₦airaland Forum

In his latest interview with Chude Jideonwo, Peter Obi compares Tinubu to Pele of Brazil playing in today's Brazilian team:

“Tinubu is an elder brother of mine and I respect him for who he is. They have contributed one way or the other in the past and they have to be respected and recognised in due time, but I just tried to explain that because they contributed in the past and everything doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to stay forever and ever. They move on and things move on.

“It’s like Brazil today, they recognise that sometime ago Pele was a star, a fantastic footballer, but they are not going to field him in today’s match.”

Kasssandra:
Sorry, but state police won't work in Nigeria.

Most Nigerians do not pay income tax to the federal and state governments because most Nigerians work in the informal sector.

State police works in a place where everyone pays some form of tax to the state government. Not in Nigeria where less than 30% of the economically active populaiton pays a tax, and where our tax to gdp ratio is 8.1%

Unless we are expecting government to take another loan, or we remove subsidy from petrol...no money for state police.

OBALOLA55:
FIXED

As a President elected by all Nigerians, the buck will stop at my desk, I will be fully responsible for governance and national security decisions and actions.

Total reform of the entire security architecture that will include level policing - Federal, State and Community, properly armed, equipped and technologically driven security system.

My administration will aggressively support the private sector to invest in the power value chain through a multifaceted approach particularly the transmission infrastructure.

I will vigorously pursue the liberalization of the transmission infrastructure and adequately support the existing investors through proper alignment of specific gas supply for power generation, transmission and distribution.

We will reduce the subsidy cost by over 50 %. We will support local refining for domestic use and priced strictly in Naira, Once we tackle insecurity and farmers returns to farms, our food production will go up and inflation will go down through the reduced food prices.

With the removal of subsidy, effectively reduce corruption to minimal level, reduced bloated cost of governance and above all, support and incentivize export to stabilize the currency exchange rate.

#PeterObi ��

SpecialAdviser:
My problem is that Nigerian Christians are easy by overs. Once they see money, they lose their senses.

Later same Christians will turn and be shouting they are killing Christians in Nigeria.
No single Christian, I repeat no Christian will have the courage to float Christian-Christian ticket. None at all.

I trust Muslims to do a protest vote and send his career packing. Muslims can hardly be bought over with money. Sometimes I laugh when Christians accuse Muslims of trying to Islamise them. Why won't you be Islamized when you have so much lust for money?

Muslims in the north are even agitating more against Muslim Muslim ticket than the Christians. Tinubu intentionally insulted Christians and decided to rub salt on injury when he hired fake bishops. How many Christians can courageously hire fake Imams? Give them quran to go to a political gathering? How many? We Christians should reduce our lust for money so that we can earn respect.

If you are a Christian and get bought over to vote this Muslim Muslim ticket, I pity your generations.

LegendHero:
All this lamentations to push anti-religious sentiments to aid your candidate?

You guys will also be the one to cry blue murder when other people exploit tribalism side also to aid their candidates.

So if you can campaign with anti-religious sentiment against my candidate, why can’t I campaign using tribalism?

The proclivity of Nigerians to shove mud, no matter how big, under the carpet in the name of politics has been a major source of the country’s afflictions. Once politics sets in, with all that it usually connotes in Nigeria, reason and logic fly out of the window, only to return after substantial damage has been done.

Election season has become the height of the season of anomie. When it comes to taking decisions by Nigerians during elections, for instance, experience hardly seems to be the best teacher any longer. In fact, it hardly matters. No experience of the past, not even that of the present, seems compelling enough to dissuade the people from walking down the same slippery road all over. As it seems in Nigeria, when it is time to make decisions during election, experiences are there to be ignored. That is what politicians, the meisters of emotional manipulation, seem to be telling the people when they return to campaigns for a new mandate. The contempt for the people in this message is often too blatant to miss. But then, politicians always believe in their capacity to pull the wool over the people’s eyes.

In 2014, for instance, when General Muhammadu Buhari was seeking the office of President for the fourth time, he was suddenly re-made and sold to Nigerians as what he was not – a democrat. The retired army general was well known then for who he was (and still is): a resolute and unbending personality, moulded in spirit and by career to have little patience for the ‘public thing’, otherwise known as principles of democracy. He paraded a commonly acclaimed aura of an unimpeached character, a profile reckoned to him as his most glittering epaulette. But Muhammadu Buhari was not, by any stretch of imagination, a democrat. As a matter of fact, it was commonly known that he had preference for a command structure.

All the same, the general was dressed up and lavishly sold to Nigerians as a new democrat. Nobody knew or was told when the radical conversion of the uncompromising soldier occurred. But then, it was the season of politicking and political campaign, a giddy period when the majority of Nigerians lose their cognitive ability. The marketers of the general deployed every tool in the book to sell their candidate. They succeeded. The rest is now history. Or about to be so. Whether General Buhari became a democrat after all, or whether his said conversion was a gimmick, is now moot. What does it matter anymore?

It is election season again. Once more, Nigerians are being presented a product, which, obviously, is not what it is being promoted as, a contrived package around which any person with eyes for detail will see the mark, “danger”. Yet this product, this man, in spite of persistent alarm about him, is being hawked by the same marketers as a viable product.

Senator Kashim Shettima, vice-presidential candidate of All Progressives congress (APC) is disquieting. His past is a source of serious worry. His present utterances offer no comfort either. Shettima is, by antecedent and by utterances, doubtfully the right type of man to be near the control lever in a troubled plural society like Nigeria of the moment.

Bola Tinubu’s bid for President in 2023 is already standing on a troubled foundation. He has issues with his personal records and profile, which cannot be wished away. The performance of APC, of which he rightly claims to be an eminent founder, provides no proud pedestal to mount an honest presidential bid from. Proceeding from here to add Shettima to the equation is either a sinister or cynical move. The issue here is not even about the ill-motivated same-faith ticket.

Last week, Shettima, Tinubu’s running mate, was in the news for another round of wrong reasons. Speaking at a 96th anniversary event of the elite Yoruba Tennis Club in Ikoyi, Lagos, Shettima said his principal had the key qualities required to lead Nigeria at this point in time. He proceeded to outline those qualities to include “a dose of the ruthlessness and taciturnity of General Sani Abacha”. He added for good measure that “nice men do not make leaders”.

A Freudian slip never emerged so jarring. Going by what is known of him and what he declared himself, it is obvious that Shettima is not a good man. He has never claimed to be one anyway.

For many Nigerian voters across the country, Shettima should be what they term ‘a person of interest’. His name has consistently been identified with disturbing circumstances. His utterances have always betrayed his troubling mindset. Instructively, he has never attempted to distance himself from these.

The scourge of Boko Haram remains a burden like no other for Nigeria. With Boko Haram, Nigeria found itself in the suffocating grip of terrorism. The cost in lives, material loss and environmental devastation brought upon the country by Boko Haram can never be quantified. While the very origin of that scourge depends on the source of the chilling account available to anyone, Shettima as governor of Borno State at the critical point in the evolution of the terrorist group is yet to tell the country what he did or did not do in response to the malignancy. So many stories abound.

In those heady days, too, Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was President. His government’s initiatives to combat Boko Haram were curiously seen in top quarters of the opposition APC as fighting the North. Shettima’s summary flouting of the President’s directive on securing schools around the Chibok area of Borno State, based on intelligence report, led eventually to the infamy of the kidnap of the girls from the Girls Secondary School, Chibok. The world was traumatized and Jonathan’s government carried the can. Till date, Shettima has shown neither remorse nor offered apologies for what transpired at Chibok. Some of those girls who were recently rescued came home with two, three children each, offspring of the damned.

This Shettima is still the same person captured on a viral recorded telephone conversation with Ibikunle Amusun, former governor of Ogun State, where Shettima expressed in a very cold tone, how he wished Jonathan did not accept his defeat at the 2015 election, so that mayhem will be visited on him and his people. He proceeded in the same conversation, to spill shocking level of bile and hate on the Igbo, for no apparent reason than their support for President Jonathan. Shettima is yet to publicly repudiate these reports.

Shettima’s recommendation of the ruthlessness of Sani Abacha should not strike anyone who has followed his antecedent as a surprise. That is who he is.

Nothing that is known till this moment of Kashim Shettima is inspiring or indicative of the type of an accommodating personality needed to heal a fractured Nigeria. Whatever those who have taken up the task of marketing Kashim Shettima may present him as, Nigerians simply need to read the bold inscription on him; buyer beware.

duro4chang:
Your eyes will soon clear. Some of your co-attack dogs have also responded.

duro4chang:
Hypocrisy of you people.

Peter Obi’s 12-minute interview on CNN last Friday has triggered quite an interesting debate on many social media platforms. His supporters think that Obi gave a good account of himself and stamped his authority as the nation’s leading presidential candidate. Coming just two days after the NOI poll put him as the front runner in the race, the interview was part of a well-planned sequence of events and positive media exposure for him. His trips across major cities in the US and Europe the weeks before have also received positive reviews.

A day or so after Obi’s CNN appearance, a picture of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu dozing off at the palace of the Emir of Gombe as the senate president was speaking turned up. The contrast between the two men couldn’t have been starker and the underlying message was unmistakable. Nigerians have been unsparing in their comments. Somebody wrote: “If this man is elected, his wife and children will be running the government, while he spends time in a foreign hospital”.

Since he launched his bid earlier in the year, Obi has given several TV interviews and attended many events where he often speaks extempore. We now know that Obi, and to some extent Atiku Abubarkar, are very comfortable before the cameras. I understand that Atiku has, since the last election, brushed up himself with a series of courses in public speaking and grooming. A master’s degree has also been added to his cupboard. In the years after he left the government house in Awka, Obi has attended a few executive programmes in some business schools. He is fairly eloquent, fluent and well-spoken. Although he may not always appear well-rehearsed, he does not forget his words mid-sentence like his APC opponent.

Tinubu’s refusal to attend the NBA conference in August, preferring to send his poorly-dressed running mate instead, triggered further warnings about his disabilities. Nigerians have been considerably alarmed by the shaking of his left hand, wetting of his pants, wobbly gaits and long drawls in his speeches. Nonetheless, Tinubu’s refusal to grant a live TV interview since his nomination as a presidential candidate three months ago is a clear pointer to his impairments. The man is just too physically and mentally unfit to lead this vast and complex. I recall that even Candidate Buhari’s symptoms weren’t this visible and obvious when we elected him in 2015, yet he crumbled barely a year in office and had to spend months in a London hospital.

President Yar’Adaua’s ill health was well known to many even before he was elected in 2007. He braved it as much as he could but the pressures of the office exacerbated his condition and unfortunately, he died after a lengthy hospitalisation three years after the election. The weight of the office of the president is too enormous for a sickly person or one with a hidden health condition. He will spend more time in hospitals than in office. As a country, Nigeria is too sick to be led by a sick man. The country requires the full attention, commitment and dedication of the leader. There are too many people who will take advantage of the absence of the president to do us harm. We saw it during Yar’Adua’s administration. It can happen again. Why then should we be stuck with a sickly old man when the country is filled with healthy, capable and competent men and women? Are we cursed?

To divert attention from his woes, Tinubu’s supporters have been talking down on Peter Obi’s media appearances. They claim that he does not come well prepared enough or that he reels out unverifiable statistics. I agree. Obi needs some coaching in handling the press.

He has to hire experts to design his economic blueprints and distil out memorable talking points for him. Obi just has to do away with those bogus statistics. Nigerians are too sophisticated to be fooled with constant reference to China. But in terms of articulation, erudition, elocution and off-the-cuff remarks, Peter Obi is far ahead of Bola Tinubu. If you do not believe me, send the two of them to a debate or get Tinubu to grant a live TV interview. In fact, it is now Tinubu’s turn to do a live TV interview that lasts 10 minutes or more. After all, talking to the press is an integral part of the presidential job description.

Iwo lo kan, Sir.

dajo83:
The truth is tunubu Muslim/Muslim ticket is working for him because I thought Yoruba christian will oppose it but they are all behind tunubu. Had it been is christian/christian ticket, Yoruba Muslims would have against it. Especially

SugarGirl44:
Ori awon ẹbi ẹ buru.
I repeat, go back to the hole you crawled out from.

SugarGirl44:
If the rules are too harsh for you, go back to where you came from.
Nobody invited you.

The immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Yakubu Dogara has warned Christians in the country not to waste their votes in the forth-coming 2023 general elections, saying that the adoption of the same faith Presidential and Vice-president Ticket by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the nation is antithetical to Nigeria’s quest for nation building.

Dogara who spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at a summit tagged “Meet the Church” organized by the Nigerian National Christians Coalition (NNCC) with the theme; “The role of the Church in Nation Building” stated that every Christian knows that God does not tolerate waste and as such, It is unchristian for the church to waste anything given to them from above.

He argued that the APC ignored warnings by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Catholic Secretariat, ECWA Church and many other church bodies and adopted the same faith ticket in a manner that negated the fundamentals of nation building, such as shared identity, values and vision.

“The APC adopted the same faith ticket in a country that has never attained nationhood. These warnings were not only ignored but dismissed in one fell swoop by the APC presidential candidate who strangely believes that he can build a strong, secure and viable nation-state without first forging a shared identity, vision and values for our people thereby enabling us transit from citizens of a country into a nation of people with strong shared identity and values.”

“In their convoluted posturing, they have placed state-building ahead of nation-building; a task never before achieved in history and we need no seer to tell us that such endeavour is guaranteed to end in spectacular failure. No divided people have ever built any civilization.

“To demonstrate that the church is right, it is not alone in condemning the same faith ticket. Other prominent Islamic clerics and Muslim leaders have also spoken in the same light. It is a good omen that both Christian and Muslim elites are not complacent over this matter.

“To this end, it will be easy to generate the needed elite consensus that is key to nation-building. All nations are built by elite consensus while all countries that failed at nation-building were destroyed by elite complacency.

“Granted that the Christians and Muslims will always disagree on some issues, there are, however, many things over which we are agreeable. It is enough to forge ahead with the task of nation-building based on those common issues we agree on. It must be noted that just as Muslims alone cannot build a nation out of Nigeria so also Christians alone cannot. We have to work together on “nation formations”, he said.

Dogara commended the church in the country for shaking off the beast of the complacency of the past into fire by speaking up and resisting measures adopted by some political platforms that will hamper nation-building.

duro4chang:
E be like say you are one of Obi's attack dog. E pain you. Eeyah!

SmartPolician:
First, there's nothing like Igbo market in Lagos. Lagos State is a Yoruba land.

Secondly, even the big markets in Aba, Onitsha and Enugu are dirty.

I don't do that tribalism nonsense with you people. I say it the way it is. If you don't like it, I don't give a hoot.

SmartPolician:
Labour Party should stop playing to the gallery.

Who doesn't know that traders don't like rules?

In fact, they are also very dirty and stubborn. That's why most Nigerian marketplaces are dirty.

If shutting down the market will make them have sense, so be it.

duro4chang:
Na you get headache. I don tell yot say i no care. Wetin concern me. Na you dey jump upandan for nothing.

BlazinGlory40:
I’m an Obi supporter but I don’t think Osun people hate tinubu that much except am missing something.

duro4chang:
Who cares

BATified2023:
I can see they gladly accept Labour Party with this result

Igbos n delusion

When reality hits them then they start claiming victim

BATified2023:
the madness u can’t try in onitcha is what u want to try here

We wait u

PlayerMeji:
I am happy for you...

You will be greatly surprised that Osun will go for Tinubu...

It is not everyone that needs to hate him simply because he chose a Muslim as his vice... Quite a lot of people would have been shocked had oyetola won the election, most people knew oyetola was a lost cause because of his performances. So it was a disaster waiting to take place but not like our dear son, Tinubu...
He has proven time after time that he is a colossal in governance and an enigma in Nigeria politics...

Emilokan!

PlayerMeji:
Heeya,

Osun people don talk say, Osun na for PDP but for Presidency, na APC dem dey follow..

Go check am!

But anyway, good luck for una match!