Month: December 2009

The BBC Story on Nigerian Police

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Adeola Aderounmu

The BBC yet again found another weak spot in Nigeria. The Police. It is up to the Nigerian Police to defend its integrity. How it goes about that is left to the authorities affected. I have done one or two pieces before on the Nigerian Police and I must confess that there was nothing new in that BBC story of December 8 2009.

There is a story that I always made reference to when it concerns how police kill innocent people in Nigeria. In 1995/ 96 while I was doing my youth service in Oyo State I lived on a street where Akinyele Local Government was/is situated. That is Moniya in Ibadan. At that time I was working at IITA in Ibadan as a youth corp member.

I lived directly opposite the local government and inside the premises of the local government was Moniya Police Station. It happened that in the middle of the night (almost every night) I usually hear loud noises that woke me up from my sleep. One day I had to ask my landlord’s son what the noise was all about.

He told me that I should ignore the sound and try to sleep because the police are doing their work-which is executing the robbers in the cell. He said they do that to avoid congestion in the cells. He told me that the bodies would be thrown into a famous river before day break. He told me this casually as if it was a normal thing. Going by its regularity, it was normal. I was shocked. From that day till the end of my service year I usually look closely at the police officers. As in they smile and go about like normal people but I actually thought they are crazy to be executing robbers at night.

That story plus all the other experiences about Police story that I’ve known before made me to dread the police like hell. I mean when I’m close to police officers with guns, I comply with whatever they say 100% because they can pull their triggers at anytime and you are dead. When I started driving in Lagos, every policeman was “Oga sir”! Many of them have red eyes and are invariably drunk. When a police man is pointing a loaded gun at you and ask you for 20 naira, I don’t think you want to mess around. Any dead citizen will be reported as armed robber to cover for atrocities. The BBC story is largely true.

But the Nigerian Police is just a product of a system that is decayed. The former inspector general of Police Tafa Balogun stole and looted police funds. Under Obasanjo billions of naira disappeared to his friends and family rather than the trust fund that was meant for the development of the police force. No one has been prosecuted, no one will be prosecuted. In Nigeria, you can loot and go. It’s your part of the so called National cake. A national tragedy as a matter of fact.

As mentioned above the police is just a product of a decayed system. Our politicians do not get anything fixed except their personal bank accounts and their homes/ future. They steal, they loot and they mismanage everything. Education, infrastructure, sports, health and so on. Just name anything, we have used nepotism, tribalism, corruption, and a form of madness called national character to destroy the fabrics and foundation of this (once upon a time) great nation.

The police have no modern gadgets and equipment to fight crime. They are usually overwhelmed by armed robbers who are more sophisticated. The Nigerian Police have inadequacies in everything! Patrol vehicles are probably too few and even the number of police / 000 citizens will shock anyone. I don’t know the statuses of the kinds of people employed by the police force. With Characters like Tafa Balogun, Mike Okiro and now one Onovo, the road is too long.

Police brutality and abnormalities are not peculiar to Nigeria but I’m a Nigerian blogger so I care less about the corrupt Russian police, the aggressive US Police or the lazy Scandinavian police. My attention is on Nigerian Police at this moment and I feel so sorry for them in a way. I mean their salaries are extremely poor and nothing to write home about. By setting up road blocks and begging for money instead of controlling, preventing or fighting crimes, Nigerian police is the apex of ridicule. They ask for money in the open and they tell you they have families at home.

This is the same country where one man will sit in his office and steal 12 billions dollars. A local government chairman will build houses and estate across the country. The senate president is a well known corrupt man, a thief in plain language. Name one prominent politician in Nigeria that is not a thief! So you see you can’t blame it all on the police, they see their bosses stealing. They see ordinary politicians amassing wealth overnight and with their poor salaries they set up road blocks to help their pockets. In fact, they give returns to their bosses who are sitting with their pot bellies in their office. How many police boss in Nigerian can chase a robber?

When it is election time the evil parties will connive with police to steal ballot boxes or to threaten voters so that elections can be rigged as planned. The Nigerian Police is at the mercy of the way the country is organised. Indeed all/ ordinary Nigerians are at the mercy of a certain evil force ruling the country. I have stated several times that in Nigeria we are in a dilemma: which problem/s do we solve first? How are we going to go about the rebuilding of this failed country?

For sure our politics and the corruption that have ruined the country will be an ideal suggestion. If we get it right politically, maybe we will succeed to elect the right people to lead us. Maybe we will be able to fight corruption for real and prosecute thieves and looters. Maybe our judiciary will work and then the police do not become the prosecutor, judge and executors? Just maybe!

Maybe when our politics is right, our education will pick up again, maybe our infrastructure will improve. Maybe we will build our roads, make our refineries work, create employment opportunities that will reduce the rising spate of armed robbery and assassinations. Maybe!

Maybe we will be proud as a people and eschew bitterness and hatred. One day I hope we will take out all the round pegs in square holes and chose the people who are upright, discipline and selfless to lead us.

Just maybe one day, the police and the rest of us will be doing what we are suppose to be doing and be really proud to be doing so. Until such a time when some of these dreams come true, no one should expect decrease in the number of unnecessary deaths from police miscarriage of judgement, from preventable diseases, from road accidents, from assassinations, from reckless driving and other man made atrocities in Nigeria. Imagine that we have lived 2 years with a fake president who is cooling off in a Saudi Arabian hospital while the rest of us including the police can go to hell! What a shameless man..!

reference: BBC on Nigerian Police

Nigeria: The Media, Politics, State of the Nation and the Fear of the Truth

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Adeola Aderounmu

There are obvious reasons why the Nigeria media is always short of expressions to drive home serious points when it concerns national issues and how it affects our lives. I can attest to the fact that Nigeria is not left alone in this media suppression of some sort. However the dimension it takes and the overall effects on the values of our lives in Nigeria leave much to be desired.

The other day one journalist with the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper was brutally murdered in his home. Bayo Ohu was a political journalist and his assassination will never be solved. The only thing we will get out of his death will be speculation and hypothesis. Those who work in the Guardian and his colleagues will probably have a clue as to what he was writing about or investigating before he met his brutal death.

There are countless other situations where journalists have been murdered in Nigeria. I am not surprised; journalists especially investigative journalists working on sensitive matters have met their untimely deaths in different parts of the world. Russia gives a typical situation here because quite a number of Russian journalists have been murdered too and like Nigeria the cases are never solved.

The Nigerian government does not usually tolerate criticism from media houses. The security service is always quick in seizing computers and closing down media houses in Nigeria. The Guardian, Channels TV and even AIT have at one time or the other experienced the evil and dictatorial arm of the Nigerian government. The craziest thing is that it doesn’t matter if it is the military or civilian government, once the government is uncomfortable with a report; it closes down the media outfit without notice or warning. Welcome to Nigeria..!

Now you can understand why authentic news or information about Nigeria are more reliable from external sources, I mean from outside Nigeria or on the web. Because if a Nigerian Newspaper for example carries an editorial tomorrow asking for the resignation of Mr. Yar Adua that media outfit will probably be closed down. The editors can be charged for treason and believe me, many families will be rendered helpless from the saga. Fathers will probably be behind cells for weeks or months and sources of livelihood will be terminated abruptly.

So there are no truths-saying media outfits in Nigeria. Sometimes some of them try to state the truth but they polish it and apply extreme diplomacy. It is hard to find a physical media outfit in Nigeria that takes a stand against the wrong doing of the politicians or the government at large. I have not read any newspaper that is bold enough to say that Mr. Ibori is a thief for example.

But seriously the Nigerian Media need to do a rethinking and despite the high risk they need to take a stand on national issues. Their passivity is contributing to the wretchedness in Nigeria. I know the risk but the truth is if all of them decide to start giving the government hard knocks I don’t think the government can close down all the media houses.

One key issue is that a number of the media houses are own by thieves and politicians who have stolen from the treasury. So in delicate principle it is hard for such media houses to crititicise the government. The hands of the owner are not clean and blackmail comes in cheap. Another related issue is that the pervading poverty has turned some aspects of journalism into a hand-to-mouth affair. Many journalists collect bribes to write favourable reports about thieves in power. Nigerian journalists are not immune from the corruption and hopelessness that has taken over the entire country.

It appears that in every aspect of our lives we are entangled, almost entirely entrapped. We have reached that point where there is no easy way forward. Nigeria is at a puzzled crossroad where the possibility to make one correct decision about our existence must drag along with it multiple options of how to deal with the entanglement. Indeed we are in trouble.

Out troubles are compounded by our actions and wrongfully inclined mentality inflicted by several years of misrule. In 2009 approaching 50 years of our existence as an independent country there are very few things to boast about.

If we are seeking ways out our media must start reporting things the way they are. We have no water in our homes unless we spend our hard earned money to make bore holes and buy pumping machines. There is no electricity and the people who stole the monies meant for the facility are walking free, our media houses should name them and shame them. The time to be bold is now. Our schools are in rot and almost no teaching is taking place. Cheats have taken over! We have a minister for education waiting for the media to scrutinize and expose more and more.

In our houses of assembly, both local and national, there are men and women of dishonour, sitting idly, awarding contracts, forming committees, paying themselves huge salaries and allowances!!! What is the media doing to expose these lazy thieves? If the media was good enough David Mark would never stay 1 week as the senate president! How can a looter and a known thief head the Nigerian senate? Where are our investigative journalists? I don’t mean the internet bloggers.

If the media had been sincere and bold we will never have allowed the fraud of 2007 to stay. Mr Iwu and Mr Obasanjo dictated for us, on behalf of the invisible cabal, who should be our next dictator. They gave us a terribly sick man and now we are all sick! Nigeria is a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

I must stop but I hope that the media would be bolder. I know the risk; I mean who wants to write that Obasanjo is a thief only to be found dead the next day, in cold blood? Who wants to write that Yar Adua is a stupid man for not building hospitals in Katsina or Abuja only to be shot dead or assassinated in the presence of his children? Nigeria is too delicate for the truth, but the TRUTH we must say even if it means laying down our lives. Afterall nobody will leave this world alive and only the truth can give us and our children that freedom, independence and justice that have eluded this failed country for almost 50 years…!

Segun Odegbami on Nigerian U-17 Age Cheats (a must read by FIFA and NFF)

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Written By Segun Odegbami

It is Wednesday night. I am sitting and wondering what to write about this week. The eye of the world is riveted on the World Cup Draws event. I may be there for the show and shall report my experiences on this page.

From next week those of us in the business of football analysis will have a field day peering into our crystal balls and predicting how games will go, how players will play, and how far Nigeria can get from the opposing teams that will be thrown up by the draws. Until that happens I am checking my mailbox for anything interesting.

I open my box and find one amongst tons of letters that attracts my full attention. It accuses me of complicity in the matter of the recently-concluded under-17 FIFA championship and wonders why I have not commented since the conclusion of the event either about the ‘successful’ organisation of the event or the exhilarating performances of the Golden Eaglets, a performance that seems to have soothed the nerves of Nigerians and lifted their spirit in contrast to the Super Eagles’ World Cup qualifying matches that kept people’s blood-pressure soaring high through most of the months of the campaign.

The writer wonders if Adokie Amiasimaka has not now been vindicated by the silence that has now followed his explosive revelation during the championship that the Nigerian captain is a twenty-something year old man and not the teenager he claims to be.

The majority point of view is that even if Adokie had the evidence his timing was wrong and that he should have waited until the end of the championship, allowed the visitors to go, and then raised the matter! Well, it has been weeks since the championship ended. Nothing has happened. No one is saying or doing anything. Is the issue raised by Adokie not of significance any more? Has time diminished the relevance of inquiry and verification of the issue? Has the matter been overtaken by events? Should it be forgotten and swept under the carpet?

I am thinking. Obviously my silence has not escaped the attention of some observant public. I owe it to my readers to express an opinion one way or the other. My first reaction is a reminder of an article I wrote ahead of the championship. In that piece I promised I shall only celebrate Nigeria’s victory or performance if it is achieved with integrity.

The greatest gift I give myself all the time is the right to choose who I want to be and how I want my every action and word to reflect the greatest version of myself. I’d rather be silent than embrace standards and values that diminish who I am. It has been with great difficulty that I have resisted the temptation to ventilate my feelings on the under-17 championship and damn the consequences. But common sense has held me back, and, so, my deafening silence.

I guess I am waiting, like many others, for the ‘appropriate’ time, when no one shall be accused of being unpatriotic; when no one shall be accused of taking cheap shots at those in NFF today because they want to discredit them so as to remove them and take over their positions; when the international community will not be around and no one can be accused of washing dirty linens in public; when my words would not be seen as a stain on my country’s image and reputation; and when it will not be considered ‘sinful’ to keep silent in the face of tyranny!

Unfortunately, the more I think of it the more it dawns on me how bad our situation really is. Such time will never come! As far as most Nigerians are concerned the Under-17 championship has come and gone; Adokie’s ‘wrong’ is making his allegation during the championship; the FIFA President has made his own pronouncement on the matter and insisted indirectly that it was not FIFA’s business to question the integrity of a country’s documentation to determine the age of its players; and the matter is dead and buried and over! Next chapter!

Unfortunately for some of us the fundamental issues in the matter cannot be swept under the carpet because they impact on the future of our children, on the development of our cherished game, on the image and reputation of our country and on our individual and collective values as Nigerians. When, therefore, will be the ‘right’ time to speak up and do something?

For the sake of the reader whose mail has precipitated my present thought process permit me to reproduce excerpts from an article I wrote a few weeks before the championship. It provides the answer for my present silence and why I did not join in celebrating the Eaglets.

The Golden Eaglets Must Win With Integrity!

In 1988, after the 1987 World Youth championship, in my naivety and with the purest of intentions I did not have to do more than a cursory logical computation, peeling the skin from the information that was in the public domain, to scream out loud that some of the players we used in the championship could not be the ages they claimed.

Those who were in charge of Nigerian football at the time were enraged. It was such a ‘heinous’ crime that I became victim of unwritten ostracisation from football administration for many years after that. It was such a serious charge, with potentials for massive international scandal that, were there no elements of some truth, I would have been sued for treason!

The shock is that there was not even a whimper from the football authorities. Against a lack of evidence to ‘convict’ anyone it became a matter of time before everyone went silent and became part of the complicity!

The most annoying defence put up by some people is that other countries (mostly from Africa) must be guilty of the same offence. A few years after the 1987 incident the country was caught in a documentation malpractice and was suspended by FIFA for a few years suffering international humiliation.

After that, rather than create better ways of verifying documents, the country ‘invested’ in perfecting documents submitted on the players to FIFA.

So, the initial cancer ate deeper into the fabric! The rewards for success at that level became too alluring that many Nigerians joined in the racket. It became such a lucrative business that hordes of academies sprung up all over the country marketing supposedly young players and as a result parents and agents in the country would do almost anything to get their wards into the under-17 category of the national team!

Cheating became an acceptable practice with parents and some football institutions as willing agents. Sports greatest values were abandoned on the altar of lucre. Hard work, morals, discipline, and fair play lost their place as the means to success!

Everyone in sport knew what was going on but was helpless against the practise, silenced by the overwhelming celebrations of ‘successes’ that left a hollow feeling in the pits! It was great to be part of a national celebration of ‘success’ but it was such a moral burden that many people had to live with, accepting unashamedly that cheating was okay for as long as others were probably also doing it. (I then wrote about a Nigerian lad who played at the NUGA games two years ago, was in 300 level when he did, had left the country for two years after NUGA and was a member of the under-17 team in camp!)

The arithmetic is easy to work out! No matter the computation one comes up with, no matter the allowances one makes up for early schooling, ingenuity and academic excellence, no matter the parameters used in measuring rapid acceleration through the classes, there is no way such a player that left secondary school 7 years ago would be less than 17 years old by October 2009!

There would have been many Nigerians that know this young man, starting from his parents, his teachers in primary and secondary school, his mates in the neighbourhood he grew up in, his class and school mates through Primary, secondary and university.

In October 2009, we all would have sat and watched this young man outplay children 7 or 8 years his junior, ‘excelled’ and brought ‘victory’ to Nigeria. We would have feted him, celebrated him and made him a hero. We would have rewarded him with gifts and honours along with his co-conspirators in this racket, made him a model for the next generation and perpetuated falsehood and cheating!

Yet, we would have known all the time that this is a moral baggage; that the victory, the glory, the honours, the accolades, all was fraudulently achieved and undeserved.

This country is in darkness. Even in sport that brings us so much joy, and draws from us the best in our talent and potentials as human beings so abundantly blessed by God, knowing fully well that we can win cleanly, with dignity and integrity, we choose instead the short cut and selling our souls in the end!

Nigeria does not have to win the FIFA under-17 championship by all means. But who says the country cannot win it with its best students under-17? Even if they don’t NOW the country would have started the process of developing authentic talents, the ones that represent the values we want to stand for as a nation that would go ahead into the future with experiences and exposure from the 2009 event to become winners of bigger trophies in the years to come! That I can truly celebrate!

So that’s it. That’s why I did not celebrate. Let me take the argument one step further than Adokie. Let me put my foot in it properly, after all there can be no more international sanctions following confirmation by the FIFA President himself that all the players that took part in the championship were of the correct age. So, that’s settled. I have no problem with one player being over-aged in the Nigerian team. What I actually have problem with is the challenge of identifying just one in the entire team that is actually under-17.

Just as the lord told his prophet that if he finds only one person righteous in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah he would spare both cities from destruction, so am I thinking that if I can find just one player in the entire Golden Eaglets team, still in secondary school, and below the age of 17 at the time of the last tournament I shall never write a line about cheating again in Nigerian football and shall apologise to all Nigerians. It is that bad!

segunodegbami@hotmail.com

(Culled from the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper 5th dec 2009)

The Rise and Rise of Evil..!

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By Adeola Aderounmu

In August 2009 I argued that Mr. Yar’ Adua should be sent packing (ref: 10 reasons why Yar’ Adua should resign).…! I continue to maintain that position irrespective of Mr. Yar’Adua’s status. I have never called him a president and I will under no circumstances have any reason to address him as one. As far as I am concern he is a product of evil and illegality. Anyone who has forgotten what happened in 2007 should do a quick browse of the articles on Nigerian Village Square for information.

Mr. Yar’ Adua is very sick and there are reasons to believe he will not be able to return to his illegal post again. I am not taking advantage of his sickness. I know what it is to be sick. When I was 2 my parents actually thought I would die. In 2005 I was nearly off at Karolinska hospital due to an illness. I’ve lost someone I love to cancer. I’ve lost 2 nephews to preventable causes. My mum is down with stroke. Many of us have our personal problems but we didn’t pause Nigeria with our problems. No one has such right or privilege.

At this moment that Nigeria should be looking ahead we are now being held static by forces and individuals who are playing gods with our existence. They have reasons to do that. Very stupid reasons actually! In the history of this failing nation we have never successfully elected leaders into political offices. It has been one rigging after another or one military dictatorship after another. It is based on these types of precedents that the current rogues who called themselves politicians in Nigeria are incapable of moving the nation forward.

Evil is perpetually on the rise in Nigeria. It appears that it will continue to be so until one day that the people will be able to say enough is enough. If the people of Nigeria continue to sit down and look without taking actions then nothing will change. The politicians will continue to do what they know best: use violence or military influence to rig elections, loot the treasury and never give a damn about the consequences of their actions.

There was a call from about 56 prominent Nigerians that Yar Adua should resign. Actually that is not their call. That call is for 150m Nigerians to make. Indeed that call should be the sign of things to come. There is nothing stopping 150m Nigerians from forming a formidable unit to resist this evil and face it for once and for all time.

Nigerians have a moral obligation to bring down the reign of evil and its agents. The constitution is not perfect but that it is not even respected means that we live under the reign of tyranny in disguise. So why not bring it down. Heaven will not fall with it..!

Today we have very shameless men and women parading the corridors of power. It is so unbelievable the types of statements and information that emanate daily from these tropical gangsters in agbada. Their collective mentality brings ridicule to the rest of us. Seriously there is something wrong with the black race. What will it take to break it if it is a curse or sort?

Again the main reason why we are at this crossroad is because of the wrong way we took to this point. Imagine if our votes were counted in 2007 we will not be at this junction. It is therefore more imperative at this point than at any other point of our crumbling history that we seize this moment and start doing it right at whatever cost!

Those of us who do not accept Umaru cannot discard Goodluck. What we must ensure is to allow him assume the position of the number one citizen but doing all we can before 2011 to avoid the kind of process that manufactured him and his diminishing boss. No one can deny that they were selectively planted to satisfy the evil desires of Mr. Obasanjo and his co-travellers.

I must reiterate that Nigerians must rise up for their own good so prevent the further rise of evil in Nigeria. At all cost we must ensure transparency of our electoral system. We have had opportunities in the past to do things right but we always spend our times at churches and mosques praying and doing nothing. People should get out of their shrines and act.

We have a lot of things to put in place, back to what they were before independence actually. Our educational system, our health delivery system, our transport system, our economy, our environment, our infrastructure and definitely our employment system and human dignity all require fixing. By ourselves we can declare a state of emergence on our power system and see to it that it works. We should ensure that our national system starts to work again by bringing down all those standing in the way.

These things are achievable. We don’t need a useless 7-point deadly agenda or the prescription of fraudulent minds called vision 20-2020. Nonsense! When we have taken control of our electoral system and being able to elect our representatives then we can start asking for accountability and probity in public and private institutions. We will minimise corruption and give hope to our children and children’s children.

This is the time for Nigerians to unite and ensure that Yar’ Adua does not come back again. He is a liability, too weak for Nigeria even if they package him again. I can tell you that thousands of children have died in Nigeria since the day that he left Nigeria for treatment in a foreign land. This is the time to take measures that will terminate such irresponsible and shameful act from a ruler. Now is that time to do all that is possible to get those politicians, senators and lawmakers to act. If it means going to their houses, why not? If it means millions of Nigerian bombarding Abuja or Aso rock, why not?

To do nothing is to be part and parcel of the evil itself. It will rise forever..!

A reminder: 10 Reasons Why Yar’ Adua Should Resign..!

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By Adeola Aderounmu

(First published in august this year)

10 Reasons Why Yar’ Adua Should Resign..!

Yar’ Adua continues to receive treatment for his ailments overseas. No excuse will be enough to justify why a man who ruled a state for 8 years and a wealthy country like Nigeria for 2 years cannot build a state of the art hospital in Katsina or Abuja so that he can have direct access to medical treatment.

It is not impossible that the frequent treatment that Yar Adua is receiving overseas might be gulping millions of naira each time. Tax payers’ money so recklessly spent is inhuman and wicked. If the ruler of a country travels abroad to receive treatment, what is the fate of the helpless poor masses? What is the fate of Nigerian children, pregnant women and the elderly? This shame is unbearable for the normal people in Nigeria, Umaru should resign!

It must be repeated as often as necessary that Yar’ Adua was not elected. That he admitted it is not enough. He has a moral obligation to let go of what he got illegally and against the wish of the Nigerian people. If Yar’ Adua is a normal human being or an educated graduate that we are told he is, then he should know that acquisition of power by falsehood is a depiction of daftness. The knowledge of books or letters does not translate to intellectualism. Only thieves claim things by falsehood, lying and stealing.

One of the rare moments when Yar’ Adua made good a promise was when he set up the panel that examined the electoral process in Nigeria. But like the dictators before him, he has decided not to abide by all the recommendations of the Electoral Committee. Political analysts asserted that the National Assembly can actually adopt the entire recommendations. Those lazy crooks! However the struggle for the actualisation of those recommendations has been sustained by Pro-Democratic groups and the NLC. Causing Nigerians these unnecessary pains and agonies is enough for the clueless idle dude in Aso Rock to return to his village.

Yar’ Adua and his gang have refused and failed to grant all Nigerians a fair chance to attain their fullest potential. The Nigerian Education system today is a complete disaster. The entire blame is not on this lazy government but the fact that after 2 wasteful and destructive years in power they never came up with reasonable steps or attempts to prevent the deterioration in the sector. Most of the unscrupulous politicians and government officials have given their own children the best of education in Nigerian private schools and also at colleges and universities abroad. This is unfair and the man who oversees a failed system should give way, immediately.

In a previous article, I have discussed the scam called vision 20-2020 and the fake 7-point agenda. Yar’ Adua is a liar. What can he point to after 2 years that shows that Nigeria will be a strong economy in 2020? If he decides to go all the way to 2011 Yar’ Adua has a limited time left to show what bravery is all about. Let him try to round off all his former colleagues who stole from the coffers of government when they served as state governors. He should bring them and other crooks in government to justice as a genuine first step towards 20-2020. In the absence of such a sincere commitment, Yar’ Adua should immediately stop the 419, 7p agenda/vision 20-2020 and return to Katsina.

Yar Adua has intimidated and bullied some jelly-hearted governors into the PDP fold. That is Yar Adua’s way of deepening Nigeria’s democracy. Bringing everyone into PDP with a promise for automatic selection in 2011 is Yar Adua’s way of restructuring government’s staff. Seriously the inefficiency and sourness of this illegal administration are extremely disgusting. Yar Adua should return to his village before Nigeria tops the list of failed states. We are getting there too quickly.

Yar’Adua has failed woefully in the area of infrastructure. Where is the mass transportation that he promised 2 years ago? Where are the railroads? Where are the jobs? Yar’Adua promised a dramatic development in power generation, transmission and distribution. Indeed the development has been more than dramatic? Who would have thought that Nigeria will be envelope in total eclipse of darkness by 6pm each day? There is nothing wrong if the man under whose notorious command electricity became a relic in Nigeria is also shown the way out by people power. Are Nigerians not tired of Yar’ Adua?

Yar’Adua committed genocide in the Niger Delta because he had no single clue on how the lingering crisis can be resolved. Out of shame and in one of the most fascinating ironies of modern history he declared amnesty to the winning party. Peace in the Niger Delta demands a holistic approach. The starting point will be the trial of Obasanjo and Yar Adua for acts of genocides. The continuation will be the prosecution of all the past and present looters who called themselves Niger Delta Governors or South-South Governors.

The sincerity of a legitimate government working hand-in-hand with disciplined oil industries in the Delta will bring a permanent solution to the Niger Delta through the application of justice and fairness in all dealings. Pertinent issues relating to environmental degradation, general pollution, health care, employment opportunities and provision of social amenities/infrastructure cannot be compromised, not even by a fake amnesty. It’s simple logic: no justice, no peace!

By way of repetition Yar’ Adua lied when he said that he will intensify the war against corruption. Mrs. Clinton was blunt when she said that in the last 2 years the anticorruption agency is dead in Nigeria. This is the handiwork of Yar’Adua. He succumbed to pressure to appoint a stooge for the corrupt governors who worked under Obasanjo. By so doing Yar’Adua totally killed the anticorruption war in Nigeria. Farida Waziri is product of maladministration and evil connivance. By refusing to fight corruption from the top Yar’Adua accelerated the spread of poverty in Nigeria. No meaningful impact will be felt on the economy by witch-hunting or titbit war on corruption by using certain out-of-favour persons as victims. The missing word in the fight against corruption is TOTAL.

The failed PDP government said Mrs. Clinton was misinformed when she declared that Nigeria has a leadership problem. PDP also said that Hilary’s comments about the EFCC are out of place. For making this type of foolish comments, the National Publicity Secretary of PDP Rufai Ahmed Alkali is one of the greatest enemies of Nigeria and should be avoided like a plague. As a Nigerian, I want to state categorically that I don’t need a Mrs. Clinton to know that Nigeria has no leaders. Nigeria has a very big leadership problem.

Nigeria’s self appointed leaders are the biggest obstacle to the development of Nigeria. The story goes on and EFCC is a failed institution because all the corrupt politicians in Nigeria under the previous and present dispensations are all free people. PDP as it is today is the most evil organisation on the surface of Africa because of the impact of the attitudes and actions displayed under the PDP banner and the effects on the lives of over 140m black Africans 75% of whom are completely hopeless. Does R.A Alkali not know this before Clinton visited Abuja?

Yar’ Adua promised to be a worthy personal example. Has he done this by travelling overseas every now and then for treatments? Has he been a good example by travelling to Brazil when Nigeria was boiling courtesy of failure of governance which resulted to the rise of Boko Haram? What type of example has Umaru provided by eliminating a whole community in Bayelsa State using the Obasanjo Odi Approach (OOA)? What type of example would make a man stupidly coerce other people into the PDP because of the promise of automatic election victories in 2011? Is that how democracy can develop in Nigeria?

When Yar Adua visited Imo State everything was closed down for his sake, school children were forced to wear uniforms on a Saturday and markets were closed down. These are the hallmarks of dictatorship. Yar’ Adua and individuals of like-traits have no businesses in our quest to build a nation which by 2100 should by among the league of developed countries in the world, if we start the process of change today. To make our dreams come true when our grandchildren start arriving Yar’ Adua should give way now. Delay is dangerous!