₦airaland Forum

Mrs. Ezekwesili, the World Bank VP questioned how the FG spent the $65billion savings Obasanjo administration left behind...In response, The Minister of Information made a sweeping statement that the savings wasn't $65billion...he went further to say that Mrs. Ezekwesili must account for the N458billion that was budgeted to her during her tenure as the Minister of Education between 2005-06...hmm...Is that how a government Minister should address an allegation so weighty as this?

I have come to a conclusion that this GOVERNMENT IS GONE PAST REDEMPTION so going to Redemption Camp was waste of time

Nigeria’s minister of information, Labaran Maku, has wasted no time in responding to the speech made by former education minister and vice president of the World Bank, Obiageli Ezekwesili. The speech which has gone viral, prompted Maku to release a statement on Sunday, where he stated bluntly and without mincing words that “Ezekwesili got it wrong.”

Maku said that in Ezekwesili’s speech, she betrayed a “surprisingly limited understanding of government finances,” which he considered worrying, considering that the she has ”held senior positions in government, and more recently, a position as a Vice President of the World Bank.”

He said that some of the figures quoted by Ezekwesili were downright fictitious.

For instance, her claims that “the governments of Presidents Musa Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan have squandered $67 billion in reserves (including $45 billion in external reserves and $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account) left by the Obasanjo Administration at the end of May 2007,” were called “factually incorrect” by Maku. He said it just wasn’t possible, because as at the end of May 2007, Nigeria’s gross reserves stood at $43.13 billion – comprising the CBN’s external reserves of $31.5 billion, $9.43 billion in the Excess Crude Account, and $2.18 billion in the Federal Government’s savings.

Maku further said that “since President Obasanjo left office, the reserves have experienced fluctuations, rising from $43.13 billion in May 2007, peaking at $62 billion in September 2008 during the Yar’adua/Jonathan Administration when oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel, and falling subsequently to a low of $31.7 in September 2011. This fall in reserves was a result of the vicissitudes of the global financial crisis which caused CBN interventions in the currency market to defend the value of the naira.

“The Excess Crude savings, a component of the reserves, was also used to stimulate the economy at the height of the global financial crisis to the tune of about $1 billion (or 0.5 percent of our 2009 GDP). As a result, Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world that did not seek assistance from international financial institutions. It should be noted that the fiscal stimulus used to shore up the economy during that period was shared by all 3-tiers of government, including commitments of about $5.5 billion made under the Obasanjo Administration for power projects.”

The minister wondered how Ezekwesili can claim that the Federal Government dipped its hands into the external reserves, calling the claim “fallacious.”

“It is important to note that the Federal Government cannot dip its hands into external reserves. Like in other countries, the management of external reserves is one of the statutory mandates of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Section 2 sub-section (c) of the CBN Act (2007) states that the Bank shall ‘maintain external reserves to safeguard the international value of the legal tender currency’ – in other words, to defend the value of the Naira. No President since the democratic dispensation has contravened this Act.

“Other uses of the reserves are to settle both public and private sector foreign currency obligations of Nigeria, including the importation of goods such as equipment for power sector. Whenever a ministry or agency of government needs to incur approved expenditure in foreign currency (e.g. payment of goods and services, settlement of external debt, etc) it must provide the naira equivalent to the CBN before the Bank sells the required foreign currency. As a former World Bank Vice-President for Africa, surely, Mrs. Ezekwesili must have known this,” Maku said.

He went further to blast Ezekwesili’s records as Education minister, calling her “interrogation of the educational system somewhat disingenuous and borderline hypocritical.” He wondered how Ezekwesili, during whose tenure as Minister of Education between 2006 and 2007, collected a total sum of N352.3 billion from direct budgetary releases, N65.8 billion under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Fund, and over N40 billion from the Education Trust Fund (ETF) could question this administration.

He therefore posed “a few legitimate questions” to the former World Bank vice president.

“What did she do with all these allocations? What impact did it have on the education sector? One wonders if our educational system would have been better today if these allocations were properly applied.

“No one disputes that Nigeria still faces challenges, most of which were built up over a long time. But we need to acknowledge the significant achievements of this administration in the aftermath of difficult but necessary macroeconomic and structural reforms being implemented in the country.”

At that point, the minister began quoting some of the administration’s talking points and achievements. Those who have followed the minister in his Good Governance Tour so far would be used to some of them.

“This administration has restored macroeconomic stability against the backdrop of global economic uncertainty, slow growth in the United States and high unemployment and unsustainable debt in Europe. In the first 3 quarters of 2012, Nigeria’s economy grew by about 6.4 percent and is set to continue at a similar pace in 2013 according to independent forecasts. We have reduced our fiscal deficit to only 2.17 percent of GDP in the 2013 budget, while rebalancing our spending in favour of capital expenditure. These achievements have already received strong endorsement from international ratings agencies. At a time when many advanced and emerging markets are being downgraded, Fitch and S&P have upgraded our sovereign credit ratings. The inclusion of Nigeria’s sovereign bonds in the emerging market bond indices of JP Morgan and Barclays also testifies to the growing confidence of the international investment community in our economy.

“We have also focused our attention on removing the bureaucratic and structural bottlenecks in the economy to enable the private sector create more jobs for our youths. In the power sector, most Nigerians will attest to improvements in power supply even as the 10 new power plants being built by this Administration are yet to fully come on stream. There have also been improvements in rail services; for example, the Lagos—Kano rail line is now fully operational and serving Nigerians for the first time in over 20 years. There have been significant improvements in road development; aviation – in particular refurbished terminals; and agriculture, where new jobs are being created every day. Serious work is ongoing to improve our ports and lower the cost of doing business and the cost of consumption in Nigeria.

“The government has further launched a number of initiatives targeted at creating jobs for our youth, including support for entrepreneurship through the YouWin Programme; work for the unskilled through the Community Services programme of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme; and support for unemployed graduates through the Graduate Internship Programme.

“This administration is squarely focused on promoting a stable, non-inflationary, and inclusive economic environment for Nigeria to ensure that Nigerians can live better and more fulfilled lives,” he said.

http://www.thescoopng.com/ezekwesili-was-wrong-and-hypocritical-labaran-maku-responds-to-ezekwesilis-powerful-speech/

**Would be tomorrow Newspapers headlines**

"Tinubu and Buhari call Referee to officiate against Nigeria to dent Govt image" ~Olisa Metuh

"No! ¶ did not call anybody, the goodluck as implied by the President's name didn't work for the boys"~Tinubu replies Metuh

"Check if truly "the brown Envelop" arranged for the Referee was delivered"~NFA queries Steven Keshi

Chofa: 3 Goals per match?? What was the score btn Naija n Burkina again?

They are all certified blind people-guru,attitude 22,children of light.Their final destination is the abyss of darkness

Attitude22: @MAYOWAAK, I think you are the greatest bad luck Nigeria has ever had, How can u open your stinky mouth and say something you don't know, Satguru Maharaj Ji as the Spiritual Commander of all Divine forces in Creation donate the cup to Nigeria and is left for us to try and follow up what He said, so pls watch ur tongue, let's join hands to support the Eagle so we can bring the trophy to Nigeria....Congrat Nigeria is a winner all the time....

Your legendary blind loyalty to your charlatan guru is indeed stupefying.When the blind leads the blind they will end in a ditch.Tell Sat to hang himself if his prediction does not come to pass.3 goals per match has fallen flat on his face.After two matches only 2 goals has been recorded by SE.

childrenoflight: @MAYOWAAK, Haba! Man!! Don't tell us you eat through the anus and excrete through the mouth!!!
Muting the absurd idea that being jobless is the criteria for becoming a Living Perfect Master beats same rationalisation.
Are you from Esikimo land? Which event predates the other; your so-called sack at the Nigeria Airways or the Guru Phenomenon?
Better check your records well before you shoot yourself on the foot. Be careful, the days of carpenters and the cross of Calvary are gone and gone forever! Here and now, is the period of accountability. The Divine policeman and Auditor General of The Universe is here. Hence, every man must, personally, give a very good account of himself. Any attempt, deliberately or not, to misdirect, misinform, the people in order to misrepresent , disrespect, disregard and denigrate the Holy Spirit In Body must be accounted for at the due date, no matter how high and mighty one thinks he is.
Hey watch it. I saw you as one of those who spiritually manipulated Enyeama to wear the blue jersey during the encounter with Burkinafaso.
Please tell us who you are... are you Oyinbo man?
For sure, the Satguru has donated the AFCON 2013 trophy to Nigeria and the player and coaches should comply to the Divine Injunction to make it a reality, In other to put boko haramists, like you, to shame
Satguru Maharaj Ji is here to save the world. Yes, your own life, who happens to be one of the Pharisees and Sadducees of old.
The Holy Name, Maharaj Ji, can cure your mouth cancer. Use Him now before is too late. A trial can convince you.

Your legendary blind loyalty to your charlatan guru is indeed stupefying.When the blind leads the blind they will end in a ditch.Tell Sat to hang himself if his prediction does not come to pass.3 goals per match has fallen flat on his face.After two matches only 2 goals has been recorded by SE.

Along both sides of a very nice multi-lane Expressway in America lies the Silicon Valley. It is home to many industries producing industrial and consumer goods that makes life better for Americans.
Somewhere in the Velds of South Africa lies another "Silicon Valley" which South Africans are proud of. If you may know, they did produce your DStv decoder.
Along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway lies the most nauseating noisemakers bilking millions in the form of Tithes and Offerings to procure and service their Private Jets.
With this fore-knowledge of mine sir, count me out of the "customers" of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway con-men.

FOLLOWING rumours in some quarters that the Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has pulled out of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Director Communication, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Raulph Madu, has refuted the claim.

In an interview with The Guardian, Madu maintained that the CBCN did not pull out of CAN, and that the body was only trying to sought out some issues with the national Christian body.

He mentioned that the body only withdrew temporarily from CAN, which will only last for few weeks, adding that there was no squabble between the two religious body.

Madu, who did not disclose the issues, said: “How can we pull out of CAN, we are just trying to iron out some issues with them, which are not palatable to us and it’s only going to last for few weeks”

We will always be in support of the national body; some of our bishops are heading CAN in some states,” he added.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=111395:catholic-bishops-deny-pulling-out-of-can&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

FOLLOWING rumours in some quarters that the Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has pulled out of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Director Communication, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Raulph Madu, has refuted the claim.

In an interview with The Guardian, Madu maintained that the CBCN did not pull out of CAN, and that the body was only trying to sought out some issues with the national Christian body.

He mentioned that the body only withdrew temporarily from CAN, which will only last for few weeks, adding that there was no squabble between the two religious body.

Madu, who did not disclose the issues, said: “How can we pull out of CAN, we are just trying to iron out some issues with them, which are not palatable to us and it’s only going to last for few weeks”

We will always be in support of the national body; some of our bishops are heading CAN in some states,” he added.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=111395:catholic-bishops-deny-pulling-out-of-can&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

why didn't you just donate the world cup to Super Eagles? we know why you became Guru at 33 years old because you were jobless after your sack from Nigeria Airways ,shior

For God's sake how would any leader (except serenaded by spin-doctors and professional sycophants) claim that the graphic presentation of the situation in the Police College is a smear campaign to rubbish the image of his government? Beats my imagination. For me this is the ultimate gaffe. Leadership is about responsibility not shifting blames. We all saw the pictures and the video images. So the opposition destroyed the infrastructure? How about the N700million voted for the upgrading of this college and others in 2009? The opposition also took that? How about the beds without mattresses you saw on your visit? Perhaps the enemies removed them! Mr President, as sincere Nigerians who have no other country to run to, please credit us with some intelligence. Nigerians who tell you the truth that the professional sycophants would shield from you are actually your best friends. From Mr President's statement I can deduce that this noise will die down and nothing will be done by government. Just like the many probes and panels and committees and their reports have found a home in the archives.

For God's sake how would any leader (except serenaded by spin-doctors and professional sycophants) claim that the graphic presentation of the situation in the Police College is a smear campaign to rubbish the image of his government? Beats my imagination. For me this is the ultimate gaffe. Leadership is about responsibility not shifting blames. We all saw the pictures and the video images. So the opposition destroyed the infrastructure? How about the N700million voted for the upgrading of this college and others in 2009? The opposition also took that? How about the beds without mattresses you saw on your visit? Perhaps the enemies removed them! Mr President, as sincere Nigerians who have no other country to run to, please credit us with some intelligence. Nigerians who tell you the truth that the professional sycophants would shield from you are actually your best friends. From Mr President's statement I can deduce that this noise will die down and nothing will be done by government. Just like the many probes and panels and committees and their reports have found a home in the archives.

Students of branding have a good subject in Buhari on how to grow a personal political brand without spending a kobo. In a nation where politics is a game of money—at times, running into billions—Buhari and his followers barely scratch by to pay their most basic bills.But the absence of money to spend has not diminished Buhari’s brand; if anything, it has enhanced his connection with the masses, making him extremely popular. It is said that Buhari is the only man capable of pulling a million-man crowd in many northern cities without spending money on publicity.

jadakiss213: could u share a link to this?? thanks

Friday, March 07, 2008

PDP and the future of Nigerian politics
By Reuben Abati

NIGERIANS ought to be deeply concerned about what is currently going on in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the name of party congresses and convention. The PDP is the most dominant political party in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. It controls majority of the political positions at all levels of government. Between 2003 and 2007 for example, the party held 223 seats out of 360 seats in the House of Representatives, 76 out of 109 seats in the Senate, and after the 2007 elections, it has further maintained this majority status.

Twenty-seven out of the country’s 36 states are under the control of the PDP in addition to 260 seats in the House of Representatives and 85 in the Senate. In moments of self-praise, members of the PDP flatter themselves by referring to their party, as “the largest political party in Africa”., “the wealthiest party in Africa”, and “the most formidable” Perhaps it is, on account of population size and spread.

But the PDP is also the most disorganised political party in Africa, fractious, inchoate and uninspiring. The crises that characterise Nigeria’s Fourth Republic and the continuing putative nature of party politics in Nigeria’s post-military season are directly linked to the lack of internal democracy and cohesion within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate once pointed to the existence within the PDP of a “nest of killers”. It is a party of strange bed-fellows, a centrist collection of former soldiers, gun-runners, contractors, certificate forgers, unemployed persons all united by a common goal: access to a share of Nigeria’s oil wealth and a place in the sun. The sad news is that the hapless people of Nigeria are the obvious victims in the hands of a PDP behemoth whose manifesto is not clearly known to the people.

Out of frustration, Nigerians have since invented a number of instructive aliases for the PDP including – People Deceiving People, Papa Deceive Pickin, People Destroying People etc. Since 1999, Nigerians have experimented with democracy and this has entailed necessarily, a process of stock-taking, with the hope that mistakes can be identified, lessons learnt, and changes for the sake of national development and the purification of our politics, effected. If the latter objective had been realised in any way, it should be obvious in the way the PDP conducts its affairs. But this has not happened, a pointer to the larger, enduring crisis that we all face and the collateral damage that we continue to suffer.

Nothing has given louder advertisement to the incorrigibility of the PDP and its members than the run-up to its National Convention which is scheduled to hold tomorrow in Abuja, the nation’s capital. The Convention and the Congresses before it would be the first since the April 2007 elections, and perhaps the first attempt by the PDP to reorganise itself after President Olusegun Obasanjo’s exit. The two events are taking place against the background of the stunning revelations from various Election Petition Tribunals that in the 2007 elections, there were irregularities and malpractices, outright subversion of the law also, which were mostly perpetrated by members of the PDP and their agents. Significantly, most of the judgements by the election petition tribunals and the courts have amounted to an indictment of the PDP and the PDP government.

In Rivers State, the Supreme Court noted that it was wrong to have purported to exclude Rotimi Amaechi from the Gubernatorial elections, when he was the duly elected party candidate for that event. Party elders did not like Amaechi’s face, so they decided to shut him out. The Supreme Court more or less, declared this an indecent act and went as far as appointing Amaechi, the Governor of Rivers State. In Anambra, Kogi, Adamawa etc, the story is similarly illustrative of the recklessness of the PDP.

At the time of the 2007 elections, the PDP had been under siege, arising from internal wrangling and the crass authoritarianism of then President Olusegun Obasanjo who chose to dictate party processes. President Obasanjo not only took over the party, he alienated anyone who dared to question his authority. Shortly before his departure as President, he also got himself installed as Chairman of the Board of Trustees through a contrived amendment of the party’s Constitution and a voice vote. A properly organised political party would have taken its cue from the direct and indirect bashing it has received from the courts in the post-2007 election process. But PDP politicians have shown an absolute lack of capacity to learn.

The state congresses ahead of tomorrow’s convention were set apart by their lack of democracy. The election of party leaders and delegates in the states bore all the features of the same discredited April 2007 elections. PDP politicians shamelessly confirmed what the tribunals had denounced and what local and international monitors in the 2007 elections documented. The indication is as follows: it seems the on-going process of election petitions and tribunal/court rulings have had no impact whatsoever on political behaviour in the short – or long term. In the various states, there were reports of the theft of registration and voting materials, wilful disenfrachisement of party members, imposition of candidates, violence and acrimony and the spread of factional politics. The Nigerian people watched helplessly as the same political party that is managing their affairs failed to organise its own internal affairs according to all known rules of decorum and transparency.

One of the major highlights of the PDP exercise has been the report that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has been going round the country trying to impose his own candidates and that he has endorsed a candidate for the position of party chairman (former Governor of Ebonyi state, Dr. Sam Egwu) and another, for the position of Secretary-General of the party (Senator Tunde Ogbeha). Rather than a required focus on issues and the future of the party, stopping Obasanjo from ruling the party and dictating to it has become the issue as the party holds its Convention in Abuja tomorrow. The only voice of reason in the raging confusion is that of President Yar’Adua. He has promised that he’d not interfere with the election of the Chairman and other national officers of the party. He has also urged that the process should be transparent and inclusive. But other party leaders are not so circumspect.

Ahmadu Ali, the outgoing chairman is boasting that it is he, and not the Adamu Ciroma-led electoral panel that is in charge. Before now, he had threatened members of the protesting G-21 faction within the party with expulsion. Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, the Ibadan politician has also declared that it is whoever Obasanjo wants as Party Chairman that would win. Frustrated party members had gone to court to stop the Convention. Adedibu says no court can stop the PDP. Told that some state Governors are planning to wrestle the party from Obasanjo’s control, Adedibu shot back: “In fact it would be a no contest for Egwu”. He added: “where are the PDP Governors? I am supporting Obasanjo and you are saying some Governors are against him, who are the Governors, tell me, who are the Governors?”. Answer: who is Adedibu?

This is a measure of the hopelessness of the political party system in Nigeria. With the way the PDP runs its affairs, should we legitimately expect its members to run good government? The ripples from the party’s Convention in Abuja will determine not only the future of the party, but also, the future of Nigerian politics. If the anti-Obasanjo group succeeds in chek-mating the former President’s then we may find incumbent President Yar’Adua, in spite of his claims of neutrality, gradually taking charge of the party. But the PDP is bound to remain a divided party and a continuing source of distraction. Differences within a political party may seem inevitable, but in the PDP, disagreements are often corrosive and murderous. The buildings blocks for a weak electoral process in 2011 are already being put together in the PDP.

Sometimes, I wonder whether PDP leaders watch television. Because if they do, they would have been in a position to follow the Presidential primaries in the United States. The beauty of the primaries by the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is how it has given the ordinary American an opportunity to choose and shortlist candidates for the country’s Presidential election. In that process so far, has anybody heard of the party Chairman of the Democrats(Howard Dean) or the Chairman of the Republicans (Mike Duncan)? Has anyone seen the Secretary of either political party pontificating on television and giving orders to other party members? The PDP is simply a party of self-seekers.

Nigeria’s political party system needs to be overhauled. There are over 50 political parties, but apart from the PDP, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the Action Congress and possibly the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) the others are more or less narrow vehicles with limited appeal and almost without infrastructure. The political party system is in urgent need of reform. Our political parties must become truly representative and reflect the people’s choices. Through a reformed political party system, an enlightened class of future leaders may then emerge who will be patriots and not office-seekers.

One clear lesson from the current situation in the United States, is how ordinary citizens identify personally with political parties, and define themselves and their choices as such. This is a classical expression of the political party as an associational construct, and an aggregation of individuals with common interests seeking to promote the interest of the larger community. The alienation between Nigeria’s political parties and the people is palpable. Our political parties are made up of money-bags and their thugs, and the PDP is such a large party because after every election, the big men in other parties in order to gain access to state privileges, naturally dissolve into the ruling party. This is partly why General Muhammadu Buhari is so lonely today in the ANPP. Those who should stand by him are playing the politics of compromise with the PDP.

To reform our political parties, we must make them the parties of ordinary people and the parties of ideas. For now, the PDP has lost that opportunity for self-renewal. But if President Yar’Adua and those who genuinely want a new order in the PDP are serious about their objectives, they should begin by ensuring that no former President (Obasanjo) and no promoter of the politics of Baba-rism (Adedibu, for example) is allowed to impose their will on the party at tomorrow’s

http://www.nigerianmuse.com/20080307060720zg/nigeria-watch/the-best-of-reuben-abatis-editorials/pdp-and-the-future-of-nigerian-politics-by-reuben-abati/

Exactly what is corruption? If you are a typical Nigerian, you would define it as government officials looting our treasury. In our view, everything starts and ends in government offices. Should we then be surprised that almost everybody is campaigning against corruption in Nigeria? We are all waging a war against corruption. We are all appalled. We are all agreed that corruption is dragging the nation backward. The main reason Nigeria is not making progress, we say authoritatively, is that those in government are just stealing public money.

Even—surprise! surprise!!—government itself is fighting corruption! We have the Code of Conduct Bureau, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Nigeria Police Force all fighting corruption. NGOs are campaigning against corruption. Youths are fighting corruption. Lawyers, journalists, doctors, engineers, bankers, pastors, imams, taxi drivers, truck pushers, all are fighting corruption. Fellow Nigerians, if we all are fighting corruption, who then are the people “doing” the corruption? Are they spirits?

Following our failure to win any medal at the 2012 Olympics, some Nigerians launched the humorous campaign that corruption should become an Olympic sport. Nigeria would sweep all the medals at stake, they joked. There is a belief that no country can beat us in the game of corruption. An author wrote: “Corruption is rare in Botswana, common in Ghana and endemic in Nigeria.” There is a feeling that corruption is in our DNA. It is believed that we are genetically corrupt. If you send a five-year-old boy to buy you a piece of cake, chances are he would inflate the price and seek to make away with your change. It is that bad.

So maybe we are wrong to focus our attention on the corruption in government alone. In recent times, the organised private sector has proved to be as corrupt as the public sector. The massive rot in the banking industry provided all the proofs we needed to understand this. But I am not about to write on the destruction of the financial sector through greed and mindless manipulation by the bankers and their accomplices. The stealing of billions of naira by government officials is not my focus either. No, I am not about to write about the multi-billion naira pensions scam. The fuel subsidy tryst, which brought the private and public sectors together in unholy matrimony, is not of interest to me today. We have written on these usual suspects a million times.

What I seek to do today is drag our attention to the unusual suspects whom we perhaps ignore from day to day as we talk about corruption—the so-called lower classes of the society. Listen to the radio, spend a few minutes at the vendors’ stand, or tarry awhile at the village square. Everybody is discussing corruption and how “our leaders” are looting us blind. It is usually a case of “we the ordinary people” against “they the government”. Somehow, it keeps escaping the attention of these “ordinary people” that they (we) are part of the system that is destroying the country and making our lives worse from day to day.

I will cite five instances to illustrate my point. One, at a construction site, a man came to market cement. He said a bag was N1750, including transport to site. But the builder said he was getting his supply cheaper, at N1700. After a brief argument, the cement seller gave out a secret of the trade which he called “repacking”. Cement sellers, he said, have a way of opening the bag, taking out a few kilos of cement and then re-sealing the bag. The kilos so stolen are re-bagged. That gives an additional income to the cement seller. From 10 or so bags, he can get an additional one bag. Is that not worth an Olympic gold for corruption? Yet, this same set of people will gather at the village square to discuss how “our leaders” are looting the treasury!

Two, rice sellers. This is a well-known secret. They have a long rod they insert into a bag to steal a few “mudus”. They then re-pack into an additional bag. That’s additional income. Three, the bread sellers. They remove a few slices from several loaves to make an additional loaf! Four, the petrol station attendant. He sells N200 fuel to a motorcyclist without “rubbing off” the meter. When a car comes along, he continues from where he stopped and pockets the additional N200. Another trick is to sell fuel of N109 to a motorist and then sigh that there is power failure. He tells you to look at the meter very well, that he had already sold N1009 (not N109) worth of petrol to you. If you don’t pay attention, he will fleece you of N900. Five, the woman selling garri to you has already tampered with the measurement by battering the can. Yet, all of them (all of us) will call the radio station to complain about “our leaders” and corruption.

My father-in-law, a doctor, once told me a heart-breaking story. In the 1990s when he was working at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), an eight-year-old boy died. As he took the body to the mortuary, the attendant told him: “Doctor, you have to find us something o!” That means he had to give him a tip. A morbid tip! If you bury the dead at some cemeteries in Lagos, you need to “find something” for the cemetery workers. If not, as soon as you turn your back, they will unearth the casket, steal any valuables they can find, dump the corpse in the grave and sell the casket for peanuts. Yet, all of them (all of us) will gather at the vendors’ stand the following morning to complain about how corruption is killing Nigeria! Doesn’t this also deserve an Olympic gold medal?

Let’s look at it this way. If the person who steals and re-bags a few kilos of cement gets into government, is he not likely to steal pensioners’ money? If the market woman becomes a bank MD, would depositors’ money be safe in her care? We seem to think that people suddenly become corrupt when they join government. No. We are groomed for corruption. For a plumber, for instance, it is part of his training that if he needs 20 pipes, he should quote for 40. He will buy 20 and pocket the balance. Cheating and short-changing customers are part and parcel of the training of artisans here. They are actually trained to tell lies without batting an eyelid.

Since this sleazy system produces our leaders, maybe we deserve the leadership we always get then…

THE Presidency, on Monday, said the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan, is hale and hearty, contrary to the report in an online publication, which claimed on Monday that she had been flown abroad.

Spokesman of the president, Dr Reuben Abati, told the Nigerian Tribune on Monday that Mrs Jonathan was hale and hearty and was in the Presidential Villa.

“Everybody saw her in the church on Sunday,” he said, adding that the First Lady was not being flown abroad as reported.

The online site, Sahara Reporters, had stated on Monday that Patience Jonathan had been flown to Germany, few days ahead of what it called her scheduled trip to Spain for medical reasons.

SOURCE:Nigerian Tribune on Monday

[b][/b]

some people said CPC was never a DEMOCRATIC party. I see.[/quote]The Vice President is nominated by the presidential candate as his running mate for election to the office of President. This nominated presidential associate, or running mate, automatically becomes the Vice President if the President is elected. The Vice President's tenure of office is concurrent with that of the President. He assumes the office of President if that office becomes vacant before the expiration of their term, by reason of death or resignation or the removal of the President from office on the terms provided for in the Constitution.(Section 142 of the 1999 constitution)

As far as I am concerned this is no news.He said the same thing he preached in a message titled :HOW TO CHANGE A GOVERNMENT PEACEFULLY july last year.

“Nigeria's national budget is 5 trillion Naira? Nigeria is not a poor country then, Nigeria is a miserable country. Five trillion Naira would be something like 33 billion USD or some 25 billion Euros. And this is the national budget of a 52 year old nation of some 160 million people! Now, factor in the endemic corruption and you'll have a nation screwed forever…Taiwan, precisely earned 25 billion USD in 2011 from the sales of only Notebook Computers. South Korea in 2010 joined the clubs of nations earning more than 300 billion USD per year exporting value added finished high tech products. And these are little nations in terms of population and geographical space. On our side, we are drunk and drowning in a freely produced natural product, oil. And this oil is extracted by foreigners. Pathetic!”

Wishful thinking is not a bad thing but can revolution advocates state how their end desires differ from what is already stated in the Constitution and why we need a revolution to achieve them? What really fascinates them about a revolution? The spectacles of violence and bloodshed, or a genuine desire for change? If the latter, is a revolution really necessary? Won’t protest culture or even rebellion suffice? Won’t a more participatory citizenship be far more helpful? I have put out all these questions, not necessarily to seek answers but for us to interrogate our thoughts.

Very soon, we would be called upon to begin the process of electing a fresh set of leaders. Rather than expressing outrage the President plans to re-contest, it is up to us to act with circumspection. It is our duty not to be carried away when our leaders start crawling to religious grounds or kneeling before gods. They will cut a perfect picture of pathetic prayer projects when they assume a humble stance and announce they need divine wisdom. When that time comes, can Nigerians transcend all this vaudeville and reject directionless and clueless leadership? Can we transcend tribalism, ethnicity, regionalism, sexism and all those factors that have successfully held us down in the past and choose more worthwhile people to lead us? That might be a revolution to look forward to.

Elderstatesman and former Minister of Finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, has lashed out at the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, describing it as full of “too much corruption.”

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Saturday Sun at his Abuja residence, Ciroma said the subsidy payment scam, pension scheme fraud, alleged mismanagement and corruption at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), among others, are indices of untamed corruption running wild in the Nigerian field.

Courageous and blunt, Ciroma, a former minister under the Shagari, Abacha and Obasanjo governments, had harsh words for General Babangida’s administration as well as Obasanjo’s. On Babangida, he says: “He destroyed the civil service, he destroyed the economy,”while he describes Obasanjo as a leader “who failed his country.”

Below are excerpts of the Ciroma interview:

What are some of the things happening in the country that make you sad?

I feel sad when I see some awards flying around for some people who clearly do not deserve them. Take the case of Yobe State, where the former governor was recently said to have been given the Mo award for what he did in rural development. I was talking with one man and he said: ‘Look, Yobe is the most wretched of the states in Nigeria; it is the poorest, the least developed.

There is lack of security there.” I said look, this man is one of the worst governors that has ruled any part of this country. But he was given an award in South Africa before; he was given the Mo award. What now happens is that some people who have no honour will meet and create one thing or the other and send it to somebody; ask him to finance the offer. The offer itself is worthless. The man who is receiving it is not worth it; that is what Nigeria is all about. You would never hear or see me accepting this honour or award because a lot of them are worthless. In your own case, you make me change my mind because I am not claiming to be any leader in this country, am not claiming anything; on your own you decided to give me the honour.

In this country, till date, we have not produced Nelson Mandela. Obasanjo, my very good friend, is not worth it. Nobody has reached that position, in terms of keeping to justice, fairness and honesty. Mandela is always concerned about the fate of the masses. We don’t have that leader who is always concerned about the fate of the masses, the ordinary Nigerian, the farmers.

If all of us have agreed that we would work for the good of the poor farmer, if he lives by an inch, it means that all of us would be richer by millions. But are we doing it? What we have is a National Assembly that eats one quarter of the resources of this country. We have a government that is greedy. So many billions of naira go into payment of oil subsidy. The children of big people are involved in these billions. Some people steal billions. And nothing is done to them.

The President says he is fighting insecurity; he said he was going to end it six months ago. Where are we today? He said he was going to stop subsidy. Where are we? Even before people knew how bad subsidy was, he gave impression that he was out to address it. But now he is talking about it again. The individuals in NNPC, look at what they have done with the national resources; nobody has said anything. I pity this country. But I am not hopeless. I believe things will come right some day.

For the time being, we have, individually, got to behave well. It should not be prayers alone. I don’t know of any set of people in this world that are more religious than Nigerians. But they are religious by mouth, not by practice. What they do is different from what they say.

If we want to improve this country, individuals have got to act; they have to begin to do the right thing, even if we see them as being foolish, they should stick to it; they should not say we have to join the majority. Here the majority is not doing well.

Secondly, the ordinary citizens of this country, the farmers, the masses are very good people. If they get good leaders, they will do the right thing. For the time being, they are copying their leaders. They are capable of turning round and doing something wonderful. When that time comes, the world is going to be surprised what Nigerians can do.

Are Nigerians not too docile?

You and I living now have got to stick to the right things, no matter what the other people are doing; then things will change.

Will that make Nigeria to change?

Yes, things will change. It takes time to establish a leader. Sometimes, when someone is in the process of becoming a leader he falters; he goes in the dark to take money. I always tell young people in this country that the difficult thing about leadership is that it is difficult to judge. All the people who criticise corruption, if you put them aside and give them envelops filled with dollars, who among them will have the courage to say no? So, who is not corrupt? Farouk Lawan passed through the temptation and faltered. But, as I said, generally, ordinary Nigerians would like to do what is right if the leaders are doing the right things, they will copy them.

Are you saying that they cannot force their leaders to do the right thing?

They cannot force their leaders to do the right thing.

Can you give us your background? Where did you develop the principles which have guarded?

You know I was telling you earlier about Nigerians and their religious predilection and moral standing. People of my generation, a lot of us, went to school and we were taught how to behave morally, decently and fairly. We didn’t know it but our leaders were there for us; they were treating us well. They protected and promoted our interest. None of my parents actually asked me to go to school and do well, except once.

When I was going to school I was just living my normal life, from the Primary School in Fika to another in Maiduguri, to Barewa College, Zaria, to Nigerian College in Zaria and to University of Ibadan. I believe that UI did a lot in forming my character. By the time I came to Ibadan, I was about 20 years or thereabout. We had fantastic professors. They were honest, hardworking, straightforward, open and we learnt the meaning of intellectual from them. An intellectual is somebody who is honest, who is following logic, obeying the logic even if it does not conform with what he held before.

Then we came to work for government. The month I left the university was the month I got a job in government.

What did you read?

History. Working for government, doing the right thing without knowing anybody was the standard then. It was the policy of the northern government at that time. We were taught three things that must be done. These three things still need to be done today. First, we were taught that the economy was based on agriculture and government’s policy was directed towards helping the ordinary farmer to produce more and earn more to improve his condition. We distributed ploughs, tractors, seedlings and all that were needed to aid agriculture. The second focus was education.

The North was behind, as far as western education was concerned. The government used resources to educate everyone free; they even paid you some allowances for going to school. We were the product of that. We grew up knowing very well that our duty is to help others move from darkness to light. You are from the South; if I talk to you about education, it may not sound wonderful; you will take it for granted. Already you have accepted education; you like it; you even pay for it yourself. But in the North it was not so. I left UI being paid some allowances.

The third issue was about health. If your people are not healthy, they cannot farm; they cannot send their children to school; they cannot do anything. Government considered it its duty to treat people with malaria, all the diseases in the rural area. They set up dispensaries in the rural areas, procuring medicine for the people.

These three things, the northern government pursued then. The total budget of northern government in 1965 was 37 million pounds. The money was available for everything. So, we learnt that you have to use the resources of the people for their benefit; that you don’t have to think twice about that. These were the circumstances we were brought up. Every leader supported you; we never heard about corruption; you just have got to do the right thing.

Was it that there were no corrupt people then?

In every society, there must be people who would not want to do the right thing. But what I am saying is that government did not encourage corruption; it discouraged it. For instance, if you were just a small clerk and you had a bicycle nobody would raise an eyebrow, but if you are seen with a car somebody would ask you how you got it. The system ensured that you behaved well, in line with your status. They promoted any worker who was hardworking.

Are you the eldest child of your parents?

No, no; I came from a very big family. My grandfather was the councillor for education. All of us in our own area went to school long before universal education became acceptable.

How many children did your father have?

He had so many.

Precisely, how many?

Am sure the number is more than 30.

Are there some of your siblings that you do not know?

There are so many of us.

How many wives did your father marry?

Always not more than four

Four at a particular time?

Yeah.

Why did you leave government to go and work in a newspaper house?

In the university I did History, but in our student activity we formed certain groups. We were producing a magazine. When I was in the Barewa College, we were also producing a magazine. When I came to Ibadan, we were producing a magazine. When I left the university and joined the civil service, I was the administrative officer. The New Nigerian Newspaper was set up and government was looking for somebody who had some experience in newspaper production. In those days they did their home work, their research. They identified me and asked me whether I would like to come and work there.

So you were drafted there?

Yeah, I was drafted there.

Were you the editor or the managing director of the newspaper when you were first drafted?

I was drafted as the editor and later I became the managing director.

The military was in power then?

Yes. Gen. Gowon was the Head of State. There were six governors in the North. On many occasions, I quarrelled with them because they wanted us to do certain things, but we did what we believed was right. I had harsh misunderstanding with Gen. Gowon.

Did he summon you?

Yes, he did, but I told him that we were doing what we believed was right; that we were using the information we had. I told him, ‘Sir, you people have some certain information, we have also our own information; they may be the same information but we interpret them differently. We cannot wait for you to tell us your own interpretation; when you tell us we will publish it, but in the interim we will use what is available to us.’

Did you not see yourself taking a big risk, talking to a military head of state that way?

We were in the same Barewa College; he was only two years my senior.

Did you know him in school?

Of course, yes.

But he was then Commander- in- Chief?

It didn’t matter to me; we were in the same Barewa College. I was not afraid of losing my job. After quarrelling with Gowon and Gen Hassan, we kept on quarrelling with the governors over the contents of the newspaper. They didn’t like some of the things we were reporting. When the bickering became too much, I had to resign. I gave them my letter.

Where were you resigning to?

I was determined to work on my own. I was going into private business. When I was the editor and managing director, I was also a director in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). So, when I resigned, one of the textile companies in Kaduna asked me if I would like to work with them as executive director. I agreed. So, I was working for the biggest textile mill in Nigeria. After a while, there was a coup that overthrew Gen Gowon; the coup leaders invited me to put right the CBN.

There were some rumours about shady deals in foreign exchange transactions and things like that. I was called to put things right there. So, in 1975, I became CBN governor. I was there till 1977 when there was an election to the Constituent Assembly. A new constitution was to be made for a return to civilian rule. At that time, every part of the country especially the North was sending their best to the Constituent Assembly. Where I came from, nobody asked me; they just elected me.

Even with your position as CBN governor?

I was governor of CBN and they wanted one of their best in the Constituent Assembly. They elected me without informing me. I had to resign as CBN governor. The CBN law does not allow for a part time in such position; so I had to resign.

You were not a trained banker nor an economist before becoming the CBN governor. How did you cope?

If you work for any institution, you have to find out how best you can contribute. I was appointed CBN governor to put some things right. They knew that I could do it and I did it.

You were working with economists, bankers and so on?

Yes. One thing I experienced in life is that most of the time, I was working and learning. Take the case of the newspaper. I was invited and I accepted to go there. I didn’t know really, on a big scale, about newspaper. I was learning on the job.

From your experience, is it really necessary to be a banker or an economist before holding a position like the CBN governor?

This is what I am trying to explain to you. When you are educated, you can do anything. And the tradition of University of Ibadan, they produced graduates in Classics, who became financial wizards and things like that. Once you are educated, your mind will convince you that you can do anything. Heading the CBN was nothing particularly special; there was nothing impossible about it.

You can learn on the job. What is important is the integrity you bring to bear. If you are an accountant, there are laws governing accountancy; if you abandon these laws, will you still call yourself an accountant? If you are a historian and you are told to come and run CBN and you use the research people, economists, accountants and professionals in all the departments very well, you will achieve results. You would not bother that you are not an economist or accountant. You can learn on the job.

When I came to CBN, I told them: “look, I am a historian, you are the professionals, am here to learn, there are things am going to do to put things right but most of the normal job I am going to learn from you.’ I eventually learnt from them.

CBN governors are known for conservatism. Would you say it is in order for the current CBN governor Sanusi to be making some controversial comments he’s often criticised for?

A Central Bank governor worldwide is not a controversial person. The person is part of the establishment. When he or she says anything people respect it because they believe that you must have given a lot of thought to what you said before saying it out. There are certain things governor of the Central Bank doesn’t need to do.

He doesn’t need to be controversial. Sanusi has a bit of controversy about him, but the most important thing about him is that he is an honest and dedicated man. He has no fear of saying a lot of things. For instance, he does not fear saying things that will annoy people in the National Assembly. He does that because he believes that, yes I am the governor today if you do not want me I go, I am just contributing, I don’t care if you refuse to accept.

Sanusi is an honest, straightforward person who says what he believes. Sometimes people in the National Assembly would want you to kow-tow with them because they make laws and things like that. But if you tell them the truth, you put them right; the laws they will make will be better.

Going to the Constituent Assembly was your baptism into politics. How correct is that?

That is very, very correct.

What is your reaction when people say that you never won an election or stood for an election, that you are a feather weight politician, just grandstanding or making noise. I am sure you have heard that?

Edwin Clarke was the last person to tell me all this. I am not a normal Nigerian politician, you know. Winning election has never been my preoccupation. I have always had something to do, something that is contributory to the development of this country. The only time I sought for an election was in 1978 when I was promoted to be one of the people seeking presidential nomination in NPN. I believed I could do it.

I believed I could contribute; so I decided to do it. At the convention I came third. From there, I started helping the winner, that is Alhaji Shehu Shagari and he won the election. I became a minister in his administration. The Constituent Assembly was really the place I politically got involved.

Former Head of State, Gen. Buhari, said when he took over on December 31, 1983, that that government you served, the Shagari government, was particularly corrupt and directionless and that was the reason it was sacked. Would agree to that assessment?

That was what they were saying; that was the reason they gave for overthrowing the government of Shagari. I was a participant in that government. Shagari is one of the most honest politicians I know in this country. Even Buhari will tell you that some of us worked honestly and effectively. When Shagari was overthrown and Buhari became the Head of State, how long did it take him to remain there? He was there for just 20 months. Shagari was President for four years. So, Shagari was there for a longer period than Buhari, even though the latter was not elected. The people who put Buhari there were the people who removed him. Is that a comment of praise?

He said that they betrayed him…

Well, he can say that, but the truth is that they put him there and they removed him. They cannot do that without a reason. Then, Babangida became the President. Just as Buhari was saying that Shagari was the most corrupt President, my own assessment is that the government that followed that of Shagari has been the most corrupt. Buhari stayed for just 20 months.

Are you talking about the Babangida government?

Yeah. It was the government that ruined the economy of this country because it introduced SAP. It devalued the currency of this country without any reason, without any justification. Civil service was ruined under President Babangida. Since then the civil service has not recovered. It is for history now to examine the kind of things, which we see and say about our friends and about our enemies. Buhari probably complains more about Babangida than he complains about Shagari now.

Why did you serve in the Abacha government that was not particularly popular?

Abacha took over from Shonekan who was a stop-gap. When he took over, he found out that there was a lot of instability in the system. What he did was to invite known politicians since the Shagari days. He brought Jakande, I was there, Rimi was there, Bola Ige and other known politicians. He invited us to participate in the government. I know that he did it to restore stability in the country. We accepted to participate in order to restore stability. I was appointed Minister of Agriculture. I looked at what the problems were and how I could address them. One of the problems I identified was fertilizer distribution. Fertilizer plant in Eleme, I was the one who completed the negotiation for setting it up.

I knew long ago, when I was Minister of Agriculture under Shagari, that fertilizer is so important to agriculture in this country. I proposed certain policies to bring in fertilizer and agriculture equipment as well the distribution of fertilizer. I was appointed in November. I was making plans about the fertilizer to be used the following year by farmers. I took my proposal to Abacha; he looked at it and said no, that he didn’t think this was the right thing to do. He said that we did not need to get fertilizer supplies again, that there was fertilizer in the country.

I had proposed worldwide advertisement for people who would want to supply the fertilizer, that is international supply. He said that he did not believe in that. I said that I was the Minister of Agriculture, I tell you that it was important. When I put my mind to something I focus on it. I told him that there was no fertilizer in the country he still said no. This happened on a Wednesday. I gave the whole thing a thought. On Saturday, I wrote a letter resigning my position. On Sunday, I gave it to Aminu Saleh.

When Saleh gave him the letter he called me and said, ‘ah! Has this come to this?’ I said yes, I have told you my view, how to do it and all my plans but you said that there were a lot of fertilizers in this country. I told him, you are the head of government, my duty is to help you run the government, you do not need my advice, so am off. He said no, no, but I said yes. He said but I will give you another position.

I said but that does not affect my resignation. If you give me another appointment that I like I will take it, but this particular one I am off, I have no reason to stay. Then he contacted some of his senior people, especially Jerry Useni who was minister in charge of Abuja. He told him, ‘look, these politicians, if you are not careful with them, they will throw you into trouble, don’t accept the resignation, wait and sack all of them.’ So, in the end my resignation was not accepted. After sometime he sacked all the politicians in the government.

What kind of person was Abacha?

We got on very well with Abacha; we didn’t have any quarrel or anything. You remember that we didn’t ask to be appointed. Our duty as politicians was to do the right thing. Personally, between him and I, our relationship was always good. But I was not there to be rubbished by a military leader. We got on well and I resigned; he didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Was the sack of politicians in the government the thing that led to the formation of G-19 in the North and later G-34?

We agreed to serve the government in order to serve the ordinary person, the masses of this country. Abacha and his men started playing tricks. He wanted a transition to civilian rule but he wanted to organise it in such a way that there would be different political parties but all the parties must nominate him as their presidential candidate. It became obvious that he was trying to succeed himself. We the politicians in the North, the senior ones, came together and told ourselves that it would not be a good thing for the president to succeed himself. So, we wrote him a letter telling him our views.

Then, we formed the G-18 to work together against Abacha’s self-succession plan. We agreed that only we the northerners were going to do it because if we invited anybody from the South to participate, Abacha and his colleagues were going to say that it was the southern people who were working against him. We didn’t want to allow that room; we decided to restrict this opposition to him among us northern politicians. When it became absolutely clear that we needed the input of other Nigerians, we decided to go a step further to generate a national opposition against him (Abacha). That was why we went to see Alex Ekwueme, Bola Ige and other politicians. We now enlarged the G-18 to G-34.

Did you work for Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar?

Abdulsalami, when he came in, called some of us individually. I gave him my honest view. I advised him to go because Gen. Gowon started this business of reneging, he didn’t succeed. Buhari didn’t even think he was going to leave; Babangida reneged, so also Abacha, but he died. I told him you should complete the process and go. So, he spent nine months and left.

Did you work for Obasanjo’s emergence? What was the logic behind bringing him out from prison to give him the PDP ticket? At what point did you and other northern elite agree that power should return to the South?

Obasanjo’s return effectively to the presidency was the handiwork of Babangida and Aliyu Gusau. They are the people who got in touch with other northern politicians to support their proposal to make Obasanjo the presidential candidate. We northern politicians, in our original proposal, agreed that the military did wrong in cancelling June 12, 1993 presidential election. We believed that since independence to that time, most of the official leaders of this country had been from the North. Abdulsalami was organising a return to civilian rule; we reasoned that it will not be right for Abdulsalami to allow somebody from the North to become the President. We decided that the President after Abdulsalami should come from the South. We were very clear in our own mind on this.

When we said that the President should come from the South, we were aware that there are Yoruba, there are Southern minorities and there are the Igbo. We did not care from any of the three groups that the President came from as long as the person was from the South. After we had taken that position, Babangida and Aliyu Gusau contacted us to plead for Obasanjo. We agreed to support Obasanjo because the candidate of the last presidential election that was cancelled by the military was from the Yoruba west. It was not particularly because he came from Ogun State but just that he was a Yoruba man from the West. It is just an accident that Obasanjo also happens to come from the same state with Abiola. That was how it happened.

From what later happened, do you regret supporting the decision?

No, I have no regret for that. I knew we were doing the right thing, in terms of promoting national interest and cohesion.

What is your assessment of the Obasanjo government?

I was a member of that government. In the end, Obasanjo, as a person failed this country. In 2002, about September or so, I personally decided to leave the government. I told him that I was going to do his budget for 2003. Normally budget is submitted in September or thereabout. I was going to submit the budget for 2003 and I had resolved that after it had gone through the National Assembly I was going to retire.

The reason I wanted to go was that I had noticed a lot of deviation from the way things being done; they were going differently from the way we in NPN wanted things to happen. I would say that corruption had started to rear its head. In our days when you talk with people about issues, you reach an agreement; it sticks. Now things are different. Thirdly, people were no longer reliable, they wanted to be bought.

If someone was in a position to give a position he demanded money before giving it out. For these three reasons I said to them that my stay in the system had come to an end. They were not the kind of things I would like to get involved in. Government is just talking about Contecna and other people who inspect goods at the ports. It started during my time. We had to do some investigations and I made recommendation about the people who should do that job. In the end, Obasanjo asked Contecna to do the job. I could not understand the reason.

He didn’t explain to you?

No, he didn’t, but I discovered subsequently that Contecna is a company which the son of Kofi Annan was deeply involved in. They were the ones that went round to lobby Obasanjo to give the contract. I don’t like that kind of thing.

Did he persuade you not to go?

He asked me to please stay and do his election in 2003, that if I conducted the election for him he would let me go. We reached an agreement on that. I became the Coordinator of his campaign, with Anenih as my deputy. We agreed that after the election I would go.

Was there also an agreement that you should nominate your wife to the cabinet?

No, no, there was nothing like that. She came on her merit.

What role did you play in Yar’Adua’s emergence and government?

You know Obasanjo tried to extend his rule; that is the third term issue. I was against it. I openly opposed it and insisted that the agreement is that somebody from the South does eight years, somebody from the North will do eight years. So, there was no basis for him to want to extend his rule. When he realised that he could not overcome the pressures, he, on his own, decided to nominate Yar’Adua.

You can understand why he chose Yar’Adua. He has always got on well with Yar’Adua’s brother, Shehu. So, when he nominated him, none of us was surprised. I supported Yar’Adua when he nominated him because Shehu Yar’Adua was my friend and Yar’Adua’s father was my political supporter. And this young man was a socialist. I supported his nomination. Obasanjo knew that Yar’Adua was not well.

But he said that he didn’t know. Are you suggesting that he was lying?

He knew; he knew.

Why are you certain that he knew?

He was governor, he was not performing fulltime because he was going to hospitals regularly. It is not true that Obasanjo did not know. He was hoping that because Yar’Adua was not well, he will be able to rule by proxy. It was third term by another means. He didn’t know that things don’t work that way. I like Yar’Adua because he was an honest and straightforward young man.

When Yar’Adua died, Obasanjo told me that Yar’Adua was dead, this man (Jonathan) is the Vice President, what happens? There was a lot of controversy. Gen. Gowon called a meeting of elders mostly from the North to come up with what to do about replacing Yar’Adua. The only non-northerners at that meeting were Alex Ekwueme, Edwin Clarke and Shonekan. We agreed that the constitution must take precedence, that the constitution allows for the Vice President to take over, that Jonathan must be allowed to take over. He was acting then. We told the Senate President that this was our position and the National Assembly acted on it. It was when Yar’Adua died that the PDP started its confusion and scatter scatter.

Why did you insist on power returning to the North?

We insisted on that because PDP had met and agreed that there was going to be power rotation, that there will be zoning. It was under Obasanjo that the meeting held and Jonathan himself was there. We said look, now that Yar’Adua has died the constitutional formality has taken place, the vice-president has been sworn in, in the next election the North will produce the next candidate of the party. We said that the North still has four years remaining in its eight years mandate.

We said that if you do not give it to the North, it means that the South would have had 12 years and the North would have four. We told them that if you want to do anything different, we would have to discuss it. If the southerner was going to be President, it meant that South would have 12 years and North four years and that that would create a problem in the zoning arrangement; so it must be discussed; we must agree on how to deal with the problem.

The PDP leaders started saying other things; they said that the constitution of the country did not stop Jonathan from contesting, that he could contest. I told them, ‘ look. If you cut the term of the North from eight to four, this may adversely affect the PDP power sharing arrangement.’ They went forth and back; they were all confused. I can tell you that Obasanjo and Jonathan went round and bought the people who were going to attend the convention in their states. When the delegates came for the convention in Abuja, again they bought them. The governors ensured that they appoint people to mark the ballots.

Are you saying that the PDP primary of 2011 was rigged?

Completely rigged. They know it; we know it. They rigged it and Jonathan won. That is why I lost interest in the party. I know that if you can buy somebody today, there is no reason you cannot buy him tomorrow. Obasanjo came to my house and said this was where we are, the PDP has just nominated Jonathan and if we handled things well he would win the election. I said that PDP had now spoken loudly, it had decided in an opaque manner who was going to be the candidate and we knew that they bought delegates in their states, bought them also in Abuja. I said to him, a Nigerian president was going to emerge; the delegates who gave him the ticket were bribed in dollars, not in naira. What kind of President will he be? He just got up and walked out.

He did not respond to you?

No, because he had nothing to say. Since that time, he has not told me anything.


http://sunnewsonline.com/new/cover/ciromas-bombshell-obasanjo-jonathan-bought-pdp-delegates-with-dollars-in-2011/

A crashed trailer on Saturday grounded traffic on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

The trailer reportedly crashed near Michael Otedola Estate, leading to long lines of traffic.

Law enforcement and traffic officials are currently clearing the mass of vehicles on the road.

More details later.

http://www.punchng.com/business/trailer-accident-grounds-lagos-ibadan-expressway/

If you think you know current affairs, then answer the following questions:
1. Who was d 1st Nigerian to appear on Tv?
2. Who used Internet 1st in Naija?
3. Tell me d first Naija woman to get pregnant for a white man?
4. What's d name of most recent couple in Naija?
5. Who was d 1st Nigerian to drink Champagne?
6. What's d surname of Akpors?
7. Who is the first person to use GSM in Nigeria?
8. Who was the first nigerian to push his car?
9. Who was d 1st person to ever tell a lie in naija and what ws his gender.? And what lie did he tell? Who comfirmed it as a lie? What year did it happen.?
10.Who was first person to join facebook in Nigeria?
11.Who was d frst Aboki man 2 sell suya in Nigeria?
12.Who was d 1st persn dat used a bleaching cream in 9ja?
13.Who wz d 1st igbo guy to sell okrika in Katangowa?
14.Who was the first girl to ever abort her pregnancy in Nigeria.
15.Who was d first person 2 giraffe in examintion hall?
16.Who collected the first bribe for naija?
17.Who was d 1st guy 2 use condom in naija?
18.Who is the first man to sleep on mattress in naija?
19.What is the name of the first Nigerian to shake hands with a white man?
20.Who was d first man to break oil pipe line in Nigeria?

The news about a medical doctor who abandoned medicine to become an oil pipeline thief may have cast a pall on the prestige of what is supposed to be a noble profession. But a seeming loss of the prestige of medicine did not start today. You may have heard it before that many doctors regret reading medicine. For me, it was during my secondary school days. I had told a neighbour who was a doctor, who further endeared me to the profession, that I would want to read medicine, and I thought he would have been pleased. But I was taken aback when he said I should instead go into engineering or even banking like my dad. He said medicine was not worth the trouble. I felt his advice was suspicious. I also recall a visit to our family doctor then. When I told him my ambition, he said, “Why medicine? Since I got into medical school I have not rested, even till now.” In my young mind, I just concluded that some people would say anything to make sure others don’t become like them.

I got into medicine anyway. I remember always waking up with a start. The only thought was how to scale anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. I thought it strange when other students from other departments made a face when I told them I studied late in the cadaver room. We dissected with our bare hands, and from there to the cafeteria. Reading was not by choice. It was a race against time. Twenty four hours was not enough, so you found yourself borrowing from the next day and accruing deficits.

Well, I passed somehow and got into the clinical class. Just when I thought the hurdle had been reduced, without congratulating us, the Dean, Clinical Sciences in introducing us to the clinic said: “If you think you have made it, you are wrong. This is the time to decide whether you should continue the journey―or to voluntarily withdraw!” This is despite those who were withdrawn. And despite those who became psychiatric.

Though a teacher of mine boasted about the study of medicine: “It has never been easy, and it will never be easy,” many doctors do not want their children to be doctors. A 2007 survey by Merritt, Hawkins indicated that 57 per cent of 1,175 doctors questioned would not recommend the field to their children. Another teacher of mine said his son was “crazy enough to become a doctor.”

With the coming of the Information Age, doctors have been demystified. The awe is for software scientists, and those who can give us breathtaking electronic gadgets. And that is where smart kids now go into, and of course, sports and music. Perhaps, Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs would not have been popular if they were doctors.



Never known before, there is now unemployment in the profession. After medical school, you have to do the compulsory one-year internship. There are fewer accredited places for internship than the number of medical graduates. Even those with accreditation lack the funds to absorb. So you find fresh doctors staying more than a year, even up to two years to get placement. And by the Medical and Dental Council law, if you do not do the internship within two years of graduating, you have to write a council exam. Even after the compulsory National Youth Service Corps scheme, doctors still look for work. Many doctors who want to become specialists, have passed their primaries, but cannot get anywhere to do their residency programme. I know some who have given up on that dream after many years of attending fruitless interviews. The majority of doctors, many with primaries, are doing one locum or the other in a private hospital where they are paid as low as N60, 000 per month.



There are other disincentives. In the US, doctors face malpractice regularly. And many have stopped practising. Yet, the majority of lawsuits brought are frivolous. In more than 91 per cent of cases, the defendants won. And only six per cent of all lawsuits go to trial. Those that are not thrown out are settled amicably. In Nigeria, it is catching on. Of course, doctors who make gross inexcusable mistakes are liable, as those who are unqualified. When a patient dies here, and the hospital remains the best place to, there must be something the doctor should have done he did not do. As doctors, we took an oath, yes, but the oath did not say we will save everybody. Even Jesus did not save everybody. There was still a son of perdition.

The typical scenario in Nigeria is that the patient has taken all sorts of self-medication including traditional concoction, and when organs have damaged they are rushed into the hospital for the doctor to perform a miracle. Children are brought in chronically ill-looking, very anaemic and needing blood transfusion because the parents’ neighbours told them it is “teething”. When you tell a woman she will have an elective caesarian section because she risks a uterine rupture from a previous caesarian section, she will say “I reject it”. Many laboratory investigations cannot be done because there are no reagents. There are many diagnostic tools that Nigerian doctors only read about in textbooks. Many patients are also poor and cannot do investigations when it is available and cannot buy their medications. So your medical knowledge hangs in the air.

There are still other frustrations of daily clinical life. In most government hospitals, the crowd stretches the capacity of the hospital. In seeing a patient, a doctor is making the most of the 15 or so minutes he has to be with the patient, but the patients outside grumble that you are taking a long time. But when they themselves get inside the surgery, they don’t want to leave. Some patients complain that their doctor does not listen. But it is not so.

As New York Times health columnist, Danielle Ofri, puts it, “Sometimes, it feels as though my brain is juggling so many competing details, that one stray request from a patient—even one that is quite relevant—might send the delicately balanced three-ring circus tumbling down.” She calculated the number of thoughts a primary care doctor juggles to do a satisfactory job, and tabulated 550. She said doctors keep pushing so many balls into the air and that there is no doubt a few will fall. As it stands, it seems that doctors will simply have to continue this impossible mental high-wire act, juggling dozens of clinical issues in their brains, panicking about dropping a critical one. The resultant neuronal overload will continue to present a distracted air to their patients that may be interpreted as they not listening, or perhaps not caring.

Ofri, adds that when her computer becomes overloaded, it simply crashes. Usually, she reboots in a fury, angry about all her lost work. However, she views her computer with a tinge of envy. It has the luxury of being able to crash, and of a reassuring, omniscient hand to press the reboot button. Physicians are permitted no such extravagance.

There are still other things to ponder on. The retirement age of professors is now 70. Yet, critically speaking, doctors do more for the people. How about increasing their retirement age to 70 also? It pains me when doctors go on strike. But how about removing doctors from the civil service structure and creating something different that covers all doctors in government and the private settings? How about empowering many other hospitals, including the private ones to do internship and residency training? How about increasing the budget that goes to health? Wait a minute. Where is the National Health Bill?

I can’t deny that sometimes, I feel if I had not been a doctor life would have been much easier. I do not have to do calls. My sleep will not have to be interrupted by distress telephone calls. I do not have to leave my wife in a dash. I am condemned to have more than my own fair share of grieving, for every patient that dies in my unit is somehow connected to me. Gasp, and needle pricks!

But, I also shudder at what it would mean for patients if doctors walked away from medicine because of the frustrations. I still marvel at discovering the wonder of the human body. The honour of being trusted by my patient to give them advice, the gratitude the elderly ones especially show when helping them through their illness, their prayers and blessings. These things will remain unchanging. When I look at all these – I still consider myself lucky and privileged to be placed to look after God’s creation.

•Dr. Odoemena, medical practitioner based in Lagos, wrote in via cuzdetriumph@yahoo.co.uk. 08054718547

Culled from The Punch.

http://iyaniwura.com/why-would-anyone-want-to-become-a-doctor/

Many of the things he claimed he saw are not even supported by mainstream christianity e.g.people on their way to hell before judgement day etc.

Once you can surrender your mind to religion, your mind can be manipulated by any religious con artist.

"It was also callow and puerile on the part of the occupy Nigeria Movement to have declared a weekend break during the protest to replenish its strength and return to the streets later.That actually marked the genesis of the collapse of that struggle."

Something similar to this might have happened:

Some 12 years ago the Vanguard broke the news of Dr Abalaka’s cure for HIV/AIDS. Immediately the Nigerian intelligentsia and educated elite, a band of cynics, claimed it was no cure; Abalaka, they insisted, was a babalawo, not an educated man – his name suggested it. Quickly, Abalaka was on the TV showing his University of Jos MBBS certificate. They argued, that Abalaka was a doctor didn’t mean he should also involve in medical research; there was a rule to this thing. Again, Abalaka brought another certificate of his PG trainings in one-thing-one-thing. They insisted Abalaka must show prove of whom he had cured. A Nigerian colonel said it was true – 400 of his men back from ECOMOG in Liberia have been cured.

Then the Minister of Health, a man named Tim Menekaya, who was in his sixties but carried the face of a man in his nineties, got real angry. He said the colonel had no right to speak on such matters – and the military hierarchy agreed their colonel spoke out of order. Menekaya advised Abalaka to stop going to the press; convention demands that he, Abalaka, publish his findings first in a medical journal. Doesn’t Abalaka know that educated people don’t announce inventions on the pages of newspaper, he asked. The Nigerian journalists, now behind Abalaka, countered that even the discoverers of the virus, Robert Gallo and Montaigne, also went first to the press.

Abalaka , thoroughly satisfied with this support, gathered the journalists to his Abuja office and, in their presence, vaccinated himself (ingested HIV into his blood). People danced on the streets of Abuja. One journalist said he was leaving for Europe to personally nominate Abalaka for the Nobel.

Then tragedy happened; Abalaka’s wife died. Every Nigerian, including those who have promised to nominate him, ran away. They said the poor woman died of the HIV the husband had ingested. Abalaka struggled to convince Nigerians that his wife died of liver problem. Nigerians said, a man who can cure AIDS should be able to handle ordinary liver damage. Abalaka was no longer a hero but an insane man who self-infected himself with the deadly virus.

Abalaka, an ambitious man, fought not to go down. He would show Nigerians that he was a great man. He went and collected PDP governorship primaries form and, in his first public outing, promised his people of Kogi State and the neighbouring Benue that he would build a hospital at the boundary and cure their AIDS freely. (Benue State is to Nigeria what South Africa is to Africa with regards to AIDS prevalence).

Before Abalaka could submit his form, three men from NAFDAC (the government agency regulating canned food, bottled drinks, biscuits and pharmaceutical products) arrived his Okene village from Lagos and requested he joined them to Lagos. Abalaka felt God has heard his prayers; PDP was going to provide money through NAFDAC to help him win the election.

At Lagos things took a strange dimension. They took off Abalaka’s belt and tie – so that he would not hurt himself. Then when Abalaka realised what was happening, they took his phone; he couldn’t reach Femi Falana, Bamidele Aturu or Festus Keyamo or even his family. The NAFDAC people accused him of defaulting to pay patent fees of [N3000] for his findings!

Abalaka requested they should take him to his bank and he would pay, even though it was no criminal offence requiring arrest. They told Abalaka that they were making their investigations. The investigation took quite long, ran into days. By the time Abalaka was found not guilty and released, the PDP governorship primary was over.

I was in Abuja when Abalaka appeared on the TV. He had become thin and his voice was no longer that of a discoverer but of a man just evicted from 1009. The host asked if he would take PDP to the tribunal. Abalaka replied, he had left it in the hands of God. The host asked if he would sue NAFDAC for illegal detention. Abalaka replied, he had left the matter in the hands of God. The host asked if he was going to research another sickness, say, sickle cell anaemia. Abalaka said, he had left E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G in the hands of God

While we complain so much about why our government, (at practically all levels) is not working, we may also need to look at ourselves in the mirror. No matter how much noise we make, the change that we seek in our nation must begin with individuals. If a society is not compassionate, it is futile to expect the government to be. If a society takes corruption lightly, as we do in Nigeria, (especially where our friends or kinsmen are concerned) then it stands to reason that it would be reflected in government. If a society is indifferent to the plights of the poor, as it is also evident in Nigeria, that is the way government will be. If the society has degenerated to the level of everyman for himself, as our nation clearly is today, then we delude ourselves to expect anything different from our government.

maxani: @adoloro. Pretty good. You know the language. Keep it up.

@nairalanders. As hilarious as this thread is, it calls for sober reflection. How many young people in this country can brilliantly articulate both their local language and English? Nigerian youths' mastery of the English language isn't really getting better (that includes me) and It is frightening that our own languages are dangling on the pit of extinction.

ACCORDING to Crystal Davies, a language conservationist “Languages often hold the only record of a people’s history, including their songs, stories, and ancient traditions. In particular, many indigenous cultures contain a wealth of information about the local environment and its floral and faunal resources, based upon thousands of years of close interaction, experience, and problem-solving.

With the extinction of a language, therefore, mankind also loses access to local understanding of plants, animals, and ecosystems, some of which have important medicinal value, and many of which remain undocumented by science. Thus, the survival of threatened languages, and the indigenous knowledge contained within, is an important aspect of maintaining biological diversity.”

As a teacher in a school, in Lagos Nigeria, I once asked my class if anyone could name the various ethnic groups that make up Nigeria. James Green stood up before anyone could beat him to it. And with a sense of pride, he reeled out “Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba”. He was greeted with cheers from his mates. And with a sense of fulfillment, he sat.

When I asked which of those tribes he belonged, he thought for a while, rolled his eyes up and down, and replied with a tone of defeat “I don’t know sir”. How sad.

James belonged to the Okrika ethnic group in Rivers State, sadly enough, he didn’t even know this. He only understands and speaks English as his mother tongue, even his name ‘James Green’, contributed in further distancing his little mind from his cultural identity; his parents ofcourse failed to transmit to him, a clear cultural and linguistic identity, which is one of the fastest ways to kill a culture. In this way, Nigeria has lost a good number of her indigenous languages, and many more, according to the National Geographic Society, are on the brink of disappearance.

If the predictions by language conservationists are anything to go by, “Languages are now becoming extinct faster than birds, mammals, fish or plants. Of the estimated 7,000 unique languages spoken in the world today, nearly half are likely to disappear this century, with an average of one lost every two weeks.” It is most likely then that in less than 50 years from now, even some major Nigerian languages, if not encouraged, can become extinct, and lecturers in our Universities would have cause to excite their students with great lectures in a course on, say, ‘ancient’Igbo or “ancient” Yoruba languages, and of which they would speak thus , with nostalgia, ‘They once flourished in the distant past but have now become extinct’.

This is a disheartening possibility for anyone who cares about our indigenous languages, the history and unrecorded knowledge they carry within them.

There is a major reason why everyone should be concerned; the reason is in a new study by The Living Tongue Institute of Languages which shows that already about six Nigerian languages in Bauchi State alone have already gone into extinction and with them, their repositories of knowledge and history of the people.

Bauchi State in North East Nigeria is home to the once famous Yankari games reserve. It is also the home to over 60 ethnic groups—ethnic groups which most people, out of convenience or historical laziness, continue to lump together as Hausa-Fulani. Before the Jihad of 1804 and the subsequent conquest of that area, it was and is still peopled by among others the Hausa, Fulani Ajawa, Gamo-Ningi, Kubi and Mawa, Lere, Shau and Ziriya. Others include the Bure, Bole, Daza and Deno in Darazo Local Council Area. There is also the Dugiri, Dass, and Giiwo who are found in Alkaleri Local Council Area and so on.

These tribes flourished in their uniqueness, preserving their heritage, tradition, knowledge of medicine, folklore and their God given distinctiveness which were all embedded in their languages. They were part of the colours of the cultural rainbow with which the Creator decorated the world. However, the coming of the Jihadist, followed closely by the European colonialists changed all that. Soon the Hausa language became the language of commerce and administration, followed closely by the English Language which sought to upstage the Hausa language as an official language.

At the receiving end of this dual linguistic onslaught however, were the indigenous ethnic nationalities of the Bauchi area. Unfortunately, the indigenes themselves took things for granted and Hausa gradually replaced their indigenous languages, not just at the regional level, but also at the family level, soon, like a terminal disease, their second language began to eat away their mother tongue, with subtle but devastating effects; values which bore much weight in their original tongue was lost, proverbs and anecdotes through which high moral standard were sustained fizzled away, and like most Igbo speakers of today, the Bauchi tribes of “yester years” would have thought to themselves, ‘it doesn’t matter, so long as we can communicate’ .

By way of a gradual but grinding process, most of the 58 tribal and linguistic groups became subdued, while seven have completely lost their sense of unique identity, their languages, their culture and entire heritage. Seven language groups died a tragic death. The Living Tongue Institute of Languages (in 2007) in partnership with the National Geographic Society listed among the dead languages of the world, Ajawa, Gamo-Ningi, Kubi and Mawa, Lere, Shau and Ziriya, all in present day Bauchi state of Nigeria.

These tribes whose descendants still exist could now be likened to bats, an animal that is neither a bird nor a mammal- without any clear identity. Members of these tribes who appear to be totally absorbed into the Hausa group, now speak Hausa and English fluently, yet they are neither Hausas nor Britons. They know who they are not, but they are not certain who they are, because the proof of any distinct group identity lies in their language and culture, both of which members of these once vibrant ethnic groups have totally lost. It is indeed a great disaster for one not to know where he is coming from.

The fate that befell Ajawa, Gamo-Ningi, Kubi and Mawa, Lere, Shau and Ziriya is clearly staring other languages in the face, except the government and well meaning Nigerians wake up to their responsibilities. Except an attempt is made to reverse the decline in the use of mother tongue, even the so-called major languages may soon disappear. It is already happening gradually, particularly with the Igbo language. Igbo and Yoruba parents who would rather speak English and in some cases other languages to their children, at the detriment of their mother tongue, therefore denying their children the right to their heritage, must realize that they are not just doing a great dis service to their children but to humanity. This of course is not to suggest that children should not learn languages other than theirs. Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o the author of “Weep Not Child” said: “ If you know all the languages of the world and you do know your language, that is enslavement, on the other hand, if you know your language and add all the other languages of the world, that is empowerment.”

Achebe lived through the times, suffered career and personal loses. We can say he’s even lucky to survive. What he did here was write a private memoir. A memoir is not necessarily a work of inviolable truth. It is one man’s recollection and opinion which most times is coloured by his own emotions. I accept it as another account by another notable Nigerian and choose not to make a judgment. Some of us have read Awolowo’s own defence of some of those charges. And just like Achebe’s, I’ve accepted such as his own account of the time.

However, outside individual accounts, I can perfectly make up my mind about what I think happened during the war. Having ploughed through countless historical documents and accounts, I have concluded that it was caused by the immaturity, political inexperience, over-ambition and the lack of patriotism of the military class that took over from the civilians of the First Republic. Every crime committed by one side was equally committed by the other during the war. There are dozens of officers on both sides I would gladly arraign for genocide.

As for such civilian operatives as Awolowo, I really have nothing against them as far as they acted in support of their side by providing ideas that won them the war. That is okay. No matter what anyone believes about Awolowo and the idea to starve Biafra, it’s not anything covered under international law. He was not a military commander. He was an economic planner who had to determine how to use the resources of the state to prosecute a war successfully. If he were a Biafran who used his intellect and management acumen to win the war for Biafra, no one on the Igbo side would have anything bad to say about him. He did what he needed to do as a member of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria at the time. It has nothing to do with him wanting to belong or wanting to be President, because, no matter what anyone says, that is mere speculation. Awolowo had never hidden his political desire to be Prime Minister or President neither did Zik. It would be churlish to accuse Zik of crossing to the Federal side because he wanted to belong or be President and so on. We are talking a war here and everyone with influence did their bit to avoid it to no avail. Even Awolowo was the only national leader that went to Enugu to see Ojukwu with the aim of averting the war. People should simply accept the reality of the day. Awolowo could have been a Fulani or Hausa General or political leader. He had a side in the war and provided ideas to win that war. To single him out as some demon is to miss the historical reality of the times. The problem as I see it is people getting bogged down in emotional and personal minutiae to the detriment of the issue as a national affair.

So, for me, people should respect what Achebe has done by recalling his own experience in his own way and expressing his opinion of personalities of the time along the line. It is immaterial that he criticizes Awolowo or that he has a view about why Awolowo did this or that. After all, he expresses not so charitable views too about Gowon and Ojukwu as well. We can disagree with his opinion of Awolowo and anybody without turning it into some kind of ethnic war. We can do so without questioning his motive or attributing it to ethnic reasons. Achebe has paid his dues and has shown over the years that he is not beholden to ethnicity. Yes, he didn’t say what he said about Awolowo only because he is Igbo, but also because that is the way he honestly saw it. Of course, he and Awolowo fought on opposite sides and that may have played into his recollection, but that is not exactly disqualifying. An account is just an account. It need not be accepted as the full fact, but should be welcomed as another great addition to Civil War literature. Unfortunately, Awolowo is not alive to defend himself, but he has responded enough to the type of criticism Achebe is putting forward and any good student of history should read all accounts in the context of others. This has just presented the ethnic jingoists on both sides an opportunity to jump and shout, but the two great personalities would not have seen anything ethnic in their criticism or defence respectively.

Yoruba Nollywood, the sub-genre of the acclaimed Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, is currently under assaults from illiteracy, incompetence and ignorance.

If the main multi-million dollars Nollywood industry itself has attracted a lot of criticisms on accounts of its technical deficiencies, pedestrian storylines, unprofessional scripting and suboptimal filming methodology, amidst other imperfections, its Yoruba subset fares worse on many indices of performing arts critique.

Apart from the productions of a professional like Tunde Kelani, the bulk of the output from the Yoruba stable is, as far as I am concerned, works of unspeakable banality. The problem starts right from the titles of the films themselves, if you forgive the often puerile and unimaginative choice of titles, you would definitely still have a learned axe to grind with the titles on account of orthographical blunders.

In order not to attract the insinuation of malicious demarketing of any particular producer or artiste, I would not give any real example to drive home this point, but let anyone scan through some of the titles of these ubiquitous Yoruba films on the shelf and see how many of them have correct spelling in accordance with modern Yoruba orthography.

But that is just a tip of the iceberg. Let us now focus on the so-called rendition of the plays in English, otherwise called subtitling, which appears on the screensupposedly in real time to the diction flow of the performers. You would be exceedingly shocked by the renditions! If these people can’t speak or write good English, can’t they at least give their works to people with the abilities to help out? You would encounter, among other pratfalls, direct word translation from Yoruba to English in attempts to convey Yoruba ideas, which of course, often abysmally fails in communicating the underlying message.

What about the use of effects? Imagine a car merely screeching to a halt and the driver flung his head on the steering to convey the impression of a fatal accident! All these are aside from observable lack of depth in their production dramaturgy.

But by far the most annoying aspect is the inexorable pre-occupation of these filmmakers with superstition. Hardly would you watch any Yoruba film in contemporary times without seeing reality being distorted through fantastic treatment. The often peddled excuse that such projections are a reflection of our culture and belief system does not hold water.

The mere fact that our forefathers had a worldview commensurate with their times does not mean every film you churn out in the 21st century must reflect anachronistic magic and superstition.

I know a friend who actively discourages his children from watching these Yoruba films, all in an attempt to shield them from being contaminated with “illiteracies”. The embarrassing state of affair of the Yoruba film industry is particularly painful when it is noted that the precursors to what we now know as Nollywood started in Yorubaland in the 60s and continued even to the 80s with the indelible performances of legends like the late Hubert Ogunde, Ola Balogun, Kola Ogunmola, Duro Ladipo, Olaiya Adejumo (aka Baba Sala), the late Adeyemi Afolayan (Ade love) and Akin Ogungbe.

These people were hard-core professionals, who were profoundly passionate about their works, in spite of severe limitation of their times. It is true that the works of these great ones too featured supernaturalism, but it was because this was inherently bound with the themes of their films. For example, films like Aiye, Jaiyesinmi, Oba Koso, Oba Moro etc, were thematically fantastic and could not have been done in any other way.

This is unlike what we have today where almost every film, even the one that has ultramodern setting, would nonetheless brim with fantastic episodes, as if reality can never exist without the touch of magic! Our main Nollywood industry (English) is, to a lesser extent, also guilty of this proclivity for surrealism.

The Yoruba are among the most educated and culturally advanced of any African ethnic groups therefore, why are most contemporary films of Yoruba expression so miserably sub-standard? The answer is this: the segment of the Yoruba population that engages in film productions (unlike the main Nollywood) is at best semi-literates. Granted that there is a sprinkle of educated ones among the actors and actresses, the fact still remains that 90 percent of them are artisans and school dropouts, who took to acting, first as hobbies, before making it fulltime profession.

Unfortunately, they retained their amateurish mentality. There is a real need for the real professionals to take over the Yoruba film making industry, lest the whole world might be misled, via exposure to “African Magic Yoruba” on DSTV, to think the current amateurish outputs are the best that can come from Oodua land.

BY:KAYODE KETEFE