₦airaland Forum

(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
04-04-2016

SAHRAWI ARAB DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC AND BUHARIC CONTRADICTIONS.
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI
Any subject that is topical could compel or, to be modest, lure a writer into writing severally on it. This is because such an issue could progressively present different dimensions at different times. The probability of a writer contradicting himself or being seen as contradicting himself on writing more than once or twice on a given subject-matter, could be high. A writer that is worth his salt responds to situations and developments in his environment or society at large. A writer has his nature; he is very observant, sensitive, critical, passionate, patriotic, transparent and, in most cases, vocal. A true writer can never be passive or non–challant over matters that take place in his society.
In today’s Nigeria, any person that claims that the agitation by the young generations of Igbo for a sovereign state of Biafra is not a topical issue is either a person that has completely lost sensitivity and sensibility or an opportunistic pretender that has no love or passion for Nigeria. The issue is no more a mere internal matter. Not quite long ago, it was reported that the chief protagonist for the realization of Biafran liberation and independence, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, had written to the British High commission in Nigeria, requesting that Britain comes to his aid over his incarceration by the Buhari administration. In response to this request, it was also reported that officials of the commission have not only been attending trial sessions of Nnamdi Kanu at the court but have also been visiting him in the prison. Their reason is not far-fetched; Nnamdi Kanu is a British citizen. This issue has, therefore, been internationalized.
On the back page of National Ambassador of December 6, 2015 I had written a piece titled ‘Governance of Nigeria and escalating agitation for Biafra’. In that write-up, I had expressed worry concerning the tempo of the agitation even though it has generally and remarkably been peaceful. I called on President Buhari’s Federal government to look into the cause of the agitation by youths, a good number of whose mothers had not been given birth to during the Nigerian-Biafran war. I also urged the aggrieved youths to allow the government time to address their complaints. Again, on February, 7 2016, in an article captioned, Nigeria’s anti-corruption war, is the ‘saint’ not dented?’’, I advised President Muhammadu Buhari to stop killing Igbo youths in their hundreds simply because they were peacefully agitating for a country of their own, a demand that is guaranteed by article 20 of African charter on human and peoples’ right as declared in 1979 and which came into effect on October 21, 1986. It is in observance of this charter that October 21 is observed as African Human Rights Day. I suggested that in accordance with this charter, the worst the central government should do is to conduct a referendum amongst the people of the South East to determine their desirability or otherwise to remain in Nigeria. It could even happen that if a plebiscite is conducted in Igbo Land on self determination, majority could opt to remain in Nigeria, even though that may not vitiate the fact they are treated worse than tenth class citizens in the Nigerian Federation. The essence of that piece was to advise Buhari to concentrate on his war against corruption, which seemed to have revealed that even he himself had been dented, than killing Igbo youths heartlessly in their hundreds. These two pieces are also online.
With these separate commentaries concerning the agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra, I had thought I would have no more reason to write on the issue. This was not to be. Fulani herdsmen, whose notoriety and lawlessness in Nigeria have exceeded the war-time atrocities of Adolf Hitler’s Ngzir army, had on Saturday 27th February, 2016 executed genocide against the people of Agatu in Benue State of North Central of Nigeria. Reports have it that more than five hundred indigenes, including children and pregnant women, were slaughtered just in a swoop by a ravaging Fulani herdsmen who were as usual, in their tradition, armed to the teeth with sophisticated assault weapons, including AK47 riffles. Allegedly, this attack was a reprisal one against Agatu people for killing their cows. Towards the end of March 2016, Nigerian soldiers in solidarity with Fulani herdsmen who had been resisted over destruction of farm crops by their cattle invaded Ogwu in Enugu State and brutally arrested seventy-six youths of the area for questioning the Fulani herdsmen over the destruction of their farms. As if these developments were not discriminatory, bloody and challenging enough, it was sadly reported that a tribal war had broken out at the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu on Friday 1st April, 2016. As the story was reported by many online media, the General Officer commanding the Division, Brigadier General Ibrahim Attahiru, had instructed two of his subordinates to draw a list of about fifty-four soldiers who would be drafted to Niger Delta to quell the militancy in the region. As the story went, the two officers that were ordered to carry out the assignment, one Hausa and the other Yoruba, compiled a list made up of only soldiers of Igbo extraction. What this alleged development led to may not be certain but surely it portrays and justifies the belief that the Igbo have or entertain that they are hated and continuously marginalized by the Nigerian State.
In addition to the above developments that had happened after my last piece concerning the agitation for Biafra, two recent positions expressed by President Buhari have been a source of concern. The first is his open declaration of support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. He made this declaration, through his special Adviser on media, Femi Adesina, while speaking with the Emir of Qatar, Tamin Bin Hammed Ai-Thani, during his trip to Qatar.
Again, on March 11th 2016, President Buhari received, in audience the Minister of International Affairs of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Mohammed Salem Ouldsalek and the Republic’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Oubi Bachirat at the Presidential Vila. In the course of their discussion, President Buhari declared support for the struggle of the people of Sahrawi for self determination from Morocco.
These declarations, especially the one for Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic; SADR, appear contradictory to Buhari’s stand and self determination. It would be recalled that in the course of his interview with Martin Dennis of Al-Jazeera in Qatar, President Buhari bluntly refused to watch a video clip that meant to show the killing of hundreds of youthful Igbo that was committed by Nigerian security personnel. The question that arises here is why must President Buhari support self determination of SADR but on the other hand unleash mayhem on agitators of Biafra?

Don Ubani

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
27TH MARCH, 2016.

A FREE TUTORIAL FOR THE SERVING OR POTENTIAL COMMISSIONER
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI

It is a common truth that a democratic government has three arms for efficient and effective service delivery. Frankly-speaking, no arm of government could be argued to be more important than the other. This is due to the inter-dependent reality that revolves around them. Knowing that the three arms are; (1) The Legislature, (2) The Executive and (3) The Judiciary, it has to be appreciated that each of the arms of government performs a complementary role in the actualization of the essence of democratic governance. If, for instance, there is absence of a legislature in government, like Nigeria witnessed during her dark periods of military dictatorship, that government automatically ceases to be a democracy. Each arm of government has a tailor-made functionality to drive.
As the caption of this essay implies, the focus of my attention is on the Executive arm of government, with specific interest in the role of a serving or prospective Commissioner. It may be pertinent to ask, who is a Commissioner within the frame-work of the executive arm of government? A Commissioner is an individual who is believed to be knowledgeable, articulate, visionary, disciplined, patriotic and transparent enough as to attract the confidence of the governor of his state or those the governor might have authorized to scout for such a person on his behalf, for engagement to man a ministry or discharge the responsibilities associated with a given executive portfolio.
The Executive arm of government has a plurality of ministries, departments and agencies, also referred to as MDAs. Each ministry has some one at its top echelon. That person is the Honourable Commissioner. He is incharge of policy formulation for his ministry. He is the representative and eye of the governor in his ministry. Should anything go wrong in his ministry, the first official the governor would call to question is he.
Within the Executive, there are other political appointees that are also called Commissioners but they do not attend the meetings of the State Executive Council of the state. These Commissioners are found in such bureaucracies as the State Civil Service Commission, the Unified Local Government Service Commission, State Oil Producing Area Development Commission and State Universal Basic Education Board.
Once more, let me say that the emphasis here is on the Honourable Commissioner that sits with the governor in council. It is common knowledge that the state Executive Council, otherwise known as Exco, is the highest decision-making body in any state of the federation. The quality of contribution of members of the Exco goes a long way to determine the welfare of the people and progress of the state. If the majority of the Commissioners within an executive council are dunder-heads and dizzy personalities, it would be wasteful having high expectations of performance from such an Exco. It must, however, be made clear here that a governor whose main objective in government is to amass wealth and not to deliver dividends of democracy to the electorate could frustrate the determined zeal of a genuine Commissioner who is passionately committed to deliver optimally.
Be it as it may, The Honourable Commissioner is expected to have many attributes that should make him tick. If he is a Commissioner that is incharge of a ministry, the first step he has to take is to establish confidence and respect among the management and staff of his ministry. Lest I am misunderstood, the pronoun ‘he’ in this context is freely used irrespective of gender.
In this wise, he begins by having a meeting with the top management of his ministry. It is during this meeting that he outlines his policy direction which would be the basis of the ministry’s engagements and activities all through his tenure. If he emphasizes transparency, for instance, during the meeting, he should make sure that he remains guided by the tenets of transparency all through and, of course, nothing attracts respectability to an individual, particularly an Honourable Commissioner, more than adherence to transparency. After this first meeting, he should proceed to meeting with the management and staff of the ministry. In this meeting, he repeats or emphasizes the obvious; dedication, punctuality, regularity, diligence, transparency and obedience. He tells them that each staff would be judged on the basis of the above criteria and also subjects himself to the same standard or principle for judgement. The Honourable Commissioner should be a descent gentle man. He should not be vulgar in speech, indecent in dressing, irresponsible in conduct or vulnerable to materialism. Civil servants are very intelligent and experienced. They can easily assess one and once they find you unworthy of that appellation ‘Honourable’, you remain dishonourable in their perception all through and this could affect the Commissioner’s overall performance in the ministry.
Another thing that would help the Commissioner secure the confidence of the management and staff of his ministry is the quality of the minutes he writes on mails sent to him. This is where being knowledgeable is of essence. If the civil servants realize that their Commissioner is not versatile or knowledgeable, their evaluation for him would become very low and this could lead to loss of respect and confidence. The Commissioner should, therefore, manifest knowledge in writing his minutes. In addition, the Honourable Commissioner should not be careless in his use of grammar. There should be accuracy and cohesion in his use of time and tenses. Otherwise and unknown to him, he could become an object of caricature as they could exclaim, “look at the quality of Commissioner we are given!”
True to my earlier expose, the Governor appoints a Commissioner to help him generate ideas that would efficiently and successfully drive the machinery of government. Unfortunately, many Nigerians when offered such appointment misconstrue it to mean opportunity to become rich. As long as I am concerned, being appointed a Commissioner in one’s state is a privileged chance for one to serve one’s fatherland. If you serve diligently and transparently, you would not be burdened with invitations by anti-graft agencies after your tenure. After all, a commissioner is expected to be paid well and on time during his tenure.
In line with the above, a Commissioner should make meaningful contributions during state Executive council meetings. Today that oil prices have gone down sharply and many state governments are finding it very difficult to break even, a Commissioner should wear his thinking cap and come out with ideas on how his ministry or even any other ministry could raise the internally generated revenue of the state. This could be done through verbal contributions in the state executive council meetings, Exco Memos, Exco Brief or Exco Notes.
As a Commissioner, when I discovered that Exco memos entailed a very tortuous bureaucratic process, I resorted to making use of Exco Brief which I could present to the Exco through the Secretary to the State Government, and it would be given accelerated hearing.
Regrettably, many Commissioners are mere bench warmers in the State Executive Council. Many of them do not make any contribution, even if it is not meaningful, either verbally or by written documentation(s). Such Commissioners should ask themselves, what is the justification for our appointment?
I have learnt over the years that experience is the best teacher. The black man, unlike his white counterpart, hordes and hides his experience, knowledge or skill and that is why African science has failed to grow. As an experienced former Commissioner I do not think I have anything to lose by giving this free tutorial. Like one of my highly respected Senators; Senator Ben Murray Bruce, would say, I just want to make a common sense.

DON UBANI

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
MARCH 7, 2016

PRESIDENT BUHARI’S UNILATERAL DECISION ON COALITION OF MUSLIM STATES AGAINST TERRORISM.
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI

Nigeria is a country that is believed should be governed by democratic principles. The Nigerian state is deeply heterogeneous, giving rise to a high propensity of diversity. The various peoples that made up the country by virtue of the 1914 amalgamation had been living separately and independently on their own before the British colonial government thought otherwise. Before the advent of Christianity in Nigeria in the fifteenth century through Augustinian and Capuchin Monks from Portugal and Islam which had earlier been introduced in Nigeria in the eleventh century through the kanem-Borno Empire, there was observance of African traditional religious practices. Nigerians had always believed in the existence of the Supreme Deity who resides in heaven but worship Him through an intermediary of lesser gods.
The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) as amended clearly captures the secularity of the Nigerian state when in section 38 (1) of Chapter four it made provision for freedom of thought, conscience and religion. By this constitutional stipulation, Nigeria has no official religion. Every citizen is free to worship through any medium of self conviction, as long as that does not interfere with the fundamental rights of other citizens.
One of the numerous affronts the Nigerian Military perpetrated against the people of Nigeria was the desecration of the country’s secularity. The organization of Islamic conference, O.I.C, was formed in 1969 through a Saudi Arabian initiative, following the burning of the Al-Agsa mosque in Jerusalem, which was considered an attack on the Muslim world. The conference has its headquarters in Jedda. Former Military President Ibrahim Babangida, without any regard to the sensitivity of Nigerians to matters of religion, unilaterally registered Nigeria as the forty-sixth member of the Organization of Islamic Conference in January 1986.
But for military dictatorship, a question as grave as membership of Organization of Islamic Conference could not easily have been swept under the carpet as General Babangida had so thought and manipulated. In the first instance, it would have been a matter of serious debate in the two chambers of the National Assembly. Strong public opinion from organizations such as Christian Association of Nigeria, Nigerian Labour Congress, Nigerian Bar Association and numerous Civil Society Organizations would have been there to influence the resolutions of the National Assembly on the matter.
The truth is that there was no basis for Nigeria to have been dragged into the membership of an organization which main objective is to protect the interest of a particular religion.
After all, it is not hidden that the converse interest the Muslim North of Nigeria has in the Arabs of Palestine is the interest the Christian South has in the Jews of Israel. Therefore, by pushing Nigeria into the Organization of Islamic Conference, General Ibrahim Babangida stupendously violated the age-long spirit of security of the Nigerian people.
One of the reasons why many Christians and non-northerners did not feel very comfortable voting for General Muhammadu Buhari was the fear that he would not change from being a northern irredentist and a religious bigot. True to their apprehension, Buhari, even as a democratically elected President of Nigeria, did not waste time in telling the world that those who gave him ninety-seven percent of their votes in the March 2015 Presidential election would get the same percent of reward while those who gave him only five percent should not expect any reward that is above five percent. His appointments, so far, have only confirmed the frankness of his thoughts.
People who know Buhari say he is very vindictive. He never forgives. Being in a position of authority and power, a person that does not forgive can only be a ruler and not a leader. Leaders are statesmen who put behind them whatever unpleasant experiences they have had in the past in order to put their country or society on the fast track of socio-economic advancement. They are not individuals who will keep an air-tight memory of whatever role an officer had played before or during his incarceration after he had been over thrown as a military head of state. A typical example of a leader and statesman is Dr Nelson Mandela of South-Africa. The apartheid South African government had put Nelson Mandela in clink for many years for his crusade against apartheid. When he came out of prison and also became the President of South-Africa, Nelson Mandela statesmanly threw his many years of imprisonment and sufferings behind him and embraced the South-African project as a collective agenda. He did not resort to either Vendetta or vindictiveness. Even the white South-Africans that had conspired to deny him his fundamental human rights, he forgave and carried every citizen along in the onerous task of building a very virile and stable economy. He reconciled the entire people of south-Africa, making the country the most formidable economy in Africa.
Many observers had thought that President Buhari was about turning a new leaf when he tactically rejected the request by the Saudi-Arabian ruler, king Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz, while he was on a week-long visit to Saudi-Arabia, to make Nigeria join the coalition of Islamic states against terror. In turning down the request, President Buhari said Nigeria would rather support the coalition than join as a member-country. On hearing this, many Nigerians applauded their President for respecting, for the first time, the secularity of Nigeria. Many felt this development was a sign of many good things to come from the Buhari-led A.P.C. government of Nigeria.
Unfortunately and regrettably, President Buhari, who is fond of informing Nigerians of his administration’s policy-decisions when he is on tour of foreign lands, announced to the utter bewilderment and disillusionment of Nigerians, especially the Christian folk, while speaking on Al Jazeera in Quartar that Nigeria should be a member of conference of Islamic States Against Terrorism.
By this singular utterance, it is very clear that President Buhari still lives in the sophism of his inglorious past as an unrepentant military dictator. The unilaterism he obviously evoked by stating that Nigeria should be a member of a parochial international Conference without being sensitive to the feelings of Nigerian Christians and without any reference to the National Assembly is, no doubt, a terrible and most likely devastating knock on the foundation of the current democratic dispensation in Nigeria. No Nigerian citizen should wait to be told that by this action that can only stem from impunity, bigotry, inconsideration, insensitivity and unbridled arrogance, President Buhari has in only one sentence told Christians in Nigeria to go to hell and at the same time called the bluff of the National Assembly.

Don Ubani.

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
MARCH 5, 2016

MAKING SO MUCH FUSS ABOUT EZE NDI IGBO
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI

People of an ethnic group or even race are usually distinguished from people of other ethnicities or races by certain characteristics that are peculiar to them. In Nigeria, the Igbo are known to be republicans. This is quite different from their Hausa/Fulani or Yoruba counterparts who are encaged in either feudalism or one form of hegemony, respectively. For the Igbo, emphasis is placed in individualism. The concept of individualism has been the primary source of success in enterprise, business, creativity and professionalism. By the nature of the Igbo, tradition, culture and religion do not constitute an encumbrance in the pursuit of individual laudable attainment. Still by the same nature, the Igbo do not see the world through the eyes of others. This means the Igbo think for themselves basically as individuals and not thought for by others. An average Igbo man believes he is a king of his own and takes responsibility for the growth and development of members of his immediate family and, depending on how affluent and generous he might be, members of his extended family.
The individualism in the Igbo man does not encourage hero-worshipping and renders the idea of central kingship or rulership alien to him. From the historical perspective, the Igbo know no king. This perspective accounts for the failure of the policy of indirect rule, which the British colonial government had introduced in Nigeria in the early nineteenth century and which was a huge success in the North of Nigeria and a partial success in the western part of Nigeria, but failed completely in Igbo land.
The Igbo man is very adventurous. He is found in almost every corner of the globe. He is usually driven by a survivalist tendency. Where ever he is, he has a clear vision of what he wants to achieve and in nine out of every ten cases, his goal is to make money and liberate himself from the shackles of poverty and inequality.
One other unique feature of the Igbo man is that he takes as his home where ever he finds himself as a sojourner. By dent of hard work, the Igbo own buildings in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Kaduna and even in Maiduguri that later became a theatre of Boko Haram insurgency. The Igbo are critical stakeholders where ever they sojourn and they try as much as possible to protect the interest of such place because they appreciate the simple fact that if any misfortune or disaster befalls the place, they would be the ones to be mainly affected. For instance, if the security of a town where the Igbo live and do their business, which in most cases is buying and selling, collapses the people that would be robbed and dispossessed of their items of wealth creation would be the Igbo. If there is any intra-communal clash amongst the people in whose domain they leave, the first target of attack would be shops owned and run by the Igbo. Even their houses could be looted and demolished. There is no doubt the Igbo are, indeed, critical stakeholders where ever they live and do their business.
Based on the above, wisdom demands that the Igbo should tread with maximum caution where ever they are outside their Igbo homeland. The truth is that whoever is adventurous, enterprising and prudent in managing his resources attracts, in most cases if not all, the envy of others. This is more pronounced if one is a sojourner in a distant strange land. In later part of February 2016, news started making the round that the Igbo in Akure were under threat by the Deji of Akure; Oba Aladelusi Aladetoyinbo, to be ejected out of Akure. Many people who heard this development were worried, taking into consideration the source of the threat. The Deji of Akure is one of the most revered traditional institutions in Yoruba land and by extension Nigeria. Besides, Oba Aladetoyinbo is known for his peaceful disposition. That which made the Oba to lose his fatherly ingredient of accommodation or tolerance and allegedly issue such a big threat was worth being investigated.
Inquires into the matter revealed that the bone of contention was that one Sir Gregory Iloehike had declared himself, by whatever means and platform he considered appropriate, Eze Ndi Igbo of Akure. Consequently, he started parading himself as the crown-king of the Igbo in Akure, with all the paraphernalia of kingship. This was to heat up the polity.
The Afenifere Renewal Group perceived this invasion of royalty by the alien Eze Ndi Igbo in Akure as an expansionist agenda by the Igbo. On his own, the Deji of Akure felt not only slighted and insulted but being dispossessed of his royal kingdom which he must have fought hard to reign. He saw the wearing of crown by Sir Gregory Iloehike as offensive and an open affront to diminish his royal personality and dignity. He, therefore, sent for the Eze Ndi Igbo who honoured the invitation and also showed the Oba traditional respect by prostrating and doing obeisance.
Regrettably, it was alleged that about two hundred youths of Akure or Yoruba extraction who had earlier taken positions in the palace of the Deji were so annoyed with Sir Gregory Iloehike that they pounced on him and almost physically man-handed him but for the intervention of the police men attached to the palace of the Deji. As an aftermath, shops owned by the Igbo in Akure were locked up for days and the owners banned from opening them. This led to economic deprivation of these innocent Igbo traders.
For all intents and purposes, this is a purely avoidable trajectory. The Igbo in the diaspora did not leave their native home to go and look for where they would be crowned as traditional rulers. What the Igbo are known for is the formation of Igbo Union or Town Unions where they live outside Igbo land. The invention of Eze Ndi Igbo is quite alien in the cosmogony of the Igbo. It is an unnecessary distraction and must be the creation of greedy, jobless and opportunistic individuals who want to take undue advantage of the naivety of the Igbo in the diaspora to cause unwarranted disquiet amongst the diaspora community. Objectively-speaking, the real traditional rulers in Igbo land have been finding it difficult to attract the respect of their subjects because of the republican nature of the Igbo. Those that parade themselves as Eze Ndi Igbo should answer these two fundamental questions;
1. Is there any law creating Eze Ndi Igbo in whichever state they reside?
2. If they come home to Ala Igbo, would any one accord them recognition as traditional rulers?
The truth of the matter is that Eze Ndi Igbo is a creation of illegality and the much fuss about it amounts to only a waste of time and energy.

Don Ubani.

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP
(Okwubunka of Asa)

Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
26TH FEBRUARY, 2016.

ABA-NORTH STATE CONTITUENCY RE-RUN ELECTION AND THE NEED TO VOTE FOR HON DAME BLESSING NWAGBA, Ph.D
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI

According to the time-table released for re-run elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission, election will be conducted in Aba-North State Constituency on Saturday the 5th of March, 2016.
The People’s Democratic Party, P.D.P will, as expected, participate fully in the election, having her candidate as Hon (Dame) Blessing Nwagba, Ph.D. For the electorate to chose who would represent them in a state House of Assembly, certain fundamental questions must have to be asked and answered .
These questions would include; (1) What do the electorate need from the state government? (2) What relationship should exist between the electorate and the state government? (3) What quality of legislator do the electorate need in order to achieve their objectives? And (4) What role should the electorate play for their aims to materialize?
Without mincing words, the electorate, in any democracy, would always want the government to protect their lives and property and at the same time guarantee their welfare. Welfare, in this context, include provision of good health facilities, functional education, road infrastructure and creation of enabling environment that could give impetus for employment for the youths of the constituency.
In terms of relationship between the electorate and government, reciprocity is key. This means that as much as the electorate would want the government to play its part very well, they should also give government the impression that they are a very willing partner in government’s drive to improve on their welfare. They need not create the impression that they are not favourably disposed to the government of the day.
The legislature is a very important arm of government. Though the other two arms of government, the Executive and the Judiciary are also important, representation of the electorate in the legislature requires meticulousness on the part of voters. This is because the quality of a representative determines what he or she would be able to attract to his or her constituency. For a legislator to be efficient and effective, he or she should be very knowledgeable and versatile. A respectable and respected legislator is one that has an impressive pedigree. In fact, the more intimidating the legislator’s profile is, the better for his or her constituency.
Dame (Honourable, Mrs) Blessing Nwagba is the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, P.D.P. for the re-run election in Aba-North State constituency scheduled for 5th March, 2016. Hon Blessing Nwagba; admirably called Total Blessing by her numerous supporters and friends, is the daughter of a late Anglican Priest whose watch-words were discipline and conformity. This background of hers implies much. As the daughter of a Priest, she had the required discipline that saw her climb the ladder of academic pursuit, from Primary School, Secondary School, Higher Secondary School upto the University. In 1977, she obtained Grade one in the West African School Certificate Examination at Federal Government College, Odogbolu in Ogun State. At Federal Government College, Ikot Ekpene in 1979, she set a record by obtaining four papers at a sitting in the Higher School Certificate Examination.
Progressively, she obtained a B.Sc in Sociology from the University of Lagos in 1983, M.Sc Sociology from the University of Port-Harcourt in 1989, having obtained a post graduate Diploma in Education from the same University in 1985. Still desirous of higher academic laurels, Dame Blessing Nwagba embarked on another academic pursuit that culminated in meritorious conferment of a Doctor of Philosophy, Ph.D in her academic field of interest, sociology. From every indication, Dame Blessing Nwagba, having laboriously obtained the highest degree in her field of educational interest, is deeply educated and knowledgeable and fits in properly in modern day legislative responsibilities and challenges.
Dame Blessing Nwagba was happily married to late Pharmacist Israel Nwagba of Osusu village in Aba-North. The marriage was blessed with three children; two boys and a girl, three of who are doing very well in their different fields of endeavor.
In addition to her attainment of very commendable height in academics, an achievement that reduces others in the contest as mere pipsqueaks, Dame Blessing Nwagba is rich in practical experience in matters concerning government, politics and administration. She had worked as a Youth development officer in the Ministry of Youth and Sports, in Abia State. In 1991, Dame Blessing Nwagba served as a supervisory councilor in the old Aba Local Government council. Between 2009 and 2011, Dame Blessing Nwagba diligently served as a Board Member at the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan. In 1998 and 1999, this academic celebrity had served her good people of Aba-North as Deputy Chairman in Aba-North Local Government Council. To re-affirm to her that she was, indeed, a golden fish which glittering would not provide her a hiding place, her people of Aba-North State constituency overwhelmingly elected her as their representative in the Abia State House of Assembly in 2011 up to 2015.
While she was in the Abia State House of Assembly between 2011 and 2015, Dame Blessing Nwagba was deeply concerned about the welfare of her people of Aba-North state constituency. She influenced the rehabilitation of roads at the Ariaria International Market, construction of over-head bridge at Abia State Polytechnic, rehabilitation of Osusu road, Omenazu and Brass Junctions and an erosion intervention project at Eziama village. She also was zealous about economic empowerment of the youths of Aba-North State constituency. She procured and distributed, free of charge, empowerment items such as hair dryers, sewing machines, power generating sets, hair clippers, grinding machine, books and many other items.
Being an amazon in education, she regularly embarked on visits to educational institutions where she dolled out different kinds of materials to pupils and students, just to reduce the financial burden of parents. As the child of a priest, Dame Blessing Nwagba, took her time to visit the various churches and other organizations in her constituency to express her gratitude for their support which translated to her being elected member of Abia State House of Assembly.
Today, an erudite academic and blue-blooded son of Ukwa/Ngwa is the governor of Abia State. She is Okezie Victor Chibuikem Ikpeazu, Ph.D. In 2015 general election, many residents of Aba; the Enyimba City, voted against the People’s Democratic Party due to the neglect that Aba had suffered in the hands of previous P.D.P. governments. The story has changed! Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, whose cosmopolitan pride stems from Aba being his own native city has re-written the woes of many years of Aba residents. The Enyimba City has been turned into a huge construction sight. The administration of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu is manifestly set to surpass the infrastructural achievements of late chief Sam Mbakwe, Ph.D as governor of Old Imo State.
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu is P.D.P! Dame Blessing Nwagba is also P.D.P!! Both of them are indigenous people of Abia-South senatorial zone. There is bound to be natural collaboration and corporation between both of them. The people of Aba-North state constituency are expected to appreciate the commitment of the Ikpeazu administration in fast-tracking infrastructural recovery of Aba by re-electing Dame Blessing Nwagba on Saturday 5th March, 2016. This, if done, would serve as motivation to Governor Ikpeazu’s zeal in Aba. There is no doubt the people of Aba-North state constituency are wise and would vote wisely.

Don Ubani

SIR DON UBANI; KSC; JP[/b][b]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
21ST FEBRUARY, 2016.

PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE NEED FOR CIRCUMSPECTION!
SCRIPTED BY DON UBANI


The Bible Book of Ecclesiastes teaches those of us that are Christians that there is time for everything under the Heaven. This means there could be a period when carelessness and impunity could be ignored while a time could be when the two would be considered an anathema.
Based on a letter dated 2nd September, 1998 and signed by Chief David Elechi Ikoro, Ochiriozuo Item, I was one of the twenty-one political leaders that convened the People’s Democratic Party, P.D.P. in Abia State on the 4th of September, 1998. I was the first State Organizing-Secretary of the Party in Abia State and worked tremendously for the electoral success of the Party in the transition elections in late 1998 and early 1999. The Party, in appreciation, has assisted me by way of social mobility and elevation.
Out of the twenty-one conveners of the People’s Democratic Party, as at 1998 in Abia State, eight have died, three defected to other political Parties, four are no more active because of super annuation or illness, two became Traditional Rulers while four have remained active in the Party.
As a convener of the Party in my State, I considered it my responsibility to wish that my Party, not only in Abia State but in Nigeria, grows in strength and stability. I also know that for the Party this feat, it must be very responsive to the feelings, wishes and thoughts of her membership.
The People’s Democratic Party, so far in the history of Nigeria, has been the luckiest in terms of retaining power at the centre. It governed this country for sixteen unobstructed years, 1999 to 2015. I am not sure that the present ruling All Progressives Congress, A.P.C, would be as lucky as the P.D.P. Since the Party is human driven, its conduct may not have been anchored on infallibility. It must have made its mistakes in the course of its sixteen years of governance. One flaw in the leadership of the Party that must have affected its cohesion and unity was the culture of impunity. Because of impunity, our Party lost hundreds of thousands of her members, including some sitting governors, senators and many other notable politicians from 2013 to 2015. The mass exodus that hit our Party ended up swelling the members of the newly formed All Progressives Congress and this eventually led to the electoral victory of the Party in 2015 general election.
In a democratic setting, a political Party in power could lose control of power for many reasons. A ruling Party could lose in an election due to poor economic policies and implementation. A Party that is adjudged to be inconsistent in its foreign policy objectives could also suffer electoral defeat. In the same vein, a Party that is perceived to be weak in its defence and security thrust could be booted out of power by the electorate. In the case of the People’s Democratic Party, the above did not apply. The storm that overwhelmed its boat was internal squabble that resulted from impunity.
Many members of the Party had thought that with what happened to our Party, our leaders should have withdrawn to their drawing board to ask relevant rhetorical questions and provide answers to such questions, as to re-orientate, re-organize, rebrand and reposition our great Party. The English idiom; once bitten twice shy, should have asserted much psycho-mental influence on our leaders. By my thinking, the era of impunity, imposition and extreme financial extortion of members of the Party should have been over by now.
The leaders of our Party, like a people bewitched by principalities threw themselves into another round of avoidable controversy on the 16th of February, 2016 by appointing Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff whose membership is not more than two years as the Party’s National Chairman. This development has sparked a very devastating wind of protest and threats by many stake-holders to decamp from the Party. What has been a source of relevance for our Party since we lost election at the centre has been our numerical strength in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. But with the current discord, as a result of which twenty senators and fifty members of the House of Representatives have sent strong warning on their intent to defect to another Party, P.D.P. may no longer be in a position to offer credible opposition, if it is allowed to happen.
Just like the Bible puts it, there is time for everything. As one of the Conveners of the Party in Nigeria, I am strongly of the opinion that this period, rather than continue with the culture of impunity and arrogance of imposition, the P.D.P. should thread with caution. There should be wide consultation before any major decision is taken by the Party leadership. The Party leadership should, at all times, endeavour to arrive at policy decisions through consensus, as to carry every major stake-holder along. As a party, for now, we are in a precarious situation. Hitting up ourselves internally would be outrageously disadvantageous.
Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, no doubt, is an astute politician, with considerable influence in the North-East of Nigeria, especially in Borno State which he had governed for eight years, even though during the 2015 general election his impact could not be felt in P.D.P. Besides, there is this wide allegation that he had a hand in the emergence of Boko Haram insurgency.
Since a mechanism is being put in place by some leaders of the Party to reconcile the different opinion groups over the issue of Modu Sheriff, I humbly plead with all, including the P.D.P. Rescue Group, to sheathe their swords. The congresses of the Party are most probably to commence, latest, in March this year. It would culminate in its National Convention not later than April. The convention, based on consultation in the overall interest of the Party, should be able to put to rest the brouhaha emanating from Modu Sheriff’s appointment. It is not only Modu Sheriff’s matter that the Convention should address. There are certain officials in the National Working Committee of the Party whose only business is to extort huge amount of money from aspirants during Party Primary elections and orchestrate imposition of unpopular aspirants over popular ones. They did this with impunity during the 2014/15 primary elections. The irony of this travesty of justice is that the main person who is notorious for this crude conduct has never delivered his polling unit, ward, local government area or state to P.D.P. Besides, he has attracted the worst press to our Party. If our Party is sincerely committed to rebuilding itself on the Part of positive engagements, the forthcoming National Convention would be an opportunity to send political parasites and liabilities in the Party on a reformative leave. Let us not allow more respectable members, as recently was the case with Senator Ken Nnamani, desert our Party due to impunity. A stitch in time should save nine for us.

Don Ubani.

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
14TH FEBRUARY, 2016.

ABIA-NORTH RE-RUN ELECTION, ANOTHER TRIAL FOR P.D.P BIG NAMES OF ABIA-NORTH
SCRIPTED BY DON UBANI

Perception matters much when it is time for man to take a decision or even evaluate a situation. What one sees or hears could go a long way to build one’s perception on any given subject.

The result of the 2015 governorship election in Abia State had almost created the impression that many members of the People’s Democratic Party in Abia-North Senatorial District had brazenly failed to identify themselves with the Party’s resolution for power shift to Abia-South Senatorial Zone.

Political Party membership demands disciplined adherence to party guidelines and directives by members. As at the 2015 governorship election in Abia State, equity, justice, fairness and good conscience made it indisputable that the governor of the state, by that election, should be of Abia-South extraction. This was clearly because Abia-North had produced a governor, in the person of Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, that governed for eight years and Abia-Central had Governor Theodore Orji, who was rounding off a stretch of eight years in office. This meant that old Bende was rounding off sixteen years of unobstructed governance of Abia State.

Based on the above, it was unimaginable that any member of the People’s Democratic Party in the state could stand up to work against the electoral success of the governorship candidate of the party who had rightly emerged from the southern zone. When the results of the election started being released, it was painfully evident that many members of the Party in areas other than the Ukwa/Ngwa geo-political zone had surreptitiously worked with the All Progressives Grand Alliance to the detriment of their Party in their polling units and wards.

The outcome was that most big names of the Party in those areas witnessed their Party beaten in their polling units. The most worrisome intelligence was that some P.D.P candidates in those areas were not ashamed to canvas that they be voted for by their people while they were free to vote for a governorship candidate other than that of the P.D.P. Thank God, the people of Ukwa/Ngwa were, more than ever before, united for a common purpose, making effective use of their superior numerical strength to make sure that an Abia governor of Ukwa/Ngwa extraction emerged.

Even when the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu was unjustifiably nullified by the Court of Appeal that was headed by Her Lordship; Justice Oyebisi Omoloye at Owerri, it was strongly alleged that some members of the Party from outside the Ukwa/Ngwa bloc, including some current political appointees, nocturnally went to congratulate their brother, Dr. Alexander Otti. The thought of man has always been sharply different from the will of God. With the Supreme Court Verdict upholding the election of Governor Ikpeazu, the same persons that took cows, esoteric drinks and other precious gifts to the man they had thought would usurp the freely given mandate of Dr. Ikpeazu are now the most fanatical commercial radio congratulatory message advertisers. This is man for you!

Come March 5th 2016, the Independent National Electoral Commission will conduct a senatorial re-run election in Abia-North to determine who becomes her senator. It would be recalled that Senator Mao Ohuabunwa had won the election on March 28, 2015, having beaten the duo of Chief Ogba David Onuoha and Orji Uzor kalu of All Progressives Grand Alliance and Progressive People’s Alliance, respectively to second and third positions.

Of course, Senator Ohuabunwa had contested on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party. His election was subsequently upheld by the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal that sat at Umuahia and which was headed by Justice Adeniyi Onibanjo. In contradiction to the verdict of the Lower Tribunal, Justice I.G. Mbaba of the Court of Appeal that sat at Owerri nullified his election and directed the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct a fresh election to elect a Senator for Abia-North.

The March 5th election in Abia-North is a direct challenge to whoever that calls himself or herself a member of the People’s Democratic Party in Abia-North, both big and small. There are many reasons why P.D.P members and admirers in Abia-North should work diligently to guarantee the electoral success of the Party in the forth-coming election. In the first instance, the Party’s flag-bearer, Mao Ohuoabunwa, is unarguably the best of the three major candidates vying for the position. The Legislative arm of government requires individuals that are versatile, skilled, visionary, articulate, sociable and proficient in pyrotechnics. If the trio of Mao Ohuabunwa, Orji kalu and David Onuoha are weighed on a legislative scale, there would be no gain saying it, Ohuabunwa would weigh far above the other two put together. There is no basis for Kalu and Onuoha to compete with Ohuabunwa when it comes to matters of legislation. As 7up advertorial puts it, the difference is clear.

The few months Mao Ohuabunwa stayed in the Senate was a period of pride, not only for the people of Abia-North and Abia State but for the entire Igbo Nation. It is on record that the first bill that was presented in the current Senate was the one initiated perfected and sponsored by Mao Ohuabunwa; Follow Better, as he is fondly called by his numerous admirers. The long neglected Ohafia-Arochukwu road was given adequate legislative attention by Follow Better. Isuikwuator/Umunneochi area that had been without electricity for a very long time was also given attention by Ohuabunwa within his short stint in the Senate. Ofcourse, Ohuabunwa drew the attention of the Nigerian government to the problems of ecology in Abia-North and other areas in Abia State. Mao is a very experienced and brilliant legislator, whose ability to speak the three major Nigerian languages naturally makes him a bridge and path-finder for effective national interaction and integration.

The time has come when the Igbo should do away with sentiments and make effective use of the best in their squad. The worrisome state of infrastructural backwardness in Igbo land does not support electing individuals from whom optimum performance can not be guaranteed. The people of Abia-North should be able to differentiate between the parameter for success in trade and commerce and that of legislation. If this contest were to be in business, many notable Abians would come out strongly to bark both Orji Kalu and David Onuoha, without giving consideration to Mao Ohuabunwa. But because this is legislation, the reverse automatically is the case.

Abia-North parades an array of political heavy weights and who incidentally are members of the P.D.P. The State Chairman of the Party; Senator Emman Nwaka, and the deputy governor of the state, Sir Ude Okochukwu are from Abia-North. Three members of the House of Representatives; Hon. Nnenna Ukeje, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha and Hon. Uko Nkeole are from Abia-North. The Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, five serving Honourable Commissioners and the Secretary to the State Government are from Abia-North. There are many other big wigs of the P.D.P family, including Ukpai Agwu Ukpai, P.C. Mba and P.C. Onyegbu, who are from Abia-North. If these great men and women could put their act together, Mao Ohuabunwa would win conveniently and comfortably. Any result other than this, would surely generate interpretations that would give room for ambiguity and suspicion.


Don Ubani

SIR DON UBANI, KSC; JP[/b][b][b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
07 – 02 – 2016

ARE THERE PSYCHOTHERAPISTS TO SAVE EBERE WABARA FROM PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER (PPD)?
SCRIPTED BY DON UBANI
Knowledge is so vast that no individual, even if a genius, can correctly claim to possess it all. There are hundreds of branches of knowledge and there is none that is not important. Psychotherapy is a branch of psychology that deals with mental, emotional and nervous disorders.
Many individuals that are seen daily on the streets, in offices and even on pages of newspapers, who may appear healthy and physically in good shape, are psychologically abnormal and, unknown to many, suffer from what clinic psychologists call Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD). Some of the characteristics a patient suffering from Paranoid Personality Disorder, which is hereditary, include pervasive long standing suspiciousness, mistrust of others and tendency to insult and bully others, in most cases, without any cause.
As a commentator on contemporary issues, I had written a piece which I captioned ‘Bazaar In The Temple of Justice’ and which was published on page 47 of Thisday of Saturday 23rd December, 2016 to express my discontent with the verdict of the court of Appeal that nullified the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State. Being a very responsible indigene of Abia State, who have been actively and patriotically involved in the affairs of the state for a reasonable length of time and being conversant with what happened in the state during the 2015 general election, I did not need any oracle to tell me that the verdict by Her Lordship; Justice Oyebisi Omoleye’s Panel was very faulty.
In 2007 governorship election, the Court of Appeal was the terminal Court for hearing governorship election petitions. By the Electoral Act of 2010, the Supreme Court became the apex Court for governorship election petitions. There was no basis for me to appreciate why the Justice Omoleye’s Panel should derail to the extent of ordering that Dr Alexander Otti, whom the panel had declared winner of the election, should be sworn-in immediately when the Electoral Act provides another window for Governor Ikpeazu seek for Justice other than believe that the Justices had been penetrated and had subsequently compromised the ethics of their noble profession. Using advantage of his access to the Sun Newspaper, one Ebere Wabara, on Page 18 of Daily Sun of Monday February 1st, 2016 in an article he titled ‘Diatribe Against Appellate Justices,’ poured invective on me. There was no abusive word known to him that he did not use against me.
After reading his tirade against me, I thought I should ask my lawyer to commence a legal action as to teach him and the Sun Newspaper a lesson for being irresponsible, vulgar, uncouth and disrespectful. I was intrinsically encouraged to take this action having read him boast of having many streams of income which give the impression that he is financially comfortable.
I, however, decided to conduct an investigation on his person. My inquiry revealed he is from a remote village called Umuogo, near Azumini in Ukwa-East Local Government Area of Abia State. Umuogo is about five kilometres away from Ohambele; the home-town of former President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Adolphus Wabara whom he insults at will.
At Umuogo, I learnt two things about Ebere Wabara. I realized that he comes from a family that thrives in lawlessness, incivility and cruelty of extreme order. Infact, I was told that not too long ago the family house of the Wabaras of Umuogo was raised down and everything therein destroyed. On further inquiry, I was meant to understand that his senior brother had instructed hoodlums of the Wabara’s family to kill an officer of the Nigeria Police Force who had legitimately come to Umuogo on investigation. The Police officer was not only brutally killed but was inhumanly buried in a shallow grave his brother had ordered for that purpose. Ofcourse, you can trust the Nigeria Police Force, the Wabara family of Umuogo will live in perpetual regret for that act of cruelty and inhumanity.
Specifically on Ebere Wabara, his town’s men told me that he is hardly known in Umuogo. As they put it; ‘Ebere seldom comes home’. They went further to say that he is the only educated son of Umuogo that is above fifty years that has woefully failed to build even a mud house with a corrugated iron sheet on top of it. They advised me not to worry myself over a man whose life has been synonymous with irresponsibility. They said he does not come home because he has no hut to sleep in. The one that pained me most was when they said that if death called on Ebere Wabara as we were discussing, that he would have no place where his body could lye-in-state.
With the hope that Ebere Wabara could be one of those wealthy individuals who may not like building a house in his village but would prefer building edifices in big cities, I tried to find out the type of building or buildings Ebere Wabara that has ‘many streams of income’ would own in Lagos. To my chagrin, the man that boasts of many streams of income lives in a building that has no sign of painting and members of his family have to climb down on daily basis to fetch water as water is not reticulated to his flat. Above all, his place of residence is located in a shanty in Lagos. What an empty boast!
At the end of my investigation, it was obvious the pipsqueak called Ebere Wabara is a self-imposed fugitive and has lost bearing with realities in his small village of Umuogo and has resorted to negativity as a way of life. He does not see anything good in any individual. He is a sadist.
Purely in sympathy with Ebere Wabara, I have decided not to take him to Court for defamation. I would, rather, touch a few of the issues the contemptuous braggart goofed on. Before doing this, I want to say that Ebere Wabara, having failed to live up to the responsibilities of adulthood in his place of nativity, has developed odium against his people of Umuogo, Ndoki, Ukwa and Abia State. He is a self-proclaimed enemy of his people.
Ebere Wabara, who wrote that I am an ignoramus, is ironically the most uninformed writer I have ever read. He exposed his ignorance when he started his attack by claiming that ‘Don Ubani, a brief Ngwa man, was information Commissioner in the immediate past administration in Abia State. I am a blue-blooded indigene of Umuiku-Isi-Asa Autonomous community in Ukwa-West Local Government Area of Abia State. I was a commissioner for information and strategy in Abia State not ‘Information Commissioner’ as he ignorantly had put it.
As a Pathological liar and enemy of his people, Ebere Wabara mischievously tried to portray Governor Okezie Ikpeazu as a sectional leader by alleging that ‘virtually all the commissioners, the Secretary to the State Government, and other top bureaucrats in the state are insensitively and unsurprisingly from Ngwa’. For purposes of offering Ebere Wabara a free tutorial, each local government Area of Abia State is represented in the cabinet of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu. The Secretary to the State Government is Dr Eme Okoro, an erudite scholar and agronomist from Ozu-item in Bende Local Government Area of Abia –North.
Throughout the said piece in Thisday of January 23, 2016, there was no place I made mention of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Due to his stunted intelligence, Ebere Wabara opted to be my unsolicited interpreter by presuming that the unnamed prominent leader of APC and a one-time governor of Lagos state that I had mentioned in my write-up was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Ebere Wabara merely exposed his porosity in syllogism.
It is unfortunate and, indeed, a pity that the bag of wind called Ebere Wabara, who after calling for my crucification for expressing my opinion on an Appeal Court Judgement I strongly considered to be faulty and amounted to a travesty of justice, ended up contradicting himself by admitting that ‘there may be exceptional and infinitesimal cases of judicial corruption because of marginal environmental factors or circumstantial exigencies’. What doltish way of encouraging mis-application of justice by cloddish Ebere Wabara! I am sure if Ebere Wabara had seen me physically after receiving his gratification from his sponsors to put up the trash he wrote against me, he would have preferred handling me, being a block of the old chip, the way the Wabaras handled the police officer that came on investigation to Umuogo.
Since Ebere Wabara erratically suggested that I should be imprisoned for saying my mind what would he recommend should happen to the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, Chief John Oyegun and, even, the President; Muhammadu Buhari, for expressing disappointment with the judiciary?
Without my raising an accusing finger, Ebere Wabara, reflective of his true nature as a maniac depressive, went all out to complain that some readers accuse him of using intemperate, inflammable, bombastic and uncouth language occasionally in his writings. He should not worry about the extent of his vulgarity because for him to have been brought up in a family that the only language it knows and admires is cruelty emanating from extreme lawlessness, rather than get annoyed with him, he should attract the pity of his readers.
The average mad man that walks on the street, even in his madness, accords respect to elderly persons he passes by. More importantly, he distances himself from places of worship in reverence to God. In the case of Ebere Wabara, he has so disrespected everybody except the few he thinks he could milk financially that he has self-destructively emboldened himselves as a heretic and blasphemer. Imagine Ebere Wabara that neither has a house in his remote village of Umuogo nor lives comfortably as a tenant in Lagos accusing Almighty God of being ‘blasphemously asleep’ should the Appeal Court ruling that unjustifiably nullified the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu be upturned by the Supreme Court!
Before I draw a curtain over this piece, I want to state that by upholding the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, the Supreme Court has surely restored the citizens’ confidence in the judiciary as the bastion of democracy. It has equally re-affirmed the principles of equity, justice and fairness in the polity. The Supreme Court has, by the same action, guaranteed the continuation of the unprecedented good work that Dr Okezie Ikpeazu has been doing in Abia State, especially at Aba that was infrastructural dead for the past sixteen years. With the work Governor Ikpeazu is doing in the state, his re-election in 2019, by God’s grace, would be a mere formality.
As for Ebere Wabara, I wish he approaches some psychotherapists to commence, without any delay, a thorough clinical investigation into his case with a view to finding a solution to his malady. Failure by Ebere Wabara to heed this piece of advice could mean he would continue to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder which perpetually renders him a schizophrenic.

Don Ubani

Sir Don Ubank KSC JP[b][/b][/size][size=8pt]
(Okwubunka of Asa)
Former Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Abia State
Umuiku-Isi-Asa, Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
05-02-2016

JUSTICE AND THE SUPREMACY OF THE SUPREME COURT
SCRIPTED BY DON UBANI

The world, in the absence of justice, would not be differentiated from the animal kingdom where bruteness and cruelty are the order of the day. In fact, the world would have been epitomised by the survival of the fittest syndrome had there been no justice. A civilized society is one in which people are guided by the rule of law. In such a society, citizens do not take laws into their hands as they repose confidence in the ability of the judiciary to address whatever wrong that they are confronted with. The ancient Greek Philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, placed emphasis on the essentialism of justice in human society.
Abia state was created on August 27, 1991 from the Old Imo state by the military administration of President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Before the creation of the state, the people of old Aba and old Bende Divisions had come together in agitation for the creation of the State. In their wisdom, they settled for the acronym ‘ABIA’ as an inclusive reflection of the component units of their proposed state; A for Aba, B for Bende, I for Isuikwuato and A for Afikpo.
From the conglomeration, it was evident that four different groups of people were coming together for the creation of Abia State. They were; (1) the people of old Aba Division, (2) the people of old Bende division, (3) the people of old Isuikwuato District and the people of old Afikpo District. But broadly-speaking, the Abia agitators saw themselves mainly as old Aba Divsion, comprising the very largely populated and gregarious Ngwas and the constitutionally balkanized but highly nature-favoured Ukwas of Asa and Ndoki and the old Bende, which had supposedly subsumed the old Isuikwuato and Afikpo districts. The protagonists of the creation of Abia state; which included Dr M.I. Okpara, Dr Moses Agbara, Dr Anagha Ezeikpe, His Eminence, Eze (Dr) Benard Enweremadu, His Imperial Majesty, Eze Isaac Ikonne and Nze Paul Ogbonna, thought it wise to put in black and white the ideological frame-work of their dreams of a prospective Abia state in a paper aptly captioned Abia Charter of Equity. The motto of Abia Charter of Equity was ‘Onye aghala nwanneya’. The interpretation of this motto in English language is ‘let everybody be given a sense of belonging in a state where everyone would regard the other as a brother or sister.
Abia, being a state that was created by the military, was, at one time or another, governed by the military; Frank Ajobena, August 28, 1991 to January 1992, Chinyere Ike Nwosu, December 9, 1993 to September 14, 1994, Temi Ejoor, September 14, 1994 to August 22, 1996, Moses Fasanya, August 22, 1996 to August 1998 and Anthony Obi, August 1998 to May 1999.
Ogbonnaya Onu was the first civilian governor of Abia state and reigned from January 1992 to December 1993. He came from Afikpo area, which was assumed to have been subsumed by the old Bende. It would be interesting to mention here that during the primary election of the defunct National Republican Convention, the Party that produced Dr Ogbonnaya Onu as governor, a political Chieftain of the Old Bende Division, Chief B.B Apugo, had deployed undemocratic methods to create tension and confusion, which ended up scaring away the supporters of two prominent Governorship aspirants of the party from the Ukwa/Ngwa group of the state; Dr. Gershion Amuta and Chief Lambert Nmecha. Apuga manipulated the result of the primary election in favour of Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu.
On return of democracy in 1999, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, from Igbere in Bende Local Government Area of Old Bende, became governor of Abia State. He ruled the state for eight consecutive years. Orji Kalu was one politician that never wanted to imagine, not to talk of seeing power shift to the Ukwa/Ngwa Zone of the state. By the underlying principles of the Abia Charter of equity, power should have rotated to Ukwa/Ngwa after the eight years by Orji Kalu. But being an Old Bende irredentist, Orji Kalu made sure that power was handed over to his former Chief of staff and a scion of the Old Bende, Chief Theodore Orji. Chief Theodore Orji governed the state from 2007 to 2015, being eight years. This means that Old Bende had governed Abia State for sixteen unbroken years as at May 2015, to the exclusion of Old Aba Division. Going by statistics, the Old Bende is made up of only eight local government areas while the old Aba Division is made up of nine local government areas. Out of these nine, two, Aba North and Aba South are fully commercially urbanized, three; Osisioma, Obingwa and Ugwunagbo are partly urbanized, with potentials for rapid expansion and development. Ukwa-West is the only oil bearing and producing local Government Area, as a result of which the state had drawn billions of naira from the Federal Government’s constitutional thirteen percent oil derivation fund. Ukwa-East is the only hope of the South East being linked to the Atlantic Ocean.
These sixteen years of marginalization, deprivation and utter disgust influenced the mind set of the people of Ukwa/Ngwa when it was time for the next election in March/April, 2015. The people, unlike what had happened in the past, resolved, without necessarily coming together, to take their destiny in their hand. As God of equity would have it, an indisputable fine gentleman, Okezie Victor Ikpeazu, an erudite academic that had obtained his doctorate degree before his thirtieth year anniversary, had been elected, courtesy of the support of the incumbent governor, Chief Theodore Orji, as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Abia State.
The people of Ukwa/Ngwa worked, individually and collectively, tirelessly, with the support and encouragement of patriotic and equity-friendly Abians from the other divide, to make sure a jinx of one hundred and one years in Nigeria’s history was broken.
Ordinarily, it was expected that Abia South would be allowed to produce the next governor of the state without candidates appearing from other senatorial zones of the state. But Dr Alexander Otti, an indigene of Arochukwu in Abia North, just from the blues, threw his hat into the ring, falsely claiming indigeneship of Ngwa.
The governorship election in Abia State took place on the 11th of April, 2015, during which Okezie Ikpeazu clearly and superiorly defeated Otti but the election was declared inconclusive because of some manipulative scheming by some power blocs that would not wish an Ukwa/Ngwa indigene to be governor of Abia State. A rerun election was held on 25th April, 2015. Again, the voting pattern of the people evidently showed that they were not only tired of being terribly marginalized but were vehemently determined to re-write their story. Okezie Ikpeazu overwhelmingly dusted Alexander Otti of Arochukwu.
Ikpeazu’s victory was upheld by the Governorship Election Tribunal that sat at Umuahia, having been dragged to it by Alexander Otti. Ironically and Cynically, the court of Appeal that sat at Owerre, for reasons that can only stem from unprofessionalism, nullified Okezie Ikpeazu’s election and, embarrassing to the judicial system or process, ordered that Alexander Otti be sworn-in immediately. This judgment, for all intents and purposes, was bizarre.
The world over, the judiciary is the last hope of man, many say it is the last hope of the common man. In its supremacy, the supreme court of Nigeria rose to the occasion on Wednesday 3rd February, 2016 to allow justice and equity to reign by setting aside the verdict of the Appeal Court and upholding the election of Okezie Ikpeazu as the Governor of Abia State. The Court, indeed, saved the state from upheaval and violence that would have erupted as a result of inequity and injustice against the people of Ukwa/Ngwa.
As Governor Ikpeazu rightly put it, this victory is a manifestation of the will of God and the mandate of the majority of Abia electorate. Okezie Ikpeazu, Ph.D, should continue with the good work he has been doing in the state, especially in Aba that was deliberately neglected for sixteen years. As for gullible members of the People’s Democratic Party who had secretly gone to pledge allegiance to Otti after his unsustainable victory at the court of Appeal, they should bury their heads in shame and for ever remain ashamed.

Don Ubani

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP
Former Abia State Commissioner for Information & Strategy
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360

BAZAAR IN THE TEMPLE OF JUSTICE
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI
1st January, 2016

No matter the depth of ridicule the economic challenges of Greece would have taken, the modern world owes the Greeks life-time gratitude for, at least, one thing. What would the world have looked like if democracy had not been bequeathed it? Of course, brutality and anarchy would have remained the order of the day. For originating democracy, the world remains indebted to the Greeks.

Of the three arms of government; the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary, it is the Judiciary that serves as the stabilizing force for democracy. If laws made by the legislature are wrongly applied or enforced, the citizens, so affected, would run only to the Judiciary for reprieve. Even where the legislature makes laws that are considered to be against the tenets of democratic governance, it is also the Judiciary that would, by court verdict, repeal or revoke such obnoxious laws or Acts.

It is because of the unique role that the Judiciary plays in dispensation of justice, a role that is the hallmark of democracy, that people say that it is the hope of man, both rich and poor.

What, therefore, sustains the confidence of citizens in a democracy is the ability of the Judges and officials of that arm of government to discharge their duties with a very high degree of impeccability, not minding whose ox might be gored. The law is believed to be an axe. This is why it is symbolized by a blind-folded woman holding a scale for balancing on one hand and a sword on the other. Because she is blind-folded, she neither sees nor knows one coming before her. The only thing that determines judgment is the weight on the scale she is holding. Whereever the weight tilts, that is where justice goes. The sword is then used against whoever the offender is, not minding if the person could be related to her or not because she does not see.

There are acts or laws governing the conduct of elections in Nigeria. Since elections are human-driven, it is obvious that some may not be in compliance with some of the laws that should regulate them. Hence, Election Petition Tribunals are set up by the same Acts or laws to enable contestants who feel aggrieved present their complaints for investigation. It is expected that Judicial officials, so appointed, would handle such complaints transparently and dispassionately, just like the blind-folded woman of justice.

Justice is conduct that is visibly characterized by quality of being right and fair. Its conduct and application are so holistically convincing that even when one is losing in a case, even if one is the complainant, one would not need to consult an oracle before appreciating that the facts of the matter weigh against him. Justice is synonymous with truth and no matter how long and wide one labours to suppress it, the scar it would leave on the heart is never buried underneath.

In Abia State, the 2015 governorship election took place on Saturday 11th April. After two days of collation, the Returning Officer for the election and Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Professor Benjamin Ozumba, declared the election inconclusive. According to him, the leading candidate of Peoples Democratic Party; Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu’s margin of eighty-three thousand and fifty three votes above Dr. Alex Otti’s one hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and six votes, meaning that Dr. Ikpeazu had polled two hundred and forty-eight thousand, four hundred and fifty-nine votes, was less than one hundred and seventy-nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-four voters who could not vote during the election.

In order not to disenfranchise those voters who could not vote on 11th April, 2015, a supplementary or re-run election was fixed for the 25th of April, 2015. The result of that election confirmed that Dr. Ikpeazu was the choice of the Abia electorate. He secured and additional sixteen thousand, two hundred and fifty-four votes while his closest opponent; Dr. Otti got fifteen thousand, four hundred and seventy-six. In total, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu had two hundred and sixty-four thousand, seven hundred and thirteen (264,713) votes while Dr. Alex Otti came second with one hundred and eighty thousand, eight hundred and eighty-two (180,882) votes, being down with a minus margin of eighty-three thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one (83,831) votes. Of course, the Returning Officer; Professor Ozumba, whether he liked it or not, was left with no option than to declare Dr. Okezie Victor Ikpeazu winner of the Abia Governorship contest, 2015.

Still in retrospect, in the course of collation of results at the headquarters of Independent National Electoral Commission, at Umuahia, Professor Ozumba had attempted cancelling results of Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa-North Local Government Areas, in such a manner as if he was on a mission to prevent an Ngwa man from ever being a governor. But law and sanity had to dawn on him to realize that as a Returning Officer, his responsibility was just to announce results as already collated from the pulling units, wards and local government areas. He had no power, whatsoever, to cancel such results.

As guaranteed in the constitution of Nigeria, Dr. Ikpeazu was sworn-in on May 29th, 2015 as Governor of Abia State. Dr. Otti, in pursuit of his fundamental human right, approached the Abia Governorship Election Petition Tribunal at Umuahia, headed by Mr. Justice Usman Luka Bwala. His main prayer was that election results from Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa-North earlier cancelled and later accepted by the Returning Officer should be cancelled as to be declared winner of the election. But the Tribunal, judging on point of law and not sentiment, ruled that the Returning Officer had no legal authority to have contemplated the cancelation. The Tribunal, therefore, upheld the election of Dr. OKezie Victor Ikpeazu.

Before Dr Otti approached the Appeal court Tribunal at Owerri, the news had hit the streets of Abia that Dr Otti had, through the over-bearing influence of a prominent leader of the All Progressive Congress and a one-time Governor of Lagos State, penetrated the Judges that would preside over the Appeal Tribunal at Owerri. It was also learnt that Dr Otti had pledged to defect to All Progressive Congress as soon as he is sworn-in as Governor. The people’s Democratic Party in Abia State did raise this alarm.

This accord eventually gave rise to the composition of the Owerri Tribunal with four out of the fire Judges being drawn from the Lagos Division of the Appeal Court. Billions exchanged hands and the Judges, having collapsed morally, wrote and read a judgment that dirtly amounts to a travesty of justice.

Many fundamental questions arise from this verdict that is a miscarriage of justice. In the first place, what law authorizes the cancellation of election results that have been collated from the polling unit through the ward and the local government area to the state? In Nigeria’s electoral act, does an election observer has right to cancel or even suggest cancelation of duly collated election results? Apart from pecuniary inducement, leading to the moral bankruptcy and judicial summersault, is there any legal basis and justification for the Appeal Tribunal, headed by Mr. Justice Oyebisi Omoleye; a Westner with surreptitious interest in the All Progressive Congress, to declare Dr Otti Winner of an election, allegedly with a margin of forty-nine thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight (49,888) votes when voters in Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa-North Local Government Areas are about one hundred and twenty-three thousand, (123,000), eighty-two thousand (82,000) and sixty thousand (60,000), respectively amounting to about two hundred and sixty-five thousand (265,000) voters have been unlawfully and unacceptably disenfranchised by this criminal cancelation? Could any consideration other than monetary have compelled the Justice Omoleye Tribunal to forget that governorship election in Kogi between Wada of People’s Democratic Party and late Abubarkar of All Progressive Congress was declared inconclusive because the margin Audu had over Wada was less than the number of cancelled votes? Why should this Tribunal forget in a jiffy that despite Governor Seriake Dickson’s lead over Timipre Silva in Bayelsa governorship election, Dickson was not declared the winner, simply because of votes in Southern Ijaw Area? By cancelling the whole of Obingwa, did the Justices of the Appeal Court not intend to mean that Doctor Okezie Ikpeazu was not eligible to vote and be voted for in that election? Could any reason other than financial inducement have lured the Justices to Order that Dr. Alex Otti be sworn-in immediately when they should have known that the supreme court and not the court of Appeal is the Apex Court in this case? Does unanimity in this weird judgment not confirm the truth that the five Justices of the Appeal Court were corruptly compromised?

The bazaar that the Nigerian Judiciary is unfortunately tilting to becoming is best stopped now before it becomes dangerously late. The only Institution left within the judiciary is the Supreme Court, which is the Apex Court. The Nigerian Judiciary should not be allowed to continue to be a laughing-stock in the eyes of the global community. Besides, it must always be borne in mind that dethronement of law and justice can only result to anarchy, cataclysm and nihilism. This point was not lost when the Chief Justice of the Federation; Mr. Justice Mahmud Mohammed, spoke recently at the Annual Conference of the Court of Appeal held in Abuja where he expressed concerns over conflicting judgments emanating from the court of Appeal. Justice Mohammed warned that ‘as guardians of the law, we must not only be just but also convey certainty in our justness’.

Don Ubani.

SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
Former Abia State Commissioner for Information & Strategy
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360

NIGERIA’S ANTI-CORRUPTION WAR, IS THE ‘SAINT’ NOT DENTED?
SCRIPTED BY SIR DON UBANI
17th December, 2015

The word corruption has remained a recurring decimal within Nigeria’s social, political and economic context. As some writers would want their readers to believe, corruption has refused to leave Nigerians. There has been hardly any era in the history of the country that corruption failed to occupy a very prominent space in its narrative. In one of Chinua Achebe’s early novels; No longer At Ease, we read how a young Nigerian British-trained graduate, Obi, lost his bright future as a result of acceptance of a bribe. The first military coup d’etat that took place in Nigeria was in reaction to glaring expensive cases of corruption and impunity that reigned at that time. When Major-General Muhammadu Buhari overthrew President Shehu Shagari’s Government on the eve of 1984, he justified his action on the basis that the government had become too corrupt to be ignored. Corruption has assumed the status of a monster in Nigeria.

A simple definition of corruption denotes immorality, depravity and dishonesty. The meaning of corruption is so explicit that no ambiguity should be associated with it. It connotes negativity. This means that nothing good or positive can come out of it. Corruption is corrosively leprous in Nigeria. In an Establishment, it would require the collaborative obedience of a Permanent-Secretary, Director of Finance, Internal-Auditor, Head of Department, Payroll Clerk and Cashier for a corrupt Minister or Commissioner to perfect a financial crime. Even the Messenger that would push the file from one Officer to the other and who, in the course of such mobility, might have wind of the crime about being committed, would strategically be co-opted into the crime-tube for the act to be properly sealed. This explains why corruption is corrosively leprous.

However, it would be unfair and equally wrong to postulate that corruption has refused to leave Nigerians. To be fair to corruption, it is Nigerians that have continuously refused to leave it alone. An apt analogy here is when a driver who is intoxicated with alcohol or any drug gets into his car, drives on a very high speed, not minding how narrow and bumpy the road he is plying on is and ends up crushing his car and himself on a road-side concrete electric pole. Spontaneous reaction would always be casting of aspersions on Satan. Yet Satan did not ask the driver to drink to a point of intoxication. Yet Satan did not ask him to be careless and reckless in his driving. This is exactly what happens between corruption and Nigerians.

Currently, Nigerians have been astonished with revelations of how the sum of two billion and one hundred million American dollars meant for the purchase of arms in order to address the challenges of insurgency and terrorism in the North-East of the country was allegedly diverted to other areas of expenditure other than procurement of arms and ammunition through the office of the immediate past National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki(rtd). The crime allegation has even been given an appellation of its own, Dasukigate, and has now become a matter of grave judicial investigation. It is already making waves in Nigeria’s Administration of Criminal Justice. While many Nigerians are watching with keen interest, not a few have expressed concern and worry over the Dasukigate. The Federal Government of Nigeria makes her expenditure through her official bureaucratic establishments or channels. In the last dispensation, there were about forty-two of such establishments through which official expenditure could be made. What is worrisome to many Nigerians is that the Buhari anti-corruption war, though selective and parochial, has only focused on just one bureaucratic channel yet the revelations are astonishing. If a whopping sum of two billion and one hundred million American dollars could be involved only in Dasukigate, what would be the enormity of revelations when the search is extended to such other sectors as power, works, housing, aviation, education, health, ecology and agriculture?

Taking into consideration the impunity with which financial affairs are conducted in this country, it would not be a surprise if the other eight establishments mentioned above are found to be almost half at par each with what happened in the arms deal. By this calculation, it could be estimated that eight billion dollars might have found their custody in pockets other the projects they must have been accounted for.

At this point, it has to be clearly stated that it is in futility that President Buhari is being heartlessly busy killing and maiming harmless and defenceless agitators for Biafra. The Biafran agitators can never constitute a threat to the corporate existence of the Nigerian state. The greatest problem confronting the Nigerian state is corruption. Starting from 1960, when Nigeria obtained her political independence from the Great Britain, till date, her problem has been corruption. Except he who is on oath never to say the truth, Nigerians know that the Hausa/Fulani has been responsible for more than ninety-five percent of the total sum of money looted in this country via corruption, with more than eighty percent of it committed by the Hausa/Fulani military junta.

The Biafran agitators are only expressing their constitutional rights of self expression, association and assembly. Besides, the African Charter, which Nigeria is a signatory to, accords them the right to self-determination. Nigeria is a democracy and no longer a military dictatorship. If a section of the polity feels badly marginalized and expresses delight in self-determination the worst the central government should do is to conduct a plebiscite, supervised by the international community to ascertain the percentage of citizens within the region that really desire to pull out of the entity. Instructing soldiers and other security agencies to let loose their triggers at the slightest assembly of innocent and unarmed protesters for Biafra will never deter these young men and women from pursuing a cause they believe if it is not achieved their existence on earth would continue to be miserable and psychologically traumatizing. For them, Biafra is a philosophy and like Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has pointed out, no body kills an idea, not to talk of a whole philosophy, President Buhari, in his unchallenged plenitude of power, should not be oblivious of historical antecedents. As an officer of the Nigerian Army, he must have been privileged to read or, at least, hear that the fall of some former Empires such as Benin, Oyo, kanem-Borno, Ghana, Mali and Songhai was traceable to mishandling of internal conflicts and wrangling. He should also not forget that the strength of a chain lies in its weakest link. The high-handedness with which he is determined to handle the Biafran agitation smacks of lack of in-depth knowledge of modern global trend and dynamics. He is only being primitive and crude as opposed to maturity in leadership and diplomacy. It is hoped he would not plunge Nigeria into a dip which depth could be beyond his imagination and retrieval.

Not wishing to lose connectivity with Dasukigate, Asa people have a way of looking at a crime. According to them, if one is accused of stealing salt, the only denial that is acceptable in Asa culture is to prove that one never took even a mere pinch of salt. There is no judicial alibi that one did not take a large quantity of salt.

Since the Presidency has accepted that President Buhari collected two Sports Utility Vehicles from the former National Security Adviser as his entitlements, Nigerians deserve to be told when last Buhari received cars from the government before the ones by Dasuki. If the two sets of car gifts were made within the range of four years, it would mean Buhari’s integrity was compromised and his image dented. Morally speaking, he should resign as President. Should he refuse to resign, the National Assembly should follow the laid down constitutional procedure to rid him out of a highly-coveted office that should not harbor persons whose integrity have been compromised.

Don Ubani.

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP [b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
5TH DECEMBER, 2015

THE MAKING OF PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN ABIA STATE OF NIGERIA
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

It is not unusual that the coming into existence and growth of an organization or institution could become an issue of history. Man, by his nature, would always be inclined to saying or even writing something on any given subject-matter, no matter how bereft he might be in knowledge on such an issue. In as much as any narrator or writer has the right to say or write what he may think he knows about a subject of history, no one can say or write it as near-perfectly as he or she that was personally actively involved in the making of the subject of history.
Any person could have written a book or narrative on the birth and education of the likes of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Abubakar Tafa Balewa and (or) Bishop Ajayi Crowder. Such a story could make an interesting reading but certainly it would not be as comprehensive and factual as the one by the parents or elder siblings of the subject of narrative or writing.
The People’s Democratic Party; P.D.P, the Umbrella Party, has consistently existed in Nigeria and, of course, in Abia State for seventeen years. One would recall that the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari was overthrown by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, who is now Nigeria’s elected President, on 31st December, 1983. It is now Nigeria’s elected President, on 31st December, 1983. It was believed that his major reason for the overthrow was his fear that President Shagari was likely to be succeeded by his Vice; Dr Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo. As an Unrepentant Military dictator and a hater of the Igbo, Buhari made no attempt to set up a transition programme for a return to democracy. However, his regime was overthrown by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on August 27, 1985.
Babangida; the Maradona, as he became known to Nigerians due to his skill or ability to hold Nigerians in almost an endless expectation and hope, created a two-party system in Nigeria; the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention, one a little to the left and the other a little to the right. He also introduced one of the best electoral systems in Nigeria which was anchored on option A4. By this system, every political aspirant was required to start his quest from his ward, passing through his local government area to his state before appearing at the National level. The balloting system was completely open, in which an aspirant would stand physically and those who wanted him would queue physically behind him. It was a very good innovation. But Babangida, who was on the verge of becoming Nigeria’s electoral hero, a status former President Goodluck Jonathan now enjoys, regrettably decided to truncate his march to honour by annulling the June 12, 1993 Presidential election which was widely acclaimed to have been won by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola of the Social Democratic Party.
The crisis that erupted out of that unwarranted and unjustifiable unilateral annulment ended up easing Babangida out as Nigeria’s first and only military President. In his words, he had to step out of office on August 27, 1993, having ruled for eight years. He, however, formed an interim Government and appointed Chief Ernest Shonekan; a Yoruba, as the Head of the Interim Government. Shonekan’s Transitional Government was short-lived as General Sani Abacha kicked him out of office on November 17, 1993. There were some unconfirmed speculations that Abacha’s coup against Shonekan was induced by Chief M.K.O. Abiola, may be with hope that his mandate would be given him.
General Abacha, after taking over, was determined not to revisit the June 12 Mandate of Abiola. He rather held Abiola in confinement. He had his own political agenda to transform into a live President. On his directive, five political parties were formed. They were; (1) United Nigeria Congress Party, (2) Democratic Party of Nigeria, (3) National Centre Party of Nigeria, (4) Grass-roots Democratic Movement and (5) Committee for National Consensus. In a show of shame, four of these parties unanimously adopted General Sani Abacha as their sole Presidential candidate at Abuja from April 16-20, 1998. It was only the Grass-roots Democratic Movement that opted out of that show of shame.
While Abacha was busy playing pun on the collective intelligence of Nigerians, using gullible Nigerian politicians, nature was quite relaxed creating a fool’s paradise for him. Meanwhile, some notable Nigerians were unrelenting in fighting Abacha’s impunity. A group of Nigerians, mainly the Yoruba, with a few other Nigerians, including Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, had formed National Democratic coalition; NADECO, and was using the platform to give Abacha a fight of his life.
On the other hand, the first Vice President of Nigeria; Dr Alex Ekwueme, had his G34, a group of very eminent Nigerians that took up their gauntlets in order to call the bluff of General Sani Abacha. As this was going on, Abacha through the evil machination of his devilish security officer; Major Hamza Mustafa, was engaged in dealing ruthlessly with those he considered to be obstacles on his way to life Presidency. He framed Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Oladipo Diya up for plotting to overthrow him. The two Generals were languishing in jail. God has always come to the rescue of his people and so on June 8, 1998, General Abacha, who thought he had become god, died in an uncertain sudden circumstance that has remained a mystery.
From his ashes arose General Salihu Abubakar. Abubakar was an Army General that was sensitive and responsive to the feelings of Nigerians. He quickly set in motion a transition programme. It was sequel to this that Dr. Alex Ekwueme’s G34 would blossom into fully-fledged political machinery.
Members of G34 were resolute in forming a political Party that would be thoroughly national, both in outlook and conduct. In order to achieve a broad-based Political Party, the G34 went into alliance with some other political associations such as; (1) People’s National Front, (2) People’s Democratic Movement, (3) Social Progressive Party (4) New Era Alliance, (5) All Nigeria Congress, (6) National League for Good Governance and other allied political associations. The outcome of this collaborative alliance was the birth of the People’s Democratic Party, P.D.P
While the struggle to form the People’s Democratic Party was going on in Abuja, Abia State was not left in the dynamics of formation. Twenty-one Abia political leaders were fully involved in the dynamics of formation. These twenty-one political leaders attended several meetings both at home and in Abuja in order to make sure that P.D.P became a reality. Because of the urgency of some of the meetings, some of these leaders often travelled by night buses to Abuja.
On Friday, September 4, 1998 the first meeting of P.D.P took place in Abia State at Seabia Hotel Ltd, Umuahia at 10 a.m. This meeting, which was turbulent, was preceded by yet another one at 1.00 pm of the same day at Nwannedinamba Hall at No. 25 Macaulay Street, Umuahia. The Twenty one Political Leaders that saw to the establishment of P.D.P in Abia State were designated as Conveners of the People’s Democratic Party in Abia State. The conveners were,
1. EZEOGO (DR) ANAGHA EZEIKPE
2. CHIEF B.B APUGO
3. ARCH. (CHIEF) DAN NWANKWO
4. CHIEF (DR) ORJI UZO KALU
5. CHIEF CHRIS UKPABI
6. COMRADE UCHE CHUKWUMERIJE
7. CHIEF (DR) SAM IGWE EKE
8. CHIEF OKECHI I. KANU
9. CHIEF ISAAC OJUKWU
10. SIR I.K. DANIEL
11. CHIEF EMEKA ENEOGWE
12. CHIEF TONY UKASOANYA
13. CHIEF LORD ENYIA
14. DR S.C. AHIWE
15. CHIEF (SIR) E.C. ADIELE
16. NZE P.N. ONWUMERE
17. CHIEF CHIDI UBANI
18. CHIEF YOUNG UKAUMUNNA
19. DR. C.K.C OGBONNA and
20. CHIEF DON UBANI
Between May 1999 and date, P.D.P has been consistent in holding sway in Abia State, except in 2007 when former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, a P.D.P. Governor, installed Chief T.A Orji as Governor on the platform of Progressive People’s Alliance.
Currently, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu of P.D.P is the Governor of Abia State. Hope of performance by Abians is very high as he has started on a very good foundation of infrastructural articulation.
So far, the Party has had seven state Chairmen. They are;
1. Chief Tony Ukasoanya (Umuahia-South, Abia Central)
2. Chief Uzodinma Okpara (Umuahia-North, Abia Central),
3. Chief Alfredo Awa (Arochukwu, Abia North)
4. Arc. Benson Ezem (Umuahia-South, Abia-Central)
5. Dr. Rex Otuka (Umuahia North, Abia Central
6. Sir Ndidi Okereke (Umunneochi, Abia North) and
7. Senator Emma Nwaka (Isuikwuato, Abia-North)
It is obvious that one day, Abia-South Senatorial Zone, that has consistently produced a senator on the platform of P.D.P, will be lucky to produce a state Chairman of P.D.P.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI, KSC; JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
9th November, 2015.

GOVERNANCE OF NIGERIA AND EXCALATING AGITATION FOR
BIAFRA

Scripted By Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

One good thing nobody has been able and will never be able to dispute is that history, whether oral or written, tells man and even generations yet unborn about the past. It is courtesy of history that people born more than two centuries later came to know that the declaration of independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent state was on 4th of July, 1776. It is also history that helps man to realize that the First World War started on July 28, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918. History also serves as a learning link between the past and the present and also, very importantly, helps in preparing the mindset for the future. Predicting the future in a human social and (or) political relationship becomes very easy and authentic being guided by history. History, in most cases, repeats itself either in similar circumstances or in slightly different circumstances. By this assertion, what happened longtime in the past could re-occur in the life time of later generations of the human race that had earlier witnessed a similar development. History could be likened to genes that run in a family. It is not by mere coincidence or accident that some families have a high frequency of giving birth to twins, just the same as in families where albinos are born.
While man may be incapable of preventing the re-occurrence of developments that are due to genes, it is easier for him to learn very useful lessons from history and, therefore, stand a good chance of preventing the bad aspect of history from repeating itself.
In the one century and one year the Nigerian State has trudged, the roughest and most devastating era was between 1966 and 1970. This period marked a holocaust that befell the Igbo nation of the Nigerian State and culminated in the defunct Eastern Region of Nigeria being left with no other alternative than to declare secession from the Nigeria federation. The end result was a thirty-month war between Nigeria and the people of Eastern Nigeria who had become citizens of the Republic of Biafra. The war witnessed the worst carnage and destruction of human life in the sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that more than three million lives were lost as a result of the carnage in the former Eastern Region.
The war ended on 15th January, 1970 on a note of ‘no victor, no vanquished’. The then Military Head of State of Nigeria; General Yakubu Gowon, a Christian northern minority, had announced the process of re-integration of the Igbo on the basis of three Rs, Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. To be fair to General Yakubu Gowon, he did not show much sign of inclination towards vindictiveness to the Igbo after the civil war. His disposition could have been influenced by the simple fact that he was a Christian from the minority North and not a Muslim of the core North. The re-integration of the Igbo into the Nigerian State under General Yakubu Gowon would have been more laborious, more time-consuming and slippery if the Head of State then had been a Muslim from the core North of Nigeria.
From 1970 to 2015 is a very long gap of fourty-five years. Fourty-five years after the Nigerian/Biafran debacle, it is a cause for worry that a very strong wind of agitation or protest for the independence of the Igbo from the Nigerian State is taking place. Two groups; The Movement for the Actualization Of The Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB and the Indigenous People Of Biafra, IPOB, are at the head of this clamour for the re-establishment of Biafra. While Ralph Uwazuruike, from Okwe in Okigwe Senatorial district of Imo State, is the Founder and Leader of the Movement for the Actualization Of The Sovereign State of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, a British citizen whose African nativity is Afara-Ukwu-Ibeku in Abia State is the originator of Indigenous People Of Biafra and also Director of Radio Biafra. The coincidence in these two personalities is that they both hail from the defunct old Owerre Province of defunct Eastern Region.
Many thinkers and writers have continued to wonder why the demand for Biafra should resurrect fourty-five years after it had been assumed to have been buried. The Arch-Protagonist and General of the Biafran Republic; Chief Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, had been given a state pardon by the Nigerian government of former President Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari in 1982 and he had quickly returned from exile in cote d’ivoire, where late President Houphet Boigny, whose government had recognized the Peoples’ Republic of Biafra had kindly hosted him, and has spontaneously re-integrated himself into the Nigerian society. Even though Ojukwu, like many other top-ranking Nigerian politicians, was detained for ten months by military dictator, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in 1984, his spirit of one Nigeria was not dampened. In 1993, he was elected into Nigeria’s National constitutional conference and with the backing of well meaning Nigerian leaders, he had advocated for a true federalist Nigeria. Again, in 1994 and 1995, Chief Ojukwu was one of the wise men that were always consulted by the Nigerian government on how best to move the Nigerian State Forward. When the Ikemba of Nnewi was hospitalized in London and during his eventual death and burial, the Federal Government of former President Jonathan showed a lot of concern to his welfare and almost gave him a state burial; a burial he personally attended, accompanied by his wife and children.
Surprisingly, the youths that are in the fore-front for the actualization of the Biafran Project are youths, a good number of whose mothers had not been born during the Nigerian/Biafran war. The youths have, therefore, only heard of Biafra through the irrepressible influence of history.
The Biafran protest has been taken to many parts of South-East and some parts in the South-South of the country. They have, in addition to their perceived marginalization and neglect of their region by the Federal government, been agitating for the release of the Director of Radio Biafra and an influential member of the Indigenous People Of Biafra; Nnamdi Kanu, who has been in detention in Abuja since 18th October, 2015.
It has to be stated at this point that democracy allows peaceful protest but also insists that the freedom of others should not, in any way, be trampled upon by such protest. What is required now by the Federal government is careful understanding of the causes for which these protests are being made. Nigeria should be the pride of Africa and every component part of it should be given a sense of belonging, irrespective of tribe or religion. The truth is that South-East region has been terribly marginalized by both the federal government of Nigeria and more painfully by the governors of the states in the region who presided over the affairs of their states from 1999 to 2015. The governors looted their states dry.
Since the protesters have made their demands known, it is expected that the Federal government would look at their demands very dispassionately and address them. The governors of South-Eastern states should be more visionary and transparent in running the affairs of their states. Infact, the governors should create the enabling environment that will help create employment opportunities for the youths. Mr. President should not resort to brute force in trying to address these agitations. He should realize that Nigeria is a democracy and no longer a military dictatorship. As for the youths, having made their case legitimately known to the governments of Nigeria, it is advised that they would give peace a chance, hoping that their problems would be adequately addressed. The Igbo have suffered a lot and can not continue to be a theatre of war.
Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
NOVEMBER 4TH, 2015.

FULANI HERDSMEN AND THREAT TO PEACE AND NATIONAL UNITY.
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

In His generous distribution of earthly resources, God bequeathed each tribe of the global community a quantifiable source of making meaning out of life. These sources culminate in shaping the occupational thrust of any group within the world’s economic definition or description. For people who found themselves inhabiting the riverine areas of the planet Earth, their engagements are amphibious in nature. This is due to the fact that majority of their populace would naturally be fisher-men and women while few of them may engage themselves as peasant farmers, putting to use the very small space of available land for the cultivation of some crops for their domestic use, with the probability of selling the excess ones. In Nigeria, these areas include the Niger Delta, Lagos, Onitsha, Asaba, Makurdi and Lokoja.
Nigerians in the rain forest vegetation, by virtue of their geography, are naturally inclined to crop farming. In this wise, they plant such crops as cassava, yam, pineapple, cocoyam, maize, melon, plantain and assorted kinds of vegetable. They also plant cash crops such as palm- trees, cocoa and rubber. The rain- forest zone of Nigeria covers, mainly, the southern part of the country.
There is also the savannah vegetation zone of Nigeria, which is deeply characterized by gradual but systematic encroachment of the Sahara desert. This Zone constitutes the North- East and North–West of Nigeria. The traditional agro occupational trend by the people of this zone is cattle rearing. They also plant cereals such as maize, millet, sorghum, wheat and barley. Cotton and groundnuts were special areas the people of the zone had distinguished themselves in colonial era and during the first Republican epoch.
There would be no iota of exaggeration if one says that Nigeria, before the discovery of oil in commercial quantity, was successfully run on the strength of revenue, including her foreign reserve, almost wholly derived from its agricultural sector.
The interesting thing about Nigeria’s agricultural conglomeration is that nature made the food needs of Nigerians to observe a chain of inter- dependency. In this case, what the North lacks, the South produces and what the South does not have, the North has. In the supply chain, the North finds market for her cattle, groundnuts, yam, tomatoes, garden- eggs and other crops it produces, which demand is high, in the South. Agro products such as palm–oil, brooms, baskets and Kola nuts that Southerners produce are sent to the North for sale.
For some years running, the North-East and North-West have been experiencing desertification. Lake Chad has been on a steady decrease. The vegetation in the two areas can no longer sustain cattle rearing. Breeding of cattle and other animals that are herbivorous has almost ceased to be in the two regions. Since man has to survive and no legitimate useful occupation should be allowed to become extinct, the Fulani herdsmen, who naturally are itinerant or migrant farmers, have been wandering down the South of Nigeria that has greener pasture. Geographically they have to pass through the Middle-Belt which has a better weather condition than theirs.
It may be stated, for the umpteenth time and for purposes of emphasis, that many things in Nigeria are done upside-down. The Fulani herdsman breeds his cattle for economic gains. The farmer from the Middle-Belt, Igbo or Yoruba plants his crops also for economic actualization. In Igbo parlance, it is said that ‘a source of wealth should not destroy another source of wealth’. This is, however, a sharp contrast when compared with what famers in the Middle-Belt, Igbo and Yoruba encounter as menace from Fulani herdsmen whose cattle destroy their crops almost on a daily basis.
Not only that crops are destroyed by ravaging cattle of the Fulani herdsmen, the herdsmen themselves, are unwarrantedly dangerously violent. In more than ninety-nine percent of known instances where a famer, whose farm crops had been destroyed by cattle, had questioned why his farm should be turned into a grazing field, the Fulani herdsmen had drawn their swords and used their bow and arrow. They do this with outright impurity. This impurity has unaccountably led to violent and blood-spilling crises in the Middle-Belt of Nigeria, where many farmers and innocent indigenes have lost their lives in such states as Benue, Nasarawa, and Plateau. Many rural farming communities have been attacked with sophisticated weapons which ordinarily should not be within the reach of civilian Fulani herdsmen. This aspect of Fulani belligerency has continued to be a source of immense worry to many Nigerians. Many questions have arisen from the bellicose disposition of the Fulani herdsmen against crop farmers.
In the first instance, how do the Fulani herdsmen procure the advanced dangerous weapons with which they try to annihilate indigenes of their host communities in the Middle-Belt. Could the Fulani herdsmen that serve as daily shepherds to the cattle of the Alhaji be the same persons that handle the weapons of mass destruction in the darkness of the night with professional dexterity to exterminate life from aggrieved farmers whose crops and hope of living had been destroyed? Is it possible or impossible that Fulani indigenes in the Nigerian security system could be overtly or covertly involved in this act of wanting to wipe out communities which indigenes express dissatisfaction with herdsmen whose recklessness and gross impunity lead to their economic deprivation and frustration? A lot of question begs for answer here.
Not minding the mayhem the Fulani herdsmen have caused in the Middle-Belt, they have moved into the South of Nigeria with more determination to exhibit gross impunity in their hostility against host farmers. If the calamity caused by the Fulani herdsmen were limited to destruction of crops and farm lands, it would, probably have been a different thing al-together. But the catastrophe foisted on their hosts, hosts that never bargained for it, appears to be deliberately sequentially calibrated and graduated. The Fulani herdsmen violently rape women they come across in their farms.
The state of health of these herdsmen, who hardly take their bath for weeks, is not known. Yet they force their female victims to rounds of unprotected sexual activity. Like a bull in a China shop, the Fulani herdsmen have thrown caution to the wind. They have now graduated into kidnapping and collecting huge amount of money from their victims as ransom.
On 21st September, 2015, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and a chieftain of the Yoruba socio-cultural Organization, Afenifere, Chief Olu Falae, was kidnapped in his farm at Ilado in Akure in Ondo State. According to him, as reported by the media. He was kidnapped by six armed Fulani herdsmen. The type of hardship the Former Minister of Finance was subjected to was better imagined than experienced. The harrowing experience of physical torture and psychological trauma Chief Falae went through, notwithstanding, the Fulani herdsmen successfully insisted on collecting five million naira from the family of the seventy-seven old statesman. Should the sad commentary of Chief Falae, whose only offence was that he frowned at the destruction of his farm land and crops by Fulani herdsmen and their cattle, not be the climax of this Fulani immunity in a country that is said to belong to all?
This recklessness of impunity by the Fulani herdsmen and their sponsors is, no doubt, a major threat to the unity and continued corporate existence of Nigeria. The President; Mr. Muhammadu Buhari who is a Fulani, has an important role to play by calling his fellow Fulanis to a timely order. In addition, the Federal government of Nigeria should address the problems arising from Fulani herdsmen and their flock, once and for all, by providing grazing fields where the Fulani herdsmen and their cattle can be safely accommodated. This is what obtains in Europe and America.

Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
23RD OCTOBER, 2015

ELECTION TRIBUNAL VERDICTS AND REACTIONS
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

A common mistake many commentators make could be found in the saying that the Judiciary is the last hope of the common man. This is an inestimation of fact. The Judiciary is that arm of government that interprets the laws of the land and dispenses justice. Justice is for both the rich and the poor. There is no doubt that in an unjust society, it is the poor, otherwise known as the common man, that is constantly suppressed hence he is the one that could be assumed to have more need to rely on the Judiciary than other classes of people in the society. Yet the Noble, the noveau rich and other well-placed individuals do have cause to run to the Judiciary when injustice and deprivation glare before them. Nigerians may not have forgotten the travails of Chief Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu in 1986 when the Government of Lagos state, under Navy Captain Mike Akligbe as military Governor, forcibly ejected him out of his no 29 Queen’s Drive, Ikoyi in Lagos. Chief Ojukwu, by any known human standard, was of the ruling class. When this clear case of injustice was meted to him by the then Lagos State Government, he had no other place to run to than the judiciary. The judiciary is, therefore, the last hope of man, rich or poor.
Though accusations have often been made against the Nigerian Judiciary, the truth remains that it is that arm of government that is constitutionally empowered to dispense justice. No mater its numerosity of flaws, it would be absurd to classify every Nigerian judicial officer as putridly corrupt. No matter the depth of corruption in the system, there must be some respected transparent Judges. The only problem is that a soiled finger is feared to be capable of contaminating the rest. Even at that, the hope of citizens in the judiciary is sustained by the various windows of justice that are made available to guarantee dispensation of justice, even though they may be considered to be out of the reach of the poor.
By Nigeria’s Electoral Act, elections are required to be conducted in strict compliance with stipulations of the Act. Being a system that is human-driven, there is no doubt that in some cases, elections could be conducted non-complaint to the rules. Hence, the same Act provides for the setting up of Election Tribunals to receive and investigate petitions by aggrieved stake-holders within the polity. In accordance with the time schedule of the Tribunals, they have started giving verdicts.
As would be appreciated, verdicts, given by human-beings, may not be characterised by infallibility. There could be some flaws in them. Some of the short-comings of the Election Tribunals could be by way of contradictory verdicts. An example of a contradictory verdict so far given in this dispensation is what could be contextually described as ‘dissimilarity of similarity’ in Jimmy Agbaje versus Ambode Akinwumi of Lagos State and Dakuku Peterside versus Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.
While the Election Tribunal on the 2015 governorship election headed by Hon Justice Muhamed Sirajo upheld Akinwumi’s electoral victory, dismissing Agbaje’s petition that card readers were not used in the said election; a verdict that has been ratified by the Appeal Tribunal, the Election Tribunal that handled the petition filed by Dakuku Peterside against the election of Nyesom Wike as the governor of Rivers State, nullified Wike’s election on the ground that the conduct of the election was not in strict compliance with the use of the Card-reader. This verdict by the Tribunal headed by Hon Justice Suleiman Ambrosa did not take judicial cognizance of the Appeal Court Verdict that inferred that non-compliance with the use of the Card-reader in Lagos governorship election was inconsequential and of no effect whatsoever.
Many Nigerians have been expressing fear that President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressive Congress are allegedly using the Judiciary to get what they could not get through the ballot box. Governor Wike, who has indicated his readiness to challenge the ruling of the Tribunal at the Appeal Court, has called on his teeming supporters across the state to remain calm and law-abiding.
In Akwa-Ibom State the Governorship Election Tribunal, headed by Hon Justice Sadiq Umar, nullified election results of Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel of the People’s Democratic Party and ordered re-election in eighteen out of the thirty-one local government areas of the state. This was sequel to a petition filed by the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Umana Okon Umana.
Like the way and manner Barr Wike took the verdict in Rivers State, Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel has urged his supporters in the state to go about their legitimate businesses while the matter would be sorted out through the appropriate legal channel.
The People’s Democratic Party, not minding being aware of the alleged clandestine ploy by both the Presidency and the All Progressive Congress to forcibly take over majority of the oil-rich States in the South-South geo-political zone of the country, has continued to express confidence in the country’s judiciary. It remains heart-warming and assuring that Nigeria, at least, could be said to be a democracy, no matter how awkward its pattern. The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon Justice Mahmud Mohammed, is a highly respectable and respected Jurist, who will not allow the sanctity and, of course, independence of the Judiciary to be disrespected and thrown to the wind under his watch. Even though he is a northerner and a Moslem, the Taraba State-born Chief Justice knows that the Judiciary has a very important role to play in order to sustain democracy in the country. The head of the Nigerian Judiciary appreciates more than any other Nigerian that it is the transparency of the Judiciary that can allay the doubts and fears of Nigerian citizens in their determined quest for justice. Hon Justice Mahmud Mohammed is certainly conscious of the truth that when justice can not be guaranteed in the polity, the surest thing that follows is chaos, infact anarchy. He is aware of this fact and, so, would not wish the country to witness cataclysm arising from the inability of the Bench in Nigeria to transparently administer justice in the country.
It is in line with this thought that the leadership and membership of the All Progressive Grand Alliance; APGA in Abia State are advised to take to the part of civility and good reasoning in reacting to verdicts of Election Tribunals in the State. Majority of the members of APGA in Abia State before the 2015 general election, including Dr. Alex Otti who ran as the Party’s governorship flag-bearer, were staunch members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, P.D.P. They also know that when there is a crack in a Party; no matter the extent of provocation and dissatisfaction, hardly does majority quit the Party. APGA leaders and followers in Abia State should realize and accept that violent reactions to Election Tribunal judgements that they consider unfavourable do not, in any way, add value to their pursuit of justice. Rather, it creates the impression of incivility and outright hooliganism against them. They should, for goodness sake, be civilized and law abiding.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
10-09-2015.

THE FALLACY OF CHIBOK GIRLS AND 2015 ELECTION
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI


English language defines the word ‘desperation’ as a state in which all hope has been lost. In a state of desperation, one could do anything, as long as it would enable one achieve one’s ultimate aim. An instance here would suffice. A prisoner who had been sentenced to death by a Presiding High Court Judge after being adjudged guilty of murder could, in his attempt to escape from being hung, kill one or two prison wardens. Desperation does not thrive in legality, rather in its antithesis. In many instances, desperation is associated with crime and incivility. There is hardly anything criminal that some one that is desperate can not do. Human beings justifiably associate desperation with negativity.

The Chibok girls or students, however, appear to have provided for desperation, enough grounds for an exception. When perfidy is successfully perfected to achieve high-class results, one could say that exception had been made. General Muhammadu Buhari; ousted Military Head of Nigerian State, began his chase for the civilian presidency of Nigeria in 2003. He contested on the platform of All Nigerian Peoples’ Party. In that same year, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as a sitting President in a constitutional democracy that allowed a citizen to rule for eight years, also contested for his second tenure. Buhari was beaten flat in that election. In 2007, Buhari, still on the platform of A.N.P.P., contested a second time but this time against his Kinsman; late Umaru Yar’Adua of People’s Democratic Party, the same party that had produced Chief Obasanjo as Nigeria’s second Executive President. Again, Buhari failed. In 2011 presidential election, Buhari, though almost exhausted, still vied. This time, he had formed his own party; Convention Peoples Party and contested on its platform but the outcome of the election was not different from earlier results. He was, for the third time, defeated by incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party.
At this time, Buhari and the Northern power bloc had become desperately infuriated by their inability to retrieve power from the people of Southern Nigeria. Their desperation must have been propelled the more by reason of the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua, a development that created an opportunity for his vice, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to complete his remaining two years following the doctrine of necessity as initiated and put to good use by the National Assembly under the experienced and able leadership of Senator David Mark as President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Head of the National Assembly. Their desperation was incidentally fuelled by the ambition of Senator Bolaji Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State, whose party, Action Congress of Nigeria, was prepared to initiate and cordinate an alliance of opposition parties and groups, just for the main purpose of capturing power from the ruling People’s Democratic Party. The main opposition elements were so desperate to grab power that they were ready to concoct any story.
It is this desperation for power that would inject into the strategy of the North to fabricate the ‘Chibok Girls’ purportedly on April 14, 2014. In every direction of reason and reality, the issue of ‘Chibok Girls’ is completely a phantom. It is a hoax unintelligently packaged to deceive and hood-wink the unsuspecting public. For one to take this position, it is one’s responsibility to justify taking the stand. As the narrative was presented, about two hundred and seventy-six female students had returned to Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno state for the purpose of sitting for physics in the secondary school certificate examination on 15th April, 2014. Since the paper was scheduled to be taken on 15th April, they had allegedly returned to school on the eve of 15th.
Let it be recalled that the Borno state government had directed the closing of her eighty-five secondary schools in early March 2014 due to increase in the activities of Boko Haram. The purported two hundred and seventy-six students, who returned to the Girls’ secondary school, must have returned from their parents’ homes. From point of view of geography, Chibok is a rural local government area which is about one hundred and forty kilometers from Maiduguri, the state capital of Borno state. Without, in any way, intending to make a mockery of the ‘Chibok Girls’, it is an open secret that in almost all Nigerian secondary schools, more than three quarters of students distaste such subjects as mathematics, physics and chemistry. Students who chose these three subjects out of desire are usually above just average intelligence. They are naturally first-class students. Experience also has it that such students are found mainly in schools in the metropolis. It is, therefore, astonishing to hear that a large number of female students; two hundred and seventy-six, returned and converged in a very rural school to sit for physics, of all subjects, in a very challenging and devastating period of Islamist insurgency. Going further, one could say that the narrative in its entirety smacks of idiocy. There is hardly any iota of reason or cohesion associated with the story. How would one be convinced that in a terrible period of insecurity that two hundred and seventy six female students would return to a rural school that had earlier been closed because of the same problem of insecurity and they mustered exceptional courage to sleep in the school, with neither the Principal nor Teachers being on the compound? One may ask further, the female students that came to sit for the physics paper, did they come from outside the Chibok neighborhood that could have made them not to have slept in their respective homes and gone for the examination the following day from their homes? It is equally of importance to inquire into the past results of students of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok in West African Schools Certificate examination in physics. This is simply because for any school to have a large number of students registering for an uncommon subject that is not compulsory, the school must have a pedigree of bright performances in the subject. This, therefore, leads to the questions, what were the performance of Chibok students in physics in the senior secondary school certificate examination in 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 sessions? And how many of them secured admission in the universities or other institutions of higher learning to pursue science-related courses?
Still on the narrative, the element of contradiction rared its ugly head suspiciously too early in the Chibok saga. While the Governor of Borno state; Alhaji Kashim Shettimah, said that thirty-nine out of two hundred and fifty abducted students were rescued the Principal of the school; Mrs. Asabe Kwabura, allegedly disagreed with him, saying that only fourteen students were rescued. Why should there be a wide numerical disparity between the comprehension of the state Governor, who is the chief security officer of the state and that of the Principal, who should know her students? At what point and by what calculation did the figure; two hundred and fifty, as quoted by the Governor, jump to two hundred and seventy-six? Lest one fails to ask, if the number of Chibok students that came to sit for only physics in a remote and rural school is said to be two hundred and seventy six, how many candidates could have been present that night of 14th April, 2014 if it were English language or mathematics that are compulsory subjects? Another question that begs for answer is, what then was the total student population of government Girls’ secondary School, Chibok, if only S.S.3 students that registered for physics were two hundred and seventy six?
The truth and nothing but the truth is that there was just nothing like ‘Chibok Girls.’ The phenomenon is purely a spurious creation of desperate forces to grab power. The Commissioner of Police in Borno State, as at the time this abduction was alleged to have taken place, Alhaji Lawan Tanko, should present a comprehensive write-up on this subject if he has genuine cause to disagree with this critical expose.
During his electioneering campaigns for the 2015 Presidential election, General Muhammadu Buhari had used the rescue of the Chibok Girls as a bet to deceive Nigerians, especially those who felt that the Chibok episode was real, to vote for him and his party. Buhari has become President, the chips are down! The Nigerian Military has over-run the large expanse of Sambiza Forest!! Hundreds of abductees; women, young girls and children, have severally been rescued by security personnel!!! Yet, there is no trace of a single Chibok girl. President Buhari now sings an entirely different song. According to Premiumtimesng.Com, he has Confessed ‘he can not guarantee the rescue of the ‘Chibok Girls’. His reason is that the girls have been scattered in different directions. This is a blatant Presidential lie that holds no water. Where could they have been scattered to, in this modern age of communication, that enlightened adult girls would not be able to reach their parents or relations? Even the Nigerian Army, just recently, was reported on elombah.Com, expressng.Com and Nigeriaheadlines.Com to have said that it is not in haste to rescue the ‘Chibok Girls’. How else would President Buhari tell the world that there was, indeed, nothing like abduction of ‘Chibok Girls’? The discreditable facts are that Buhari and the Moslem North fuelled the Boko Haram insurgency and merely fabricated the story of ‘Chibok Girls’ to ruthlessly retrieve power from Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, a Southern Nigerian.
Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360

October 2nd, 2015
BAYELSA GUBER ELECTION AND FULANI QUEST FOR CONQUEST
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

Throughout history, economics or religion has served either as a moderating or propelling force in the fluctuating currents of human thoughts and actions. The two equally influence the choice of language of rulers and leaders. That the sharply heterogeneous peoples of the former British colonial protectorates of Southern and Northern Nigeria were forcefully fused into a country called Nigeria was obviously for economic reasons.
Many leaders, especially rulers within oligarchies or feudal system, have in most cases, if not at all times, made statements or taken positions that only smacked of their economic agenda or religious idiosyncrasies. What such leaders or rulers say or do go a long way serving as a driving force behind the conduct and actions of their subjects, even long after they would have ceased to exist on planet earth many decades after.
The Nigerian state has failed to achieve its full potentials mainly due to the awkward deep-rooted sentiments the Hausa/Fulani hegemony has relentlessly attempted foisting on her citizens. As long as they are concerned, it is either they are the rulers or nothing else. In pursuit of this domination agenda, they have ruled the country for thirty-four out of its fifty-five years of independent existence, including the nine years General Yakuba Gowon; a Northern Christian Minority, covered as military Head of state from 1966 to 1975.
To refresh the memory of the reader, West African Students in the United Kingdom during the colonial era had written to the conference of Northern Nigeria Emirs asking for their support for the constitutional evolution of Nigeria into an independent nation but, as captured in Obafemi Awolowo’s Path to Nigerian Freedom, London: Faber and Faber, 1947, pg 51, the Northern Emirs responded thus, “holding this country together is not possible except by means of the religion of the Prophet, if they want political unity, let them follow our religion”. This thought was deeply elaborated upon by Femi Fani-Kayode in Thisday of December 6, 2014.
As published by Parrot Newspaper of 12th October, 1960 and re-published by the Tribune Newspaper of 13th November, 2002 the late Sarduana of Sokoto and Premier of Northern Region; Sir Ahmadu Bello, had boasted that “the new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grand-father, Uthman Dan Fodio ‘We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. ’We use the minorities of the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us, and ‘never allow them to have control over their future’’.
The above policy statement by the late Sarduana was made only eleven days after Nigeria had obtained her political independence from the British Colonial government. As at the time of this statement, the Northern People’s Congress, N.P.C., had formed the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. By the parliamentary system of government that was in vogue during the first republic, 1st October, 1960 to 15th January, 1966, the leader of the political party that had majority of seats in the Federal parliament, like what obtains in Britain, was constitutionally deemed fit to be sworn-in as the Prime-Minister and Head of government of the Federation. By virtue of this constitutional provision, Sir Ahmadu Bello; being the leader Northern People’s Congress, was expected to have been sworn-in as the Prime-Minister of independent Nigeria but he deliberately declined this opportunity for reasons that could keep even a whiskid perplexed.
The first was as a result of the motion for self governance of Nigeria in 1956 moved by Chief Anthony Enahoro of the Action Group, A.G. on the floor of Federal Parliament in 1953. This motion was vehemently opposed by the Northern Representatives who rather came up with a very ridiculous and debasing motion for self governance, ending it with the phrase ‘as soon as practicable’. As the leader of the Northern People’s Congress, it was Sir Ahmadu Bello that came up with this countermotion. After him, another Northern Representative moved a motion for adjournment. The Southern Representatives, on both the platform of Action Group led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the National council of Nigeria and Cameroons; N.C.N.C., led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, frowning at the northern ploy, which was deliberately to delay Nigeria’s march towards independence, spontaneously staged a walk-out from the Parliament. When the northern delegates came out of the Parliament, they were obviously confronted by a highly disappointed and, therefore, hostile Lagos crowd that booed and jeered at them. Because of this verbal humiliation, so to say, Ahmadu Bello vowed never to leave the North for Lagos, no matter the attraction. Northern reaction to this scenario in Lagos would later precipitate the Kano riot of May 1st to 4th, 1953 when Chief Samuel Akintola of the Action Group went to campaign in Kano and which led to the death of many harmless and innocent Southerners in Kano. Of course, and as would be expected, very many Northern marauders and butchers equally kicked the bucket. It is important to recall here that the North did threaten session after the experience of her delegates in Lagos. Another reason why Ahmadu Bello refused to take up the Prime-Ministerial position at that time was his belief only in the North and never in Nigeria. While the other leaders; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo named their political parties to have a national reflection, Ahmadu Bello was blunt to say his party was Northern People’s Congress.
A critical look at the six pronouncements, nay injunctions, by the late Sarduana would provide an answer to the questions, why has Nigeria continuously failed to develop in accordance with her potentials and will Nigeria ever become a developed country? In a country where a section overfly and covertly pursues an agenda which aim is to make the rest see themselves as a conquered people, it would be difficult to harness all resources for the growth of the country. For the Hausa/Fulani North to have it as their set objective to ruthlessly prevent the South and even Minorities of the North, whom they are only prepared to use as mere willing tools, to assume power in Nigeria is not only a threat to democracy but a dangerous agenda against the unity and progress of Nigeria. The most disheartening and provocative content of Ahmadu Bello’s statement is his directive that his Hausa/Fulani kith and kin should never allow the people of Southern Nigeria to have control over their future. From any angle, whatsoever, this thought is sacrilegious.
One may, therefore, not wonder why the late Premier of Northern Nigeria had bragged that he would dip the Islamic Koran into the Atlantic Ocean. No doubt, what Ahmadu Bello had meant by his boast was surely not the literary dipping of the Koran into the Atlantic Ocean which, by interpretation, symbolizes the South of Nigeria but political and economic conquest of the people of Southern Nigeria.
In today’s Nigeria, the Fulanis, vehemently supported by the Hausas that their great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio, conquered have been doing everything to justify the injunction of Ahmadu Bello. They dominate the Nigerian Military, Police, Department of State Service, the federal bureaucracy and the country’s economy. In contemporary politics, they have seized maximum advantage of the Yoruba’s amnesia of the deceit of Afonja who was used by the Fulani to bring about the fall of Oyo empire only for the Fulani to plot his assassination and take over the headship of Ilorin Emirate up till date. History is on the verge of repeating itself.
Because of inordinate ambition, senator Bolaji Tinubu, like Afonja, has handed four out of six states of the Yoruba geo-political zone to the Fulani’s. Whether he would achieve his ulterior motive or end up like Afonja; the traitor, would only be determined by time. Meanwhile, special thanks must be given to the likes of the duo of governors Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo state and Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state both of whom have courageously stood their grounds against Fulani agenda of reducing the South into a conquered territory.
Emboldened by the electoral successes recorded in Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and the betrayal that was Imo governorship election aided by a Fulani stooge; Rochas Okorocha, the Fulani quest to dip the Koran into the Atlantic Ocean is intoxicating them to go beyond the tenets of reason and decency in order to conquer Bayelsa. There is nothing they are not prepared to do just to make sure that Bayelsa falls.
It is, however, interesting to note that some prominent indigenes of Bayelsa are conscious of this Fulani threat. Not long ago in Yenegoa, during the congress of People’s Democratic Party that produced the state governor; Barr. Seriki Dickson, as the governorship candidate of the Party for the December 5, 2015 election, the first democratically elected governor of the state; Chief Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, avowed that the Hausa/Fulani having disgraced their son, former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, at the national level, will not be allowed to disgrace him further in his home. This is the crux of the matter. The Fulani’s are on a religious cum political jihad; to conquer the south, ruthlessly make them not to rule in Nigeria and above all, make sure that the people of Southern Nigeria do not have control over their future. Unknown to them, the people of Bayelsa, nay the people of Ijaw Nation are, more than ever before, prepared to put them to shame as they have put every machinery in motion to make sure that Governor Dickson; a governor that has performed in various fields of economic and social development, is overwhelmingly re-elected.

Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
21 – 09 – 2015

A MIXED EVALUATION OF A ONE-HUNDRED DAYS IN OFFICE
SCRIPT BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

Attention was first drawn to the duration of a first one hundred days in office in 1933 when Mr Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as America’s President. Hitherto his election, The United States of America was faced with a calamity of economic depression. Though 100 days is not a perfect period for evaluation of an administration, it, nonetheless, provides an opportunity to gauge the road map and likely effectiveness of a regime. It has to be recalled that within the first one hundred days of his government, Roosevelt moved with unprecedented dispatch to address the problems of his country men and women.

Though no constitution stipulates one hundred days as a length of time within which any specific achievement in governance could be measured and evaluated, the successes recorded within such a period of time by Roosevelt has made it almost conventional that democratically elected leaders should have something tangible or intangible, to showcase at the end of their first hundred days in office.

Nigeria, being an integral part of the global community, should not alienate itself from global standards and expectations. Starting from 29th of May, 1999, consciousness and demand for transparent, accountable and service-oriented governance became very deep and strong amongst the electorate. As the years went by, and taking into consideration that Nigerians had adjudged themselves as victims of poor leadership and leadership failure, the urge to see what an elected government could achieve within demarcated periods of its administration; including the first one days, became intrinsically fervent.
President Muhammadu Buhari, as the Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, in his sweet-coated tongue, had made many promises during his electioneering campaigns. He had created a picture of Nigeria being an Eldorado as soon as he got into office as President. Notable amongst his promises were; immediate disappearance of Boko Haram insurgents, restoration of general security, wiping away of corruption, creation of employment for the teaming unemployed Nigerian youths, automatic improvement in power, stipends for the aged and agrarian revolution. Nigerians had a lot of hope in Buhari’s change philosophy that majority of them keyed in and voted for him and his party.
As would be expected, governorship candidates in the April 2015 election made their own promises in the course of their campaigns for vote. For President Buhari and the governors elected in April 2015, their first one hundred days in office came to a close on Saturday 5th September, 2015. Based on precedence and expectations, Nigerians seem to be prying into the conduct, style and achievements of their leaders within their first one hundred days of being sworn-in. For the purposes of this essay, the focus of attention will be on President Buhari and Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.
The first one hundred days of President Muhammadu Buhari could be said to have been characteristzed by pros and cons. True to his promise to tackle the menace of Boko Haram insurgency, he has shown a lot of determination and commitment to fighting the surge. Even though the insurgents still carryout skeletal attacks on humanity in the North-East of Nigeria such as the bomb explosions that occurred in Maduguri on Sunday 20th September, 2015 there is visible evidence that the Islamist fundamentalists are beginning to count their days. The Nigerian Military must be commended for their exceptional courage and sacrifices. The same praise goes to the other security agencies and even the patriotic indigenes of the North-East, including the civilian Joint Task Forces, a good number of whom have paid the ultimate prize. That the Nigerian military has completely, as widely reported, taken over the Sambiza forest is a good source of joy for Nigerians of that region. An important point, however, has to be made here and that is the fact that if Buhari and his co-northerners had, despite differences in political party leaning and the ambition to grab power, supported former President Goodluck Jonathan when his administration launched very serious attack on the Boko Haram venom, insurgency could not have been among the problems he would have inherited on assumption of office. At the time the Jonathan’s administration came up, in a no-nonsense manner against the Boko Haram stupidity, using the able command of Lieutnant –General Ihejirika as Chief of Army Staff, it was Buhari, in consonance with other highly-placed northern moslems, that openly accused him of prosecuting a genocide against the North. Now that the insurgents have been killed in their thousands, Nigerians will be waiting to know what nomenclature the Buhari government would use instead of genocide against the hoodlums who are still believed to be Nigerians.
Still on security within the first hundred days of President Buhari, some elements of inconsistency were evident. Quickly on assumption of office, President Buhari ordered for the immediate withdrawal of all security personnel from all road check-points. This was like an order emanating from a King who had not done his homework well. Questions of security are very sensitive. Before any leader who is worth his salt makes any pronouncement on it, he is expected to have scrutinized the checks and balances the utterance would have on national security. It took an uproar from the generality of Nigerians for President Buhari to rescind that military- fashioned directive.
On foreign policy, the Buhari administration has scored some points through his foreign trips to the United Kingdom as a President-elect, the United States of America, Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Republic of Benin and the most recent to France. These visits, if they were properly cordinated and harnessed, could bring about the much-needed foreign investments that could help address some key sectors of the nation’s economy and, by so doing, create employment opportunities. But it is generally feared that these visits are, as they were, flawed by the absence of ministers who are yet to be appointed one hundred and sixteen days after Buhari was sworn-in sworn-in. Unfortunately, during these visits abroad, the President announced his discriminatory policy of sharing of perquisites of his administration. More embarrassingly, he told an audience in Paris that Nigerian ministers are mare noise-makers. It is wished that as a minister of Petroleum under General Olusegun Obasanjo, Buhari did not lay the foundation for noise-making for future Nigerian ministers.
The foundation for co-existence in any society is the rule of law. Once the rule of Law is not observed in any society, life in it degenerates to what obtains in a wild animal Kingdom. One hundred days of Buhari’s administration have witnessed some dethronement of the rule of Law in order to settle scores with some perceived political enemies. The case of the President of the Senate; Dr Bukola Sariki, whose case is reported to be pending in a Federal High court in Abuja yet the code of conduct Tribunal went ahead to issue a warrant of arrest against him gives the impression that all is not well. Another worrisome aspect of the threat to the rule of Law under Buhari is his reported preference of the Governor of Kaduna state; Nasir El-Rufai, as his defacto Vice President instead of the democratically elected Professor Yemi Osinbajo. According to the Trent News, this unlawful tribal preference is already tearing the Buhari Presidency into North- South dichotomy.
In Abia state, gradual but systematic process of restoration of faith and confidence has been evident within the first one hundred days of an academic-turned politician, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu’s administration. He started his administration by redefining governance. Today in Abia State, the governor is simply addressed as Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, the Governor of Abia State. There is nothing like “Your Excellency” or “Executive Governor”. He has been pragmatic in his bid to reduce cost of governance. The usual boisterity and profligacy associated with the state governors were never evident during these one hundred days in the state.
During his first one hundred days in office, Governor Ikpeazu laid foundation for a vibrant transparent public service. An integrated payroll verification system was put in place to ascertain the actual number of workers and pensioners in the state.
Still within the period under review, more than twenty-seven roads, cutting across the three senatorial zones of the state were given attention. In Aba, a lot of infrastructural recovery, including desilting of drainages, has been witnessed. Abians, however, are praying that the rains would subside so that rural roads such as Ariaria-Umuiku, Uratta-Obokwe and Obehie-Okeikpe could be recovered. The same expectation hangs on Osisioma-Ekeakpara road which witnesses very high haulage due to the presence of the P.P.M.C. depot there. From all indications, there is bound to be light at the end of the Abia tunnel.

Chief Sir Don Ubani.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

NIGER DELTA DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION AND A VISION LOST
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

History has it that oil was first drilled in Nigeria in 1956 in an obscure Niger Delta Community of Olobiri, in present-day Bayelsa State. The commencement of oil exploitation in Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region was only four years before Nigeria attained her political independence on October 1, 1960. Prior to and even as at the time Olobiri attracted global attention, little did Nigerians imagine that oil would play determining roles in the economy and politics of Nigeria.

One may recollect that immediately after the counter coup of 28 July 1966, in which Nigerian soldiers of Northern Origin toppled and killed Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi, in revenge for the killing of top politicians of the North and consequently embarked on mass killing of the Igbo; both military and civilians in Lagos and Northern Nigeria, northerners began shouting ‘Araba’. By Araba, what the northerners meant was that the different peoples that made up Nigeria should stay on their own as independent nations. It was also widely reported that col. Yakubu Gowon; then head of State of Nigeria, had on August 3, 1966 publicly said that there was no basis for Nigeria’s unity. But two things happened that would militate against the urge by the Northerners to break a way from Nigeria. A delegation of the Eastern Minorities led by Justice Graham Nabo Douglas had officially called on Yakubu Gowon, demanding that if the North should secede, the Nigerian government led by Gowon should, first of all, tell them what would be the fate of millions of the minorities in Eastern Nigeria. Secondly and of more importance, the British government strongly advised the Gowon’s administration that it would be suicidal for the North to break away from the rest of Nigeria, especially realizing that oil had been discovered in the Niger Delta Region which was part of Eastern Region and that the North was like a desert on which life could not be meaningfully sustained. These two influences made the North to reconsider their earlier stand and the Northern slogan of “Araba” changed to, “To keep Nigeria One Is A Task That Must Be Done”. Oil and nothing but oil was and has remained responsible for Nigeria’s Unity.

Despite the enormous role oil had played in the sustenance of Nigeria’s social and economic development, a role that facilitated the construction of uncountable fly-overs in Lagos and the transformation of Abuja from a desert to one of the most beautiful metropolitan cities in the world, not to talk of the sustenance of the thirty-six states’ structure of the Nigerian Federation, the plight of oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta was nothing to write home about. Neither the government nor oil companies that operated in the region created any opportunity for the growth of indigenes of the region. Apart from failure to develop the natives of the oil-producing areas by the operating companies, the operational activities of the Oil Companies devastated the environment of the host communities. There was nothing to show in the communities that they had, indeed, been contributing immensely to the economic wealth of Nigeria. This exploitation and neglect drew the wrath of elites of these communities. Some prominent sons of the region rose in defence of their people against what they considered to be perpetual exploitation by the Nigerian State. Ken Saro Wiwa; an internationally acknowledged environmentalist, stood against the exploitation and marginalization of his people of Ogoni Nation but was unjustly tried, condemned and hung for his struggles against Northern exploitation. Uptill date, Ogoni land remains the worst environmentally polluted and degraded community in South Saharan Africa.

This unpleasant scenario prevailed until 5th June, 2000 when the federal government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo created the Niger Delta Development Commission. Right from the beginning, the Commission’s mandate was the overall development of the oil-reach Niger Delta Region of Southern Nigeria. On 10 September 2008, still in pursuit of a more developed Niger Delta Region, President Umaru Yar’Adua created the Ministry of Niger Delta and made the Niger Delta Development Commission a parastatal under it. For purposes of clarity, the Niger Delta Region is made up of nine states. The states, in alphabetical order, are Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. In order to make sure that the interest of the oil-producing areas is protected at all times, the Act establishing the Commission provides that the chairman of the Commission shall be an indigene of any of the nine states that constitute the said region and that the position shall rotate amongst the nine states in an alphabetical order. The Act further provides that each state, as mentioned above, shall have a representative on the Board of the Commission. The intendment of this second provision is to guarantee ample opportunity for effective participation of each of the states in the affairs of the Commission. The Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission disburse financial entitlements to the affected state in accordance with the quota of oil production each state has. When the allocation gets to the Commission, the Board of the Commission sits and determines what goes to each state based on its oil production status. This is where the member representing a state; the Commissioner as he is called, has a lot of role to play. Typical of a fiscal interventionist agency, the Niger Delta Development Commission operates on budgetary provisions. It is the responsibility of the Commissioner representing his or her state to use his or her discretion to prioritize projects to be embarked upon by the Commission in his state, based on available resources. This position of trust demands sound judgment, selflessness, patriotism, transparency and accountability.

In Abia State, it is only in Ukwa-West that oil is drilled and it is only Ukwa-West that qualified Abia to be ranked as oil-producing state. Oil-producing communities in Ukwa-West include Owaza, Uzuaku, Umuorie, Imo-River, Umuahala, Umuokwo and Umukalu. At this point, it may be necessary to say that there is a wide gap of difference between an oil-producing area or community and an oil-bearing area or community. While many communities may be oil-bearing, by virtue of the fact that there is verifiable evidence of oil deposit in them but there is no drilling exercise going on there, they can not be referred to as oil-producing. Examples of oil-bearing areas in Abia State include Ukwa-East and Ugwunagbo local government areas. On the other hand, an oil-producing community is one in which physical drilling of oil manifestly takes place. Examples of such communities had earlier been given.

It has to be pointed out, in black and white, without minding whose ox might be gored, that the vision that propelled Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to create the Niger Delta Development Commission has failed to manifest in Ukwa-West. In fifteen years of the existence of the Commission, there is hardly any substantial thing to be pointed at as a legacy the Niger Delta Development Commission has left in the length and breath of Ukwa-West. The roads the Commission claims to have constructed in Ukwa-West are roads that scarcely exceed half an inch thickness. The result is that no sooner a road is said to have been constructed by the Commission than the road is washed away. There is no road in the area done by N.D.D.C that lasts up to five years. In terms of economic empowerment, the individuals that have, so far, represented the state on the Board of the Commission are like people who swore never to help any fellow Asa man. Hence, all the contracts they award are awarded to none indigenes of Asa land and to themselves with various registered companies. The representatives have never equipped the youths of the area whom they had sent on one training or another, with money with which to open their trade. Many projects abandoned in the area are said to have been reasonably paid for and no explanations are offered for their abandonment. Many road are rather built and commissioned in many other parts of the state. The most heart-breaking is that the commission de-roofed Asa civic-hall built by Asa people at Obehie in the name of re-modeling the hall and without any iota of remorse, abandoned the project. This is despite the hundreds of millions of naira that the Commission is said to have released for he execution of the contract. The social cum political implication of this unconscionable act is that Asa people no longer have a place where they can meet to take a collective look at the affairs of their land. The Commission had given many transformers and tractors to boost the economic well-being of the people of Ukwa-West but many of these items ended up being sold to people outside Asa land.

So far, what the people of Ukwa-West have noticed is that any of their sons appointed a Commissioner on the Board of NDDC starts from the day the Board was inaugurated to think of how to go for a second tenure. This greedy urge blind-folds him against his kinsmen and, in order to achieve his inordinate ambition, which in most cases does not materialize, he gives every thing meant for his people to those he considers to be the powers that be who, in his calculation, would guarantee his second tenure, not minding if he would do well or not. The outcome of this deliberate isolationist policy of N.D.D.C commissioners of Ukwa-West extraction is that poverty continues to permeate the nooks and crannies of the area, with the area having the most dilapidated roads in the whole of Nigeria. As long as political appointees of Ukwa-West extraction on the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission continue to be ruled by greed, selfishness and vaulting ambition, the vision of the founding fathers of the Commission would not cease to elude the downtrodden people of Ukwa-West. A change of heart and attitude on the part of future Commissioners of NDDC from Ukwa-West would certainly save their people from their present abject poverty.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
AUGUST 28TH, 2015

BUHARI BELONGS TO SOMEBODY AND NOT TO EVERY BODY
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

Apart from corruption, no other ill has adversely affected Nigeria’s social and economic development as much as nepotism and tribalism. For purposes of having, at least, an elementary knowledge of nepotism and tribalism, a simple definition of the two words would be given hereunder. Nepotism is the giving of special favour by a person in a high position of authority to his relatives. As for tribalism, it means holistic inclination by an individual or group to distribute resources of a larger group merely on primordial consideration.

In trying to explain further, one could say that the sociological distance between nepotism and tribalism might only be found in number and scope. The two evils are products of parochialism and evidence of lack of broad-based education. The application of either of the two runs counter to the concept of meritocracy. In any set-up where nepotism or tribalism stands as a determining factor, productivity can not be high, as best hands who may not be related to persons in charge or may not be of the same tribe with them would be discriminated against. This will certainly deter progress. Take for instance, a football coach that allows either nepotism or tribalism to dictate his choice of players for a match or matches would end up not only losing matches but would surely hinder the growth of his club. Performance and good results are products of ability and skill.

Looking from a wider horizon, one may not be wrong to assert that the same negative effects that result from nepotism and tribalism prevail in a situation where a leader or person in authority, who gives the impression that he would fight corruption, deliberately becomes selective in his choice of supposed corrupt citizens to be probed.

One aspect of President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural speech delivered on May 29th, 2015 at the Eagle’s Square in Nigeria’s Federal capital of Abuja, which elicited a lot of interest in Nigerians, was his declaration that he belonged to everybody and belonged to no body.

Many Nigerians, on the strength of Buhari’s declaration, had assumed, if not concluded, that such a statement emanating from their leader would epitomize sincerity of purpose and patriotism of the highest order. Their assumption must have been anchored on their appreciation of the fact that Nigeria, having wobbled to a cross-road, engulfed in doubts and fears, needed nothing short of a statesman to navigate its apparently rudderless ship from a tempestuous tide. Nigerians interpreted Buhari’s speech to reflect the appearance on stage of a leader who would tower above primordial encumbrances of nepotism, tribalism, religion or partisanship. Many Nigerians were boldly tempted to assert that, unlike Odinga’s ‘Not Yet Uhuru’ in Kenya, ‘Uhuru’ had finally berthed in Nigeria.

Some critics may question why much emphasis would, in the first instance, be placed on Buhari’s every body and no body’ declaration. This, they may argue on the ground that Buhari was not the first Nigerian leader to make promises; promises, a good number of which, were not fulfilled. But for those who had placed emphasis on the President’s declaration, they had their reasons which could be convincing when stated. They were not unaware that Nigerian political leaders were fond of making public pledges that they would distance themselves from immediately after their oath of office, not minding the feelings of the masses. In the case of Buhari, they felt that Buhari, being aware that one major factor that counted against him when he was a military head of state in Nigeria was his open discrimination against some sections of the Nigerian polity, based on region and religion, would have a re-think, especially now that he has attained the chronological status of a septuagenarian. Thinking deeper, they reasoned that at 73 years of age, he would like to erase those records that portrayed him a despot and an ethnic jingoist.

The hope and expectations of Nigerians that had soared very high were, however, to be shattered by Buhari’s speech when he visited the United State of America, on the invitation of President Barrack Obama. In one of his meetings in America, he shocked the world when he publicly said that the parameter for distribution of resources, including political appointments, by his All Progressive Congress- led Federal Government would be determined by the voting pattern of Nigerians during the March 28, 2015 presidential election. As he put it, any geo-political zone that gave him ninety seven percent of its total vote cast should expect ninety seven percent patronage from his administration while the zone that gave him five percent of her votes should not expect reward that exceeds the same percentage of support he got from it.

This pronouncement by President Buhari in far-away United states of America is, indeed, lamentable. It is lamentable because the President of the most populous country in Africa and the whole of the black world should depict statesmanship in his carriage, utterance and conduct. He should see himself as having transcended the level of political party leadership. At the level where God and man have put Buhari, he should, of necessity, tower above partisanship and parochialism. For him to have made a speech that clearly bordered on segregation and discrimination was quite antithetical to his status as father of all. That statement, unfortunately and regrettably, conflicted with and contradicted his inaugural declaration that he belonged to everybody and belonged to no body. In the Bible book of Luke 6:45, it is said, ‘for out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks’. At the Eagle’s Square in Abuja on 29th May 2015 what President Buhari did was to read a prepared speech, which merely gave the impression, erroneously, that he would belong to everybody and would belong to nobody but during his official visit to the United States of America and during which time he spoke extempore, Buhari spoke out of the abundance of his heart.

Actions speak louder than voice. What the President revealed in America, has since been put into very strong but embarrassing actions. Before going further, it has to be stated, just to refresh actions. Before going further, it has to be stated, just to refresh memory, that Buhari, in the said presidential election, scored almost ninety-seven percent of the votes cast in the North-West region, a region he hails from. He almost recorded the same margin in North-East, a core Muslim region. In both North-central and South-West, his All Progressive Congress recorded reasonable majority of the votes cast in the regions. On the contrary, the people of the South-East and South-South voted, to the best of their mobilization, massively for Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party.

As at the time of putting this piece together, President Buhari had made forty-two appointments. True to his discriminatory stance, as made clear in the United States of America, thirty-five of these appointments went to his kinsmen of Northern Nigeria while only seven went to the South of Nigeria. No matter what any body would like to say in defence of Buhari’s choice of appointees, so far made, the truth remains that Nigeria is a very heterogeneous assemblage selfishly and forcefully made possible by the British colonial government. Because Nigeria is not, in any way, homogeneous, patterns of appointments and distribution of national resources can easily ignite suspicion. Besides, Nigeria is believed to be a federation that should be governed on the basis of the rule of law. Section 14 (3) of the constitution of Nigeria (1999), as amended, emphasizes that major appointments in the country shall reflect the federal character of the people of the federation.

Constitutionally-speaking, this section demands and implies that, irrespective of voting pattern in a presidential election, the diversity of the Nigerian people must seen to be reflected in distribution of strategic appointments. But for President Muhammadu Buhari, the constitution of Nigeria could go to hell as long as the interest of the North is, at any given time, placed above national consideration. There had been no time the Nigerian Federation had been as northernized as now under Buhari. The President is north, the President of the senate is north, the speaker of the House of Representatives is north, the Chief Justice of the Federation is north, the head of the Nigerian army is north, the secretary to the government of the federation is north, the Aide de Camp of the President is north, Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service is north, the Acting Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission is north, Director-General Budget office of the Federation is north, the Director-General Department of State Service is North and twenty-two other strategic positions that space would not accommodate here are North. Even during the dark era of military dictatorship in Nigeria, when rulers like Buhari ran the polity on the basis of ethnic discrimination and hate, what happened then was just a child’s play compared to what President Buhari has started to unfold as his Northern agenda.

To buttress the fact that he belongs to somebody and not to everybody, President Buhari has parochially limited his so-called probe agenda to the era of former President Goodluck Jonathan. This expresses Buhari’s determination to witch-hunt his imagined enemies. It is very probable that out of his desire to have his pound of flesh from Jonathan and the People’s Democratic Party, he has forgotten that government is a continuum. He has also refused to ask how and when did his financial sponsor, Alhaji Bolaji Tinubu, suddenly became a billionaire, if not trillionaire. To add salt to injury, President Buhari, according to Trent News, has directed that the chapel at the Presidential Villa; Aso Rock, be closed. This means that his administration does not want to the presence of the symbol of Christianity in the Presidential Villa. He is, therefore, anti-Christians. If President Buhari continues on this tract of parochialism and hate, he would certainly end up destroying himself and his political party. May be, Buhari has not come to terms with the realities of Nigeria being a democracy, as opposed to the Nigeria he ‘conquered’ in 1983. Many patriotic Nigerians, such as Bishop Mathew Kukah, Barrister Ebun Adegboruwa and organizations like Ohaneze Ndi Igbo and Southern Nigeriam People’s Assembly have advised President Buhari. The ball lies in his court.



Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC, JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
AUGUST 10TH, 2015

A PASSIONATE URGE TO REDUCE COST OF GOVERNANCE IN ABIA STATE
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

That the economy of Nigeria systematically turned a worrisome shadow of its glorious past is no longer a mystery but a stark reality which origin and stages can be narrated and explained even by a toddler. It is a known fact that the ability of leaders or rulers to control and manage money, goods and resources available in their country or society at any given time determines the vibrancy or otherwise of their economy. It, therefore, follows that the state of any economy is, in the main, determined by those that control and manage it.

Control and management of an economy require great deal of fiscal discipline and restraint. It also requires vision in those that lead. Vision in this context encompasses a mental picture of where the leader wants to drive his people to within a given space of time, in relation to development, collective growth and actualization. A very simple illustration could be taken from a typical family setting. The head of a family, who doubles as the father of the family, determines, to a very large extent, the prospects and future of members of his family. If the head of the family has the fear of God in him, is disciplined and has vision for his family, the children in the family would always radiate discipline and responsibility. If they are sent to school, they would likely do very well, taking into consideration their family background and pedigree. Those aspects of social engagement that end up distracting other children within their age bracket, such as cultism, drug addiction and other social vices would be distantly kept away from them. The children would obey the rules and regulations of their school, would have enough time to devote to their studies, would most probably come out in flying colours and would end up as very worthy ambassadors of their families and would equally contribute to the growth of humanity. But in a contrast situation, the children grow to be wild and end up constituting a danger to humanity. Their families would not come out publicly to say they are proud of them and heads of such families would not command any respect in their communities because they failed to bequeath worthy and commendable legacies to their society.

Leadership has been the bane of the Nigerian state. That many states of the federation were put in very terrible financial conditions was due to the type of leadership that piloted the affairs of the states in the last eight years. In Nigeria, one thing is obvious and that is people do not like being told the truth, especially when it is bitter. Today, some Nigerian commentators try to give the impression that the cause of the current economic dislocation of the country is the decline in the price of crude oil in the global market. This claim is, to all intents and purposes, preposterous and spurious. It is a blatant lie coming from dull brains whose ultimate agenda is to hood-wink the not-well-informed citizens of the country.

The incontestable and indisputable fact, with regards to Nigeria’s present economic situation, is that the governors that governed the states between 1999 and May 2015 were not only squandermaniacs who lavished and wasted the resources of their states through chartering of aircrafts, excessive hiring of rented crowd to sing praises that had no basis, award-giving ceremonies that lacked justification, expensively long convoys, customized uniforms with the portraits of the governors and duplication of functions but very greedy and immeasurably corrupt. One may not be wrong to say that the Nigerian Governors’ Forum had a common agenda for its members during the last dispensation, looting their states dry. The governors were in a hot competition to loot everything their states had. The urge to loot and accumulate was so compelling in them that during last minute rush; they even went home with every cooking utensil in their Government Lodges. What a greedy set of politicians? Before the governors left office, they had deliberately incurred lots of loan, loan one can not see what it was used for. The governors had, out of wickedness and greed, started owing public servants in their states before the prices of oil went down. Some of the immediate past governors even owed their commissioners up to seven months. Even with the fall in oil prices, any governor that was disciplined, transparent and selfless could have conveniently paid public servants and political appointees in his state. After all, in any human-labour related organization, salaries of workers, be them public servants or political office-holders, are treated as first charge. But for the immediate past governors, their first charge was their pockets, with those of the wives and children. So far, it is only in Africa, particularly Nigeria, that a governor would be putting and collecting monetary claims and at the same time his wife, children and in-laws would be doing so. How can such a state pay salaries? How can such a state maintain her road infrastructure? In such a state, what miracle would make workers at its University Teaching Hospital not to be owed more than eight months? In a state where an elected governor competes for power of looting of the state’s treasury with his wife and son, why would teachers in the state not be owed six months of their salaries consecutively? In such a state, who would manage to pretend not to know that rural roads, which farmers use to transport their farm produce to near-by markets where they could sell them and make some money with which to carter for their families, would not be maintained and, so, would collapse and farmers in the state would become frustrated, despondent and penurious? If Nigeria had had disciplined, transparent, and patriotic governors between October 1999 and May 2015, her economy would not have been in its present state of turbulence, turmoil and precariousness. Within the period under review, the least a state got from the Federal Account Allocation Committee; FAAC, was a trillion naira. This was exclusive of the states Internally-Generated Revenue. When it comes to internally-Generated Revenue, apart from Lagos state, no other state in Nigeria exhibited transparency in the management of her Internally Generated Revenue. Infact, Internally-Generated Revenue in other states of the federation remained a secret. The past governors would always complain that nothing encouraging was generated internally. But this was a stupidly concocted lie. The truth is that the Boards of Internal Revenue of the states were very hardworking and raised billions of naira for their state governments. Every money generated internally by the Boards of Internal Revenue was directed to be paid immediately it was generated into a specific automated bank account of the state. As soon as such money got into the said account, the governor would order, not even direct, the amount to be withdrawn. Where it would go to and for what purpose were only known to the state governors, their wives and children.

The question one would not fail to ask is what did a state government like Abia State, for instance, do with more than a trillion naira between October 1999 and May 28, 2015? What was the substantiable wage bill of the state within the period? How much infrastructure did the governments of the state put on ground within the same period? The answer to these questions is that the governors that held sway between 1999 and 2015 were greedy, dishonest, selfish, reckless and never meant well for their states and people.

As students of history would recollect, no phenomenon reigns ad-infinitum. Nigerians have helplessly seen and suffered the epoch of reckless and heartless kleptomania and unbridled culture of impurity in governance for sixteen years, irrespective of political party, whether it was P.D.P; A.C.N; A.N.P.P; A.P.G.A, P.P.A or C.P.P. Like the Holy Bible puts it, there is time to everything. It is now a consensus opinion amongst the good people of Nigeria that the era of overt looting in government by those in government is far spent and gone.

The present dispensation clearly demands vision, ingenuity, transparency, accountability and strict adherence to the rule of law. The atrocities of the past should not continuously demoralize Nigerian citizens. They should optimistically look forward towards a brighter future with an evidently transparent leadership.

Thanks be to God, signs of transparent leadership have started to be felt in some states of the federation. In Abia state, for example, encouraging signs of what a transparent leadership should be is being manifested on a daily basis. Governor Okezie Ikpeazu is one governor that is evidently determined to demystify the office of the governor and reduce costs of governance. He has publicly and officially jettisoned the euphoria of governorship by not, at all, being associated with the appellations, Executive Governor and Your Excellency. His official convoy does not exceed six vehicles, including the ones used by his security men. He does not use, and of course has no need for an Armored Personnel Carrier. An interesting incident took place on Saturday 8th August, 2015 at Governorship Lodge, Aba. The Governor was ready to go to church, after which he would travel to Abuja. As he was about boarding his bus, his police dispatch-rider wanted to move ahead of the governor but the governor asked him to stay at the lodge until he was done with the church service. The same directive was equally given to some drivers in his convoy. Since he became governor, Dr. OKezie Ikpeazu has not chartered any air-craft. He has not even gone for any honorary chieftaincy award. If governance could be sustained on this modus Vivendi and modus Operandi, it would be obvious that leakages and wastages arising from frivolities of reckless egotism could be plugged and governance made meaningful to the Nigerian electorate.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI; KSC JP[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
AUGUST 9, 2015.

SURMOUNTABLE OBSTACLES AGAINST SOUTH-EAST REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

The word ‘nation’ has often been misconstrued, misinterpreted and misapplied when used in Nigeria. Even amongst the elites, many refer to Nigeria as a nation whereas it is a state. It, therefore, becomes necessary that the two words, nation and state, are aptly defined in order to make the difference clear. In this wise, a nation is a large community of people identifiable with common territorial boundaries, united by a single indigenous language and usually having a common political character or political aspirations. Arising from this definition, the Igbo is a nation of its own, just as the Hausa, Yoruba, Ijaw, Efik and others in this definitive category are nations. There could be many nations in a country, just as it is obtainable in Nigeria. As for state, Duhaime’s Law Dictionary defines it as groups of people which have acquired international recognition as an independent country and which have a population that has adopted a common language for effective communication.
From the above definition, it is clear that the South-East geo-political zone is a nation of its own. Other Igbo-speaking groups such as the Asa, Etche, Ikwerre, Ndoki, Omuma and Opobo in Rivers State and Ika-Ibo in Delta State, as well as other Igbo-speaking people in states outside the South-East of Nigeria do not, by contextual definition, belong to the South-East nation due to contemporary political cum administrative realities.
As a nation and people bound together by a common experience, destiny and aspiration, the people of the South-East of Nigeria, made up of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States should, at any given time, see themselves as one indivisible group. To the glory of God, more than ninety percent of the people of the Zone are Christians, while the remaining ten percent or even less may be shared by other religions believers. There is hardly any heathen in the zone, as even the traditional religious worshippers strongly believe in the existence and supremacy of Chukwu Abiama. According to some versions of history, the Tyndale New Testament of the Holy Bible was the first edition of the Bible to be printed and that was between 1525 and 1526. The chronological gap between when the first edition of the Bible was printed and date is only about four hundred and ninety years. But on the hand, the Igbo had been in Nigeria for more than one thousand and five hundred years. They have always used Chukwu Abiama in all their religious rituals. For those who do not know, the Igbo are among the Jews in the Diaspora. There is no ethnic group in Nigeria that did not migrate from somewhere. Chukwu Abiama, as believed in and worshipped by the Igbo, epitomises the supreme Deity that Abraham acknowledged its existence, believed in, worshipped and was made to prosper beyond human imagination. By simple analogy, Chukwu is God while Abiama is Abraham. The Igbo are descendants of Abraham and are, therefore, Jews. This fact had long been expatiated by globally acknowledged and respected historians such as; (1) Olauda Equiano, (2) Professor Kenneth Onwubiko Dike, (3) Professor Adele Afigbo and (4) Carlisle U.O. Umunna whose publication on Nigeria village Square; an online medium, is a reference source.
Since the Igbo have a common descendant, and taking into deep consideration what they have gone through in the Nigerian state, they should not fail to love themselves. The worst thing a nation can do against itself is to hate itself. It would be recalled that the Igbo came into contact with the Western Civilization many years, even decades, after their Yoruba counterparts. Despite this gap in civilizational contact, the Igbo, as at January 1966, were evidently in domination in almost all the facets of the Nigerian polity; politics, economy, education, civil and public services, the military and para-military. There was hardly any sector the Igbo was not prominently involved in during Nigeria’s first Republic.
The Igbo leaders of colonial and first republican era were philosophically committed to leadership, which simply amounted to service-delivery and communal development. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mazi Mbaonu Ojike, Dr Francis Akanu Ibiam, Dr. M. I. Okpara, Dr. Alvan Ikokwu, Dr Nwafor Orizu, Dr Jaja Wachuku, Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe, O.C. Ememe and other Igbo leaders of their generation substantially placed emphasis on education, health, agriculture and infrastructure. The very dedicated and patriotic Igbo Union was ever there to complement what the Eastern Regional Government was doing in education. The Native Authorities were given maximum encouragement to provide critical services in the grass-roots. Many rural roads in the defunct Eastern Nigeria were not tarred yet any motor driver that wanted to be on speed, could cruise at a regular speed of fifty kilometres per hour, without having any cause to change gear as the roads had zero pot-holes. The Igbo of the first Republic of Nigeria occupied very enviable positions at the federal level. The Presidency, though ceremonial, was occupied by Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo. The first Speaker of the Nigerian Parliament was Dr. Jaja Anucha Wachuku, an Igbo. The Exploits of the Igbo in Nigeria’s colonial and post-colonial era were intimidating. The first indigenous Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan was Professor K.O. Dike. Justice Charles Dadi Onyeama had acted as Chief Justice of the High Court of Lagos sometime in 1962 when the substantive Chief Justice of Lagos in the person of Justice De Lestang was away in Britain for leave. By July 1964, Justice Charles Dadi Onyeama had become a substantive Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. The Head of the Nigeria Army was Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi. The first indigenous Nigerian University graduate to enlist into the Nigerian Army was Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu. The richest Nigerian millionaire, as collaborated by Emeka Etiaba on Thisday Newspaper of October 9, 2010 was Sir Louis Odimegwu Ojukwu, as at January 1966. He was the first indigenous President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and was Chairman or Director of many blue-chip Companies in Nigeria. He was profitably involved in many sectors of the Nigerian economy, videlicet; transport, estate, banking, export, and import. When Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Nigeria in 1956, it was only Sir Ojukwu that had a Rolls-Royce in Nigeria and he graciously made it available to the colonial government and the Queen and the Duke were majestically and glamorously driven in the car by Sir Ojukwu’s personal driver; Abiefo. But all the mileages gained by the Igbo were lost as a result of the Nigerian/Biafran war.
The igbo narrative has been sharply a different one since after the civil war. The collective principle that was the underlying force that made the Igbo a rare specie has ceased to be evident in their communal existence. At the end of the war in January 1970, the Igbo saw themselves being administered in one state; East central state. From 1976 when they were split into two states by the Murtala Mohammad Military administration; Anambra and Imo States, segregation and discrimination crept into the body politic of the Igbo. The zone currently has five states, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, though they should have, at least, one more state. So far, governors of these states have not been, in any way, concerned about the needed unity of the Igbo as a nation. All the economic ventures that they inherited from the government of the defunct Eastern Region, ventures that should have been sources of unity and strength, they recklessly allowed to be driven into oblivion. The Niger cement at Nkalagu in present Ebonyi State, the Emenite Limited and Project Development Institute (PRODA) at Enugu, the Golden Guinea Breweries and Ceramic Industry at Umuahia, the Textile Mills at Aba and Onitsha, the Universal Insurance Company, Hotels owned by the former government of Eastern Nigeria, including Hotel Presidential Enugu and Phonix Hotels Enugu, Co-operative and Commerce Bank and the very gigantic African Continental Bank; A.C.B; should, by now, have been institutions the Igbo would have been sure to leverage upon. But they were left to become moribund, with a good number of them collapsing. Today, nothing in common, other than Jamboree, holds the people of the South-East together. To buttress the extent to which the Igbo now segregate and discriminate amongst themselves, some parochial state governors, not too long ago, forcefully and inhumanly disengaged public servants in their states who are Igbo of other states’ extraction. This primitive and uncivilized action was the last straw that broke the carmel’s back. The worst of it all, many Igbo leaders, especially governors in the last democratic dispensation proved, by their conduct in office, to be extremely greedy, with many of them looting their states almost completely dry. Infrastructural decay became synonymous with some states in the region and, therefore, grounded their economies to a halt. The South-East has witnessed an unprecedented leadership failure due to greed and lack of vision in the type of governors they have had.
This very unfortunate and debilitating situation should not be allowed to continue. The present five governors should live above the parochialism of leadership that was evident in the recent past. Political Party differences should rather than weaken Igbo cohesion, serve as strength for Igbo unity and progress. The governors, among other things, could initiate and execute a regional railway line that can link the five state capitals in the region. This will certainly boost the economy of the zone. They could go further addressing the economic problems of the region by building industrial clusters in partnership with the private sector. The issue of electricity can be collectively tackled by the state governments of the region. Much has been given and much is expected from the governors and legislators of the Igbo Nation. Every hand must be on deck for the economic integration of the South-East.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI, KSC, JP
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
AUGUST 4TH, 2015

AN AUSPICIOUS TIME TO STREAMLINE AND RE-ENGINEER THE ANTI-GRAFT AGENCIES.
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

For more than three decades running, hardly had a day passed by without corruption being mentioned as the bane of Nigeria’s political and social life. Nationally and globally, corruption has been described as the worst cancer Nigeria has been suffering from. It is the main malaise that has been responsible for the country’s under development.
One would recall that, apart from the blood-spinning and consuming political crises in the ‘wild West’ between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Samuel Akintola, which had become a national embarrassment and security risk, the other major reason given by the Nigerian military officers led by Major Chukwuma Patrick Kaduna Nzeogwu that toppled the administration of Sir Abubarka Tafawa Balewa on 15th January, 1966 was excessive corruption. When on 31st December, 1983 the civilian administration of the first Nigerian Executive President, Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, was overthrown by a military jaunta led by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, the reason adduced was corruption. Even though some critical observers had held or still hold the opinion that Buhari’s coup d’etat was a Northern Nigeria’s agenda to forestall the then Vice-President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo, from becoming the next President of the Country in 1987, many Nigerians agreed that there was official corruption of very high magnitude. As some critics would say, the history of Nigerian is that of progressive entrenchment of corruption.
Being conscious of this social malady, Chief Olusegun Obasanjor, who was sworn in as second Executive President of Nigeria on 29th May, 1999, inaugurated the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on September 29th, 2000. It was evident that the commission was almost dead on arrival. Many factors militated against the required successes of the agency. Some of these factors included inadequate training for the personnel meant to discharge the functions associated with such delicate and tasking duties. In this case, Police officers are expected to be specially trained in special areas of investigation for adequate result. The government that was visionary enough to establish the commission was unfortunate not to possess or exhibit the generosity to fund the Agency adequately. In this wise, the commission could not engage the professional services of experienced, competent and reliable legal luminaries to handle her cases in court. Hence, most of the cases instituted against alleged offenders were thrown out on technical grounds.
Partly in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), which had named Nigeria as one of the notorious twenty-three countries that were non-co-operative in the International Community’s efforts to fight money laundering, the Nigerian government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo established the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission in 2003. The body has the stamp of law to investigate financial crimes such as advance fee fraud (419) and money laundering. So far, the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission has had three chairmen; (1) Nuhu Ribadu, (2) Farida Mzamber Waziri and (3) Ibrahim Lamorde as Current Chairman. In the same vein, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission has had three Chairmen (1) Justice Mustapha Akanbi, (2) Justice Olayinka Ayoola and (3) Mr Ekpo Nta, the Present Helmsman. Though many Nigerians had, at various times, expressed fear that Obasanjo’s Ulterior motive in creating the anti-graft agencies was to use them for a witch-hunt against political opponents or those that might constitute a hindrance to his anticipated third term in office, the truth remains that Nigeria, at the time the agencies were set up, were in dire need of such agencies.
Before his removal in 2007 by President Umaru Yar’Adua for reasons that could not be distant from retrogressive political considerations, it was very clear that Nuhu Ribadu had patriotically and very transparently discharged his duties. Except the parochially minded, Nigerians saw in Nuhu Ribadu a determined citizen who was ready to go any length in order to guarantee the rectitude that had dangerously eluded the Nigerian State. When Ribadu was removed and subsequently subjected to an unholy regime of humiliation and debasement, Nigerians did not wait to be told the government of Yar’Adua had no commitment to the fight against corruption. a critical analysis of the war against corruption since 2003 would certainly show that combined achievements, if any, of both Farida Waziri and Ibrahim Lomorle, for their eight years, are, by far, less than ten percent of those of Nuhu Ribadu. Infact, between 2003 and 2007, the fear of Ribadu’s E.F.C.C. was the beginning of wisdom.
Every well meaning Nigerian appreciates the fact that corruption has been the bane of this country. The consequences of corruption are so contagious that they spread without being inhibited by geography, politics, religion or gender. One single corrupt act committed in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja can turn millions of Nigerians in Sokoto, Maiduguri, Jos, Ibadan, Asaba and Abakiliki into very penurious state. It is akin to one act of financial impropriety hatched and executed in Umuahia that can render almost all roads in Ukwa-West Local Government Area of Abia State impassable, including the major roads that leads from Obehie-Asa to the Council headquarters at Okeikpe. This being the true situation, there is need for the war against corruption to be strengthened in all ramifications. In order to achieve this worthy objective, there is absolute need for the anti-graft agencies; Independent Corrupt Practice and other Related Offences’ Commission and the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission, to be streamlined, re-engineered and re-focused. For the country to achieve optimum results in the war against corruption, duplications in functionality should be removed and avoided. There is no justification, whatsoever, why Nigeria should establish, operate and sustain two different anti-graft agencies at the same time, when their mandate and responsibilities are almost the same. The expected roles of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences’ Commission do not basically differ from those assigned to the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission. Leaving the two anti-graft agencies to function vis’a vis does not, in actuality, convey any iota of seriousness, sense of direction and sincerity of purpose on the part of the Federal government. These two agencies should be fused into one. At a time, such as we are in now, when the country’s economy, due to corruption of a very unprecedented tall order, is in the doldrums, the country cannot afford the cost ineffectiveness of a jamboree which origin can only be traceable to painlessness and financial recklessness.
Any genuine attempt to overhaul the anti-corruption drive of the federal government, must talk into deep cognizance the integrity perception and frame-work of the agency. By this, the federal government should not be oblivious of the effect of perception in the country’s body politic. In trying to build a virile society, leaders of such society should not distance themselves from the perception their followers have an issues bordering on the relationship between the leader and the led. Questions that emanate from leadership are best addressed once the fellowship has the perception that there is transparency, equity and fairness in the conduct if the affairs of their state, organization or society. If, on the hand, the perception tilts towards the antithesis of the qualities mentioned just above, mobilizing and galvanizing the potential co-operation and support of the masses become extremely herculean.
As it is always said, he who goes to equity, should go with clean hands. In a typical African Tradition and society, no known thief is made a treasurer, not even a financial secretary. Once one’s pedigree has been known, he remains treated as such, except evidences later emerge, very convincingly, that the known thief has honestly and self repentantly turned a new leaf.
It is a known fact that once the head is rotten, every other component of the body becomes sick and cannot perform or function effectively. Drawing again from perception, it has to be emphatically stated here that since many accusing fingers have been raise against the supposed Lack of Integrity, and compromise by the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde, allowing him to stay further on the commission would be detrimental to the pursuit of social justice. Just recently, an online news network; Information Nigeria, had reported that more than twenty Civil Society Organizations had gone to the Headquarters of the Crimes Commission at Abuja, protesting the Lamorde should be sacked. Among the reasons they gave included;
(1) That Lamorde had twice fraudulently collected Estacada in order to participate in the supervision of biometric exercises involving pensioners in the Diaspora but did not travel on any of the occasions.
(2) That Lamorde had equally dishonestly received allowances for meetings he never attended with the Pension Reform Task Team and
(3) That Lamorde allowed the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission to comatose for a very long time only for him to Psychophantly appear to be revitalizing it now that Buhari is singing his change mantra.
From whatever angle it would be considered, Nigeria and her Citizens want and are in for change. Speculations are rife that the governors that despicably milked their states dry, leaving their citizens, including majority of the commissioners who served under them, wallowing in perilous penury and near-destitution, have bought Lamorde over for an unholy compromise, using billions of naira from their loot and enormous pillage. Nigerians are hungry and thirsty for an ombudsman that will emerge on a very clean slate and whose invulnerability they can proudly showcase and export to the international community.
Including this piece, a word of caution must be sounded that in carrying out its responsibilities, the rule of law must be accorded premium. The Buhari administration, in as much as Nigerians are eager to see and feel that the billions of naira unconscionably and uncouthly stolen by the immediate past state governors and their families, which paralyzed the states, are recovered, should never contemplate hiding under such mission and pursuit to witch-hunt innocent members of the opposition or law-abiding citizens of the country. The rule of law and good conscience should prevail at any given time in this country called Nigeria.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
01 – 08 – 2015.

PIPELINE VANDALIZATION AND THEFT OF CRUDE OIL
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI
Where ever a man’s treasure is, that is where his heart should be. Any man that is sane is expected to be conscious of his areas of strength and, at any given time, endeavour to protect his known sources of strength and relevance.
The dependence of Nigeria on oil and gas is a fact that is even known to the not-well informed. A country in which oil accounts for more than seventy-five percent of its total revenue does not need any body to remind her of the need to guard that revenue sector very jealously.
Despite Nigeria’s dependence on oil for her economic existence and survival, vandalization and theft in the sector have remained a major handicap. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is in-charge of the upstream, midstream and down-stream sectors of the country’s oil industry. The upstream sector is principally associated with exploration and exploitation of crude oil both underground and under water. The corporation achieves this objective through regulated synergy with some corporate stake-holders such as the shell Petroleum Development Company, Exxon mobil, Total, Chevron, Oriental Energy Resources Ltd and others.
The midstream sector involves the transportation; by pipeline, rail, barge, oil tanker or truck, storage and marketing of crude or refined petroleum products. On the other hand, the downstream sector carries out such functions as refining of crude oil and the processing and purifying of raw natural gas. It is also incharge of distribution and marketing of products derived from crude oil and natural gas. The downstream sector touches consumers through products such as gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil, heating oil, lubricants, waxes, asphalts and so on.
In a very simplified language and for the purpose of this exposition, Nigeria’s oil and gas industry might be viewed from; (a) Crude oil production and its marketing and (b) Refined petroleum products’ distribution by pipeline. It would be a mere formality to state that apart from the huge amount of money that accrues to the Nigerian government from these three sectors of the oil and gas industry, the sectors account for a very high percentage of the country’s labour absorption.
The sensitivity of this industry, notwithstanding the complacency of the Nigerian government, has made it possible for sabotage and oil theft to creep in and almost overwhelm its operations and overall economic essence. It has to be recalled here that Nigeria operates a peculiar type of federalism in which the federal government is wholly incharge of oil and allied products, just as it has a monopoly over solid minerals. Anything that has to do with oil can only be legislated upon by the National Assembly. Oil is, therefore, in the exclusive legislative list in the constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended.
One may not resist the temptation of recollecting that since oil was discovered in Olobiri in present-day Bayelsa state in 1956, not much has been given back to the host communities where multi-nationals drill oil and amass billions of dollars for themselves and the federal government of Nigeria. Not until recently, if one visited some of the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta region, it was obvious that the volume of wealth generated for the Nigerian state from there had not impacted on them, as poverty, ignorance and backwardness were evident in the communities. This neglect by the oil companies and the Federal government ended up injecting discontent and frustration in the youth of the host communities who would become willing tools in the hands of economic saboteurs. In the upstream sector, where oil is drilled underground and underwater, the saboteurs introduce sophisticated technology which aids them to siphon crude oil from oil pipelines into either their trucks or barges. This criminality alone which is curiously syndicated and cordinated deplete the country’s oil production and sales by not less than forty percent.
Of equal importance is the fact that, apart from the huge financial loss to the Nigerian government, the activities of the economic saboteurs cause a lot of devastation, by way of environmental degradation. The land upon which these nefarious activities of the hoodlums takes place becomes so degraded that no meaningful agricultural activity can take place on it. If it is on the sea, the pollution that results from them destroys aquatic life and, so, fishermen whose lives depend on what they can derive from the sea are put in a very terrible situation.
Vandals and economic saboteurs whose operational activities centre on the pipeline used in distributing of refined petroleum products by the Pipeline Products’ Marketing Company (P.P.M.C) dig up the ground on the pipeline right of way in order to get at the pipes laid deep under the earth before criminally boring holes on the pipes and fixing taps on them for illegal siphoning of products. The madness with which this heinous crime is committed is highest any time kerosene is being pumped. On vandalization of P.P.M.C. lines, cognizance should be taken that besides the enormous revenue loss and environmental contamination and debasement, a good number if lives have been lost through fire outbreaks resulting therefrom. On 18th October, 1998 over one thousand people reportedly lost their lives at Jesse in Delta state as a result of fire sparked off by a scavenger on a vandalized spot where the people had gathered to scoop petroleum products.
Arepo in Owode of Ogun state was reported to have lost about a hundred persons in 2012. Again, this was due to pipeline vandalism. Pipeline vandals in Arepo were reported to be so lawlessly brutal and unrepentant that maintenance officials who were sent to repair the damages caused on the pipelines by them were killed.
Vandalism and oil theft in Nigeria have taken a front burner in the economic discourse of the country, to the extent that the Chatham House; the London-based Think Tank, had had cause to lament that Nigeria’s Crude oil is being stolen on an industrial scale. The former Managing Director and country-Chair of shell Petroleum Development Company; Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, had alerted the country that activities of oil vandals and thieves were so alarming that the company had been compelled to resort to ‘force majeure’ on about three occasions. The International Energy Agency: I.E.A.; the oil watch dog, had observed that criminals in Nigeria were carting away quantity of oil that ranged between one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand barrels of oil per day. In her own assessment, the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, bemoaned the situation, claiming that Nigeria was losing one hundred and eighty barrels of crude oil per day and that, when quantified in monetary terms, it amounted to a loss of seven billion dollars per annum.
With the magnitude of vendalization and theft in the petroleum industry, no body should doubt if the federal government has been putting measures to check the perpetrators of this crime against the country. The government had, at different times, set up Task Forces to deal decisively with vandals and oil thieves. One of such outfits is the Pulo shield, an armed security task force set up to nip criminality in the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta region in the bud. The Nigerian Navy has the mandate to police the Nigerian territorial waters and arrest any individual or group that uses the water ways for the purposes of illegal oil bunkering. By legislation, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps has been charged to arrest and prosecute any criminal associated with pipeline vandalism and (or) oil theft. In addition to theses security out-fits, the Economic and Financial Crimes’ Commission also has the legal authority to arrest and prosecute any person involved in economic sabotage against the Nigerian state.
Unfortunately and regrettably, all these measures have not been able to debar these economic hoodlums from their offensive against the federal government. This is because corruption at the top echelon of Nigeria’s leadership has been so visible that anybody given the responsibility of checking oil theft would first thank God for giving him the opportunity to take his own share of the national cake. With such mindset, criminality in the petroleum industry would rather intensify than reduce. All most every body officially engaged in the petroleum industry in Nigeria is like the proverbial dog that eats up the bone it is hired to protect. These vandals have their agents who shamelessly inform them, even in advance, when petroleum products would be pumped through the pipeline. This therefore, means that the vandals are not only those who operate from outside government but include those officials who work in synergy with the enemies of the government.
The present economic down-turn of Nigeria demands that radical and scientific measures have to be taken in order to address the atrocities that have continued to hold down the industry. In trying to achieve this, the first step is that Nigerians must have to resolve to be patriotic and selfless. They must appreciate that money is and can not be every thing in life. The Management of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and that of its subsidiary; Pipeline Products and Marketing Company should be visionary, innovative and sincere in handling the affairs of their organizations. The right of way of the pipelines, which have been left bushy and, therefore, inaccessible by vehicles, should be regularly cleared and neatly maintained. The Traditional Rulers of pipeline host communities should, of utmost necessity, be made integral part of policing of the right of way in their communities, using responsible and credible youths they could readily vouch for as paid monitoring agents. Close-circuit televisions should be mounted on the pipeline right of way to dictate any intruder. Taking into consideration the long distance associated with the pipeline right of way, it would be necessary to engage the services of the Nigerian Air-force. If Air-Force helicopters are deployed to be flying over the right of way, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for vandals to tamper with the pipeline. On the sea, the Nigerian Navy should be equipped with gun-boats, with sophisticated communication gadgets. The management of N.N.P.C. and P.P.M.C. should carry out effective repairs on the pipelines. It is evident that most of the pipes on the right of way have been there for a very long time and so, have been weakened by time and age. The shell Petroleum development company, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Total and other oil-producing companies should also look inward in this direction. As for security on the P.P.M.C. lines, it would be suggested that soldiers be completely pulled out of the line to enable the Nigerian security and civil Defence Corps effectively take charge of security of the lines. On a very serious note, all the staff of P.P.M.C. who are associated with pumping of products at Port-Harcourt, should, as a matter of urgency, be transferred out of Port-Harcourt. Finally, products should be pumped only in the mornings and afternoon, with adequate arrangement for regular power supply.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI[b][/b]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
27TH JULY, 2015

BUHARI’S VISIT: EXPECTATIONS AND BUMPS
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

In recent times, no official visit by an African Head of Government had received the type of publicity the just concluded visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to the United States of America did. In international relations and diplomacy, visits by Heads of government to other countries are never considered strange or extra-ordinary. It is, rather, considered as a necessity that lubricates bilateral relations. So, in diplomatic circles, it is no big news that a President of a country has been invited by another for an official visit. This is more so when there has not been any diplomatic face-off between the two countries or a total breakdown in diplomatic relationship such as had existed for more than four decades between the United States of America and Cuba.
The question now is, why was President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to the United States of America given exceptional hype in both local and foreign media? Again, why did Nigerians themselves appear to anchor a lot of hope in the visit of their President to the United States of America? Any attempt to answer the above posers would surely require some analysis of the Presidential visit. In the first instance, the visit was made only fifty days after the inauguration of the Buhari administration, starting from Sunday 19th to Thursday 23rd August, 2015.
Many observers think that the quickness with which the invitation was made could be indicative of acceptance of Buhari’s presidency by the American government of President Barrack Obama. Some other political pundits are of the opinion that the promptness of Mr Obama’s invitation to Mr Buhari is a reflection of America’s commitment to the growth and sustenance of democracy in sub-saharan Africa. Still, another school of thought could hold the view that the fastness with which the American government invited President Buhari only exposed the latter’s desperation to see the end of the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Of the three thoughts above, it may be pertinent to throw a little light on the third. In order to achieve this, a poser may have to be raised. Should United States of America be desperate to have seen the end of Jonathan’s presidency? The answer is very simple. Ordinarily-speaking, the national leadership of a country should be regarded as its internal affair. It should not constitute a major focus of concern to foreign leadership. But there was to be an exception in Jonathan’s Presidency at the time he held sway. The challenges of Jonathan’s presidency would equally make the American government decide otherwise. It is a given fact that Nigeria is a major power bloc, with considerable influence in Africa, particularly in sub-saharan Africa. What ever stand Nigeria takes on any sub-regional, continental or global issue, is most probable to influence the thinking or direction of many other African countries. Since the United States of America has arrogated to itself the image of a global custodian of supremacy, it would be crystal clear that it would not be comfortable with any emerging power bloc capable of influencing governments and people in Africa.
In the register of political economics, the United States of America is known as a capitalist country. One prominent feature of capitalism is belief in profitability of ventures. As far as capitalism is concerned, there is no free lunch. For any relationship a capitalist establishes and sustains with one, there is an under-current of profitability that may not even be known to his associate. America is neither a father Christmas nor does it embark on any venture that would not guarantee adequate profit for its government and people. For any ten thousand dollars the American government donates to any country, agency or organization, it hopes to recoup it more than ten times. This is the simple or elementary working of capitalism.
Jonathan’s administration had taken two bold steps that, though were in the overall interest of Nigeria, did not go down well with the government of United States of America, United Kingdom and some other European countries. The American government, which had been the highest buyer of Nigeria’s crude oil, for likely economic and political reasons, stopped buying crude oil from her. Since Nigeria’s economy is unfortunately mono-cultural, that is depending only on oil and gas, economic survival of Nigeria became a thug of war. In that state of near hopelessness, Jonathan’s administration had to look elsewhere for buyers in order to save the country’s economy from total collapse. Thank God, nature abhors vacuum! China was available to fill in the gap, even if the volume of trade became lower. At this juncture, it has to be pointed out that one of the reasons why the American Government stopped buying Nigeria’s crude oil is alleged to be Nigeria’s growing economic relationship with China. Basically, the American government perceived the Jonathan’s administration as one that had openly indicated readiness to be guided by the concept of beneficial alternative.
As if the Jonathan’s government was destined to add salt to injury, Obama’s government orchestrated vehemence and vigour in its weird pursuit of same-sex marriage. As natural as it was bound to be, the people and government, not government and people, of Nigeria spoke with one voice in strong condemnation of America’s and Europe’s infatuation for sodomy and lesbianism. It has to be recalled here that the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, had severed Episcopal relationship with her parent church of England in 2002 following the decision of the Diocese of New Westminister in Canada to accord a rite of blessing for same-sex unions and the ratification by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay non-celibate man, as Bishop of New Hampshire the following year. That the Primate and Bishops of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion do no longer attend the Lambert Conference from London is in indicative of the volume of repulsion with which all the faithfuls of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria resented acceptance of sodomy by the Western World.
Nigerians are both a religious and cultural people. Whether it is Christianity, Islam or Paganism, Nigerians believe in and know only bi-sexual marital relationship. The various cultures of the people of Nigeria, be it Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Fulani, Ijaw, Efik, Ibibio, Annang, Gwari, Ishekiri, Urobo, etcetera irrevocably believe that a man should marry a woman for purposes of mutual co-habitation and multiplication. In the belief system of Nigerians, there is no imagination of any sort that a man could marry his fellow man or a woman her fellow woman. The mere imagination of this obnoxious abnormality is regarded as an offensive and injurious aberration and also an anathema.
No Nigerian was, therefore, taken aback when the federal government of Nigeria, under the leadership of Dr Goodluck Jonathan, came out unmistakably vehemently against the dirty and indecent practice of sodomy. The Nigerian National Assembly, under the leadership of Rt. Hon David Bonaventure Mark, boldly and rightly legislated against it and made it an offence punishable by law.
The stand of the federal government against sodomy, a sexual relationship that is not even acceptable to animals, both domestic and wild but has been legally adopted as a way of life by the governments of America and the Western world, coupled with the systematic growth in both diplomatic and economic relationship with China, were considered enough reasons for America to develop and express odium towards the Jonathan’s Administration.
If Jonathan had danced favourably to the capitalistic and ritualistic rhythms of the American macabre music by playing stooge to the white House in Washington DC, he would have stood ‘an accomplished statesman!
Muhammadu Buhari’s emergence as an elected President has been applauded by many Nigerians, including those who voted for Goodluck Jonathan. The Peoples’ Democratic Party was in the saddle for sixteen years. Many critics of the party believe the Party contributed more to the woes of the country than to its growth. Unfortunately, many of these critics heap their blames on Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. They, however, pretend to forget that out of the sixteen years P.D.P. presided over the affairs of the country, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo occupied eight consecutive years and also laboured, though in vain, for a third term, late Musa Yar’Adua did two years while Jonathan completed the last six years.
It is an open secret that the economy of Nigeria is in a harsh desert or precariousness. There is no doubt that corruption has been the bane of Nigeria’s leadership. It is likely that Jonathan was liberal to the extent of not knowing the degree to which appointees in his administration went in their quest for material acquisition. Be it as it is, there is a change of leadership in the country. A man, whose pedigree and antecedents point at zero tolerance for corruption and ineptitude has mounted the saddle. Every patriotic Nigerian that nurtures hope of positive change does so in the belief that Buhari is a self-disciplined, altruistic and transparent nationalist. This hope centres only around him and not his political party; the All Progressive Congress, which parades an army of crooks and devourers who became exceedingly wealthy by exceedingly looting public treasuries dry.
As regards the expectations of Nigerians from his visit to the United States of America, having stated that America is not a father Christmas, optimism here should be laced with caution. Though the American government, her investors and business men had promised giving assistance in the area of terrorism and insecurity, corruption, theft of crude oil, money laundering and investments in infrastructure, electricity, communication and agriculture, who ever that knows America very dispassionately need not be told that America’s assistance would only be guaranteed if her interest is protected.
The climax of this visit is more psychological and spiritual than physical and material. At that point where, in response to a request by the American establishment, President Buhari was unequivocal in stating that the customs and laws of Nigeria abhor sodomy and, therefore, shall not allow its practice in Nigeria that was the climax of the visit. A critical analyst should realize that Buhari’s position did not differentiate him from that of Jonathan.
As time goes on, it would be clear if the American government and her citizens could, indeed, think differently on Nigeria and her challenges. Events will make it certain if America would allow Nigeria buy sophisticated weapons from her in order to fight insurgency or whether America would hide under the Leahy law to still deny Nigeria access to purchase of arms. Time will equally reveal the sincerity of America in repatriating the said one hundred and fifty billion dollar loot by Nigerian leaders starshed away in the United states of America.
While Nigerians may still expect good tidings from the President’s visit, current Nigerian leaders should realize that their destiny is in their hand. The future of Nigeria can not depend on the watchfulness and Zero corruption tolerance of America or any other country. If Nigerians, from all walks of life, resolve today to love their country, be transparent, selfless and vigilant, it would be needless seeking for support elsewhere because God gave Nigeria everything except, maybe, avarice, transparency and accountability.


Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
18TH JULY, 2015

LET THIS BAILOUT NOT EXCLUDE POLITICAL APPOINTEES.
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

In a democracy, the world over, the public service of any given tier of government is fundamentally made up of two categories of public servants. The first is the political class, made up of elected political office-holders such as the President of the country, his Vice, the Governor and his deputy in a state, elected members of the National Assembly, Honourable members of the state Houses of Assembly, chairmen of Local Government Councils and their councillors. The second group are the civil servants, made up of the Head of service of the Federation or state, Permanent-Secretaries, Directors, the Accountants-General, Professionals, Heads of service in the local government councils and all other staff employed and paid by the respective tiers of government.
While the civil servants advise the government on policy matters, help prepare and draft legislation and assist the government run the polity in accordance with the legislation passed by the Oireachtas, Houses of Assembly or Local Government Legislative Councils, the Minister as in the case of federal government or commissioner at the state level is the constitutional representative of the President or Governor in his ministry at the Federal of state level, respectively. In the state, for instance, the commissioner incharge of a ministry has to initiate the formulation of policies, in consonance with the policy thrust of the state government, for the smooth and successful administration and running of the ministry. Ofcourse, it is the commissioner that represents the ministry at the state Executive Council, during which he draws the attention of the Governor-in-Council, to the challenges of his ministry. The commissioner takes credit for any achievement recorded by his Ministry. Should anything go wrong in the Ministry, it is the Commissioner that would be held accountable for the development. This explains the importance of the commissioner. Without any equivocation, the commissioner drives the ministry in terms of vision, mission, diligence, human capacity motivation and cohesion, transparency, accountability and service delivery. It, therefore, follows that, in a democracy, the public service is, by any standard, incomplete without the political class, who are involved either by election or appointment.
As it has been widely reported in various media, some state governments owned their work force many months before the exit of the immediate past administration in the country on 29th May, 2015. Some notorious erring state governors owned their public servants up to nine months of their salaries. But what is unknown to many citizens of Nigeria is that some of these state governors had the temerity of owing their Commissioners upto seven months of the main thrust of their official earning. In some of the states, there were two sources of paying the commissioners’ remuneration. One was the Executive Council sitting allowance of one million naira per month. Some states called it security vote. It was paid ‘ex-gratia’. The other one was one hundred and ninety-six thousand naira that was paid monthly via the respective ministry’s salary voucher.
It has to be stated here that many state governors did not make any provision for either subvention or imprest for the running of the ministries by the commissioners. The commissioners, in order to make sure that their ministries did not collapse under their watch, had to fund the ministries by providing stationeries, paying for electricity, fuelling, servicing and repairing of official vehicles, entertainment of official visitors and printing of documents for their ministries.
More agonizingly importantly, the commissioners, on many occasions, were directed by their governors to represent them at various fora in Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, Egbema and Port-Harcourt in Rivers State, Ideato and Ohaji in Imo State. Yet, nothing would be provided for these trips and out of unparalleled loyalty, these commissioners would obey the directive to the letter. Ofcourse, the idea of asking for a refund would only amount to self deceit as the state Accountants-General would always tell one there was no money. Some of the commissioners that are prolific writers and whose governors were constantly under media attack by individuals or groups who thought the governors were not using the common wealth of the people in their over all interest went the extra mile of spending huge amount of resources writing and publishing in defence of their governors.
It was, therefore, imponderable and heart-breaking to imagine that some of these governors could, in their true conscience, owe these commissioners seven months of their Executive Council sitting Allowance, not to talk of paying severance allowance to the commissioners.
Some of the affected governors may advance the argument that the security vote is not statutory and, so, is not obligatory by law. But this position is implausible when considered that, apart from laws; conventions and customs are integral parts of human understanding and relationship. Even though the security vote of one million naira was not formally communicated to the Commissioners as a major stream of their entitlement, the mere fact that it had been paid overtime made it conventionally, customarily and morally binding on the affected governors to have completed the payment. Again and very importantly, it must be mentioned that the security vote meant for the commissioners had been built into the governors’ own security votes and which had the legislative stamp of the respective state Houses of Assembly. This meant that each month the governors collected their security votes from the states’ share of federal allocation; they had automatically collected security votes on behalf of their commissioners. This, therefore, meant that the payment was statutory.
Granted the national economy nose-dived only a few months to their constitutional exit, if they had had causes to reduce the amount of money they were collecting as their security votes, it was just moral for them to simply reduce that of their commissioners by a correspondent percentage. Some governors were collecting one billion naira per month as security vote and towards the tail end of their tenure reduced it to seven hundred and fifty million naira. Even if the governors had reduced the security vote of the commissioners by thirty percent, a governor who is not heartlessly selfish could still have paid his commissioners upto date as at May 28th, 2015.
Another important factor that must not be forgotten in this very painful and ugly development of inconsideration and deprivation by these immediate past governors is that the Honourable Commissioners they decided to starve with their families were and are still principal stake-holders in the political firmament of their states. Many of the commissioners had worked assiduously for the electoral success of the governors before they were appreciated by being so appointed. Some of them had worked as their governors’ Directors of publicity and propaganda during the electioneering campaigns that ushered in the governors. They were not appointed commissioners from the blues or for the sake of appointment but were so appointed because of the significant roles they had played for their governors’ election or re-election and coupled with the fact that they had the required competence.
Interestingly, these commissioners that were owed seven months by their governors discharged their responsibilities not only effectively but equally transparently. Many of them also worked very hard during the 2015 general election to make sure that their political party passed in their polling booths, wards and local government areas. Some of them committed a lot of resources to make sure the candidates of their political party were successful in the 2015 elections. What then is the justification for these experienced grass-roots’ politicians to be treated with levity and utter ridicule? The truth is that these politicians that have been mercilessly desecrated and humiliated are very embittered with the governors that unjustifiably owed them for seven whole months. The worst is that some of the governors did not even have the courtesy of inviting these commissioners for a formal dissolution. The commissioners were disgracefully abandoned and left in the limbo only for the new governors to announce the termination of their services and eventual dissolution. What a humiliation!
Now that the Buhari administration, in response to distress calls by state governments over accumulated arrears of salaries by previous governors, has rolled out three identifiable bailout packages for the federal, states and local governments, it is the expectation of these deprived and disgusted political appointees that the new governors in their states would show favourable and positive consideration towards their wretched plight. This moral expectation is unarguably understandable in states where the new governors are members of the political party of the former governors that accumulated the debts.
With four hundred and thirteen billion and seven hundred million naira bailout accruing from Nigerian liquefied Natural Gas, central Bank of Nigeria’s Special Intervention fund that ranges from two hundred and fifty to three hundred billion naira as soft loans for states to address the backlog of arrears of salary and the restructuring of loans obtained by the state governments from commercial banks, which amounted to six hundred and sixty billion naira by the Debt Management Office and by which the tenure of these loans have further been extended by fifteen years, it would be expected that the new governors would, as a matter of humanity, not exclude political appointees in this very important issue of payment of arrears of salaries and emolument. It is also advised that current political appointees serving the new governors should not take the advantage of their proximity to the state governors to discourage them from assisting these former commissioners. After all, whatever goes around, comes around and, above all, they should realize that no condition is permanent. May God bless he that honour His injunction that the labourer deserves his wages.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP[/size][size=8pt]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
12-07-2015.

THE NIGERIAN PRISON AS A WAITING-LODGE FOR EX-LEADERS
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

Naivety could be the only reason why one might be surprised that a very high percentage of Nigerian leaders have continuously exhibited unrestricted avarice and even, to a worrisome extent, kleptomania. According to clinical psychologists, kleptomania is the recurrent failure to resist urges to steal items that one may not necessarily have any need for. It is said to be a serious mental health disorder capable of causing much emotional pain to one and one’s loved ones, if left untreated. Simply put, kleptomania is an impulse control disorder.
Between May 29th, 1999 and same date in 2015, it is doubtful if there could be twenty percent of Nigerian politicians who occupied prominent public offices that did not suffer from this psycho-mental disorder. It has been looting upon looting of the public treasury! Of course, the result has been very clear. The Nigerian masses have been at the receiving end, with unprecedented and incomparable degree of poverty.
The sixth verse of the sixth chapter of the book of Genesis tells Christians that God regretted and equally grieved deeply for creating man. In the preceeding verse, God had noted that every imagination of the thought of man was only evil continually!
From the above religious revelation, it is clear that even in the originality of man, he is full of evil. If God could, as He did, regret creating man no sooner than the period of creation, no one should, therefore, be astonished by the atrocities of man. The above exposition notwithstanding, it should still have been expected that man having lived on planet earth over time and having freely subjected and conditioned himself to tenets of behavioural refinement and civility, that he should have appreciated the emptiness and vanity of worldliness and materialism.
With specific reference to the Nigerian state, section 14 of the constitution of the Federal Republic (1999) as amended, states that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. By simple interpretation, persons who strive to occupy public positions should do so with the aim of using such privileged offices for the betterment and ultimate advancement of the citizens of the country. Putting it mildly, the essence of holding a public office; by employment, promotion, election or appointment is not to create a platform for ruthless looting of the public treasury. Rather, it should be seen as an opportunity to develop the society. For the umpteenth time, civil society activists and social critics have continued to express worry and discontent over the attitudinal obsession of Nigerian top office-holders in handling the common wealth of the citizens. When the second republic headed by the first Executive President of Nigeria; Alhaji Shehu Shagari, was overthrown by General Muhamadu Buhari on 31st December, 1983, the reason the military junta gave was extreme corruption by officials of that republic. Even though subsequent military administrations became corruption personified, one would have taught that a period of sixteen years; 1983-1999, should have been long enough to have made the country’s so-called democrats have a re-think on their quest for materialism. Being conscious of the fact that the bane of democratic governments in Africa has, in most cases, been corruption in public offices, politicians in Nigeria should have, by now, learnt their lessons and turned born-again office holders.
Appraising it from a wider spectrum, what does a state governor, for instance, need gain looting his state’s treasury? The constitution under which the governor operates offers him the privilege of serving for a maximum of two tenures of four years each. During this period, the state takes care of almost every need of the governor and his nuclear family. The food his family eats, their medical bills, travelling allowances, including estacode, clothing, security and Sundry allowances are inextricably borne by the state. Besides, the governor enjoys a very unusually handsome salary. Plus or minus, the governor’s legitimate cumulative financial benefit in a month is higher than the cumulative of fifty serving professors in a Federal University put together. What does a governor with such incomparable streak of legitimate earning intend to achieve looting the government treasury? Given that he is a politician; he could devote forty percent of his gross income as governor to oiling his political machinery and ten percent as tithe. He could then use the remaining fifty percent as savings and solving of family problems. Our experience from 2015 general election has clearly shown that it is only goodwill that can determine electoral success. Goodwill in this context implies the quantifiable level of transparency inherent in an administration, financial ingenuity and management, visible achievements of the administration, vision of government and substantiable application of equity, justice and fairness lucidly exhibited by the governor. Goodwill can not be acquired by excessive stealing of the people’s wealth. Rather, once the masses are convinced that an occupant of public position has proven himself a kleptomaniac, the electorate would manage to exercise all the patience they can muster only for them to vote against the official and his political party in the next election, even in the official’s polling booth. This humiliating experience was common during the election of 28th March and that of 11th April, 2015. Many notable politicians witnessed their political parties fail openly and woefully in their polling units, in their own very presence. Enough lessons should, long before now, have been learnt by Nigerian politicians. To say it unequivocally, experience has shown that many public officials who accumulated much wealth by virtue of their positions and used same to erect what they considered to be beautiful edifices in the first republic later realized that such mansions even lost their beauty while they were still alive. Above all, it was evident that their children, when they grown up, had no interest in such bogus buildings. One may still remember the People’s Palace of Arondizuogu. As attractive as it was when it was built in the first republic, it is doubtful if any meaningful living is taking place in it today.
Currently-speaking, at least five former governors and a former Head of Service of the Federation are either in prison Custody or on stringent bail conditions on allegations of criminal embezzlement of public fund. The most disheartening and shameful is that the allegations against them by the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission also involve some close members of their families. The former governor of Adamawa State; Vice Admiral Murtala Nyoko (Rtd) and his son; Abdulaziz Nyako who is a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, are facing trial in a Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Evoh Chukwu over a 37-count charge, bordering on corruption and money laundering involving well over fifteens billion naira. Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa State is having integrity questions to clear with the anti-graft agency. Ex-Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State is having a running battle with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over allegations of corrupt practices while in office as governor. Former Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and two of his sons, Aminu and Mustapha, have just been reprimanded at the Federal Prison in Kano over an allegation of receiving a Kick-back of N1.35b from a government contractor. In his own case, Mr Ikedi Ohakim; former governor of Imo State, has managed to secure a N270m bail for a correspondent N270m fraud allegedly perpetrated in 2008. An erstwhile Head of service of the federation; Mr Steve Osagide Orosanye, is currently facing a 24-count charge bordering on fraud and money laundering amounting to N1.9b before Justice Gabriel Kolawole.
These instances are a disgrace and shame to Nigeria’s democracy. Even though they have not been pronounced guilty by the respective courts of competent jurisdiction handling their trials it is embarrassing that our ‘leaders’ could box themselves into the ridiculous extent of being, in the first instance, suspects. In their pomposity and arrogance, these former governors had gone by the spurious title of ‘Your Excellency’ without knowing the implication of such an appellation. If one is excellent, it means that such a person is urbane, meticulous, decent, diligent, frank and uncompromisingly transparent. Anyone with the afore-mentioned qualities can not condescend to the very low and demeaning level of being a thief of public treasury. Fraudulent public officials are not only a disgrace to themselves but are to their immediate families, communities and even tribes.
It is painfully a sharp contradiction that ‘leaders’ who had been addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ and having been immersed in all the paraphernalia of power should, after four or eight years of such colourful euphoria, end up having the prison as their waiting-lodge. In other political climes, the axiom ‘Once bitten, twice Shy’ makes a lot of sense. People learn from the mistakes of their past and build a very virile society therefrom. Since Flt.Lt. Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana revolutionized and sanitized the Ghanaian polity in 1979, Ghana, both private and public Sectors, became a beautiful place to behold. The economy of Ghana that had been shattered because, as Ayi Kwei Armah would put it, the beautiful ones were not yet born, had been revitalized and made very internally buoyant and externally attractive. When the economy was in the woods, Ghanaian professionals; teachers, medical doctors, architects and many others ran to Nigeria and the ‘Ghana Must Go bag’ became very popular in Nigeria. True to optimistic prophecy, Ghanaians later went back home. Today, Ghanaians that were economic refuges in Nigeria some years ago are now proud hosts of Nigerians who troupe into Ghana as students, tourists, business men and economic migrants. Ironically, the bag that is popular in Ghana today is ‘Nigeria Must Come’. What a shame!
While the nomenclature ‘Ghana Must Go’ was prophetically assured, the label ‘Nigeria Must Come’ is an aspersion that calls to question the collective integrity and transparency of Nigerian leaders, intelligentsia, elites, the electorate and all.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
07-07-2015.

THE SPIRITUAL ANGLE OF BOOK HARAM PSYCHOSIS.
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI)

The voices yelled and wailed! The cries of the innocent rented the Northern hemisphere!! The blood of the crimeless gushed and submerged the Northern dominion!!! This scenario reminds Nigerians, especially and painfully the Igbo of the unrestricted yet unjustified massacre of thousands of the people of defunct Eastern Region of Nigeria who were resident in the former Northern Region by Northerners.
In African tradition, the protection and safety of a visitor is a cherished responsibility of his host. The same tradition abhors the shedding of blood of an innocent and defenceless visitor. In consonance with Western civilization, the African tradition acknowledges that rapidity of development of an area could be facilitated by a cross-pollination of inputs by both indigenes and residents, alike. The more cosmopolitan a city wears, the more rapid its developmental transformation becomes.
Every tribe or ethnic group has its characteristics or features. The Igbo of Nigeria are without an exception. No matter the depth of hatred other Nigerians would have against the Igbo, they would always acknowledge that the Igbo are among the most ingenious, industrious, adventurous, ubiquitous and city builders and developers. If a visitor gets to any part of Nigeria, no matter how remote, the chances of seeing and even meeting a non-indigene who is an Igbo would be 60/40. The Igbo are the most mobile in Nigeria. Their nature encourages them to explore the unknown.
Before the stupidity that is Boko-Haram, if any visitor went as far as Doro, that is after Monguno and Bagga in Bornu State, seventy percent of non-indigenous Nigerians there were the Igbo. The same reality would be on ground if one got to Ikere-Ekiti in Ekiti State. Where ever the Igbo finds himself, he would not only adapt to the environment but would work himself to the enviable position of a socio-economic contributor. If he is not running a patent medicine store, a small restaurant that would later blossom into a hotel, a mechanic workshop, a motor spare part shop or a provision store, he could be very meaningfully busy running a school or even engaged in a church missionary activity. For the Igbo, there is no dull moment. He works hard, no matter how deeply poor his background might be, to create wealth and transform his status to a higher economic standing. After many years of legitimate struggles in his place of abode, he would consider it useful building and owning his own house so as to save himself from the financial headache of house rent. He acquits himself very creditably in the discharge of his civic obligations by paying his taxes and obeying the laws of the land in which he sojourns. He considers his place of sojourn more important to him than even his place of nativity in Igbo Land. This is the nature of the Igbo.
The coup d’e’tat that took place on 15th January, 1966 and which led to the untimely and unfortunate death of great Nigerians of northern extraction, such as the late Prime-Minister, Sir Abubarkar Tafa Balewa, the late Premier and strongman of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello and others was master-minded by officers of the Nigerian Army. Though Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu was an Igbo, no Igbo or defunct Eastern Civilian was privy to it. It was entirely a military initiative and execution.
Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo who was the most senior Army officer at the time of Nzeogwu-led military putsch did not, himself, support it. He vehemently frowned at it. He became Head of State and commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria only by virtue of being the most senior in the Army.
In retaliation, Nigerian Army officers of Northern-Nigeria Origin plotted and executed their own coup on 29th July, 1966. Major-Gen. Ironsi, who was on an official visit to Western Region and being a guest of the military Governor of the Region, Lt-col. Francis Adenkunle Fajuyi, at Government Lodge Ibadan, was arrested with his host and driven to a forest, about ten kilometers away and brutally killed. Nigerian Army Officers of Eastern Nigeria origin were hunted from barrack to barrack and mercilessly murdered. The killing of these soldiers took place simultaneously in the West and North of Nigeria, mainly by soldiers of Northern origin. It was only very few soldiers of the former Eastern region that managed to escape or survive the onslaught.
Naturally, one would have reasoned that since a crime committed by a group of soldiers had been avenged by Northern soldiers and their fellow Northerner had succeeded in becoming the new Head of State, in the person of Gen. Yakubu Gowon, that sanity could have been restored so that Nigeria would forge ahead as a United country. Alas! This was not to be. Having killed all the Igbo soldiers they could lay their hands on, the Nigerian soldiers of Northern extraction then combined, in the most heartless, bizarre and inhuman fashion, with the Northern civilian population to slaughter Easterners, particularly the Igbo in the North of Nigeria. It was an orgy yet to be equaled in human history.
In wars, there are principles or conventions that must be observed and respected. Women, children and the aged are expected to be spared during wars. But in the pogrom mounted, perpetrated and even perpetuated by the North against the Igbo, pregnant women of nine months old had their stomachs vertically cut into two and the foeus brutally detached from the womb and smashed on the ground. The aged and the children had their eyes plucked out and their tongues slitted. Christians who ran into churches, hoping that the rampaging Northerners would spare their lives in acknowledgement of the presence of God were butchered in the churches.
In predominantly Christian areas of the North where the Igbo Christians had thought they would be saved by their Northern Christian faithfuls, the situation was not different from the massacre in such core moslim towns of Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Sokoto, Yola, Maidugiri, Damaturu and Bauchi. The Northern Christians of the North even laid siege on their Igbo Christian fellows in their churches on Sundays and wiped them away. Who ever that witnessed or heard stories of the carnage that took place in Northern Nigeria in 1966 would label General Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Army of Germany a saint.
Even the Igbo women and children who had managed to leave some towns of the North on board Enugu-bound trains got their lives most brutally terminated at Markurdi. All these victims, the women, the children and the old, were completely harmless and defenceless. The number of Easterners that were cold-bloodedly annihilated by Northerners in the North of Nigeria ran into hundreds of thousands. These are people who were killed for no humanly justifiable cause. The Igbo that were liquidated in this extremity of cruelty, perceiving the termination of their lives in a few seconds must have lamented to God in Heaven to avenge their innocent blood. Their relations in the East, that would later be compelled by the uniqueness of their circumstances to become the Federal Republic of Biafra, must also have taken their petition to God for His vengeance.
Nature has laws that are specifically given to guide the conduct and affairs of mankind. One of such laws is the one that instructs that man shall not kill. In the Bible book of Genesis, Cain killed his brother Abel because of envy, greed and pride. God was not happy at the murder of Abel by Cain and, so, placed curses on him. For those who are conversant with the Torah, Cain, after his seventh generation, was killed by one of his own descendants, Lemech. Man remains the highest and most precious creature by God. As the Bible puts it, He created man in the own image and gave him dominion over every other thing under heaven.
After Goodluck Jonathan’s successful presidential election in 2011, the Boko-Haram became uncontrollably violent, bombing churches in the North of Nigeria. Motor-parks in which Igbo-owned luxury buses that were southern-bound were targeted and many lives lost. President Jonathan rose to the challenge of that inhuman unconventional innovation but the Northern elites and establishments conspired against him. They accused him of hiding under the fight against Boko-Haram to prosecute an ethnic cleansing of the Muslim North. Both Governor Muritala Nyako of Adamawa State and Gen. Muhammed Buhari openly told the world that Jonathan’s war against insurgency was an anti-North agenda. Jonathan is a human-being and, taking into consideration the vulnerability of the Nigerian State, could be demoralized. Infact, the North, especially the Moslem North, did every thing to discourage Jonathan’s administration from giving his best in the fight against Boko-Haram. It was obvious the core moslem North wanted to take undue advantage of the Islamist insurgency to push Jonathan out of office. During the 2015 Presidential campaigns, Muhammadu Buhari promised his election would mark the end of the evil called Boko-Haram.
Nigerians have given their mandate for him to implement the much orchestrated change his party; the All Progressive Congress, promised them. More than thirty-eight days after being sworn-in, there are no visible signs that Buhari had rehearsed his agenda before using them as election propaganda. Rather, the Boko-Haram has become deadlier and more ruthless, with impunity. They have killed more than twenty percent of the number they killed in Jonathan’s six years of Presidency. Painfully and embarrassingly, the Buhari administration has started to appear losing focus or interest in fighting insurgency. Not long ago, Amnesty International came up with a preposterous and absurd report that Boko-Haram suspects were being subjected to torture by the Nigerian Security Agencies, an allegation the Nigerian military had since denied. But on his part, the President says he will investigate it. Instead of arresting the extent of the insurgency, the Federal Government of Buhari is trying to escalate it by sending many Boko-Haram suspects to the Eastern part of the country. The Presidency now appears confused. Just to cut a very long matter short, the Boko-Haram insurrection and the constant bloody conflict between the Fulani herdsmen and Northern Minorities in Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Benue and Nassarawa, to mention a few, would continue to be on the increase except the innocent blood of the Igbo that was barbarically and remorselessly gushed by Northerners in their territory in 1966 is atoned for. This is the Spiritual angle and should serve as a lesson to them against inceasant butchering of their fellow human-beings.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani

CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
29 – 06 – 2015.

A NATURAL HARVEST OF NEMESIS IN NIGERIA’S EIGHTH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

Any day man learns to appreciate the golden rules of nature is the day the human society will become sanitized, safe and comfortable to live in. There are many of such rules that man would not deny knowledge of except by caving in to pretentious amnesia. The one that would be highlighted in this essay is the first one which instructs, ‘treat others as you wish to be treated’. Can any other injunction be as humanly comprehensively compelling as this?
This reminds us of the Greek goddess of vengeance, called Nemesis. In Greek mythology, Nemesis was always relied upon to met out deserved punishment for any wrong doing. According to the belief system of the Greeks, every action attracts a deserved fate. The knowledge or belief that Nemesis exists in whatever one does, dictates that one should apply some caution in what one does. Nemesis, therefore, is synonymous with retributive justice.
There are countless instances in which Nemesis had given good account of itself. The only inhibition is that man is so hardened that no matter how difficult and frequent a punishment is, he seldom learns a lesson. Cases of politicians who looted public treasuries and had their families ruined many years after leaving office abound. Yet in the immediate past democratic dispensation, looting of public treasury was made a virtue. Those involved knew the fate of those who had looted before them but that did not deter them.
In Nigeria, the People’s Democratic Party, P.D.P., had been in power for sixteen years, starting from 1999 to May 2015. As a human organisation, they had their ups and downs in governance. On March 28, 2015 Nigerians who went to poll decided to vote for a change. They voted, as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, for General Muhammadu Buhari as against the incumbent Jonathan as President. Thus the All Progressive Congress; A.P.C., emerged victorious in the election. The same wind of change saw A.P.C. produce majority of Senators and members of the House of Representatives. It was, therefore, quickly assumed that the government of A.P.C. at the national level would have no encumbrance, having secured a reasonable majority in the National Assembly. In a forest where the lion and tiger live, who would dare say the forest is unprotected?
Before continuing with this piece, a quick reminder on the configuration of the All Progressive Congress would be necessary. Having been electorally and politically dwarfed for sixteen consecutive years by the People’s Democratic Party, the opposition political Parties; the Action Congress of Nigeria led by Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the All Nigerian People’s Party headed by Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Convention People’s Party formed by General Muhammadu Buhari, a splinter group of All Progressive Grand Alliance piloted by Owelle Rochas Okorocha and a break-away faction of the People’s Democratic Party with Governors Chibuike Amachi of Rivers State, Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State, Ahmed Abdulfatah of Kwara State, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State and Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto, decided to come together and form a mega Party with a common agenda which was to remove Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as President.
Whether they were birds of a feather or not did not matter to them, as long as the only agenda which was Jonathan’s exit from the seat of power made sense to each group. Ironically, the All Nigerian Congress that had long tagged itself a progressive party and had ceaselessly criticized everything in and about the People’s Democratic Party was very willing to betray its Progressive posturing by readily going into an undefined alliance with the five governors of P.D.P. as stated above and many Senators and Federal Representatives from the same P.D.P. Probably out of naivety, Bola Tinubu, who had been confined to regional leadership in the South-West, where he is assumed to be hero-worshipped by his people, under estimated the implication of an unwieldy conglomeration of political groups that had long pursued power or long been in power from sharply different directions. It was also imponderable that Bola Tinubu who from the look of things, had the obsession of asserting leadership and control over the new party failed to tell himself the simple truth that these political dissenters from the People’s Democratic Party had been used to playing the role of political god-fatherism. It would, therefore, amount to extreme simplicity of thought for any politician to assume that they were coming in merely to take instructions from another politician that had not even exceeded their electoral political height. So, right from the foundation-laying of the alliance, the stage was unambiguously set for implosion and cataclysm. No doubt, this is the price of political desperation.
Every politician of note nurses some aspiration. Apart from wining or helping his or her party win an election, he or she is no less interested in the sharing of political positions. The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigerian 1999, as amended, stipulates that, for purposes of equity, justice and fairness, positions in the country shall be distributed in line with federal character principles. Unarguably, there are six geo-political zones in Nigeria; North-central, North-East, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West.
In the National Assembly, a dominant party has six positions to share amongst its members in either chamber. There are two presiding officers; the President of the Senate and the Speaker in the House of Representatives, respectively. In the same vein, there is a Deputy President of the Senate and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. In addition, there are four principal Officers; The Majority Leader, Deputy Majority Leader, Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip in either of the chambers. The interesting coincidence here is the relationship between the number of positions in a chamber and the number of geo-political zones in the country. Under normal circumstances, six positions meant for six zones should not constitute any problem being shared as each Zone would simply get one. But this, by the wisdom of the Tinubu-led All Progressive Congress, was not to be.
The legislature has suffered a lot of deprivation and stunted growth in Nigeria. Of the three arms of government; Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, it was only the legislature that was always suspended each time he military had struck in Nigeria. This means that for the twenty-nine years the Nigerian military held sway in the country the legislature was non-existent whereas the Executive and Judiciary were functional. Even when the country returned to a democratic rule in 1999, the legislature faired badly under the domineering influence of President Olesegun Obasanjo who was not prepared to allow the arm any degree of independence, even inter-dependence.
The legislators, it would seem, have since resolved to exercise their inter-dependence, so to say. They now believe that, as a separate arm of government with direct mandate of the electorate, they should be able to determine their internal leadership. This was the Psychological pulse of the federal law-makers when on June 9th, 2015 they had assembled for the eighth National Assembly. Prior to that day, the leadership of the All Progressive Congress had conducted a tele-guided mock election in which Senator Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, from the North-East was said to have emerged the President of the Senate while Senator George Akume from the North-Central was billed to be the Deputy President of the Senate. For the House of Representatives, the A.P.C ‘internal democracy’ had tipped Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, from South-West as Speaker and Honourable Tahir Monguno, from North-East, as the Deputy Speaker.
It would appear that the leadership of All Progressive Congress failed to take very serious cognizance of the fact that in sharing offices in a party such as theirs, emphasis should not only be placed on Zones but equally on the groups that made up the alliance. In their wild assumption, they ‘forgot’ that the group that came from the People’s Democratic Party was not prepared, in any way, to be ignored. In the calculation of the New P.D.P., since Buhari’s Convention People’s Party had produced the President in the name of General Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu’s All Nigerian Congress had produced the vice President in the person of Prof Yemi Osinbanjo, it would not be too ambitious a dream if it produced the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the All Progressive Congress, may be still out of inexperience, failed to realize the potential influence of the newly turned but highly experienced and sophisticated P.D.P. in the National Assembly. The P.D.P., being like a lion that had been brutally wounded, gave the impression that it was merely hibernating in the National Assembly. It was only the inexperienced that could conclude that P.D.P. would not have any hand in the leadership that would emerge from the eighth National Assembly. As it turned out to be, Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara, former members of P.D.P., went into alliance with elected members of their former party and the result was victory for them as President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively. The most worrisome to A.P.C. is the democratic emergence of P.D.P’s Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy President of the Senate.
Mention must, however, be made of the show of shame put up by Members of the All Progressive Congress on the floor of the House of Representatives on 25th June, 2015. Members of the Party, being divided along the lines of Dogara and Gbajabiamila, had thrown caution and decency to the wind when they declared a free-for-all over appointments of Principal Officers of their party in the House. Infact, it was the most dishonourable occurrence on the floor of the House of since the return of democratic governance in 1999.
In all these developments within the leadership and membership of the All Progressive Congress, there remains a very simple but certainly instructive lesson to be learnt by all and that is ‘that whatever one sows, one reaps’. The All Progressive Congress had, in 2011, sown ‘Tabuwalization’ and have, in 2015, harvested the double portion of ‘Sarikism and Dogarism.’ Who says there is no Nemesis?

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
22 – 06 – 2015

ARREARS OF NIGERIAN WORKERS’ SALARIES, A SAD COMMENTARY
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

There are fundamentals that are given in any human relationship. In labour, for instance, the natural law is that the labourer deserves his wages. This implies an indisputable obligation on the part of the employer to pay his employee at the end of service delivery. By the culture of civil or public service, as introduced in Nigeria by the British colonial administration, each worker optimistically expects to be paid at the end of each calendar month. This natural law is reinforced, in the Christian faith, in 1st Timothy 5:18 and Luke 10:7, the summary being that the labourer deserves his wages.
It may be necessary to state that civil servants are employees of government that are paid from the public treasury and who, by virtue of their code of conduct and dedication to service are exempted from such other engagements as part-time or casual jobs in private establishments, involvement in petty trades or any other contractual agreement outside the one already entered into with government. This means that the civil servant has no other means of livelihood.
Apart from corruption that has eaten deep into the fabrics of the Nigerian society, the civil servant depends only on his or her monthly salary which is expected to be paid periodically within an average range of thirty days. Being aware of his regulated financial situation, the civil servant is known to be very meticulous and prudent in managing his regimented income. He lives a very simple life style that is devoid of flamboyance and financial recklessness. The only ambition that the civil servant pursues is systematic growth in his or her service. In order to achieve this, he makes educational pursuit a cardinal objective. In those good old days, many civil servants spent most of their earnings on correspondent courses in order to obtain additional qualifications while some others would seek for study leave just to further their education as to guarantee advancement in their chosen career.
Civil servants help governments of the day develop and deliver their policies as effectively as possible. Government policies in such areas as education, health, agriculture and revenue, would be very difficult, if not impossible, to implement in the absence of civil servants.
One interesting surprise the civil servant epitomises is his rare ability to manage to raise a home, train his children and build a house in his village before or after his retirement. All these he achieves through effective management of his little income regime.
In those days when Nigeria had not been known for oil revenue, that is to say when regional governments depended only on revenue from agriculture, taxes and other sources of internal revenue, it would be unfathomable to imagine that civil servants could be owed at the end of any month. No responsible government ever dared it. As it is always said, every field of human endeavour has its register. In government/civil servants’ relationship, payment of civil servants is considered as government’s first charge. To put it mildly, government has no business, not to think of justification owing civil servants.
To the chagrin many Nigerians, the sacrosance that hitherto hovered around the civil servant, with particular regards to his salary, has been desecrated. This, to all intents and purposes, could pass as what Christians consider as anathema. For every anthropological dislocation, there must be causes. Yes, the Nigerian economy, which was irresponsibly and unfortunately made mono-cultural by the country’s rulers, has, starting only from a couple of months ago, been experiencing some turbulence. The quality and price of crude oil have witnessed a down-ward turn in the international market. Since the country’s rulers, not leaders, were reckless in the management of the resources available to them during the surplus era of the economy, every sector of the polity now appears to have been submerged in an abrupt volcanic eruption.
Numerous factors were responsible for the creation of this unhealthy precarious atmosphere for the Nigerian public servants. To begin with, majority of Nigeria’s rulers, at the different tiers of government, came into governance with a selfish motif. A good number of them came in with the sole aim of amassing wealth to the detriment of the people that elected them. There is hardly any state governor that left office after eight years whose aim was not to become, at lease, ten times richer and even wealthier than the state he governed. This was why many of them created de-facto governors in their wives and children, just to facilitate unlimited acquisition, left, right and centre. How would a state with scarce resources that the constitution provided for only a governor survive having in actuality three voraciously competing and ravaging governors? Each time the monthly allocation came from Abuja, the Accountants-General of the states would be under a barrage of directives, all instructing that all the frivolous claims of the governors, their wives and children be treated as first charge. The claims of the governors, in most cases, would include debts incurred hiring private aeroplanes to and fro Abuja. Some other times, they could include out of pocket expenses on haulage of hundreds of praise singers to Abuja to receive awards that had no relevance, whatsoever, on hunger-emasculated indigenes of their states. By the time the Accountants–General would be done with the long list of the governors’ first charge, money meant for the states would have been depleted by more than sixty percent and payment of workers’ salary automatically becomes stalled.
The voraciousness of Nigeria’s political office holders is also manifested in the manner in which contracts are awarded. The projects they embark upon do not, in any way, help to grow the economy of their states. The saddest aspects of their so-called projects is that the amount of money they claim was used in realizing just one project is money that can realize ten of such projects in a transparent clime. This is why many of the states were coerced into signing fraudulent irrevocable payment orders with some banks in favour of contractors. These fraudulent contractors had acted as conduit-pipes for many of the governors and in order to compensate them, the future and fortunes of the states were left at their beck and call. In a horrible situation such as this, can such governments pay workers’ salaries?
Every year, a state government presents her budget to the state House of Assembly. In the budget outlay, it is always given that a certain percentage of her revenue will be internally generated. Any state government that has a leadership that has the interest of the masses at heart will be capable of raising between thirty and forty percent of her annual budget via an internal mechanism. After all, there is no state in this country that God did not endow with enough resources that can help run its budget by, at least, forty percent. Again, the obstacle on the way of this source is the instability of Nigerian leaders. In the states, for instance, some of the governors bring in their relations, in-laws and cronies and handover the internal revenue of their states to them after having collected huge sums of money upfront from them. These desperate revenue contractors, in order to recoup their ‘investment’, unleash the worst form of economic terror on the poor citizens. This desperation leads to multiple taxation, crumples up the economy, sets frustration and ends up leading to crimes that should, otherwise, have been avoided. In this circumstance, revenue from this source can not help in settling workers’ salary because it has already helped the governor, whose vaulting ambition is to be ten times richer and wealthier than the state.
Security of lives and property of Nigerians has never been doubted if it is the constitutional responsibility of government. If there are no people living, the government would not be in existence because there would be no person or persons to govern. It is, therefore, the existence of people that justifies the existence of governments. It is, however, disheartening that many governors in the recent past collected upto thirty percent of their states’ statutory allocation from the Federal Account Allocation Committee as ‘security vote’ but converted more than seventy percent of it to their personal use. The unanswered question had been; how can a government guarantee security in parts of a state that can not be accessed by vehicles, motor-cycles or even bicycles because of the terrible state of their roads? Criminals in such infrastructurally neglected areas would always have a field day. But had there ‘been application of discipline, patriotism, prudence and transparency in the management of the so-called security vote, fifty percent of whatever sum was collected as security vote could have been channelled towards payment of worker’s salaries.
Reports from reliable sources indicate that as at 31st May, 2015 eighteen states were owing arrears of salary to their workers. Two of these states are from the south-Eat, three from the South-South, one from the North- East, three from the North- Central, five from the South –West and four from the North West. This is a clear evidence of irresponsibility in the management of public fund.
Analysts on this sad commentary must not fail to ask what the governors did with the April 2015 share of their federal allocation. The April allocation was meant to pay salaries of May but in their greed to empty their states’ treasuries, they make sure that every money that came in before they left office was completely embezzled.
What appears to have received attention from the public is the huge arrears of salary owed civil servants. Would anybody imagine that Nigerians who spent their youthful age serving their states in various capacities before their retirement are owed more than ten months by their state governments. Of course, no pensioner dreams of being paid gratuities in most of the states.
It must also be pointed out that, apart from the greed of state governors, the civil servants are agents of woes of their fellow civil servants. The Accountants-General are highly placed civil servants but they are the ones who readily serve as tools for the frustration of their colleagues in service. They connive with their state governors to loot their states dry and, by so doing, wreck havoc on the welfare of civil servants. The Unions that operate within the sphere of the civil or public service do not even help matters. The Executive Members of the unions use their positions to advance their individual interest and, so, compromise the collective interest and welfare of the majority of their members.
The time has come when every civil or public servant should shine his or her eyes to make sure they do not continue to be victims of the greed of those elected to manage their fortune. It is also time for civil society organizations to live up to their responsibilities by drawing the attention of agencies that can help checkmate the excesses of gullible officials. For the civil society to be effective in this regard, those directly affected should pass the information. As for the governors that vandalized not only their state treasuries but shamelessly went away with every property in the government House, including those who went away with more than sixty vehicles that the new administration would be expected to pay for, they should not forget that they have only managed to go home with all the money but have lost all the honour.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
13TH JUNE, 2015

INEQUITY AND INEQUILIBRIUM IN LAST MINUTE RECRUITMENTS IN STATES.
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF SIR DON UBANI

Experience is one human skill and possession no society, where sanity and decency reign, should attempt to ignore. Be it in commerce, religion, politics or administration, experience counts a lot. Even wisdom itself becomes much more useful drawing from experience. It was because of experience from the realities of the Nigerian project that the authors of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, even as amended, provided for what has come to be known as ‘Federal Character’. By the dictate of this constitutional provision, recruitments into Federal Civil or Public Service shall reflect the geographical diversity of the Nigerian State. This constitutional dictation equally applies in appointments at the political level of the Federal Government. No doubt, the objective of this constitutional stipulation is to discourage inconsiderate, unpatriotic and avaricious highly placed Nigerians who, out of selfishness and meaness, would like to convert any given opportunity that exists for the benefit of the Nigerian people to their parochial advantage. Being conscious of the fact that nepotism has every potential to mar the growth of a society and also realizing that in any society where favouritism is allowed to thrive, discord and anarchy will always lurk and loom, the said constitution provides sufficiently a template for a harmonious progressive co-existence within the Nigerian State.
This same principle of ‘Federal Character’ has literally given rise to what is known and accepted in Nigeria’s Political Lexicon as quota system’. By this quota system, if the Federal Government, through the Federal Civil service commission, has about forty vacancies to be filled up, it would be mandatory that each of the thirty-six States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja gets one of the positions being filled. If, for instance, the vacancies are about eight, the Federal Civil Service Commission, in conformity with the constitutional requirement would allocate the positions in such a way that each of the six geo-political zones of the country would get, at least, one.
In the same vein, the constitution clearly demands that the application of the quota system at the Federal level shall be replicated at the state level. This means that any vacancies to be filled up by the Civil Service Commission of any state of the Nigerian Federation shall, by constitutionality, reflect the geo-political entities and interest that make up and exist in the state.
By way of achieving this laudable constitutional objective, before embarking on any recruitment exercise, the state Civil Service Commission is, by law and therefore, obligation, required to advertise the vacancies available. This is to create the required awareness in members of the public and subsequently elicit applications from suitable unemployed members of the society. Pursuant to this guiding principles, examinations and interviews would be conducted by the recruiting authority. At the end, employment would be given to successful applicants but not in any way in exclusion of the quota system. If, for instance, a state government that has a seventeen local government area structure is recruiting about five hundred workers, the least each local government area should get is twenty-nine workers.
Many constitutional analysts have often expressed dismay each time some Nigerians criticize the 1999 constitution. The problem with Nigeria has never been with the constitution but in its implementation. Should any patriotic Nigerian fault the constitution in the area of federal character application? This provision is definitely a well thought-out mechanism by the authors to guarantee equity and equilibrium within the socio-econo-political firmament of the entire polity.
Sadly and regrettably, many Nigerians elected into public offices and who swore to protect the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have, more often than not, been violating and equally desecrating the constitution. It is a well known and acknowledged fact that state governors swore on oath that whatever they will do as governors of their respective states shall be in strict adherence to the tenets of the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But the question has always been; are their actions in tune with the provisions of the constitution? Ofcourse, the answer has more of ‘no’ than ‘yes’.
It should be restated here that the Nigerian constitution makes the welfare of the Nigerian Citizens a fundamental responsibility of the government, whether it is at the federal, state or the Local government level. Welfare for citizens includes provision of employment for the youths within the society.
One can rightly say that the conduct of some of the immediate past state governors in the area of job creation was, to put it very mildly, nothing to write home about. Many of them stayed in office for eight years. Because of the excessive greed in them, many of them decided not to declare job vacancies in their government. They avariciously felt that coming up with a full-scale agenda on employment would affect their states’ financial strength and would make them have less money to loot from the public treasury. Even though they were doing secret skeletal sectional employment, they deliberately left any agenda on employment in the cooler as if job creation was not part of their responsibility.
However, in the last six months of their tenure some of the state governors went wild in their craze for illegal mass employment of graduates from their particular clans and, therefore, negating the constitutional directives on employment into the state civil or public service. It is very embarrassing and equally heart-breaking that a governor whose government refused to employ people within seven and half years of his eight-year tenure would surreptitiously embark on employment exercise of more than five hundred graduates from his immediate clan, to the deliberate exclusion of other parts of this state. The most worrisome of this unpatriotic behaviour is that those vacancies were not advertised in order to give indigenes of the state from outside the governor’s clan the opportunity to, at least, make an attempt. This is an act of narrow-mindedness, selfishness, wickedness and man’s inhumanity to man. In the first instance, is it human and reciprocal that a governor who ascended his position on the strength of majority vote of the electorate should, on departure, reward those that laboured and voted him in with hatred and discrimination? It is this level of sadism and parochialism amongst Nigeria’s so-called leaders that has continuously constituted a clog on the wheel of the country’s development.
Another aspect of irresponsibility in conduct arising from these governors’ savagery or bestiality is the unholy connivance of chairmen and members of the civil service commission in the states were these murderous atrocities were committed by these sadomasochist governors.
Every enlightened Nigerian knows that the state civil service commission is a creation of the constitution. Both the chairman and members are on oath to protect the overall interest of Nigerians by sticking uncompromisingly to the provisions of the constitution. Worrisomely in place of their oath of office, they acted in collusion with these governors whose insatiability knows no limit to perpetuate various acts of unconstitutionality against the same people they swore to serve with dedication and diligence.
A very simple assignment that awaits the new governors is to take the path of equity and equilibrium by nullifying all the recruitments that did not follow due process, especially and uncompromisingly all the ones done in the last one year of the immediate past governors.
It is equally strongly suggested that any Civil Service Commission that is found to be entangled in this constitutional fraud and deceit should be dissolved without any waste of time. After all, if salt loses its taste, there would be no need keeping it. There is also the need for civil society organisations and activists in the affected states to rise up to the challenge by reporting these enemies of progress to appropriate authorities for proper investigation. The era of impunity is fast fading away in Nigeria and all hands must be on deck for it to become a thing of the past.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
09-06-2015

RESTORATION OF CONFIDENCE IN THE RESIDENTS OF THE ENYIMBA CITY OF ABA, NIGERIA
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

If there is any human engagement in which confidence is most required, it is in political leadership and followership. Confidence, which simply means belief or trust in oneself or another person has, in most cases, been the driving force behind any success or progress made in human society, either by an individual or by groups. It is synonymous with faith.
As it has been said over time, government initiates, articulates and propagates its policy objectives and anticipates the governed to queue into them for them to be translated into concrete achievements.
Many countries, the world over, are run using the tax payers’ money and this is why high premium is placed on accountability by government and people of such countries. In such countries like Great Britain, the United State of America, France and Germany, attainment or realization of government’s developmental objectives always rests on the volume of confidence the tax payers could repose in that particular government. One might, therefore, infer that developments in any given human society are concomitants of the magnitude of confidence that prevails between her leadership and followership.
Much had, before this piece, been written about the commercial city of Aba, also known as Enyimba City. Its emergence as a sub-district colonial headquarters following the relocation of that office from Akwete in 1903 and the rapidity of its growth in such sectors as commerce, industry and politics have equally been well domiciled in the repository of many archives in Nigeria and Britain.
The residents of Aba are known for their idiosyncrasies, which are propelled by the Enyimba Spirit. The Enyimba Spirit is driven by industry, ingenuity and the philosophy of ‘I can do it and we can do it’! Many past leaders, who appreciated this spirit, had deliberately and skilfully tapped into it and it yielded maximum results. A few instances may be useful here. After the establishment of the first television station at Enugu in 1960 under the aegis of Eastern Nigerian Broadcasting corporation by the former Premier of defunct Eastern Nigeria, Dr Michael Okpara, the strategic importance of Aba was highly acknowledged by establishing a relay station of the television at Aba. Thus, Aba became the second city in the whole of the defunct Eastern region of Nigeria to have a television station. That station, which is now the Nigerian Television Authority channel 6, Aba, gave a welcome boost to the revenue and economy of the government of the defunct Eastern region. In addition to the financial benefits, Dr. M.I. Okpara’s political Party; the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, N.C.N.C., enjoyed overwhelming followership and support. In the same vein, the late Chief Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe, as governor of the old Imo State, made Aba a focal point of its infrastructural programme. The aftermath of Mbakwe’s development of Aba was a near surplus internal revenue and unquantifiable political support for his Nigerian People’s Party, N.P.P.
One prominent character of Aba residents is their promptness in reciprocating kind gestures and same in casting aspersions on any one or group whose activities are considered inimical to their progress. Though during the 2015 general election some Aba residents were, for reasons only known to them vainly worrisomely opposed to the emergence of an Ukwa/Ngwa indigene as governor of Abia State, it would still be given to them that they could be very objective in assessment of issues.
Aba resident are basically traders, business men and women, artisans and creators of wealth. For a people in this category, what they expect from government is mainly provision or sustenance of infrastructural artefacts and other enabling facilities that would enhance their day to day legitimate pursuits. Of course, the question of security, in any democracy, is the responsibility of government. But these were not to be! In the last sixteen years, Aba was subjected to various devastating experiences. Between the early part of 2008 and the later part of 2010, Aba experienced a holocaust of insecurity. There was complete breakdown of law and order in Aba and its environs. Some disgruntled and misguided youths of the area had resorted to various forms of criminality that principally took the shape of kidnapping. A good number of them reasoned that coming from an area that had been deliberately marginalized and deprived for many decades, the only option left for them to express their frustration in a state that had been most unfair to their people was to embark on vices that, though could consume their lives, would end up making the world realize that all was not well in the state. This narrative brings to the fore the fact that criminality that erupted within the Ukwa/Ngwa geo-political zone of Abia State was not, in the least, habitual but was sharply reactionary.
Sixteen years of neglect and near-total abandonment of Aba and her residents certainly took a toll on the psychology of the residents of the once great and glorious Enyimba City. The British colonial masters that designed Aba Township gave it a befitting network of roads, which made Aba accessible from many flanks. Visitors coming from Uyo and Ikot-Ekpene were meant to go into Aba through Ikot-Ekpene road. But for more than ten years, the Abia axis of this road had been under the most terrible state of infrastructural decay and abandonment. The state of this very strategic road, the parochial watery argument on whether the road is owned by the state of federal government notwithstanding, has compelled traders from Cross-River and Akwa-Ibom states to divert their business activities from Aba to Onitsha. Port-Harcourt is a major trading partner to Aba. Even though a sea-port is located at Port-Harcourt more than eighty percent of the imported goods that arrive at the wharf in Port-Harcourt have their importers as Aba-based business men. The markets in Aba; Ariaria, Ekeoha, Cemetery, Ngwa Road, Ohabiam and Ehere, sell at prices that are enviously cheaper than markets in Port-Harcourt, Umuahia, Owerri, Ikot-Epene, Uyo and Calabar. Traders in Port-Harcourt, therefore, buy their wares from Aba. Alas! If there is any road that has suffered the worst form of abandonment in the history of infrastructural neglect the world over, it is Port-Harcourt road. The same fate befell Uratta and Faulks, through Ukwu Mango roads.
The twin devils of insecurity and infrastructural irresponsibility ended up forcing many wealthy Aba business tycoons to relocate to Port-Harcourt, Owerre, Ikot-Ekpene, Uyo, Lagos, Abuja and some other places. In all these, it was not only the neglected Aba that lost. Abia State lost double-barrelledly; leadership image and revenue generation. Ndi Igbo equally lost.
Aba situation became so frustrating that the city became a mere shadow of its past. Frustration became synonymous with residents of Aba. Since most of the roads were out of constructive human use, residents, who would not help matters, deconstructed them for use as refuse dumps. The scenario in Aba, between April 2015 and 29th May, 2015, for instance, was so frightening that between Opobo road junction and Ukaegbu road junction of Ikot-Ekpene road, one could count more than twenty heaps of uncordinated ‘refuse mountains’ in very terribly infectious decomposing putrid state. Their experience was so nauseous that Aba residents lost faith and confidence in both government and governance. This political cum psychological crescendo culminated in Aba residents widely booing, hooting and jeering at the state governor almost each time he came to Aba, including during such solemn occasions like burial of very highly placed Priests. The Aba picture looked anarchical and it appeared everything there was at sixes and sevens.
It was this scenario that was at hand when Dr Okezie Victor Ikpeazu emerged as the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party in Abia State. In the study of Psychology, one learns that transferred aggression is unprovoked hostility directed against someone for no specific offence or crime of the person but for the person’s name being, in one way or another, associated with another person whose conduct or activities have been adjudged to be injurious to those transferring the aggression. This human trait is psychologically normal. In being driven by this psychological dictate, majority of Aba residents, as made evident in their voting pattern in the governorship election of 2015, vowed not to support the candidacy of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu.
Whatever was the case, Dr Ikpeazu has become the governor of Abia State. To the glory of God and in keeping with his promises to recover Aba from its many years of infrastructural inconsideration and delinquency, he has dutifully put in motion a machinery that will actualized his dream of celebrating his administration’s first one hundred days in office with solid infrastructural recovery of seven key roads in Aba. A visit to such roads as Ukwu-mango-faulks, Ukaegbu, Umuocham, MCC, Kamalu and Umule would surely convince one that with determination, even in the midst of an inherited empty treasury, a government could put smiles on the faces of her citizens.
Expectedly and hilariously, Aba resident have started singing an entire different songs in less than two weeks of Dr Ikpeazu’s assumption of office as governor of Abia State. A good number of them now pray for the success of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu because he has shown that confidence lost in leadership could be restored through diligence. As Aba residents are encouraged to give maximum support to a government that is committed to the restoration of confidence by being environmentally friendly and performing their civic obligations, political psychophants, who even kneel down while speaking with a governor that has shown great humility by asking that the appellations; ‘your excellency and executive governor’ be not used in addressing him, should realize that the times have changed.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.