₦airaland Forum

[size=13pt]Of "Dangerously Brilliant" Minds Working for a  Better Union[/size]

Reno Omokri

An exchange between me and a truly brilliant and well respected Buhari supporter who would remain anonymous.

Dear ***** *****,

Even though I have been a bit wary about visiting saharareporters ever since Pius Adesanmi described me as “dangerously brilliant” ( see One Shior, One Prayer, by Pius Adesanmi- http://saharareporters.com/column/one-shior-one-prayer-pius-adesanmi) I did go there on your say so and read ElNathan John's piece (see Buhari, The Many North’s and Justice- http://saharareporters.com/article/buhari-many-norths-and-justice-elnath, ). In fact I absorbed it. I agree with most of what he wrote. However, let me now respond to you without using politically correct language.

The Nigerian state is called a Federal Government, but this is a misnomer. It is also wishful thinking for ElNathan to expect World Class good government in Nigeria as long as we remain in our current unitary state. For Nigeria to operate at her best capacity, there needs to be structural changes and those changes can only be delayed they cannot be resisted.

For instance, no one pays taxes in Nigeria. Only corporations do and even at that there are major loopholes in tax collections. You cannot have good government without people demanding good government and as long as Nigerians do not pay taxes and Nigeria is run from the proceeds of oil rents Nigerians will not be moved enough to demand good government because no one looks a gift horse in the mouth and oil money is a gift horse. The only people who may really be moved to anger at the misuse of oil rents are those from the Niger Delta because they are the only ones paying a price (destruction of their environment) for it.

Nigeria is a unitary state with too much power concentrated at the center. The structure on which Nigeria is built is very defective. Because Nigeria is a unitary state, every ethnic group wants their son desperately in charge at the center so that they can have access to the fabled National cake.

Because of this mentality, you cannot use the law successfully to punish those who loot or misuse power because such attempts even if they are genuine (and in many cases they are not) will be politicized and ethnicized until very soon the innocent bystander is so confused he is unable to unravel where good starts and evil begins.

So what is the key? We really have to go back to that peculiar form of Federalism called Regionalism that our fore fathers negotiated with the British and which was in existence until the "class of 1966" struck.

No state will be sufficiently motivated to be self sufficient if they know that with or without effort on their part, they will get a monthly cheque from the Federation account, so why even try? Newton’s First Law of Motion (Every body remains in a state of constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force. This means that in the absence of a non-zero net force, the center of mass of a body either remains at rest, or moves at a constant velocity) proves this.

As such our population is growing at a geometric progression and we are totally dependent on exports for our food security.

No one pays taxes (some may claim that they do but they invariably are those who want something from the system e.g. politicians wanting to contest for public office, others in such fields as the banking or telecoms sector under report their income in connivance with their employers and pay only a trifle) so we see ourselves as onlookers in a welfare state controlled by a 'father Christmas' Federal Government.

But if we go back to pre 1966 Nigeria, all that will change.

Each state has to be the direct beneficiary of its own resources like it is in any truly Federal system. This means True and Fiscal Federalism. You should not take tax money from Lagos state and share it amongst 36 states. Lagos should ideally keep the bulk and pay a tax to the Federal Government or the FG collects for Lagos, takes her percentage and remits the bulk back to Lagos.

Also you should not take electricity from Niger state and run it through the National Grid and all the proceeds go to the Federal Government. Ideally, the Federal Government should buy it from Niger state or it may even be a Private Firm tapping the resource and paying Niger state.



The same goes for oil, Cocoa and cash crops.

If we do not let Nigerians via their states take possession of their God given resources, Nigeria’s story may keep being the story of ‘Anybody’. You may know it, but I will repeat it below;

    There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it.
    Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.
    Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
    Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
    Everybody thought Anybody could do it,
    but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
    It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody.

It was competition between the pre-1966 regions that saw the North building universities to catch up with Awolowo's West. That saw Zik building Industrial Centers to catch up with what Awolowo did in Ikeja. And it was the fear of being left behind that made Balewa's government in the Center come up with and implement ambitious National Development Plans that saw Nigeria build Kainji Dam and expand her country wide road network.

Nigerians see the Federal Government as a cow that everyone is free to milk and no one is obliged to feed. If you place Europeans, Americans and the Japanese under the same conditions as Nigerians you will in my view have the same result. We need a better union and we will keep facing all these symptoms of a bad marriage (religious/ethnic clashes, corruption, electoral disputes etc) if we do not fix the union.

We must find a way to return Nigeria to her pre-1966 state which was what our fore fathers agreed with the British and which was encapsulated in our own unique form of Federalism called Regionalism and allow all her component parts make progress at their own pace because we are not all at the same level in our social, economic and cultural evolution -which explains why ethnic/religious clashes thrive in one area while trickery and what we call 419 thrives in another and in yet another part kidnapping and militancy is their anti social devices because we each have different ways of reacting to the stress that we have been subjected to since barely literate soldiers intervened in our body politics and upset a system that was put together by visionaries like Obafemi Awolowo who himself was some sort of genius and Ahmadu Bello, who was more tolerant of other ethnic and religious groups than any of his successors and Nnamdi Azikiwe who even dreamt that Pan Nigerianism will grow and eventually encapsulate Pan Africanism.

If we do not fix these structural defects in Nigeria, we will keep staring at a mirror and try to alter the image we see without altering ourselves first. As Elbert Einstein said, madness is not just walking the streets unclothed and talking to oneself, it also involves doing the same things and expecting a different result.

So, you, ElNathan and I may write about these past elections until we are red in the face, but it will not change anything if we do not return to a system that creates a level playing field for all Nigerians i.e. True Federalism, Fiscal Federalism, Resource Control and the Freedom of all Nigerians to pursue their own aspirations in a level playing field without feeling that they are being prevented from reaching any goal because of their ethnicity and religion.

In conclusion, what Buhari is feeling today is that people did not vote for him not because he is not a good and honest man with a strong moral foundation because I believe that he is and I suspect that most people who did not vote for him likewise believe this.

But it is now becoming obvious especially when you look at the now famous electoral map that people refrained from voting for him because the CPC dangerously used ethnicity and religion to project its presidential candidate pre and post election.

What goes around seems to have come around. This feeling of Buhari that he lost an election because people focused not on him but on his ethnicity is not some new feeling that Buhari alone feels. It has been felt by others before him.

Awolowo, Aminu Kano, Joseph Tarka, Shehu Yar’adua (not Umaru, but his elder brother) Abiola, Olu Falae, Pat Utomi and recently Nuhu Ribadu have at one time or the other had this feeling and rued their fate. And if you, ElNathan and I do not find a way, a peaceful way of leveling the playing fields and opening the floodgates that all may go in then the same thing will keep happening because as Einstein proved, nothing changes if we do not first be the change we want to see in our immediate environment.

This means that had Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) and others like him stood up to be counted on the side of justice on June 12, 1993 and insisted that Abacha not act the  usurper and trample on the rights of another good man in the person of Chief M.K.O. Abiola and allow him to implement his vision for Nigeria that was termed ‘Farewell to Poverty’, we will be talking of a very different Nigeria today in which a man like Buhari can be electable.

But if memory serves us well, rather than do that, Buhari chose to frolic with the usurper of Abiola’s mandate as Abacha’s head of the PTF.

Taken together, all these opened the eyes of most Nigerians to the fact that while they wanted change they did not want the type of change that Buhari represented.




Reno Omokri inspired an "interesting reply" from this guy: Alphonsius Chimaobi
for those who are interested:-> http://www.saharareporters.com/article/exposing-reno-omokris-our-time

[size=13pt]Buhari, Many Norths and Justice[/size]

ElNathan John

April 23, 2011

I have read many articles, intelligent and painfully ignorant, about the current crises, which any Northerner or perceptive observer could have predicted. I am neither shocked nor confounded by the riots and the killings.

I choose to ignore the ignorant comments especially from people who live on the other side of the Niger behind computers and blackberry’s that have no clue about the complexity of this ‘North’. This crisis is a bit different in my estimation from the other mindless religious conflicts that have visited the north. For the first time in the North (especially the Muslim North), I heard young uneducated men expressing hope that for once there is a worthy man on the ballot; that at last their time has come. For the first time, there was actual trust in a person to whom they bequeathed all their dreams.

This man was General Buhari. Anyone who speaks Hausa and knows the Hausa speaking people will know the importance of the concept of ‘amana’. Trust. It is the one thing that is cherished above most things in the Muslim North. It is not uncommon for you to meet a Hausa petty trader to give you goods without money or collateral, regardless of whether he knows you or not. In fact I still remember how my mother at the market in U/Rimi in the North of Kaduna city, would stop a Hausa motorcyclist (she always insisted on a Hausa man) whom she had never met, give him her shopping sometimes worth thousands and describe her house to him. She would pay him and not fret about the things reaching home.

My mother always only bought meat from Hausa Muslims because she trusted that it would be fresh and that it was not a dead animal. In Hausa communities, shops would be left open when people went to say their prayers. Amana. Trust. This is the trust that has been squandered by Northern leaders, notably in the past 12 years-members of the PDP led ruling class, and before that, military and traditional leaders. These Northern leaders have destroyed every level of trust given to them without questioning by their people. One man seemed to rise above all the filth, above all the distrust. They noticed his lifestyle. They didn’t see flashy cars in his drive way.

They didn’t see his kids drive around town recklessly with loud music spending plenty money on their pre pubescent girlfriends. They didn’t hear scandals of massive overseas accounts. They met him at petrol stations. They saw an honest, straightforward, religious man.

So when they went to the streets, they went first after their own leaders who had squandered this trust and those who they perceive had abetted them. Sadly, as with all mob actions, it provided the perfect cover for criminals, miscreants and those with sinister agendas (and there are plenty in this North- politicians, thieves and fundamentalists). So eventually, churches were burnt and innocent people killed. However, the man is a Muslim and unapologetically so. He has not been afraid to express his ‘Muslimness’ in public.

This alone is enough to constitute a problem in the North. For we are not one North. We are many North’s. There is the Muslim North. The uneducated rural North. The aristocratic North. The cosmopolitan North. The Christian North… each with its own interests and sometimes as different from each other as people from different countries. The marginalisation of minority groups in the North has also hurt Buhari who is seen as the face of the oppressor by at least some in the Christian minority.

The countless religious crises have divided the North and created mutual suspicion, further highlighting the fact that the idea of a single united North is a myth. Some have suggested that Sardauna created one North and that we only recently created divisions.

This is far from the truth. The facade, which was One North, was in fact a mix of dominant and dominated people, peace existing only because the quiet grievances of minorities like non-Muslims had not concretised into vocal movements for the exercise of rights. The Jos crisis is a classic example of the manifestation of decades of frustration among the minorities.

That manifestation though reactionary is more than a knee jerk reaction. It is minorities paranoid about the increasing dominance of the majority and taking rash actions to hold onto power, land and resources in a region where the dominant sentiment among minorities is that if you are not Hausa Fulani or Muslim, you will be marginalised. The decades of injustice meted out on Nigerians by their leaders have made eventual violent reaction inevitable.

The many poisonous variables in our polity, which have been allowed to interact under the lazy watch of Nigeria’s thieving political class, have fixed themselves firmly in our polity. What we are now dealing with are just the early warning signs of a cancer that is malignant. Our mutual suspicions make us easy to exploit and set against each other, so that while we are fighting over whose god is bigger, our government loots the commonwealth.

Where there is no justice there cannot be peace. An aggrieved man is many times an irrational man. It is wrong to always judge a reaction, which is unplanned, when you do not judge first, the action, which is planned. A reaction is many times worse than an action, for it is delivered without a sense of proportion, only a sense of wanting release.

There is usually more passion in a reaction. He who sets a ball rolling should prepare to follow it wherever it rolls to. This government has a choice. To move beyond its rigged landslide victory and actually give its citizens a semblance of justice.

To move from the hawks that now have it by the scrotum, namely PDP party investors, and work for its citizens- give them roads, electricity and rule of law. To provide infrastructure and stop the massive looting of government resources that is now going on. Or. To oversee the early days of the disintegration of a Nigerian state that has miraculously held on for the past 50 years.

http://saharareporters.com/article/buhari-many-norths-and-justice-elnathan-john

Next, read Reno Omokri's. . .

Although it depends on which American Political Historian you talk to, the 1912 US presidential election is regarded as one of those elections that changed America. Personally, I think every election is unique.

America is important because we currently practice a copy and paste version of their democracy and IMO, rather poorly and "uncreatively" too.

For those who enjoy politics like I do, below is a pretty decent Times Magazine list of elections that changed America. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1856551,00.html

Sidney M. Milkis in his article "Why the Election of 1912 Changed America" said;

"The 1912 presidential election showcased four impressive candidates who engaged in a remarkable debate about the future of American politics"

I recommend Milkins article (link below). There are many parallels and similarities to Nigeria in that short review of the 1912 US Election, at least for those who like comparative politics. http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1152/article_detail.asp

So, I am not going to refer to the few debates we witnessed between the Presidential contestants during this 2011 election as anything close to remarkable, but I will call the many passionate debates among their  supporters both on and offline, very interesting.

For me, This is probably the most interesting election Nigeria has ever had, that is just my perspective. I have a feeling folks from my father's generation will disagree.

NOTE: Now, I'm not writing an analysis of the 2011 election (too lazy for that) rather, I'm posting three recent articles from 3 different perpectives about what this election and its outcome means. I think these 3 articles captured quite a bit of the reasons behind the thunderous collision of zeal, emotion, passion and shall I say; confusion? we've witnessed so far.

Save for Pius Adesanmi, the writers of these articles were unknown to me before this election, but their perspectives here reflect a lot of my thoughts, conclusions and fears. I do not see these folks as professional political analysts, maybe Adesanmi is, But I rather view them as bearers of the popular opinion and sentiments that has come to define the debates during the 2011 election. One other reason why I chose them; At least one referenced the other in their article.

The next four years will be interesting indeed.

Enjoy!


BTW, Beaf, if you are reading this, everytime I read Reno Omokri, I just assume he's you. I bet I'm wrong. . .

First, let's read Pius Adesanmi:



[size=13pt]One Shior (hiss?) One Prayer[/size]

Pius Adesanmi

In the aftermath of the heavily-rigged process that led to the election of Goodluck Jonathan last weekend, two groups actors in the Nigerian drama have been doing everything other than keep their eyes on the ball of reality: how to rescue something, anything at all from four more years of the nightmare that is the PDP.

One set comprises a mix of Buhari and Ribadu supporters and a considerable fragment of the progressive community who, like Ambassador John Campbell, understand that the electoral process was ambushed at the collation centres where the rigging took place, beyond the vigilance of voters, domestic, and international observers at the polling units. For this group, the past week has been a season of frustration, angst, and lamentation for Sodom – apologies to Tera Kota.

The other group is a more complex mix. First is the national archetype that I see in my mom, who threw all of her seventy-three years into canvassing and footsoldiering for the democratic process in our own little corner of Nigeria and assures me now on the phone, barely able to restrain her pro-Jonathan excitement, that “this presidential election was just like June 12: free, fair, and orderly.”

I love listening to my mom on the phone these days as I quietly study the dexterity with which she alternates diametrically opposed sentences in very rapid succession, evidence of her continued sojourn in the dilemma-world of those who operated a subconscious scission between Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in the presidential election.

As one of those pensioners whose sociology I engaged in my lecture, “Baba E Wi Hun Hun”, my mom hates the PDP with extraordinary passion. But that hatred leaves sufficient room for her to love Goodluck Jonathan with extraordinary passion.

Once she zooms in on Jonathan, the PDP recedes magically into immediate oblivion. Hence, our typical conversation nowadays has my mom giving me something like this: “hmm, awon PDP olori buruku wonyi! It is only God that has given us this Jonathan. Wo aduru iya to je wa l’owo awon PDP yen! God will guide and protect Jonathan for us.” And the succession of mutually-exclusive sentences continue, my mom completely oblivious of the contradiction.

One sentence in Yagba or Yoruba, the next sentence in English; one epe (curse) for the PDP in sentence A, one prayer for Jonathan in sentence B; one shior for the PDP in sentence C, an invocation to the hosts of heaven to guide and protect Jonathan in sentence D, all in one rapid breath. My mom’s post-election sentence structure would be Disneyland for Farooq Kperogi.

When I eventually get to put in a word, I try to restore Goodluck Jonathan to his insalubrious and irredeemably corrupt and visionless PDP habitat for my mom but I ain’t lucky yet. She doesn’t hear the PDP part of my protestation. My mom sees Jonathan. Just Jonathan. Not PDP. If only that were possible! I am not worried about my mom though.

These days, I worry a great deal about what lies ahead for the huge fragment of Nigeria’s impala generation – I define them as thirty-five years and below in my last lecture – who, like my mom and the Jonathanics in her own generation, are now caught up in the ‘one shior one prayer’ dilemma.

Since the election, thousands of youths have spent long hours in Cyberia trying to sell this curious scission: I voted Jonathan, not PDP. They don’t like the PDP. Of course not! Hence, in their Facebook status updates, in their tweets, my mom’s formula is scrupulously respected: one shior for the PDP, one prayer for Jonathan. This is often followed by evidence of a nascent short fuse for those of us who remain amused and unpersuaded: we are abused as naysayers and given the instant-mix blackmailing tag – haters of Jonathan.

Borrowing from 9ice, I described this generation as “Da Most Incredible out of Naija” in my Edmonton lecture. I believe that I was accurate in my description. It’s an energetic generation that continues to deliver on the promise and possibility that is Nigeria even with very little resources.

Whether they voted Jonathan and are now shior-ing the PDP in one sentence and praying for Goodluck in the next sentence, or they rode in Kayode Ogundamisi’s hold your change o Buhari Express during the election, or they fanned across Nigeria in Team Ribadu units, their footsoldiering, social media activism, and expansive networking are all pointers to the rise of a third force in Nigeria’s chequered struggle for the entrenchment of democracy and for a radical change of course.

But this is precisely the point at which dangers emerge: the danger of chest-beating complacency on the one hand and the danger of embezzlement of initiative by opportunistic hirelings of the Nigerian status quo on the other hand.

I have spent considerable time since the election quietly following a swathe of the pro-Jonathan youth online. The fumes of victory are yet to clear up and give way to a considered assessment of present realities and the tasks ahead.

Online, it is still morning yet in planet euphoria: ‘we made it!’, ‘we have overcome!’, ‘we have prevailed’; and the canticles of triumphalist jubilation go on and on.

Lost in the mist of all the jubilation is the fact that the agendas of the emergent youth movement were bigger than any individual. From Enough is Enough to the hundreds of take-Nigeria-back or transform-Nigeria youth groups that emerged in Cyberia as a fallout of the electoral violation of 2007, the voices of Nigerian youth that we heard served notice of the emergence of a social movement that was going to reject the old order and begin the process of charting a new course for the nation.

Irrespective of who won or rigged the election, the big issues, the big agendas, were going to remain transcendental and immanent.

For me, the greatest rigging that is going on before our eyes is how the putative gains and the enormous potential of this youth movement to become the bedrock of enduring social change is quietly being whittled down into a personality cult of Goodluck Jonathan. And those lost in the pro-Jonathan Facebook and twitter bacchanals appear not to be conscious of the help they are receiving from President Jonathan’s hirelings.

President Jonathan is surrounded by some dangerously brilliant individuals who understand the enormous power of narratives. Nothing is scarier than minds trained in the best tradition of the humanities when such minds become intellectual mercenaries in the hands of power and the establishment.

Enter Oronto Douglas. Enter Reno Omokri. The latter is even more dangerous because of where he is located and the audience listening to his embezzled narratives.

These two are dangerous because their minds have been humanized by the humanities. There is no cerebral force that a Moses Ochonu or a Farooq Kperogi can deploy that they cannot deploy. They have read the books that we have read. Imagine such cerebral capital in the hands of power – power that is determined to embezzle a particular narrative and throw it into the cauldron of official myth making.

The mission of these two gentlemen – and many more like them in President Jonathan’s camp – has been to carefully orchestrate a renarrativization of the emergent Nigerian online youth movement not as the greatest post-Independent force for transcendental social change but as posterity’s gift to Goodluck Jonathan.

Hence, when the wily Reno Omokri addresses the Atlantic Council and entitles his paper, “How Social Media and the Youth helped achieve Credible Elections in Nigeria”, only the unwary would fail to detect his casuistry. Mr. Omokri’s effort is all about corralling the grand narrative of youth effort into a legitimation of official mythology.

Mr. Omokri also presides over a vast opium of the youth empire on Facebook on behalf of President Jonathan.


Mr. Omokri produces the sort of opium that could sedate and divert our youth’s attention from the prevailing tasks that must be done.

Those still doing ‘one shior one prayer’ on Facebook need to snap out of celebration mode and face the fact that they have imposed the PDP on the rest of us for four – and possibly eight – more years. They have spoken and we respect their choice – even if we profoundly disagree with the manner and circumstances of Mr Jonathan’s victory.

While we can no longer do anything about the choice of a President for the next four years, we can and must prevent the Reno Omokris of this world from twisting the narrative of the youth movement into an unrecognizable mythology rooted in a subterranean cult of President Jonathan.

If the youth movement snaps out of celebration mode in Cyberia, shuns the opium of presidential spinmeisters, and regains traction, an immediate task would be for it to become a monumental pressure group come watchdog that would perpetually keep President Jonathan’s feet to the fire.

These social media activist groups are myriad and inchoate but it is not impossible for them to agree on the need to put the President’s feet to the fire and work for it. Mr. Jonathan has been a wholesale disappointment in the areas of cabinet composition, work rate, and his perception of the critical segments of our population that he needs to engage as the real stakeholders in national development. I don’t know who rubs off on the other – Mr Jonathan or his cabinet.

The President’s boring and uninspiring demeanour appears to infect his cabinet. From the somnambulistic Odein Ajumogobia to the dour Olusegun Aganga, Mr. Jonathan appears to be particularly gifted in the composition of forgettable and pity-inspiring cabinets doing zero work for the Nigerian people.

I didn’t know that anybody could make me look back on President Yar’Adua’s inspirational cabinet! The only two visible members of President Jonathan’s cabinet, Mohammed Adoke and Diezani Allison-Madueke, are in public consciousness because they are corrupt. Adoke is even worse than Aondoakaa.

Young people who voted massively for him and who are the real owners of his mandate as far as I am concerned will now have to make it clear to the President that they are tired of an Executive Council of the Federation that meets once a week only to approve inflated contracts. Sonala Olumhense calls our laughable EXCOF a “contract bazaar”. Such is their indolence that when they are not approving contracts, they gather to approve new Nigerian citizenships recommended by the Nigerian Immigration Service!

I almost shed tears the day I read a report in the newspapers that the EXCOF had approved newly naturalized citizens! What next? Our President and his ministers will assemble to approve newly elected state chairmen of NURTW?

The youth movement should also be extremely vigilant and pay attention to how the President defines “stakeholders” going forward. There is a very real danger that President Jonathan will never rise above the primitive, rent-collecting interests of the retrogressive and expired forces in his party that we need to put out of the picture for Nigeria to make any headway.

My assessment of things is that we will likely have a Presidency that continues to recognize and engage the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Olushola Saraki, Bukola Saraki, Iyabo Obasanjo, Dimeji Bankole, Bode George, Tony Anenih, Andy Uba, Chris Uba, Gbenga Daniel, Ahmadu Ali, Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, Adamu Ciroma, Orji Uzor Kalu, and so many others in that nefarious ilk as “stakeholders” to be recycled into one form of relevance and patronage or the other.

I told a dear friend privately on Facebook that as a respected chieftain of the PDP, James Ibori may even get to nominate ministers into President Jonathan’s new cabinet from his prison cell in Britain.

Left to his own devices, President Jonathan will certainly dump the youth – Reno Omokri can always take care of them via honey-coated Facebook status updates until they are needed again in 2015 – and pitch his tent with the PDP’s traditional “stakeholders”, “chieftains”, and “elder statesmen”.

His party has no vision, no philosophy, and no actionable programmes that could reward the citizenship of our vibrant youth anyway. And he has always behaved like someone who believes that he needs or owes the expired chieftains in his party. Only the sustenance of the energy and voices of our youth could provide enough countervailing force to keep him on track.

And these expired chieftains should respect themselves going forward and keep to their country homes. E don do. Chief Anenih has been useful lately.

He now uses his bullet-proof jeep to save lives in Uromi. If he continues to provide that vital security service to ordinary people in Uromi rather than chieftaining, misterfixing, and godfathering our lives into more PDP misery in Abuja, we shall pretend to temporarily forget to ask Mrs. Farida Waziri to look into how he was able to afford a bullet-proof jeep in the first place.

We shall also temporarily not remember to ask him what happened to that eye-popping allocation that was supposed to fix our roads, especially the Lagos-Benin expressway, when he was works minister.

In essence, the momentum of the online youth movement needs to be sustained now in the immediate direction of rescuing the next four years from the real danger of a tragic hijack by the the PDP and the usual suspects.

The youth who have done so much for our country and lost so many nation-builders along the way in the dawn of life – when I opined in my Edmonton lecture that to die in your twenties is to die in your old age in a country where the age of the youth must be denominated in impala years and not human years, I couldn’t in my wildest imagination have envisaged that we would lose so many youth corpers – should be mindful of the fact that if we get eight more locust years from the PDP, most of them would be inching close to forty.

If, however, they realize that it is not yet Uhuru and consolidate the efforts they have deployed so admirably thus far online, they remain the most potent agents that could force results out of President Jonathan in the next four years. They need to ask of the President: choose ye this day whom ye will serve - your party chieftains or the youth of Nigeria.

If he chooses the youth – he gets a prayer

If he sticks with his chieftains and godfathers – shior!

http://saharareporters.com/column/one-shior-one-prayer-pius-adesanmi

Next, Read El Nathan John's perspective. . .

Make fun of our President ke? That's my favorite Nigerian ever, hmm when I grow up, I want to be lucky like uncle Jona.

naijababe:
^ So says the princess of Lagos wey no gree help her poor friends buy cheap land for Lekki? No be me grow up with 3 TV for dia house o

Small Correction: 3 TVs in her bedroom. Kai!

Anyway sha, Igbehin a dun. God dey.

At least Jonathan still go school without shoes but with uniform, me wey I wear only singlet reach Standard 6 nko?

Hmmm, we thank God sha.

Isale, enamored? As in your Right brain seeking Left brain balance? Hmm

False sense of security? Another liberal art register shey?  

Naijababe can't fool us anymore. She obviously sits in a pent house corner office with a magnificent view of the North sea.

Isale uses so much liberal arts lingo, she'll make pure science people have inferiority complex

^^ Restless warriors don't usually take vacations.

When they do, they are like ambassadors, they observe all holidays, both home and abroad.

Translated:

When the vicissitudes of life depresses you, when man breaks your heart, anchor your thoughts on our shared covenant of faithfulness.

Although, I may not not have the powers to stop the storms of life or change the hearts of men;  Be cheerful my friend, let your heart rejoice because of the fleeting nature of time, because life does not follow time like a gun's shaft follows its handle.

It is true, God is the only true friend, there is no comforter or backbone like the king of glory, the wonderful God; My hope lies in the Lord, My heart trusts in his protective hands.

Still, I stretch out my hands of loyalty and friendship towards you, that you may take it without second thoughts, because I know every man needs a covenant that helps lessen the weight of life.

I'm yours, I make a promise to share all I have with you, a promise to rejoice with you in the times of plenty, and to sympathise and stand by you in your moments of despair.

In the hope that my love will be forever, May God be my strength. Amen





You must tell that guy to pay us something o, I don't write wedding vows for free o

[quote author=isale_gan2 link=topic=590933.msg8203060#msg8203060 date=1303760924]P.S. The rating is for how hard it is to translate. What are you grading? How good the letter is?[/quote]My rating was for how simple the Yoruba is IMO 

1 = Very easy
5 = Conc. Ijinle

Clients go vex, no time to translate now o.

“The ridiculous claim by the cleric that Buhari is culpable because there were disturbances where he won is like calling Oritsejafor a hemp smoker because someone is seen smoking marijuana around the premises of Word of Life Bible Church. Absurdity!

”Our collective memory is not so short as not to know that unlike other revered men of God who have been on that exalted seat and spoke truth to power in the order of Samuel who put God's command above the fat of oxen, we don't have a quote of Pastor “Oritsejafor on the unbridled corruption and open banditry that has been the defining rule of governance in the country. The images of him the people have is roaming the villa corridors and parading government houses across Nigeria giving spiritual succour to treasury looters.

“If Pastor Oritsejafor happens to be a sounding board for President Jonathan's crackdown, we strongly suspect he is, we can only say: G00D LUCK!”

Na wa o

Nigerian politics is becoming even more comedic, I hope they won't start charging us money to follow it 

[quote author=isale_gan2 link=topic=590933.msg8202880#msg8202880 date=1303759120]Kilode?! Kilode?! Kilode?![/quote]Okunrin lon ke si 

How hard do you think it is?  Come on now.   

I Think maybe 3/5 ?

I'm a very generous grader

[quote author=isale_gan2 link=topic=590933.msg8202737#msg8202737 date=1303757621]Yoruba Language - Lesson 1

Assignment:
1) TRANSLATE into English;
2) State the DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY of translation, using a rating of 1-5, 1 being easy Yoruba that a 12 yr old bilingual speaker should know, and 5 being Yoruba so hard and obsolete only a grandfather or a Yoruba college major would understand.

I am serious. Everyone (reading it) has to do this!
_________________________________________________


Nigba ti iriri aye ba n fa irewesi, ti omo adari hu'run si n ba'nilokan je,
je ki ero re sinmi lori ileri is'ododo mi pelu re. Bi o tile je pe n' ko ni
agbara lati mu iji aye duro tabi yi okan omo eniyan pada; tuju ka ore mi,
ki osi ma ranti lati je ki okan re maa yo nitoripe igba kan o lo bi orere,
bee si ni aye kii to bi opaa 'bon.

L'otito ni pe Eledua ni kan ni ore ododo, bee si ni ko s'alatileyin kan bi
oba oga ogo, oba alara; ireti mi wa ninu Oluwa, okan mi si ni 'gbagbo pe
ara ire ni yio ma fi wa da. Sibe sibe, mo na owo isore alai l'ero idale si
o, mo si lero fun itewogba aise'yemeji, nitori wipe mo mo pe gbogbo omo
adamo lo ni lo imule tii je ki agbelebu aye fuye fun ni lati gbe.

Mo wa fun o, mo si s'leri lati fi gbogbo ohun ti moni ba o lo, ipinu mi ni
lati ba o dun nu ni gba opo, ba k' edun ni gba ti sonmoni ba lo tiirin.

Ni igbagbo pe n o ma fe o titi lai, k'eledua o ran mi lowo (ASE).[/quote]You dey practise wedding vows ni ?

Se o fe se igbeyawo ni?

Invite us to come chop Iyan and Obe Isapa o

Katsumoto:
There are many online institutions such as the university of phoenix that can assist with that.

I heard it's ranked number one in the Ivy-league of cyber unis.

I'm an internet warrior, I'm sure they will take me. . .

www.daydreamerdegrees.edu/ADMITTED

[quote author=isale_gan2 link=topic=590933.msg8201784#msg8201784 date=1303748575]O ya, Kilode. It's your turn. People are waiting.[/quote]If I confess and reveal, Seun w'ld have no other choice than to shut down Nairaland for good

chavs = Shepke boys.

Too much ogogoro and wife snatching, too little game

SEFAGO:
Yes ooo, ZnO no dey carry last
BSc Crop Science (2003) Msc Plant Science (1998) PhD More Plant Science (1995)

LOOOOL @ the Progression abi na Retrogression.

I need to hustle harder and quickly acquire my internet DD and D.Sc in Paleontological Dentistry and Micro-Quantum Computational Physics. <<-- I only need 5weeks max!

[quote author=ekt_bear link=topic=653844.msg8201685#msg8201685 date=1303747718]Why exactly is anyone expecting a SW/North alliance in 4 years with the SW taking VP?

If GEJ is performing well, what incentive do we have to accept only VP?

You'll have to deliver a lot more than that.[/quote]I really hate to do all these VP, President sharing talk, I'll rather we reduce the power at the center and strengthen the Regions, states and LGA.

BUT

I have to say; I see no reason why Fashola should be VP to anybody under this current political arrangement, at least not Sanusi, Who be Sanusi? what has he administered? Fashola is a better politician and administrator with more experience at political bridge building than Sanusi.

@ Katsumoto, You are a good sport. I actually thought you'd bring up those Ancient, Jurassic period 18 titles, apparently you don't live in the past like some fake REDs I know.

Y'all still have more class than those shekpe boys

Katsumoto:
You had to find a reason for us not to get along. Damn, you are a manure fan. You have bragging rights for now but your reign is coming to an end. Your gum chewing manager is going to retire soon and manure will have less effect on refs.

Reds Fan? I laugh Ke Ke Ke Ke Ke Ke like Becomrich

On a second thought, I actually like the REDs( when they are not playing their Football god's of course) The Miracle of Istanbul was one of my favorite games ever. . .


Thing is, Liverpool is like that weak little cousin you just love to cheer on at a school ground brawl, even though you know he has no chance in hell of beating the school bullies

BTW, SAF will be replaced by another Aristocrat -another blueblooded Lord of the fields- Minions and Serfs(or refs) have no choce but to obey the Lords of Trafford Castle, Refs are mostly British afterall, they recognize the pecking order

Gbawe:
If that is Ribadu's desire then I wish him the best of luck. It can only be good for Nigeria , in 2015, if the CPC is fielding the likes of Ribadu while ACN is hosting Fashola. Good to see that , finally , those who can make a difference are getting involved and staying involved.

Gbawe, That is the key right there in bold.

Exactly what I expected them to do, rushing out to make noise 6 months to election every four years is just silly politics. I hope they stay on and challenge PDP policies with workable alternatives till they can try again.

Hopefully Buhari will put his weight behind these more progressive  Northern leaders -El-Rufai, Ribadu and co.

It's time to chase touts and laggards out of politics and policy making.

AjanleKoko:
I like Wenger. He's an idealist in a greedy capricious world of glory-seekers.

Yes. but, it's a very dangerous world for idealists, they get eaten up too easily by sharks, although we honour them when they succeed. But still dangerous.

naijababe:
Takes a little break to laugh . Now back to vexing

I will dash you one Carling cup

[quote author=Ibo-made link=topic=653508.msg8199869#msg8199869 date=1303726867]Fashola's brain should be cloned and given to the other governors in Nigeria.[/quote]

vigasimple:
Governors from Lagos state, Kaduna, Kano, Rivers states shuold be automatically shortlisted for the Presidency,
FASHOLA for Presidency 2015. RIBADU FOR VP, SULLIVAN FOR PARTY CHAIRMAN

LOL

^^^ Arsenal fan 

Why? Why? why?

Wenger hurts too many people, that proud French man is a killer of dreams, hopes, friendships etc.

Anyway, there's nothing a few trophies can't redeem. I will send one your way.

Damn how did I miss this thread.

*Grabs popcorn*

*waiting for next Internet professor*

^^^ haha you are playing omo Awo nicely.

That Odu is not for old men like OBJ, he's already past his prime, we gave him many chances to redeem himself.

His future is already here. BUT in the spirit of Forgiveness and because I realize that ~Ogẹdẹ dudu ko ya busan ọmọ buruku ko ya lupa~ I might recommend Odu Otura Meji for him.

It is ok to play Esu Odara for OBJ, but if he's still going on with his usual haughty ways, even the Irunmoles might not be able to save him from the wrath of Olodumare.

PS I'm not sure I got the name of that Odu(Osara Meji/Otura Meji correctly, I will find and post if it's not too long,

^^ I know you will defend him.

Anyway, you can take custody as long as you keep him in chains, Awon Iya ti ko Aremu.

American? Like CIA?

Awori Eko + Awori Ogun + Osun + Oyo + Ondo + Ekiti + Edo + maybe Itsekiri + Nupe = Accepted

The only reject is OBJ, Odu'a koo towo tese

The saddest thing you can be is a wenger fan boy. Dashed hopes since 19gbogboro

Anyway I don't hate em( when they are not playing us) I reserve that emotion for the shekpe boys.

Oga Katsumoto, suuru lo gba o, I bet you guys are used to it already.

One United!

I dey dance o.

[quote author=isale_gan2 link=topic=590933.msg8196253#msg8196253 date=1303671964]Whatever bad day you're having pales in comparison to this guy's.   

[flash=400,360]http://www.youtube.com//v/ENLr2GwgYWs[/flash][/quote]I don't mean to gloat. . .BUT it's such a great day HAHAHAHAHAHA

Wenger's expression = priceless

ONE UNITED!! <<-- the only great thing about the British