₦airaland Forum

I guess that what people dont understand is that ministers and appointees get screened and approved by the senate (supposedly representing Nigerians) and that means that we are meant to be the real employers of those people just as we are to OBJ in an ideal situation. That means that OBJ and his appointees are accountable to the people and not to OBJ. If you stretch it, common sense will suggest that every body will give account of his own stewardship to the same employers ( the people). So it is just stupid to come here with this talk of pull OBJ down just to make the present government look better.

Obama said during the presidential campaign that "If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from". If these guys can run, let them run and lets see. Stop indicting, start probing and lets know how the money got lost. But they wont because OBJ may come out unconnected as it was with NPA fund. Thats not good for the strategy. The strategy is simple: "let OBJ be the bad guy of all times and take the heat away from ourselves".

Now somebody should tell that big mouth Bankole that the judiciary is clearing the mess his party is putting up and that they did not need an advice from Achebe to do it. Cowards politicians!!

I can still see the tired war boot of my uncle by the wall. It is a monument i wish to let my children see. He loves telling me stories of how brave men (some of them under 15) fell on bombs to save a battalion from extermination. Here we are, somebode should tell Adekunle that those guys are even more now. They ( the Nigerian killing machines) are presently repenting ,  but that is just the beginning. My father use to tell me when i do some things stupid that it was not what Ojukwu would have done and it made me cry then because that man is the Igboness i see. This reminds me of how resilient (infact how igbo) i am.

Igbo ga adi!!

It is so easy to talk. A country where your vote is not counted and yet somebody is declared winner, a state where somebody that burnt down state owned infrastructure is rewarded with more federal police protection, a state where a state Governor is only the chief security officer os the state on paper, a state where a governor's convoy got blocked by a longer convoy of a known felon in the same state and even an official report of same to the authorities yielded no result, a state where a political party causes a problem for themselves such that same snowball into accusations and counter accusations of kidnapping and only recently, a charge on the intellectuals of the state who are not even members of the same political party nor believe in their ideology to  intervene. Either that Bankole is being naive or he doesn't just know.

It is unwise to suggest that the internal problem of PDP that pertains to the nomination of their own flag bearer should be termed a general state problem when obviously the party has not disciplinary structure and cannot discipline even her own. PDP is in a jam not Anambra state. Even if Anambra state has problem, then they better talk to the likes of Ojukwu who has far more grass root support and stronger profile (though you may disagree form the outside) than rope in Achebe from the classroom. Next time, somebody will ask why Prof Gabriel Oyibo did not advise Ibori when he was looting!! Bull shit!

I guess i will only be massaging my emotions if i swallow this bullshit! OBJ is a man many love to hate, i love to hate him too but that is just emotions. The fact of the matter is that under OBJ, many things went wrong as many more are presently going wrong under Yar'dua. That does not mean that he did those things. The problem is that these guys just want to break down OBJ's power but they are really protected the really corrupt ones. We need to know who really embezzled these monies, how did they do it, i mean facts as we saw in Bode George's case. Don't come here and tell me that OBJ is a thief without telling me what he did. This is a givernment stuff not some home business. If you embezzled money, then the tracking will indicate that it got blackholed in your pocket. That is scientific. But the problem is that the real thieves(that does not mean that OBJ may not be one of them) are the ones making these accusation to cover their own tracks because OBJ does not really care to reply.

We know that Ibori, Nnamani, Orji Kalu and co are safe in the cozy hands of this same administration and they are opening their mouth to say OBJ stole it. Was OBJ the minister of environment? When Grange stole money, can any sensible individual accuse Yar'dua of the crime? For God's sake these guys are adult and my father can not stand trial for a crime that i commit though i did that while in his house cos i am more that 18.

Lets use our brain. They are confusing corruption and anti-corruption and that is giving Ribadu some credibility because he prophesied that!!

These guys should just shut up and do their job.

OBJ is definitely out of favour with the powers that be. Loosening his grip on the party through BOT chairman is strategic to Yar'dua's political interest. If OBJ stole the money as they claim, then indicting him and further weakening him is politically strategic. But why are they not doing that which happens to be both politically and morally expedient? Is somebody afraid that the real looters may be exposed and possibly vindicate OBJ if exposed. Bode George stole money while in NPA and i think that jailing him is not strategically good for the powers that be because it would have sounded better to say that 89Billion was missing in NPA during OBJ administration.

Lets wake up and forget all these sensationalistic of news. OBJ may be corrupt but his lieutenants may steal money without his telling them to do so. My take is that the guys that stole power project money(which is definitely not OBJ) and other funds be jailed and OBJ should be jailed for his own fraud. I think this was what Ribadu called an attempt to confuse corruption and anti corruption fight such that the the line between them will thin out and the corruption party resume.

Once again, mixing OBJ up with every corruption that went on in his time is equivalent to mixing a school principal up with a teacher that collect illegal money from students thereby shielding the defaulting teacher and indicting the principal's integrity. Lets wake up!!

I remember questioning this guy's qualification when some were busy praising how well his body fits in suits. Now, it is getting more obvious.

We are being faced with a serious problem, a problem brewed by mediocrity. This guy practically lacks the exposure, the multi-faceted grasp of the workings of a country's economy. Before his arrival, we heard from his predecessor about improving capacity, expansion, developing depth. When he came, we hear more about risk management. To me, it sounds like MTN Nigeria making a network security expert the CTO of MTN. His background is not just too tecky but also about control, about access limitation. This is Sanusi for you. Forget his masters in Economics and think about his ability to deliver on the job.

He is just being true to his antecedents, managing risks and if the thinking of such a guy matters to you, then expect him to build the system around him and not around an institution. Many more gaffes are on the way, he reminded us the other day that he was the CBN governor. He is not just cut out for that office. Period.

To me, this is still politics. There is no room in Abuja of today for performance because such is not demanded of you by your boss.

I only see this as a way of emasculating the opponents and opposition and positioning themselves for as moonslide victory in 2011. Take away security from them, leave them jittery and intimidate them to submission. That is the kind of politics that this guy plays. Have you observed that YRD have not engaged anybody directly in his career, he always prefer subtle and indirect engagement. Check out from Ribadu disegagement, Tinubu engagement, electoral reform issue, even Lagos state LCDA issue. To me, all are indirect engagement and political stikes.

This is only a theory anyway, since i have not seen anything progressive about YRD. apart from that he is something of a coward.

This guy still does not appreciate the magnitude of the challenge before Nigeria as a nation. Look, MEND is real and the attack is real. It is in your best interest not to under-estimate the resolve of a wounded lion.

and did Yar'dua live in the shoe of Gbaramatu people before going to kill them

did OBJ live in the shoe of Nigerian people before going to rig our election.

The point is that there are more germane ills going on locally and we must remove the log in our eyes before trying to help Isreal and Palestine.

BTW, i think this belongs to foreign affair.

I have always maintained that the present administration lack the cerebral and moral capacity to articulate a policy can resolve the ND issue. Take a look at the relationship between the bombardment of Gbaramatu and amnesty offer. The closest interpretation that i can give it is that they want to inspire fear with fire power first before offering amnesty as a refuge to the thoroughly weakened militia. We can see the folly in such an engagement policy. They have totally miscalculated the stage and will of the struggle. They ended up creating more younger militants than the ones they dislodged( not destroyed), spilling over criminal activities to the south eastern part. How many militants did they kill and how much of their infrastructure did they destroy and compare that with the damages inflicted on the nation over that time span by the militants.

The solution to the problem is obvious except that the ruling class lack the political and moral will to do the right thing. I know that there is a difference between the correct thing and the politically correct thing but a peep into the foreign engagement policy of the US now and in 2005 can lend us some interpretation on which is more successful. Yar'Dua's policy in ND is so far a failure and he better stop sacrificing doing the right thing on the alter of political expediency. He better get down to work and solve the problem once and for all. This is Federal Republic of Nigeria and he should make it truly one.

', if you work with him you will always want to work with him because he is a person who gives you your right, allow you to do your best without interfering. He is one of the best persons to work with.”

Did you read that line? What do you think he is talking about?? Maybe if i work with him just as Kazaure did, i may be convinced too because he gives me free hand to do it Nigerian style without having the kind of that stupid Ribadu on your neck.

Emergency in power is still pending and Aandoakaa's 3 months to expose Harliburton's scandal beneficiaries has expired. You see why Mr Kazaure said that he doesn't 'interfere'?

So, Seun, it is only a question. Are you losing your mind? Yes/No answer will be appreciated.

I give them my vote on that. I often wonder from conduct of that guy whether Harvard certificate has any ethics component.

He is simply running a house without some moral policy, without regard to what is right and not just what is expedient. We have seen better house leadership under Na'Abbah and Masari where men has reasons to disagree with certain group policies of a party and not just interested in survival. I wish them success.

@ Tudor
Exactly my sentiments.

I dare say that if it were in Nigeria, the man would have been walking proudly the corridors of Aso Rock while EFCC and Mike Aandoakaa would have proceeded on a repatriation process for the 'very, very dear friend' to come home and face trial for the moral corruption of his excellency, the duly elected PDP produced serving and incumbent governor of his state.

Now, Segun Adeniyi will tell us that it took U.S 200 years of unbroken democracy to know that moral authority preceeds political authority.

But i thought i read somewhere on yahoo news where Obama through Robert Gibbs reacted to the death in the following words of his Chief Press secretary "He(Obama) said to me that obviously Michael Jackson was a spectacular performer, a music icon. I think everybody remembers hearing his songs, watching him moonwalk on television during Motown's 25th anniversary.

"But the president also said, you know, look, he had, aspects of his life were sad and tragic. (The president's) condolences went out to the Jackson family and to fans that mourned his loss" Though this comment came after when Gibbs was asked about it by the press, but i think its official enough anyway.

On a side note, the guy (Obama) may be thinking that Michael helped fasted the downward spiral of the financial system that he is trying to clear up though. lol

Now, the real militants have started talking.

Talking about MEND vs FG, i just think that FG will be deceiving themselves to think that they will crush MEND since convention has never been able pin down the wind. MEND is using guerilla tactics and win points by destroying things. Conventional army only wins points by killing militants who neither have nor obey any set of rules. They are fighting the military from their local terrain and have their target not as the army but as the oil installations. Just watch out, some international interests will soon start aligning with them to get their regular supplies instead of from the unreliable normal channel.

I think that real Niger-Delta militants should be the ones offering FG amnesty if the real meaning of the word should be applied. I just have a problem with the strategy FG is using; amnesty will only sort out the real militants from jobbers out to make some money. Amnesty will do nothing to the real militants of yesterday nor to the little ones that the recent bombardment in Gbaramatu have created. This government does not just have the celebral power to articulate the way out of ND logjam. Period!

Tinubu is one of the smartest politicians we have now. In terms of political strategy, guts, idea and all. He does not have to be in the ruling party to have his way, the guys is just good enough. If the guy is a thief as many have suggested, i think OBJ would have run him down. Remember that OBJ gave up on Lagos for him even with OBJ's do-or die tactics. Yara'dua did not give up Ekiti for him and come out worse, looking more incompetent and fraudulent. Yar'dua does not just have half of the wits to run Asiwaju down and he better understand that now!

i dare say that the Senate in OBJ regime pursued a far more principle based regime than the present fall-for-all senate. That Senate said NO to the executive on issue they did not agree with based on principles and the level of interaction between the two chambers showed the quality of leadership they had and some measure of maturity of its members. Not that they are the best, but i know that every body that has watched the senate or house of reps argue bills will agree with me that the SUG senate in most Nigerian universities are far more intellectual that these guys. Today, we had people who are just there for the MONEY, or why do you think that the constitutional amendment process is stalled?

@Jarus
I love your analysis and will like to stand with you on that. If there is a tribal issue, the man at the center is stoking it. This is what i mean: this guy, shifted his power base from PDP to Katsina/Kano k-39 mafia, lopsided the political appointments, spread his presence in the North by inter-state marriage, threw federal character(of which his people are understandably the major beneficiaries) to the dustbin just for one reason and that is to ignite north-south divide sentiment (a kind of us-vs -them) divide. How this helps him? Well, it make nomination easier for second tenure. The North will hopefully be behind him having seen him as the man that can deliver the north from the 'atrocities of OBJ' and such talks. The census result was the only thing right that OBJ did that was not reversed because it serves this purpose. The North will have the population, Southeast will cave in under the persuasion that power shifts to them after YRD, S/S does not have much population but the govs will be used to garner a little and the same with S/W . Then Iwu will conduct a 'free-and-fair' election and YRD will have a landslide victory in 2011. The the real YRD will emerge and run his remaining years as he likes. When i see things from this angle, i keep wondering who is telling me that this YRD guy is sick

El-Rufai may be a robber and a thief, i am not that much of his fan but believe me when i tell you that the guy delivered on the job he was given. We saw results. He has a large mind that can attempt big dreams and this is what YRD lacks that made him to chase the guy around. This guy delivered on the job. This guy may be bad but he is not the quota system type, he is actually against it. He adviced his countrymen to drop lazyness and be more competitive. He can work with focused mind and high level of discipline.

Do not be deceived, YRD is not attacking El-Rufai because he is corrupt but to build political alliance with political heavyweights whose plots were revoked and whose houses were demolished to give the unborn Nigerians a beautiful Abuja. YRD is only using this guy as a pawn. YRD lacks gut and anybody with guts irritates him. I am not saying that ELR is a saint but he is better than anybody presently in position of power in the YRD executive from my judgement anyway.

Lets look beyond the press twisting and push aside this desire to see a devil in any political office holder. It blurrs objective interpretation of happenings in the political space. I refuse to believe with some of us that there are no Nigerians, well highly placed today who are doing their job the way it should be done, not asking nor receiving bribe and willing to ascend the institutional hierarchy only on merit. There are many like that and that is what i want to believe. It keeps me hoping!

The picture seems to be getting clearer here!

Hey, guys, i watched the same program and the whole story looked too disconnected. The guy that was complaining was the same guy presenting Obis's side of the story. It may true but we have not heard from the gov or his aides directly.

I am tempted not to believe the guy, Obi sounds and behave too clean for that. Was it not the same Obi that Dr Obiogbolu was saying that he wanted Anambra politicians to die of hunger. See i was part of the delegation that once met this guy under student union body. He rebuked us practically for starting our presentation by telling him that he is doing well, that he expected us to come up with suggestion on better ways of doing things. And you know what? for the fund drive we went for, the guy gave us money from his personal account saying that it is because some people may not agree with the project we want to use it for and that he is the gov of the whole Anambra state. You need to see this guy in any Nigerian airport, i'd met him 2 times, once in Abuja and Lagos and this guy does not even use their VIP whatever.

Now, the guy on AIT said that he came to Lagos via Ghana air, the question is from which airport and when did Ghana air start taking Enugu or Owerri-lagos route. Look deeper, you may see some 2010 guber plots underneath. I may be wrong anyway, anything is possible but i hope it is not true because i will totally be dissappointed!

Ken is the man when you talk about leadership.

Dr Okadigbo is the most dramatic, the most entertaining, the most charismatic, the most lovable. Most of my class mates took Okadigbo as a nickname. Remember the response of the Nigeria senate mace being with a big python in the ogbunike cave other such stuff. Never a dull moment with Oyi. May he rest in peace! But still, Ken has it!!!

@ Affalatus

I sincerely wish to know him better. Maybe i'll be more enlightened. I know for sure that no evil stays hidden for a long time, no matter how carefully executed. If this guy is bad, it will soon be exposed and i promise you, Affalatus that i will retract all my approving views of this guy on this public forum, but until then. . .

Before you criticis this guy, why not read the whole article. I admire his intellectual depth and his big picture view as well as his identification of the relevance of yesterday in shaping not just the happenings of today but also that of tomorrow.

I wonder the metrics on which achievements are made that are not in favor of Soludo so far a fair mind is doing the measurement. But let me tell you other things that goes for the guy- courage, confidence in what he feels he knows, focus, drive, and action oriented. He is also a leader who believes in creating opportunities and not a manager who tries to manage the system he met.

Well, if Nigeria is my company and Soludo is the chairman of my board whose tenure is ending, and i have a decision to make in either replacing him or retaining him given his anticedents, i sure will give the guy another five years but set a new agenda for him. That is if Nigeria is my company anyway. Someone will soon ask me what his achievements those years were again!

At the risk of being branded as incoherent in issue analysis by biina, i will like to ask on what basis will this delivery of Sanusi (which i hope for for the good of the country) be judged? Look at countries like China and Brazil and see how they got it right. The world economy is a capitalist economy which means that the strong nations takes what he has the power to take leaving the crumbs for the weaker nations. For anyone who sees problems as opportunity, this financial meltdown is like a reset button that has been pressed providing an opportunity for the global economic equation to be re-evaluated. My take is that it is a far more critical goal to pursue now than this local supervision of banks that we credit Mr Sanusi with the ability to deliver on. The process has been kick-started. Local supervision of banks can serve as an economic policy of an administration any day but not a role in the global economy. The time is fast passing and with the recovery of the system comes greater limit to this. Don't tell me that on the international platform, Soludo will make less impact than Sanusi. What we need now is the kind of noise that the Iwealas and Ezekwesislis and Soludos generated during OBJ's time that earned for Nigeria some improved global economic standing (whether the debth forgiveness is real or imagined).

And besides, if this man is that good in ensuring banking ethics, how radically different is FBN banking ethics from her competitors? In five years from now, the horizon will become clearer and the achievement of the two men will be better evaluated based on their different avowed targets.

We'll declare state of emergency in power sector.
We'll peacefully and justly resolve the niger delta problem.
We'll carry out electoral reform.
We'll expose those behind the halliburton bribery scandal.
we'll do this, we'll do that,

just get them done and stop all these talk!

The problem i see with the operators of the present system is that they seem not to be coherent. When the world is in global financial mess, experts around the world are saying that this is the time for developing nations to demand for a larger role in the global economy that is hitherto dominated by world powers. Any serious nation need a man with spine, courage and chest to stand his onions in the comity of nations to demand her fair share. I think Soludo fit that profile, not that he is the only one, but he has built a global profile that is intimidating and respected anywhere in the world. To me, this choice shows how myopic the present leaders are. So, Sanusi will have to start by building such profile when one already exists. He may be good, but this decision is strategically wrong if you have a global mindset and not a clannish mindset. Which role does Nigeria intend to play in Africa and the world tomorrow? How does swapping Soludo for Sanusi serve that goal? How does it fit into Mr President's talk of Vision 20:2020? Look, any serious leader does not retire his best generals during war time even if they have reached their retirement age. The world is economically at cold war.

The question is whether Sanusi's advent is addressing global strategic goal save possibly for petty issues of insecurity, intellectual inferiority complex, and other such mundane interests. This man's team keep getting worse by the  day! My luck to Sanusi anyway. He better be better that Samsudeen under whose watch the Finance Ministry had three budjets.

You see, i don't really think that the issue is about constituting or not constituting technical board. We had such boards on electoral reforms. I don't just like the strategy. Tear down the present arrangement before having a clear cut plan on revamping it. That is my problem. The dangerous trend we have in place now is that every thing OBJ touched is run down and it is not good for the system.

Tell me, what are the signs that things will be done differently this time around. I personally don't think that the concept of TRANSCORP is bad. Why not strenghten the company, give her the necessary backing and unleash her.  I like the TRANSCORP board. You have seasoned and tested corporate leaders there and it could reasonably represent the face of 'corporate nigeria' cut accross regions, creeds and interests. With such company, you have your national carrier in your own hands with minimum political interference. Nigeria would have benefited had TRANSCORP successfully running NITEL. It could still be achieved with the right policies in place. That is exactly what the government should be doing instead of this revocation and all that. Take your mind to GM again and see how passionate governments feels about her corporate brand. These revocation is not the solution. Time will tell especially considering the economic team we presently have in place.

This is my opinion, i may be wrong, anyway but this is exactly the path i would chose if i were YRD.