₦airaland Forum

Noted!

DSS under grand patron of fulani(buhari)is a deep shi*t!

To the moon.

U must be MAD saying dis is Governor Fayose!

Smh...

Very on point!

Can't wait to see the end of this demonic party

Can't wait to see the end of this demonic party holding us to ransom

Mrs hell-rufai

Mama to sure pass awon aisha buhari

Ride On Senator...

“The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change”― Howard Zinn.
This is one of the most profound assertions that I have ever heard. We must all learn from it regardless of the challenges that we may be facing in our country today.
 
In a special message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States on August 8, 1950, President Harry S. Truman said,
 
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
 
Permit me to begin this essay with an aside.  I do not intend to incite anyone against the government or the Nigerian state by making this contribution and neither do I believe in an armed struggle.
 
If there was ever an elephant in the Nigerian room then it is Biafra. Given that let us explore it together in this two part discourse and let us bare our minds.
 
The Buhari administration cannot tolerate or brook any form of dissent and neither are they comfortable with criticism or free speech.
 
 
They are desperately trying to establish a culture of silence in our country. They are particularly uncomfortable with the subject matter of this essay.
 
Their double standards are made all the more manifest by the fact that they have acknowledged and recognized the right of self-determination for the people of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in their quest for independence from the Kingdom of Morocco whilst at the same time they have denied those that believe in the establishment of Biafra and the exercise of that very same right of self-determination here in Nigeria.
 
As if that were not bad enough they went even further by describing Biafra as a matter that is "dead and buried" which must not be discussed under ANY circumstances.
 
The Buhari administration appears to have forgotten the fact that charity begins at home. You cannot give those from outside your shores what you are not prepared to offer your own people.
 
If the quest for independence is good enough for the people of Sahrawi Arab Republic then surely it is good enough for the people of Biafra or any other ethnic nationality in Nigeria if that is what they really want.
 
The suggestion that we should not even mention let alone discuss the idea of Biafra is simply absurd. Those that subscribe to that view often argue that three million people were killed in order to ensure that Nigeria was kept together and consequently there can be no going back.
 
This is a specious, self-serving and intellectually lazy argument. And this is especially so given the fact that those that have put it overlook the fact that the root causes of the civil war appear to be back with us today.
 
If you don't cure the ailment and get rid of its root cause then you cannot complain about the consequences of its continued existence or its symptoms. If you don’t clean up the mess you cannot complain about its stench. Air freshener alone cannot do it: forgive my crudity but if you don’t flush the toilet after using it a terrible smell is bound to linger.
 
The matter is simple and clear: as long as the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria feel marginalized, persecuted, cheated, vilified and wronged the spirit of Biafra will continue to flourish.
 
As long as Igbos are targeted and slaughtered like flies at the drop of the hat in the northern part of our country, or indeed in any other part,  Biafra will continue to thrive and burn in the hearts of every Igbo man, woman and child. Whether we like it or not that is a reality and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
 
Quite apart from that I deeply resent the fact that our government has got the nerve and has cultivated the temerity to venture to tell us what we should and what we should not mention or discuss. Surely even the madness of tyranny has its limits.
 
Those that are at the helm of affairs in our country today may have the power to kill, torture, detain indefinitely or jail those that do not share their views but they do not have the power to kill an idea. And an idea whose time has come cannot be wished away or stopped by any force from hell or on earth.
 
In this essay we shall defy the government, ignore the critics, shed the fear and share some inconvenient truths.
 
100 years ago, on what is known as the Easter Rising Day, the Republic of Ireland began their struggle for independence from Great Britain when a handful of brave men went to the center of Dublin, raised the new Irish flag and openly declared the establishment of the Irish Republic.
 
The rebellion was crushed but it signaled the beginning of a prolonged armed struggle.
 
During the course of that struggle approximately thousands of Irish men, women and children were killed by the British occupation forces over the years but eventually the Republic of Ireland won their freedom and became an independent sovereign state.
 
A few days ago on Easter day the Irish Government and people celebrated the 100th anniversary of Easter Rising Day with great pride, joy, pomp and style. The celebrations were attended by delegations from the Basque separatist movement and officials of the Catalan regional government of Spain.
 
Both of these courageous political movements have been attempting to exercise their right of self-determination, break off from Spain and establish their own independent nations for many years and as each year passes they are getting closer to achieving their objective.
 
Those that believe in the right of self-determination of the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and particularly those that are fighting for the creation of the sovereign state of Biafra have so much to learn from the history and struggles of the people of Ireland.
 
The Irish suffered immeasurably under British occupation for hundreds of years and literally millions of them were enslaved and killed over that period of time.
 
Yet in the end they managed to break the yoke and secure their liberation and triumph over the cruel subjugation and tyranny of British rule.
 
It is my belief that by God's grace those that are being oppressed, butchered and murdered by the Nigerian state today in an attempt to forcefully keep our country one and those that wish to break off to form their own country on the basis of the principle of self-determination shall also eventually prevail.
 
This is particularly so for the Igbo people of the south-eastern region of our country who have suffered more than any other ethnic group in Nigeria. Permit me to remind those that doubt this assertion that it was the Igbo that were slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands in the core north during the pogroms of 1966.
 
Igbo men, women and children were butchered on sight all over the north simply because they were Igbo and for no other reason. Even pregnant women were not spared. This led directly to our civil war in which no less than three million Igbos were killed including one million Igbo children who were starved to death.
 
After the war they were deprived of all their properties outside Igbo land except for in Lagos and the south west where they were treated with some level of decency and allowed to have their properties back.
 
Everywhere else in the country they could not reclaim the properties that they owned before the war and such properties were declared "abandoned property", confiscated by the various regional and state governments and handed over to the local indigenous people.
 
As if that were not bad enough after the civil war every igbo man and woman, no matter how much they had in the bank before the war, was given only twenty pounds from their respective banks to begin a new life. Millions of pounds and many fortunes were lost in this way and the truth is that the Igbo suffered immeasurably as a consequence of this unjust policy.
 
It is a testimony to their resilience and nothing else that they were able to get back on their feet and within a period of ten years after the civil war an Igbo man was elected Vice President of our country. They also thrived in the private sector due to their diligence and hard work.
 
Yet in spite of that the systemic persecution and marginalization of the Igbo people did not stop within the Federal Government, the public sector, the civil service, the security and intelligence agencies and the Armed Forces.
 
They were prevented from reaching the top in virtually all these sectors right up until President Olusegun Obasanjo was elected in 1999.
 
It was President Olusegun Obasanjo that began the effective post-war rehabilitation of the Igbo in the public sector when he started to appoint them into sensitive and strategic positions within his government and within the security agencies and Armed Forces.
 
A good example of that is Lt-General Chidabikia Isaac Obiokor who was the first Igbo man to he appointed as GOC in the Nigerian Army since the civil war. Another is Mr. Ogbonna Okechukwu Onovo who was the first Igbo man to be appointed Deputy Inspector General of Police since the civil war and who was later appointed Inspector General of Police two years after Obasanjo left office.
 
Then came the Ojo Maduekwes, the Andy Ubas, the Ngozie Okonjo-Iwealas, the Charles Soludos, the Emeka Chikelus, the Frank Nwekes, the George Obiozors and so many other bright and promising stars from the east who all wielded far more influence and power than their political offices had to offer in President Obasanjo’s government and who were all his protégées and appointees.
 
Without Obasanjo's premeditated and conscious policy of wanting to rehabilitate the Igbo and bring them back into the main stream none of these people would have achieved the great success that they have achieved today and none would have been brought into the national limelight.
 
Yet despite Obasanjo's efforts the truth is that, between 1970 when the war ended right up until today, whenever there are attacks against people in the northern part of Nigeria the Igbo are singled out for more slaughter, more ethnic cleansing and more mass murder than anyone else. (TO BE CONTINUED).


http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2016/04/biafra-buhari-and-easter-day-rising.html?m=1

No fuel, no water, no electricity. Fuc.k apc govt!

Thank God my vote n campaign was for GEJ.

Pidggin:
OP nice one, so happy that the regions who voted for Buhari are not escaping the hardship

By Demola Olarewaju

I not only voted against #Change, I campaigned against it all over Lagos with my principal Senator Musiliu Obanikoro and on one of those campaigns, I was seated beside him as gunshots in Isale-Eko not far from Iga Idunganran rained directly on our vehicle. Thank God it was a bullet-proof car. Thank God Koro asked his mobile police security not to return fire for fire. If I had lost my life that day.

Of course not all who campaigned against #Change believed in former President Goodluck Jonathan – many switched camps as they underestimated either the determination of Nigerians to vote out that Government or underestimated the effect of the bitter propaganda wars waged by the All Progressives Congress. Perhaps they also assumed that Goodluck Jonathan was desperate enough to upturn the results, no matter what, rather than concede.

Largely though, I, like many others saw through the fraudulent promise of #Change – both APC and then candidate Buhari had failed to show any evidence to back up their lofty promises. In a debate I participated in on Channels Television, my opponent Ikem Isiekwena whom I doubt has ever visited my state of origin insisted that Osun was the APC model of governance.

Ikem Isiekwena has not tweeted for several months now.

Apart from having no clear template of governance, the APC manifesto was essentially a document that read like an advert for the Elysian Fields or Utopia, without any workable plan. In his much talked about missive which seemed against Goodluck Jonathan, Prof. Charles Soludo pointed this out but former Ekiti Governor Kayode Fayemi fired back a response that sounded plausible to those already anticipating #Change.

The #Change was scantily defined: let’s not kid ourselves – for many, #Change was merely a shift from an ‘Ijaw Christian President’ to a ‘Fulani Muslim President’. This essentially was my problem with #Change – it was reduced to a northern vs southern matter by many in the political elite who then generated intellectual arguments to justify their aim. This argument was advanced by many on social media including influencers who now seek to distance themselves from this #Change, one step at a time.

In any election until another national party emerges, my vote will always be for the PDP of which I am a member. I’m all too aware of the ills and dangers of that have held Nigeria back as every issue is reduced to ethnicity and religion. I am however not blind to the PDP’s period of extreme madness which ironically did not include GEJ’s tenure. That the first chance we got to get things right was to be rejected by Nigerians was not one I was going to accept casually so I voted, and I campaigned.

The dividends of Democracy will never come except the stakeholders put in their best to make this system of governance work. Democracy rests on a tripod: Rule of Law, Free and Fair Election and Freedom of Rights. These three work together to ensure that Democracy provides the much needed development – free and fair elections when guaranteed will ensure that elected officers are beholden only to the voters and will do all they can to satisfy them. With time, Development would have come at a fast pace as a proper electoral culture permeates society down to the Local Government level where it is most needed.

One of Nigeria’s biggest challenges has always been how to live together or, whether we even wanted to be together. To answer this question, Goodluck Jonathan convened a National Conference. If the APC leadership had any iota of ideological credibility in them, they would have supported it wholeheartedly but they could not stand seeing Goodluck Jonathan get the credit for this noble move and they decided to oppose him. That conference produced the best document in two decades that enunciates how Nigeria show be governed and pays attention to issues like True Federalism. In finding a solution to the issues surrounding Resource Control, that document first makes a case for Agriculture as the major vehicle of the development of northern Nigeria, only after which all other states could be allowed to control their resources, including oil. Never in recent history had statesmen from all across Nigeria come to such a roundtable to discuss Nigeria seriously. They fought, they quarrelled, they threatened to walk out but they eventually produced a document for history. That document was lost on March 28 last year when we #Changed.

I initially did not think Goodluck Jonathan could manage the Conference and so I opposed it. As it succeeded, I knew there would be no better person to implement it than he and so I voted for him.

In 1966, a group of armed officers with good and noble intentions slaughtered many of those whom they assumed were the problems of Nigeria. Many of those who were behind them are still the bulk of the ruling elite today and they have over the years installed Heads of the Nigerian State including General Muhammadu Buhari. When the ruling elite and that class of ’66 banded together again against the ‘son of the fisherman’, it was to redress what they considered an affront to their historical bloodline. When the Obasanjos, Atikus, Tinubus, Sarakis, Buharis of the ruling elite banded together to oppose Goodluck Jonathan, it could not in any way have been #Change – at least not a positive #Change.

One year after I voted for something that I understood and believed in, as well as against something that I saw as empty rhetoric, I am proud of how I voted.

I can only hope that those who campaigned and voted for #Change really understood what they wanted beyond merely proving to themselves that a Government could be voted out. I can only hope that they understood the man Buhari as they voted for him. I can only hope that all they took for granted under Goodluck Jonathan is not taken away from them.

For all our sakes: we can only continue to hope.

Olarewaju, is a Lagos based Political Analyst and Strategist.




http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/voted-gej-change-march-28-last-year/

Great!

Hell-rufai

We survived abacha, so we will also survive dis one too

Animal in human skin.

Hehehehehehehe... Nigerians never see anything!

To hell with you n ur entire family!

Sorry for my country Nigeria!

While u are playing politics with pple's soul. Bloody hypocrite!!

Who the hell is prophet mohammed

No wonder our electricity is dropping everyday . Thanks to fashola n "change"

Na naija we dey na

All Nigerian police nah fake dem be compare to other police in other countries.

Another dent on our image

The mouth odour is only trying to protect his interest.

Common sense revolutionary....