Month: March 2011

Nigeria: Elections or A state of War?

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

Adeola Aderounmu

240 000 policemen will roam the length and breadth of Nigeria this April as Nigeria sets for elections to usher in a new dispensation in the faulty democratic process.

I have argued in several essays that Nigeria needs to become a truly democratic country and that she needs several radical reforms and citizen orientation to genuinely position herself as the giant of Africa.

It will be extremely sad- say in 2015, if Nigeria survived up to that point- to have the repetition of this system that will bring 240 000 policemen and an unknown number of military personnel to the streets to supervise another kangaroo process.

If you have 240 000 policemen/women supervising a process as simple as casting and counting votes then the implications are too severe to be ignored.

It partly implies that the people who are engineering the process and the people for whom it is made have very questionable levels of cognitive reasoning. It is as if the process is made for animals that need to be guided around a farm area or by nomads around undefined zones.

I want to always stand on the side of reason under these circumstances.

What is so complicated in casting a vote, going back home or to your business and trusting that the system works for you and for itself as a matter of fact?

Why is it impossible to create a system that works in Nigeria? Why does it have to be so hard?

There are uncountable arrangements and de-arrangements for these April elections in Nigeria. The Inspector General of Police will say one thing today and deny it tomorrow. The Minister of Police Affairs will state one thing now and change the tone at the next briefing. The Minister of Internal Affairs will issue a press release from nowhere to add to the mountains of confusion.

Wait, INEC will appear from the blues to say all what has been stated and corrected are wrong. That only two policemen out of the 6 500 per state will be at each polling booth. INEC has done at least 2 press briefings to state that military personnel will only be on stand-by.

From the charge and bail system that I know in Nigeria, I am too convinced that the Nigerian police and military personnel will create a number of fracases where there are none.

The National Security Adviser in Nigeria has said that people don’t need to defend any vote. He said it is only the party representatives that have reasons to stay at the polling stations.

Under the INEC arrangement, Nigeria is like “No Country For Old Men (and women)”. People are lining up before 12 and counted and so on. The procedures invariable have excluded the old and the weak. People who have other form of hindrances may as well forget about the elections altogether.

An electoral process that does not allow you to vote by walking in and out of voting centers is bound to fail.
In developed countries you can send your votes by post. The intelligence gap is not the only thing getting wider. Trust, accountability, reliability, probity and the pursuit of Common Good are light years apart when you compare the developed countries to pretentious continental giants like Nigeria.

My arguments are simplified further. Stupid people have no business in governance. Nigeria and indeed Africa must learn to entrust the affairs of their nations in capable hands through genuine democratic means. Nigeria needs functional democracy which can only be achieved by electoral reforms.

In Nigeria rulers must be replaced by leaders. Dictators must be replaced by civil people. Indeed the road to recovery for Nigeria on the political scene is not only long but extremely convoluted. The damage done has been farfetched and almost irredeemable. But hope must not be excluded from our undertakings.

There is no common sense in Nigeria’s political terrain. We must find it and make it a hallmark.

I don’t know if we need a miracle or an uncommon and yet to be defined radical change to transform the collective deformed mentalities and thinking faculties of Nigerians. Our views of politics are lost somewhere in the B.C years. Some of the things that emerge from Nigeria have not helped the perception of Africa from overseas.

People have already killed one another during campaigns, why should we expect less on election days? Even Jega does not even know how far the electorates should stay after casing their votes. He has now said that we should leave the decision in the hands of the security agents. Lawyers are arguing for the 300m provided by law. What a useless law?

That law is unnecessary if people use their senses and leave criminal attitudes for the socially misfits who are always negligible and easily taken care of by the law in normal civilized societies. Unfortunately poverty and ignorance have sent Nigerians on errands of slavery within their own very domain. Shame!

Nigerians must demand electoral reforms immediately after this useless electoral process is concluded. This nonsense situation must not be with us in 2015. If it does this country will never make it, never!

aderounmu@gmail.com

These Must Never Happen Again

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

In 1999, 2003 and 2007 PDP rigged elections in Nigeria. 2007 was the worst of them all. I have presented these facts before but it is election time and I should remind Nigerians that these things must never happen again.

In 2007 PDP chairmen in each state of Nigeria and in all the local governments across Nigeria supervised the biggest election scandal in the history of man.

PDP thugs and party members across Nigeria were armed to the teeth and they watched as the chairmen supervised the biggest and the most massive illegal thumb printing processes ever seen on planet earth.

These events took place across the length and breadth of Nigeria. It was the biggest charade known to man.

You can understand the frustration of Obasanjo that despite all the billions of naira spent on Lagos, the PDP lost to ACN.

Jonathan is the one now wasting federal funds just to capture Lagos.

ACN has also vowed that PDP will not capture Lagos for the next 50 years the same way that PDP boasted that it will be in power at the center for the next 60 years. Invariably this means that PDP has no intention of conceding power to any opposition party. Lagos and ACN is not going to do the same.

These acts of boasting put INEC on the spotlight. Just a few hours away, Nigerians will vote and history will have it on record if the votes tallied with the number of accredited voters or not. It will also be worthwhile if the votes counted are genuine.

We will see what it takes to protect our votes, blood or common civility.

The evil of 2007 perpetrated by Iwu, Ibori, and Obasanjo that brought in the third successive illegal civilian regimes now headed by Jonathan must be resisted by whatever means possible.

Nigerian Union of Teachers, Another Useless Organisation?

/ Adeola / 4 Comments

Adeola Aderounmu

Michael Olukoya took a great risk on behalf of NUT. Along with 120 others he spoke of Jonathan’s reign post-April 2011.

An educated person should never make such a stupid mistake.

It is wrong for one man or 120 people to sell the reputation of the Nigerian Union of Teachers for a few plates of porridge.

I challenged all Nigerian Teachers to come out and openly denounce the support that Michael Olukoya has given to Jonathan.

What are the bases of this support? Olukoya spoke of what Jonathan has done in the education sector? What are these things? In relation to what are we talking about here?

Have Nigerians stop trooping to Ghana for education?

A typical School in Nigeria (Photo By Atinuke Mary Abumere)

A typical School in Nigeria (Photo By Atinuke Mary Abumere)

Has Jonathan started, completed or resuscitated any Federal University or even secondary school in Nigeria?
What exactly has Jonathan done that Olukoya would like the rest of us to know? We are now listening.

One day in December 2010 I heard Jonathan saying that we need to bring back the culture of reading and that people should be encouraged to go to the library.

This is the hallmark of Nigerian politicians. They talk like drums and act like snails or not at all.

Why don’t you build the libraries and stock them with books and see if Nigerians will read or not. We like to read and we want to read. Mr. Jonathan, please which library should I visit?

I hate people talking and making promises-and these are the main characteristics of Nigerian looting politicians and policy makers. Since December 2010 when Mr. Jonathan talked about the culture of reading, can he point to the libraries that have been built, or rehabilitated and if books have been supplied, or bought to fill the shelves?

Education in Nigeria is totally collapsed saved for private institutions where rich people now educate their children. The poor can go to hell.

In the days ahead I plan to write about the state of education in Nigeria. I blame the State and Local government as well for the total collapse of education in Nigeria. Nigerian Public schools are TOTALLY DEAD!

Public education is dead in Nigeria. This is why the useless endorsement that Mr. Olukoya and his gang gave to Jonathan is questionable.

No association of the learned should endorse or affiliate with any political groups in Nigeria. They should instead maintain their autonomy and ensure that the standard of education is improved and that our glory days are returned.

Endorsing corruption and ineptitude is a sign of defective and inferior mentalities on the part of the National Union of Teachers.

I observed that Mr. Olukoya was careful with his words but trust NTA to filter the parts that really sold out the NUT totally.

I am awaiting a rejoinder from the NUT stating their full side of the story and if the union as a whole does not reject the endorsement they should know that history will not forget or forgive them for being part of the evil that took away the future of the Nigerian children.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Nigeria’s Opportunistic Groups Abroad and a Disgrace to Common Sense

/ Adeola / 3 Comments

Adeola Aderounmu

I still don’t know why some Nigerians living abroad are extremely determined to continue to allow poverty to spread in Nigeria. Maybe they are happy sending as little as 5 pounds (as advertised by Western Union in UK) to their families in Nigeria.

There is one useless group called Goodluck-Sambo Reality 2011 that has now taken their stupid “food-to-mouth” campaign to Canada.

In fact I am waiting for a rejoinder from Pius Adesanmi on this one.

The other day a PDP group in Sweden appeared on NTA News. Pius might say I owe Nigerians a rejoinder on that as well. BUT times without number I have condemned these shameful parades of Nigerians abroad contributing to poverty and penury in Nigeria. They don’t get it, do they?

How much are these dudes getting for their quadro-ennial affiliation to “party” of the moment? Are they bitches or prostitutes or both?

In Canada the Goodluck-Sambo Reality Group comprising of just 240 members had the audacity to tell us that the return of Goodluck and Sambo to power is the surest way to stop corruption in Nigeria and to present Nigeria as a credible country in the international community.

They even said that Nigerians in USA have endorsed Jonathan-Sambo. Is that true? Have Nigerians in Canada and USA endorsed the most prodigal illegal government in the history of Nigeria?

Who are these idiots for goodness sake? How much? For how much do they sell their bodies and souls? Eh?

For the records, this government was borne of corruption, courtesy of Ibori, Obasanjo and Iwu. It continues to wallow in the umblela and delta of corruption. No government in Nigeria has been so corrupt and wasteful if you divide the money wasted or looted by the time of illegal reign.

If these people are lost in translation or transition, they should at least take time to read, learn and study the situation in Nigeria before 1999 and see why their campaign could cage Nigerians to everlasting slavery, penury and most extreme hopelessness. If they cannot see that, then they are too foolish to even engage the rest of us in open debate. PDP is the worst thing to have hit Nigeria post-independence.

If they are doing this great disservice because of money, I pity them because should the curse of 120m Nigerians fall upon them, they will not find peace and happiness for the rest of their lives. Even the simple prayer by one Nigerian the other day can cause enough havoc, the person had prayed that may the lives of PDP supporters be the way that PDP has ran Nigeria in the last 12-13 years. If these people campaigning for Jonathan-Sambo Reality 2011 can say Amen to that, let them comment on this post or answer AMEN now now!

It is the same stupid story from Europe. The various embassies have colluded with hungry Nigerians in diaspora to organize a music show. They have wasted money to parade stupidity and nonsense. My argument remains that all these monies that seep down to sycophants and praise singers can save souls in Nigeria.

But these fools don’t see that. Many Nigerians are opportunists. They always see these avenues as their own way of taking from the national cake. And these are parts of the reasons why Nigeria will not make success.

When will Nigerians start to realize that every 1 kobo misspent is the reason why 120m Nigerians are living hopelessly from hand to mouth and having no form or material or monetary support? When?

One group called themselves All Nigerian Group For Good Governance! What type of nonsense is this sef? I challenge all these mushroom associations in Nigeria and overseas to publish their manifestoes online and that in the year 2012, they should tell us what their activities and programs of activities are. Do they even have evidence of registration? Do they pay tax to their home country?

One year from now, all these useless associations would be in hibernation, waiting for another politician to flirt with at a future date. Ashewos!

This is one of the tragedies facing Nigeria-dishonest people capitalizing on prevailing circumstances to worsen the pitiful plights of the common masses through their misdemeanors.

Indeed let’s pray that all those who support PDP or any form of corrupt government for that matter by actions, speech, attitude and association should have their lives just the way that PDP has treated Nigeria in the last 12 years! AMEN!

Nigeria: The Most Wasteful Government in the World

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

Adeola Aderounmu

In addition to the massive corruption of almost all Nigeria’s politicians and public office holders is the ever present cost of keeping all the over 500 parastatals that belong to the Federal Stupidly Wasteful Government of Nigeria.

Check this out. In Nigeria we have the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs. We have the Minister of Police Affairs and we have the Inspector General of Police. This is one classical example of government madness.

As if that is not enough, we also have ICPC and EFCC.

In essence you have 5 conflicting, confusing and antagonistic Federal Offices running one matter-policing the Nation.

In countries where the government and people are normal they have the Police working under the Internal Affairs Ministry.

The others that have been created by Nigeria show inferior intelligence of the people who make policy and play politics in Nigeria. They are so foolish and unintelligent they don’t realize how stupendously ignorant they are.

But we know why more than 500 parastatals exist in Nigeria. Everything in Nigeria is done in the name of corruption. It does not matter how much we write or complain, it is the same cycle of idiocy and the same umblela of corruption since I’ve known Nigeria.

When will this duplication and corruption end?