₦airaland Forum

•Says ‘enough of blackmail’


The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has said gone were the days Northerners felt blackmailed and intimidated by threats of restructuring, secession, break up or break down of Nigeria.

The forum in a statement issued by the Secretary General, Murtala Aliyu, said the North had never been opposed to the election of any Nigerian as president, neither has it sought to dominate any part of the country.



It, however, said the north would not submit itself to be relegated to serfdom.


The statement, titled ”Enough of Blackmail, read: ”A long running political riddle that has continued to frustrate all efforts at achieving ‘justice, equity and fair-play’ is this: anything and every thing in which the North has superiority or advantage or strength is, in the opinion of many Southerners, fake or contrived or speculative and, therefore, unacceptable.



”These Southerners contest the facts that the North has 78% of the landmass of Nigeria. They refuse to accept that the North has over 55% of the population of Nigeria. They won’t concede that the voting population in the Northwest region of the North alone is bigger than those of the Southeast & South-south combined.

”They will never acknowledge the fact that all the beef, all the tomatoes, the onions, the beans, etc. consumed in the South, is produced in the North. They concede nothing.



”On the contrary, they say the North brings nothing to the table and is entitled to nothing. Not to an equitable share of national revenues, not to a fair share of employment in the public services or to admissions into public schools.

”If the law says, for example, that election outcomes must be based on one man one vote, they quickly dismiss it as an ‘imposition’ by Northerners. They contest every fact, every principle, including those that formed the basis of our union such as our federation, our system of administration, our7 democracy, etc.



”As we inch towards the 2023 elections, it comes as no surprise that some Southern politicians are giving their Northern counterparts an ultimatum which roughly translates thus: elect no one from the North as President or we will break up the country!

”But what are the facts? Nigeria’s Fourth Democratic Republic is about 22 years old. Of this, Northerners ruled for only ten years. But in-spite of this, some southern politicians are furious, issuing dare warnings against the election of any Northerner as president.

”It has to be stated clearly and for the avoidance of any doubt that the North is not and has never been opposed to the election of any Nigerian from any part of the country as President. Anything that will be done to achieve that, however, must accord with the law and democratic principles.

”Gone are the days Northerners felt blackmailed and intimidated by threats of re-structuring, secession, break up or break down of Nigeria. The North does not seek to dominate any part of the country but will not submit itself to be relegated to serfdom.

”Those issuing ultimatums are to be pitied, knowing that they know not what they are doing. They own no patent nor monopoly of the art or science of ultimatums. Enough of the blackmail.


https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/05/2023-presidency-north-cant-be-intimidated-acf/

Okay! We don hear

Now off your Mic....off your Mic

He was the first to declare, he is the first to chicken out

Haven't you noticed that SWAGAlians has lost the momentum
They have seen the handwriting on the wall, they have realised that Nigerians are now yearning for a healthy and energetic president with no baggage after the Buhari experience

Cock and bull story

Islandlady:
Our regular red cap clowns have spoken

Las Las this country will scatter!

Is it not better

Believing:
Is that how it's done

Yes, that was how it was done in 1999

This is good

For equity and inclusiveness
A president of south east extraction is what every well meaning and morally upright Nigerian should clamour for and support.

If other regions insist that a president of south east extraction should not be allowed to happen, then they should allow the south east to go and form their own country and govern themselves.
It is not too much to ask.


Nigeria disunity is negotiable

It is now or never

Tinubu and his supporters have realised that Tinubu's ambition to be the president of Nigeria is death and buried. At best, it will remain his life long ambition that will never materialise.

helinues:
Could you just please stop quoting me.. My sanity is just important to me..

Thank you

hellinus, I don't think your sanity is important to you.
Because if you do you will realise that amongst the contestants and pretenders, Peter Obi is the best we got

Resurrection212:
We imolites will surely vote Tinubu. If Tinubu lost other state in east he should know that we imolites is already in his bag.

Please use the appropriate word "l"
not "we"

Because Buhari lowered the standard making it possible for every Tom, dick and harry to now want to be the president

All should take note

Shedding crocodile tears

Football is a game, sometimes you win, other time you lose

Savie:
There were many powerful forces in the Federal that didn't want him to become senate president hence the reason they unite and send their stooge mike igini to announce chris ekpenyong as the winner. Akpabio had learned his lesson and would never allowed the same mistaked to happen again.

Which federal forces

Forget that lie
So you wanted Mike igini to accept that fraudulent Essien Udim lga result right. I witnessed everything. Like I said, he overestimated himself. behaving like a god

Rest on Yar Adua

Best Nigerian president
despite his shortcomings


If only he had finished his tenure we wouldn't have had this disaster of president called Buhari

Savie:
You must be kidding or being sentimental for saying it was few. I was there. There no politician in akwa ibom as love as Akpabio in the state due to the uncommon transformation he brought to the state during his era as the governor of akwa ibom hence the phrase "Akwa Ibom ayaya".

He is so loved but failed woefully to return to the Senate in 2019

I am not disputing the fact that he did not do well as governor of Akwa ibom State.
Akpabio should stop overestimating himself.
That was how he overestimated himself but got defeated by an incapacitated ukarakpa

The reason is very simple, you cannot work with Buhari, lai Mohammed and Garba shehu and still maintain your sanity. Its not possible

Savie:
What a stupid post. I was there live at the event in ikot ekpene township stadum, his LGA. It was a very massive crowd. Buhari is secretly supporting akpabio.

What is massive about a few people that gathered in a place you called a stadium opposite a first bank branch in ikot ekpene

Buhari has really lowered the bar

For the first time, over a million persons will be vying for the president of the federal republic of Nigeria

The reason is simple.
Buhari has actually lowered the standard

No be this ref end Mali vs Tunisia game for 89 minutes at the last AFCON

Is this not what Nnamdi Kanu is agitating for

Is this not what Nnamdi Kanu is agitating

Walahi! talahi!

This one is the worst.

After a marathon sessions of lectures, already worn out and thinking that in a couple of minutes this particular lecture will end, then one oversabi coursemate now breaks every bodies heart with this

Tinubu is out to fight dirty

ASUU to Nwajiuba: Tell Nigerians how you came by N100m to purchase APC presidential form

THE Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has challenged the Minister of State for Education and presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, to explain to Nigerians how he came about N100million to purchase the APC Presidential Expression of Interest and Nomination Form.


According to ASUU, in serious climes, Nwajiba should be making some explanations to anti-graft agencies.

Academic staff in public universities have been on strike since February 14, 2022 while the Minister of State for Education, Nwajiba and Minister of Labour Dr. Chris Ngige have expressed their interests to succeed their boss President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

Chairperson, ASUU Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Socrates Ebo, in a chat with newsmen in Yenagoa on Tuesday said, ” it is a shame that a serving junior minister of education will boldly declare that he is starving university lecturers all over the nation for daring to ask that the education system in the country be improved.”

Speaking further, Ebo sad: “Truly, you can’t shame the shameless. Since when has demanding for the improvement of education in the country become an offence? This is a very sad low in the annals of our country. Indeed, charlatans have taken charge of our affairs.

“The minister of education should be educated that lecturers’ duties include: community service, teaching and research. As we speak, lecturers all over the country are engaged in research and community service.

“The strike is a last resort in the attempt to make a reason-deaf government to improve facilities in our public universities, pay lecturers a living wage and stop the frittering away of the nation’s dwindling resources through IPPIS. What part of this demand is crime?

“The minister who is putting up a show of pretending to attempt to lead the country should rather tell Nigerians how he came by a whooping sum of N100m to purchase his party’s nomination form when his legitimate salary is less than a million naira in a month.

“If this were a serious country, he should be making some explanations to ICPC and EFCC by now. Unfortunately, we are in a season of absurdities. Those who previously declared that no serious government would ever allow lecturers to go on strike are now not only forcing lecturers into strike but are also starving them on top of that. What an irony of history! It is well with Nigeria!”

https://www.reubenabati.com.ng/index.php/component/k2/ASUU-to-nwajiuba-tell-nigerians-how-you-came-by-n100m-to-purchase-apc-presidential-form

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is steadily carrying out his threat to “fight dirty’’ and his targets have been well marked out: President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

He has deployed most of the writers in his newspaper, The Nation, as his fighters. Day after day, they rain abuses and insults on Yemi Osinbajo and the President. Their grouse is that the VP has dared to run for President and Buhari is tacitly supporting him and at the same time unsympathetic towards Asiwaju.

There is no way the VP would have had the audacity to challenge Asiwaju if he didn’t have the backing of the President, one of the writers told me last week. Yesterday, the Chairman of the newspaper’s Editorial Board and its lead columnist, Sam Omatseye, made the same point in an essay titled “The king’s meat.”

The piece drips with anger, malice and nastiness and aims at both the President and Vice President. Its central theme is that Osinbajo should not have declared to run because Tinubu has been eyeing the job since 1999. Even after he decided to run, Omatseye wonders why the VP did not even travel to Lagos to take permission from Tinubu before the announcement, concluding the full-page essay by calling Buhari a plagiarist for the “I am for everybody’’ line in his 2015 inaugural speech.



The essay is the clearest evidence yet that the Tinubu camp is frustrated and bitter that President Buhari is not willing to hand over the Presidency to the former Lagos governor. Tinubu and his supporters have not hidden their anger at the President for not publicly declaring his support for him, and they are venting their anger on Osinbajo for taking what they think rightfully belongs to the APC leader. I understand that these writers and the newly recruited ones have been instructed to pour the kitchen sink “in full measure’’ on Buhari and Osinbajo between now and when the convention holds at the end of this month.

But how effective is that as a strategy to win the primary? I have made the point in my previous interventions that this approach is flawed. By resorting to constantly harassing and intimidating the VP, Tinubu is giving the impression that he is a ruthless and brutal contender who can mow down whoever is on his way. You can now see why President Buhari said in a TV interview that he was not ready to reveal his choice for President because “they would eliminate him’’.

The constant assault and visceral attacks against the VP since he declared his intention is akin to elimination. Thank God, Prof Osinbajo will never be another Funso Williams.

Tinubu’s quest for power and control is insatiable. The former governor has made Lagos his conquered territory. Its politics, treasury and every decision, ranging from who collects garbage from the streets to who becomes the governor is under Tinubu’s control. Apparently not satisfied, he wants the whole country under his belt. We can only imagine what will happen to the CBN, FIRS, NNPC, Customs, NDDC, NPDC, PTDF and other cash cows if he succeeds.

Tinubu’s self-accreditation as the Grand Deity of Nigerian Politics who must be worshipped and adored, and his sense of entitlement to power is the single most dangerous development in the polity since the annulment of the June 12 election. President Buhari cannot afford to hand Nigeria back to another set of bandits that have raped the country for eons.

Yemi Osinbajo has the right, like every Nigerian, to aspire to any office he wishes to occupy. The VP does not owe Tinubu any apology or permission to pursue his dreams. Osinbajo will be a very good presidential candidate for our party. He represents the best of Nigeria and the best in all of us. His wide acceptability nationwide across party lines, ethnic divides and religious boundaries makes him a natural choice as our presidential candidate.

On the contrary, Asiwaju Tinubu has a huge baggage hanging on his neck, the least of which is the dubious sources of his stupendous wealth. Tinubu has taken so much from the system that he should be grateful to the country and its leaders who have condoned him for this long. He ought to realize that he would be the biggest casualty if, God forbid, APC loses the governorship election in Lagos or the presidential election next year. There are people who hate his guts and are ready to throw him into jail if they come to power.

One of the major weaknesses of the Nigerian nation is the possibility of some corrupt politicians becoming too big to control. They are rather in control of the state. They are almost as powerful and dreadful as Mexican drug lords who control some cities, recommend judges for appointment, murder those they don’t like, intimidate and harass the citizens.

These bullion van politicians, who call themselves “democrats’’, are very powerful, demand obeisance from citizens, order elected officials around and confiscate government property and amass wealth with reckless abandon. They have a large collection of minions who exercise derived authority and exert their own influence. The Nation’s writers represent the echo chamber for their master. They know what the boss wants and they put it across in fine prose.

I called up Sam Omatseye after reading his piece yesterday and asked him: “What’s the strategy behind your essay? Since you want the President’s support for Tinubu’s ambition, do you think this would help?” I will keep the details of our conversation private, but it is clear that Tinubu and his people have come to the full realization that Buhari cannot be cowed and the VP will never bow out.

Tinubu’s insistence that the VP must constantly defer to him and publicly sing his praises is just a sign of megalomania. The man is a psychological egotist with delusions of grandeur and obsession with power. He deserves our sympathy and consolation.


https://www.newdawnngr.com/2022/05/03/tinubus-desperation-and-omatseyes-dirty-fight/

In a prompt response to The King’s Meat, the author Sam Omatseye gets a blast from a responder who notes that if his
fulltime job right now is to vilify Osinbajo, he and his ilk will not have the field to themselves

Sam Omatseye, is this what informed commentary has been reduced to? You want people to read this poor hitjob of a Bola Tinubu hagiography mounted on cheap lies against Yemi Osinbajo and nod in admiration of your hackwork? Nah, this is poor, very poor. Only a small man and a small mind will seek to diminish another in order to grow.

I mean, how dare you call a man who has exercised utmost discipline and self-control in the face of provocation from you and your principal’s brood of vipers a coward? You think those who support Osinbajo will keep mute when he’s being eaten alive by you and other Tinubu’s worms calling him a traitor, a Judas, an ingrate, a black sheep?


What fear of gratitude are you talking about? Who the hell is Tinubu but an entitled thief protected by the establishment that has so far used him to serve their political ends until now? Not everyone worships a moral leper, Mr Omatseye. Mr Tinubu is the same fellow who has serially betrayed the Yoruba and indeed, Nigerians from June 12 to Afenifere twice over. No one bothered collaring him with charges of treachery because we recognize that he is entitled to his choices in a democracy. He cannot even lace up Akintola’s shoes talk less of Awolowo’s. You may not know it today because your face is still buried in Tinubu’s stew, but he is not there in the constellation of true Yoruba and Nigerian stars. He’s a political blight better left to burn out, a true waste. Of course, he’s got tons of money stashed in bullion vans all over the place, but that’s all he’s got. Nothing else.

I know that in your eyes, apart from Osinbajo daring to sniff at your king’s meat, his other crime is that he is loyal to President Buhari when Buhari will not budge in the face of Tinubu’s blackmail. You have created this phantom of an omnipotent Tinubu who distributes favours to all – including to the president and vice president – and who is now being betrayed by those whose duty it is to crown him the king of Nigeria.

Only an idiot would believe that Tinubu singularly made Osinbajo vice president when the whole world knew that Tinubu himself wanted the position but was thwarted on the ground that a Muslim-Muslim ticket won’t fly. The unvarnished truth is that the position of the vice president was not Tinubu’s to offer to anyone. He was only one of the influential people who proposed Osinbajo for the post, even though in his own case, he did it grudgingly. The man with the last say on who he’d want to serve as vice president was the president himself and he ultimately chose and accepted Osinbajo. Tinubu, like a number of others, had a hand in getting Osinbajo to be considered, he cannot claim sole credit. And yes, Osinbajo never said Tinubu had no hand in him emerging vice president; he only mentioned others involved. Just in case you have forgotten, it’s a democracy and many people and many interests contribute to such outcomes, like who will be vice president, just as they do with regard to who will be president.


You cluck effortlessly that there is right and there is decency, but then promptly, in the same breath, deny the vice president his right in a most indecent piece that shoos away every sense of reason and fairness. You airily say no one has a pact to run for president, but, in the same breath, you’re ‘dragging’ Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for not handing the APC presidential ticket to Tinubu as of right because there is a pact based on his knowledge that Tinubu has been eyeing the position since forever. I mean, why do you think the vice president has a moral duty (or any duty of any hue) to go to Tinubu to inform him of his ambition for the presidency simply because you have built up these empty chronological verses of him knowing for eons that Tinubu wants the position after Buhari? Is the presidency a Tinubu heritage?

I’m sure you will tell us that Tinubu trotted over to Aso Rock to inform Buhari of his wish to be president out of respect, but note that whatever you think Osinbajo knows about Tinubu’s long-term ambition, Buhari also knows. But Tinubu went to Buhari, the president, to inform him of his intention to run. He did not go to the vice president to inform him of his intention obviously because that one is his boy who dares not dream, right?

Honestly, you guys are getting tirelessly pathetic in your apple-polishing gimmickry. You’re taking Nigerians for fools because you’re good with the pen. Okay, let me tell you in plain language what you should know: Yemi Osinbajo as the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has a right to contest the presidential primary of the APC against anybody and he does not need anybody’s permission to throw his hat in the ring!

If your principal is the great democrat he is being touted to be, put away these dirty inks and tell the world his qualities. So far, all you’ve told us indirectly is that he has an “audacious vision of justice in Lagos” and that he is the inventor of school meals. So, what else? What is he bringing to the national table, apart from a sense of entitlement? Tell us why he would make a great president of Nigeria. Debate the issues and stop attacking Osinbajo for daring to declare his intention to democratically contest for the only position presently above him (after serving as an understudy for that position for more than seven years) just because you think he’s Tinubu’s eternal servant. He is not. At least that is what his declaration has showed.



So, raise your game, Uncle Sam. The gutter isn’t the place for this fine prose. Osinbajo isn’t campaigning to run a cuckoo’s nest. He’s campaigning to be given the opportunity to run a country, our country, Nigeria, not Tinubu’s agbado farm. We are democracy, not a slaughter house for your king’s meat.

https://www.thecable.ng/osinbajo-and-the-cheap-liars/amp

After hiding under the shadows of his votaries, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo took off his veil. On the ordinary level, it was the unveiling of his ambition for the number one post. But for others, including this essayist, he did not just unfurl a dream. He cracked the calabash.

He was, by that singular act, challenging his mentor to a duel.


For some of us who did not believe it was true, the announcement was a theatre as a giddy act because it began as a furtive play. His ambition, that is. Then he decided to hit the jugular. He said it in no unshaken terms.

But he knew Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was running when he declared. He knew Asiwaju was interested when he was a commissioner under him. He knew Asiwaju Tinubu was interested when he nominated him – Osinbajo – for vice president. Never mind the mendacities Osinbajo – the man of God – has allowed to fester that Tinubu did not nominate him. I don’t know if Osinbajo can, as a man of God, go to the pulpit and, in the words of the Psalmist, “swear (it) to his own hurt and change not.”


So, in the sphere of knowledge, he knew that Tinubu was eyeing the post, and intended to run once Buhari’s time had run its course. That explains why he did not say it out loud. No doubt, he had a right to any position as a citizen of the republic. But there is right and there is decency.

If he intended to run, why did he not go to his leader and say, “I know you want this position. But, you see, I have been where you put me in the past six or seven years, and I want it. I know it’s your dream. I have seen some things, eaten some things, touched some things and done some things and I believe I should give it a shot.”

But rather than avail himself the class and panache of this dialogue, he amassed his team, and they pointed the pistol.

Poor indeed that they started challenging Tinubu’s supporters in public spaces, leading to turf wars. In all these, he kept a silence. A silence that was full of bows and arrows. It was the way of the coward.

But the first narrative he encouraged was that he did not come out of Tinubu’s benevolence. If he did, why would he hold on to a ballast of an independent man? So, he let the lie to bloat that Tinubu had no hand in making him vice president. Bisi Akande, the elder who had words of praise for him as brilliant lawyer, also narrated how his journey began to that royal perch. Osinbajo never responded, not a thing. Now, he edits Tinubu out of the story, and says it was Rauf Aregbesola and Ibikunle Amosun, who took him to then candidate Buhari. Who were these two men in the APC top brass in 2014? Aregbesola was Osun governor, and he was influential only because he held Asiwaju’s coattail. Ditto Amosun, who was Buhari’s toady. They were not in the high flame of the politicking. They were followers. So, if they took Osinbajo to Buhari, then someone sent them. In his Participations, Bisi Akande narrated how it happened.

Even Osinbajo’s own account is perfidious. He forgets that he once acknowledged Tinubu when the times were insipid in the past. Fibbing, in this regard, is not Christian. But he has been caught in a lie. Again, the fact that two intermediate party leaders took him to Buhari underwrites Osinbajo’s status and stature then. No one knew him on a national scale. He could not have even run for senate without help, or even house of representatives.

He barnstormed his home state of Ogun recently. He knows he could not have even run for a post then without help from Lagos. He was no factor even in his home state when he was executing Tinubu’s audacious vision for justice in Lagos. Now, he acts as though he is the legitimacy of Ogun State. With his relative obscurity, he knows he was no factor in 2014, and today he is vice president. He has forgotten his obscurity, and he thinks that it is convenient to forget Tinubu so he can assert his own ambition. Hence the narrative of ingratitude.


He did or could not confront Tinubu with his ambition because he did not have the courage to do it. He is battling with what historians and psychologists have designated as the fear of gratitude. It means I can’t acknowledge those who made me a success because it will diminish my stature and accomplishments. Since ancient times, especially in Rome, according to Edward Gibbon’s classic, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A certain emperor killed all those who knew him when he was a slave. The historian and philosopher Tacitus wrote: “Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.”

It is narratives like this that are yoking him to the Akintola saga in the First Republic. In spite of revisionists, Akintola remains a Yoruba quisling. He was first a hypocrite before he became a traitor. He wanted to play incorruptible by arguing with Awo about party members’ role and activities in government as though he did not know before he became premier. It is that hypocrisy that bound him with enemies outside who pissed inside the house.

In obvious reaction to my last week’s parable, the vice president said it would be a betrayal for him not to run for office. You betray anyone with whom you have a pact, either moral or legal. Does he have a pact with Nigeria that once you serve as assistant to the president you must serve as president. He spoke it with an air of inevitability. No one has a pact to run for president. A right? Yes. A pact? Nada.

He owes loyalty to where he comes from, not where he wants to go. And when he became vice president, he even discharged, as a task, a vision that Tinubu suggested to the administration, especially school feeding. Tinubu’s idea: I hope they won’t dispute that either. The job was taken out of his ken and given to a new minister who is yet to explain to the public and the children how two billion Naira was spent to feed kids who were at home during Covid lockdown. The idea came out of Tinubu’s cook book, but the chef failed the palate. So, for a man who says he will continue Buhari’s legacy (still a question mark), he could not even execute Tinubu’s idea, just a little of his vast array of vision.

By elevating to Nigeria above a group, he was guilty of Samuel Johnson’s words: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Every rise in politics begins from a cell. To move on, you have to always negotiate with that cell or you sell out. In Greek mythology, dramatized by playwright Euripides, a man sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia for country. But his heart is not in the right place. A wasted tragedy.

Osinbajo’s assertion that he owes no one any debt reminds me of Buhari’s inaugural speech in which he said, “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” That never happens in politics anywhere. It was even plagiarised. An old man, the greatest French man in the 20th century Charles de Gaulle. He uttered it in May 1958. Neither Buhari nor his speechwriter has said sorry to that French man’s grave. It was intellectual corruption. In using the phrase that he owes no one any debt, he was battling with his conscience. Some are asking, if he could do this to the man who helped him, who else can he not do this to? They might see him as a “Man dressed in a little brief authority,” as Shakespeare says.

He probably ate a forbidden fruit. Maybe he gobbled the king’s meat, and how palatable it was. Daniel in the Bible rejected the king’s meat. He thought it would defile him. But Osinbajo might like the morsel. In A Man of the people, a novel about politics of this sort, Chinua Achebe asks impishly, who will spit out a morsel of meat that good fortune put in his mouth? Achebe knew, like Daniel, that it is an unclean thing. Maybe it is that gastronomic temptation that is troubling our vice president.

https://thenationonlineng.net/the-kings-meat/