I agree with Reuben Abati: It is Time to Stone Those in Power

By Adeola Aderounmu

In 2009 Reuben Abati recommended that it will soon be time to start stoning the economists in the corridor of power in Abuja. In 2011 I strongly recommend that everyone in the corridor of power and all those who are called stakeholders who have supported the removal of the subsidy on oil and oil products should be stoned.

Goodluck Jonathan has pinned the reactions of Nigerians to the proposed removal of subsidy on those who want to throw him out of office. I say that he fired the first rounds of shots on his legs. If this will mark the beginning of the end for his insensitive regime, let the occupation starts.

I want to ask the same questions that Reuben Abati asked in 2009: How? Where is this subsidy that government talks about? How was it disbursed?

Reuben Abati wrote in that headline that Nigerians will soon be trekking. Sadly enough Nigerians have actually been trekking before 2009. I remembered trekking from festac town to CMUL during the 2001/2002 fuel scarcity. I had obligations that couldn’t wait.

In 2011 Nigerians are not only willing to trek, they appear ready to march down the Jonathan government that has come to be characterized by weakness in all its ramifications.

From one generation to another, the Nigerian government presents a constant image of a permanent aggregation of dubious elements. In my personal opinion I have concluded that no amount of additional suggestions or written essays can solve Nigeria’s problems.

Are there problems facing Nigerians that the solutions have not been proffered here in the Nigerian Village Square or elsewhere where Nigerians display their intellectual capabilities? Do we have problems in Nigeria that we have no discussed about openly? What has happened to their implementations?

I believe so much in the solution proffered by Reuben Abati. Even so because when it is carried out it will consume people like him. I like such solutions that will not spare the hypocrites, the pretenders, the sycophant and the famously corrupt people in government, many of whom have recently been rewarded by meaningless national awards over several years.

I can’t imagine how people receive national awards in one of the most corrupt countries in the world. How does it feel to receive national awards in a country with one of the highest child and maternal mortalities in Africa? How does it feel to receive awards in a country where electricity is almost absent? How does it feel to receive national awards in a country where public education is almost grounded?

If Nigerians obey Abati’s call by simply rising up and stoning the people in the corridor of power, I am convinced that the revolution we long sought will start. It might be ultimate the clean-up we have waited from since 1960.
It is sad how things have turned out for the ordinary Nigerians. On a poverty wage of USD 113/ month, a Nigerian is expected to pay his rent, bills, and sundries. There is no greater miracle on planet earth than a Nigerian living on N18 000 per month.

In a country where more than 20% of the population is unemployed, I have found it hard to find a greater tragedy against the back drop of the immense natural resources and potential human resources.

If there is any country in Africa where the government should be giving relief packages to her citizens after 50 years of misrule and leadership failure, that country is Nigeria.

In a twist of test of resiliency the ordinary masses will be insulted further. For failing the build or maintain functional refineries, for failing to fight or curb systemic corruption, for failing to deliver on the so-called dividends of democracy, the insensitive Nigerian government now headed by Goodluck Jonathan will make Nigerians suffer even more.

Rather than relief package the economic team of Goodluck Jonathan, his executive council and the so-called stakeholders will deliver loads of additional burden onto Nigeria.

The arguments are hinged on the famous textbook concepts rather than the realities on the ground. There are no arguments that the Jonathan government has put forward that is different from what Obasanjo and late Yar Adua proposed. In all the previous partial or total removal of subsidies that have been used to increase the pump price of petroleum products, there has never been a corresponding increase in the quality of lives of the Nigerian people.

There is absolutely no reason to believe or trust the Jonathan government. It represents the PDP government that has held sway since 1999. The PDP is the largest aggregation of corrupt people in Africa. Under the PDP the quality of life has declined sharply at the same time that the cost of it has continued to increase unhindered.

This, as Jonathan feared in his recent utterances that the opposition wants to bring down his government, must be the last test of resiliency for Nigerians. Any attempt to increase the burden of Nigerians should be met with the highest possible resistance. The opposition that I see is the over 90m Nigerians living below the poverty level.

The argument that the state governors are in support of the removal of fuel subsidy does not hold water. Which governors? We know they want more money from the 52% that the federal government has been looting for several years because they are all the same birds. Why should what the governor wants be a benchmark for what the people want?

Why do the extremely rich but corrupt people in the corridor of power think that they know what is good for the suffering masses? When will the voices of the people start to matter democratically, if truly we are under a democracy?

I think it is sad and disappointing that Jonathan think that only the people in the middle class who have 4-5 jeeps will be affected by the subsidy removal. A lot of middle class Nigerians are even still struggling to maintain their statuses and to continue to pursue a happy life.

The dynamics of the Nigerian economy certainly reveals that the masses are the end-receivers of failed policies. When the subsidy is removed there is no doubt that the cost of transportation that is already exorbitant will increase further and the prices of dietary and other consumable products will follow the same curve.

We cannot live in denial and allow those who are shielded from the reality of everyday existence since they got to the corrupt corridor of power speak for us any longer. Reuben Abati and the other advisers cannot speak for the masses. Nigeria has not improved since this administration started wasting our time. Policies or parameters that neither put food on the table nor increase the quality/standard of living are abstract and worthless.

The practical situation in Nigeria today is worse and even more deplorable compared to 2004. Someone, an ordinary Nigerian who knows where the shoes hurt, wrote today that Nigerians should be ready to turn sand to food. In all sincerity he was not joking and he didn’t think we should laugh about his comment. People are suffering.
Nigerians need relief packages and they should be brought forward now.

If this virtual subsidy on oil products is removed and Nigerians remain resilient, it means our collective “suffering and smiling” will continue. It also means that People Deceiving People Party and the team of political and economic looters who are blind to the reality of a daily Nigerian life have succeeded again. Our glory is not yet come and that is so sad and disheartening.

aderounmu@gmail.com

No One is Safe in Abuja and Northern Nigeria

Adeola Aderounmu

I doubt that even president Jonathan is feeling safe in Abuja. Let us imagine that he is attending a ceremony at Sheraton in Abuja say in February 2012 and suddenly the entire building blows up. Let us imagine that no one comes out alive from the ceremony.

Is it worth dying for what you don’t believe in? I don’t think so. I think it is senselessness and stupidity to waste one’s life and that of others.

Nigerian politicians and other stakeholders who are beneficiaries of the senseless situation in Nigeria are hiding away from the truth. But with the security situation out of control and Nigeria gradually and slowly nearing that chaos that would ultimately tear it apart, isn’t it more reasonable to give Northern Nigeria to the Northerners?
Isn’t it time for us to go back to our regions and leave Abuja alone?

No, they always argue because they are beneficiaries of a corrupt system where stupid people and morons hold sway. They think the rest of us are unfortunate and that we are their slaves.

Boko Haram has come to stay not only because of the weakness of the Jonathan administration but also as a result of 51 years of extremely bad governments. Corruption and outright madness prevails in the Nigerian political experiments.

External terrorist forces are now established in Nigeria and we must find a way to ease them out.

With Nigeria in mind and the wars around the world in the name of freedom, democracy has come to represent the hallmark of human failures. Liberia is nearing another round of chaos in the name of bad elections and foreign interferences.

President Jonathan of Nigeria must know that a burning house has no master or lord. Nigeria is burning and the rate of combustion is remarkable. How long before Abuja goes up in flames?

All the people living in Abuja and Northern Nigeria are now no longer safe. They are constantly exposed to danger and threats that can consume them and their loved ones at any time. Is this the life we chose?

The longer Nigerians wait before they return to regional government, the more catastrophic the disintegration will be when it finally arrives-with full force.

An idea whose time has come, or an idea whose time for return is near, cannot be stopped.

It is time to return power to the regions. President Jonathan and his army of corrupt men and women at the National Assembly can still try hard enough to redeem what is left of their almost irredeemable corrupt images. They can stop stealing and face the reality of the lives we live for once.

They can call for referendum on the way forward or they can call for sovereign national conference. In that case Boko Haram will have no excuse. They will send representatives who will speak for them on how they want to lead their lives in North-East Nigeria. At that time, the failure of Boko Haram to make representation can then be met with a full scale war and possible outcome can be the wiping out of anything Boko Haram.

Obviously we had regions before the stupid creation of states by the military. It is easy for me to argue that people should belong to the regions they were in before the creation of states.

In the case of arguments and rife, long negotiations should set in and in the end agreeable compromises can be made, no matter how long it will take.

Not doing anything about the current situation in Nigeria is even worse. It is as worse as anybody or anyone including the selfish politicians and rest of us can be consumed by the Boko Haram phenomenon.

We are already consumed by many evils and anomalies, including lack of water, lack of road and lack of electricity. Our life expectancy is below 40 years. A dose of Boko Haram is adding salt to our sored injuries. The dilemma in

Nigeria is one of the biggest crimes against humanity that I know.

Nigerians should wake up and for once have a say in how they want to lead their lives in their various regions. If the wave of Boko Haram spread to all parts of Nigeria, it may be too late to discuss. At that time, we will be fighting fresh rounds of civil war. The devastations will be worse than the Biafra war.

I don’t think we can afford that. Even Africa and the world cannot afford a full blown war in Nigeria.

So, let’s talk and act immediately now and stop pretending that all is well.

Nigerians and their foolish rulers

By Adeola Aderounmu

On May 22 2007 I wrote a famous article titled Nigerian leaders are fools. It made headlines and appeared on a BBC review.

The title of that article should have been Nigerian rulers are fools. We have shortage of leaders and the country is in a big mess.

Nigerians are living in denial because they carry false hopes.

I continue to have arguments with a few groups of people who think that my views are extreme and think that we should be optimistic about a better tomorrow. These people and I near our graves and we have not known what it means to live under normal circumstances in Nigeria.

Millions of Nigerians have lived and died without knowing the true meaning of life. They were denied the essence of it by thieves and looters who have occupied the Nigerian political scene in uniform and agbada. Those unfortunate Nigerians had no access to the basic things of life and simple infrastructure like constant electricity was never a part of their short miserable lives.

Yet millions of Nigerians living nurse (false) hopes and aspirations under a system that calls for nothing other than a bloody revolution.

It doesn’t matter now into how many pieces Nigeria should be divided. It doesn’t make sense to worry about the outcome when the alternative that I’d known for over 3 decades is not different from living in the biblical hell.

What should make sense is how to stop the stupidity and senselessness of both politicians and military rulers in mufti.

Politics is Nigeria is an insult to the intelligence of man. It questions the superiority of man over lower beings.

No Nigerian government has made the total elimination of corruption an open and targeted agenda. This is because all the people in government are corrupt. All these people include past and present rulers of Nigeria, and in various capacities. Almost invariably they are all birds of the same feather.

It doesn’t matter how lazy or hardworking Nigerian politicians and public servants are: they are all thieves and looters to varying degrees. Even Lagos that we thought was a pace setter has been opened up a nest of foolish looters.

I have argued all these years that N1 stolen from public funds or N1 taken without accountability has a snowball effect. It adds to the poverty and impoverishment in the land. In Nigeria funds are looted in billions of dollars and the looters walk free. Ask Mrs. Waziri the figure head at EFCC. Even ask Ribadu the talkative before her. It’s all mess.

Nigeria is one of the most blessed countries in the world but it is home to some of the world’s poorest people who ironically live in the Niger Delta Oil Region. Northern Nigeria has one of the highest illiteracy levels and their women can hardly write their names. Some can’t!

Nigeria has been run like a gangster business. At the federal and state, at the local and municipality levels, it’s all the same. The country has been on a free-fall since 1960. How the country remains one is an aberration.

There is no other country on any planet where people have looted and stolen so much that there has not been a revolution or a war or series of it. Nigerians are living in captivity. It’s a sad situation. Yet they are not fighting on a scale that will topple the system of things.

Boko Haram and the Niger Delta militants are chasing selfish interests. In a way they should actually be allowed to carve their own niches away from Nigeria. Who says they must be within Nigeria?

There is a big difference between terrorism and a revolution anyway.

MASSOB wanted BIAFRA. Why not now? Why the silence? Why the timidity?

The Oduduwa Group is emerging stronger. It was about time.

It doesn’t matter how many groups or nations emerge from Nigeria. What will be relevant is that people should belong to a nation where their rights are respected and where they have absolute freedom to pursue happiness, peace of mind and unlimited or limited resources to achieve their life goals.

These are not going to be the end in themselves because the stupid people who have ruined Nigeria are from all the possible regions you can imagine.

But when we have gone our different ways, I am sure there will be greater control within the regions to check the sort of absurdity now being perpetrated by the aimless Jonathan dynasty.

The president of Nigeria and several of his Ministers should actually be cooling off in a forgotten prison by now. They have all stolen! They are still stealing!

We didn’t need the revelations from the wikileak cables. It helps though. We already know that these things exist.
The crimes that Nigerians have continued to commit against themselves include doing nothing about all these nonsense. Their decision to tolerate and live with these aberrations negates the essence of life. It deters the pursuance of happiness and it deprives one of the fulfilled life.

Every year funds are looted as infrastructure are neglected. Roads, schools, hospitals and other basic things like electricity and water have been sent to the archive as far as common people are concern.

There is no one checking the system.

Several Nigerian journalists are interested in government jobs. Good people are rare in Nigeria. The men and women with the pens know it is their own way to the treasury. Many Nigerian journalists are crooks and serving a corrupt government makes them accomplices in this great crime against humanity.

When journalists have become beggars in the presence of the politicians, then information reaching the people will continue to be that of fake hope in a hopeless country.

In other professions people are interested in short cut to wealth and fraud is prevalent. What is more definite in expressing a banana republic or jungle existence?

The problems in Nigeria have reached a scale such that there is no going back. As far or as long as Nigeria exist as one country poverty will remain above 70% and unemployment among youths may exceed 50% in the nearest future.
No one man sitting in Abuja and overseeing corruption daily can tackle the national problems facing over 140m people.

The system is so bad now that it is a permanently hopeless situation.

When you have a country where corruption is legalized and madness is allowed in public offices, where then are you heading?

In Nigeria all the corrupt rulers and murderers are living as free men. It is pure insanity when the laws of the land are inadequate. It is more than insanity when the judges up to the Supreme Court accept millions of dollars in bribes to give false verdicts.

In that sense Nigeria is not a country. It is an aggregation of confused people enslaved by the junta and tropical gangsters.

That order designed by the colonialists and mastered by the tropical gangsters posing as rulers must be dismantled in order to set people free in their various regions.

It is from that point that groups and tribes can start to figure their ways forward. No one should care how long it will take to find the way forward. It may take 100 years but not starting at all is the greater evil fostered by fear.

No one should even care how things will work out or not.

The present order of things in Nigeria cannot continue. It is just not thinkable to imagine that Nigerians now more than 140m people have been zombied for the past 50 years by a clique that has managed to self-perpetuate itself in several forms and under several disguise.

From the bottom of my heart, I believe no more in one Nigeria and I refuse to accept the oneness of it. I believe that my roots lie in the Oduduwa Kingdom or Empire.

It is time for change. No matter how long we delay, it is inevitable and it is our key to freedom.

1999-2015 PDP Years May Be The Worst Of Our Lives

Adeola Aderounmu

The problems facing Nigeria are huge. They are also many.

The solutions are not easy to define because for over 50 years the country has been neglected as successive governments looted and stole just the way they liked.

Both military and civilian administrations in Nigeria neglected the people and plundered the country like emperors and tropical gangsters.

There is no federal government in Nigeria that has successfully planned for the future or made long-term plans to ensure national growth and development.

In 2011 Nigerians followed their minds while neglecting the power of deep cerebral thinking as they voted massively for Mr. Jonathan. The votes-Nigerians claimed-was not for the PDP.

Unless something is done in the days ahead the next 4 years may add to the previous 12 as the worst years that Nigerians alive have ever seen.

Security is at its lowest ebb since the end of the civil war. Terrorism is fully established and Boko Haram can take Borno, Kaduna and even Niger States if it so desired.

Food has never been so expensive in the history of Nigeria. The prices are increasing daily and the purchasing power of the Naira remains low as its value continues to tumble.

The worst express roads and highways in the world are still in Nigeria. One Minister cried at Benin-Ore road but she could not repair 0.1km of the stretch. One former Minister of Works and Housing is from Benin and his cerebrum could not connect to his nerves to get the simple messages: repair, build, restore, maintain.

The chronicle of Nigeria as a failed country is also very evident in the education sector, health department and area of infrastructure.

Lack of housing schemes and absence of water for majority of the population joined with the high cost of food in making Nigeria a country inhabited by more than 90m impoverished citizens. This, though hardly spoken about widely, is probably the worst man-made tragedy of our time.

With the near complete absence of state-supplied electricity Nigeria is among the worst places on earth inhabited by humans. We near Somalia, so precariously!

In addition to a President, Nigeria has Ministers, (including the unnecessary, wasteful and redundant Ministers of States), Lawmakers, Governors, Commissioners and even Councilors. For all the PDP dominated years, very little has been done to touch the people’s lives.

Nigeria has been left in the hands of Special Advisers, Special Assistants, Expert Facebookers and PR Consultants. Nigeria probably runs the most expensive government in the world and nothing is in the pipeline to change the status quo. Looting continua..! It is also not a joke that a governor in Nigeria appointed a special assistant for Lagos Matter and another special assistant for Lagos Affairs.

The ordinary citizens and people of Nigeria are suffering like mad as billions of Naira are wasted daily on side attractions including one useless talk of tenure elongation.

A 3-month genuine anticorruption program to arrest and prosecute all corrupt people in and out of government will avail more than the senseless debate about tenure elongation. Such a genuine adventure will settle for all time the question of accountability and probity. It will make elections less adventurous.

But all the governments in Nigeria including the government of Jonathan have been dominated by corrupt people many of whom have been recycled. This cycle of idiocy makes it impossible to fight corruption but relatively easier to distract with irrelevant issues like duration of looting tenures.

But in any case the government of Jonathan has promised to do wonders. It promised a lot during the election campaigns in 2010 and early 2011.

The office of the Nigerian president is too powerful. It’s like what the Yorubas called Kabiyesi (no one can question you?). The Nigerian presidency offers room for both laziness and lackadaisical attitude.

At this stage of post-election 2011 what should Mr. Jonathan be doing?

His schedule should be taking him round all the Federal Ministries in Nigeria and probably all the states of the Federation for the fulfillments of electoral promises.

In the Ministry of Transport he should be commissioning several kilometers and stretches of federal roads and rail lines all around Nigeria. It is very important that such projects are everlasting projects with regular maintenance included in the contracts.

In the Ministry of Education he should be restoring all the Federal schools including the Federal Universities. The competition will be to ensure that all Government Universities are more efficient than Private Universities that have been established with looted funds or collections from congregations.

In the Ministry of Water Resources Jonathan should be using his knowledge of science to work together with the Minister he has appointed. Millions of Nigerians are living without access to pipe-borne water. Water-borne diseases and malaria are giant killers of Nigerian children and adults too.

I remember that in Yar Adua’s village women fetched dirty water from deep wells and they sold the water. They are still probably doing that while Sambo is likely drinking imported water.

There are quite a number of natural sources of water in Nigeria and the south coast is lineated by the Atlantic Ocean. Clean and affordable water should flow in every home in Nigeria and 4 years is good enough to accomplish that.

In Ogoniland gradual poisoning of the population commenced since 1959 or so through polluted water and soil and when the full effects will become manifested, extremely poor Nigerians from the extremely rich oil fields of the Niger-Delta will face one of the worst human-induced health crises the world has seen.

Jonathan is asking the UN to help rid his region (Niger-Delta Ogoniland) of the devastation of oil spillage. A report stated that it will take about 3 decades to clear the mess. It has taken more than 5 decades to create it.

Why ask the UN? What about our EIA specialists in Nigeria? They should be on the next flight to Abuja and then the next one to Ogoniland to start working. Sincerity of purpose is the keyword. UN will not clean Nigeria. Nigerians will cleanup Nigeria when people like Jonathan start putting square pegs in square holes rather than buying 3 presidential jets for one person in a nation where poverty wage is negotiated.

What has Jonathan thought about concerning providing houses and flats for Nigerians? What is the function of the Federal Ministry of Housing? When was the last time that the Federal Government of Nigeria embarked on aggressive and rapid housing programs?

What is wrong with the Federal Government working together with private construction companies and well established banks to ensure that decent flats and apartments become affordable and accessible by 2014 or 2015 as Jonathan’s parting gifts to Nigerians?

The number of Nigerian politicians and public figures dying in foreign hospitals is increasing. This is a disgrace I am so ashame. The Babangidas and the Yar Aduas of this world know better by now that health is wealth and that having quick access to quality health services is very important. But they were so daft and myopic not to make such services available to themselves at home in Nigeria.

One hopes that the sad omen will not hit the Jonathans. It is now time to do something once and for all about our health institutions from the community levels to the highest spot. Our University Hospitals must also be revived immediately. We can’t wait for the next state-sponsored treatment abroad before we open this discussion again.

All the things that take Nigerians abroad for treatment including the twisted ankle of Mr. Atiku should be highlighted and corrected in the next 24 calendar months at most. Even the children with holes in the heart should have corrective surgeries in Nigeria and not in India. How long shall we express inferior intelligence by the things we do wrong? Just how long?

I can go on with what Mr. Jonathan should be doing. It is not the least that he must work together with the Minister of Youth, Labour and Productivity to ensure that the problems of employment and national productivity are tackled and solved. It will be recklessness not to re-introduced government-organised farm settlement schemes across Nigeria under the control of states or regions. Cocoa, groundnut, oil-palm and cassava must hit the export again.

The Minister of Natural resources under Jonathan must have his or her hands full with the type of promises that Jonathan made. Has anything progressive been done in the last 2-3 months in the coal and steel industry for example?

Most of the things above will not work in the absence of electricity. Kaduna State Governor Patrick Yakowa said that power will be constant by 2015. We have heard that before. Mr. Jonathan must make electric power supply a priority and ensure that we light up Nigeria by the end of his first year in office. If this means destroying the generator importers cartel, so be it!

Mr. Jonathan has a moral obligation to keep permanent tabs on all the ministries under his rank. Nigeria must move away from the textbook-forms of administration where Ministers read out their plans every 4 years from what they have read in books or on Google and do nothing after the recitations.

Mr. Jonathan took a record time to appoint his cabinet. After wasting our time he cannot place people into positions and let them do what they like. What Nigerian politicians like is to do nothing. They love to steal and loot.

We cannot afford that carelessness any more. Mr. Jonathan should not oversee another 4 years of wanton looting and he must not orchestrate one. He must put his house and office in order.

Mr. Jonathan should get out of the comfort of Aso Rock. He can’t spend 4 years meeting people and holding endless discussions. When is he going to hit the roads? Four years is such a long time in human existence. Some people’s lives were changed in 4 seconds, some in 4 minutes.

Nigerians said they voted for Mr. Jonathan and not for the PDP. I’m still laughing. It is left for Mr. Jonathan to prove Nigerians right or wrong. 1999-2007 was a complete waste of our lives. We became a GSM society. And so what? The world has since moved on. Our debts were cancelled. Where does that leave us now? Abacha’s loots were partially recovered. But the Nigerian bookkeepers under Obasanjo stated that the money was spent on projects executed a few years before the loots were recovered. The chief bookkeeper is back. A country of abracadabra..!

Even if Mr. Jonathan is a new magician he will never achieve half of the lies he promised during his nationwide campaigns. Those are elections jives and they are full of deceits and thoughtless moments. The greatest legacy Jonathan can leave behind as his single tenure runs a countdown is to ensure that as much as possible is done out of his debts of promises.

He must get somewhere commendable in the race and targets he set for himself. The task before and after The Jonathan Era are huge. Nigeria definitely needs a transformation borne out of honesty and patriotism.

I cannot end this essay without stating my support for regional governments. Instead of tenure elongation what we should be seeking on the long-term are constitutional changes tied to eradication of corruption, devolution of power, regional productivity, growth and development.

Did General Abdulsalami Abubakar Kill Moshood Abiola, and How?

Adeola Aderounmu

There is a major news making rounds in Nigeria this week. The bottom line is that former Nigeria’s army Chief Security Officer (CSO), Major Hamza al-Mustapha is saying that General Abdulsalami Abubakar ordered the killing of MKO Abiola.

MKO Abiola won the June 12 presidential election but he was never the president of Nigeria because Babangida, one of Nigeria notorious ex-dictators annulled the election.

This, the murder charge, is not a new development per se. However this time Mustapha promised to produce evidence to support his claim.

Actually we are tired of his talking. Let him produce the evidence or forever remain silent and in prison for the evil that he participated in during the dark days of military regimes.

This is not the first time the Nigerian government has been accused of state murders. Babangida is widely alleged to have killed Dele Giwa and Obasanjo is alleged to have sponsored the PDP murder of Bola Ige.

And all these murderers have never been investigated for possible prosecution.

What a country?