For any sane mind, the best way to challenge your sanity is to sit down and ponder over the Nigerian state and the manner it is being run; you might either find out that there is a very thin line separating sanity and insanity, or you might just end up with the “laughing gas” effect.
For any sane mind, the best way to challenge your sanity is to sit down and ponder over the Nigerian state and the manner it is being run; you might either find out that there is a very thin line separating sanity and insanity, or you might just end up with the “laughing gas” effect.
That is to say, you will find yourself laughing at a tragic-comedy. Thinking about Nigeria has not made me mad [am I really sure?] neither has it turned me into a laughing spectator, it really makes me angry. Very angry. Daily, I stare into oblivion in my attempt at understanding why we are the way we are, I pick my brain trying to figure out why we have charlatans calling the shots in Nigeria, I marvel at how it seems that Nigerians are daily taking the piss lying low! Really, very strange things happen in Nigeria and people just whisper their reservations and move on, official impunity is a way of life in Nigeria, men and women plagued by cerebral malaria rule over hapless but highly cerebral citizens and we thank God for His mercies!
I was just recovering from the severe shock of the “Independence” Day multiple bomb blasts that claimed the lives of innocent but malnourished fellow citizens when news filtered in that Mrs. Cecilia Ibru has been found guilty of rogue banking and jailed-for six months! Are we talking about the same woman that in her quest for filthy lucre ruined the lives of many innocent people and their dependants through her sheer day-light robbery? A woman whose actions led to the wicked sacking of innocent bank staffs who had to be scarified for Oceanic Bank to be salvaged? To add salt to injury, the EFCC went to town celebrating the conviction! This is a silly case of slapping a very dangerous convict on the wrist! We were only told of the gargantuan cash and property she had to forfeit, but nobody is saying anything about the ones that she has been allowed to keep-and enjoy! What is a six-month jail term compared to the outright wickedness and evil of her actions? She will be out in no time, and life will go on. This is a classic case of judicial favouritism where wealthy convicts are favoured with a light sentence whereas the hungry pick-pocket gets hit with the full weight of the law. Just recently, an Internet scammer was jailed in Lagos for 12 years for defrauding another fellow of $5,000 and a celebrity in the person of Mrs. Cecilia Ibru will be spending six months in “jail” for stealing billions of Naira belonging to trusting depositors! In the United States of America, a certain Bernard Madoff got 150yrs jail term for a similar offence! Only in Nigeria..
The PDP is at it again. The race for the 2011 presidential election is really throwing up familiar reactions and alignments, as usual different camps have sprung up within the same “biggest political party in Africa”. I have argued in the past that the PDP is just a shameful collection of men and women of dodgy characters whose major preoccupation is scheming how to viciously hijack elective positions and hold on to it at the expense of common sense. The only evil force propelling this vaulting ambition is the need to assuage their cravings for primitive acquisition-to steal the wealth of the nation. Look at the line up; Messrs Atiku Abubakar, Ibrahim Babangida, Gusau, Jonathan Goodluck, Bukola Saraki. My mood takes a nosedive whenever I think of IBB. Where is this man’s shame? Is there no limit to which charlatans can go in their bid to insult Nigeria, nay Nigerians? Mungo Park “discovered” River Niger right? IBB is the Nigerian Mungo Park who introduced the most brazen type of corruption in Nigeria! In countries where things are done the right way, Babangida should either be on exile as a fugitive running from the law, or he will be holding evening crusades in prison as an inmate! But it is only in Africa that a man whose credibility has been so tainted would have the foolhardiness to come out to ask fellow citizens to entrust him with the highest elective office in the land! And Atiku Abubakar! That bloke needs to rid himself of that “it is my turn” mentality; Nigeria is not a game where people wait for “their turn”. This is what has been going on in Nigeria; the so called leaders are busy recycling themselves and planting their children, wives, concubines and female chattels in lucrative positions. Mr. Atiku Abubakar came into government relatively unknown except in his native Adamawa state and its environs and became a massive millionaire after eight years as Mr. Obasanjo’s deputy; where did this man get all this money from? How much was his salary and perks as the Vice President of Nigeria? How much did he declare when he first came into the picture? What does this man want from us, the hungry citizens of the Federal Republic? Is there no limit to a man’s quest for riches? My only concern with Buhari, though not of the evil axis [the PDP] is that he appears to be on a vengeance mission! Either he wants to become the president in order to hit his mates that ousted his jack-boot regime with a cudgel, or he wants to complete whatever dictatorial projects he set out to do in his first coming-through a coup d’tat. Simply put, Buhari is a brute, a dictator of the worst order, a man who can not be easily associated with any thing brilliant, and a grumbling tyrant. Such people have no role to play in any democracy. JEG is a man who was drafted into frontline politics by D.S.P Alameghesia just to balance his gubernatorial quest and the rest as they say is history. Suddenly, the man JEG is throwing everything at his chances of winning the next presidential election- scheming and all that; he has every legitimate right to want to continue as the president, come next year. My greatest fear in this JEG matter is that everything points to a situation of “the hand of Jonathan but the voice of Obasanjo”! Former President Obasanjo seems not to be concealing his staunch interest in anything JEG, he follows him around almost to everywhere, the last one being JEG’s state visit to Jos on Friday [08/10/10] where the current President addressed Obasanjo as “His Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo”. Of course, JEG’s attempt at massaging Obasanjo’s sick ego went a step too far when he argued that Obasanjo was the most experienced Nigeria ruler with the best results! Damn too silly I dare say for Obasanjo left Nigeria worse than he found it! President Jonathan does not seem to me as a man capable of bringing any positive change to Nigeria, he is a product of the same rampaging PDP and is currently courting all the known disaster-characters of that notorious group taking shelter under a lousy umbrella! You cannot be a product of evil and want to turn around and claim to be different from what begot you; President Jonathan to me represents the same evil group and the sooner we discard the notion that “he will perform”, the better for us. Finally, I have nothing to say about Aliyu Gusau and that clown, Bukola Saraki, they are just stage-assistants.
What confirms my fear that all the men listed above are out to sneak into Aso Rock just to line their pockets is that none of them has made any attempt, no matter how vain at trying to come up with any blueprint on ways to rediscover Nigeria. In this 21st Century, all we hear are some stupid promises of tarring roads, “ensuring regular power supply”, and sundries childish tantrums. Is tarring roads and revamping the energy sector all there is to governance?
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Another danger signal is the viciousness with which the PDP men are gearing up towards clinching their party’s nomination for the post of President! This to me suggests that the PDP has already perfected plans on how to rig the next presidential election, if not why is there so much brouhaha about “Zoning”? Is being the PDP’s presidential candidate a guarantee to becoming the next president? Is there any role for we the people to play in choosing who becomes our president? The PDP is notorious for election rigging and other malpractices associated with elections in Nigeria and the way these men are jostling to clinch their party’s ticket is a clear indication that the umpire might change, but the players remain the same. Why is Jonathan Goodluck so confident that he will win the next presidential election if our votes will count?
Majority of our politicians are just out to align themselves with whoever is in power as this guarantees them access to our patrimony! Look at the actions of the governors of the five South East states, a collection of men who have woefully kicked their people in the teeth by rushing to line up behind President Jonathan Goodluck. What else informed this shameful decision other than to be in the JEG’s good books as this will insure either re-selection, or keep the EFCC out of their states or both! This is the first time the five Igbo governors have agreed on something at a record speed; meanwhile all the state universities in the five states are closed!, kidnappers and armed robbers have taken over the entire South East and the state governors are apparently at a loss as per how to check crimes, the level of male enrolments into schools have fallen drastically in the entire five Igbo states and all the governors do is map out bigger spaces to build more “International Markets”-this guarantees quick sale of stalls and subsequent revenues flowing into the coffers of the state[or individuals as in most cases], the Federal Government of Nigeria has repeatedly rebuffed the pleas to fix the only federal presence in the entire South East, ROADS, but his seems not to worry the five governors!, unless something urgent is done, the Niger Bridge spanning from Asaba to Onitsha will soon crumble after several warnings and pleas for a new bridge to be constructed. All that is evident in the entire South East is that those in power there are men whose idea of governance are archaic, pathetic, stone-aged and nauseating! Why should governors celebrate “building” roads, sinking shallow boreholes, rural electrification [meanwhile light no dey dey o], donating vehicles to the police, etc? I am sure the governors of the five Igbo States have heard of a fellow Governor called Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, a man who has so far taken governance to a brighter level! May we be blessed with more Fasholas in Nigeria!
Hopefully, the sun will rise again in Nigeria; the country is not yet a worst-case scenario. There is every indication that things are surely going to improve in Nigeria. I strongly believe that the first step towards revamping and rediscovering Nigeria will be to as a matter of utmost urgency demystify and unmask that evil masquerade notoriously know as “The People’s Democratic Party”! This party represents a collection of men and women whose mind frame is no different from the Somali Pirates-quest for loot unlimited! When we are done with dismantling the PDP and sending most of the members to lounge with Bode George at Kirikiri, we will now start a new Nigeria. A quest that will revisit the Oputa Panel, a quest that will unravel the “mystery” behind the Pius Okigbo Report that indicted IBB’s government for misappropriating the Gulf War Oil windfall, a quest that will make the Nigeria Police a modern police outfit instead of a band of poorly motivated, trained and disillusioned men dressed in black welding AK47 assault rifles with empty magazines, a quest that will unravel the killers of Dele Giwa and the arsonists and murderers that invaded Fela’s Kalakuta Republic, a quest that will reveal the identities of the men and women that grounded our four refineries so that a gang of crazy men will be the ones benefiting from exporting crude oil and importing refined products[ only crazy men will dream this up], a courageous quest that will make people accountable for their actions while holding any position of trust. I am talking about a time when those running for elective posts will be bright minds who can come up with workable ideas on how to run a modern state, people who are passionate about using our enormous wealth to insure that electric trains run in Nigeria, bright young men and women who can run a government that will provide the country with an intelligence-based police force, a period where all the roads in Nigeria will be qualified to be called ROADS, a period where Nigerian citizens will see the beauty in going to school rather than wanting to become a pastor, a politician or a “hustler”, a time when Nigerian universities will go back to being called “citadels of learning” rather than a grooming ground for kidnappers and similar societal buffoons, a Nigeria whose citizens will stop dreaming of migrating to Europe and America to “make it”. The list is endless. One point is this; we have left politics in the hands of charlatans for too long! I am really excited at having people like Nuhu Ribadu declare interest in politics. We need more young and bright minds in politics in Nigeria, this is the trend the world over. It is no longer safe to entrust our future as a nation in the hands of the old men and women of the PDP, it is a very big risk! Quoting my friend Ugomma, “20 years ago we were told that the future belongs to us, when will that future come?”. The major crisis we have in Nigeria presently is the PDP! The sooner we rise up and vote this menace out of Nigeria, the better for us. Nigerians are really good people, Nigeria is really a beautiful country but until we rise up to ensure that things are done properly, we will keep on taking the piss!
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