₦airaland Forum

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has dissociated himself from a claim that he has changed his position against the second term bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Obasanjo also said he did not meet with leaders of the organized labour on Tuesday as was alleged.


Obasanjo reiterated in a statement yesterday that he stood by his statement earlier issued in January that Buhari’s regime had disappointed those who voted him as president.


Obasanjo said emphatically in the statement signed by his media aid, Kehinde Akinyemi, that he had not and could not endorse failure.


The statement said, “It has come to the attention of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that some elements in the Muhammadu Buhari camp and or support group are desperate to secure a second term, fair or foul. In this desperation, everything is fair, including telling libelous lies against persons and institutions, instead of addressing the fundamental issues of statecraft and economic management.


“In the last 24 hours the internet has been bombarded with deliberate falsehoods aimed at hoodwinking the unsuspecting Nigerians to believe that Obasanjo has now supported Buhari for his second term because of some perceived Buhari’s ‘superlative’ performance in his encounter with Trump during his visit to the White House in Washington D. C.”


The statement said the part of the allegation that Obasanjo met with some Nigeria Labour Congress leaders in his house in Abuja on Workers’ Day was a pathetic fallacy as Obasanjo in the first place had no house in Abuja and he did not go to Abuja on the said date.


“Nigerians know that Chief Obasanjo has only spoken the truth about widening poverty, alienation and social disunity and near disintegration of the country through Buhari’s incompetence,” the statement asserted.


On Buhari’s meeting with President Donald Trump of the United States, Obasanjo said the US would continue to reduce purchase of crude oil from Nigeria and there was nothing Nigeria under Buhari could do about it.


He added that the US would export agricultural products to Nigeria and Buhari’s government would encourage it, and that all the killings taking place in Nigeria by herders “are being done by expatriates trained by Gadaffi and no Nigerian is to blame and Buhari cannot do anything to stop it.”


Obasanjo said Trump had ordered Buhari to go back home and stop the killings going on in Nigeria and he hoped that Buhari would do that.

Lalasticlala, Mynd44

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has challenged Nigerians to rise to change the present state of affairs in the country if they truly desire to continue to have a country.

Atiku, who observed that Nigerians have never had it this bad since the Civil War, predicted that Nigeria may soon have between 25-27 PDP States, as the people are already fed up with the hardship and intolerable disposition of the present APC-led government.

Speaking at the PDP Secretariat during a consultation visit in Uyo on Wednesday, the PDP presidential hopeful regretted that those who are making Nigeria unbearable for its citizens today, were not part of the struggles towards the actualization of democracy.

His words: “The country is in its worse state today. I have never seen it since the civil war. Ethnic division, north against south, this is very very dangerous for our survival as a country.

“We must do all what we can to address this situation. We have to unite together to arrest this, otherwise you would one day wake up and find out that we don’t have a country, God forbid.

“We may end up with 25-27 PDP states in Nigeria, because every part of this country is fed up with this government. And this is the most intolerant government I have ever seen in this country. And unfortunately for us, he was not even part of this struggle.

“The situation in APC states is horrible. You cannot even meet like this. They are intolerable because they were not part of the struggle for actualization of democracy. If PDP was like this, there would not have been any opposition party in this country.

“Let us therefore unite and make sure that we free this country and our people from this situation. The political restructuring of this country is inevitable, whether we like it or not.

“We must deploy resources and powers to the federated units of this country. If states and local government areas are given more resources and powers, the people would hold them accountable”.

He decried the disunity, ehnicity, division and religious intollerance so far promoted by the present federal government, noting that such was quite dangerous for the continued survival and oneness of the country.

He maintained that given the extent of decay in the country at the moment, Nigerians would need to support a candidate with the qualities, capacity, experience and the qualification to face the challenges. “I can do that job, but only with your support,” he assured.

Earlier, the former National Chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, Chief Jim Nwodo, said Nigeria has reached the lowest point where hunger, poverty and killing of the people have become the order of the day.

He described Nigeria as a country under sieze when there is no war, adding that the present federal government has failed to fulfill its campaign promises.

“We have never had it this bad. We were promised we’ll never go abroad for medical treatment, but the person who made the promise is first to go.

“Someone we’ve not seen his school certificate calls our youths lazy. In this state of total hopelessness, we bring a Messiah today. An exemplary entrepreneur, who recognizes intellect”.

In their goodwill messages, stakeholders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party in Akwa Ibom State unanimously expressed optimism that Atiku has the pedigree and the distribalized disposition to pull Nigeria out of its present predicament.

The party leaders consisting the state Party Chairman, Obong Paul Ekpo, Senator Anietie Okon, Sen. Helen Esuene, Chief Ndueso Essien, former Governor Chris Ekpenyong recalled Atiku’s role during the resource control struggles. They unanimously stressed the need for restructuring Nigeria and assured that Akwa Ibom practises PDP as a religion.

“If the state governor this time around gives a directive that is not in our collective interests, we the elders of the party would deviate,” Ekpenyong assured.

President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed in an interview that his government would soon launch a special anti-corruption tribunal that would have the powers to seize cash and assets of Nigerians convicted of failing to explain how they came about their humongous wealth.

“They will be asked to prove how they acquired the difference, otherwise, everything will be taken away and they will be prosecuted,” Mr Buhari said in an interview with Voice of America as part of his recent visit to the United States.

The president said he will carefully select the judges for the tribunal and “give them time and necessary evidence such as the bank balance and properties owned by individuals in comparison to their wages.”

The president made the comments when asked about the status of his anti-corruption efforts and why no one in his administration has been arrested by the EFCC despite allegations of corruption.

The Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, was indicted by a judicial panel in Rivers States following claims he mismanaged public funds while he was governing the state from 2007 to 2015.

The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, was also exposed as owning properties abroad worth obviously more than he would otherwise have been able to afford with his salaries.

The president said if his officials are arrested, they should face the consequences.

“Well, there is no any other measure other than to ensure that whoever is arrested is prosecuted for all to see,” Mr Buhari said.

He conceded the argument of his critics that his government had performed bellow expectation in ensuring timely arrest and prosecution of possible looters.

“We should have had a lot more arrests and prosecution by now; EFCC has done a lot; they will investigate and send accused persons to court and Nigerians would be adequately informed. Those who are saying we have not done enough in that regard are right,” he said.

Mr Buhari had muted the idea of setting up special courts to handle corruption cases since assuming office in 2015, but little progress had been made in this regard.

“By the time we set up these special courts and prosecute offenders, I am sure citizens will know that we are serious,” he said. “Those who embezzle public funds should be ready to face the consequences.”

“What we don’t want is to take people to places where the judges may not be able to convict them appropriately,” he added.

Considering that the country has less than 10 months before the next general elections, Mr Buhari’s special courts may not come on stream until his second term, should he get it.

QueenSekxy:
I weak for their matter.

it's quite disgusting.

QueenSekxy:
it's not a lady.
he's moniker is prechbills1
it's a guy.

upsetgirl is different from upsetgirl1

izzou:
BeeBeeÓoh

I never see your thread this morning. Wetin happen?

TheUpsetGirl1:
same reason you run after ladies with big yansh when you know it contains only shiit

QueenSekxy:
he must be morally corrupt and I won't engage in such.


tufia,walking around with a leaking arse.

QueenSekxy:
some guys are really born dirty.
how can someone fùck from anus.
tueh, disgusting animals.

snazzy5050:
just checked it’s real o

Iceberghill:
Madrid should not kill me please

Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement issued to mark this year’s Workers Day, explained why “Buhari is good for workers,” said the plan was however put on hold because of the 2015 general elections.

He said: “When he came into office in 2015, President Buhari met a plan literally cast in stone from 2014 for the retrenchment of thousands of workers by the previous administration. The basis of this, as was then stated is that the civil service was over bloated and the payment of salaries was giving them trouble. The plan was put on hold for the elections.

“You recall that when he was presented with the interim report of the Ahmed Joda-led transition committee, the President-elect was shown a document in which 23 states had not paid their workers, in one or two cases for up to 12 months. He said this was a national emergency and would be treated as such.

“The first thing the President did on coming to office was to stop the planned retrenchment. No retrenchment, he ordered and charged everyone to go and pay them. When the economic recession deepened and the banks and oil companies began to retrench, he asked the Minister of Labour and Employment to stop it. If anyone refused to make a sacrifice as others were doing, they should be sanctioned.

“To ease the tight liquidity situation in which the states were, he gave bailout loans through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), specifically asking them to pay workers and pensioners. In 2015, a Salary loan of about N338bn was disbursed to the states. He gave approval to the CBN to extend the repayment periods of their other loans so that they could have more money that they can use to take care of their workers.

“Similarly, the huge, unpaid refunds due to the states from the Paris and London Club settlements for which the federal government overcharged the other two tiers of government that had remained unpaid since the Obasanjo years have been given an attention.

“So far, two tranches, making about 50 per cent have so far been returned to them. In sum total, N1.75tn has been given to states as extra-statutory allocation known as bailout since the advent of President Buhari’s administration.”

The presidential aide noted that the president has also been paying attention to the accumulated problems of outstanding allowances, promotion allowances, earned- allowances etc. “which have pitched unions in various sectors against the government. These are problems dating back to the years of the PDP administration. Already, three billion Naira has been paid and another eight billion is on the way.”

The statement added that in the forthcoming payments, the government is particularly interested in alleviating the problems of ASUU and NASU staff in universities that refused to join the last strike action, and for which their mother unions excluded their members from the lists they submitted for payment.

It said similarly, the government appropriated N30 billion in 2017 and more will be paid under the 2018 appropriation for offsetting the backlog of promotion allowances; hazard and call duty allowances and so forth. In all cases, the government has given instructions that allowances be paid directly into the personal accounts of beneficiaries, to avoid past practices of diversion of funds by ministries.”

The statement added: “To ease the housing problems of workers, the administration has set up the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH), by which civil servants have started owning houses categorized as One Bedroom, for between N3-5 million; Two Bedroom, for N5-10 million; Three Bedroom for N9-15 million and Four Bedroom between N13-17million, the latter designed for public servants. All they are required do is to obtain an application for N1, 000 and apply. All states of the Federation are to benefit from this scheme.

“The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige has started commissioning these houses that have been completed in places like Kubwa and Lugbe in the FCT. Nasarawa, Cross River, Gombe and Lagos States are to follow.

“There is also an on-going Federal Mass Housing Scheme, in two categories, one by the Ministry of Finance and the other by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. The two schemes are running at a parallel and have both taken off.

“The issue of the national minimum wage is now back as a top agenda of the administration. It has entered its final stages with public hearings held in the six geopolitical zones of the country between April 23- 30.

“The government has continued to pay attention to service welfare with promotions being sustained throughout the public sector. The National Health Insurance Scheme is being reinvigorated and pensions being streamlined by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD.)

“The public service is being re-injected with new blood with on-going recruitment exercises in the Immìgration, the police and the three branches of the Armed Forces.

“In doing all these and many more, the message from President Buhari to workers and the labour unions is that they are seen and treated as partners.

“Nigeria, the largest economy on the continent cannot be where it is today without the commitment of workers. The stock market continues to soar, the administration continues to score big on the major rail, road and other infrastructure projects that are unfolding across the country, all due to the commitment and dedication of Nigerian workers.

“On this day and always, the nation owes them a lot of gratitude.”

The governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, has announced automatic promotion for all workers in the state civil service, with the exception of those who are newly employed.

He also promised that because of the fondness he had for the workers, he could also approve sleeping allowance for them.

Okorocha announced the automatic promotion in his address at the 2018 Workers’ Day celebration, which held on Tuesday at Heroes Square in Owerri.

This is even as low turnout marred the celebration, as many workers stayed away from the event.

Addressing the workers, the governor said, “I have therefore approved an automatic promotion for all workers of Imo State.

“This automatic promotion means that if you are in Grade Level Eight, you are now in Grade Level Nine.

“This is because since I became governor seven years ago, you have not been promoted.

“Without you, the activities of government would be crippled. You are the engine room behind all our successes.

“I thank you for your patience. You are so dear to me. I can even approve sleeping allowance for you.”

Okorocha said his administration would abide by whatever decision is reached between the Federal Government and the Nigerian Labour Congress concerning the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.

The governor said that his administration had approved new salary structure for the workers, though he did not provide the details.

An address read by Paul Akalazu, state chairman, Trade Union Congress, on behalf of Organised Labour in the state, urged the state government to immediately commence payment of 100 percent salaries for all workers.

“We call on the governor to direct the immediate restoration of 100 percent salary payment to all categories of workers as an appreciation of the sacrifices made by the workers during the economic recession.”

The organised labour urged the Okorocha led administration to clear all pension arrears and gratuities of the state’s senior citizens .

The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, shelved his ambition to run for the position again after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday night.


Sources said the APC governors had already informed the Chief Odigie-Oyegun-led National Working Committee (NWC) on the plan of President Buhari to support the national chairmanship ambition of a former governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, at a meeting held at the party secretariat last Wednesday.


But Chief Odigie-Oyegun’s silence on the message brought by the governors from the president was not enough to convince them that he had given up the ambition of remaining at the helms of affairs of the party beyond the 2019 general elections.


“What happened at the Wednesday meeting was that the governors conveyed information on their meeting with the president,” one of the sources said.


“They told Oyegun that the president will be supporting Oshiomhole for the chairmanship position but there was no response from the chairman at that meeting,” he said.


Another source said that was when it became evident that President Buhari had to intervene; more so there were open altercations among key party stakeholders on the national chairmanship position, especially after the APC state and zonal meetings held in Edo State.


Penultimate Sunday, the Edo caucus of the APC led by the State chairman of the party, Barrister Anselm Ojezua, had backed Oshiomhole to vie for the position of national chairman at a meeting in Benin.


However, his subsequent endorsement by the South South zonal chapter of the APC polarised the party as four out of the six state chairmen of the party from the zone rejected him.


The state chairmen that rejected him were Chief Davies Ikanya (Rivers), Deacon Joseph Fafi (Bayelsa), Mr Etim John (Cross River) and Dr Amadu Attai (Akwa Ibom), as well as the APC Deputy National Secretary, Hon. Victor Giadom.


Subsequently, Oyegun also described the purported endorsement of Oshiomhole by the South-South zonal leadership of the party as “absolutely childish.”


Before his final decision, Oyegun had the support of some APC governors, especially those who believed that they could only control the party structures in their state if he remained as national chairman.


Oshiomhole’s candidacy was hitherto rejected by the governors who thought that the support he enjoyed from the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, might not be good for their various political interests.

Evablizin:
Lol,don't mind me,Sai barbar should just retire to Daura,i'm tired of irrelevant statements.

Evablizin:

President Muhammadu Buhari said his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump yielded positive results in economy, security and anti-corruption.

Buhari, announced this during a joint press conference by Buhari and Trump after a one-day official working visit to the White House.

The Nigerian president lauded the shared history of close and cordial relations between the two counties, saying it encompasses political, economic, military, social and cultural cooperation.

He said: “Our two countries maintain a strategic partnership for peace and security, conflict resolution as well as the global fight against terrorism.

“We also share common features as secular federal states, practicing a similar democratic model of governance and committed to the universal values of fundamental human rights and freedoms, free enterprise, social justice and the rule of law.

“President Trump and his team and myself and the Nigerian team discussed issues related to security, trade, governance, human rights and humanitarian crises.”

He recognised the strong U.S. support in Nigeria’s fight against terrorism and also appreciated very much the U.S. agreement to sell 12 Super Tucano A-29 war planes and weapons to Nigeria to effectively fight terrorism.

“​We expressed gratitude for U. S. support in the reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in the North East of Nigeria, as well as humanitarian assistance to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), through agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other international partners.

“The USA has been to date the biggest contributor to the humanitarian response and last year gave approximately 500 million U.S. Dollars in cash and in-kind contributions through the United Nations and other inter-governmental organisations.

“These have mainly supported protection activities, health, food assistance and shelter. We are doing all we can to secure the release of the remaining abducted school girls from Dapchi and Chibok.

“In this context, we will continue to welcome U.S. collaboration in intelligence gathering, hostage negotiations and information-sharing,” Buhari said.

On violent attacks by herdsmen, Buhari said the government was taking necessary steps to promote the peaceful co-existence of herdsmen and farmers, by focusing on boosting security and enforcing legislation that will guarantee herders and farmers access to land.

On economy, he said Nigeria very much welcomed increased US investment in the Nigerian economy, especially in the non-oil sector.

Buhari said: “​Nigeria’s trade volume with the United States stood at 6.07 billion dollars, according to 2016 statistics and comprised 4.176 billion dollars worth of Nigerian exports to the U.S. and 1.894 billion dollars U.S. exports to Nigeria. We urged greater effort to increase these figures substantially.”

He thanked the U.S. government very much for the cooperation Nigeria had received in its effort to recover stolen funds.

“Our two governments have put the machinery in place for their respective Attorneys-General to collaborate in ensuring the return to Nigeria of over 500 million dollars of looted funds siphoned away in banks around the world.

“In this connection, we congratulated the US government on launching a Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative which was spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering.

“We hope that we could continue to count on U.S. support in this area,” he said.

Former Director of World Bank and former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has revealed how she and the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Madame Christine Lagarde, were locked out of the Presidential Villa by someone she described as ‘a very powerful aide’ of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

She revealed in her recently released book, “Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines”, that she became a target of very powerful interests after she sought and got approval from Jonathan for the implementation of the ports reforms, which include the abolishing of a Cargo Tracking Note (CTN) a regime which importers argued added costs to them for duplicate services.

She said she was locked out of the Villa for refusing to obey the order given by an unnamed influential aide in Jonathan’s administration to restore the CTN with immediate effect.

Excerpts: “During my second month in office in September 2011, the issue of port congestion was brought to the attention of the Economic Management team by members of Nigeria’s organised private sector, especially the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) as a serious impediment to doing business. Importers were irate about a Cargo Tracking Note (CTN) regime which they argued added costs to them for duplicate services. They said that their cargos were already being tracked by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) from origin to destination, so then; there was no reason for the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to collect this charge. Upon enquiry, we learned that charges totalled about $6 million a year, so this was consequential. I had never seen this money remitted to the treasury and, in fact, had not known of the existence of the CTN. We recommended that the CTN be abolished immediately.

“On October 14, 2011, the Minister of Transport and I sent a memo to the President that outlined the short, medium and long term problems of Nigeria’s ports, proposed solutions and requested approval for implementation shortly thereafter. Then the problems began. I received an anonymous text telling me the port reforms were bad and harmful and I should rescind them. I learned that some agencies such as the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and others that had been told to develop alternative collaborative arrangements with the Customs to take care of their responsibilities while staying out of the ports were not happy and were lobbying to be let back into the ports.

“About six weeks into the implementation of the port reforms, in early December 2011, I received a message that a top-ranking presidential aide wanted me to stop by his office anytime I was in the Villa.

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said Nigeria is on a terminal nose-dive and that its pilot, who he noted is missing, must cry for international help as many had advised.

Soyinka, who stated this in a statement he issued on Sunday titled, “May Day! May Day!! May Day!!!,” in commemoration of the 2018 Workers’ Day described the ongoing killings in the country as “ethic cleansing.”

The critic, who said May Day, that he uttered thrice, signified a distress call, adding that long before its adoption for that function, however, and more traditionally, there did exist Labour (or Workers’) Day, dedicated to the entitlement of workers to the value and dignity of their labour.

He noted that the Nigerian constituency was left to determine which attribution – or both, or none – was deafeningly clamorous on May 1, 2018.

Soyinka stated, “No matter, one feels it a duty to call the attention to the painful convergence of both appropriations. Could such a co-option serve equally as summons for a last-chance, eleventh hour reprieve?”

The celebrated playwright also drew what he termed ‘eerie parallels’ in the country’s current situation to a “certain May Day disorder, one in which that distress call was never heard.”

He further likened the present state of things in Nigeria to the Aeroflot Flight 593 of September 28, 1994 in which all passengers died because the captain unprofessionally left the pilot’s seat for his family members while he went to salute the passengers.

Soyinka said, “After preliminary official denials, the undeniable – and tragically inappropriate factor of the crash was formally acknowledged – a laissez-faire, unprofessional conduct with human lapses, among which nepotism – by that, or any other name-loomed large. The captain was not even in the pilot’s seat – others were! They were the pilot’s family – mostly his children. The family member who actually begun the spiral of disaster by pulling the wrong control leaver was – the Captain’s son, to whom his even younger daughter, some moments earlier, had yielded the controls. The pilot’s seat had been turned into a family game of musical chairs.

“Where was the Captain? Somewhere along the aisle, saluting the passengers – all quite proper, and indeed encouraged by regulations. He had placed the plane on auto-pilot – just as this nation has been for some time – so he walked between the seats, dispensing and acknowledging greetings – it was a long flight to Hong Kong, after all.

“The plane went into a sharp turn after the wrong lever was pulled, and the auto-pilot disengaged. The original flight pattern was annulled -does that echo a campaign manifesto? – and the plane was now in unqualified hands. It took ages for the pilot to regain his control seat as some passengers were already tumbling from their seats into the aisle and he had to fight his way through bodily obstacles. All that, from reconstruction of events.

The ‘black box’ – or flight recorder – indicates that the pilot never even got round to shouting ‘May Day’ over the radio – he was too busy struggling to restore the plane’s technical functions, shout instructions, pull the plane out of a nose-dive, and attempt to right the craft – too late!

“Now flash forwards one decade to our present, and recall the number of desperate organisations calling on the Nigerian captain to bury his pride and cry ‘May Day” across all airwaves. Call out for international help to rescue a nation on its terminal nose-dive!

“There has been no sign of willing, while the screwed-up plane is now in its corkscrew dive. Even if this captain regains his seat before the crash, it is open season whether or not, like SUV Flight 593, it will not stall, and head straight for Zuma rockface. Strangers are in control in the cockpit. Put simply, the captain is missing. The rockface is in right in our faces.”

He further called on President Muhammadu Buhari to order all land usurpers in the affected towns and villages across the country to vacate the forcefully occupied lands within 48 hours.

Soyinka urged him to order the military and the police to treat illegal land occupiers as terrorists wherever they were found.

He said, “Give a nationwide order to all land-usurpers in the affected towns and villages across the nation to quit those forcefully occupied lands within a forty-eight hours deadline.

“Issue orders to the military and police that, wherever illegal occupiers are found, they should be meted the same treatment as are accorded terrorists. Instruct all agencies that, once cleared of usurpers, the rightful occupants should be escorted back to their farmsteads and villages and provided maximum protection.”

Saying that the government must go beyond arresting a token handful of herders caught with arms, he added that there were still hundreds of them in the forests.

He added, “It is not enough to back the anti-open grazing laws, so late in the day, but we shall leave that for later. Right now, the violated and dispossessed demand restitution, and with no further delay or subterfuge. All available forces should be deployed to right a hideous, unprecedented wrong that has left the nation drowning in blood – we simply cannot continue one day longer to endure this forceful feeding of human blood.

“The plain expression is “ethnic cleansing” and we must not beat around the bush. The shade of Rwanda hangs over the nation. Afterwards, we can move into reckoning. This spells meticulous investigation, identifying the high-placed sponsors within this nation, some of whom have launched mercenary units to intensify carnage and chaos in order to stem the stride of Nemesis closing in on them for past criminalities, and the cascade of corrupt revelations.”

The celebrated playwright queried what the minister of defence, who allegedly openly justified the homicidal rampage of nomadic herdsmen, was still doing in the Buhari government.

Soyinka noted that there were still other pressing and disturbing questions which would be held back for now in order not “to impede the pressing imperatives and humane priorities of the current crisis.”

“Right now, however, the agenda has to be restitution. Restitution to the displaced, the maimed, the traumatised survivors and the nation’s suppurating psyche. The torrent of internally displaced persons is a national shame, and the growing number of the kidnapped an embarrassment.

“The plane cannot remain on auto-pilot as hitherto, while the pilot strolls up and down the aisle, assuring passengers that all is well. A Happy May Day – hopefully in the not too distant future – to all who labour for humanity.”

ocelot2006:
True. Although available I heard Ford Ranger parts are ridiculously expensive compared to Toyota parts.

Chloe88:
Ford ranger

gurunlocker:
The guy just dey annoying.

gurunlocker:
Do you have anything to do with your miserable life than just saying "idiotic pig of biafra" in 90% of your post.... Just go through your post and ask yourself if you are sensible...