There was no Ibo at the meeting?

Dont we have Ibo cement manufacturers?


GEJ must not have extended invites to fake cement manufactures. . . Maybe!

Tweety121:

It's a very smart move to be fluent in a foreign language very few people know, especially as she's a journalist. She can work for CNN, BBC, Reuters, any news corps or networks around the world, and since there are many news stories relating to Nigeria (politics, oil, religious violence etc) she'll be the 'Nigerian correspondent' and will have few competitors.

She can also write books, teach classes or speak around the world as an expert in 'Yoruba/African Affairs.' She will always be in demand because of her rare skills as a white American fluent in Yoruba, and the more she learns about Yoruba/Nigerian culture, politics or history, the bigger will be her field of knowledge.

Condoleeza Rice got her position as US secretary of state because she was fluent in Russian.

I wish I'd learnt Mauritian or Mongolian or some other language obscure to the West cos you'll never suffer for lack of job. My children must learn Spanish/French or both at least, it guarantees a good career if you use it well.

Not so true at all. You need to go read about Condoleeza Rice.

This is getting really ridiculous

All of Ndigbo crying like little girls. I thing the SW caucus should take the high road. Let them have it.


This is really funny and ridiculous that grown arse men could be behaving like this


What a shame.

[size=18pt]Opposition mounts against south-west Speaker bid[/size]
By Festus Owete and Ini Ekott
May 16, 2011 01:02AM
print email


The south-east zonal caucus in the House of Representatives, on Sunday, rejected the zoning arrangement adopted by the national caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying the exclusion of the zone from producing the senate president and the speaker of the House was disappointing and regrettable.

It also added that it was an "affront to the psyche and well-being of its people." It, therefore, called on the national executive committee (NEC) of the party to revisit the arrangement and accede to the demand of the zone to produce either of the presiding officers of the National Assembly.

The PDP had on Tuesday night adopted the current power sharing formula in the party with minor adjustments.

One of the adjustments was that of the chairmanship of the party, now zoned to the north-east while the secretary to the government of the federation would come from the south-east zone.

The caucus meeting held at the presidential villa was attended by President Goodluck Jonathan, and his deputy, Namadi Sambo. Others at the meeting were the acting national chairman of the PDP, Bello Mohammed and other members of the national working committee (NWC), members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) and some governors.

It agreed that like the formula endorsed in 2007, the north-central zone would still produce the senate president, while the speaker would come from the south-west. The south-east would also produce the deputy senate president while the deputy speaker of the House will be produced by the north-east.

South-east revolt

In a statement signed by 33 lawmakers from Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Abia States, the caucus said denying the zone of either of the two offices was tantamount to insufficient recognition of the overwhelming support it gave both President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP.

"We reject the zoning formula recently adopted by the PDP with respect to major offices of government at the federal level, which we consider skewed against the south-east zone," it said.

The lawmakers added that "It is a widely acknowledged fact that the zone voted massively for PDP in all the offices contested in the last elections. PDP got 85 percent support in the National Assembly elections."

They noted that with only three returning PDP members out of five from the south-west in the incoming House of Representatives, the choice for leadership recruitment was limited.

According to them, the south-east had 18 cognate members in the incoming House, out of at least 33 current PDP members.

"We as elected representatives of the people of the zone cannot sit back and watch our people decimated politically, socially and economically," they said.

They also asked the NEC of the PDP, being the highest decision making body of the party, to re-visit this decision and accede to the demand of the south-east on this matter, adding "we are not begging to be given deserving and commensurate offices, we demand it."

Meanwhile, the aspiration of some lawmakers from the south-west to Speaker of the House was further threatened last Friday with the formation of a group in the House vowing to stop them. The group specifically vowed to stop the strongest contender among them, Ajibola Muraina, from emerging the Speaker.

Other contenders in the race are Mulikat Akade-Adeola and Kareem Tajudeen Abisogun. The trio are retuning PDP members from Oyo state. It was however gathered that the group, which is being bankrolled by some top PDP members, was not opposed to the zoning of the office of the Speaker to the south-west, but it is uncomfortable with the reported positioning of Mr Muraina to occupy the office because of his closeness to Mr Obasanjo.

A member of the group told journalists in Abuja on Friday that Mr Muraina's endorsement amounted to handing over the affairs of the entire National Assembly to Mr Obasanjo.

It claimed that Mr Muraina, who represents Ibarapa federal constituency of Oyo State, was handpicked by the former president for the plum job.

It also alleged that in the last four years, he can only be remembered for frustrating the probe of the $16 billon expended by the Obasanjo administration by the committee on power which he is a member.

Musa Sarkin Adar, a re-elected member, representing Goronyo/Gada federal constituency of Sokoto State, confirmed that he is a member of the group. Mr Adar, who is also the chairman of the House Committee on Electoral Matters, however, declined to give further details.

Speaking in a telephone interview, Ms Akande-Adeola, said the opposition of her colleagues from the south-east and the group would not stop her from going ahead with her campaign, saying it was a matter that the PDP should handle.

Ms Akande-Adeola, who represents the Ogbomosho North/South/Orire federal constituency of Oyo State, said that as a lawyer she was not afraid of the preponderance of men in the race for the position, insisting that her chances in the race were very bright.

Flexing muscles

Meanwhile, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) caucus in the House has opposed the zoning of the presiding offices in the National Assembly.

Leader of the caucus, Femi Gbajabiamila, in a telephone interview last night, said it was even wrong to zone an exalted position to three people. He also argued that since the president of the country and the chief justice of Nigeria, did not emerge through zoning, it was wrong to zone the offices in the National Assembly.

"I have never been an advocate of zoning and so if you say you are zoning the speakership to the south-west, it is a misnomer," Mr Gbajabiamila said. "Merit should not be sacrifice at the altar of zoning. I don't have a problem with somebody from south-west being speaker but we will not sacrifice merit at the altar of zoning."

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/Metro/Politics/5701162-146/opposition_mounts_against_south-west_speaker_bid.csp

tpia@:

@2buff

let the matter be.

i don explain tire.

Tpiah, see how guys dey fall over themselves for your dirty Yoruboid arse?

I dont think this is ordinary. O n te ndi, Tpiah. I have a feeling you are using jazz/ogun-ife on these guys.


It is working on them, but it will never work on me. Just telling you, in case you are thinking of doing some amudo/ogun-ife on me.

^^^

Do you pray for me?

^^^

Still waiting for the link?

^^^

100, 000 and the govt is doing nothing.

Can you connect me with the people stealing our oil? I think they real the real patriots.  I'd rather do that for a year than work at a stupidddd bank in Lagos.

alex101:

To even think of this in the 1st place is an insult How can you leave as the VP of the world bank and be a SFG of the devil's paradise called nigeria

Well, if she accept such post, then she is an efulefu

Are we talking of the same Bretton Woods Institutions being run by doofuses like Iweala, Paul Wolfowitz, and that r/a/p/i/s/t, whats his name again, oh yeah, hun, Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

The same World bank that came up with SAP for developing countries in the 90s?

tpia@:

What's funny? ??

Do you think i havent noticed your extremely limited knowledge about anything pertaining to yoruba.

Glad someone finally caught me. But where? link please?

Better join your buddy walestar in sexuality since no IQ is needed there.

Thanks for the advice. I definitely will do as you suggest

Yeah, i saw through your disguise and fake attempts to seem learned.

Disguise to seem learned? By posting research articles from Historians whose job it is to sift through/analyse and present facts from contradictory and confusing essays and nonsensical balderdash that people like you post. You think, I'd read your crap and ignore well supported articles?

Pray tell, what did I post that was not true. Well, i didnt know that trying to hit on girls on the WWW is something only learned people do.

And, just so there is no confusion between us in the future, I, Zstranger, of the Zstranger IS NOT LEARNED FAME, hereby SOLEMLY DECLARE TO YOU TPIAH THAT I AM NOT LEARNED.  Satisfied?

I doubt you'd even recognise a yoruba person if they stood on your ear.

Of course not. First, I am not an anthropologist.  Second, I have people phobia so I dont meet too many diverse/YORUBA people and it would be really difficult for me to differentiate and categorize people into different ethnic groups based on their looks alone. Third, I am legally blind, all women look the same to me, likewise men. Fourth, I have a job and I am busy, so spending time trying to understand how to categorize people based on facial looks alone isnt exactly my idea of productivity. Fifth, I love s3x, and when I see a good lay, trying to figure out their ethnicity would be ridiculous, and against all Darwin, my God, stood for. Sixth, it is energy consuming. Why analyse their facial looks when you can simply ask them.

I can go on and on as to why I wouldnt be able to "recognize a Yoruba person even if they stood on my ears," but, eh, I have other things to do, like going to hang out with  some of my buddies and some, guess what, incredibly awesome White chicks. Actually, one of them is Canadian. She is really hot Tpiah.

^^^

ROFLMAO!

@Musiwa,


WTF is wrong with you?

dem_people:



Are u okay or you're just being unnecessarily sexist?

After all, Ibo females are the most beautiful in the world, not to talk of their easy grasp of bed-matics.

Guy I've read that article when 234next published it via wikileaks. For the fact that it said he played a major role doesn't mean it wasn't Okonjo-Iweala that did the utmost. Just for the fact that Mrs. Iweala wasn't mentioned doesn't mean she played a minor part. Try and get it.

I agree with you. Its all conspiracy, engineered, of course by OBJ and his Yoruba cronies, to discredit Okonjo Iweala.

Anyhoo, Let her start from here, if she proves herself, then we can start thinking of giving her something more challenging.

She really doesnt have much to do to prove her capability, going by the standards set by her predecessor. As long as she doesnt go into Dame's kitchen in the next four years, she would be fine.

What if the population in the North is half what the official figure says, as some people have argued on this forum for ages. That means the North isnt really half as wealthy as the South.

Beaf:

Maybe she could become the first female VP or even President. The SGF post is even closer to the President than the VP one.

That is why she, and not HE, is being considered. If I were GEj, I would have given it to Bianca.

dem_people:


It was for the likes of you that I wrote a message in red just below the URL link in the article post. Try and read it and behave yourself.

How is my post tribalistic?

She is incompetent, just like Emeagwali, Dora, Iwu, Madueke, Deziani Allison-Madueke, Okadigbo etc

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5684996-146/aondoakaa_is_a_thug_say_us.csp

It was "Mansur Muhtar, the then Minister of Finance, who played THE major role in the negotiations that led to Nigeria's exit from the Paris and London Clubs of creditors," not the highly incompetent Okonjo Iweala!

Thats just fine for her.

Let her go suck GEJ's dyyck for a while. DOra did it, for Yaradumb and odechukwu.


Its time we exposed her stupidity and incompetence like the rest ( Dora, Emeagwali, Iwu, Okadigbo, etc)


No more taking credits for others' achievements!

^^^

Read through Katz'z post. All your questions have been answered.



Next!

Why is it so fun to be right? As pleasures go, it is, after all, a second-order one at best. Unlike many of life's other delights -- chocolate, surfing, kissing -- it doesn't enjoy any mainline access to our biochemistry: to our appetites, our adrenal glands, our limbic systems, our swoony hearts.
And yet, the thrill of being right is undeniable, universal, and (perhaps most oddly) almost entirely undiscriminating. The stakes don't seem to matter much; it is more important to bet on the right foreign policy than the right racehorse, but we are equally capable of gloating over either one.
Nor does subject matter; we can be just as pleased about correctly identifying an orange-crowned warbler or correctly identifying the sexual orientation of our co-worker. Stranger still, we're perfectly capable of deriving satisfaction from being right about disagreeable things: the downturn in the stock market, say, or the demise of a friend's relationship, or the fact that, at our spouse's insistence, we just spent 15 minutes schlepping our suitcase in exactly the opposite direction from our hotel.

Like most delectable experiences, rightness isn't ours to enjoy all the time. Sometimes, we're the one who loses the bet (or the hotel). And sometimes, too, we suffer grave doubts about the correct answer or course of action -- an anxiety that, itself, reflects our desire to be right.
On the whole, though, and notwithstanding these lapses and qualms, our indiscriminate enjoyment of being right is matched by an almost equally indiscriminate feeling that we are right.
Being wrong: Where aviation got it right
At times, this feeling spills into the foreground, as when we argue or evangelize, make predictions or place bets. Often, though, it is just psychological backdrop. Most of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts.
As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.

This serene faith in our own rightness is often warranted. Most of us navigate day-to-day life fairly well, after all, which suggests that we are routinely right about a great many things. And sometimes we are not just routinely right but spectacularly right: right about the orbit of the planets (mathematically derived long before the technology existed to track them); right about the healing properties of aspirin (known since at least 3000 BC); right to track down that woman who smiled at you in the café (now your wife of 20 years).
Taken together, these moments of rightness represent both the high-water marks of human endeavor and the source of countless small joys. They affirm our sense of being smart, competent, trustworthy, and in tune with our environment. More important, they keep us alive.
Individually and collectively, our very existence depends on our ability to reach accurate conclusions about the world around us. In short, the experience of being right is imperative for our survival, gratifying for our ego, and, overall, one of life's cheapest and keenest satisfactions.
I am interested -- perversely -- in the opposite of all that. I am interested in being wrong: in how we as a culture think about error, and how we as individuals cope when our convictions collapse out from under us. If we relish being right and regard it as our natural state, you can guess how we feel about being wrong.
For one thing, we tend to view it as rare and bizarre -- an inexplicable aberration in the normal order of things. For another, it leaves us feeling idiotic and ashamed. Like the term paper returned to us covered in red ink, being wrong makes us cringe and slouch down in our seats; it makes our heart sink and our dander rise.

At best we regard it as a nuisance, at worst a nightmare, but in either case -- and quite unlike the gleeful little rush of being right -- we experience our errors as deflating and embarrassing.
And it gets worse. In our collective imagination, error is associated not just with shame and stupidity but also with ignorance, indolence, psychopathology, and moral degeneracy.
This set of associations was nicely summed up by the Italian cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, who noted that we err because of (among other things) "inattention, distraction, lack of interest, poor preparation, genuine stupidity, timidity, braggadocio, emotional imbalance, , ideological, racial, social or chauvinistic prejudices, as well as aggressive or prevaricatory instincts."
In this view -- and it is the common one -- our errors are evidence of our gravest social, intellectual, and moral failings.
Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error might well top the list. It is our meta-mistake: We are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world.
Given this centrality to both our intellectual and emotional development, error shouldn't be an embarrassment, and cannot be an aberration. On the contrary. As Benjamin Franklin once observed, "the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries."

Through our errors, he felt, "the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities."
To my mind, the healthiest and most productive attitude we can have about error must take as its starting place Franklin's proposition that however disorienting, difficult or humbling our mistakes might be, it[size=18pt] is ultimately wrongness, not rightness, that can teach us who we are.[/size]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/15/schulz.admitting.wrong/index.html?hpt=C2

You all should listen to this and repent:

[flash=400,400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mWPJn2ev7M?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash]



Tpia, what do you think of this video?

The Diaspora game: It has become fashionable these days to wave the diaspora card too. Once you live anywhere abroad, you are almost at liberty to pretend to be better than everyone at home: Stupid, unpatriotic thieves who don’t have regular electricity supply, no access to quality healthcare, or potable water, so you put down everybody, and with a President who has a Facebook platform, you can visit the site everyday and sound off as much as you can; if you sound disagreeable enough on the internet you may just be noticed. Then you can put on airs. You have all the solutions to Nigeria’s problems. “We should join the civilized world. Nigeria needs to be transformed and we need quality people.” This is how they talk, the Diaspora set, so try the same style too. Nobody needs to know that you have many unpaid bills, and that you are barely struggling to survive in the matchbox where you and your family are holed up in some downtown quarter. Make big claims. You could get a job in Abuja, may be not as Minister, but you can take a Special Assistantship position and start rebuilding your life from there.

This reminds me of Kobojunkie!

“JONATHAN, PDP Governors in cold war over ministerial list,”; “Nomination tears party apart in Osun” (The Nation, May 14, p.1); “Ministerial Posts and Federal Appointments: Fresh Crises hit PDP state chapters…Reps kick against Ekiti ministerial nominees” (Punch, May 14, p.1)…How sad. The biggest enterprise in Nigeria after every election is not necessarily the work of the election petition tribunals, nor an educative stock-taking of the electoral process, but the mad, utterly mindless struggle for political appointments. The sociology of it beggars belief, for it is rooted in the Darwinian struggle for survival, where the strong and the smartest outwit every other competitor to get a place in the new dispensation. And it has started. President Goodluck Jonathan, and all elected Governors are under pressure to appoint this or that person to a public position. In the National Assembly, even ahead of the inauguration of a new Assembly, ambitious elements have started scheming, and wheeling and dealing and trying to protect their selfish interests by proposing to amend the Standing Orders. In this search for political appointments, there has been over the years, a set of strategies which Nigerians never fail to deploy. These include the following:

(a) The name dropping strategy: This is how it works. Make sure your name gets dropped in the appropriate places. This is done in the hope that you may well be noticed. But it is not enough to name-drop, it has to be associated with something that is sellable. May be you were very active as a votes mobilizer in the last election, and so His Excellency the Governor or the President only needs to be reminded that you are one of the reliable party men, who can be trusted with higher responsibilities. Suggest it to him or those who are close to him. It doesn’t matter at all that all you did during the elections was to snatch a ballot box, or co-sponsored a paid advertisement in the papers congratulating His Excellency on his victory at the polls. For your name to gain the recognition that could translate into the good fortune you seek, you may also need to be regarded as a man who knows a lot within the party, even if the only thing you have going for you is your false pretence. In Nigeria, these are the kind of people who easily get government jobs. It helps if during the elections, you were generally seen sweating all over the place and assuring the inner circles that you and the boys were in charge. INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega and his team, the security agencies and the monitors/observers and party agents were in charge of that election, but it doesn’t matter: Nigerians would lie with their mother’s names just so they can get a government appointment. And of course, if you are a woman, you don’t even need to drop any mane, play the beauty game, the oldest trick in the books!

(b) The Godfather strategy. This is a well tested Nigerian strategy. Around this period, there are many Godfathers who may have donated money to the campaign causes of their Excellencies, and who without expressly saying so expect returns on investment. It is the fashion that Godfathers recommend people for appointments. The Godfather could be your biological parent. If you are one of those lucky ones who since 1999, have been occupying one major public position or the other, for no reason other than that their father is an influential man of means in politics, you stand a very good chance. Daddy will do it again! It is amazing the number of complete non-starters who have served as Ministers, Commissioners, Deputy Governors, Directors-General simply because they have a popular family name. Where the relationship between the Godfather and the appointee is not filial however, then a client-master relationship can be established. You will have to assure the Godfather that you will be a good boy, a very good stooge in the corridors of power, his dependable proxy. Too many people out there want a job in government so desperately, they wouldn’t mind, so why should you waste the opportunity? It is the Nigerian way. You could even be made Minister of Petroleum Resources even if the only thing you know about petrol is that it is sold at filling stations.

(c) Prepare a CV: We are in the CV season, right now in Nigeria. Political appointment seekers are busy hawking their CVs all over the country. One Governor in the East, overwhelmed by the number of applications for political jobs, once had to announce that those who wanted to be commissioners would have to sit for a test and attend interviews. If the Governor thought this would discourage the applicants, he was mistaken. More applications and resumes landed on his desk. The tests were organized and all kinds of shameless people showed up to write it. Where on earth do people take exams for the position of a Commissioner in government? In Nigeria! With the kind of pressure that President Jonathan is now facing for example, were he to announce the exam option for would-be Ministers and Directors of Departments and Agencies, he will receive more than enough applications. There will be a terrible scramble that will be worse than the scramble for the partitioning of Africa. If the application attracts a fee, the applicants will be more than willing to pay, including paying the officials in charge to create an artificial scarcity in order to shut out other competitors!

(d) The Traditional Ruler strategy: This is certainly a very busy season for our traditional rulers who at moments such as this receive a lot of pleas from persons who want a word in the right ear on their behalf. The assumption is that a traditional ruler is entitled to a certain quota of public appointments which the Governors and the President in Abuja must acknowledge. And if the traditional ruler who is willing to give you a note is as influential as he makes out (traditional rulers like to think that they wield enormous influence!), you may get the job you want. But if you do, the traditional ruler expects that he will automatically be placed on your pay roll for as long as you are in that position. He is a traditional ruler yes, and everybody in his kingdom is his son or daughter, but he is also a Consultant and he consults for government, because he also needs to “eat”.

(e) The wives/relatives strategy: Every man in government, Governor or President, has a wife, or wives, siblings, relatives, parents where he is not yet an orphan, and all of these people play very key roles in determining who gets what position, at all levels. The elections have just been concluded, family members usually have access to their brother or sister in power, and they can be trusted to put in a word. Only God knows how many of them have already received resumes from persons who just want any job in government. The wives are special targets. A First Lady, in any of the states or in Abuja, although not a government official, is regarded as a major power broker. She is the apple of the big man’s eyes, and so she should be able to get what she wants. Once a woman becomes a First Lady, she becomes the mother of the community and virtually everyone wants to get close to her: women who want appointments or contracts for their husbands or sons, or for themselves; men who want access to her husband through her recommendation and so on. Is anyone surprised therefore, that Mrs Patience Jonathan is regarded as a very powerful woman in Nigeria today? Or that Turai Yar’Adua was once so powerful she held the whole country to ransom, when she denied Nigerians access to their President? We used to hear of Ministers and Special Advisers appointed by Turai and who belonged to her kitchen cabinet. Mrs Jonathan obviously also wants a cabinet in her kitchen and there will be many willing maidservants saying: “Madam, I am here to serve you and your husband”.

(f) The media strategy: Every year, some media houses play the funny game of compiling a list of Ministers for the President, and even Commissioners for state Governors. The persons so identified are described as pacesetters, men and women of vision who will take Nigeria to the future and transform it. The usual footnote is that these are the names being considered for leadership positions. In the last two weeks, such names have been circulated via SMS, advertised as names that came up during President Goodluck Jonathan’s post-election retreat at the Obudu Cattle Ranch. How the names came up? Or how they were considered, nobody can ever tell. But Nigerians believe such stories all the same and those whose names are mentioned actually look forward to an appointment. You better believe it: pastors and prophets and imams also get involved in this appointments game: they offer prayers and make predictions. One pastor wanted to be Vice President in April and failed, some other Pastors turn themselves into the President’s official prayer warriors and star gazers.

(g) The Diaspora game: It has become fashionable these days to wave the diaspora card too. Once you live anywhere abroad, you are almost at liberty to pretend to be better than everyone at home: Stupid, unpatriotic thieves who don’t have regular electricity supply, no access to quality healthcare, or potable water, so you put down everybody, and with a President who has a Facebook platform, you can visit the site everyday and sound off as much as you can; if you sound disagreeable enough on the internet you may just be noticed. Then you can put on airs. You have all the solutions to Nigeria’s problems. “We should join the civilized world. Nigeria needs to be transformed and we need quality people.” This is how they talk, the Diaspora set, so try the same style too. Nobody needs to know that you have many unpaid bills, and that you are barely struggling to survive in the matchbox where you and your family are holed up in some downtown quarter. Make big claims. You could get a job in Abuja, may be not as Minister, but you can take a Special Assistantship position and start rebuilding your life from there.

Why the desperation? Why not? Serving commissioners and Ministers are currently busy lobbying to be retained: if they supported the Governor or the President during the 2011 elections, they too should be retained so the self-serving argument goes. In fact, a major phrase in Abuja at the moment is “continuity”, don’t bother to ask continuity of what, it has worked after all for Senator David Mark who seems set to reclaim his position as Senate President. If the Speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole had won his re-election bid, he too would naturally have returned to his seat as Speaker. Would-be former Governors who have completed two terms in the states are also lobbying furiously to become Ministers in Abuja, and those who lost out during the election would like to be rehabilitated by the President with a Ministerial appointment. If that works out, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala could soon show up in Abuja as Minister of Education and Governor Ikedi Ohakim as Minister of National Planning.

The reason for the desperation is not far to seek. In Nigeria, the only job that pays premium dividends is a political job. Everyone wants a bite out of it. Even those who are not interested encourage their friends to show interest in political appointments: have you sent your CV? Have they called you? Why don’t you ask someone to put in a word for you? If they call you, you must not say No oh? It is considered a taboo for anyone to reject the offer of a political appointment. It is seen as the ultimate meal ticket. It is all about what people can get for themselves not what difference that they can make. One of the interesting developments in the past week for example, is the plan by some persons who had left the PDP just before the elections to return to the same party, in order to take part in the sharing of political appointments, and should they receive an offer, they will not only jump at it, they will rationalize it and we are all expected to understand. This is the way it is.

But it is also the reason Nigeria has not been able to make progress. Persons are offered leadership positions for the wrong reasons. They get to high positions for which they are ill-suited. The PDP Governors and party leaders who are engaged in a “cold war” with President Jonathan over the Ministerial list are not acting in the national interest: they want to impose their own nominees on the President, usually the flotsam and the jetsam from their states definitely not the best (state Governors would rather send their errand boys to Abuja and not potential stars who could become a threat to them). Most of the people who are shopping around with their CVs just want to “chop.” When President Yar’Adua assumed office in 2007, most of his Ministers were appointed for him by the state Governors. He didn’t know many of them. He had no idea who they were, and he never really knew them till he died.

How will President Goodluck Jonathan walk the tightrope then? It will be unrealistic to think that he can ignore the Governors. He owes them: in his relationship with the Governors, there are IOUs that he needs to pay. The Governors stood by him during the PDP primaries; they also worked for him in their states during the Presidential campaigns. There are also Godfathers that Jonathan may not be able to ignore. But this is where his first major leadership challenge lies.

Since his victory in the April 16 Presidential polls, nearly every political commentator has stressed the point that Jonathan must depart from tradition and appoint only the best and the brightest into his cabinet. He is required to embark on business unusual, look the fortune-hunters straight in the eye, and disappoint them. This is what he must do. He should beware of the strategists and their tricks. To save Nigeria is a job that must be done; only the best is good enough, this time, Jonathan


http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48019:abati-jonathan-and-the-scramble-for-political-appointments-&catid=38:columnists&Itemid=615#comments

buzugee:

i doubt your words make sense to even a cretin. your words is akin to a 'turd'. it needs to be flushed down the commode.

I agree with you. I am a cretin, and I didnt understand his post.

^^^

Easy there my dyyck starved air-head poster. you can always go back to edit your title.

^^^

At 35, you are old enough to be his mother. He is a 19 yr old Igbotic college student studying Business in DC

Nothing do you. I just thought you could do better. Maybe, someone closer to your age. Atleast, someone in his mid 20s.

^^^

She is old enough to be your mother!

Are you into cougars?