Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a few minutes ago, officially launched the Coalition for Nigeria Movement in Ogun State.
The ex-president, who arrived at the Iwe Irohin NUJ Press Centre, Oke Ilewo, Abeokuta, accompanied by the former governors of Cross River and Osun states, Donald Duke and Olagunsoye Oyinlola, respectively, Gboyega Nasiru Isiaka, Mrs. Modupe Adelaja and top politicians from the All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party, was afterward decorated with the official emblem of the Movement by Duke. While addressing the full-packed hall, Obasanjo said his letter to Buhari last week was born not out of frivolity, but out of great concern for the situation in the country.
He added that Nigeria as a nation cannot continue business as usual, observing that:
“If the instrument we have used since independence has not worked, then we should rethink and retool to make the country work.”
Obasanjo, who stressed that Nigeria, like any other countries, has various challenges, explained that the Coalition was set up to mobilize Nigerians for peace, unity, security, stability, love, welfare and the wellbeing of vulnerable Nigerians, particularly youth and women who, according to him, have been at the receiving end of national crises.
He mentioned the disrespect for the federal character as enshrined in the country’s constitution, the spate of killings and violence across the country, and the parlous nature of Nigeria’s economy under President Buhari’s administration, as some of the reasons for the Coalition.
mexxmoney: The middle belters are a confused set of people. They are at the receiving end of a lot of injustice in northern Nigeria yet you see their desperation to show that they are more northern than the people from the core north. Just look at their children omenka and kyase here on nairaland and you will understand that the thing that is doing these people is strong.
Chimamanda Adichie's epic clapback to a ridiculous question
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) - Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie was asked during an interview in France if there were any bookshops in her country -- and her clapback was epic.
"I think it reflects very poorly on French people that you have to ask me that question," she responded. The audience erupted in applause as the incredulous "Americanah," author added: "I think surely... I mean it's 2018," she said in the video of the event posted by French news channel Loopsider.
Adichie was the star guest at a global ideas event hosted by the French government called "La Nuit Des Idees" (A Night of Ideas).
Midway through the chat, she was asked if her books are read in Nigeria.
"You'll be shocked to know that they are, yes... They are read and studied, not just in Nigeria but across the continent of Africa," she said.
The interviewer then followed up by asking if there were bookshops in the country. The audience gasped and the visibly embarrassed journalist tried to back up, explaining that "not much is said about Nigeria in France."
"We speak very little about Nigeria in France, certainly not enough, and when we do it's about Boko Haram and the problems of violence and security," the interviewer said. "I would like to take advantage of your presence for us to talk about other things and things that we don't know about your country."
Many Nigerians on social media mistakenly thought the interviewer was asking if there were libraries in the country because of the use of the French word "librairie," which means bookstore.
Another posted that the interviewer made a "lazy and prejudiced insinuation."
One French commentator said the line of questioning was a "cocktail of racism and mediocrity" that was typical of French journalism.
Ahead of the event, the novelist had posted a picture of her meeting first lady Brigitte Macron in Paris on the steps of the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French president.
Adichie is an award-winning author, humanist and feminist. Her TEDxEuston speech "We Should All Be Feminists" was turned into a book and given to every 16-year-old in Sweden. Beyoncé also sampled it in her "Lemonade" album.
Adichie's novel "Americanah" was also optioned by actress Lupita Nyong'o to make it into a film.
Angelb4: If PDP thinks we now regret voting for PMB in 2015, they can still present GEJ again in 2019 vs PMB let's correct our mistakes. Dead and buried party. By the way, when will Atiku visit me sef? Some people are born to waste money. President Buhari till 2023 noni.
Jamariwolf4: How does one find this kind of man, or shud I say where? I've packaged myself and checked every nook and cranny of Abuja to every stone and sand of kaduna also.
Experienced nairaland ladies pls drop suggestions.
Married wives of nairaland too (married to rich men only) should advice us on how they met him.
Thanks
Can u still remember the comment you made here on a guy last week? You commented that his likes dont spend on their girls and he even had to drop his WhatsApp number for you to call and meet him somewhere.. I pray may you not fall into the hands of yahoo plus guys . Work hard and God will bless your hustle
omowolewa: Obasanjo's letter is really an headache in PMB's campaign camp.
Mention any promises of APC and we show you relapse.
PMB must deep hands to a big purse to clear this dirt. Which will be a departure from his anti-graft war. Am expecting numerous corruption cases under PMB to be exposed, it's still part of the strategy.
He is alredy doing that to serve his image. I read that Bachir Lawal is in EFCC detention but he is not gonna survive this war..
bigCassava: Mr Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu is a Nigerian economist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa, Transcorp and founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation. the billionaire was captured rocking the Gucci cotton embroidered with duke shirt worth N500,000 as he attended his companies meeting. Bleep poverty!
The disparity in the headline and body of the news is quite clear.. Or is N400,000 now equivalent to 500,000 of the same currency?. Brown envelope journalists
PStacks: you have not worked and you are talking of getting paid.
Is it pay before work or work b4 pay..
I dont get how some people reason
There are hundreds of npower beneficiaries in the first and last batch before ours that are yet to get posted but receiving their pay.. Dont quote me anymore unless u have sth sensible to post..
Vado: There's no such thing as a cabal in this Buhari's govt. The man is simply an airhead as far as the intricacies of the art of governance is concerned.
Political commentators and the general public have always argued that the government of President Buhari is largely influenced by a cabal. According to Wikipedia, a cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, state, or other community, often by intrigue, usually unbeknown to persons outside their group. Simply put it is a secret political clique or faction. Who are the members of this cabal and how do they operate? What are the tale tell signs of their activities in the Nigerian society since the inauguration of the present administration?
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor For the second time in as many generations, Olusegun Obasanjo has had to disavow Muhammadu Buhari. The first time was under military rule in 1984 when General Obasanjo asked Buhari to stop references to his military junta as being an offshoot of the Murtala-Obasanjo military regime. It was a stinking rebuke by Obasanjo who sought to delink his benevolent military regime from the ruthlessness of the Muhammadu Buhari-Tunde Idiagbon military regime. The second disavowal yesterday, came after 33 years. It came after Obasanjo disowned his political godson, President Goodluck Jonathan to support Buhari’s comeback bid, albeit as a civilian president in 2015. After he was catapulted to power in 1976 and handed over power to a democratically elected civilian leader three years later to universal approval, Obasanjo has continued to see himself as a moral conscience of the nation. His successors as military heads of state and subsequently, his successors as presidents in the Fourth Republic who he perceived to have deviated from the path of probity have been made to suffer from his caustic missives. Alhaji Shehu Shagari who directly succeeded Obasanjo in his first outing on October 1, 1979, had to suffer missives from Obasanjo’s retirement base in Ota when the later felt that the new president was allowing the ship of state to drift. Obasanjo last year recalled his beef with that administration to be mainly due to policy inconsistency. Speaking when he received a business delegation in the Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta last year, he said: “One of our problems in this country is inconsistency in policy. In 1979, we were getting to a place where we would be self-sufficient in rice production, but then a new administration came and set up a presidential committee on rice importation instead of a presidential committee on exportation of rice. “In no time, when the imported rice started a arriving, those farmers who were cultivating rice gave up. His beefs with the Buhari military regime were mainly in the areas of human rights and ethnic bias. Months after he publicly asked the Buhari military regime to stop addressing itself as an offshoot of the Murtala/Obasanjo regime ostensibly on account of its poor human rights credentials, Obasanjo at a lecture delivered to the Agriculture Society in Ibadan, in August, 1985 flayed the regime for installing what he described as a “tilted federalism” on the country. Obasanjo, Buhari subsequently confessed sent him an advance copy of the lecture. Days later, Buhari was overthrown from office. The Ibrahim Babangida military regime was also not spared and was the object of repeated rebuke by Obasanjo after an initial charm. He was particularly critical of the administration’s economic policies saying famously at the peak of the public revolt against the Structural Adjustment Policy, SAP programme that “SAP must have a human face.” Obasanjo also expressed opposition to the intrigues that characterised Babangida’s transition programme. In May 1993 Obasanjo assembled a conference of retired military generals, leading civil society personalities and some of the leading lights on the academia to deliberate on Nigeria. Obasanjo had ahead of the summit informed Babangida of the gathering scheduled for Gateway Hotel, Ota. Those invited came and were turned away by soldiers sent by Babaginda. However, unknown to him, Obasanjo had envisaged it and had adequately conveyed to participants to gather at his farm where the conference took place. After Sani Abacha came to power, Obasanjo was quick to hit at him within one year. Obasanjo was even harder on Babangida for allowing the seed that gave birth to the Abacha regime. In a lecture he delivered at Arewa House, Kaduna, in 1994, he said: “General Babangida is the main architect of the state in which the nation finds itself today, and General Sani Abacha was his eminent disciple, faithful supporter, and beneficiary.” Abacha sought to put Obasanjo off the radar forever, but the later survived the contraptions to birth the Fourth Republic in May 1999, a year after Abacha died in office. President Umar Yar`adua who Obasanjo installed in office as successor in 2007 was not spared by his political benefactor as the ship of state was tossed in a conspiracy that threw up the phrase, ‘the cabal’ into Nigeria’s political lexicon. As the crisis thrown up by the absence of the president smouldered, Obasanjo at a dialogue organised by Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust in January, 2010 asked Yar`adua to toe the “path of honour and morality” and resign if his health could not carry him any more in office. However, his most celebrated falling out was with his most successful political project, President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013. Obasanjo wrote several letters to Jonathan, but only two came to public knowledge after the two men had a public falling apart in 2013. Obasanjo in those letters sought to portray Jonathan of pushing the country to the precipice by promoting deceit, corruption, and distrust in government. Obasanjo went to the extent of publicly tearing his membership card of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP as a way of showing his revolt for a second term for Dr. Jonathan. He also publicly welcomed leaders of the All Progressives Congress, APC and the opposition that was framed against Jonathan in his Abeokuta Hill Top Mansion. President Obasanjo’s assertions of condoning corruption, clannishness and crass incompetence on the part of President Buhari may serve to underline the consistency with which the former leader has attached to his vow to a united and progressive Nigeria. How Buhari responds either to the issues or to the letter is what many would be waiting for in a political chess game that no one can predict. https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/01/obasanjo-strikes-again/