeria.”

This anniversary should afford Nigerians the opportunity to decide what they want. But one thing is clear: The status quo is no longer sustainable. We either change course or Nigeria as we know it today perishes.

Visit: https://www.thenicheng.com/nigeria-at-61-time-for-introspection/

“I never said I was a pauper. And people knew. I was not a pauper before I became governor. Before I became governor, I was a director in several financial institutions and some other quoted companies by virtue of my investments.

“I had thriving businesses and the businesses were not folded up because I wanted to be governor. They were there. They were all going concerns. All people need to know is that if there is anything you have seen, investigate it properly, ask valid questions and you will be provided with the right answers.

“What I want people to concentrate on is this: if you see anything that you think is suspicious that belongs to Peter Obi, investigate it properly, most especially, get to the source of the wealth. So, if you see an account belonging to Peter Obi, please investigate the source of the wealth. That’s most important.

“For me, it is not a question of throwing tantrums and saying he did this; he did that. Yes, Peter Obi before coming back to be a governor had a very thriving business in the United Kingdom (UK). I had a very thriving business! A private company was there, supported by borrowings and everything from the Western world. And the business was doing well. When I became governor, I should not throw those things away or throw my businesses here in Nigeria, away.”

Visit: https://www.thenicheng.com/exclusive-i-was-never-a-pauper-before-i-became-governor-of-anambra-state-peter-obi/

“Let me tell you what worries me about the defections of today.

“I don’t do the politics of asking people why did you defect from here to here.

“What I find worrisome is seeing people daily and weekly being led to go and take photo-shoots with the President. I am worried about it.

“I want to see the President taking pictures at the funerals of our fallen soldiers, police or their families.

“I want to see him taking pictures with young boys and girls who are doing so many innovative things in the tech industry.

“I want to see him taking pictures with people who are making a lot of impact.

“Taking picture with those of us – politicians – because I can now define politicians as heartless, valueless, is very worrisome.

“I am pleading with those who are close to him, yes if you want to join a party, please do, but those pictures are not helping our country because perception is sending a wrong signal that you can be anything and be elevated to something.

“That is why the country is collapsing.”


READ: https://www.thenicheng.com/nigerian-politicians-are-heartless-valueless-peter-obi/

Nigerians are shocked that the Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, is blaming the woes of Naira on Oniwinde Adedotun, the founder of Aboki FX, the online platform that publishes in real-time, foreign exchange rates.

At a media briefing today, Friday, September 17, Emefiele accused Adedotun of sabotaging Nigeria’s economy by publishing the prevailing exchange rates which obtain on the street. He even threatened the arrest of the online publisher.

According to Emefiele, previous attempts to engage Adedotun to understand his model and how he arrives at the rates he publishes were unsuccessful.

Aboki FX collects data from FX traders on the streets and put it on its website. But Emefiele thinks the act is criminal without citing any law to support his accusation.

He says: “We found him as a Nigerian who lives in England and conducts this nefarious and criminal activity on our economy.

“It is economic sabotage and we’ll pursue him wherever he is. We will report him to international security agencies.

“We’ll track him, Mr Oniwinde, we’ll find you, because we cannot allow you to continue to conduct an illegal activity that kills our economy.”

Visit: https://www.thenicheng.com/emefiele-blames-naira-woes-on-aboki-fxs-real-time-publication-of-exchange-rate-nigerians-react-with-knocks/

Some people have justified the lunacy in the Southeast on the ground that revolution is not a tea party and cannot be without collateral damage.

Maybe! But there must be a goal and the strategy must be right. What is the goal here? Is it to force Buhari’s hands to set Kanu free? Anyone who knows Buhari well and the mindset that underpins his actions will know that won’t happen.

IPOB’s actions are tantamount to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Buhari does not care. In fact, he will be happy that Igbo youths are helping him complete the job of reducing South-East to the level where Northeast is right now.

The businesses that are destroyed are owned by Ndigbo. The students that are prevented from sitting external examinations are Igbo. The sit-at-home order is only hurting the economy of the South-East. So, why should Buhari bother?

To pretend, as some people are doing, that those wreaking havoc in South-East are agents of the Nigerian State, including operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), rather than IPOB or Eastern Security Network (ESN) members is to play the ostrich.

Today, many Igbos are afraid not of Buhari, but IPOB. How can a group that claims to be fighting for the emancipation of its people reduce them to frightened zombies? Many Igbos are afraid to travel to the South-East because they are in mortal fear of the “freedom fighters.” This is not what Ndigbo are known for. To allow the bourgeoning rule of the mob to thrive is to bid goodbye to our republican civilisation. That is not an option.

Those who are busy fanning the embers of this madness should reflect on the posers Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra State, raised on Tuesday: “Will investors come to the zone under the present condition? Will established businesses not think of leaving the South-East under such a condition? Will traders from neighbouring countries that flock Aba and Onitsha on Mondays not seek alternatives? Will some industries not think of re-locating?”

Making South-East ungovernable in the name of self-determination is a self-defeating gambit. It is counterproductive. Ndigbo are better than that. This madness must stop.

Visit: https://www.thenicheng.com/ipob-this-madness-must-stop/

The actions of FIRS may impress an excitable nation whose citizens are in perpetual hunt for thieves, but the hemorrhaging economy will pay the ultimate price when the confidence of foreign investors to do business in Nigeria is completely eroded.

Rather than playing to the gallery in the court of public opinion, FIRS should assemble all its evidence and prove same in the TAT.

Nigerians will be interested in knowing how the same Multichoice, which FIRS commended in the past as a good corporate citizen, suddenly became a tax renegade to the tune of N1.8 trillion and what it was doing while the alleged tax liability was mounting.

Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/the-untidy-firs-multichoice-salsa/

Truth be told, those praising the police and the INEC for the success of the Edo poll are only telling a single story.

The other side of the story and perhaps the most important is what Buhari decided to do, which is, remain neutral and allow the democratic will of the people to prevail.

The police remain the same and Mohammed Adamu who superintended the bloody Kogi governorship election in November 2019 is still the Inspector General of Police.

The only difference is that this time around, there was no indication from Aso Rock where the pendulum should swing. If not, we would have had another Kogi drama.

The same goes for the INEC. Nothing has changed. Mahmood Yakubu is still the helmsman. If the body language from Aso Rock indicated otherwise, at best the Edo vote would have been inconclusive as happened in Osun in 2018 and Kano in 2019.

Therefore, while the outcome of the Edo poll is a huge big step forward in our democratic peregrination, the fact that it was only made possible because the president decided to be presidential is an issue.

For those who think this is the dawn of a new era, I say, maybe. But something tells me it is not yet time to ululate. It is not yet uhuru. What happens if the president decides to interfere tomorrow if there is no Oshiomhole to irritate him?

There is simply a fundamental problem when a country depends on the benevolence and goodwill of one man, even if that man is the president, to get free, fair and transparent elections.

https://www.thenicheng.com/the-obaseki-blowout-in-edo-poll/

Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo and sacked APC national chairman, is quite a character.

Crabby, grouchy and pugnacious, the former Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president loves picking fights, most times gratuitously. As the Smart Alec he thinks he is, he behaves as if he knows everything. And because he is Mr. Know-All, he is opinionated, intolerant and blinkered. Like every Smart Alec, he is irritating. Little wonder, to borrow a cliché, he is the best hated man in the APC today.

Oshiomhole’s APC-Obaseki-Iyamu odyssey echoes the allegory of the tortoise who embarked on an ill-advised trip.

Advice by friends who were apprehensive the trip would end badly was derisively rebuffed.

“Must you go on this journey?” they asked in a last ditch effort to save him from himself. The wily animal riposted affirmatively.

Exasperated, they made the final push. “If you have to go, when will you return?” Tortoise retorted: “Not until I am disgraced.”

That is exactly the story of Oshiomhole. Many who are celebrating the outcome of the poll are as happy for Obaseki’s triumph as they are over Oshiomhole’s humiliation.

Blinded by infantile hubris and quest for vendetta, Oshiomhole could not correctly interpret the handwriting on the wall even when he saw and read it. If he was perspicacious enough, he would have noticed that his antagonism and Obaseki’s forceful pushback burnished the governor’s political credentials.

Obaseki won the battle when he successfully framed it as a resistance against wannabe godfathers with itchy fingers. Most APC stalwarts in the state agreed with him.

https://www.thenicheng.com/the-obaseki-blowout-in-edo-poll/

Those calling for electoral reforms don’t get it. There are too many strong men in Nigeria without strong institutions.

The strong men manipulate and control the institutions. In countries that have made progress, it is the other way round.

There will be violence in Edo on Saturday. The election will be rigged and the fundamental right of the people to choose who governs them will be grossly violated. That will be nothing new because the election has already been rigged against the people right from the primaries.

After the polls, the INEC will make its call which may not necessarily reflect the aspiration of the people, who, like the axiomatic toothless bulldog, will make noise but take no action.

Then President Muhammadu Buhari, the self-acclaimed, world famous democracy convert, will step in and advise the “losers” to seek redress in court. If there are fatalities, he will condole with families of those who lose their loved ones. The condolence letter template is constant. The presidential media aides will only put a new date and sign off.

Those who “win” will be inaugurated and those who “lose” will heed Buhari’s advice and go to court.

So much money, in fact much more than was used to prosecute the election, will be spent in the courts. At the end of the day, Supreme Court will give Edo people the governor it thinks they deserve.

He may be somebody who came a distant fourth, as it happened in Imo State. And Edo will join the league of states with governors appointed by the Supreme Court, not elected by the people.

And the people will move on as we are wont to do.

Democracy in Nigeria is a criminal enterprise and it continues to be so because rather than face the reality, which is, this democracy is not working, many Nigerians inexplicably choose to live in their own bubble.

https://www.thenicheng.com/what-edo-poll-says-about-nigerias-democracy/

The values that matter in the leadership recruitment process in Canada are character, hard work and excellence. These are the qualities that earn someone an invitation to the leadership table.

Madu has them, and today he is the toast of the global political community.

In Nigeria, a Kaycee Madu from a very humble background – family of 11 children, illiterate parents, a 90-year-old father who was a petty trader and farmer – without sacks of money and zero appetite for thuggery would never have been invited to that table.

It is instructive that while Madu with neither a political godfather nor a deep pocket, was making these giant political strides in his adopted country in 2019, his kith and kin in Nigeria were being visited with violence in parts of the country for daring to vote for candidates of their choice in a general election.

For daring to exercise their franchise according to the dictates of their conscience, they were branded illegal immigrants and unconscionable land grabbers in Yoruba land by people like Femi Kusa, a veteran journalist, who should have known better.

But Canada is not Nigeria. There is no envy, no jealousy. Public office is a call to service. It is a sacrifice.

Societies that want to make progress go for the best, which explains why a year after, Madu was appointed Minister of Justice and Solicitor General for the Government of Alberta and Provincial Secretary and Keeper of the Great Seal of the Province of Alberta – another new high – he became the first African Minister of Justice in a Canadian government.

On his twitter page, he promised to ensure that everyone in Alberta has access to equal justice.

“Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.

“I look forward to working on many critical democratic reforms, including recall legislation and important citizenship initiative referendums, and taking the lead role on the implementation of our government’s fight for a fair deal within confederation,” he said.

That is the essence of governance.

President Muhammadu Buhari described Madu’s appointment as “historic,” and a proof that Nigerians are go-getters, who will always “distinguish themselves in different walks of life.”

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar said Madu’s feat is proof that “Nigerians are indeed global players with unlimited capacity to impact our world positively.”

While these tributes are deserved, the truth remains that it would have been impossible for Egbu, an Igbo from Abatete, Idemili LGA of Anambra State, to be appointed Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos in today’s Nigeria, no matter how brilliant he is.

Even if Madu, an Igbo from Umuokirika, Ahiazu-Mbaise LGA, Imo State, was born and raised in Lagos, he would still have been declared a persona-non-grata for daring to contest election in the state where he was born.

Societies desirous of making progress in the 21st century use the ennobling qualities of character, integrity, competency and sundry skill-sets as yardsticks for leadership recruitment.

In Nigeria, we deploy debilitating primordial ethno-religious sentiments in making the decision. And yet, we wonder why the country continues to plumb the depths of mediocrity, abject poverty, squalor and misery.

Indeed, there was a country, as the late literary icon, Professor Chinua Achebe, would say.

https://www.thenicheng.com/ndigbo-scorned-in-nigeria-making-waves-globally/

El-Rufai should continue to have his day in the sun for as long as it lasts but he should remember that moral compass defines leadership.

A leader should have empathy, knowing full well that words can summon a people’s better angels or awaken their worst instincts.

El-Rufai’s words do not summon the better angels of Kaduna, nay, other Nigerians. They awaken the worst instincts.

He should be worried that under his watch, Kaduna State has become the epicentre of this national tragedy of incessant, unconscionable bloodletting and he cannot explain it away by playing, as Americans would say, whack-a-mole politics with his decisions.

And in the event that he persists on this ill-advised trajectory, Nigerians must make a conscious decision to call him out now with the intention to ultimately hold him to account at the fullness of time.
Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/nasir-el-rufai-and-the-carnage-in-southern-kaduna/

El-Rufai should continue to have his day in the sun for as long as it lasts but he should remember that moral compass defines leadership.

A leader should have empathy, knowing full well that words can summon a people’s better angels or awaken their worst instincts.

El-Rufai’s words do not summon the better angels of Kaduna, nay, other Nigerians. They awaken the worst instincts.

He should be worried that under his watch, Kaduna State has become the epicentre of this national tragedy of incessant, unconscionable bloodletting and he cannot explain it away by playing, as Americans would say, whack-a-mole politics with his decisions.

And in the event that he persists on this ill-advised trajectory, Nigerians must make a conscious decision to call him out now with the intention to ultimately hold him to account at the fullness of time.

Like many people, I worry particularly about our country and its future. Aside the heady days of my preteen childhood, it seems our country has been subjected to a virulent form of the punishment suffered by King Sisyphus in Greek mythology, to perpetually roll a huge rock up the hill only for the rock to roll down every time requiring the painful roll up process to start all over again.

In fact, we may not even be as lucky as the bizarrely unfortunate King Sisyphus because how the repeated pains of disappointment, the defeat of hope and the victory of cynicism and disillusionment, ultimately impacts our body polity may be more toxic. I once summed this up to a different audience as the vicious cycle of perpetual failures, because the more governments fails, the more cynical citizens become and the more they turn away from government to their own self-help devices. The more this happens, the more government is deprived of the country’s best talents and citizens’ goodwill and the more government fails, until the entire system collapses under the weight of its own failures.

“We had written to the commissioner of police for approval to protest, but because of his interest in the mining activities, he refused to grant us approval. So, we decided to just take media, with our placards so that the media will carry it.

‘The journalists were coming from Makurdi. I was riding on a bike when the vigilante intercepted me close to Ukwo. I had a leather bag where I had the placards. They took me to their office and said I should name my co-protesters. I told them I was doing it alone.

“Later, they said the DPO of Orokanmu called them and informed them that I and four other people robbed one man. They then brought some bullets and said they found them in my leather bag. I said how can you plant bullets in my bag and tell me they belong to me? They started hitting me with sticks, telling me to name those that went to rob with me, and to tell them where I kept the gun.

“Later, the Police came and rook me to their station. The DPO never allowed me access to my phone. When my people came to him, he told them they should go and beg the Onomo of Owukpa. When my people went to the chief’s palace, he then quickly arranged for a car that took me to the State CID in Makurdi. I was given bail on Monday, August 3. I spent six days in detention,” he said.

It is either the president is playing games with the security of Nigerians or he is being insincere. If not, he would have asked himself whether the service chiefs have the capacity to still do more than they have done in the last five years.

Buhari’s indifference to the country’s security challenges benumbs every conscious and discerning mind. It is doubtful, contrary to his claims, that he knows how utterly helpless and forlorn Nigerians feel.

But the statement by Monguno that “since he is not an octopus, since he is not a spirit, if he delegates to people, then the onus is on them to actually fulfill the legitimate expectations of the larger Nigerian society,” is ridiculous because the bulk, as Buhari reminded the lawmakers, stops at his table. It is another manifestation of the president’s penchant for shirking responsibility. He enjoys the privileges that accrue to power, but abhors the attendant accountabilities.

So, if the service chiefs fail to fulfil the legitimate expectations of the people, rather than wringing his fingers in exaggerated frustration, the president knows what to do. And if he fails to do the needful, then he should carry the can.

The sad reality is that Nigerians have tolerated Buhari’s absolute lack of capacity to govern for too long and the consequences are dire.

But the question begging for an answer is what next? Where do we go from here?

Between June 18 when Buhari gave his service chiefs their marching orders and August 5, security has not improved. Instead, it has deteriorated alarmingly.

In the global financial system, VALENTINE CHINETO OZIGBO, a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and four other professional bodies, is a big name.

The immediate past President and Chief Executive Officer of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (TRANSCORP), a diversified conglomerate with strategic investments and core interests in the hospitality, agribusiness and energy sectors, Ozigbo worked previously as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp Hotels Plc.


He also worked in the banking industry, gaining over 17 years of experience with NAL Merchant Bank, Diamond Bank, Continental Trust Bank, FSB International Bank, Standard Trust Bank and United Bank for Africa, most of the time managing leading global multilateral institutions in their intricate relationship with the Nigerian financial institutions.

He is currently an aspirant for the governorship of Anambra State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this engaging interview with Managing Director, IKECHUKWU AMAECHI and Editor, EMEKA ALEX DURU, Ozigbo takes informed look at the leadership conundrum in Nigeria, offering suggestions on the way out. He also analyses the PDP in Anambra State, which he says has changed for good. He gives insight into his antecedents and how he would reposition the state if given the chance.

On July 20, you will be 50 years old. Why did you quit your position as President and Chief Executive Officer of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc after just one year? Is it not too early to quit such a high profile job that many your age can only dream about?

There are two aspects to this question. One is my age, the other, my motivation for quitting TRANSCORP. I will like to respond to them separately.

It is actually amazing why we have lost sense of time in Nigeria; why we forget that a man who turns 50, in most cases, has almost hit the borderline and is now thinking about what remains of his useful and valuable life. I say this because I actually consider 50 an age of maturity.

When you talk about my motivation which we shall come to, I always tell myself that I should have done this much earlier because the best time to impact on humanity is at your youthful age. And the definition of youth is when you are in your prime. I want to ask that as in other things we do in life, let’s begin now to challenge our youths at much earlier age to bring out their best because it is actually these youths that can shape a better future for Nigeria. People who are ruling the world today, mention them, check actually when they made their most marks. Let’s not even talk about the likes of Warren Buffet and others. But look at Mark Zuckerberg and some of the youths currently making the wave across the world. Let us even look back at some of those people that led us in the military era. No matter how good or bad they performed, they started at a younger age. In Nigeria, we keep recycling old age and not experience. There is a saying that a man who has done the same kind of thing over and over is simply one year old in that experience multiplied by that number of years. Therefore, until we begin to do new things in our life, and allow younger ones whose ingenuity, creativity, imagination is actually stronger we may not get Nigeria working. So, at 50, I feel it is not such a young age. I just wanted to touch on the premise of that question.

Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/as-governor-i-will-transform-anambra-and-set-a-standard-for-governance-in-nigeria-ozigbo/

The six regions of Nigeria are fundamentally different in their culture, where they are in the maturity grid of epistemology. That is what culture means. Culture is evolutionary. Some people are still at the belief stage. Some people are at the reasoning stage, some people are at the science stage while some are at the high tech stage. That is where the Igbo are, solving real problems with real actions, not praying or hoping or reasoning.

When you put them together with people who are still at the medieval ancient antiquity age, those people feel threatened and feel like nothing. And rightly so. So the envy always generates violence.

Where the Nigerian ethnic groups are on the epistemological grid is different. You cannot jump it. You have to go through evolutionary development.

Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/amotekun-massob-ipob-niger-delta-avengers-etc-are-all-symptoms-of-a-failed-federal-structure-festus-odimegwu-3/

But on assuming office, Buhari has been an unmitigated disaster and a complete failure to put it mildly. In fact, he has failed to the level that he has become a security risk to Nigeria.

Some people say it is those around him that are the problem, but leadership makes you to be responsible for what is happening. And the failure of his leadership is comprehensive. He has not shown any element of capacity in any department of leadership and it is very unfortunate.

And all the people around him, as far as I can see are not there to help him. All of them are there to run their own personal agenda and he doesn’t even know what is happening to begin to control these people.

So, everybody around him is a power unto himself. That is why you see all this confusion and disorder in his administration and then they transfer it to the country.

Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/as-president-buhari-is-an-unmitigated-disaster-complete-failure-and-a-security-risk-to-nigeria-eze-festus-odimegwu-1/

Twenty-nine Nigerian words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), notching up 86 taken from Africa’s most populous nation and the world’s fourth largest English-speaking country after India, Pakistan, and the United States.


Words making the cut in the latest edition include Kannywood, derived from Hausa; and unique Nigerian coinages, Ember months and next tomorrow – in recognition of how Nigerians help shape English, the most spoken language in the world.

OED is published by Oxford University Press (OUP), based in the United Kingdom.

English is Nigeria’s lingua franca, used in standard form or in broken (pidgin) by vast multitudes in daily communication among 200 million people carved out in 250 ethnic groups and over 300 languages.

Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/86-nigerian-words-make-it-into-oxford-english-dictionary/

Under Buhari’s watch, election rigging has assumed a very frightening dimension. Before now, malpractices will mean, in worst case scenarios, thugs snatching ballot boxes and running away.

Under Buhari, nobody snatches ballot boxes and runs away. The political gladiators wait until after the counting to ensure that they have lost at the polling unit, and then, in the full glare of the camera, make a bonfire of ballot boxes and result sheets and all other vital INEC documents.

It happened in the Okota area of Lagos in the 2019 elections.

But that is even for those who still give a damn. The more hardened politicians don’t even care to campaign. They don’t bother about voting. They don’t snatch ballot boxes. They stay in the comfort of their bedrooms to write their own results and head to court.

Others kidnap returning officers and order them at gunpoint to announce them winners of elections they lost.

Everything Buhari touches when it comes to leadership goes south even as his government pettifogs. What a legacy for a man once touted as Nigeria’s saviour.

Source: https://www.thenicheng.com/what-will-be-buharis-legacy/