₦airaland Forum

The power brokers, the king makers those are the most powerful people

"The euphoria of a new beginning that brought in OBJ in 1999 has turned into an illusion. The style, symbolism and processes of our constitution and its implementation are so cumbersome, so tedious, so useless and so impractical. It makes everyday governance impossible. Ladies and gentlemen, ten worthless years on, Nigeria is still under the grip of malignant, manipulating marauders” Taju Tijani

One of the beauties of the internet is that, it has given Nigerians a voice against our oppressors. Irrespective of how the articles are framed or where the articles are posted, there is a central theme, too essential to ignore.

This week’s write-up was inspired a remarkable piece posted at another popular Nigerian bloging-site. The writer, in a succinct writing style considered our democracy as dead, a far cry from the model the inventors promoted, and an apparition from the ideologies that made this style of governance a success for years. So how come the democracy-experiment failed in Nigeria? The answer lies in the fact that most often; revolutions (or in our case agitations) only change one despot for another dictator.

If the assertion that our democracy is really dead is accepted, then the question would be who killed our democracy? According to Tijani, the best adjectives to describe them would be “malignant and manipulating marauders”. If we are to really put a face to these murderers of our nascent democracy, one name would always re-occur.

That name is an embodiment of many names; a collection of selfish people; tyrants masquerading as patriots. For the past 10 years PDP has shown they have nothing to offer except tears and poverty as dividends of democracy. A flagrant disrespect for electoral processes, subversion of our justice system, the proliferation of the charlatans in the legislature and the un-bridled use of power to beat the opposition to submission shows how counter-productive the PDP can be. Mahmud, the chairman of PDP in Zamfara gave a general attitude of the party when he was quoted in the dailies as saying; “this generation would not witness a free and fair election”.

Nairalanders, who killed our democracy?

We are Nigerians, the guys over stepped their boundaries, I agree. But killing your own country men enmass is inhumane. Killing both innocent women and children is absurd.

Nigeria wont stop been a spectacle for riddicle.

chidichris, well said

Please let us not get worked-up yet and let us learn to accept criticism as an important part of the development process.
I have always been anti-party because of the rot in every nigerian party but i will always advocate for capable individuals with a vision regardless of the party.

(1) Yar adua for the past two years has done nothing. lets admit it. He is a shame to the party and the process for his selection.
Take Fashola for example, he has also worked for two years yet everybody seems to be praising him.

Now, some critics would say Nigeria is bigger than lagos. But the truth is: if you are good;you are good.

I must agree with the house, the sentence is too much. But lets not forget the serves as a lesson to government employee. This is a good precedence, all we need is to perfect this standard is to make no one above the law.

Up fashola!!!

I am not particularly interested in any party. I am advocating voting credible individuals

To further illustrate how irresponsible the PDP party is Mahmud Abdulmalik (pdp chairman for zamfara state) had the effontery to say my generation would not witness a free and fair election.

Can you see that PDP has noting to offer

PLEASE READ MY ARTICLE: PDP, YOU ARE FIRED!!

AS a party or a cult, I dislike anything PDP

When people are scared of criticism then something is wrong. we should get the point from these criticism, apply it in order to get a positive change

KnowAll:
PDP and AC accepted the the 1st early results although PDP had reservation of the results because they were at the receiving end.

Know all, you know generally the elections were rigged in favor of the ruling party. you that the last general election was a shame and all the re-runs were useless.
The next elections are drawing near lets forget party loyalty and vote credible individuals

Everybody is so quick to castigate our presidents and 'heroes'. Eveyone of the people that have been listed had their flaws but they also did something good for this country.

Relax guys, it is political structure we have, the unreliable judicial system and geo-political issues are what made these men perform below expection.

Everybody is so quick to castigate our presidents and 'heroes'. Eveyone of the people that have been listed had their flaws but they also did something good for this country.

Relax guys, it is political structure we have, the unreliable judicial system and geo-political issues are what made these men perform below expection.

Just before we start becoming defensive and aligning ourselves within party lines; I would like to emphatically point out that, this write-up is not about promoting any political party. I think Nigerian politics sucks; it is too messy, too bloody and too cultish for free spirited minds like mine. I also believe that the evaluation of any party’s performance should be based entirely on results and not emotional sentiments,

Recently, I took timeout of my busy schedule to watch one of the previous seasons of my favorite sit-com; Donald Trump’s The Apprentice (an extraordinary creation by Mark Buffet). In each episode, after a challenging task, the winning team was always rewarded with enjoying some of the lavishly expensive and glamorous life style of the financially successful people. But the losers go boardroom where one of them is fired after sweating it out blaming each other for their mistakes. At the end of each boardroom brawl the employer’s (Donald Trump) would make the final decision which is usually expressed with the popular catch-phrase; You are fired!

The political structure or political culture across the spectrum of the numerous political parties we have is one that is designed for failure and disappointments. In a proper democratic society the electorate is like an employer; we scrutinize their activities in office and make sure they do not perform below expectation. Irrespective of the fact that political leaders are supposed to be patriots, they should also justify the votes given to them (Our taxes pay the bills of our leaders). We hold the reins, we are like Donald Trump.

You will agree with me that PDP’s performance over the last 10 years has been a failure. They have neither been able to stir this nation in any direction nor do have blue print (ideology) designed for proper development of this country. We have virtually been going in circles for the past 10 year (with the last 2 years mostly pathetic). The party is mostly composed of villains, greed-stinking individuals, and election rigging professors. The only philosophy this party has is enriching themselves and accumulating wealth big enough to carter for their tenth generation.

The lack of focus in a Presidency controlled by PDP, the charlatance of both houses of legislature, the gross of lack of financial accountability of PDP governors is an indication that party has a fundamental problem. The garrison (do or die) type of politics played by this party shows a flagrant disregard for democratic processes and an arrogant attitude towards the electorate. It is obvious that they do not regard our votes as amounting to anything so they do not feel accountable to their actions in office. Secondly, they feel they are above the law and so they can behave as they like.
This is unacceptable and should no longer be condoled. Nigerians they key lies in your hands; let fire these bastards and show them we are still the BOSS.

lets us forget that Nigeria has no reliable database to track any of the offenders. How do you place names and addresses to the faces you see.

plus we have a enforcement agencies that are disabled, sick and retarded.

there are three million bicycles in be Beijing, after studying the success in china madueke suggested it in Nigeria. Lets support the green evolution. Since are transport system is in a great mess and roads are congested, wont it be great if we safe the little cash we have left and manage bicycles for now?

"More nigerian would become poor in 2009" says world bank. very soon we wont have a choice.

my tears just ran dry then turned to blood. just lost one of my consulting jobs. now my income has been cut into two.

I am wondering who to direct my anger to right now

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When man is pushed to ‘the wall’ two things would most likely happen. He would either fight back (explode) or become indifferent (implode). If he does not push back whatever seems to be making him retrogressive then the only alternative would be to accept it as a norm, a new way of life (a culture).

The global recession is no longer news (for the deaf have heard and the blind have seen its effects), so I’ll spare you the boredom associated with figures and statistics of this recently most discussed topic. Time would fail me to list the number of fortune 500 company’s that have closed ‘shop’ or the small business owners that depended on them for survival ( No, time is not so benevolent). I am sure you already know that, globally, people are losing their jobs at an alarming rate and suicidal tendencies are quite high in recent times.

Recently, a lot of disappointments were expressed about our exclusion from the G-20 economic summit and I wonder: honestly, were you surprised? Isn’t it obvious we don’t deserve that recognition? Because as a nation we do not have anything tangible to bring to the table as regards resolving this financial epidemic.

Even before this global crisis began companies in Nigeria had started folding-up, agricultural sector of our economy had become moribund, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) for a long time now had consistently complained that the infrastructural decay and fluctuating economic polices were serious affecting business, high interest rate was killing SMEs and . Then the-recession came and our stock market fell; crude-oil prices fell and our government’s spending spree became affected; was is not easier just hiking the dollar-naira exchange rate.

Isn’t it a shame that while other people-oriented governments are trying to battle issues affecting their economies, ours just fold their arms unperturbed?
We read of the financial aids been given to comatose companies or tax cuts for struggling small businesses. Yet in this part of the world where nothing bothers us until they become extreme, we are still masquerading in the belief that these problems would just disappear.

So tell me, what can the common man do when his government does not seem to care if he is hungry or sick? What is the expected behavior of a father who gets laid off because his employer can no longer afford paying his salary? How do you encourage a retiree who invested most of his pension-fund on stocks? How do you explain to the young minds serving their country in the national youth service program that no jobs await them and their lofty ideas would grow stale?

When tragedy occurs emotions are usually spilled in bucket loads, energy spent on purging out the pain and time given for healing the wounds. Then we would either come to terms with the tragedy or try to forget its occurrence by denying it.

Tim mario