₦airaland Forum

Time to retire the generals



By Ochereome Nnanna
THERE is a saying among the Igbo: Agbachaa oso a gua mile. After a race, you must check the distance you made. After the presidential race we must decipher the hidden and obvious meanings of the vote. What did the Nigerian electorate say with their voting patterns?

What do they want? Saying “the vote should count” simply means that the wishes of the electorate must be respected.
I summarise my reading of the vote thus: Nigerians want to put the discredited past behind them.

They voted to remove those who have held this nation down in the past 40 to 50 years from the centre stage. They want the factors, persons and philosophies that reduced a country with so many promises at independence to a cretin to be exorcised. They want Nigeria’s greatness to begin.

This vote was a resounding defeat of the old order. How do I mean? The historical older order consisted of two segments: the post-colonial stage and the post-military era.

The post-colonial stage was characterised by the imposition of internal colonialism by the departing British colonial masters, who corrupted the system before they left it.

They created fake majorities and introduced rigging to make their contraption stick. They created an ethnic and sectionally dominated army to protect the contraption from the equalising and equitising influences of democracy.

True to their agenda in the First Republic, the sectional power bloc that took over from them used the army and the police to contain the various hot spots that rebelled against ethnic conquest, such as Tivland and Yorubaland as well documented by Professor of Political Science, Remi Anifowose.

This led to a messy military intervention in January 1966 and a counter-coup six months later, during which the ethnic demons of this nation were unleashed. An attempt by the Igbo people to create an independent republic where they would be safe from post-colonial Nigeria was thwarted in a civil war in which the entire nation, aided by Britain, Egypt, the Soviet Union and other allies united against Biafra.

The war ended in 1970 with Nigeria winning “the war of unity”, as late songster, Sonny Okosuns, put it. The boys that fought and won on the battle front “to keep Nigeria one” rapidly became senior military officers who took over the commanding heights of governance. Even though the war was a collective effort of all Nigerians on the federal side, what later emerged was a military political establishment that suggested that the war was fought and won by the former Northern Region, especially its majority cultural people.

Gradually, other allies were sidelined, as were the marginalised ex-secessionists. The only person who seemed to “grow” with the rest of the senior military officers from the North was General Olusegun Obasanjo. This was possible only because he seemed willing to stooge for the North.

Obasanjo was so adept at playing “the fool” that he ended up the only two-time president of this country with the record number of years in power (eleven), thus besting General Yakubu Gowon (nine years) and General Ibrahim Babangida (eight years). During his second coming to the presidency, Obasanjo eventually became the remote instrument through which the Nigerian people finally sent the military era packing.

Just as in the case of the colonial era, the military period had its years of reverberations long after the military quit politics. Most of the surviving top generals produced in 33 years of military dominance (1966 – 1999) continued to dictate the character of our democracy until the transitional politics of 2010/2011.

Some of them and their civilian clones, such as General Babangida, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), Lt General Aliyu Gusau (rtd), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Dr Bukola Saraki and others, leaning on the expired sectional dominance, tried to seize power from a sitting President Goodluck Jonathan.

They built their political strategy on the notion that once the North decides the rest of the country follow. Many of them did not even bother to campaign in the South East and South-South or even the non-Muslim North Central. They lost their bid for snatching power every inch of the way. It was not an ethnic coalition that ensured their failure. It was a coalition of all Nigerians, including progressive Northerners that achieved the defeat of the Generals.

Jonathan has thus emerged as the first genuinely democratically elected president Nigeria has ever produced. Abiola would have achieved that feat if his election was not annulled in 1993. Jonathan is the first Nigerian president elected not because he was propped up by the colonialists or the North or its regional-minded retired Generals.

The immediate import of this is that his primary allegiance is to the Nigerian people. GEJ does not owe the Generals anything. Nigerians have retired them from our political arena, and Jonathan must keep them where they now belong.

It does not matter whether we are talking about Babangida, Obasanjo, Danjuma, Atiku or Adamu Ciroma. These and their co-travellers no longer count.

It is the ordinary Nigerians, who cannot afford to send their children to private or foreign schools, who cannot afford their own private security, who need good infrastructure to pursue their livelihood and who cannot afford to travel abroad for treatment that GEJ must address his full attentions to. It is the youth who have become confused and misguided after 50 years of military rampage; who are poorly educated (if at all); who have low capacity for productivity, that GEJ owes the next four years.

GEJ should remove the unearned privileges of these Generals and the parasitic, idle elite, and transfer them to the people. Any of them who makes trouble should face the law, not the President. The nation’s security agencies must now do their work without fear or favour.

Their time is gone for good. It is now time to fix Nigeria.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/05/time-to-retire-the-generals/

Abeggi na otumokpo remote control be dat

I hope Buhari is happy now,at least his almajiris and boko haram urchins heeded his call to kill people

WAVixen:
When you pay peanuts, you get the monkeys!

LOL

Hope you're not condoning scamming

@ op,
Na tracking device una dey code like this?mchewwww

Almost all fleet managers use one form or the other,if you are genuine,then tell us what you got,why the secrecy

Nothing is confirmed yet(except that of the senate presidency,David Mark is retaining it) .The SE contributed massively towards GEJ's victory,pulling in more votes than the SW,the SE may get it as it represents the no 4 position in the scheme of things and is a more critical position of influence than that of the SGF.The only reason why the SW may be considered for the speakership is cos of the need maintain a visible presence in the SW,but the question is which rep-elect from the SW(including the ones elected on the platform of ACN,were they to defect to the PDP, has that clout to make the desired impact??

Someone please tell me what happened to LA
Their frustration level grew so high they started committing unbelievable fouls

Well,my CELTS will come through against Miami

Congratulations guys,y'all deserve it,the league is won and lost already IMO,the outstanding games notwithstanding

Paulinus Akpeki has a penchant for standing logic on it's head to make the tail of a dog wag the dog rather than the other way round.
However,on this occasion,I understand the strategy(it's actually a good strategy considering the undercurrents that are swelling against Uduaghan which might wash him out of government house via the tribunals)

This strategy is a deft move,we dey watch Ogboru,he knows the ball is in his court

^^^
You don't think the season was shambolic?a season that held so much promise just unravelled hopelessly with a series of needless draws in games that were ours for the taking??

Well I no fit shout,talking about chilling,I chilled some months ago

chelseabmw:
Enough soup for chelsea fans today. . . . .Seun the he goat,am sorry u r going down today

Oh I see,Man U drubs Chelsea(like Stoke drubbed Arsenal),then y'all take out your anger on the innocent psychic he-goatif una kill am chop today,which goat will predict for me whether Arsene Wenger will see reason and buy trophy-winning players for next season or not

Hmmmm,what a shambolic season

^^^
Hehehehehe

1-2 advantage Heats
My boys shoulod take game 4 to even things out and get more aggresive when they go back on the road

,,,and since we're in an election year,how about these ones that're oft wrongly used by journalists and politicians;

The incubent governor

and

Power of incubency

Which should actually be;

The incumbent governor

and


Power of incumbency

solotuonye:
Maybe you should be facing uduaghan and not come to put mouth here!

You and Ohakim are now jobless hahaha
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-661162.128.html

Donmeca:
To think that he was not allowed a space for rallies and was forced to invent mobile stages for his campaigns, Rochas has proved he is loved by all. Another factor may be the desire of Imolites to move away from Ohakim's noise and brutality to a new place. I will not rule out the effect and followership of the Catholic Church whose priests were the object of stripping and beating d Ohakim thugs/security personnel.

Congrats Imo

Well said @Donmeca,Ohakim was just a tiny tramp that used his security paraphernalia to brutalise people,I hoped the people of Imo state would do the right thing and vote him out,and out they booted him
Well done men and women of the eastern heartland

@ Switch

You're just a clown

Nice one bruv

oloriooko:
@ all

Please be very careful of your utterances against the man of God

Its very dangerous

Oh please spare me,he claims to be a man of God,just the way so many people do,the Bible says we should test all spirits and see if they be of God,a man that called Pastor Adeboye a liar,albeit indirectly,does things at variance with the word of God and lied with the name of God while pursuing his political ambition isn't much of a man of God IMO

^^^^
But the death of corpers constitutes a more bitter pill to swallow cos;
1)The corpers are easier targets who mostly are in those death zones by compulsion rather than on their on volition or choice
2)The corpers usually are not very familiar with the ethnoreligious idiosyncracies of their host communities,hence do not always have the advantage of acquaintances they could run to for safety anytime they feel threatened
3)They are mostly youngsters,cut down in their prime,youngsters who're just fresh out of schools,after all their academic toiling and years of contending with academic rigours and the financial,emotional and other investments made for them to graduate from school.
4)Don't forget the that these ones represent the future of the nation,having just graduated in their various fields of study and doubtless would have contributed to the development of their families and society at large

The reasons are endless,I say SCRAP THE SCHEME or in the very least,let corpers serve in their geo-political zones

No true christian ought to remain in Bakare's so-called church even as far back as two months ago at least
Useless fraud

agabaI23:
lol
it is over

Yes indeedy

; D
I'm actually laughing real hard,now now now @Monkeyleg you must tell me the misdo wey Ibori misdo for your side cos the way you dey carry annoyance dey follow the guy matter ehn,shuo e be like say the guy chop your deve or even steal your land,which ones na

monkeyleg:
@rasputinn,

if you know anything, better share with your brother. I have booked my flight to the UK for Ibori's trial in June. I have also been consulting with barrister friends of mine in the UK, Ibori is in hot water. He is probably on latrine duty this week @ wandsworth prison

My broda,all I can say that reason will prevail at the appropriate time then there will be major re-alignment of political forces to make matters easier for Ogboru at the tribunal,just so Delta State will be freed from the choke hold of the remnants of the Ibori clique as represented by Uduaghan.Great Ogboru is proving to be reasonable after all,he just needs to do the needful to assure all stakeholders,,,,,,,,,then Uduaghan WILL BE MINCE MEAT
That day will come

blink182:
^^^
Then he should come to nigeria after serving and start marrying young girls and having wild parties in Oghara. He could resume as god father and install governors. Delta state is so hopeless-I know too well that when this man comes back to Delta state, the party held for Bode will be a starter, he will be treated like someone that discovered the cure to AIDS and given chieftancy titles all over the place. At least it ends in delta state but then he could resume as a national politician not to be elected to a federal office but appointed at worst, he could even be given a presidential pardon and allowed to run for political office

Please don't be a wet blanket,allow us to savour the sweetness and satisfaction of Ibori's impending residency in the gulag.Do you even think he will survive the jail term?even if he does,he would've been seriously diminished;politically,economically,emotionally and otherwise to be any force to reckon with in Delta state after serving a jail term of not less than 7 years

solotuonye:
We should desist from insulting our Governor in broad day light. What is our generation turning into Please respect your Governor so that people will have respect for us.

Ohakim is not my governor,we all know how he became governor in 2007,a man who to beats up(actually allowed his security detail to beat up) a woman driving along Adeola Odeku with two of her kids in the car is even worse than a tramp so you should be happy I did not use a word worse than tramp to desribe Ohakim.

I'm a card-carrying PDP member from Delta state and would gladly have mobilised my supporters to vote against Ohakim,were I to be from Imo

texazzpete:
Rochas will win this election cleanly. When your man is kicked out, we'll see who will be giving you pocket money in the future.

Leave am there first

monkeyleg:
Uduaghan is next

I eagerly await that time

Now that Ogboru has learnt that he cannot go it alone but needs to build bridges across party lines,make and take concessions,that day might actually come sooner than later(won't say more than this for now)

@OP

Enjoy the missus and stop complaining

The OP asked for urgent advice,so here's mine:GO GET SOME EDUCATION ASAP

ode remo:
he will get 5yrs max. any bet?

I say he gets no less than 10yrs,would've taken you on,but I don't bet on trivial matters

@ Ogb5

You must be one of the Ibori boys to make that sacrilegious post above
Well,I'm gladdened that Ibori is presently in detention in the UK,awaiting trial and long sentencing,the scenario is quite different from the shambolic Asaba high court that you and Uduaghan hurriedly built to aquit the monstrous looter called Ibori