What if Chad, Niger and Cameroons have not volunteered to join Nigeria to fight Boko Haram? It is a serious question to ask a President who has totally failed to guarantee the security of the Nigerian people. He swore to preserve and protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and to protect our people. I hear that Boko Haram still controls 3 towns in the Northeast of Nigeria despite the help Nigeria has received from Chad and Niger and Cameroons. If 3 countries joined together cannot subdue Boko Haram what does that say about the so-called insurgents?
Nigerians’ major grouse with President Jonathan is the general awareness in the whole country that Jonathan has made corruption and insecurity worse than they were when he took over from terminally-ill Umaru Yar Adua? The legions of interests who benefit the most from Jonathan are scared to death about the prospect of any change coming to Nigeria.
How for God’s sake could a Deziani Madueke or an Okonjo Iweala or Aiyim Anyim or many of the Yorubas like Reuben Abati and Doyin Okupe and many of the power brokers in the Jonathan Government ever welcome a change in Nigeria?
Oshokomole Ayo Fayose and Mimiko would have a heart attack on March 28 when it dawns on them they have lost their control to use the Nigerian armed forces and State Security to intimidate the opposition any way they want.
The development is going to be a sea change as Nigeria embarks on a new re-alignment of forces that would forever change Nigeria. Government should rotate between the opposition and the ruling party as it is done in very stable countries around the world. Why should Nigeria be different? Performance must remain the only yardstick to keep or reject any Government.
Nigerians should not blame the Igbos of Nigeria for most of the excesses and corruption of the Jonathan Government but we should make no apologies to say that few Igbo prominent individuals in the Jonathan Government have benefitted the most and therefore cannot wash their hands clean of the atrocities that have pushed Jonathan to the edge and may well push him out of office on March 28.
I am predicting an apocalyptic political eruption that will end the 16 years of a one party dictatorship in Nigeria by May 29 this year. I repeat that a one party dictatorship however benevolent is unsustainable in a Democracy.
Nigerians have now come to that awareness in this election and General Buhari and his APC are assured of victory by riding on that conviction from coast to coast and from sea to shining sea if the election is minimally free and fair. I use the word “minimally free and fair” because there is no perfect election anywhere in the world and because Nigerians are some of the most fraudulent people on the face of the Earth. I place them in the same bracket as Italians, Jamaicans, Haitians and Guyanese. If these people tell you Good morning, you better check your wrist watch to be sure they are not pulling a fast one on you. I do not envy Professor Jega for the thankless job he has accepted but somebody has to do the job.
If Jonathan has done anything right in his close to 6 years as President, it is his appointment of Professor Jega as the first northerner to be the Chairman of INEC. The professor, a former radical Vice Chancellor and trade unionist is a breed apart among his peers in Nigeria. I give the credit for his willingness to serve not to Jonathan but to God Almighty. Jonathan is just too much of a crook to want to appoint somebody as straight-forward as Professor to a job as sensitive as that of the INEC chairman. Tell me your friends and I will tell you who you are. Any President who feels comfortable in the company of a hoodlum like Ayo Fayose and other fraudulent Nigerians like Iyiola Omisore, Musiliu Obanikoro and Olusegun who master-minded the rigging of the Ekiti elections on June 20, 2014 at Ado Ekiti should never be trusted. I cannot wait to read the memoir of Professor Jega after he leaves office.
If Jonathan and his first lady have their way, they would gladly add cyanide to Jega’s cup of tea and get rid of him or gradually kill him the way Arafat or Fidel Castro was poisoned and left to die. Jonathan could care less about the good work Jega has done for his own image as President. He is busy plotting to discredit and humiliate Jega out of office because the learned professor has refused to do his biddings. Jonathan is rooting for Professor Mimiko to replace Jega because he could no longer count on Jega to keep him in office for another 4 years. Jonathan hates Nigerians and his first lady wants Nigerians stoned for even thinking or talking about change in Nigeria because change means to them the end of their world of corruption because their stealing of Government money would stop.
I never knew I would live long enough to see what Obafemi Awolowo had predicted long ago that education would sooner or later liberate the North and bring them to their rightful place in Nigeria not because of their short-sighted “born-to-rule streak or predilection or paranoia but because of their God-given talents as some of the best citizens of Nigeria who are not predisposed to lies and cheating like their counterparts in the South.
The southerners comprising of the Yorubas and the Igbos and Urhobo Wayo taught the Hausa/Fulani all of their corrupt practices associated with them today. Gone are those days when the Hausa/Fulani never use the name of Allah in vain. Once they tell you “Allah Gaskiya”, you can take it that whatever they are telling you are the truth and nothing but the truth. The average Hausa/Fulani take their faith and integrity seriously unlike many of us in the South. The British colonial masters were the first to discover that trait and that was one of the reasons they trusted them more than they trusted many of the southern politicians like Azikiwe and Awolowo.If you look at all the master riggers in Nigeria today, majority of them are all Yorubas and Igbos. Chris Uba who once kidnapped a Governor with all the security around him in the Government House is topped the list. He was able to do it because he belonged to the ruling party at the center. Opposition riggers cannot go far because they are never given cover by the Military and the Law Enforcement. No opposition riggers could have done what Jonathan authorized at Ado Ekiti on June 20 with Brigadier Aliyu Momoh as the arrow head of the covert operation.
Even though those Hausa/Fulani have come a long way from the way they were under the British rule I never taught I would live long enough to see education permeate the North the way it has already done. When I listen to El Rufai or the current Emir of Kano speaks English the way they do today, I thank God for Nigeria and I thank God for the North.
I have seen Tafawa Balewa, the Bauchi grade II teacher get a standing ovation for eloquence on the floor of the United Nations. I have seen Maitama Sule mesmerize his colleagues in a debate in the United Nations. I have seen Abubukar Rimi or Jerry Gana speak English with the fluency and eloquence of a Winston Churchill. I have now seen Lamido Sanusi, the current Emir of Kano address a press conference in flawless Hausa and English that few of his counterparts in the whole country can match. I listened to El Rufai the other day pay a glowing tribute to Pastor Tunde Bakare another eloquent and erudite speaker who was the guest of honor at the launching of his book titled “A Public Servant by accident” I have read the book from cover to cover. All I could do is just shake my head because the North has come a long way. Who says the northerners are inferior to the southerners? Not anymore. Those who still believe that are living in a fool’s paradise. The Northerner can stand his own anywhere in Nigeria and it is a very healthy development we all should be proud of.
I listened a few days ago to Professor Jega address a Town Hall meeting sponsored by Channels TV and other interest groups in Nigeria. I am blessed to have a device that enables me to watch 24 hour coverage of many of the overseas TV stations like Channels TV of Nigeria from the comfort of my living room in New York with the press of a button. I am following developments in Nigeria better than those living in Nigeria because I do not have to worry about power outages.
It is a marvelous experience as I watch Professor Jega answer questions in flawless language and amazing confidence. The Professor answered all the questions put to him. My only disappointment was that neither the eloquent and smart moderator named “Kadaria” nor any of the questioners asked Jega to comment on the Captain Koli’s audio tape and how his INEC and fellow commissioners felt about the revelations from that tape? I was hoping that Kadaria would bring up the issue of the covert operation at Ado Ekiti and how the covert operation has virtually compromised whatever efforts Professor Jega has been making to sanitize the electoral process in Nigeria.
The greatest enemy of the Jega initiative today is President Jonathan and all of his party men like Fani Kayode who is blowing hot and cold like a lunatic. He condemns President Jonathan in one speech and eulogizes the President with another speech. Those who say he has lost credibility have a point. I am yet to meet an Oxford alumnus who is more despised today than Fani Kayode. Odumegwu Ojukwu and Professor Thomas Kanza formerly of CAFRAD in Tangiers, Morocco were two of the Oxford alumni I have known. Fani Kayode is a disgrace compared to those two old boys of Oxford.
I was expecting that the question on the Koli audio tape should have been one of the first put to Jega. Nobody raised the question and Profess Jega who should have used the occasion to explain why he is so bent on using the scanners and the card readers for the March 28 election, did not go there at all. That observation left me to wonder if the Sagir Koli audio tape and the revelations contained in it were nothing but fabrications as quickly suggested by President Jonathan.
I thought Nigerians must get to the bottom of that audio tape. The APC would be crazy not to open an investigation on the validity of that audio tape. As far as I am concerned if that tape proves to be true, Jonathan has lost all his credibility and legitimacy as President and should be voted out of office on March 28 and charged to court together with everybody who participated in the covert operation minus Captain Koli the whistle blower who fled the country for his own safety.
I make this observation as a back drop to my title for this article. What if Chad, Niger and Cameroons have not volunteered to join Nigeria to fight Boko Haram? It is a serious question to ask a President who has totally failed to guarantee the security of the Nigerian people. He swore to preserve and protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and to protect our people. I hear that Boko Haram still controls 3 towns in the Northeast of Nigeria despite the help Nigeria has received from Chad and Niger and Cameroons. If 3 countries joined together cannot subdue Boko Haram what does that say about the so-called insurgents? How for goodness sake do they fuel their vehicles to move them around when the combined forces of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroons confront them? Something does not add up here. How come the Chebok girls are still nowhere to be found despite the fact that the Chad and the Nigerian President have long admitted they both knew where the girls were. If they knew that why did they not go and free them from their captivity? Who is fooling whom?
I know the three neighboring countries very well as the former Secretary to the Joint Economic Commission of Nigeria with the rest of the world for 2 years. I visited the capitals of the three countries many times in my capacity as Secretary to the Commission. As a matter of fact my Commission held meetings at Maradi, the second commercial town of Niger not too far away from Niamey. In those days Nigeria was respected as the most powerful country in the West African sub region. Those countries were usually the ones running to Nigeria for help not the other way round. Today under Jonathan it is a different story. This could only mean that Nigeria has disintegrated militarily that the tail is now wagging the dog.
Six weeks ago Jonathan postponed the February 14 election to March 28 on the pretense that he wanted the refugees who had since fled to the surrounding countries to return back to their homes before the elections can be held in the war affected areas. The real reason for the postponement was because he knew he would have lost that election. The other subsidiary reason could be the fact that INEC was not ready. Less than 2 weeks to the deadline, and with Chad, Niger and Cameroons troops joining hands with the Nigerian troops, we are still being told that Boko Haram is yet to be defeated.
The last time I checked the top echelon of the Nigerian Military and the Commander-in-Chief with their tails between their legs are saying that Boko Haram still controls 3 towns in the war-affected areas.
Could Jonathan be raising that point as an excuse to ask for further postponement of the elections? For him to do that would be a violation of the Nigerian Constitution? Nigeria is in a mess today because Jonathan has failed. He is in denial to admit he has failed. What if he has not received any help from Chad, Niger and the Cameroons? There is a clear possibility that the rag tag army of Boko Haram could have kept the war going indefinitely. Nigerians should be shocked to their bones that Boko Haram would still have the time and the space to start moving the Chibok girls every time they are forced to retreat. This is a real disgrace for President Jonathan and his useless commanders.
The new Nigeria we all crave is not possible under a Government as derelict as the Jonathan Government. Nigerians must call a spade a spade and send the Jonathan Government parking once and for all. We need a new broom to sweep Nigerian clean. Let us vote en mass for Buhari and Osinbajo for a change with a caveat that if they fail, they too will be sent parking in 4 years.
Nigerians must show a resolve to wrestle corruption to the ground and end the pervasive feeling of insecurity that has gripped Nigeria with Jonathan as President. We have no other nation to call our own than Nigeria. We all must join hands to salvage the country for generations yet unborn.
To hell with the Jonathan Government on March 28! Nigeria needs a new beginning under President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo.Now is the time! I acknowledge the fact before I end this article that Channels TV appears to have started doing something about the Sagir Koli tape which I hope will come back to haunt President Jonathan big time because some of us will not let the matter go away until justice is served.
I rest my case.