[b]Quit presidential race now , El-Rufai tells Buhari, IBB
From AIDOGHIE PAULINUS, Abuja
Thursday, September 30, 2010


• El-Rufai
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has asked former military rulers, Generals Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) and Muhammadu Buhari, to quit the 2011 presidential race.

Speaking with Daily Sun in Abuja at the Leadership independence conference organized by the Leadership Newspaper on Nigeria at 50, El-Rufai canvassed the enthronement of a new generation of leaders.

“I have great respect for President Babangida. I think he has done a lot for Nigeria. You won’t take that from him. He has made his mistakes like every human being, but people like President Babangida and General Buhari should just disappear. They should give way to a new set of people with new ideas. Young people preferably,” El-Rufai said.

El-Rufai said the whole world is now being ruled by young people and wondered why old blood should continue to rule Nigeria. “Obama is 48 and Cameron is 43 for God’s sake. So, why are we recycling leaders that ruled this country very well or very badly 25 years ago?,” he queried.

El-Rufai said: “I was 25 years old when Buhari and Babangida were Heads of State and I am now 50 and they still want to be Head of State. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand that at all and I call on the young people of Nigeria to take their future into their hands and ensure that in the next election, they vote for a new generation of leaders.

“I think that we will not make progress until we break the link from the past and just move on. 70 per cent of Nigerians are below the age of 40. Many of these young people, the next generation, as they are called, are on internet services such as Facebook and twitter, using Blackberry and if you ask any of these people running for presidency, they will think that Blackberry is a fruit. So, we have to move away from there and stop thinking that this leadership thing is all about us or all about individuals.

We must put the future of the country at heart and give way to a new generation of leadership.”
While declaring that the nation had something to celebrate for remaining united as one country despite fighting a civil war, El-Rufai, however, said there was a lot to reflect about. “As we look towards the next 50 years, I think the principal issue in Nigeria has been the failure of leadership. We have not made the progress that our human and natural resources entitled us to make and it is all because we have failed leaders,” he noted.

On the forthcoming elections, El-Rufai said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would ensure credible elections in 2011. “I have personal confidence in Prof. Attahiru Jega. He is a man of great integrity. He is an honest man, who could not be bought at any price and for that reason, we are all hopeful that he will ensure free and fair elections,” he said.

[/b]



http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2010/sept/30/national-30-09-2010-001.htm

Spot on.

[size=16pt]THANK YOU EL RUFAI THEY ARE BOTH EXPIRED AND CONTAMINATED?
AND ALSO ITS AN ABOMINATION FOR THEM TO RULE NIGERIA AGAIN[/size], 

El-Rufai said: “I was 25 years old when Buhari and Babangida were Heads of State and I am now 50 and they still want to be Head of State. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand that at all and I call on the young people of Nigeria to take their future into their hands and ensure that in the next election, they vote for a new generation of leaders.

[size=16pt]THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF NIGERIA SHOULD TAKE THEIR DESTINY INTO THEIR HANDS
BY VOTING FOR YOUNG AND DYNAMIC LEADER, AS IBB ONCE SAID THAT THE YOUTH
ARE NOT READY TO RULE THE COUNTRY[/size] ,

70 per cent of Nigerians are below the age of 40. Many of these young people, the next generation, as they are called, are on internet services such as Facebook and twitter, using Blackberry and if you ask any of these people running for presidency, they will think that Blackberry is a fruit.

[size=14pt]YES THAT IS TRUE I THINK FRUITS WILL DEFINATELY BE WHAT BLACKBERRY
WILL MEAN TO IBB AND BUHARI, EVEN FACEBOOK WILL BE MISTAKEN FOR  TEXBOOK
IF ASKED IBB AND BUHARI BUT THANK GOD FOR GEJ THAT HAS OPENED THEIR
AWARENESS TO FACEBOOK[/size] 

I CANT JUST BELIV EL-RUFAI SAYING DIS, BUHARI & IBB ARE THE BEST CONTENDANT DONT FULL UR SELF. FAKE MAN.

Blackberry is a fruit. rotflol

pls i can't help it but to laugh, blackberry-fruit of course thats what they would have called it

Chase the Hooligans-in-Power (HiPs) out and vote in better candidates.

Remember to RSVP -

Register;
Select and sponsor(your candidates);
Vote;
Protect your votes;

Let this be our motto for this election period.
Copy and text the motto to as many as possible on your GSM and several times during the voter registration period.
One Man, One Vote!!!

No doubt about what El-Rufai said was right and nothing but the honest truth.

So is now El Rufai wake up from sleep? is IBB not his boss? yeye people

ibrolamin:

Blackberry is a fruit. rotflol

That is the most funniest part of it, blackberry is a fruit, and facebook is a texbook

No, no no. Facebook na mirror wey I go take straight my cap walahi.

That is the most funniest part of it, blackberry is a fruit, and facebook is a texbook

I have cracked my ribs because of laughter. My ribs ache.

He has a right to voice his opinion and he just did.

They should both go and sit down.Enough is enough.

alldone:

They should both go and sit down.Enough is enough.

If they do Jonathan would be unopposed. I mean do you like that? would you prefer a situation when and where someone declares his or her ambition and there is nobody to challenge him or her? It strengthens our democracy to have more than one National figure contesting for presidency. This is why i am against Wole condemning everything Nigerian yet he doesn’t seem to point the right direction to us. If you think or say something is bad, at least you can offer an option. I respect Wole Soyinka and his scholarship but he is beginning to bore me with his endless rant on how bad Nigeria has turn out to be . . . Ask him WHAT DO WE DO?

Blackberry is a type of fruit

They should go and rest

All of them including El Rufai should go an hang themselves.

Rastamann:

All of them including El Rufai should go an hang themselves.

SPOT ON!

i beg make they give way to goodluck.

Rofl. . . this man nailed it! Ouch!

Nasir,

Yes, they are expired and shout quit the stage, but i am afraid you are no better than they are. What happened during your years as the FCT Minister. Where certain lands supposed to be shared as gifts to your corrupt friends and ally. Change can never be from you cos you betrayed opportunity. Can you sincerely make public if you never gave freewill gift of land or plot to Dr. Uba Sani. Kettle calling pot black

eros:

Well said El-Rufai. . . . . . . .well said.

El Rufai is not a democrat
He always disobeyed court orders

When Oshiomole was NLC president, he criticised a government policy
El Rufai said they would not listen to him
He explained that it was not eevrybody that would be allowed to contribute to policy making
He advised that if Oshiomole wanted to influence policy he should
form his own party
contest elections
win and then
make policies

The Babangida years

By Tolu Ogunlesi
April 17, 2010 10:36PM

In his first New Year Days speech as military president, months after deposing the Buhari-Idiagbon government in a bloodless coup enthusiastically welcomed by Nigerians, Ibrahim Babangida declared: I wish to reaffirm that this administration does not intend to stay in power a day longer than is required to lay the necessary institutional framework to bring about a better and more stable Nigeria. Babangidas bonhomie (its trademark an endearing gap-toothed smile) - in stark contrast to the stern, unsmiling façade of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor - made it easy for him to be believed.
The distinction between the two regimes in fact ran much deeper than personality quirks. Babangida, in action, proved to be the complete antithesis of his predecessor. He threw open prison doors, setting free hundreds of 3rd republic politicians convicted and jailed by Buhari. He repealed the obnoxious Decree No. 4 of 1984 with which the Buhari regime had shackled the media. He promised to run an open administration that is responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of all the people - a departure from the high-handedness of the Buhari/Idiagbon era.
One of his first actions as military president was to allow Nigerians to decide, through public debates, whether to accept the $2.5 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan the Buhari government had been negotiating for.
After the terror of the Buhari years, Nigerians appeared to have found a statesman in military uniform.

Tough times that lasted

By 1985, Nigerias foreign debt had ballooned to $18 billion, up from $3.4 billion in 1980 (it would rise beyond $30 billion by the end of the 80s), and external reserves had dwindled to less than $2 billion. Oil prices had been in freefall for 3 years running, and in January 1986 they finally fell to less than $20 per barrel, a record low since the start of the decade.
To his credit Babangida made all the right noises about revamping the economy. In his Independence Day 1985 speech, barely two months old in office, he declared a state of economic emergency for the next 15 months. That speech went on to lay down a comprehensive plan for economic reconstruction.
This plan included a moratorium on new foreign debt, promotion of agriculture and industrial development, restriction of importation to essential commodities, financial sector reform and privatisation.

Populist leanings

IBB was a master of the populist move - ambitious government programs targeted at tackling poverty, and empowering rural dwellers. His government churned out program after program, in a bid to actualize his promises to run an inclusive, people-facing government. In 1986, Babangida launched the Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Social Justice, and Economic Recovery (MAMSER).
In 1987, the Directorate of Food and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI) was launched to promote agriculture and transform Nigerias rural landscape by providing modern infrastructure. Other Babangida creations include the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN), National Board for Community Banks (NBCB), Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), National Planning Commission (NPC), and the Urban Development Bank.
No other Nigerian government presided over such substantial expansion of government bureaucracy as the Babangida administration. In time, the fiscal prudence that Babangida espoused vanished: billions of naira were sunk into an endless transition programme, and in the early 90s, 12 billion dollars worth of windfall crude oil revenue (courtesy of the rise in the oil prices due to the Gulf War) could not be accounted for.
Mr. Babangida also came to perfect the art of dispensing patronage through political appointments (mostly targeted at leading members of the opposition) and a far-from-transparent allocation of lucrative oil blocks.

A man whose words mean nothing

Mr. Babangidas contradictions eventually overwhelmed his reputation so that when, in May 1993, the activist and lawyer Gani Fawehinmi described him as a man whose words mean nothing to him, evidence of this littered his eight years in power.
Only months after vowing to run a government by consultation with the people, Mr. Babangida in 1986 surreptitiously - and unilaterally - took Nigeria, an avowed secular state, into full membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), a body which describes itself as the collective voice of the Muslim world.
Mr. Babangida lamented the large role played by the public sector in economic activity with hardly any concrete results to justify such a role.Ironically, over the course of the next five years, he would go ahead to supervise an unprecedented expansion of government. And despite his deference to the wish of Nigerians to reject the IMF loan, Mr. Babangida went ahead to implement some of the Funds most drastic requirements - a devaluation of the naira, and removal of subsidies, chief of which were the petroleum subsidies.
Mr. Babangida promised Nigerians that the belt-tightening was sorely needed: the painful injection that would usher in vibrant economic health; the mandatory dark lining before a cloud of prosperity. Those reforms, which he christened Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), came into effect in 1986, with a far-from-pleasant impact on Nigerians. Purchasing powers dwindled, inflation rose, and the obliteration of the middle class began. In 1989, SAP riots rocked the country, as Nigerians had finally had enough of economic reforms which silver lining they waited in vain for.

Greatest failings

Mr. Babangidas greatest failings were however in two key areas: his human rights record, and his political transition programme. In December 1985, a group of soldiers, which included his close friend, Mamman Vatsa, were arrested on allegations of plotting to topple the 4-month old Babangida government. After Vatsa was convicted and sentenced to death, Mr. Babangida assured a delegation of distinguished writers (Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and J.P. Clark), which had come pleading for mercy, that he was determined to do everything in my power to save (Vatsa).
Hours later, Vatsa and the other alleged plotters were executed.
As opposition to Mr. Babangidas rule grew, so did his intolerance for dissent, so that he routinely shut down or proscribed media houses; and harassed journalists, civil society and labour groups using the instruments of state (the State Security Service, Directorate of Military Intelligence and the Police).
In 1986, five students of the Ahmadu Bello University were murdered when mobile policemen invaded the campus to quell anti-IMF protests. He also promulgated a series of draconian decrees targeted at quelling all opposition, and on occasion did not hesitate to deport foreign critics (University lecturer Patrick Wilmot and journalist William Keeling).
In October 1986, frontline journalist Dele Giwa was murdered by a letter bomb in Lagos. Preliminary police investigations stated that senior officers of Mr. Babangidas intelligence services, who had hounded Giwa in his final days, had questions to answer regarding Giwas death. The mystery of the Giwa assassination remains unsolved till date.

An interminable journey

A maddeningly convoluted transition programme, whose terminal date soon became a mirage - first 1990, then 1992, and then 1993 - is one of the most significant things Babangida will be remembered for.
Early on in his administration, Mr. Babangida inaugurated a Political Bureau to kick off, as it were, the national debate on a viable future political ethos and structure for our dear country.
The political bureau was soon followed by a Constituent Assembly, which in 1989 fashioned a new constitution for the country.
Also, in 1989, he created, by presidential fiat, two political parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention. Then in 1991, he released[b] a controversial list of prominent politicians whom he said were banned[/b] from participating in the transition programme.
In October 1992, he cancelled the results of the parties presidential primaries, causing new primaries to be held in March 1993. And then in June 1993 he annulled the results of the presidential elections, presumed to have been won by billionaire businessman MKO Abiola.

This was the final straw
.
By this time, Nigerians had finally had enough of his shenanigans, and violent protests forced him to step aside on August 27, 1993,My colleagues and I are determined to change the course of history, Mr. Babangida told Nigerians in his maiden speech as Head of State, on August 27, 1985.
By the time he reluctantly relinquished power exactly eight years later, he had achieved that goal, far more successfully than he, or anyone else, could ever have imagined.

Source: Next
====================

The Holy Book says "my people perish for lack of knowledge".
Will you allow 150m of us (Nigerians) perish or[b] will you ALSO forward this article[/b] on the (mis) deeds of our self-proclaimed "evil genius" to all Nigerians that you know
Will you help confirm "maradona" IBB's claim (in Germany in the 90s during one of his radiculopathy treatment trips) that we, his fellow citizens are "docile" (MUGUs) by not sharing this mail
Find a way to get involved at all levels- local, state and federal- this election period for a better Nigeria!!!

Please tell us the deeds of GJ too
Are we going to allow 150m people to be governed by a man whose wife can only think of sharing rice
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-522694.0.html

And the phoney zero tolerance for corruption is whoing its true colours
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5625387-146/government_withdraws_charges_against_berger_in.csp

DOWN DOWN PDP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let them run if they want.


IBB will lose to GEJ at the primary level without doubt. He's been out of power for almost 2 decades and can't hope to match Jonathan's resources. The power of incumbency will be too much for him. If he tries to run under another party he'll be completely humiliated. Besides, with the tight timeline and the new primary format, I doubt if there'll be time for anyone to switch parties after losing a primary contest.


Buhari, on the other hand, has been forced out of ANPP.  With his new party he'll likely get fewer votes than the last time around. He still has plenty of support up north, but after 2 defeats (both with a much stronger party behind him), many of his supporters will have to face reality and find a candidate with a realistic chance of winning.


If there's going to be any real contest, it's likely going to be between GEJ and Nuhu Ribadu of the ACN. Fashola's party has learnt many lessons on how to win election's (and at election tribunals) and Ribadu has the potential to win votes from both northerners (for parochial reasons, if nothing else), and southerners who are sick of the PDP's hubris and all the corruption they've brought.


IBB and Buhari are only wasting their time.

El rufai sure said his piece and it is only an advice. Candidly people like Buhari and IBB should nhave become statesmen by now, Buhari should have accepted the fact that he would never rule this country again and instead of disgracing himself he should mentor the youth and use his resources both financial and otherwise to project candidates like Ribadu for elective offices.

Imagine Buhari instead of Obj or Ibb as the Godfather of the ruling party in Nigeria a lot of things would have been done differently.

I must confess El rufai hit these men below the belt by the statement that they wld thinki that blackberry is a fruit.

it is time for the young and intelligent nigerians to wake up and tell these old men who want to rule until they walk into their graves the naked truth. ibb and buhari feel they are nigeria's messiahs but God and nigerians will tell them soon that they should be hidding their faces in the mud.

Who is EL RUFAI to talk to IBB. He should just shut his mouth. His cup will soon be filled, and then he will be dealt with.

El Rufai has every right to air his views!
What if someone asks "who is Nna Boy to talk about El Rufai"?