ATIKU'S CAMPAIGN AFTER OCTOBER 7

Once former Vice President Abubakar Atiku last week named former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi 

as his running mate in next year's General Elections the political space erupted. Interestingly, I'd have thought events preceding that would've caused more earthquakes, unfortunately those didn't read as much on the Richter Scale as the nomination of Obi. Like me, many weren't surprised with the outcome of the Presidential Primaries of the People's Democratic Party, PDP which threw up Atiku

 on the morning of Sunday the 7th of October this year. The only reason I was able to watch the coronation, nay affirmation of President Muhammadu Buhari as the Presidential candidate of his party, All Progressives' (which is more in word than in deed) Congress, APC which climaxed with a speech by President Buhari in the wee hours of October 7th, was because in between the voting process going on at the Port Harcourt venue of the PDP primaries which started 6th October, I'd switch to the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA which has become so partisan, enough not to bother to cover live events of the major opposition party, and have over time become so debased (with analog looking presentation, that sometimes I often think my TV dirty on the very few occasions I watch) that it is now only watched by the majority of Nigerians only when the president intends to make a speech, or on other occasions of national importance, where the National Broadcaster arrogates to itself the sole broadcasting rights.

The thought that the perception of Atiku as corrupt would shake his emergence failed to elicit the anticipated odium, rather people just seemed to have gotten tired of the tag on him, accepting it probably his human frailty, especially as there's been not so much improvement in the life of the average Nigerian being led by the supposed incorruptible (despite the fact that he was supported into power by perceived corrupt individuals, of which Atiku was one in 2015, and surrounded by corrupt individuals in power, some of whom have ought to answer but continue to be shielded) man of integrity. Clinging on the fact that Atiku couldn't visit the United States of America also managed to capture the news for a while, but that also failed to cause a ripple, after it became obvious that that impediment was sure to become a non-issue should he manage to clinch the presidency, because of several instances from Nelson Mandela to Narendra Modi, with people even saying they'd prefer a President that couldn't travel outside of the country than the globetrotter the incumbent had become in the past three years. To nail the coffin, the American Consulate in Nigeria opined that PDP's Presidential candidate has no corruption case against him in the States.



Then Atiku visited Obasanjo, accompanied by two Bishops, David Oyedepo of Living Faith Church

and Matthew Kukah (of the Archdiocese of Sokoto), and a very vocal Islamic Cleric in Sheik Abubakar Gumi,

to mediate in the lingering impasse between the former VP and his erstwhile boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The success of that intervention, with the outcome that included forgiveness handed Atiku by Obasanjo,

to the point of even pledging to assist him in actualizing his dream to become Nigeria's next president, must have irked members of the ruling party so much that they had to dust up Obasanjo's impression of his deputy in his latest book, as if he had no right to change his mind or view over any subject, as he so wishes. As people remained obstinate and unconvinced, the next target was Obasanjo who they now touted as being of no electoral value, even though they'd approached him pre-2015 for support, when due to a letter he wrote former President Goodluck Jonathan berating him for misgoverning Nigeria, he's support was instrumental in getting Buhari elected to replace Jonathan. When that also failed, even President Buhari joined the fray by castigating the religious leaders that were present in the Otta residence of the former President and witnessed the epoch making event, deriding them for mixing religion with politics, even though he'd been visited by a Pastor Kumuyi

of Deeper Life Bible Church, just days back and was endorsed pre-2015 Presidential elections by Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka,

a Catholic Priest and Pastor Tunde Bakare

of Latter Rain Assembly.



All of the brick-bats that followed these events since Atiku was declared PDP's Presidential flagbearer from the ruling party and it's supporters, so far hardly dented the body of the work and progress the campaign was making as the days drew by, until a running mate was named from Southeastern Nigeria. Cyberspace waited with baited breath as to how the APC machinery will react. Interestingly, the response came from the unlikeliest of quarters. A group of so called Igbo leaders

of which the Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi spoke for, after rising from a meeting in Enugu State, stating that they weren't consulted by Atiku before the latter decided to choose former Anambra State governor as his running mate. In fact, I read about this, after a friend had called me from Abuja to inquire about what I knew about the development, from the Twitter handle of the APC who had twisted the tale to mean that Southeasterners had opposed the choice of Obi as running mate to Atiku. Like the southeastern leaders, I wasn't happy with the choice of Obi as running mate, but unlike them, it wasn't because I wasn't consulted nor was it because I wanted former Central Bank governor, Professor Charles Soludo for the position, rather I'd thought that in conceding the running mate slot to the southwest (seeing as the Niger Delta and Southeast would cast the majority of their votes in favour of Atiku regardless, having been at the receiving end of Buhari's stick), it would help him make an inroad into the Southwest, but what do I know? Also, in Nigeria, as with other executive presidencies worldwide, the Vice Presidency is redundant, and I thought a stronger position like the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF or Chief of Staff, or Senate President because of Federal Character (that the incumbent regime has effectively damaged to satisfy pecuniary, primordial and nepotistic reasons), would've been more suitable for the Igbo.


Interestingly, those who burst into celebrations after hearing the part of the declaration by the Southeast leaders, they wished to hear, failed to add that they also mentioned the fact that Atiku will soon visit them to commune with them on the way forward, so that everyone will be on the same page regarding not just about his running mate, but his policies without excluding the issue of RESTRUCTURING upon which he's so far based his campaign. They've probably moved on to waiting for another opening or crevice in the Atiku campaign activities to latch on. The APC machinery is currently celebrating the travel ban placed on some Nigerians, expected to be notably of the opposition, by the execution of the Executive Order 6, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari. Some of them gloat over this, while totalling ignoring the drama currently playing out in Kano involving Governor Ganduje literally pocketing wads of dollars into the recesses of his flowing "Babanriga" gown, and many have wondered why he decided to so expose himself by going for the kill personally, when he could've sent aides, the sort for which the First Lady's driver is still in the custody of the Secret Service for allegedly diverting about $2.5M meant for his madam.


Presently, the APC camp is in disarray, and have yet to come up with an articulated response to the Tsunami that the election of Atiku by the PDP as it's presidential candidate has birthed. Some have begun calculations, where they've even ceeded the rest of Nigeria without the Northwest and Southwest to Atiku, and because of the huge voting numbers alloted to the latter two regions by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, brag that those numbers are enough for the incumbent to get re-elected, while grabbing every available straw they can lay their hands on, including the hope that emerging smaller parties can garner more votes to help dilute that by the PDP especially in the South, thinking the north will come through with block votes as it did in 2015, but with politics only time will tell.


'kovich



PICTURE CREDIT:
- www.sunnewsonline.com
- www.guardian.ng
- www.pulse.ng
- Nigerian Twitteratti

BORN TO RULE

I'm no atheist, and I've lived this far humbled at several points of my life by the Almighty, each time I forget my place. Hence you'd find me hardly ever speaking in absolutes not just because of my experiences, but because of the things I've learnt in the lives and experiences of others. I acknowledge the fact that people see Bible Stories as fables these days, and it's a hard sell telling them about events in the Bible or other scripture to drive home a point, even while preaching inside a church with a congregation of devout believers, which is why I make mention of things we are all witnesses to, or the history we agree upon.


Till date, I wonder if the explosion mid air of the Space Shuttle CHALLENGER had nothing to do with it's name. Or the fact that the crack and eventual downfall of the People's Democratic Party, PDP in Nigeria following the pronouncement by a prominent member of the party (who himself was booted out soon after) that it will rule for sixty more years, wasn't divinely instigated. Reminiscent of Babylon's famous King Nebuchadnezzar, whose madness drove him into the bush to live like animals, the very same day he realized his greatness and power, but again that will be drawing a Bible Story into this, something I'd rather wouldn't because of the afore stated.


I remember pleading with those deifying President Muhammadu Buhari during the campaigns to desist, because they weren't doing him a favour, drawing their attention to yet another Bible story, regarding Herod of the times of the apostles, who succeeded in killing James, then went ahead to arrest Peter for execution after a Jewish feast, but found himself worm-eaten alive, just after sycophants from Tyre and Sidon proclaimed him a "God", while Peter simply walked out of jail before that, but again you'd scold me for quoting Bible again.


So, I'll refer you to President George W. Bush, who after that 9/11 attack, was advised to tone down the initial theme of his war on terror, from INFINITE JUSTICE, seeing as he was man and even as a nation, none could be assured of infinite presence, enough to undertake any form of infinite justice, even for a just cause. So when religious, political and traditional elite from Northern Nigeria ascribe to themselves the title BORN TO RULE, and then act in ways to ensure that same subsists, by applying tact to maintain same by all means possible, I sit back and observe how the divine responds to this. Interestingly, in the case of Nigeria, the response has been quite loud, unfortunately not many a northerner, especially the so called "core" northerners, elite and "talakawa" seem to hear or acknowledge it.


Even when the Born To Rule mentality was imposed by coercion, beneficiaries were limited to a few elite from the regions were the mantra holds more than mere words, worse still now that it is via democratic trickery. The marginalized regions self developed, and today the part that was devastated by war has recovered so much so that besides lack of federal infrastructure, you'd probably think that is the side that in actual fact, is born to rule. The opposite is the case for the other which continues to be plagued by the poorest of human indices, interestingly only of the indigenes most times (as it was with the Hebrews in Goshen, spared of the plagues ravaging Egypt of the Exodus lore), while settlers from other parts of Nigeria go there to excel, amongst natives who become to them hewers of wood and fetchers of water, when they are not begging.


Unfortunately, when a member of the northern elite, a highly revered royal one at

that, sought to draw the attention of his peers to the sad picture and reality of their time, they ignored the message and pounced on the messenger, reminding him that whoever must come to equity, must come with clean hands. So, once again, the north has drawn Nigeria back again to her past, because they and their acolytes from the south (without whom, most times they cannot carry through with their Born To Rule agenda), failed to learn from history. Hence in just a few years from the Yar'Adua debacle we have found ourselves saddled with a president who should think more about taking care of himself, over and above a country whose hydra-headed problems he apparently can't fully fathom and comprehend, talk more even begin to scratch at the surface.


Sadly, this man must be propped up by so called Born To Rule cabals, who fear not just a repeat of what happened during the Yar'Adua era, but also anything capable of whittling their power, just about two years since acquiring it. A reason why, in what may seem against sound medical advice, they returned a convalescing President Buhari to Nigeria, and after a few public appearances where he admitted to have been very ill

(against government position of him been hale, hearty and even chatty, a la Vice President Yemi Osinbajo), to the present situation where he hasn't been seen nor heard from directly in days. It hasn't gone unnoticed though, how directives purportedly emanating from him have assumed a rampancy and frequency now that he's incommunicado, compared to when he was available, again reminiscent of those days with the late Yar'Adua, when personalities other than the president were pushing the buttons of state.


Unfortunately, the rest of Nigeria is watching these things with bated breath, and the voices (including that of the incumbent) that shouted their voices hoarse for Yar'Adua to relinquish power less than eight years ago, have today gone quiet, either because they are now in power, and it seems karma has caught up with them, or are afraid of how the Born To Rule propagators will react. Those who subscribe to the latter might not be totally wrong in their assertions, as rather than rationalize the situation, sentiments in the North and amongst many Buhari supporters, is that his illness, as yet undisclosed, is as a result of corruption (which he claims to be fighting) fighting back, and with the Facebook posts of a member of one of Nigeria's security agencies coming to light, where he warned he'd kill two hundred Nigerians of Christian faith and southern origin, should anything happen to his beloved president, one may guage the temperature of the north even if it is in the minority.


This state of affairs hasn't been helped by a president, who can be described as Nigeria's most divisive, who after a very divisive election did nothing to engender unity post elections, starting from the 97%/5%

comment abroad before the foreign press, to actualizing same in his appointments, to turning a blind eye to killings of innocent Nigerians, many in their sleep by his Fulani kinsmen, and while ailing abroad, called only Muslim clerics, as well as governors of core northern states who'd organized prayer sessions for his speedy recovery, while ignoring sections of the Nigerian public who do not fit the same ethnic and religious colouration, regardless of the fact that some of them also organized prayers, fast and vigils on his behalf. Now, we wait as usual for the divine to intervene as it is wont to, in the case of Nigeria, as it had always done when men arrogated to themselves attributes exclusive to the divine.


'kovich

BUHARI, SO FAR, SO .....?

It is not just enough to simply stave off the growing concern of public spirited Nigerians about the direction the anti-corruption war is going, following recent revelations involving members of President Muhammadu Buhari's sanctum sanctorium, dipping their hands in the national cookie jar, by claiming that it is corruption fighting back. In the past few days, and weeks before that, even those who believe that the senate is on a revenge mission against the presidency, in the recess of their minds wonder how it came to be that the one on whose shoulders rest, the investigation and prosecution of the corrupt, hasn't himself approached to equity with clean hands.

EFCC BOSS, MR. IBRAHIM MAGU, WHOSE CONFIRMATION THE SENATE HALTED FOLLOWING SECURITY REPORTS BROUGHT AGAINST HIM, AND SECRETARY TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, BABACHIR LAWAL WHO ALLEGEDLY AWARDED CONTRACTS FOR "CLEANING OF INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES" AT IDP CAMPS FOR MILLIONS OF NAIRA, AMONGST OTHER CONTRACTS RELATING TO IDPS TO COMPANIES IN WHICH HE HAD INTEREST.

Even if they choose to close their eyes to it, the picture of the dying malnourished in the various Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camps in the northeast of Nigeria, mainly due to diversion of funds meant to ensure that such an outcome doesn't become today's narrative, by the secretary to the federal government via proxies, from irrefutable evidence not just as presented in the senate, or in the press, from whose eyes the scales appear to be gradually falling as regards their posture to this "saintly"  government, but even from reputable civil society, will make even the ardent supporter (though definitely not the incorrigible zombies, akin to the "walkers" in the walking dead), shudder to the bone.

 MALNOURISHED CHILDREN AT AN IDP CAMP IN BORNO, NORTHEAST NIGERIA.

Hence, the children that supposedly escaped death by the hands of Boko Haram, the funds of which was meant to decimate became frittered away by the past regime, now face death by starvation and malnutrition, after funds grew wings under a "puritanist" government supposedly elected to right the wrongs of the past.


The last straw that they seem to be hanging on, remain the so called incorruptibility of the god-hero, Buhari forgetting that this isn't the first time something like this will happen, seeing that if you consider when he chaired the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, or was military Head of State, or as Petroleum Minister, this is more like deja vu, where he rants like the loan voice "crying in the wilderness" against corruption, yet associates (many of which he  nepotistically enabled into high profile positions) of his with impunity perpetrate the same ills to high heavens, daring anyone to bat an eyelid. Unfortunately, this is one man that never accepts responsibility like Adam in "the fall of man", even when the buck naturally should stop at his desk, not just for present sins, but for past sins against Nigerians and their psyche while in power, in the corridors of power, even in seeking power.


There's no gainsaying that the lopsided anti-corruption war has hit a brick wall, as many of the opposition politicians who hitherto felt the heat as they were rounded off to detention and to the counts have now begun to find the whole exercise amusing, to the extent of posing for selfies while in detention,

REUBEN ABATI, MUSILIU OBANIKORO, FEMI FANI KAYODE AND OTHERS POSE FOR PICTURES WHILE IN EFCC DETENTION FACILITY RECENTLY.

after discovering that the whole process had been what they guessed it to be, a charade, with some of the crafty ones decamping to the ruling party to attain the sainthood that automatically accrues to members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC regardless of whatever type of corruption (and innocent lives that might have been lost by their actions and inactions) they might have committed either at state or national level, in order to have their cases at various levels of prosecution stalled and/or possibly stopped. The only ones not finding it funny, remain those with whom he has personal grouse, or whose people's quest for "self determination" he loathes with a vengeance, who despite courts of competent jurisdiction, locally and continentally, ruling to the effect that such "political prisoners" be granted bail, he continues to turn a "deaf ear" to.

FORMER NSA, IBRAHIM DASUKI AND PRO-BIAFRA LEADER NNAMDI KANU, WHOSE CONTINUED INCARCERATION APPEAR TO BE AT THE PERSONAL BEHEST OF PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI. 

Now, the renegades in the ruling party, once slated for slaughter, have now become favoured brides of the president and

ONCE VILIFIED SENATE PRESIDENT, NOW THE NEW WINE IN ASO ROCK. 

presidency, whose listening "ear", he's no longer reluctant to lend, as the reality of 2019 dawns, without an attendant waning of and for the allure of power, even if it's just for the sake of bagpiper soldiers rising to almost every occasion at the whims of the handlers of the president,

BAGPIPE PLAYING SOLDIERS, A NEW FEATURE SINCE PRESIDENT BUHARI CAME TO POWER LESS THAN TWO YEARS AGO, AND GROWING TO BECOME A REGULAR FEATURE WHEN THE PRESIDENT LEAVES OR ARRIVES TO THE COUNTRY, AMONGST SEVERAL OTHER SUNDRY OCCASIONS. 

even at times when their melodious presence are totally uncalled for. It doesn't matter if the ministers have performed woefully since assuming office, or availed themselves of the opportunity of a budget presentation to the joint sitting of the National Assembly, by their principal to "sleep",

SOME OF PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI'S MINISTERS SOMNOLENT AS THEIR PRINCIPAL PRESENTS BUDGET 2017 PROPOSAL TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

or have provided much needed comedy (and embarrassment to the government, and country before the world) with their positions on issues, comments, statements, even turning the English language on its head, to Nigerians at a difficult time as this. The economy can go to hell, even the Naira that's speedily becoming toilet paper before foreign currencies can discover oil for all he cares, retention of power by all means necessary seems to be the byword of his party, with the "Independent" National Electoral Commission, INEC honing it's skills, with smaller but bloody and controversial elections (a reason a Buhari is now the last person Gambia's Yayah Jammeh is willing to listen to, as negotiations to persuade him to hand over power to his victorious opponent in the country's last presidential elections continues) in preparation for the year of the dog and baboon, as he seeks to destroy the ladder by which he ascended to power.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://www.google.com/amp/www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/sen-wabara-calls-resignation-magu-lawal/amp/
- http://buzznigeria.com/starvation-children-borno-unicef/
- https://www.google.com/amp/punchng.com/top-social-media-photo/amp/
- http://www.post-nigeria.com/buhari-set-to-release-kanu-dasuki-others/
- https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.naij.com/amp/655735-photo-see-president-buhari-senate-president-saraki-today.html
- http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2016/02/buharis-strange-scottish-bagpipers-at-abuja-airport/
- http://www.nigerianmonitor.com/buharis-ministers-caught-sleeping-during-his-2017-budget-presentation/

AS NIGERIA FORGETS JULY 29, 1966

29th July fifty years ago, Nigeria's story took another turn that appears to have eternally sealed it's fate, as a country whose  nationalities will forever remain distrustful of one another, for as long as they will manage to cohabit. It was the day the revenge coup was launched against military and civilian Nigerians of the ethnic Igbo stock, of southeastern Nigerian origin, everywhere outside of eastern Nigeria and their closest neighbors in the Niger Delta. I say another, because the first turning point had occurred on the 15th of January of the same year, with the first coup, which was welcome by many as an act of  patriotism, but as the days passed, was given the coloration of been biased in favor of the Igbo, and against most especially the northern Hausa-Fulani hegemony, which controlled power at the center in the days following Nigeria's independence from Great Britain.


Unfortunately, a day like yesterday passed without official statements or program by the government, apart from some discourse on some media, a few of which I was able to follow on radio and on the social media. It is sad that Nigeria pretends to move forward without any attempt at burying the ghosts of the past, while making the same mistakes over and over, enabling some Nigerians to ensure that the so called giant of Africa remains a perpetual Lilliput. Taking one step forward only when it had made plans to the effect that ten steps backwards was mutually assured, only to their own benefit, as well as their acquaintances.


I believe that Nigeria cannot make progress in the forward direction if our history isn't truthfully addressed and told. This is not a nation, it is a country of nations, or nationalities if you like, and it is built on a lie. Our founding fathers weren't the saints that they are officially made out to be, or else their ouster in the January 1966 coup wouldn't have been widely celebrated and greeted with wild jubilation and ululation in the nooks and cranny of Nigeria back then. They laid the foundation of  corruption mixed with tribalism and nepotism, amongst many other ills, that is strangling us as a nation today. The coupists were idealists but failed to convince Nigerians that they had no sectional agenda, in sparing Igbo politicians and soldiers, and officers of the eastern Nigerian extraction, a few of which were conveniently outside the country as at the time of the coup, or were simply not found in their usual and unusual locations when the coupists struck. Some were even seen to be chatting with some camaraderie with the those meant to "neutralize" them, as they crossed paths on some bridge.


General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, having successfully quelled a supposedly Igbo coup, been an Igbo officer, erred in not immediately restoring power back to the politicians regardless of their sins, rather he accepted to rule Nigeria. I saw a few of his interviews on YouTube and he didn't even strike me as one who recognized the import the weight of ruling Nigeria means. He was largely aloof. He also dilly dallied on the fate of the coupists whose ringleaders were five majors, four of which were Igbo like him, and a Yoruba from Nigeria's Southwest. The unitary system of  government that he had decreed  (Decree 34, which amongst others abolished the regions, which were three at independence, and four at the time, in favor of provinces) into being, which he embarked on a journey across Nigeria to sell (and from which he never returned alive) has remained an albatross for us. The northern Nigerian elite who rejected it at the time because they felt it was a ploy to keep and foster the Igbo over and above the other ethnic groups in the civil service and elsewhere, have over the years after the revenge coup of July, 1966 become the greatest beneficiary of the system. And though Nigeria today lies that it's a federation it has remained a unitary state, where once the center coughs the states catch cold. We had simply exchanged external colonizers for internal colonizers, all thanks to the military's foray into politics, after coups and counter-coups, and in the democratic dispensation after elections, dressed in civilian garb.


The 1999 constitution (as amended) handed over to us by the military (like many others before it) has made any attempt at changing the status quo democratically, impossible. No constitutional conference or the likes held severally over the years have been trusted enough by governments and succeeding governments, as well as contending ethno-religio-social groupings across Nigeria, as documents viable enough to change things. It is become obvious that the change mantra that ushered in the new incumbent government isn't worth the paper on which it was written. The hue and cry now is about RESTRUCTURING, yet none of the advocates mentioned anything about July 29th,1966 yesterday at public fora or the likes, seeing that any restructuring that needs to be done must recognize that it was on that date that an opportunity to truly restructure things despite the needless bloodshed that followed (for days on end, of Igbo folk nationwide, save in the east) was missed, rather the "revenge coup" by soldiers of northern Nigerian extraction like vampires thirsted insatiably for Igbo blood, and encouraged the civil populace in the north to do likewise, if not worse, then went ahead to embrace the unitary system, adding to it other lingua such as federal character, quota system, rotation, etc over the years that have perpetuated mediocrity and nepotism over merit in our public, even private spaces nationwide.


Twas yesterday, fifty years ago that some Nigerians corrected a supposed wrong with another wrong, and today we reap the fruits thereof, and even worse set ourselves on the pedestal to continue taking such sour grapes by not recognizing that day fifty years ago, when Nigeria lost its soul and humanity. Many will say that the war after the event of that day whetted appetites and we emerged stronger from it, but that's also yet another lie, because the truth is that Nigeria as presently constituted is tearing up at its seams and the center can no longer

NIGERIA

hold. We have failed to tell the truth about our past, therefore a truthful foundation for the future based on mutual trust cannot be laid, or built upon. There's no stopping this groping in the dark for a long time to come, not even the anti-corruption fight by President Muhammadu Buhari will change anything, even that as sectional as it continues to play out is just treating the symptom and not the disease, for Nigeria is sick!


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- GEORGE A'S GALLERY