₦airaland Forum

blink182:
Are you Serious?

blink182:
Clown

bigdoo:
Buhari is not only an Islamic fundamentalist, he is also a ruthless tribalist.  He overthrew Shagari's civilian regime for no good reason [/b]and had no policies that could move Nigeria forward apart from his "War against Indisciple" slogan.  [b]His main reason for taking over power was to prevent Dr Alex Ekwueme (an Ibo man) from becoming the next Nigerian president after Shagari.  He can never become president of Nigeria even if he chooses to make the Pope or even Jesus Christ his running mate.[color=#006600][b]^{this is why i called you a fool} [/b][/color]

omotee4u:
When I had d same issue, I calld Mtn customer care n dey said it cud be cos I use different sims on d phone. If u do too, den delete all d configurations from oda networks on your fone, even d one from Mtn. Do a backup of your files, or move all your files to d memory card, remove your memory card, den do a total factory reset. I guess dis shud work.

Brite02:
Dat's nt possible!!!!! Wen dd u do dat? Today?

na_so:
^^^^^^^^

Will you shut up if you have nothing to say i suggest you start seeing a therapist.? Type in better fonts before you damage people's eyes.

Dispute my statement that over 40% of PTF projects went to the NW  at the expense of other regions.

blink182:
BB for life. . . when the election gets rigged and the results cannot be defended, SNG will storm Abuja

Obiagu1:
Please I'm not the author of this post.

caringchi:
that he does not own a house in Abuja, is a criteria for voting him, or being the right candidate?
na waooo for people running out of point for their candidate

how do u even prove such crap?

hmmmm, as for me, i wouldnt mind a good house in Abuja (who doesnt), if u say u dont want a house in Abuja, it means u are too poor and narrow-minded to be alive

Barkono:
I add my BB pin and twitter page to the two honest men (BB). I also add a true confession:


Testimony By a Nigerian on Why They Didn't vote Buhari before
.In 2011, GMB is not alone. He's supported by a team of volunteers online and offline who never voted for him before. We didn't vote for him, because we didn't know. We didn't know that he supervised and birthed our only existing refineries. We didn't know that what he did in road construction while in the PTF hasn't been matched by 12yrs of the PDP, even though we claimed they were lopsided. We didn't know that in his time as head of state he reduced inflation from 23% to 4%, by fiscal discipline and a homegrown economic team (not achieved under any other era, even military). We didn't know that there was no religious crisis while he led.
We didn't know that JJ Rawlings of Ghana took over 2yrs before him, and killed all the corrupt leaders, while GMB merely gave his own, long-term jail sentences. We didn't know that the hospitals and universities around the country never witnessed as much benefits they got from the PTF from any government after or before his time. We did not know, that this man haven been in all the oil sectors in Nigeria, has no petrol station, much less a refinery or an oil rig like so many of our leaders. We never voted him, because we did not know.
But now we know, We know that he has followership in the north that money can't buy. We know that those who follow him are poor, and follow him out of hope and belief in his values. I have met old men who know him, who have said, "All I need from Buhari is his word, I can take it to the bank". Now we know that here is someone that has been in everything to make him a Dan-Something, but didn't take the road.

We feared he was an Islamic fundamentalist, but he challenged us to provide any human being who can point at anything he did to show the same. Now we know, that it's about the values, The only former head of state that does not own a house in Abuja, Shine your eyes o!, This is my take, What is yours?

eatme:
I'm sure dude can easily wire 5-10K to my account without shaking!

So, you people want me to miss this grand opportunity? Una wicked ooooooooo

chinedumo:
i can see she has got real time lovers

victorazy:
facebook i know but 2go, who are u plz? can someone tell me by sendind me web add.?

Johndoe100:
[size=14pt]The Crimes of Buhari[/size]

By Wole SOYINKA

This intervention has been provoked, not so much by the ambitions of General Buhari to return to power at the head of a democratic Nigeria, as by declarations of support from directions that leave one totally dumbfounded. It would appear that some, myself among them, had been overcomplacent about the magnitude of an ambition that seemed as preposterous as the late effort of General Ibrahim Babangida to aspire yet again to the honour of presiding over a society that truly seeks a democratic future. What one had dismissed was a rash of illusions, brought about by other political improbabilities that surround us, however, is being given an air of plausibility by individuals and groupings to which one had earlier attributed a sense of relevance of historic actualities. Recently, I published an article in the media, invoking the possible recourse to psychiatric explanation for some of the incongruities in conduct within national leadership. Now, to tell the truth, I have begun to seriously address the issue of which section of society requires the services of a psychiatrist. The contest for a seizure of rationality is now so polarized that I am quite reconciled to the fact it could be those of us on this side, not the opposing school of thought that ought to declare ourselves candidates for a lunatic asylum. So be it. While that decision hangs in the balance however, the forum is open. Let both sides continue to address our cases to the electorate, but also prepare to submit ourselves for psychiatric examination.



The time being so close to electoral decision, we can understand the haste of some to resort to shortcuts. In the process however, we should not commit the error of opening the political space to any alternative whose curative touch to national afflictions have proven more deadly than the disease. In order to reduce the clutter in our options towards the forthcoming elections, we urge a beginning from what we do know, what we have undergone, what millions can verify, what can be sustained by evidence accessible even to the school pupil, the street hawker or a just-come visitor from outer space. Leaving Buhari aside for now, I propose a commencing exercise that should guide us along the path of elimination as we examine the existing register of would-be president. That initial exercise can be summed up in the following speculation: “If it were possible for Olusegun Obasanjo, the actual incumbent, to stand again for election, would you vote for him?”

If the answer is “yes”, then of course all discussion is at an end. If the answer is ‘No’ however, then it follows that a choice of a successor made by Obasanjo should be assessed as hovering between extremely dangerous and an outright kiss of death. The degree of acceptability of such a candidate should also be inversely proportionate to the passion with which he or she is promoted by the would-be ‘godfather’. We do not lack for open evidence about Obasanjo’s passion in this respect. From Lagos to the USA, he has taken great pains to assure the nation and the world that the anointed NPN presidential flag bearer is guaranteed, in his judgment, to carry out his policies. Such an endorsement/anointment is more than sufficient, in my view, for public acceptance or rejection. Yar’Adua’s candidature amounts to a terminal kiss from a moribund regime. Nothing against the person of this – I am informed - personable governor, but let him understand that in addition to the direct source of his emergence, the PDP, on whose platform he stands, represents the most harrowing of this nation’s nightmares over and beyond even the horrors of the Abacha regime. If he wishes to be considered on his own merit, now is time for him, as well as others similarly enmeshed, to exercise the moral courage that goes with his repudiation of that party, a dissociation from its past, and a pledge to reverse its menacing future. We shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and then have him present his credentials along those of other candidates engaged in forging a credible opposition alliance. Until then, let us bury this particular proposition and move on to a far graver, looming danger, personified in the history of General Buhari.



The grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice are not only shaky, but pitifully naive. History matters. Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future. Of course, we know that human beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evident suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler that the nation cannot call to order.

Buhari – need one remind anyone - was one of the generals who treated a Commission of Enquiry, the Oputa Panel, with unconcealed disdain. Like Babangida and Abdusalami, he refused to put in appearance even though complaints that were tabled against him involved a career of gross abuses of power and blatant assault on the fundamental human rights of the Nigerian citizenry.

Prominent against these charges was an act that amounted to nothing less than judicial murder, the execution of a citizen under a retroactive decree. Does Decree 20 ring a bell? If not, then, perhaps the names of three youths - Lawal Ojuolape (30), Bernard Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26) do. To put it quite plainly, one of those three – Ogedengbe - was executed for a crime that did not carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. This was an unconscionable crime, carried out in defiance of the pleas and protests of nearly every sector of the Nigerian and international community – religious, civil rights, political, trade unions etc. Buhari and his sidekick and his partner-in-crime, Tunde Idiagbon persisted in this inhuman act for one reason and one reason only: to place Nigerians on notice that they were now under an iron, inflexible rule, under governance by fear.

The execution of that youthful innocent – for so he was, since the punishment did not exist at the time of commission - was nothing short of premeditated murder, for which the perpetrators should normally stand trial upon their loss of immunity. Are we truly expected to forget this violation of our entitlement to security as provided under existing laws? And even if our sensibilities have become blunted by succeeding seasons of cruelty and brutality, if power itself had so coarsened the sensibilities also of rulers and corrupted their judgment, what should one rightly expect after they have been rescued from the snare of power” At the very least, a revaluation, leading hopefully to remorse, and its expression to a wronged society. At the very least, such a revaluation should engender reticence, silence. In the case of Buhari, it was the opposite. Since leaving office he has declared in the most categorical terms that he had no regrets over this murder and would do so again.



Human life is inviolate. The right to life is the uniquely fundamental right on which all other rights are based. The crime that General Buhari committed against the entire nation went further however, inconceivable as it might first appear. That crime is one of the most profound negations of civic being. Not content with hammering down the freedom of expression in general terms, Buhari specifically forbade all public discussion of a return to civilian, democratic rule. Let us constantly applaud our media – those battle scarred professionals did not completely knuckle down. They resorted to cartoons and oblique, elliptical references to sustain the people’s campaign for a time-table to democratic rule. Overt agitation for a democratic time table however remained rigorously suppressed – military dictatorship, and a specifically incorporated in Buhari and Idiagbon was here to stay. To deprive a people of volition in their own political direction is to turn a nation into a colony of slaves. Buhari enslaved the nation. He gloated and gloried in a master-slave relation to the millions of its inhabitants. It is astonishing to find that the same former slaves, now free of their chains, should clamour to be ruled by one who not only turned their nation into a slave plantation, but forbade them any discussion of their condition.



So Tai Solarin is already forgotten? Tai who stood at street corners, fearlessly distributing leaflets that took up the gauntlet where the media had dropped it. Tai who was incarcerated by that regime and denied even the medication for his asthmatic condition? Tai did not ask to be sent for treatment overseas; all he asked was his traditional medicine that had proved so effective after years of struggle with asthma!



Nor must we omit the manner of Buhari coming to power and the pattern of his ‘corrective’ rule. Shagari’s NPN had already run out of steam and was near universally detested – except of course by the handful that still benefited from that regime of profligacy and rabid fascism. Responsibility for the national condition lay squarely at the door of the ruling party, obviously, but against whom was Buhari’s coup staged? Judging by the conduct of that regime, it was not against Shagari’s government but against the opposition. The head of government, on whom primary responsibility lay, was Shehu Shagari. Yet that individual was kept in cozy house detention in Ikoyi while his powerless deputy, Alex Ekwueme, was locked up in Kiri-kiri prisons. Such was the Buhari notion of equitable apportionment of guilt and/or responsibility.



And then the cascade of escapes of the wanted, and culpable politicians. Manhunts across the length and breadth of the nation, roadblocks everywhere and borders tight as steel zip locks. Lo and behold, the chairman of the party, Chief Akinloye, strolled out coolly across the border. Richard Akinjide, Legal Protector of the ruling party, slipped out with equal ease. The Rice Minister, Umaru Dikko, who declared that Nigerians were yet to eat from dustbins - escaped through the same airtight dragnet. The clumsy attempt to crate him home was punishment for his ingratitude, since he went berserk when, after waiting in vain, he concluded that the coup had not been staged, after all, for the immediate consolidation of the party of extreme right-wing vultures, but for the military hyenas.



The case of the overbearing Secretary-General of the party, Uba Ahmed, was even more noxious. Uba Ahmed was out of the country at the time. Despite the closure of the Nigerian airspace, he compelled the pilot of his plane to demand special landing permission, since his passenger load included the almighty Uba Ahmed. Of course, he had not known of the change in his status since he was airborne. The delighted airport commandant, realizing that he had a much valued fish swimming willingly into a waiting net, approved the request. Uba Ahmed disembarked into the arms of a military guard and was promptly clamped in detention. Incredibly, he vanished a few days after and reappeared in safety overseas. Those whose memories have become calcified should explore the media coverage of that saga. Buhari was asked to explain the vanished act of this much prized quarry and his response was one of the most arrogant levity. Coming from one who had shot his way into power on the slogan of ‘dis’pline’, it was nothing short of impudent.



Shall we revisit the tragicomic series of trials that landed several politicians several lifetimes in prison? Recall, if you please, the ‘judicial’ processes undergone by the septuagenarian Chief Adekunle Ajasin. He was arraigned and tried before Buhari’s punitive tribunal but acquitted. Dissatisfied, Buhari ordered his re-trial. Again, the Tribunal could not find this man guilty of a single crime, so once again he was returned for trial, only to be acquitted of all charges of corruption or abuse of office. Was Chief Ajasin thereby released? No! He was ordered detained indefinitely, simply for the crime of winning an election and refusing to knuckle under Shagari’s reign of terror.

The conduct of the Buhari regime after his coup was not merely one of double, triple, multiple standards but a cynical travesty of justice. Audu Ogbeh, currently chairman of the Action Congress was one of the few figures of rectitude within the NPN. Just as he has done in recent times with the PDP, he played the role of an internal critic and reformer, warning, dissenting, and setting an example of probity within his ministry. For that crime he spent months in unjust incarceration. Guilty by association? Well, if that was the motivating yardstick of the administration of the Buhari justice, then it was most selectively applied. The utmost severity of the Buhari-Idiagbon justice was especially reserved either for the opposition in general, or for those within the ruling party who had showed the sheerest sense of responsibility and patriotism.



Shall I remind this nation of Buhari’s deliberate humiliating treatment of the Emir of Kano and the Oni of Ife over their visit to the state of Israel? I hold no brief for traditional rulers and their relationship with governments, but insist on regarding them as entitled to all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of any Nigerian citizen. This royal duo went to Israel on their private steam and private business. Simply because the Buhari regime was pursuing some antagonistic foreign policy towards Israel, a policy of which these traditional rulers were not a part, they were subjected on their return to a treatment that could only be described as a head masterly chastisement of errant pupils. Since when, may one ask, did a free citizen of the Nigerian nation require the permission of a head of state to visit a foreign nation that was willing to offer that tourist a visa.?



One is only too aware that some Nigerians love to point to Buhari’s agenda of discipline as the shining jewel in his scrap-iron crown. To inculcate discipline however, one must lead by example, obeying laws set down as guides to public probity. Example speaks louder than declarations, and rulers cannot exempt themselves from the disciplinary strictures imposed on the overall polity, especially on any issue that seeks to establish a policy for public well-being. The story of the thirty something suitcases – it would appear that they were even closer to fifty - found unavoidable mention in my recent memoirs, YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DOWN, written long before Buhari became spoken of as a credible candidate. For the exercise of a changeover of the national currency, the Nigerian borders – air, sea and land – had been shut tight. Nothing was supposed to move in or out, not even cattle egrets.



Yet a prominent camel was allowed through that needle’s eye. Not only did Buhari dispatch his aide-de-camp, Jokolo – later to become an emir - to facilitate the entry of those cases, he ordered the redeployment – as I later discovered - of the Customs Officer who stood firmly against the entry of the contravening baggage. That officer, the incumbent Vice-president is now a rival candidate to Buhari, but has somehow, in the meantime, earned a reputation that totally contradicts his conduct at the time. Wherever the truth lies, it does not redound to the credibility of the dictator of that time, General Buhari whose word was law, but whose allegiances were clearly negotiable.



On the theme of double, triple, multiple standards in the enforcement of the law, and indeed of the decrees passed by the Buhari regime at the time, let us recall the notorious case of ‘Triple A’ – Alhaji Alhaji Alhaji, then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. – Who was caught, literally, with his pants down in distant Austria. That was not the crime however, and private conduct should always remain restricted to the domain of private censure. There was no decree against civil servants proving just as hormone driven as anyone else, especially outside the nation’s borders. However, there was a clear decree against the keeping of foreign accounts, and this was what emerged from the Austrian escapade. Alhaji Alhaji kept, not one, but several undeclared foreign accounts, and he had no business being in possession of the large amount of foreign currency of which he was robbed by his overnight companion. The media screamed for an even application of the law, but Buhari had turned suddenly deaf.

By contrast, Fela Anikulapo languished in goal for years, sentenced under that very draconian decree. His crime was being in possession of foreign exchange that he had legitimately received for the immediate upkeep of his band as they set off for an international engagement. A vicious sentence was slapped down on Fela by a judge who later became so remorse stricken – at least after Buhari’s overthrow that he went to the King of Afro-beat and apologized.

Lesser known was the traumatic experience of the director of an international communication agency, an affiliate of UNESCO. Akin Fatoyinbo arrived at the airport in complete ignorance of the new currency decree. He was thrown in gaol in especially brutal condition, an experience from which he never fully recovered. It took several months of high-level intervention before that innocent man was eventually freed. These were not exceptional but mere sample cases from among hundreds of others, victims \of a decree that was selectively applied, a decree that routinely penalized innocents and ruined the careers and businesses of many.



What else? What does one choose to include or leave out? What precisely was Ebenezer Babatope’s crime that he should have spent the entire tenure of General Buhari in detention? Nothing beyond the fact that he once warned in the media that Buhari was an ambitious soldier who would bear watching through the lenses of a coup-d’etat. Babatope’s father died while he was in Buhari’s custody, the dictator remained deaf to every plea that he be at least released to attend his father’s funeral, even under guard. I wrote an article at the time, denouncing this pointless insensitivity. So little to demand by a man who was never accused of, nor tried for any crime, much less found guilty. Such a load of vindictiveness that smothered all traces of basic human compassion deserves no further comment in a nation that values its traditions.



But then, speaking the truth was not what Buhari, as a self-imposed leader, was especially enamoured of – enquire of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor both of whom, faithful to their journalistic calling, published nothing but the truth, yet ended up sentenced under Buhari’s decree. Mind you, no one can say that Buhari was not true to his word. [size=14pt]“I shall tamper with the freedom of the press’ swore the dictator immediately on grabbing office, and this was exactly what he did. [/size]And so on, and on, and on….



The argument of those who say that, by endorsing Buhari, they are settling on someone who can be guaranteed to give Obasanjo and the NPN a good fight, is one of the most depressing excuses I ever encountered for placing a political noose around a nation’s neck. Buhari owes a debt to this nation, not the other way round. If Buhari wishes to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the citizenry whom he has so cruelly wronged, he should first scuttle his ambitions, then place whatever following he has garnered in the meantime at the disposal of a consensus candidate among the opposition. To insist on another taste of power, after such a history of gross abuse of power is an insult to any nation that values freedom and human dignity. Buhari should sit with the opposition and coordinate strategies to defeat the most unscrupulous act of political gerrymandering that, we all know, is about to be inflicted on the nation by a desperate incumbent seeking for a clone to secure his exit from power. The nation has more than sufficient time and strategic intelligence to organize behind a common choice, publicize his or her qualities and defeat the arrogance of incumbency.



What is being eroded, through the power of suggestion, is a people’s confidence in itself, and this is the beginning of mass suicide. Without that confidence, no powers on high or on earth, external or internal, can rescue the community from both the palpable and symbolic chains of slavery. To invite back into power a man who did so much to destroy a people’s self-esteem, dignity, and faith in law and justice, is a sign of self-abasement, lack of self-esteem, a slave mentality that dooms, not only the present, but succeeding generations.

I wish to declare, unequivocally, that those of my party, the ARP/DFPF shall not participate in such a degrading surrender.