Every issue around Taiwan, as long as it concerns the global community, is strictly the internal affairs of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Whatever turn the recent Taiwan Presidential election has taken, therefore, the fact remains that there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is part of that China. China’s position of upholding the one-China principle is clear, apparent, and will not change.

The international community’s prevailing consensus on upholding the one-China principle and overwhelming adherence to this principle has also not changed. The one-China principle continues to be the solid anchor for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. The peaceful reunification of the Chinese people targeted at achieving “One China” remains the aspiration of majority of the Chinese people.

“One China” was the singular goal of the founding fathers of Communist Party of China (CPC) and it continues to be the pursuit of the Party leaders after them. It was for “One China” that the CPC fought and won the major, but tortuous wars against feudalism, imperialism and socioeconomic hegemony, on their path to founding the Chinese nation in 1949.

It was to also address the pursuits of renegade leaders that led the CPC to establish the “One Country, Two Systems Principle” to accommodate the clamour for autonomy in Hong Kong and Macau, the two self-administered autonomous regions of China, as examples of the possibility of the “One China” reunification process.

It is in this light only that China likely views the outcome of the recent Taiwanese Presidential election. President Xi Jinping had, during the 20th National Congress of the CPC, assured that the CPC will implement its overall policy for resolving the Taiwan question in the new era, and unswervingly advance the cause of national reunification. It was for this reason that Beijing admonished the people in Taipei to vote a leadership that would be sympathetic to the cause of reunification.

President Xi has pledged to continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort. Outside forces and the few who spur separatists tendencies, are therefore noted as the biggest uncertain forces hindering the cross-Straits peaceful situation. President Xi had reconfirmed the strong connection between national reunification and national rejuvenation of the Chinese people, believing that national reunification serves as the political milestone for Chinese national rejuvenation.

Ini Akpan Morgan, International Affairs Operative, writes from Abuja, Nigeria.

The attention of The Asiwaju Group (TAG) has been drawn to the recent press release of a shadowy group named Nigeria Diaspora Forum (NDF) announcing the opening of a Nigerian office in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city and the appointment of Hon Chike Amadichi as country director. The press release was signed by Dr Joachin Okafor, who claims to be the Chairman of NDF and resides in the United States of America. While TAG acknowledges the stated goal of supporting Nigerians in the Diaspora, we have grave concerns about NDF's clandestine political and security operations, origins, likely treasonable activities, and potential impact.

These concerns merit urgent scrutiny by Nigeria's State Security Service (SSS) and public attention. We call for an immediate security raid of NDF's home office at Kano House Complex, Plot 72 Ralph Shodeinde Street, Central Business District, Abuja, Nigeria and interrogation of its members.

Transparency and Trust

The lack of transparency surrounding NDF's background and shady sponsors is at the forefront of our concerns. This lack of clarity casts a shadow over the organisation's true intentions. It raises questions about potential affiliations with individuals and groups whose aims do not align with the collective interests of Nigerians. It is imperative for organisations seeking to represent the Diaspora to operate with openness and accountability, as trust is the cornerstone of any genuine effort to serve the nation.

Question of Legal Authority

The NDF's assertion of engagement with embassies and high commissions on behalf of Nigerians in the Diaspora is a matter of serious concern. Nigeria has established institutions - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by a capable minister, H. E. Amb. Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, OON, with embassies worldwide and the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), are legally mandated to represent and advocate for our Nigerian citizens abroad. Engaging with foreign missions without proper authorisation risks undermining the credibility and effectiveness of these existing structures. It's crucial to respect the legal framework that safeguards the rights and welfare of Nigerians in the Diaspora.

Duplication of Efforts and Potential Disruption

The NDF's presence risks creating unnecessary duplication of efforts and potential confusion among the Nigerian Diaspora population, even if its intentions are genuine. The existence of multiple potentially competing organisations claiming to represent Nigerians abroad could lead to fragmented efforts and diminish the impact of genuine initiatives aimed at supporting the Diaspora community. Collaboration, not competition, should be the guiding principle in strengthening ties with our citizens abroad.

Alleged Links and Suspicions

We cannot overlook the reported links between the NDF and individuals associated with groups that have actively sought to undermine Nigeria's unity and stability. There are concerns that NDF's pro bono services may be a trojan gift with links to questionable individuals, including Ekpa Simon Njoku, a self-styled prime minister who claims to have set up a laughable biafra government in exile (Finland) and using covert agents to open offices across the globe to deceive unsuspecting citizens. These allegations, if proven true, would seriously threaten national security and the well-being of Nigerians within and beyond our borders. Thorough scrutiny by the Nigerian security services is necessary to dispel doubts and ensure the integrity of organisations operating within this sensitive domain.

Call for Caution and Vigilance

We urge Nigerians in the Diaspora to exercise caution and vigilance regarding NDF's activities. It is crucial to remember that the Nigerian High Commissions globally and NIDCOM offices in Nigeria are the officially recognised channels for support and representation. Engaging with unauthorised groups could inadvertently expose individuals to risks and potentially compromise their rights and interests.

A Path Forward

While we appreciate the NDF's stated commitment to the Diaspora, we believe genuine progress can only be achieved through transparency, adherence to legal frameworks, and constructive collaboration with recognised institutions. We encourage the NDF to prioritise transparency in its operations, engage with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria and other relevant bodies within the established legal framework, and prioritise the genuine well-being of Nigerians abroad above any narrow interests.

TAG Advocates Unity and Vigilance

Protecting the interests of Nigerians, both within and beyond our borders, demands unity and strict vigilance. We must remain resolute in upholding the rule of law, embracing transparency, and fostering collaboration among those who genuinely seek to uplift the Nigerian Diaspora. The Asiwaju Group (TAG) remains committed to safeguarding all Nigerians' unity, progress, and well-being at home and abroad.

Abuja Media Office
The Asiwaju Group (TAG)
2nd January 2024.

There has been no time at which sin has been a part of divine nature, and this was what led to the conception of "the original sin". This means that Adam lived a kind of life devoid of sin before his sinful nature was introduced. So the concept of the original sin removes every human being from the original life of Adam.

Two concepts are from here thrown up: the concept of the original life and that of the original sin. What this shows is that it is only Adam in the entire human history that lived and experienced the original life, every other human being was born i to the original sin, which makes the original life impossible in man.

It had to do with the natural mindset of the sinful nature. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. Nothing physically changed about Adam but his focus left the development of his soul into oneness with God and became rather worried about how he looked, when he had always looked that way.

This is where Adam, by the concept of the original sin, became "the First Adam". Adam alone, in the entire human race, and to some degree Eve, his wife, knew and experienced the original life; as compared to the life he later experienced after his former nature changed into the sinful nature.

He lost the life of rest and plenty for the life of labour and need.

This is from where divine nature allocated to every man after Adam the inheritance of the original sin, imputing on man the sinful nature by birth. This generated the mandate for his redemption, necessitating the need for the divine intervention that produce "the Last Adam".

Here is also where the concept of the original sin brought up the divine responsibility of introducing human race to "the concept of the original life" and hence, the message of Good Friday.

Good Friday says that in the process of traversing the path to human salvation, the Almighty God sought a man among earthly men through whom he would find the mandate of man for God to enter into the affairs of sin men and help humanity out of the sinful nature.

He found that man in Abram, first by a trying obidience of accepting to take a walk with God to an unknown destination (Genesis 12:1). Then he accepted to relinquish every benefit accruing to him from a political and economic conquest over 4 nations (Genesis 14:14-16; 21-23), in order to be worthy of sharing a futuristic spiritual meal with God, in order to institute the comimg of the "Last Adam" (Genesis 14:18-20, Hebrews 7:1-3, 6-11).

Finally, he was ready to offer "his only begotten son", "begotten" in the sense of the legality of the sonship, as a burnt offering unto God, for a purpose he could not fathom, yet he obeyed(Genesis 22:1-15). At this point, and until the law came, men who walked with God, walked with him without any law. At this point God found a people in humanity with whom he could prepare himself as the sacrifice for the salvation of man.

The Law and the Prophet came with Moses. Before God gave the law by Moses, the question is: how did God relate with the Patriarchs without the law? And scriptures says "blessed is the man to whom God imputes no sin (Romans 4:. It is the law that holds us guilty of sin (Romans 4:15). What held the Patriachs guilty of sin? Absolutely nothing. Read the scriptures!

From Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and to the Patriachs before Moses: they all lived their lives without the law and they made their own errors with nothing accusing them. They carried the presence of God in their thinking.

At this point, God introduce the law in order for the walkers with him to see what the weight of sin is all about, what it entails, and why it must be dealt with. But those to whom he committed this mandate, by the virtue of their being the children of Abraham, who received the promise and the covenant of salvation, failed to understand the relationship God sought with them as his representatives to mankind.

The same distraction has remove Christianity from the primary goal of living into communities. Instead of living into communities, Christians have traditionalised the example of the Levitical Order, which demotes the Mechizedekan/Abrahamic embrace that brought Christ before and after the law.

God works only with those who understand his mindset. The message of Good Friday tells us that we need not conform to thoughts generated by our sinful nature, but we should seek transformational alternative from it, by the renewing of our minds: to enable us live the mentality of the sinless life.

Romans 14:22.A.i asks "Do you have faith? Romans 14:22.A.ii answers immediately: "Have it unto your God". Then Romans 14:22B reveals the will of God for man concerning "a free conscience" by saying "Happy is the man who condemns not himself in the things he allows".

In some versions the passage says "Blessed" is the man who condemns not himself..." Even God is not interested in condemning us, no man can too. Jesus said it (John 3:17-19). Only you can condemn yourself before God by rejecting his condescension and intervention.

The Good Friday message therefore frowns at the man in Christ who traditionally asks God to forgive his sins on a daily basis. This means he is still leading a sinful life in his mindset after he has believed that God has cleansed him from all his unrighteousness.

Lets go back to Eden: nobody told the First Adam that his eyes were opened, it happened to him. Nobody told him that he was naked, it also happened to him. Nobody chased him when he ran and hid himself, it happened to him. These happened because Adam traded the original life for the sinful life by initiating sin in the human nature.

When this strange, mad-manly behaviour was inquired of him by God, he blamed his wife in8stead of taking responsibility . Adam led a life from the opposite side of his initial experience. That experience is what the message of Good Friday brings backs to us today.

That God, by himself, saw the injustice of one man who enjoyed the privilege meant for his race but locked the path against others who should also enjoy such life. By one man, sin entered the world and by one man salvation came to all men.

Rather than ask God to forgive me for my sins, I would rather accept what he has accomplished for me concerming my sins, and pray the prayer of thanksgiving for the grace he has provided for me to sin no more. You are what you say you are. As a man thinks, so he is.

I am not a sinner, so I cannot sin. I live by the grace of God without any law imposing itself on me. I live by the most superior law on the universe: the law of love. The easiest law in all existence says "Love covers all sin".

We need to move from the mindset of sinners to the mindset of the children of God. No Child of God can sin. Abraham lived exemplary, so were Isaac, Jacob and the Partiarchs. Their lives were never without their own errors but they all lived in peace with God until their offsprings became stiffnecked.

Scriptures say "Blessed is the man on whom God imputes no sin". Lets all strive for that measure of faith with God: we do no longer need to pray for the forvieness of sìn becsuse there is no sin in divine nature, with which we are clothed.

God bless you all

Happy Good Friday folks!

Ini Akpan Morgan is called an Apostle tp Teach truth with the vigour of a Prophet

Peter Obi is the only man I know on earth who does not need a mirror to see himself. This is the reason he has become so delutional and in a day-dream of a Presidency that has long eluded him.

From the time he saw the PDP ticket as the micro-zonable benefit he should inherit, a blowup which Nyesom Wike deflated, was when Peter Obi failed woefully in his bid to become a President; even a scarecrow-like President.

How can Peter Obi think that he can win Nigeria's Presidential election because he is cheered about everywhere he goes? To win Nigeria's Presidential election, Peter Obi needs to move from photoshoots with people he attempts to impress, like giving up his seat in a plane for an impatient lady, and his involvement of a child in his political campaigns, to building national bridges. He is a deplorable local champion, ethnically and religiously. He has caused the discrediting of vagabond-preachers who are more politicians than they hear from God.

Even if Nigeria's Presidency is a beauty pageant, Peter Obi would not be beautiful enough to win it. He lies and he is resistant of, and to process. He is inciteful and unreasonable. An hypocrite who put a sore-knife through Nigeria's unity and religious tolerance.

A man who sees an election as a religuous war is worst than a Boko Haram insurgent. An anti-democrat who has no tolerance for fairplay.

I pray he does not run mad, or get himself into a critical blood pressure margin, and die in his day-dream.

How much has Peter Obi contributed to the fight for our democracy, what price did he pay for deepening our opposition struggle? How many political parties has he founded? How many politicians has he made?

He borrowd everything to vie for the Presidency. At lesst he borowed a platform he knows nothing about: the Labour Party.

Obi, indeed, is a BOY!

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja-Nigeria

I kicked the Levitical tithing in the ass the very day I descended into the depths of revelation concerning the tithe Abram was said to have given to Melchizedek, the High Priest of God, and in Hebrews 7:1-4, he is addressed as the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace.

In the passages of Genesis 14:18-20, while being mindful of taking note of the process of time between the passages of the same Chapter in verse 17, when the King of Sodom heard of Abram's victory, and made out to meet him in his stadium at Shaveh, and verse 21, which throws up the picture of the deal the King of Sodom attempted to enter with Abraham: in which he begged Abram to take the national wealth of Sodom, but give to him the people.

When Abram returned from securing a defined victory against 4 nations, he was basking in the glory of a national leader. As at that time, he was in charge, and the people were allegeant to him, who was their deliverer from a pending slavery.

God, who knows all things at its conception, realised that the King of Sodom would offer Abram a great deal. He needed Abram to have no interest in all that was, at that time, in his powers and under his control.

Now the passages of Genesis 14:18-20 shows what happened after the King of Sodom prepared to meet Abram at Sheveh, before they met: Melchzedek visited Abraham, the same way Jesus visited Saul on his way to Damascus. Only the 2 of them were concious of the meeting.

Mechizedek visited Abram with bread and wine, the same symbolic representation of the needed sacrifice for the redemption of mankind from the bondages of sin amd death. He showed Abram his position with God in his greetings in verse 19.

He called Abram as being of the Most High God, who owns the heavens and the earth. In this picture, by which Abram learnt the faith he was reputed for, he saw the booties of Sodom as nothing compared to tbe plans of God, which he was to marshal as the Father of the Faithfuls.

Abram chose Divine Ministry than human Governance. That victory Abram won was God's, not his. God faciliated the victory to bring Melchizedek to Abram at that point in time, to trade wealth for the salvation of mankind.

Abraham won against 5 nations with just 318 "trained servants". One would wonder how just 318 men would overcome the armies of 4 nations, led by their Kings, who were earlier victors in their war against 5 other nations. It shows the 318 Abrahamic servants were trained by the elements of the earth and by the leadership of Abraham, who inspired them.

Let me digress and say this: the elements of the earth trains us too when we allow them. That is why the nomadic Fulanis appear to be outside of western civilisation: they are wild, though they may look good, frail and vulberable. They fight to no end when in a fight. They are implacable when aroused.

At the time Melchizedek met with Abram before the King of Sodom did, Abram possesed both the economic and political powers of Sodom - the wealth and the people - taking Genesis 14:14-16 in view.

Whether Mechizedek received materiql wealth from the hands of Abram, or if it was a commitment he made to Mechhizedek, that because of a greatest divine plan for the salvation of mankind, he needs to forego whatever was Sodom, I dont know and i cannot tell.

But we are not left without an answer:

Genesis 14:21-23 leaves us with the answer. Abram co fesed to the Ki g of Sodom that he has lifted up his hand to the Most High God, Possesor of the Heavens and the Earth, that he will not take whatever is Sodom's, lest the King says he made Abram rich.

Where did our Pastors across the globe get their doctrine around this humble and well documented encounter, using it audsciously to take money from congregants in the name of tithes, citing this humble and well documented event involving Mechizedek and Abraham?

They have made themselves the representatives of Melchizedek and their congregants, the represbtatives of Abram. They bless, you give. A shamless extortion from the vulnerable.

Worst of it is that they chose to adopt the theroretical philosophy of the Jewish preisthood, where a man is needed to stand for people before God. They love the powers they enjoy over people who are under their influence, exerting powers to run their lives and their resources, applying sweet cunning words, using scriptures for valudation. Shouting at everyone in good and smooth spoken English, throwing themselves about aerogantly, prophesying lies!.

Nobody sent them to do what they are doing. That is their own means of survival. Unfortunately, it makes them super rich. Now they have left the message at the Pulpit, using the Pulpit as their Soapbox.

I dare them to raise their heads, you will all see shame written all over them. They are all nothing but skew men who are rich on people sweat, and have an appalling bloated ego. They know nothing!

I am Ini Akpan Morgan

Stuck in the labyrinths of thoughts about who should occupy which position in the coming administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President-elect especially the coveted position of Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Ministry, the reverberating effects of the late Reggae Maestro, Robert Nesta Marley’s instructive song: “Who the Cap fits, let him wear it” sonorously courted my drinking lobes (ears).

I was immediately struck by the urgent need for the President-elect to deploy his usual adept political sagacity in selecting his Cabinet members for the onerous task ahead of him.

Given the arduous and complex task of fixing Nigeria's protracted socio-economic and political challenges, a groundswell of expectations has been built around APC's core leadership vis-a-vis its Renewed Hope Agenda.

Candidly speaking, so much is expected from the APC party whose initial 'Change' and the 'Next Level' Agenda have been met with mixed feelings by Nigerians.

Without mincing words, it will require a high quantum of tact, grit, and political ingenuity on the part of the "Last Man Standing", nay, the Jagaban of Nigeria’s politics, to put in place a formidable team of technocrats. It is also imperative that Bola Ahmed Tinubu's team must comprise a squad of loyal, committed, and experienced hands to wrest Nigeria's jugular from the asphyxiating grips of the myriad challenges confronting her, ranging from a comatose economy, hyper-inflation, insecurity, corruption, and administrative ineptitude.

There is no doubt that the folks seeking to hold public office in the trust will have set up a high-level lobbying machinery.

Put succinctly, many well-meaning individuals as well as political hucksters propelled by self-seeking motives, no doubt, will have been back in the trenches jostling for the available plum political offices, especially the highly coveted position of Foreign Affairs Minister in the incoming administration of His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President-elect.

But the million-dollar question is: WHO DOES THE CAP FIT?

At this crucial moment when our dear country urgently needs new life, the incoming Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must pay a lot of attention to two main considerations. The Foreign Affairs Ministry is a very sensitive position that should be occupied by a thorough-bred diplomat with a PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF EXPERIENCE and UNALLOYED LOYALTY.

And it is a far cry from an act of hero-worship, that Ade Omole, APC Diaspora Directorate Director, by his pedigree as a seasoned professional in the diplomatic field, excels in the fitness tests far and above others vying for the job.

He is well-versed in matters relating to foreign affairs.

Apart from the fact that he straddles two honours of being both a home and foreign grown Administrator and Technocrat, Omole is a candidate to beat.

He earned a Master's degree in Law at a distinction level, specializing in Conflict Resolution. He is also tech-savvy with a Master's degree in IT.

Therefore, it is worthy to note that the above requisite and sterling attributes strategically, will put him in a more advantageous position to build bilateral defence relationships with foreign countries.

Omole has garnered unparalleled experience as a United Kingdom Defence Ministry NVS Certified Senior Consultant with over 30 years of experience in the International Project Management Industry. This singular feat will serve as a catalyst for the development and implementation of the National Defence Strategy and supporting initiatives.

This alluring exposé on Omole will be grossly inadequate if the mention is not made of him as a diplomat par excellence and an experienced administrator of an unbeatable pedigree in diverse fields with managerial roles at Hewlett Packard, JP Morgan Investment Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) among others.

His being in the saddle of our country's foreign affairs will place Nigeria in an auspicious position to improve relations between her and other countries. No doubt, this will positively influence other countries' opinions of our institutions, technology, and training.

Throughout his career, Omole has been involved in leading strategic development assignments, international transition projects, and public sector-focused projects. This level of professional achievement has not only imbued him with the requisite skills to analyze and advise on international developmental affairs. This will further strengthen his ability to protect Nigeria as well as encourage interagency coordination and global engagement on sound policies and strategies.

The Diaspora Directorate Director has gained both local and international recognition in the areas of crisis management. He is numero -uno in delivering value-based programs. In 2022, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) awarded him full recognition as a renowned figure in the Diasporic APC.

A further apt delineation of Omole's character can be summed up in graphic details: He is a staunch member of APC, nay a party loyalist with the singular trait of being loyal to a fault: this is a hallmark of the next Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister.

Remarkably, Omole, before the February 25 presidential election, using the platform of his robust international connections traversed the entire Diasporic space, engaging in vote solicitations for Sen. Bola Tinubu, the President-elect.

He is a visionary diplomat who always sees the tiniest seed of possibility in every impossible situation.

As a go-getter, Omole has successfully deployed his ambassadorial ingenuity to create healthy relationships with Members of Parliament and Congressmen and women in the International Community.

In Nigerian politics, the APC-PCC Director of the Diaspora Directorate is neither a greenhorn nor a neophyte. He has been a reliable and faithful party man for many years.

Apart from being one of the founding fathers of the APC party in the Diaspora, he has played many significant roles as the head and bonafide member of diverse committees within the APC party.

Omole was a member of the APC 2019 Presidential Campaign Council, Diaspora Directorate, and APC 2019 Presidential Campaign Council, Communications Directorate.

He had successfully served as the Co-ordinator of the Diaspora United Kingdom 2019 for President Muhammadu Buhari's Presidential Support Committee.

He was also Assistant Secretary, APC 2022 Accreditation of Volunteers, Diplomats, and Diaspora Observers, among others.

In the light of the above sterling attributes of Ade Omole, the Diaspora Directorate Director, it will not be a misnomer if the Diasporic Omole is availed of the opportunity to serve his Fatherland as the newest Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister. He has surely paid his dues.

Mr Adekoya is a member of
South West Writers Association (SWWA)
Lagos.

Obsanjo and Bode George are playing their last card at denying the reality of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu's Presidency. They are using their expired public commmetaries and overlooked "Open Letters", to promote a very selfish agenda, which looks like fueling a resistance, because they feel another Yoruba man should not rise, especially to best the collective governance of Nigeria by the Ex Military leader, who commamded Bode, and to put them "under". It is a military mentality.

His thoughts likely: what could inform his using the 2023 Presidential election to support his hallucination of a Nigeria in crisis? No Statesman does so! No pressure can bring the United States into our national affairs. He knows where he targets with his letter.

Of course! He is a global Ambassador.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has accepted to ovelook Biden's congratulation, and has expressed his willingness to embrace Beijing. This is indeed the attitude of a man who understands "sovreignty".

He has shown how he intends to stand shoulder to shoulder with Biden. Asiwaju alone can accomplish the honour Africans deserve. He needed Nigeria to accomplish his life time ambition.

Now he has Nigeria, and like a groom should do to his bride, Asiwaju has risen, not only to adorn Nigeria with her dignity, he will also be remembered for fighting for the Black Race.

Madiba! ASIWAJU!!

This is why I stand with him: I stand with the Asiwaju accirdingly to the revelations I enjoy about him, from hindsight, where I studied his milestones, noting his progressive antecendents as a beacon of opposition politics.

I have followed his deepening of Nigeria's progressives struggles until the victory of the opposition was won. With insights from his steady progress as the mist powerful politician in Nigeria, becomig the Kingmaker who becomes a King, nothing else defiines my foresight of his goals.

So I feel sorry for the level of Obasanjo's selfishness and greed. Old age makes people talk too much, with an operative cloud around their visions.

I met Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, by the grace of the Almighty God, in a delegation of 5 from Taraba State, in a meeting I was aroused to attend at 2am, at the LSG Guest House, Ikeja.

He primed my friend, late Rimamnde Bitrus Nuhu, his first "catch" across the Niger, and encouraged him to run against Jolly Nyame in the 2003 Gubernatorial election in the State. That was in August 2002.

Though I willingly dropped from that delegaton, when the 2002 AD National Convention was planned. I was to follow Bitrus, a member of the Convention Planning Committee to Ado Ekiti for one of the meetings, but he left at dawn because Party men advised him not to go with me.

Yes! I was his brother, a friend with no blood ties, but we lived into each other's lives. You cannot see him and you dont see me. I held it against him for not discussing whatever changed the plans we had. He left me in the hands of sharks. My adice: do not fall into the hands of Party men, who see you as an obstruction on their path.

During the first Awareness Campaign Bitrus undertook in Taraba State, at the end of which we met the Asiwaju in Lagos, I was in charge of accounting for all the money spent during that campaign, taking instructons only from Bitrus!

We went broke in Ibadan, and resorted to advance to Akure to see Ade Adefarati. It was here that I was shielded from attending the meeting with Adefarati, and at the time they returned, I was asleep. I did not wake up to see Bitrus.

I wished I did not fall out, and endured at my post, however I felt treated, looking at the long term goals, probably, my brother would still be alive. My brother got accidented in January 2021. I know that he died with the desire for reconcilaition with the Asiwaju for supoorting Jolly Nyame's reelection instead of contesting against him.

I would not have allowed that to happen, if Party men had allowed my brotherhood with Bitrus to rob off on his aspiration to govern Taraba State. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was not expecting Bitrus to win that election. He needed AD Canddate on the ballot in the North at the Gubernatorial level.

Bitrus would have been Taraba State Governor in 2015 if we won over with our perserverence. But God knows best.7

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu remains the only politician, in his category, lets take the 2023 Presidential election, who has never defected from one Party to another. He creates his own political parties. No one like him.

He will never behave like the one who desperately found a dumped political platform, and hopped onto it to preach hate and division. He surely won some, including Obasanjo.

He will also never behave like the one who created a political Party and abandoned it, but behave like a nomad, seeking greener pastures, when he has pasrures, at least, with some shades of green. He recently hijacked his present Party and tore her shade away.

The third one dusted an abandoned platform to show some muscles. He has won a State for himself. While the first 2 would decline and fade out, this one is on a steady rise. He will become a factor in the future.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is a National Leader. This is the only man who plays his politics with far-reaching visions. His Eminence, Rt Rev Matthew Hassan Kukah said "Bola Tinubu is the only one who prepared to be President from the 90s". People who have had time to study the man antecendents and advances, always give it to him.

What is happening between Obasanjo and Bode George - that one who vowed to go into exile the day the Asiwaju wins the Pesidency, and acting like he has forgotten his vow - is the battle to prevent the emergence of a better Yoruba man than them: "tobadetikan Yoruba, emi lokan!"

Tell Bode George that Lagos is APC, and it is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I forgot, Bode George is now in Labour Party, pretending his vow of hoing into exile, and taking more time to stay in, using the mirage Peter Obi is pursuing with his litigation(s).

Tell them: Nigeria is our own dear native land, though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand. Tell them: no one needs to treble at the Tinubu's Presidency. It is the will of God. It us the answer to the many prayers offered to God for an exvellent leadership.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his political pilgrimage for the office of President developed an anthem, which situates all of his own distinguishing themselves and committing to "stand" on his "Mandate". Everyone of us now stand on the Mandate of Nigerians, to support a good man at his desk.

As a sign that I know the Asiwaju by revelations, I will dwell on the insignia of the embroiled series of chains on his caps, which he said depicts shackles, which must be broken.

He started wearing that insignia from the day he entered into politics, after he had left Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited. He has never stopped wearing it since then. He left that multinational oil company, where he was a part of the management, eyeing Nigeria's Presidency. He has kept faith with that insignia.

God has kept him from dying with that insignia - the symbol of his long term dream. You cannot see Asiwaju Tinubu in native attires without a hat wearing his political insignia.

Now listen to me: on the 29th day of May 2023, on the day of his inauguration as the 16th President and Commamder in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Boka Ahmed Tinubu will drop the insignia of shackles.

That day, the shackles would be broken forever! Never again will Nigeria, Nigerians, and the Black race be looked upon as small and dark. A man has arisen to rub shoulders with those who talk tough in the international arena.

Lets all welcome a good man. Lets call Obasanjo and Bode George to order. They should join Peter Obi in court and allow the Asiwaju to prepare for his inauguration, which the world will beam to them.

Congratualtions Nigerians!

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja

The Communist Party of China (CPC), the ruling Party of the People’s Republic of China, holds her 20th National Congress on 16 October 2022. The 20th National Congress of the CPC signifies the transition into the 2nd Centenary of the existence of the Party.

It also provides an opportunity to measure how far the Peoples Republic of China has come in the last 73 years, having been proclaimed a People's Republic in 1949.

The last 100 years of the CPC, the first Centenary in the life of the Party, provides the evidence and the picture of the enormous responsibility shouldered by President Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party at the Core, as he sets the stage for the goals for the next Centenary.

President Xi Jinping has a very rare but ardacious responsibility to move the CPC into her next Centenary, especially looking at the ardent expectations from the generation of Chinese leaders whom, I think, are also remembered through the success of the CPC, so far, as heroes past.

The goals set at the 20th National Congress of the CPC should therefore drive China’s political and economical strength in the next 100 years, and should also enhance her foreign policy trajectory. In view of China’s pursuit of a global community with a shared future, it is imperative to observe how China’s model of Socialism, embellished with Chinese Characteristics, has shaped China's New Era transformation in the last 10 years of Xi's administration.

The model of CPC's democracy reveals an example of strategic developmental target at the recruitment of the leaders needed for the good governance that targets the overall happiness of the people, in spite of class, gender, creed, but based on the equity of humanity, is beneficially available to African Political Parties to learn from, especially the ruling Parties, and their governments

I am expecting President Xi Jinping to emerge from the 20th National Congress of the CPC with more powers, and to retain his leadership of the Central Committee of Party at the Core, forth-going.

The Outcome of the Congress would determine Xi’s power and his ability to drive the policies that should lead to another time like this at the next Centenary celebrations of the existence of the CPC in the next 100 years.

I wish the leaders, especially the CPC's Central Committee, the Political Bureau, and the over 96 million members of the Party a successful outcome of, and at the Party's 20th National Congress coming up, tomorrow, Sunday 16 October 2022. The 21st National Congress will be held in the year 2027.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja

Apart from clearly throwing himself up as representing the interest of the region seen to deserve the next Presidency, he also, by the dynamics of his ideology of incitement, he has gotten the hearts of those who see him as their legal authority to behave in the most despicable ways.

The ambition of Mr Peter Obi is a personal one. The other time, he lined up behind Atiku Abubakar in his interest to become the Vice President, and now he has smartly, rather than cleverly, got the Presidential ticket of the Labour Party donated to him. Mr Obi dislikes competition, yet he shows himself as a shrewd business man.

Like I said earlier, the ambition to run for the Office of the President is his personal one, as he consulted none of his followers and supporters before throwing in his hat into the race, yet he would not ask the people to give him their mandate.

Mr Obi tells his captives to "take back your country and determined how it is governed", singling himself out of the mess he is pointing at, when he is on record as one of those who piled the rubbish.

Mr Peter Obi smartly got himself, as a shrewd business man (a cosmetics one), into a legal competition, and made up his mind to cheat the process by brainwashing the mentally feeble, and the minority that feel hopeless and disabled, for being left out of the competitions on our varying world.

The way Mr Obi is going about his message is deceptive to deep thinkers. He should ask the people to trust you with their destinies, like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu use to. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu dared it and said " emi lokan".

Telling weak and vulnerable Nigerians to take back their country without putting a template down as to how you would achieve what you ask of them, instead of asking them to trust you, is to create chaos in the polity.

I have just exposed a very clean looking political undertaker. He sounds like one who has an agenda to incite the youths against Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, when he is returned as President-elect. It is about a life-time ambition, and not an opportunistic jump-start.

Only Asiwaju Tinubu talks authoritatively, telling Nigerians that he is the most prepared Candidate to help Nigeria out of her present struggling destiny. Mr Peter Obi should ask Nigerians to give him their mandate.

He should stop saying the people should take back their country. He should clearly as fir their mandate. The people have no ticket they hold nor the flag they fly...he should stop being artfully dodgy, and with a wicked innocent smile on his countenance. I pray people can see through that man.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja

Nobody stops Mr Peter Obi from dolling out money should he have the mental capacity to do so. He just does not have the heart to do so because he is a stingy man. It is one thing to be thrifty and another thing to be stingy. Mr Obi should not have any problems with another man whose character it is to share his reserves with others who are less privileged.

Is it easy for a man to dole his own hard earned money to other people? It is a tradition of responsive Muslims to the 1 of the 5 tenets of Islam: the "Zakat", which demands that a well-to-do person should separate a portion of his wealth to charity.

It is an attitude also of wealthy Yoruba men to dole money to their needy. Chief (Dr) Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola (late) was an example of a man with this attitude. It is therefore the character of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be good and committed to the welfare of the less privileged people around him, especially the needy.

As Governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the face of the activities of "Area Boys" in Lagos, who terrorised residents in broad day light, put on his thinking cap, and established modalities that improved Lagos State take-home from IGR, and this assisted him to raise enough revenue with which he created agencies of Governement, socially driven to employ and empower miscreants in Lagos.

Would anyone deny the Asiwaju the love he is enjoying in Lagos State? Should anybody wonder why it is said that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu "owns Lagos". Even that euphemism was the construction of those who hate him. One man cannot "own" a whole State. Asiwaju Bola Tiubu is undoubtedly the Pathfinder of Modern Lagos. No one can take that credit from him.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu: a sick man? I am sure if Mr Peter Obi has malaria, he would be hooked to his bed. Who is sick? A man who stays up all night to meet with his obligations to people? A man who entertains visitors until everyone is attended to? A man who travels consistently, home and abroad, consulting on his ambition to run the country, and seeking global interventions?

To become the Presidential Candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, the Asiwaju toured the entire country to meet delegates of his Party, sometimes covering 3 States in a day in some regions of the country. Of all the 4 frontline candidates contesting the next Presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu's ticket is the most challenging. He emerged against hard official odds. A life time ambition isn't the same as an opportunistic one.

How did Mr Peter Obi emerge as a Presidential Candidate of "his" Party? His ticket was clearly donated to him immediately he defected from the PDP to the Labour Party. Mr Obi can only emerge as a Presidential Candidate of a Party without competitors. If he covers the activities Asiwaju Tinubu covers, he would be bedridden by now.

A man with a frail frame is not a sick man. The sick man is the one who goes about lying to his audience with a mischievioys smile hanging on his countenance, and enjoys the applause that would take him no where on election day.

Mr Peter Obi should concentrate on his campaign and shut his mouth up when it comes to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. How many non-Igbo people did Mr Obi tolerate in Anambra State when he was Governor? How many were part of his government? No amount of cosmetic smile and melodramatic pretences would fetch Mr Peter Obi the votes he needs to be placed 4th on the Presodential election results sheet.

In Mr Peter Obi, I see a man who is convinced that he would fail, and having exhausted his lying statistics is now buoyed to character assasination Churning false statistics has never help Mr Peter Obi. No Nigerian wants to verify any claim because it dies nit come cheap in Nigeria even with the FOI Act in place. Nigerians need to see what Mr Peter Obi has done with his life apart from selling tomatoes ketchup and brewing alcoholic drinks. He needs to shut his mouth up when he needs to talk about Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja-Nigeria

The APC family in Rivers State must not fret because the Asiwaju is talking with Governor Nyesom Wike. It is Wike and his goons that need the Asiwaju, not the other way round.

Governor Wike's present disposition is theatrical and he is an excellent propagandist. His target has been to use the meeting he personal initiates to push for more respect from the PDP.

With a PDP Governorship Candidate to deliver in 2023, Governor Nyesom Wike cannot leave the PDP. He is stucked to the Party. And Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has had his experience in such deals like Governor Nyesom Wike seeks from him.

Let me remind us of how this same deal was entered into between the Governors of the South West in 2002 when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo told the South West Governors to support his Presidency and he would deliver their second term bid.

It never happened. Every South West Governor who believed Chief Obasanjo lost their return bid except the Asiwaju who rejected the offer, severed ties with the Yoruba Sociocultural Group, the Afenifere, went in to win his second term bid, retaining Lagos State.

What Wike has been able to achieve in the Rivers State APC has been to keep members of the Party apprehensive and grievous, wondering why the Asiwaju would engage Governor Wike than he appears to rally Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.

In the actual sense, it is Governor Wike who demands the visits he has been enjoying. In the face of dying pensioners, with an unpaid workforce, Governor Wike covers his governance deficit with road infrastructures in the metropolis and making so much noise about overhead bridges.

As a member of the APC who understands how theatrics and propaganda helps in discouraging members of a Party to feel alienated from the mains, sort of a mind-game that disengaged the interests of members of the Party from their loyalty to the Party and Candidates.

This is therefore to encourage my compatriots in Rivers State to stand firm and to focus on the APC, and with their Governorship Candidate, Pastoe Arc Tonye Cole, whom I was privilege to have a chit-chat with recently, and who has a great vision for the Rivers people.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Port Harcourt.

A Paper Delivered At The Inauguration Of The South South Chapter Of “The Asiwaju Group” (TAG) In Port Harcourt, Rivers State, On August 27 2022 By Arc Ini Akpan Morgan, Head Of APC Diaspora Unit At The National Secretariat, Abuja

Protocol

Permit me to begin this presentation with thanking the organisers of this event for affording us the opportunity to gather to discuss the strategic victory we are working to deliver to a political enigma and a colossus of Nigeria’s democracy at the Presidential election coming up next February.

Permit me to also thank the leaders and members of the APC worldwide: for providing us this formidable political platform to promote our collective interests.

I say thank you to the founders and members of The Asiwaju Group, “TAG”, among whom I am a speech-giver today.

My special thanks therefore goes to Prince Ade Omole, the APC leader in the United Kingdom, whose passion for the APC Diaspora Unit has throttled our growth from a Desk to a Unit of the Party at the topmost level.

I am called out here today to answer some salient but pertinent questions:

1. How Is The APC Ready To Win The 2023 Presidential Election

I must confess that the APC is as ready to win the February 2023 Presidential election as the number of years the Party’s Flagbearer has put into preparing for his election into the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Let me remind us that the readiness of our great Party to emerge victorious in the 2023 Presidential election began from when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu left his well-paying job at a multinational oil company, suggesting to his superiors that he must take up politics as his next life-time challenge. He has clearly nursed this challenge for a longer time than he resigned from Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had rejected the conspiracy of his superiors at Mobil Nigeria Producing, to keep him back at work with mouth-watering positional and financial packages, choosing rather to emerge on the map of Nigerian politics as a committed leader and a formidable financial contributor to the cause of his then political party - the SDP.

The Asiwaju has never been anybody’s boy politically. However, this cannot be said of his contemporaries going into the 2023 Presidential election with him, because they all, at one time or the other, have been boys to the Asiwaju’s political contemporaries, in their own political milestones.

As one who has no problems with making painful political sacrifices, the Asiwaju was asked to forego the Office of the Senate President when the office was his to take in 1991. And we all know the story of his sacrifice in 2015 when the Vice Presidential Ticket was his to take.

Would I have to mention how he funded the NADECO war economy against the military junta of General Sani Abacha?

Professor Wole Soyinka personally confessed to how the Asiwaju asked him to negotiate necessary international connections to help him import rice from Thailand, which he sold, ploughing back the revenue generated into the NADECO struggle between 1994 to 1998.

That was international trade in practice. He succeeded at impacting his experience as one who looked forward to nursing Nigeria’s economy to her national prosperity some day.
He was in the trenches for 4 years, spending and getting spent in the war that threw up the 4th Nigerian Democratic Republic, which we are enjoying today.

He also ensured that he developed and deepened Nigeria’s Opposition Struggle in this Republic, emerging in it as the Father of that struggle.

At the end, he led the frontlines in his Party to ensured the victory that toppled the erstwhile Nigeria’s ruling party democratically. Today, the APC, his personal dream, is Nigeria’s ruling party.

If we therefore count from 1989 when the Asiwaju cleared the path for his political ideology to prosper to date, we would have 33 years.

This is how long it has taken the APC, first as an unseen reality in 1989, to a nascent reality in 1999, and to a ruling Party in 2015. We can look at this progression either arithmetically, or geometrically.

As a political party, the APC is now going into next year’s election with over 3 decades of her ground-breaking and sub-structural development in her unseen realities, and her super structural stabilization in her seen realities from 2015. This is the divine mandate the Asiwaju shoulders.

2. How Is The APC The Party To Beat?

It would offend some thinking to say that the APC, as an institution, is synonymous with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the institution: a two-in-one entity. However, if we categorise the APC into her vision and her mission, we would agree that though the mission of the Party is pursued by her over 40 million members, including her members in the Diaspora, the vision of the Party resides sorely with the Asiwaju. He took the first step towards the birth and propagation of the what we are all celebrating today.

Looking at it in every way, we would observe that the problems the APC seems to have today, clearly resulted from some of her leaders divorcing the Party’s mission from her vision, when some chose to conspire against the vision by their attempt to “cut Tinubu to size”, just after ensuring the victory of the Party in 2015.

If Nigerians say they are suffering today, it is because some political nomads jumped into our party, loving her mission and hating her vision. Today, the vision and the mission of the Party have been harmonised. Therefore the APC is the Party to beat as much as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the politician to beat in Nigeria.

3. Is The Asiwaju sellable?

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a political commodity that is in excess of demand in our political marketplace. I always say that if a politician does not want to concede his position to the Asiwaju, he refuses to dialogue with him. The following are therefore the market price tag of “Commodity Bola Ahmed Tinubu”:

a. While awaiting some leading members of his Party to dialogue with him on the best leadership recruitment strategy for the 8th National Assembly, one of them accepted to behave like a thief in night just to supplant the Asiwaju’s input at giving our party a positive direction.

Here we are today, facing a tough battle ahead, and where are those who got us here?

b. He won against the tenure elongation of the administration of Chief John Oyegun for its illegality, insisting that the Party must remain united and indivisible.

c. Though maligned and character-assassinated on many grounds, the Asiwaju has kept his focus on the goal, proving his haters theatrics and propaganda wrong.

Today, his abusers are tired of continuing with what they began. They have turned their hate on the “Golden Boy of Zenith”.

d. The Asiwaju also won against the hard pursuit of the consensus initiatives that preceded the APC Presidential Primaries in June, against hard official odds.
Need I say more on his sell-ability?

4. How Ready Are Our Members And Supporters For The Presidential Campaign?

One thing that stands the APC out as a Party with a formidable structure is the fact that those who have remained members of the Party are diehard opposition strugglers from the inception of their politics.

As at the last count, the APC Presidential Ticket has recorded over 8,000 Support Groups, one of which we are here to celebrate today.

If winning elections is by number of votes, taking membership of each Support Group across Nigeria at an average of 5,000 across the country, meaning an average of 140 members in each of Nigeria’s 36 States, multiplied by 8,000 Support Groups, we are looking at about 40 million votes from APC members only. The last membership registration of the Party recorded about 42 million members. This is the winning strength of the APC.

5. How Issues-Based Will The APC Campaign Be?

In just one sentence, while other candidates have asked Nigerians to “go and verify” their false claims, and another wants Nigerians to believe what he can do without concrete evidences, both the Asiwaju and his Running Mate have continued to insist that Nigerians should see concrete evidences of what lies ahead for them in Lagos and Borno States.

What more could be issues-based than calling for a free assessment of the capacities and the competence of the APC Ticket?

5. Does The APC Have A Good Record In Spite Of Challenges

Looking at it critical as the question suggests, Mr President may not be happy with the way politics is played in Nigeria, but his passion for good governance continues to soar.

Are we talking about the Second Niger Bridge? Are we talking about the electoral reforms? Or are we talking about the foreign image of our government internationally? The Buhari administration has done very well.

The food shortages and foreign reserve inflation suffered, is a global phenomenon. Our nation has been in existence for 62 years and of these, the APC is responsible for the last 7 years.

We cannot therefore discount the contributions of preceding administrations to where we are today by imposing 55 years of our national struggles on the APC administration.

7. Will The APC Win The 2023 Presidential Election?

The simple answer is YES! The Holy Book says “as a man in his heart, so he is”. The Asiwaju has committed himself to h thinks is victory, and we are sure he would win because, as he said of his Presidential Candidature: “Emi Lokan”. And I dare say that all the other candidates in the coming election have “lule”.

Thank you everyone for your attention. God bless you all.

In the words of His Excellency, Senator Kashim Shettima, the erstwhile Governor of Borno State, and incumbent Vice Presidential Candidate of Nigeria's ruling All Progressives Congress, at the 2022 Annual Conference of the Nigeria Bar Assiciation:

"I am the 'Golden Boy' of Zenith. In Jim Ovia's World, the sole parameter for assessing people, is the level of your competence, and your imports. I dare say that no one...grew faster, in the history of Zenith Bank, than myself".

Awesome! The faster grown staff in the history of Nigeria's Zenith Bank was His Excellency, Senator Kashim Ibrahim Shettima, and he was branded the "golden boy of Zenith". Very remarkable!

His being a Banker, at the foremost, puts the matter of how he dressed to the 62th NBA Conference to rest. He would not have grew so fast in Zenith Bank if he could not wear his suits well, nor know what shoes would match his outfit on a normal work day. We all know how Bankers dressed to work on work days.

If Asiwaju Bola Tinubu does not grant Senator Shettima such audacious opportunity, how else would a mentor promote his mentee? What mattered more to the most formidable political strategist in Nigeria was truly about how the opportunity of attending the NBA Conference would add to, or subtract from the most challenging Presidential Ticket, going into next year's election, especially about the ticket being of same faith.

Some Nigerians are bunches of soundly sentimental-cotnered, and emotionally-driven people, who judge others through the prism of their ignorance. It is for this kind of mindset - lazy mindsets - that Rev (Dr) Martin Luther King Jnr mentioned his evergreen statement about judging a man by the "content of his character", and nothing else.

What many who criticised Senator Shettima's appearance at the 62th NBA Conference failed to understand, was on how he de-emphasized his outlook, in order to express his eloquence, the depth of his excellence, his leadership traits, and a sound knowledge his Principal, with whom he hopes to work.

As a reputable Banker, it was a huge joke that anyone would mock Senator Shettima because of the way he appeared at the NBA Conference. A good follower of Senator Kashim Shettima would naturally observe how very comical he is in true life.

Let's recollect his comical reference to the "Okigwe Tomatoes Dealer" called Ahmed Lawal, and how "nice man" (like Vice President Osinbajo) sell ice cream and popcorn". He is just a jolly good fellow and that was what he demonstrated by his outfit at the NBA Conference.

Everybody dresses deliberately. Even family members would have observed and made suggestions about his outfit while he was leaving home, and his aides may also have wondered to themsleves about how "oga" appeared.

These are everyday happenings, in our homes especially. Sometimes, it leads to the change of outfits, and like in Senator Shettima's case, it was very deliberate, and he needed to prove some very severe points about himself, otherwise, and apart of what he wore, and how he appeared in them.

Senator Shettima's outfit was purely diversionary to avail those "OBI-litrators" and the "dis-ATIKU-lated" time-wasters the reflection of their hate and foolishness.

Senator Kashim Shettima's representation of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the testament, readily available to understanding how the Asiwaju markets his leadership mentees.

In a recent "My Asuwaju Story" video that went viral, the pioneer winner of the New Era Foundation Spelling Bee Competition, who became the first One-Day Governor of Lagos State, recalled how the Asiwaju delegated him to speak on his behalf at a Youths Conference in Lagos. It is a usual phenomenon for the Asiwaju to delegate responsibilities that are promotional of his leadership recruits.

His representation of the Asiwaju at the Yoyths Conference projected that young man, who was serially trained by the Lagos State Governement, and in representing Asiwaju Tinubu at an International Youths Conference became the way the Asiwaju moved him on in life.

The young man is now a serial entrepreneur, and an employer of labour. So when Mr Peter Obi talked about Nigeria needing a "visionary leader" for the next administration, Senator Kashim Shettima revealed the one who is "available (to Nigerians) for free" - Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

It was very clear to the Asiwaju that more than his Candidature, the most attacked Candidature, going into the 2023 Presidential election, has continued to be that of Senator Kashim Ibrahim Shettima, and it was a strategic decision by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to have Senator Shettima go out to the NBA Conference to show the stuff he is made of.



With Senator Kashim Shettima's attendance at the NBA Conference, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu proved it clearly how his "Cabinet meetings would not be to preach the Bible nor the Qu'ran..."

More than the credits he would have derived from honouring his invitation to the NBA Conference in person, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu needed Senator Kashim Shettima to go out there before the August gathering of Nigeria's Bar and Bench to reel out what Nigerians should expect of the Bola Tinubu Presidency from May 29 2023, reeling them off hands.

Senator Shettima refused to talk about how the Tinubu Presidency would improve the local economy, or on how they would manage Nigeria's money because they are all products of developmental economics. He dwelled on transitioning global trends, and why Nigeria is expected to be a leading light in the expected African Renaissance, joining in with the current global transitions.

Hear him: "In this age where others are talking about Artificial Intelligence, about nanotechnology, about biotechnology, we need a leader, who has the skill-set, a leader who understands the global economy, to shepherd us in this age".

Looking at the Bola Tinubu Presidency, I can see Nigeria coming up with the beauty of UAE in Dubai, and spanning out globally with the escalated structural civilisation of China in Beijing.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja-Nigeria

May your days be long. A daughter in Israel!

As you mark your day of assumption of duty on this earth on this day, many years ago, you could look back today and thank God for how far you have come.

As your years, so shall your strength wax younger.

Happy Birthday Ufan!

A strong woman.

A little while ago, in that winter night of PROTOCOL, you weathered the storm, under the dust of the season, to ensure the happiness of another: you are indeed a pleasant gift, a bundle of joy in God's arms, and your faith clearly holds strong to whom you have believed.

The beacons of a great mother encompass you all about, around your boundaries, as a gift entrapped in womanhood.

A resounding vessel of beauty, upon whom much time was divinely bestowed.


I celebrate you as a Christian woman. You are an encourager, a daring giver, who will remain a never lacking woman.

Your faith in God, and the accomplishments of his gift in you, are the evidences and marks that you are from the Tribe of the woman who has sailed over many waters.

The Almighty God will satisfy the yearnings of your youth and satisfy you with long life.

Well done!

Congratulations!!

Age on the side of your youth. Keep your beauty and your glow, and the Spirit of might and fulfilment reside with you always.

I love you for making me a part of your life.

Mrs Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the 3rd most powerful official of the United States Government, on Tuesday 2 August 2022, stepped foot on the soil of Taiwan in Taipei. This is happening in over 25 years by any US Official. Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan visit stands against President Joe Biden's advisory against her stop over in Taipei-Taiwan, during her recent tours of some Asian Countries.

Nancy Pelosi's visit, though termed “normal and unofficial”, infringes on the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Fir a high ranking official of the US to actualise such a visit, in view of the US position on the "One China Principle", Beijing ought to be in the picture, if the US Governement is sincere about her position in recognising "One China" under Beijing, and Taiwan as a self-determined Province in China.

In the wisdom of President Joe Biden, a visit to Taiwan by a high ranking US Government official, at such a low turn in the bilateral relationship between the US and the PRC is seen as total unwise and unnecessarily arrogates an implied intention against Beijing, in view of the official position of the US, which recognises the “One China Principle”, which confers State recognition to the PRC and according Taiwan the status of a breakaway Province from the PRC.

To understand the diplomatic complexity in Mrs Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a look into the “One China Principle” would reveal why the Government in Beijing initiated a military parade around the borders close to Taiwan.

The One China Principle:

The “One China principle” is the position held by the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the United Nations member-countries, that there is only one sovereign state under the name “China”, with the PRC serving as the sole legitimate government of that China, and Taiwan, seen as a part of China.

The United Nations in her resolution in 1991 replaced the Republic of China (ROC), as Taiwan is self-styled known by the countries who recognise her as an independent nation, with the PRC. From April 30, 1991, the ROC also officially recognized the PRC, while maintaining the claim of an exclusive mandate as the legitimate ruler of China. Both Beijing and Taipei recognise and accept the "One China Principle" but differ on which nation rules the "One China".

The relationship between the PRC and Taiwan can be likened to the struggle between an older and more stronger brother (PRC) with his younger and less powerful brother (ROC). The same picture offers the view in the struggle between the Nigerian Government and the agitators seeking a sovereign State of Biafra. In the case of Taiwan, Beijing recognises the Provincial Government over the Taiwan people, but refuses to accord the Island the status of an independent nation.

Interestingly, there are no major member-countries of the United Nations that recognise Taiwan as a sovereign State. Currently only 15 States in the 193 mations strong UN recognise Taiwan as an independent Republic of China; and to that extent, have official relations with Beijing: Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Holy See, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland and Tuvalu.

The Position Of The United State On “One China Principle”

The United States recognizes the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government over China, acknowledging the position that China is "ONE", and that Taiwan is part of China.

The “One China” policy of the United States refers to a policy of strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan. It accepts that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is but one China, and that Taiwan is a part of China. That policy settles the U.S. interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question.

The United States has formal relations with the PRC, and recognizes the PRC as the sole legal government over China, but maintains a friendly relationship with Taiwan.

Why Nancy Pelosi’s Visit Is Unconstitutional And A Provocation Of Beijing

In recent weeks, President Joe Biden had warned Beijing about invading Taiwan: a warning Beijing observed as unnecessary, which led to the issuing of a stern rebuttal, with an indication to “resolutely crush any attempt by the US to foster Taiwan’s independence.

Beijing has accused the US of clandestinely supporting Taiwan’s independence, pointedly telling Washington that she is “violating” its promise on Taiwan, and “interfering” in China’s affairs.

Chinese Minister of Defence, General Wei Fenghe, on Sunday 31 July 2022, amidst the rumours of Nancy Pelosi’s visit, sternly warned that anyone daring to secede Taiwan from China will have to prepare to “fight at all cost, and...will fight to the end”. He concluded by saying that it is the “only choice left for China”.

In the face of the diplomatic low-turn between Washington and Beijing, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on Tuesday, appeared provocative and uncalled for, at least in its timing and in the face of President Joe Biden’s advisory.

With the Russian/Ukraine war raging, bequeathing shortages in world food chain, another war between China and Taiwan must be avoided. The Government of the United State, in desling with the leadership in Taipei, must therefore be careful to err on the side of caution in her friendly side "normall dealings concerning the Taiwan Question.

Beijing's recent sanctions against Washington, which includes the suspension of talks on climate amd the cancellation of talks between the Defence hierarchy in the 2 countries throws up an escalated diplomatic tension between both countries is are words enough for the wise.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja, Nigeria

The urge to discuss the chances of electing the people's Governor for Akwa Ibom State in 2023 became very strong after a personal review of the chances each of the Candidates has, who have been pencilled to make it to the ballot, in the oncoming February 2023 Governorship election in the State.

The need to discuss the political fortunes of the Akwa Ibom people so far, before delving into who is best fit to occupy the Hilltop Mansion from May 29 2023, cannot be deemphasized. Our sights must see steps taken, and efforts made by political leaders who framed the politics of the State in the 4th Nigerian Republic.

Tested men n national politics were at the drawing table, where the political trajectory for Akwa Ibom State was mapped, and the only political bloc, which had a State-wide political structure, available to our people, to guide the political process leading to the 4th Republic political nuances in the State, was led by the late Obong Etukudo Ekpro.

The late Obong Ekpro was a man who had no benevolent god to "crack his kernel" for him, so he emerged in Akwa Ibom State politics upon his return from living overseas to raise a grassly rooted support to fuel his political freams for the State. Obong Ekpro built a political career that made him the man to beat when the political grassroots in Akwa Ibom State are needed for electoral defination.

At the entrance of the 4th Republic, we had other leaders, who, like Obong Ekpro, contributed immensely in developing the partisan politics of Akwa Ibom State to become 100% PDP. This has remained the foundation for the electoral successes enjoyed by the ruling Party in the State, since the 4th Republic.

Atuekong Don Etiebet, who emerged into the Akwa Ibom 4th Republic political equation did so as a political party founder, a former Presidential Candidate, and one of the Presidential Aspirant of the PDP. He was readily accepted by the party as the political leader in the State

There were also the late Chief Joe Ating, Senator John Akpanudoedehe, who deputised for Obong Ekpro, and who presently runs the grassroots structure Obong Ekpro left behind, the same structure that provided the template for the structure of the PDP in the State, inherited by the Victor Bassey Attah's administration, but nearly suffocated by his successor.

Elder Ntieyong Inyangmme, Chief Ebong Okon, Obong Victor Bassey Attah, Obong Pius Ibanga, Senator Itak Ekarika, Hon Benjamin Enobong Okoko, Obong Nsima Okon, Chief Ekeng Anam-ndu, and Chief Richard Umoren, were those, among others, who laid the foundation for the 4th Republic politics of Akwa Ibom State.

They framed an all-inclusive leadership that produced the Victor Attah administration, and the political leadership for the State was streamlined, with an intercollegiate hierarchy devolved, accordingly, to handle political decisions for the people.

It would be quite clear to those who have followed the progress of the politics, that the initial collectivity in leadership, though with its own intense disagreements, permitted the leaders to disagree to agree. This strategic inclusivity is what was lost to the administrations that succeeded Obong Victor Bassey Attah. From then on until now, Akwa Ibom people are bedevilled with the principle of one man deciding who becomes Governor of the State.

It was to avoid Akwa Ibom State slipping into a one-party State that Senator Akpanudodedehe, one the founding fathers of Akwa Ibom 4th Republic politics, decided to defect from the PDP to nurse the collection of the suckling opposition which was barely living in the State at that time, to become the most beautiful bride that all political elites now love to court.

PDP refugees, who chose, on their own, to join the State's Opposition struggle, dared to rape the bride: the bride nursed and raised by another man better than them. When the man that bastardized the well mapped-out political trajectory of the State from 2007 to 2018 lost favour with his imposition, it was to that same bride that he ran to, for succour. A bride he molested and almost killed when he was on the other side.

As it stands today, the former Governor, Senator and Ministrr remains the bitterest enemy of the opposition struggle in Akwa Ibom State.

A man who declared his own decision to impose a successor as an error he earlier made, insisted in taking another of such erroneous decision for our people, but chose to do so under the cover of darkness, just to exclude the most qualified man, who is the best prepared to govern Akwa Ibom State from May 2023.

The man ended up shooting himself on the right foot, and now, he has retarded himself politicallpy, while Senator Akpanudoedehe has moved on from the Party in the State with questions demanding answers he is yet to receive.

Senator Akpanudoedehe has moved on with the “fruit basket”, and good enough, he is on the 2023 Governorship ballot. He remains the only founding father of our 4th Republic politics, with clout, boldness, courage, innovation and tenacity to oust the PDP, and to return our State to her status before 2007, and release the people from the shackles of blind leadership, especially those whose decisions must impulsively remain the decision of Akwa Ibom voters.

The Akwa Ibom people need restoration from an abused and a defamed political brand, injected with the misuse of raw State cash to procure the peoples consciences and rights, then subject them to tyranny.

Akwa Ibom State MUST be rescued, and the man to do that remains the only man, remaining among the framers of our 4th Republic politics, who is still very relevant in the politics of the State, who was at the drawing table when the fathers of our politics set the path, and the leadership structure we enjoyed before 2007 – the man is Senator John James Akpanudoedehe.

This is therefore a clarion call to all Akwa Ibom people to look beyond party lines, and support the Candidature of Senator Akpanudoedehe to emerge the next Governor of Akwa Ibom State.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja-Nigeria

It never happened in Israel and scriptures has not consigned to Christian leaders in Nigeria their present attitude and harrogance. Isreal knew when they needed to seek the face of God, when the sense of defeat overshadows them. Otherwise, they never lost at any battle, any way, except God stands back against them.

No scriptures consigns any worldly inheritance to Christians, though the Almighty God duly consigned the earth to earthly men. Dominion, fruitfulness, multiplication and authority are the bestowal of God on the human race, given to enpower the man to unlock these bestowals within himself.

A child must, from within him, make personal effort to sit up, crawl, stand up, and walk. Until he starts walking, he remains challenged in this life. This exemplies my notion concerning how God dealt with Israel, from where we have been adopted into the grace of the Almighty God through Christ Jesus.

So, like a child, within whom lies his God-given bestowals, who must nurse deliberate intentions to exercise his God-given abilities to sit up, crawl, stand up and walk, so must every Christian, especially Christian leaders, bear deliberate intentions to find and apply the keys that God had established to open all the doors they need to open.

By my own personal experience, I know that it is possible to deliberately lose available opportunities because of the way they present themselves. I have grown to appreciate that sometimes to grow, you have to take several risks. This continues to be the failure point for the Nigerian Church. They lack the credentials of the Children of Issachar - that of understanding the times.

I have come to appreciate it better, that there is no simple way that any human being can be clean mentally and spiritually, except by the imputation of the righteousness of God upon him, making the transformation of the mind (our thinking) possible. There is no boastfulness in it. No one can give what he does not have.

In a very simple way, I pray I can make an excellent sense by calling Chirstians in Nigeria to scriptures, and trace how Israel dealt with nations on their way to becoming a nation themselves, trekking through the Sinai Peninsula, without a market and without a hospital, for 40 years.

That story about Israel changed after the reign of King Solomon. So much idolatry infested the people, and God allowed them to be carried away into exile, becoming the captives of Babylon.

Now before Moses died, he wrote a song for the Children of Israel, and commanded them, by the instruction of the Almighty God, to learn, and to teach the song to every Jew, in every generation - this is why you would hear the military of the Nation of Isreal singing when they are known their way to war. The song of Moses, as it is called, was meant to bring the power of the Almighty God down to their ugly situations, to help them. In such Spirit, they have remained victorious in all their military missions, till date.

The picture of Israel's destitution and docility remains painted in the image of how they sat by the Rivers of Babylon, and the Babylonians demanded that they (Israelites) sing to them (Babylonians) their "Lord's song" . You know what Israel answered them?

"How can we sing the lord's song, in a strange land". Yet they were taught that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, and the same God had shown their first-father, Abraham, the expanse of his inheritance in him, as the Possesor of the Heaven and the Earth, and the unnumberableness of his generations.

Now while Israel sat by the Rivers of Babylon, refusing to sing their Redemption Song, Ezekiel, a Prophet of Isreal, who, himself, was also by the River of Chebar (Ezekiel 1.1), one of the Rivers of Babylon, beheld the heaven open, revealing the throne of God, in that same strange land.

I will continue to stand in the place of Prophet Ezekiel in Nigeria, while I permit every Nigerian Christian leader to keep behaving like Israel in a strange land, whose people sat by the Rivers of Babylon, having the Almighty God with them, who used their captors to remind them of their song of deliverance, because he was also there in their midst, in that strange land, to deliver them. The picture of a people delaying their deliverance by personal refusal. I know what it means to lose opportunities willingly.

These are the same people who, when they were set free from captivity, said they were as them who dream. Their deliverance came speedily and unexpectedly. Everyone, under this words, needing deliverance, in, and of any kind, receive yours speedily, and in an unexpected way, in Jesus name, Amen.

I an a Christian, and I stand with the Muslim/Muslim Ticket of the APC, I have been a supporter of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu since 2010, at the time he pressed for a merger of parties with President Muhammadu Buhari. Before the Asiwaju, in my politics, I had empathised with Waziri Atiku Abubakar, for what he suffered in the hands of Olusegun Obasanjo, and the Asiwaju was with him, until he left to contest the 2011 Presidential Primaries of the PDP, against Goodluck Jonathan.

The present permutations for 2023 Presidency would have been the case in 2011, if Atiku Abubakar had remained in the ACN as Presidential Candidate against Goodluck Jonathan. That was Atiku Abubakar's brightest chance at becoming Nigeria's President. Such chances come once in a lifetime. He is now wasting his time.

For deserting the Asiwaju, I surrendered my empathy for Atiku Abubakar, in sympathy to the Asiwaju. Having had some political contact with the Asiwaju at some point, and having traced his history as a Nigerian politician, I have been able to spot the only Nigerian who has fought hard to ensure Nigeria's democracy stays alive, and healthy.

Reading what Pastor Paul Eneche avoidedly said, referring to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in relation to bloodshed and other labelling nuances he suggested, I think such lousy tongue-loosing should not come from him. He sounded very desperate, hopeless and helpless. Yet that is a man who raises cripples, and owns their clutches.

He chose to malign another man, making statements that commits him to libel, just because talking about this man is now a trending pass-time. I respect the man who positively changes the economic fortunes of people by just his mention.

That was why Pastor Enenche could not dare to mention a name to his loudmouthedness. He spoke in the manner cowards do. Is it not a shame that there could be such bloodshed on religious grounds, in a country with the number of Churches such as we have? Why Is the Church in Nigeria just waking up, and from where have they found their voices?

I hereby challenge all Nigeran Church leaders, to do the needful, I challenge them to pray for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to lose his election, but if he wins, let them know that they mere men, who use their tongues to defraud other men through dweet talking. This is my challenge.

"How can we sing the lord's song in a strange land" - the people of God creating an earthly geography for the God who designed the entire cosmos. This is how the Church leaders in Nigeria look - defeated, frustrated, agonised and hopeless.

My admonition to His Excellency, Senator Kashim Shettima, the Director General of the Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation, and the past Governor of Borno State, who led the emergence of the Presidential flagbearer of Nigeria's ruling Party in the next Nigeria's Presidential election, is for him to accord Asiwaju Bola Tinubu an unrivalled understanding in picking his running mate.

Senator Kashim Shettima deserves the Vice Presidential slot of the APC, but I would ask him to deflate the privilege for the Asiwaju. He should step aside and prepare to become the next Chief of Nigeria's Presidential Staff.

Senator Shettima's comic reference to the Okigwe "Tomatoes Dealer" and the nice seller of "Ice Cream and Pop-Corn", somehow watered down the angst the Abeokuta "Outburst" generated. Indeed, Senator Kashim Shettima shows how delve the Asiwaju is, in his choice of those who work with him.

With Shetimma out of the way, I see 3 other leaders under consideration for the Office of the Vice President: Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, Surveyor Nasir Ahmed El Rufai, and Bishop Hassan Matthew Kukah.

I would liken the consideration of His Eminence, Rt Rev Kukah for the Office of the Vice President to that of His Excellency, Dr Goouck Ebele Jonathan, who was rumoured as beenl favoured, in an alleged "Consensus" arrangement, to fly the APC Presidential Flag, adorned to drop on an existing political structure he did not build.

His established political structure was what gave Asiwaju Bola Tinubu the Presidential Flag of the APC. The refusal by the National Convention of the ruling party, represented by her Governors, to allow the illegal discount of the contributions of the Party Leader to the Party added vigour to the Asiwaju's emergence.

Today, the Asiwaju is saddled with the leadership of the Party. The translation of power rumoured between President Buhari and the Asiwaju has happened. All arguments about it have vanish like shaffs before the wind. I see a power arrangement in Tinubu's alleged "outburst" in Abeokuta that addressed a prospective jamboree.

The Asiwaju's early walk with President Buhari to build the APC was dedicated upon his desire to see that the cause of the Yoruba people is respected. The Abeokuta "outburst" was an early reminder that the Asiwaju negotiated the APC partnership with President Buhari when the partisan model of the Party was developed. The Asiwaju came to that table with the interest of the South West. It was from that arrangement that the incumbent Vice President came.

The Asiwaju endured several bashings, harassments, name and character batterings, and malignant disrespect. He took them in good strides as an excellent sportsman, attacking nobody. He did not have to fight dirty.

There are no dynamics that can challenged what the Asiwaju deployed into planting the dream that became the APC. His mental contributions are more than any material contributions anybody invested in the Party.

Politics is much about developing critical strategies and very harsh intrigues. I would usually advice that no one should listen to the Asiwaju if he does not want him to win an argument.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a character of spending whatsoever is needed to attain the best outcome he sets to achieve. He is a shrewed Accountant. His passion dwells in his investing of himself and dedicating his resources to human development goals.

What Bola Tinubu has done with his time, space and resources outweighs what anyone thinks he invested to compromise APC delegates to win the Party's Presidential Flag. The Asiwaju never brought money to influence his Presidential nomination at the Eagle Square, Abuja.

He met the delegates in their constituencies during his campaigns, and told each and everyone of them why they should vote for him to fly the APC flag.

Wherever the Asiwaju campaigned, he left the delegates happy: from what they heard from him, and from what they got from him - it was characteristic of the Asiwaju. Sometimes, these come in the form telling the delegates to "return home and prepare" for the Presidential Convention of the Party.

Coming back to the issue of the Vice Presidential Candidate of the APC, Nigerians should trust the Asiwaju to negotiate with El Rufai and Babagama Zulum to have Bishop Hassan Kukah, to avoid the risk of the Muslim/Muslim ticket.

It is time to get it right in Nigeria, no matter the sacrifice involved:

Governor Nasir El Rufai would, in that arrangement, lead the Defence Ministry in a Bola Tinubu administration, and Governor Zulum would return to help the Borno people in his second term in office. These sacrifices would put the issue of the Muslim/Muslim ticket to rest.

But I wished the Asiwaju would attempt the Muslim/Muslim ticket to satisfy the full restitution owed to the "June 12" safa. I pray Nigerians would see the need to fulfil the full remission of the sins of "June 12", and allow Asiwaju Bola Tinubu go with the Muslim/Muslim ticket.

I believe that the Asiwaju has what it takes to win on the Muslim/Muslim ticket with Nigerians. I see Asiwaju Tinubu injecting relief into Nigerian markets, causing foodstuffs to be more affordable, as a part of his campaign strategies. One of the published intentions and goals of the Asiwaju is to drive strong market forces. I see him beginning to do this as the Presidential Candidate of the APC.

The Asiwaju owes Nigerians nothing, apart from making Presidential promises, like Turaki Atiku Abubakar serially does. The Asiwaju will invest himself in Nigerians like he did with the APC delegates. He is a very smart investor in the people.

Nigerians, should therefore permit the Asiwaju to choose from either Nasir El Rufai: for being a devout man, who stood by his decision to have power move to the South, in spite of his seeming beeve with the Asiwaju. Governor El Rufai kept his sentiment away, and put Nigeria first. He deserves my commendarion for being selfless. He is the hero in the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

Governor El Rufai's sentiment against the Asiwaju was around his being a "godfather", yet Governor El Rufai is a "godfather in the politics of Kaduna State today.

The Asiwaju could also go for Governor Umara Zulum, who has remained his dedicated follower over many years, like his kinsman and predecessor, Senator Kashim Shettima. Why Governor Zulum may, of himself, be asked to concede the Office, would be because Borno State would be considered for the Office of the Chief of Nigerian Presidential Staff, and the Office of the Vice President.

So my vote returns finally to Governor Nasir Ahmed El Rufai, my preferred Vice Presidential Candidate the APC stands best to present. The Asiwaju needs the El Rufai's brilliance, and his vigour for accomplishments, to make Nigeria "a Dubai".

This is my reply to a very offending contribution to a trending debate. Take it from me, whether Nigerians like it or not, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Adekunle Omoluoba Tinubu (Jagaba: meaning Asiwaju in Hausa) will be Nigeria's President from May 29 2023.

Start learning to live with it. Just like he could not be stopped until now, see if you can stop him at this time before he assumes office as President, Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Tinubu has built the political network to deliver the Presidency to him. Its not about how many votes a candidate has, it is about the network of supporters required to deliver the votes. That is what elections are all about.

Now let me stay on the issue:

You said "he (Tinubu) claimed not to attend high (school) and primary school(s)": pls show the article communicating this claim from Tinubu.

If all you have is the INEC form he filled, in which he endorsed the Chicago State University as his place of academic attendance, then you have alleged what he did not claim.

Tinubu satisfied the provision of our law concerning his qualification to contest for the Office of the President, and what the law requires is an evidence of the minimum of a School Certificate attainment. And Tinubu has more than our law requires.

If there is an evidence proving that he attended the said University, why do you think the University waived his qualification for admission into the University? He was a prospective student before becoming an actual student. There are stages to, and requirements for university admissions.

Many of you don't like Tinubu naturally, and some of you even hate him for no just cause. Hating a man who does not even know you and who owes you nothing, is the foundation of unrighteousness, and Christians are found behaving as if they are God: criticising his health and his age, as they have created it in their head...habaaa!

Is it a crime for Tinubu to be ambitious?

We are shouting democracy today in Nigeria, and even have the opportunity to nurse preferred candidates for democratic elections, a situation brought about by the successful struggle against military incursions in our political and economic governance, that have slowed down our progress, and we forget that it took people, with Bola Tinubu putting in his personal money to it, to win that struggle.

He was not a "thief" then, and he was not a "sick man" then. But he is now everything bad and evil because he seeks to also lead this country for which he has spend, and is spent.

What has been the contribution of your own preferred candidate to our democratic struggle and the deepening of our democracy?

Bola Tinubu led Nigeria's oposition struggle that showed that a governemnt can be changed through political strategization. He is the best political strategist God gave Nigeria. No one like him.

Na God go judge all of una, if you think a man who sowed so much should not reap from his plantings during his harvest then may you not find yields for your own sowings.

If none of you have no debt to claim with Tinubu, and it is his ambition that you are fighting against, may you never be ambitious, and if you are, may the people turn against you for no just reason. Let what you all pray for concerning Tinubu happen to all of you.

You have a right to vote for who you prefer. Why should those who prefer Tinubu be referred to in bad taste, to the level of referring to the future of our children? I don't live under such fears, God helps me.

What future has any Nigetian leader built for you in your fathers' time, and what future have you built for your own children? Should that not be your primary concern? Why wait for Tinubu to think about your future and those of your children?

Continue to wait for whoever you think will build your future and that of your generations. You are not ashamed to wait for another person to build a future for you and your children?

Let anyone of you come here with your bad mouth on me, and I am all dirtied enough not to fear been dirtied anymore. We would be dirtied together. I am ready to bad mouth you, bad mouth your father, your mother, your children and your unborn generations.

Begin to block me or leave my space for me. Just like you think that you are wise, I don't think I am stupid. This is why I am posting this on my wall.

Come on and say stupid things, and I will trash you doubly, and get you off my back. I insist that you can make your comments without insulting me or insulting the man who has shown by his works, in spite of his humanity and frailty, that he deserves the reward for his toilings.

And may his toilings not be ridiculed. If you think Tinubu should be ridiculed because he is old and frail, then may you not see his age, so that you do not suffer what you see him suffer.

When he becomes President, you can go and hug the transformer near you. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. Would scripture lie?

Tinubu has said "emi lokan", why can't you say it like him? Has he stopped you from what you desire? Why should you think you should stop him with your ill thoughts and bad mouth?

Think about yourself in a Tinubu Presidency. Just as you think you cannot benefit anything from that Presidency, may you see it like it happened in Samaria, in the days of Elisha, but may you not taste anything good in the 8 years of that Presidency.

You will see it but you won't taste it, in Jesus name. Amen

My admonition to His Excellency, Senator Kashim Shettima, the Director General of the Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation, and the past Governor of Borno State, who led the emergence of the Presidential flagbearer of Nigeria's ruling Party in the next Nigeria's Presidential election, is for him to accord Asiwaju Bola Tinubu an unrivalled understanding in picking his running mate without feeling he should be the one.

Senator Kashim Shettima deserves the Vice Presidential slot of the APC, but I would ask him to forego the privilege for the sake of making the decision of who becomes his running mate easy for the Asiwaju. He should step aside and prepare to become the next Chief of Nigeria's Presidential Staff.

Senator Shettima's comic reference to the Okigwe "Tomatoes Dealer" called "Ahmad Lawan", and the nice man-seller of "Ice Cream and Pop-Corn" somehow watered down the mood the Asiwaju's Abeokuta "Outburst" generated. Indeed, Senator Kashim Shettima's intelligence in the game of politics proves how deep the Asiwaju goes, to choose those who work with/for him.

With Shetimma out of the way, I see 3 other persons under consideration for the Office of the Vice President: Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, Quantity Surveyor Nasir Ahmed El Rufai, and His Eminence, Bishop Hassan Matthew Kukah.

His Eminence, Rt Rev Father Kukah's consideration for the Office of the Vice President is like that of His Excellency, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who was rumoured as been favoured, in an alleged "Consensus" arrangement, to fly the APC Presidential Flag. He was to fall upon an existing political structure he did not build.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu's established political structure was what gave him the Presidential ticket of the APC. The refusal of the Progressives Governors to allow an illegal discount to the contributions of the Party's National Leader, added vigour to the Asiwaju's emergence from the APC Presidential Primary election.

Today, the Asiwaju is saddled with the leadership of the Party. The translation of power, rumoured as existing between President Buhari and the Asiwaju has seemingly happened against established odds. All arguments about it vanished like shaffs before the wind. I see the setting of a power-arrangement agreement in Tinubu's alleged "outburst" in Abeokuta that vacated a prospected political jamboree.

The Asiwaju's early walk with President Buhari to build the APC was dedicated upon his desire to see that the cause of the Yoruba people is respected. The Abeokuta "outburst" was an early reminder that the Asiwaju negotiated the APC partnership with President Buhari when the partisan model of the Party was developed upon a Yoruba Agenda that must be respected. The Asiwaju went to that table with the interest of the South West as his bargaining chip. It was from that arrangement that the incumbent Vice President came.

The Asiwaju has endured several bashings, harassments, name and character batterings, and malignant disrespect in the course of pursuing his dreams. He took them all in good faith, as an excellent sportsman, and attacking nobody. He did not have to fight dirty.

There are no dynamics that can challenge what the Asiwaju deployed into planting the dream that became the APC in the beginning. His mental contributions to developing the APC are more than any material contributions anybody thinks he has invested in the Party.

Politics is much more about developing critical strategies, sometimes with very harsh intrigues. I would usually advice that no one should listen to the Asiwaju if he does not want him to win an argument. He willmalways win!

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a character of spending as much as it is needed to attain the best outcome he sets himself up to achieve. He is a shrewed Accountant. His passion dwells in the investment of himself in, and dedicating his resources to human development goals.

What Bola Tinubu has done with his time, space and resources for the APC outweighs what anyone thinks he used to compromise APC delegates, to win the Party's Presidential Flag. The Asiwaju never brought money to influence his Presidential nomination at the Eagle Square, Abuja. He met the delegates in their constituencies during his campaigns, and told each and everyone of them why they should vote for him to fly the APC flag.

Wherever the Asiwaju campaigned, he left the delegates happy: from what they heard from him, and from what they got from him - it was characteristic of the Asiwaju. Sometimes, these come in the form of telling the delegates to "return home and prepare" for the Presidential Convention of the Party. His act was a gesture of gratitude and not for gratification.

Coming back to the issue of the Vice Presidential Candidate of the APC, Nigerians should trust the Asiwaju to negotiate with El Rufai and Babagama Zulum to have Bishop Hassan Kukah, to avoid the risk of not having an option to the Muslim/Muslim ticket

It is time to get it right in Nigeria, no matter the sacrifice involved:

Governor Nasir El Rufai needs to prepare to lead the Defence Ministry in a Bola Tinubu administration, and Governor Zulum would return to help the Borno people as he, unfailingly, would win his second term mandate. These projected sacrifices would put the issue of the Muslim/Muslim ticket to rest, and profile the best Christian running mate for the Asiwaju, but Father Kukah is not a member of the APC.

I wish, as a Christian, that the Asiwaju would attempt the Muslim/Muslim ticket to satisfy the full restitution for the "June 12" aborted mandate. I pray Nigerians would see the need to accomplish the full remission of the sins of "June 12", and allow Asiwaju Bola Tinubu go with the Muslim/Muslim ticket.

I believe that the Asiwaju has what it takes with Nigerians to win the Presidential election with the Muslim/Muslim ticket. I see Asiwaju Tinubu injecting relief into Nigerian markets, causing foodstuffs to be more affordable, as a part of his campaign strategies. One of the published intentions and goals of the Asiwaju is to drive new, and strong market forces. I see him beginning to do this as the Presidential Candidate of the APC.

The Asiwaju owes Nigerians nothing, apart from the Presidential promises he hopes to make, like Waziri Atiku Abubakar serially does. The Asiwaju will definitely invest himself in Nigerians like he did with the APC delegates. He is a very smart investor in the people.

Nigerians, should therefore permit the Asiwaju to choose from either Nasir El Rufai: for being a devout man, who stood by his decision to have power move to the South, in spite of his seeming beeve with the Asiwaju. Governor El Rufai kept whatever sentiment away, and put Nigeria first before the leaders of the APC. He deserves my commendarion for being selfless. He is the hero in the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

So my vote returns finally to Governor Nasir Ahmed El Rufai, the preferred Vice Presidential Candidate the APC stands best to present. The Asiwaju needs Governor El Rufai's brilliance, and his vigour for accomplishments, to, indeed, make Nigeria "a Dubai" in Africa.

All I can see in the Osinbajo/Tinubu saga, is the sacrifice Governor Kayode Fayemi paid to contribute to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu winning the APC Presidential Primaries. Governor John Kayode Fayemi was one among whom some APC leaders asked Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to pick as Vice President, when the issue of the Muslim/Muslim ticket came up in December 2014.

Asiwaju's wife, Remi, with Governor Fayemi were those suggested to the Asiwaju for adoption but he refused. He had insisted, and took Professor Yemi Osinbajo to President Buhari as his replacement as Vice President.

As it stood, when Governor Fayemi stood down from the Presidential race for Bola Tinubu, he made a moral statement of trust in his declaration. He reminded everyone that both the Asiwaju and himself were in battle the 0trenches of NADECO, fighting for our democracy together! Governor Fayemi saw the Asiwaju as an older brother, a mentor, and a great leader who could do more for Nigerians than he could. It was so touching...!

Governor Fayemi respected the Asiwaju's age by accepting that he still has his own chances in the future. He surrendered his delegates to the Asiwaju. At that point, I cannot tell how many Nigerians, who followed that event, expected Prof Yemi Osinbajo to do the same, but he did not.

The Holy Book admonishes says that "he, who has not yet girded on his armour (meaning he who is preparing to go to war), should not boast more than he, who has hung up his own armour (he who has returned from war and has removed, and hung up his armour).

A close observation of Bayo Onanuga's regret for bringing Prof Osinbajo into the Asiwaju political cabinet, and his apology for thwarting the chance of Barr Bayo Oriola, imputes Bola Tinubu with a debt of apology he owes to Governor Kayode Fayemi. It became a season of regrets and apologies around Asiwaju Tinubu's relationships with Professor Yemi Osinbajo.

I read about how Bayo Onanuga, Asiwaju's Media Chief, apologised to a Commisioner-in-waiting under Tinubu's 'consideration, who failed to become Asiwaju Bola Tinubu's Attorney General in the cabinet he constituted over Lagos State. Mr Onanuga apologised because he regretted introducing Prof Osinbajo to his principal, who appointed him his Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice.

My question is: would Asiwaju Bola Tinubu be justified to see Prof Yemi Osinbajo in the same light as his media manager sees him? If he does, in any way, and by any chance, I think he should apologise to Governor John Kayode Fayemi, for choosing Prof Yemi Osinbajo over him, when he nominated Prof Yemi Osinbajo as President Buhari's Vice President.

Indeed! Ambition is made of sterner stuff!!

Francis Otoide had this to say when he commented on my article "The Dynamics Of The Power Play In Akwa Ibom State APC"

"I hope you guys resolve, because we really want the PDP out of the Hilltop Mansion...

What I find funny is when you anchor victory around Senator John Akpanudoedehe alone, the truth in the streets is that Senator John Akpanudoedehe is a hard-sell today...

I don't have anyone I am rooting for, but let's look elsewhere. Anyone who is fighting for Senator John Akpanudoedehe is on his payroll, period!. ..

The opinions in the streets do not favour him, even if he wants to aspire, the party should go through a proper nomination process, and not this one that you guys are "Forcing" him on people...

The truth will be open to you when you do a street survey, because it is the people on the streets that will vote...

My sincere response:

My friend Francis Otoide, thank you for finding time to spend on the sincere expression of the truth I am a part of. Let me start by honestly letting you know that Senator John James Akpanudoedehe has no payroll, except for his domestic staff (cooks, gatemen and drivers). None of his supporters is paid. This is the truth you need to know.

And for others who may think like you think, about Senator Akpanudoedehe paying for the support he enjoys, I am a testament against such notion.

Mike Akwa is a Chieftain of the ADF, he is my kinsman, and with whom I compare political notes. He can vouch for me, and many who are in the PDP like you, who are from Nsit Atai, can vouch for my decency in politics. I am not in for what I can take but for what I can give.

I volunteered to support Senator Akapnudoedehe because the Almighty God (who would judge me for bringing him into this, for your sake) showed me to him after retiring from following the PDP of Udom Emmanuel and the APC of Nsima Ekere.

I was a starter in politics then, and it was when I joined with Senator Akpanudoedehe that I found space for my political self-expression, because the other 2 teams before his excluded me from space because of the monetary advantages they enjoyed.

I am just about 4 years with Senator Akpanudoedehe, and I can count my gains with him, not in terms of the wealth I have made, but in terms of the opportunities and contacts he has opened up to, and for me.

My brother Mike Akwa bears witness to when I was following Nsima Ekere with him. He knew when I got tired and he continued with him to the end. Mike Akwa is my example of the street opinions about Senator Akapnudoedehe.

Mike Akwa has never met my Principal, but he would always tell me "Ini, that your man ehn, does he think he can win the governorship the way he is going?" How is he going that others before him have not gone? Has he killed anybody before, like others have?

Mike Akwa is hereon, he is also reading this: pls mount my commemt box and ask him how many times I have invited him to meet Senator Akpanudoedehe, and I am sure too, how many times I have asked Senator Akpanudoedehe to accept to meet Mike, and to permit him to lead our team in Nsit Atai.

Mike Akwa did not take the chance to meet Senator Akpanudoedehe, but he holds an awful opinion about him. What can I do about his opinion-holding about Senator Akpanudoedehe when I have done my best to get him to know my Principal personally?

What is the difference between Mike Akwa, I, and the opinions we hold about Senator Akpanudoedehe?

When I retired from my previous attempt to join the politics of Akwa Ibom State during the 2017 LGA elections, and I told my uncle, Engr Akpan Ukpe about joining Senator Akpanudoedehe, he discouraged me with passion. According to him, Ibobio elders cannot lie about him: they say he leads young men to their deaths.

Today, both Mike Akwa and Akpan Ukpe know that I am in change of every APC members living and working outside Nigeria.

This is because I did not only accept to listen to those who attempted to discourage me from joining in with Senator Akpanudoedehe, I sought to meet with Senator Akpanudoedehe personally, and when I did, I offered him my talents. He saw them, met me and applied me.

Throughout my 4 years with Senator Akpanudoedehe, I have not received upto N200,000 from him personally, but he has opened up life-giving chances for me to count some few millions of Naira. He refused to give me dish, he showed me to a river to fish.

Senator Akapnudoedehe is not a money-throwing personality, he is an opoortunity-creator for those who have what it takes to multiply the opportunities he creates.

I joined Senator Akpanudoedehe listening to many of his supporters tell me they have been with him for 10 to 14 years, yet they are not near where I am today, as a beneficiary of Senator Akpanudoedehe's magnanimity. However, it is in human nature that some may not be happy with him because of me.

Nevertheless, I am not enjoying my privileges with the Senator idling around him, I have shown excellence working for him, a situation for which he feels indebted to me. He is a very open-minded man, he has never been bossy. He can be approached by anybody, and he tells me what qualifies me for my favours before people who care to listen.

So it is not about who, on the street, talks about Senator Akpanudoedehe, it is who knows him who should talk about him.

So I invite you, Francis itoide, a PDP man to go to the "Villa Chapel", Afaha Offot, Uyo residence of Senator Akpanudoedehe, and ask to see him. Tell anyone that I, Ini Morgan, sent you to meet him. You would be ushered in.

It is indecent to bear tales about a man you do not know. If I had believed my friend and my uncle, I would also join the street talks about the Senator. What I wrote in the article you commented on is the very truth I know, and I am persuaded about.

I disagree with you that those who talk about Senator Akpanudoedehe on the street would determine who becomes the Governor of Akwa Ibom. That decision, first, lies with the Almighty God, and with those who a politically exposed in our State

Most of those who talk about people they do not know, also tell of how it is useless to go out and vote because their votes won't count. I am too politically experienced to rely on the streets to permutate on election results.

Thank you for your intervention, Francis Otoide. Pls find time and meet Senator Akpanudoedehe. He is reading this also and I know he would look forward to meeting you.

In the same manner I invite those who wish to meet with the Distinguished Senator, who are reading this, both men, women, youths, students, elders and leaders alike. Meet Senator Akapnudoedehe as I have directed, and know him in person. That way you won't promote what the streets tells of him, you will promote who you know he is.

God bless you sir.

It is no longer news that Nigeria's ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State has been torn between 2 factions of the Party in the State. While one faction continues to pursue the best interest of the party, the other remains in existence to tear the party down, and to dash-out her fortunes to mercenaries, especially as we approach the forthcoming 2023 Governorship election in the State.

Unfortunately, it appears it is characteristic of political elites, and leaders alike, of the party in the State to frustrate the best chances of the party to take political power. While I would not need to dig into the past, especially at how the party lost her chances in the 2015 and 2019 Governorship attempts in the State, I wish to dwell more on the present path been towed, which is sembling the paths towed in the 2 instances established above.

However, as Nigerians approach the 2023 general elections, and the permutation for the Governorship election in Akwa ibom is place on the burner, no matter the antics of those who usually trade the best chances of the Party, the lessons of the past becomes the roadmap and trajectory for the true leaders of the party to find direction on how to win the next elections in the State, whatever hurdles are placed on the path of the Party's success. I awaited the best moment to let this truth out, and here is where we are NOW.

Going back to the defection of Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio from the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling APC while he sat in the Red Chambers of the Nigerian Senate as Minority Leader: that defection was not for nothing. Suggestions were offered for it, especially as Senator Akpabio was the Leader, and the loudest symbal of the PDP in Akwa ibom State.

I concede to Senator Akpabio the foresight of his descent from political relevance well ahead of time, and the dare-devil antics he engages to maneuver his political fall. Though he was the strongest voice in the Akwa Ibom State Chapter of the PDP, and he was before whom even the incumbent Governor bowed, and defected to the APC without any cogent and foreseeable reason, leaving Nigerians to guess his reasons, while he offered his, which were diversionary.

The true and only reason why Senator Akpabio defected to the APC on 8 August 2018, was because Senator Akpabio foresaw the loss of the Hilltop Mansion, Uyo to the APC, should the preparations leading into the 2019 Governorship election in the State were allowed to bear their fruits.

Finding ways to prevent this from happening, Senator Akpabio opted to defect from the PDP, using his office as Senate Minority Leader to effectively secure the position of the Party Leader in the State, conferred unusually on him by the then National Chairman of the Party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Senator Akapbio went ahead to become the clog in the wheel of the advance engendered by the Party to take the Akwa Ibom State Government House in 2019.

Only the APC Candidate in that election, Obong (Dr) Nsima Udo Ekere, would tell the true story about how he lost his election with Senator Akpabio leading his campaign frontally, and about how Senator Akpabio preceded him to take President Buhari's Ministerial allocation to Akwa Ibom State.

The only reason that brought Senator Godwill Akpabio to the APC, was to stop Senator John James Akpanudiedehe, Ph.D, from becoming the Governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2019. That was the only reason why the exited Senator defected to the APC. He did to rally the leaders of the party against Senator Akpanudoedehe, to hinder his emergence as the Governorship Candidate of the APC.

It is important to note that all the Leaders Senator Akpabio rallied around himself in 2019 have seen his unclothedness, and today, have all chosen to rally around Senator Akpanudoedehe, and they are altogether working to ensure he becomes the next Governor of Akwa Ibom State.

The erstwhile National Secretary of the APC was clearly and cleanly excluded from the 2019 Governorship Primaries of the Party with Senator Akpabio using the Nigerian Police, who were entrusted, and instructed on those to release election materials to for that Primary election, under certain arrangement unknown to the APC guidelines, which stipulated the conduct of Direct Primaries. A retired Assitant Inspector General of Police from the State, a former ally of Senator Akpanio, now an ally of Senator Akpanudoedehe, would testify to this truth.

After falsely labelling Senator Akpanudoedehe with treason for daring him in the 2011 Governorship election, and doing everything to eliminate him, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio sees Senator John James Akpnaudoedehe as his nemesis in the politics of Akwa Ibom State

Senator Godswill Akpanio sees the erstwhile National Secretary of the APC as the only person who can demolish his political relevance: this may be true because it was Senator Akpanudoedehe who made Senator Akpabio Governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2007, and opened up the avenue for Senator Akpabio to access power, absolutely, over the State and her people.

Only Senator Akpanudoedehe, who nursed Senator Akpabio to absolute political power, iz he who can tame him, and NOW is the right time to accomplish that feat, and Senator Akpbio is jittery, going on to aid a forgery, in order to take charge of the Party's structure in the State! The Courts and Nigeria's security agencies are currently on the matter.

This is the real issue with the APC in Akwa Ibom State, and it would be what would cost the loss of the APC in the next Governorship election in the State, if the leadership of the party does not stamp her foot down and ensure that the best candidate emerges to fly the Party's flag, and that candidate is none other than Senator (Pastor) John James Akpanudoedehe, Ph.D.

Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Abuja-Nigeria.

The Bearer of the DAYO2023 FCT SENATE MANDATE, and Aspirant nursing the ambition to represent the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, in the 10th Nigerian Senate, Mrs Adedayo Benjamins-laniyi, on 27 April 2022, picked the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Nomination/Expression of Interest forms at the National Secretariat of the Party.

Mrs Benjamins-laniyi who said she is in the Senate race to win, disclosed the major reason for her nursing her Senate ambition to include the actualisation of the National Motto: Unity,Justice, Peace and Progress, as represented by the multidimensional classification of the Federal Capital Territory, insisting that she would not only be representing the FCT in the 10th Senate, but the entire country.

As a anti-sectional and positively-driven gender advocate, Mr Benjamins-laniyi, in a pressing briefing with the APC Press/Media Corps, promised among other interesting sociopolitical needs of the FCT, to redefine the indgene/non-indigene dichotomy amd to Foster Unity among all the different segments making up the Nigerian nation.

While disclosing how gender sensitive the leadership of the All Ptogressives Congress (APC), she disclosed how the Party undertook to offset N17m, being a part of the needed N20m for the Nomination/EoI forms, she thanked the Senator Abdullahi Adamu led National Working Committee for being gender sensitive and selfless.

Mrs Benjamins-laniyi, who doubles as the Chirf Executive Officer of the Doxa Digital Communications and Events Management outfit, is also a serial entrepreneur with vast experience in interventional dvocacy through her media outreaches and community mobilising. Mrs Benjamins-laniyi has offered herself to private and public endeavours, and thought it fit to offer her experience in political representative capacity.

While they look out for their little gods who desire to be embellished with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Akwa Ibom State, South-South Nigeria's glory,

I see those who are members of the Party who have been in the struggle that manifested in the nouveau elastic transfer of national governance to theain opposition, in 2015. I know who was Principal in making Godswill Akpabio the Governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2007.

Let's look back at 2011 and come to justice with clean hands: what caused the bloodshed at the Ikot Ekpene Township Stadium found justified in the selfish decree issued by an impossible Governor, who, under democracy, demanded that Senator Akpanudoedehe should not be allowed to campaign in Ikot Ekpene, when he flew the Governorship flag of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Let us recall the State propelled murders. All I can see is that the traducing of Senator Akpanudoedehe, is the way of his pay back for the monster he created, and gave access to immunitive power.

That monster he created, has now, rather, chosen to consume him than to accept to work with him for common good. No one should try to tell me the story in which I am captured. I will resist it..

We cannot help impossible people because they are needed be ready to repent from their bad behaviours. Whenever anyone needs to reach Senator Akpnaudoedehe with his bad mouth, let him first deal with me.

When I sought whom to follow, in Akwa Ibom State, and to learn my politics from, I rejected Governor Udom Emmanuel: I saw through his arrogance and impunity in Novemver 2017.

I was again, led to follow Nsika Ekere and I also rejected him because he allowed himslef to be deceived during the AKS LGA elections in 2017; until the star I followed rested over "Villa Chapel" in Afaha Offot, Uyo-Nigeria. Members of my Party in Nsit Atai are my witnesses to this account.

I have followed the creation of the mischief woven against Senator Akpanudoedehe: about his sack, or was it his resignation from being the National Secretary of the APC?

I wondered how a people can create a mischief and then deliberately choose to entertain themselves in the same mischief they created: it is clearly to wallow in self-deceit.

I know the man I saw on the morning of 17 March 2020 activating necessary processes that should lead to a successful outcome at the National Convention, and navigating the party out of a self-coceiting machination to change the party's national leadership, and the same Senator Akpanudoedehe stood in the gap against the mutiny he could have facilitated, if he did not resist the pressure to betray his National Chairman.

Nobody should cast Senator Akpanudoedehe in the light that produces Senatoon Akpabio: they are markedly different - one fears God, and the other acts god. I respect the Distinguished Senator Akpabio but I have to exercise my right to choose who I like in this life.

Therefore, for soundminders in Akwa Ibom State politics: we do not have the leader of the APC - we did not create that ceremonial decoration entertained by the party in Akwa Ibom State when the path to a vibrant opposition struggle was strategised: it was the error of the sacked National Chairman, made in his most vulnerable moment.

The National leadership of the Party knows that Akwa Ibom APC only has "the Father of the Oposition Struggle" - our political needs are more important to us in Senator Akpanudoedehe's camp, because of the people, than the glories of its expected realisation nursed by those in the Party but who have the blood of the struggle on their hands.

Senator Akpanudoedehe sowed the seeds whose fruits they attempt to intimidate him out of reaping, by some New framed Men in the party, who desire to tell him the portion where he should plough from in the APC.

It is an unfair irony. Stop the lying narrative: nobody is fighting Godswill Akpabio in the APC, I know about some, who on our side, who may have expressed some childish and lousy sentiments against him,

I quarreled about that misdemeanour, and warned anyone who creates a fight for me tonexoect me, rather, to face him/her for pulling irresponsible fellows after my Principal.

But I know that Senator Akpabio sought forgiveness from Senator Akpanudoedehe, but like he is, he only needed a space to break into the leadership of the Nsima Ekere camoaihnd, leading to his failed governorship aspiration; and when it failed at the end, as it is the tradition with Governorship compensation, Senator Akpabio took Nsima Ekere's political compensation for himself. Slimy: you would call him.

He is a hero, no doubt, but he is one in his political mold, but let no one attempt to turn the table down, by trying to tell the story they only joined the APC to inherit, but chose to bear bad narratives around the narratives they met. We have God on our side. The killings in the State for political reasons, in that era, has been on one side in the APC. No matter what anyone say: the Almighty God is the true judge.

This was how they put Jesus to death. They used him against himself, twisted his words, acts and humanity to their advantage. Yet a good thing came out of that sad story, and that was because the story was written by God for himself. I will be a part of that story that God wrote for Akwa Ibom State, in Jesus name. AMEN

I was too short of air following some politicians in my State, and I wonder how those who do, fair conscientiously: is it in the contracts they get, or in the paying for building to live in, or is it in funding one's child's dedication...what is it?

There are those of us who see the politics of the APC in Akwa Ibom State as a struggle, not as a restaurant to fill the belly, or a cultural investment to hang out beads. That struggle took the lives of some young men on our side. Count them!

We won't take the shedding of blood, in any endeavour, for granted, least politics. In the entire APC internal competitions, held across Nigeria in 2018, it was in Akwa Ibom State that 3 young men were shot death for Nsima Ekere to emerge the Governorship Candidate of the APC in my State. May their gentle souls rest in peace.

Let any of those raising their shoulder today, who hunger desperately for political embellishments, political office and the pecks, who are politicians of Akwa Ibom State, stay out of their major public offices for 10 years. Senator Akpanudoedehe stayed out of his for upwards of 12 years until 2020.

Where is the hate coming from? Must Senator Akpanudoedehe accomplish the office of the National Secretary of the APC by another man's templets? Where did that man get his own template that another cannot get his from? Why do people refuse to accord to others what they attract to themselves?

What makes Akpabio embellishable, and robs Akpanudoedehe his own?

That is such show a lack of the basic principle of love. It shows a pathetic arrogance-quotient demonstrated, and a pitiful ego-demonisation suffered by some "NEW MEN" in the APC in Akwa Ibom State. It is definite that we have "Yahoo-Yahoo" politicians in Akwa Ibom State.

While they look out for their little gods who desire to be embellished with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Akwa Ibom State, South-South Nigeria's glory,

I see those who are members of the Party who have been in the struggle that manifested in the nouveau elastic transfer of national governance to theain opposition, in 2015. I know who was Principal in making Godswill Akpabio the Governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2007.

Let's look back at 2011 and come to justice with clean hands: what caused the bloodshed at the Ikot Ekpene Township Stadium found justified in the selfish decree issued by an impossible Governor, who, under democracy, demanded that Senator Akpanudoedehe should not be allowed to campaign in Ikot Ekpene, when he flew the Governorship flag of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Let us recall the State propelled murders. All I can see is that the traducing of Senator Akpanudoedehe, is the way of his pay back for the monster he created, and gave access to immunitive power.

That monster he created, has now, rather, chosen to consume him than to accept to work with him for common good. No one should try to tell me the story in which I am captured. I will resist it..

We cannot help impossible people because they are needed be ready to repent from their bad behaviours. Whenever anyone needs to reach Senator Akpnaudoedehe with his bad mouth, let him first deal with me.

When I sought whom to follow, in Akwa Ibom State, and to learn my politics from, I rejected Governor Udom Emmanuel: I saw through his arrogance and impunity in Novemver 2017.

I was again, led to follow Nsika Ekere and I also rejected him because he allowed himslef to be deceived during the AKS LGA elections in 2017; until the star I followed rested over "Villa Chapel" in Afaha Offot, Uyo-Nigeria. Members of my Party in Nsit Atai are my witnesses to this account.

I have followed the creation of the mischief woven against Senator Akpanudoedehe: about his sack, or was it his resignation from being the National Secretary of the APC?

I wondered how a people can create a mischief and then deliberately choose to entertain themselves in the same mischief they created: it is clearly to wallow in self-deceit.

I know the man I saw on the morning of 17 March 2020 activating necessary processes that should lead to a successful outcome at the National Convention, and navigating the party out of a self-coceiting machination to change the party's national leadership, and the same Senator Akpanudoedehe stood in the gap against the mutiny he could have facilitated, if he did not resist the pressure to betray his National Chairman.

Nobody should cast Senator Akpanudoedehe in the light that produces Senatoon Akpabio: they are markedly different - one fears God, and the other acts god. I respect the Distinguished Senator Akpabio but I have to exercise my right to choose who I like in this life.

Therefore, for soundminders in Akwa Ibom State politics: we do not have the leader of the APC - we did not create that ceremonial decoration entertained by the party in Akwa Ibom State when the path to a vibrant opposition struggle was strategised: it was the error of the sacked National Chairman, made in his most vulnerable moment.

The National leadership of the Party knows that Akwa Ibom APC only has "the Father of the Oposition Struggle" - our political needs are more important to us in Senator Akpanudoedehe's camp, because of the people, than the glories of its expected realisation nursed by those in the Party but who have the blood of the struggle on their hands.

Senator Akpanudoedehe sowed the seeds whose fruits they attempt to intimidate him out of reaping, by some New framed Men in the party, who desire to tell him the portion where he should plough from in the APC.

It is an unfair irony. Stop the lying narrative: nobody is fighting Godswill Akpabio in the APC, I know about some, who on our side, who may have expressed some childish and lousy sentiments against him,

I quarreled about that misdemeanour, and warned anyone who creates a fight for me tonexoect me, rather, to face him/her for pulling irresponsible fellows after my Principal.

But I know that Senator Akpabio sought forgiveness from Senator Akpanudoedehe, but like he is, he only needed a space to break into the leadership of the Nsima Ekere camoaihnd, leading to his failed governorship aspiration; and when it failed at the end, as it is the tradition with Governorship compensation, Senator Akpabio took Nsima Ekere's political compensation for himself. Slimy: you would call him.

He is a hero, no doubt, but he is one in his political mold, but let no one attempt to turn the table down, by trying to tell the story they only joined the APC to inherit, but chose to bear bad narratives around the narratives they met. We have God on our side. The killings in the State for political reasons, in that era, has been on one side in the APC. No matter what anyone say: the Almighty God is the true judge.

This was how they put Jesus to death. They used him against himself, twisted his words, acts and humanity to their advantage. Yet a good thing came out of that sad story, and that was because the story was written by God for himself. I will be a part of that story that God wrote for Akwa Ibom State, in Jesus name. AMEN

I was too short of air following some politicians in my State, and I wonder how those who do, fair conscientiously: is it in the contracts they get, or in the paying for building to live in, or is it in funding one's child's dedication...what is it?

There are those of us who see the politics of the APC in Akwa Ibom State as a struggle, not as a restaurant to fill the belly, or a cultural investment to hang out beads. That struggle took the lives of some young men on our side. Count them!

We won't take the shedding of blood, in any endeavour, for granted, least politics. In the entire APC internal competitions, held across Nigeria in 2018, it was in Akwa Ibom State that 3 young men were shot death for Nsima Ekere to emerge the Governorship Candidate of the APC in my State. May their gentle souls rest in peace.

Let any of those raising their shoulder today, who hunger desperately for political embellishments, political office and the pecks, who are politicians of Akwa Ibom State, stay out of their major public offices for 10 years. Senator Akpanudoedehe stayed out of his for upwards of 12 years until 2020.

Where is the hate coming from? Must Senator Akpanudoedehe accomplish the office of the National Secretary of the APC by another man's templets? Where did that man get his own template that another cannot get his from? Why do people refuse to accord to others what they attract to themselves?

What makes Akpabio embellishable, and robs Akpanudoedehe his own?

That is such show a lack of the basic principle of love. It shows a pathetic arrogance-quotient demonstrated, and a pitiful ego-demonisation suffered by some "NEW MEN" in the APC in Akwa Ibom State. It is definite that we have "Yahoo-Yahoo" politicians in Akwa Ibom State.

By Ini Morgan

This article is written in the interest of the people of Akwa Ibom State: indigenes and residents alike, who have continued to look up to the hills from where, in the words of the Biblical Psalmist, help would always come to those who look up to God to meet their needs and expectations.

The average indigene of Akwa Ibom State has come to believe that only a circle of people have necesaary access to the benefits accruing to the State economically and socio-politically. This year, a year for Nigeria’s transitional politics, is looked upon with prayers in hearts for the best outcome from the exoevted general elections, which electioneering campaigns would be entertained in the year, this time around.

The processes that would lead to the transit of political power to the next generation of leaders at all levels of governance. Except in States where elections are staggered - due to the promotion of absurd political oversight that prolonged the office tenures of persons rather than stick to the tenures awarded to the true stakes at the various elections. The parties, not the persons, are the ones thrown up as winners in elections.

In the Banquet Hall of the Government House, Uyo, on Sunday 29 January 2022, where stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the State - elder statesmen, religious leaders and selected civil servants - assembled to honour the invitation extended to them by the State Governor, His Excellency Mr Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, to introduce to them the official commencement of the race of succession to the Hill Top Mansion, Uyo.

There was a reigning clinche to political governance in Akwa Ibom State during the first half of the 4th Republic, which said “Akwa Ibom is PDP”, but since the entrance and the embrace of opposition politics by one of the foremost founding fathers of the PDP in the State, Senator John James Akpanudoedehe, Ph.D, the PDP assumed the struggle to sustain that clinche.

Since 2011, when the father of the opposition struggle in Akwa Ibom State tested the waters against the State's "Czar of Terror", who ruled the State, at that time, with a bloody fist, by contrsting the 2011 governorship election in the State, nobody uses the clinche anymore since then. I needed to introduce this dimension to the entire plot for this article.

Gathered among others in the Banquet Hall of the Hill Top Mansion, Uyo, were critical stakeholders of the PDP, some of whom are members of the State Executive Council, members of the National Assembly, and members of the State House of Assembly, who have helped to sustain the ruling-streak of the PDP in the State.

These men assisted in no mean terms to the actualisation of the succession plan of the predeceased administration that brought Mr Udom Emmanuel as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State. Not only this, these men were also the tributaries that fed the successful re-election bid of the Governor in 2019.

The least thing Governor Emmanuel should have accorded these men and women, would have been to consult them widely as his predecessor in office did when he produced him as his chosen candidate.

There is nothing wrong with Mr Governor nursing an interest in who succeeds him. There are rights that are inalienable, and one of them is the right to choose. Nobody can therefore find justification in quarrelling with Mr Governor for exercising his franchise of Choice.

Stakeholders in the PDP in Akwa Ibom State who have opened up on that meeting held at the instance of the Governor last Sunday, have sensed the building of a tradition that they hope to crush. In their mental picture is how Governor Emmanuel was picked to succeed his predecessor, and the after effect of their support of that decision.

They have contrasted this picture against the performance of the Governor, not only in the governance of the State, but also in the governance of the ruling party in the State.

The logic they have sustained is in their opposing the tactics of the Governor in avoiding wide consultations, side-lining the stakeholders who immensely deployed their resources for his success in the 2 elections in which he contested and won.

In his attempt to establish a tradition out of the political machinery he inherited from his predecessor, Governor Emmanuel has shown a clear departure from the laid down political formula that brought him to leading Akwa Ibom State, and the intolerance of these stakeholders who hold the winning streak of the PDP in the State may cost the Governor a lot of losses, because of his approach to entrench his desired interest. In politics, God delegates his will to "the voice of the people", as it is popularly said "the voice of the people is the voice of God"

God can never speak in his closet as it concerns the will of the people, especially in their rights to determine who governs them (1 Samuel 8:1-19). Otherwise, rather than consign such decisions to a few Church leaders who are not politicians, Governor Emmanuel would have held a Solemn Assembly of all critical stakeholders of the party, who would form a part of the team to consult God for the Governor. I see a man who employs God's name in vain.

In saying a thing about the winning streak of the PDP in the State, I need to clear out the true reason why the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not bern abke to snatched political power from the PDP up till now – until the best man for the job is fielded by the APC in Akwa Ibom State, the man Senator John James Akpanudoedehe; the party will continue to lose the winning-wand she needs to ascend the Hill Top Mansion, Uyo.

At no better time is the Hill Top Mansion made ready for the occupation of the APC than in the desire of Governor Emmanuel to orchestrate a tradition out of his opportunism, and even at that, he also chose to tamper with the strategy used to actualise his reign by his predecessor – that of pulling every fabric of the party together by an all inclusive consultation, and a working together to pursue and achieve the goal of installing a political neophyte as Governor, and as achieved by his predecessor.

Governor Udom Emmanuel’s attempt to create a tradition out of the mistake his predecessor made, and towing a path that is in reverse of that of his predecessor, who has since regretted his act of imposing the Governor, will end in a retarded climax. This is the reason his anticipated establishment of a tradition that tends to entrench the opportunistic deployment of a successor who is a newbie, will collapse in Akwa Ibom State come 2023.

The problem with the heads of Christian denominations these days is around their verbosity, and they see themselves as beyond humans: attitudes that are against the vulnerable nature of Jesus Christ during his incarnation - a sheep led to the slaughter. There are definite lessons in humility that every Church leader must learn of Jesus Christ?

When I say Pastors talk too much, it is not because they are preachers, it is because, in their preaching, they seek many validations for the erroneous motives they pursue, especially in areas where they need to defend their adoption of the Mosaic law to their replace the grace of God. There can never be any law where there is grace. Grace is the taking away of the law, and the Mosaic tithe is an instrument of the law of Moses. The major objective of grace is in the taking away of the law.

I am not here to talk about the tithe but to dwell on why Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo was in error for calling another man "a nonentity". It is not enough to call anyone a nonentity because he expresses his sincere opinion, and making reference to Elon Reeve Musk, who does not observe tithing, but against the insinuation of Church leaders that wealth comes from tithing, Mr Musk is about the richest man on earth.

I came upon Daddy Freeeze's response to Pastor Fatoyinbo's comment, referred above, and the challenege he (Freeze) threw for a debate with him (Fatoyinbo). This opinion wished that Pastor Fatoyinbo rather defended his taking of tithes materially in a new way, than he chose to muddle himself with name-calling, just to prompt those who pay monies to him against been persuaded not to. What was he afraid of?

His admittance that Elon Musk has someone to whom he pays his own tithes, however true this claims is, I am sure Pastor Fatoyinbo dwelled on assumption when he said this, because he does not know Elon Musk FRS so well to know his own "secret place". Pastor Fatoyinbo assumes that because Elon Musk is so rich, he would have someone to whom he shows his loyalty financially. That thought was wishful. Elon Musk owes his wealth to his creativity, and he pays his taxes for the collective good of all.

What flamboyant Pastor Fatoyinbo refused to identify with, was with the fact that tithing is a Christian principle, and the man he referred to as "a nonentity" expressed the truth that though Elon Musk FRS is not a Christian, and does not observe the principle of tithing, the principle should not be taught as what fetches material riches and prosperity. And I think he is right. What, in that opinion, made Pastor Fatoyinbo uncomfortable to cause him to name-call the man who opined thus?

In order to show Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo how wrong he was for calling another man a nonentity, even when such a man can get his own opinion published in a medium that got to Pastor Fatoyinbo, one thing the young Pastor failed to realise is that the man he called "a nonentity" is an intellectual, and he has a talent in writing. Is that something that should drive a nonentity?

I also write, and I know what it takes me to write an article that earns a place in public fora. Should both Pastor Fatoyinbo and the "nonentity" remove everything material on and around them, how better would Pastor Fatoyinbo appear than the monetity he named? Being a Pastor does not confer Pastor Fatoyinbo the right to be lousy, and it dies not indicate that he has a relationship with God afterall.

Being a Church leader does not authenticate anyone's relationship with God. Pastoring has become an all-comer money-spinning business. He should make his money and allow others do what they also enjoy doing - opening truth up for all to appreciate.

Pastor Fatoyinbo's sense of entity does not make him any different from the man he sees as a nonentity, just because he, Pastor Fatoyinbo, seeks validation for the sponsorship of his material pursuits and seeks to ensure that his greed is fed. He, clearly, refused to show himself as an example of Jesus. He could not contain his provocation from a simple opinion, which was defended by a given example.

If tithing makes a Christian wealthy, how would Pastor Fatoyinbo explain Elon Musk's wealth? And I think that before Pastor Fatoyinbo would accept Daddy Freeze's challenge for a debate on tithing, he needs to check out the following scriptures to help his limited knowledge on the topic he claims so much to understand.

1. Genesis 14:20-24 proves how, in response to the blessing with which Melchizedek blessed him, Abram gave Melchizedek "the tithe of all", and how in that process, the King of Sodom demanded to have the people of Sodom returned to him by Abram, justly surrending the booties he took, from the war he won, to him. Verse 23 to 24 clearly proves that Melchizedek received nothing material from Abram than his commitment to return what belonged to Sodom, as Melchizedek seemingly demanded from Abram.

No man goes to war with his own personal goods, and if Abram despised what was Sodom, would he then have given of the abominable to Melcizedek? No!

2 Malachi 3:1-12, when read with understanding, does not inform the Jews about observing the tithe, but dwells on their having departed from the covenant the Lord entered into with them. In these passages, Prophet Malachi was preparing the minds of the Jews about the coming of Jesus, the true symbol of the covenant of the tithe, and revealed how his coming will change the observation of that covenant, which the Jews had already desecrated. Using the passages of Malachi to authenticate the observance of tithe therefore is deceitful, whoever does so.

Hebrews 7:6-10: Finally, Apostle Paul was inspired to compare the 2 types of priesthood that brought about the 2 Testaments of God's word. These passages picture the drama in the observation of first tithe, observed in 1 above, where the commitment of Abram to return what was Sodom's was counted to him as "the tithe of all".

Interestingly, Levi, who took tithes from his brothers, is said to have given his own (imputed) tithes while he was in the loins of Abram (vs 9-10). Jesus took Levi's (imputed) tithe while he too was in the loins of Melchizedek, the King of Peace, because he is the Prince of Peace. It was the tithe that Jesus took that prepared him as "the Lamb of God" sacrifice for this world of sin. Verse 8 clearly shows that in the place of the monetary tithes people like Pastor Fatoyinbo impose on Christians, Jesus actually "receives the men to whom it is witnessed that he lives."

Tithing is therefore Biblical, but the New Testament tithing is devoid of any example from the Mosaic law. Even in the Mosaic law, money-taking was never a part of what God asked the Jews to give. The essence of the money-changing tables in the temple, which led Jesus into making a whip and chasing the operators out, was from the simplification made for those who could not carrying their tithes to Jerusalem because of the weight, so that they could use money to buy the needs of their tithes within the temple for presentation.

I, therefore, wonder where in scriptures the heads of Christian denominations find the approval to take anything from any believer to represent the tithe. Heads of Christian denominations only desire the parochial prestige of the Jewish religious leadership by loving their religious administrative style, which confers on them a severe-hold on the people, and their financial system, which accords them immense wealth from parading traditional lies in religion.

This was why Pastor Fatoyinbo had the guts to call another man "a nonentity", because he (Fatoyinbo) thinks it is his clothes, houses, and cars that make him an entity. Pastor Fatoyinbo's entity in Christ, and another man's "nonentity" in Christ, makes Christ in them both their Least Common Multiple (LCM) and their Highest Common Factor (HCF). Pastor Fatoyinbo is, himself, nothing without Christ. It is from his using Christ that he feeds fat, seeing himself as an entity. He rather needs to give thanks than to parade himself boastfully.