Election

Disgraceful and Shallow Campaigns (Part 2)

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

This season the Nigerian media houses blew away the chances of healthy political debates. For Nigeria, the road to freedom is under construction but the good people and the institutions are asleep.

Disgraceful and Shallow Campaigns

By Adeola Aaderounmu

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Prior to the cancellation of the February 14 elections l’d written a long essay, probably more than 10 pages, on what l missed watching and listening to some of the live campaigns of both the APC and the PDP.

Indeed some of these issues that l missed have been incorporated into posters or advertised campaigns. However these types of campaigns are made by professional marketing companies and they do not reflect what one can get directly from the candidates of the political parties during campaigns or debates.

As I was fine tuning the second part of the said article, Mr. Jonathan, the lazy and corrupt ruler of Nigeria fulfilled a year long expectation when he postponed the elections. In actual fact it was a cancellation made possible by a bloodless coup by some lazy, potbellied soldiers.

Here l will try to highlight the rest of the issues that ought to have shapen the 2015 presidential elections campaigns but which did not.

Nigeria has a population that is growing fast and which is estimated to be between 150 to 200 million. There has not been any debate how to confirm or check this population growth.

Nigeria needs good politics and appropriate policies in keeping the population at a level that is manageable. Nigeria has no functional social or welfare system. How will families be educated so that they procreate according to their financial capabilities and prospects of a good, qualitative life?

Another issue that I missed is immigration. Nigeria government does not take immigration issues seriously. So the people don’t get to hear what the government is doing on border control and how to prevent the growth and spread of terrorism through regulated migration.

The PDP led government of Jonathan can claim it inherited a lot of problems but what has been done in the last 4-6 years on the issue of immigration, population growth and social welfare?

What does the political program of the APC tells us on immigration? Have these questions been raised at any political rally or debate? What about the need for appropriate census and state of the art demographic of the population?

Apart from the free food that APC promised school children, there has not been any serious public discussion on how the glory of the education sector will be regained and sustained.

Public education in Nigeria today is a source of embarrassment to the people and the government. What will be done to revive the lost glory of education both in the short and long terms?

In line with improving the public education policy, there should be a perpendicular goal to bring back the glories of Nigeria in medicine and technology. In terms of research and development the political parties need to discuss plans on how they intend to reverse the brain drain syndrome.

This sad phenomenon, now several decades old, has left many Nigerians trapped abroad and many wasting away even in irrelevant branches. Also, the misplacement of priorities and the glorification of criminalities in Nigeria have left many graduates redundant and in the wrong fields.

I have missed the plan for the development of other infrastructure the way they should be. Many federal and state roads in Nigeria remain eye sores. Rail systems remain largely underdeveloped and water transport remains a mirage or a heavy risk to life and property where it is carried out.

I’ll try to summarize the other issues that l thought ought to have made the headlines.

How will corruption be tackled considering that the 2 major political parties continue to parade cross-carpeting members who are looters and lazy politicians?

It remains a useless expectation that a person as corrupt as Jonathan will do something to halt corruption. He was already a looter from Bayelsa State and he will never understand that stealing is corruption because he was not imprisoned for stealing in Bayelsa State. He was elevated by people like Obasanjo and the PDP in general!

If APC wins in the presidential election, it would be interesting to see how it intends to fight corruption considering all the corrupt people in its ranks and files too. They should stop repeating that nonsense that Buhari was never corrupt or infallible. Out of the several examples, the one where he defended and supported Abacha was the most disgusting.

Will the useless immunity clause be removed in the coming dispensation? Is there a debate about this question?

While Nigerians wait for a permanent political solution, the debate on promoting merit above the useless federal character is missing. Federal character will continue to bring nonentities to important political positions. Through federal character system, evil has subdued good and foolishness has overtaken intellectual capacity.

One of the most obvious missing parts of Nigeria’s political campaign remains the team behind the campaigns. Who is the person answering the questions for energy/power for the APC or the PDP? Who is responsible for the education portfolio of the APC campaign group? l do not think there are answers to these simple questions because there are no teams of experts pursuing research, development or political questions in the political parties.

Political appointments are never reserved for the skilled or informed in Nigeria. They remain rewards for thugs, any fool, militants, potential terrorists and persons connected to godfathers and sponsors.

Rarely when good people are appointed in Nigeria, they soon become evil after one night in office. Something fundamental is wrong with Nigeria and Nigerian politicians.

It is pertinent that the absence of follow up and the negligence of track records are some of the reasons why a lazy, incompetent, corrupt and weak ruler like Jonathan emerged as the ruler of the Africa’s most populated country.

The disgraceful outcome of this tragedy is hard to bear. But if they seek change, Nigerians must learn to do things the right way. Sadly, Jonathan is a living tragedy and a sad phenomenon that may repeat itself.

Who will stop the pension fraud madness? What does the political agenda of the APC and PDP say on retirement matters? How will pensioners get their gratuity and pensions without having to provide the proof of life after 35 years in service?

For 16 years now we know that PDP encourages pension scams just the same way they enjoyed the oil subsidy scams. PDP is built on scams. Even Jonathan and Abba Moro scammed unsuspecting unemployed people in the failed immigration employment program. There were no consequences for Jonathan and Moro despite all the dead bodies that littered the country.

What change will the APC be?

On the campaign trail so far we have no heard how APC will deal with judicial processes involving pension frauds, subsidy scams, employment scams and oil theft. It would have been nice to know the change they are talking about and how they will be achieved.

Religion has failed Nigeria. Under Jonathan, religion became a total instrument of governance whereas Nigeria is a secular country. Churches and mosques built as outlets to government houses should be pulled down. Let everyman worship in his house and keep his/her religion a private activity.

Unfortunately, in 2015 religion will play a very dangerous role in who becomes the ruler of Nigeria. This is the same country regarded as one of the most corrupt in the world.

This means with Nigeria as a classical example, the more people go to churches and mosques, the more they are likely to be criminally minded and avoid the simple social responsibilities of nation building.

The way to freedom for the regions trapped in Nigeria is long. The rapid visual assessment and evaluation of the views and opinions of Nigerians both online and in reality leaves a lot to desire.

The winner takes all mentality after the elections rather than a system that heals after bitter electoral processes has left deeper wounds in the soul of the country. They may never heal under the persisting unitary form of government.

Since 1966, Nigeria remains in an endless transition.

The political solution is urgent so that the institutions can be brought back to life.

Separation of powers and respect for the principles of real democracy must be integrated in the expected political solution.

Nigerians remain easy to rule but difficult to lead, which is why they have always ended up with the wrong people leading the affairs of the country.

Nigeria as a country or as an aggregate of regions must work hard to get to that point where criminals and looters like the ones we have seen before and since 1999 are arrested and made to face judicial proceedings according to the law.

Based on the past and even the present, both Jonathan and Buhari are not the best of materials from intellectually saturated Nigeria. But it is sad that the good people are caged as the politics of money and do or die remains prevalent.

Change may come to Nigeria but with a lot of economic uncertainties and unseen social and political consequences.

The debate on the future of Nigeria which is missing in the campaigns ought to have been brought to life and taken at several sub-levels.

What will it take for Nigeria to revert to a system of government where power is not concentrated in the hands of one dictator at the center? Such a system where money is gathered in Abuja and redistributed to beggar states will not take Nigeria to the promise land. In fact it may tear the country apart soon.

What are the plans of all the political parties to restructure Nigeria so that the regions can stand on their feet and develop competitively like it was before the useless coups of 1966?

The real change that Nigerians want is yet to come. Making sure that people answer for crimes against humanity, for negligence of duties and for corruption must be part of the real change that they seek.

Most of the Nigerian public and private media houses should also be ashamed of their leadership styles and profiles. They have taken sides and will never be trusted in promoting fairness. This season they blew the chances of healthy political debates.

The media houses including both the visual and the printing press should bury their ugly heads in shame. They never put their spotlights on real issues and on the people who can emancipate Nigeria and help build her institutions.

For Nigeria, the road to freedom is under construction but the good people and the institutions are asleep.

(Concluded).

aderounmu@gmail.com

Jonathan’s Destructive Distillation Of Nigeria.

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

The cancelled February elections are not only about Jonathan. They are also about failed dividends of democracy under PDP since 1999. It will be one of the biggest mistakes in history if Nigerians sit back and allow the Jonathan game plan to unfold. It’s a destructive process

Jonathan’s Destructive Distillation Of Nigeria: Why Nigerians Must Rise Up And Reject The Feb.7 Coup

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola_2013

When I wrote the article “Threshold” in November 2014, one of the things that l highlighted was the plan by the PDP-led government to postpone or cancel the February 2015 general elections.

In subsequent articles l continued to make reference to the scenario where the security situation in North East Nigeria (NE Nigeria) will be used as a clog in the wheel of the 2015 elections. If I remember well too, the feasibility of the 2015 elections has been a theme in many of my previous articles.

But in 2014 my conviction was based on a material published by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. At that point it was obvious that the government of Nigeria has directly or indirectly hinted the foreign missions in Nigeria about the plan to postpone or cancel the elections.

It could also be that the Swedish government got hold of a secret document that led to the publication. One reporter on radio was very sure penultimate week when she said that there will be no elections in Nigeria this February.

Since some foreign observers have arrived in Nigeria for the February elections, the suggestion that the lazy and corrupt Jonathan government actually informed the international community can also be debatable.

So we now got to this point when a very corrupt government that failed to end insurgency in NE Nigeria in 6 years will now do the miracle in 5-6 weeks. It is only a matter of time for the lies of lazy Jonathan to be exposed again.

There is no country in the world that has succeeded in ending insurgency or sectarian violence of Boko Haram’s magnitude in 6 weeks. Rather there are so many examples around the world of countries at war that succeeded in conducting successful elections.

It appears now that Jonathan deliberately allowed the insurgency to grow because he saw it as a means to extend his hold to power. If Jonathan wanted the elections to hold on February 14, he would have dedicated a lot of attention and commitment to the war on Boko Haram so that by now, it would be possible to hold elections in NE Nigeria.

Jonathan was the man who went to parties and even organised several family parties when Boko Haram struck at different times. He was dancing on podium celebrating or he was in Aso Rock drinking several times when Boko Haram was decimating Nigeria.

Today, 15% of Nigeria’s landscape is under the control of Boko Haram. Under lazy and corrupt Jonathan, the Nigerian military that ended wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and other countries could not raise her arms and hands against Boko Haram until it became a full grown monster.

The war against terror in Nigeria has been fought half-heartedly and amidst several controversies concerning the loyalty of several members of the Nigerian army-both at the commanding and the follower-ship levels.

What became certain on the 7th of February 2015 was that the Nigerian Army can be effective when it wants to. Nigerians woke up to the heavy presence of soldiers in strategic places and cities across the country.

The Jega marathon-meetings were all fuse and rubbish. The decision to postpone the election was long made, probably before 2014! APC’s only previous response to this appears to be the threat to form a parallel government. It should have been taken further to the public space and ironed out.

The Nigerian military have become specialists in intimidating civilians. In the face of Boko Haram, Jonathan has refused to equip them to win the war or the equipments were transferred to Boko Haram as in the saga of Baga.

Invariably, an evil government led by Jonathan has turned the Nigerian military into a complete set of fat zombie creatures. The zombies took a strangulating hold of INEC and subverted the ongoing democratic process in Nigeria.

History will now record the 7th of February 2015 as the day that the Nigerian military staged a bloodless coup in honour of a sitting civilian dictator called Jonathan.

It was a coup because majority of Nigerians were ready for the elections. The reasons given for the postponement are unacceptable by majority of Nigerians. The lack of attention given to the security situation in NE Nigeria for the past 4-6 years was a deliberate ploy.

The issue of voters’ cards could have been resolved by 1-2 days of public holiday if necessary. The election was still at least 7 days away and 1-2 days would have suffix to attain the maximum reach. Not everybody will collect their voter’s card and not everyone who collected will vote. In life, perfection is an ideal that is rarely achieved.

Now Nigerians must know that Goodluck Jonathan is not ready to relinquish power. The main reason for the postponement of the election was the certainty that APC was poised for a victory on February 14. All indications from around the world have pointed to an APC victory. It would have been impossible to rig the elections the way those morons-Obanikoro and Fayose did in Ekiti.

What Jonathan is doing now is reassessing his strategies. He is looking for the mechanisms that will tilt the public opinion in his favour. He hopes to achieve that in 6 weeks and so Nigerians should be ready for the mother of all propaganda and political assaults from the PDP and those who have their reasoning clouded by deformed emotions and anticipated glory in the hands of a failed government.

If any gullible mind or fool is expecting the Nigerian army to conquer Boko Haram in 5-6 weeks, that person needs a brain surgery in India.

Jonathan also plans to destabilise INEC. It may mean that Jega’s tenure runs out and a vacuum is created. You cannot conduct elections with an INEC boss whose tenure is expired. If you do, you create a new room for new controversies and confusion.

To replace Jega when his tenure runs out may also take 6 months with the Nigerian factor and lazy government that we know.

Jonathan is trying to hang on to power for as long as possible whether his present mandate is renewed or not. He is not sure of victory at the polls and he is not going to hand over to APC’s Buhari if the opposition wins.

This is a substantive statement because Jonathan’s most voracious bulldog one Doyin Okupe has vowed that the Jonathan government will never hand over to General Buhari. This statement is heavy.

It means that Jonathan already knew that an election conducted in Nigeria on February 14 will most likely produce a new ruler or president.

The statement by Okupe recorded during a failed press conference is a preview of what has been decided back door by Jonathan and his criminal crew members a long time ago.

Jonathan would rather hand over to an interim military government rather than to a former dictator even if he wins through the ballot boxes. Is this the apex of an evil mind?

What the PDP-led government did on February 7 2015 can be a rehearsal for the handover when the situation gets out of hand. With all the warships in the delta, it may.

Sadly too, Jonathan is using the old tricks from the old books. Nigerians are resilient, they will relax, forget and go about their normal activities. The day after the cancellation of the February elections, it appears that Nigeria is calm and Jonathan is right about the tricks.

It will be one of the biggest mistakes in history if Nigerians sit back and allow the Jonathan game plan to unfold. It’s a destructive process.

Here is a man who has stolen more money than any ruler or president in the history of Nigeria. When Babangida stole 12 billion dollars, the world thought it has seen it all. With an expert in looting called Mrs. Ngozi Iweala, Jonathan and his crew (since 2011) have rewritten the book of looting.

Jonathan is leading a criminal government and the most loot-cracious government in the world today. He has an assembly of unrepentant looters and criminals pretending to be serving Nigeria for the past 6 years.

Here they are in February 2015 taking Nigeria and Nigerians further on their useless, clueless rides. They called it postponing the February elections. It is not. It was a cancellation of an anticipated victory by the opposition party.

Nigerians need to stand up, wake up and act for once in their life time. They need to send a clear signal.

I have not seen a right thinking Nigeria who actually thinks the opposition party will bring a miracle through its anticipated victory at the polls. No.

People just what a change from this relentless rogues who are looting trillions of dollars in multiple digits. These amounts of looting and missing monies are unprecedented.

People want to see what life would be like when an opposition party takes on power. Since 1999 Nigerians have been stuck with different types of monsters under a PDP-led presidency.

The cancelled February elections are not only about Jonathan. They are also about failed dividends of democracy under PDP.

What will life be like under the opposition irrespective of who the opposition presents? This is the biggest question that Nigerians are ready to experiment with. They want to take a new risk.

Nigerians know about Buhari, they know about Tinubu, they know about Fashola and so on. They know they are not saints. But it appears the majority want a shift. Nobody knows where it will lead.

The PDP is trying to sell a slogan that the people already knew.  It is called bad market and it has failed. This is one of the primary reasons why the PDP is cancelling the election. The Boko Haram war provided PDP with the excuse to avoid a disgraceful poll.

The PDP and Jonathan must know that when people want change, they should get it and be allowed to live with the consequences.

Jonathan cannot claim to love Nigeria more than Nigerians. Okupe, the silly attack dog cannot love Nigeria more than Nigerians. Who is he to say that Jonathan will not hand over to Buhari? What if Buhari wins? What if the APC wins with or without Buhari?

I hope that Nigerians can make Jonathan a good example of how not to be a dictator. If there is one thing worth fighting for, it is a complete rejection of the postponement or cancellation of the February elections.

February 2015 is Nigeria’s month with destiny, to continue with a failed government or to start with a new government.

If by his pronouncement under the guns of the army Jega has destabilised the February 14 election date, fair enough. With a bit of patience, Jonathan can have his last valentine in the rock.

If INEC does not reinstate the election on February 21, Jonathan will be remembered as the crook who destroyed or almost destroyed Nigeria.

By employing the services of the military in a civilian sponsored bloodless coup, he started a process that could snowball into the predicted destructive distillation of Nigeria.

The reactions of the oppositions and Nigerians in general to this insult and assault will be significantly followed.

Obviously Nigeria is in dire need for a political solution. But a new coup like the one of February 7 2015 is not it!

In the absence of a political solution that should include true federalism orchestrated by a functional National Assembly, this anomaly introduced by a clueless government may mark the eventual necrosis of Nigeria.

Nigerians ought to resist Jonathan and insist on the elections in this month of February 2015.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Disgraceful And Shallow Campaigns (Part 1)

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

I am missing proper discussions and debates on the economy, unemployment, insecurity, migration, social injustice, inequality, education, health, population growth, science, technology and a holistic approach to reducing intellectual and material poverty in Nigeria.

Disgraceful And Shallow Campaigns (Part 1)

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola_2013

The two major political parties in Nigeria ought to be ashamed of their presidential election campaigns so far.

I have seen and listened to many political campaigns in Nigeria and this year’s campaign is the worst ever.

The bigger culprit here is the lazy ruling party popularly called PDP. A ruling party is supposed to be flaunting its achievements while making concrete plans for the future. But here we have a party that is like a sinking ship ridiculously campaigning like it is looking for power for the first time.

The PDP started a mudslinging campaign and took it too far as the election date approaches. No doubt the indolent and largely purposeless government led by Mr. Goodluck Jonathan is probably the most corrupt government in the world today. The cluelessness of Jonathan has shown no limit on his campaign trail.

Sadly too the APC could not hold back and some of its agents have produced a lot of campaign videos that still does not prove how the APC intend to be the change that Nigeria and Nigerians deserve. With several dropouts and losers from the other political parties flocking to APC, it is hard to see any change in sight.

It appears the change people are clamoring for is just to get a clueless government out of the way. But the opposition can do better.

It is about 2 weeks to the presidential election and Nigerians are yet to be told how the economy will be boosted in the face of the global decline in the price of crude oil. Jonathan made more than 200 promises during the 2010/2011 campaign year. Almost all of them were thrashed as soon as he began to drink at the presidential villa.

The economy has suffered and massive funds have been looted from the treasuries under the supervision of Goodluck Jonathan, his central bank governors and his minister of finance. This stealing and looting predate Jonathan definitely.

Indeed, I stand on the side of those who reject the World Bank report or the CNN evaluation of Nigerian economy. More Nigerians have slipped into the poverty zone and more Nigerians are unemployed and several thousands of them were even duped by Mr. Jonathan and Mr. Abba Moro. A few were killed during the duping process otherwise known as the Immigration employment scam.

A way to measure a growing economy will be making good use of the employment indices, the quality of life of majority of the citizens and the overall decline in the percentage of people living from hand to mouth among other factors.

Until these begin to happen one cannot appreciate economic growth on paper or assume that the prosperity of those who buy jets from looted crude oil proceeds represents the growth of a country. It is wickedness to summarize the well-being of 1% of Nigerians who own 80% of the country’s wealth as the mark of an economy that is growing.

The PDP we now know thrives on deceit and lies. The APC ought to seize the opportunity and present a formidable option on the economic front. It is not enough to call the PDP corrupt because the APC is also loaded with corrupt politicians as well as political prostitutes.

Political campaign in Nigeria is mostly gibberish, if not outright rubbish.

In actual fact what ought to be sold during this season of campaign is what the political parties stand for and not just what Jonathan or Buhari are as individuals. On personality levels, Nigerians deserve better than a drunkard or a dictator.

Indeed the personality of the persons leading a political group is important but the fundamental issues that govern the operations, prospects and plans of the political parties for the country should be paramount.

For life can come with unexpected situations. If Jonathan or Buhari for one reason or the other become unfit or unwell to stand for elections on February 14, it is the party’s politics that should bear on the electorates and not just the personality of the number one person in line to the presidency. It’s a huge risky to put persons before institutions.

Therefore rather than selling people during elections, it would have been nice to tell how the two political parties intend to further diversify the Nigerian economy. How do they intend to stop the Chinese from looting and carting away Nigeria’s precious mineral resources?

How do they intend to stop bringing criminals as ministers who will sell the treasuries of the land for a token that they even loot? How does APC or PDP intend to break this jinx that has turned the blessings of Nigerians into curses?

Where are the blueprints on how to help the North to recover its groundnut pyramids? How will Western Nigeria become the hub for cocoa and oil palm production again so that exportation can improve and promote the economy?

What about cassava in the East? Where can l go to read about the plans that the political parties have made in this respect? Why should almost everything be based on crude oil?

Which recordings from any of the campaign trail can I watch to see and hear Buhari’s plan according to the APC manifesto? All the posters about free food, free education and sudden miracles manufactured by internet warriors on behalf of the APC don’t do it.

Where can I access the blueprint that lazy and corrupt Jonathan has been trying hard to implement for the past 6 years?

Have I missed the discussion on cutting executive recklessness and financial wastages?

Common and ordinary citizens are to survive on a meagre monthly minimum wage of N18 000 per month. That disgraceful amount is a clear contradiction to what a growing economy would pay her citizens.

Ideally such an amount of money is what a family of four can budget to spend in a day if the costs of feeding, transportation, clothing and leisure activities are taken into consideration.

More than 90% of Nigerians live below the poverty level. The people may be resilient but that does not take away the permanent life of poverty that they are confined to.

In the same country some heartless people called politicians earn the biggest political salaries in the world. A lot of unnecessary funds and bonuses are allocated to Nigerian politicians at the local, state and federal levels that amount to direct stealing and official looting of the treasury.

To make the matter worse Nigerian politicians are mostly crooks still finding other means to award contracts, steal contract funds, set up committees upon committees and all sorts of malicious mechanisms aimed solely for self-enrichment.

Both the PDP and the APC have not mentioned how to cut on the financial wastages and leakages across all tiers of governance.

How do they want to make the take home pay of the politicians comparable to the salaries of ordinary Nigerians? Or how do they want to ensure that Nigerians who are employed or unemployed do not become criminals because they want to make ends meet? In short, how do the political parties intend to bridge this extreme social and economic injustice?

One area of public service in the hands of the mafia in Nigeria is the energy sector. The federal government has failed woefully to provide constant power supply in Nigeria.

Nigeria is reputed to have the worst power supply system in the world. Goodluck Jonathan stated clearly that nobody should take him seriously for re-election in 2015 if he cannot provide electricity after 4 years.

The energy sector is just one out of the several unfulfilled promises. Yet Mr. Jonathan finds the courage to live with this shame and still go around making more promises. What has happened to men who keep their words?

Mr. Jonathan lied to the world through the CNN that electricity has improved in Lagos and other cities across Nigeria. What a guy!

The PDP as a political party in charge of governance since 1999 when pseudo-democracy was returned to Nigeria has failed in this aspect. Under Obasanjo, Yar Adua and Jonathan several billions of naira have been looted with no results to show. Nigeria remains the darkest country in the world.

No arrests have been made for the monies that disappeared under Obasanjo and Jonathan which leaves both rulers as partners in crimes against the people of Nigeria.

The Ministry of Finance cannot account for the funds pumped into this adventure that yield no light. Instead more darkness came to Nigeria and the sales of generators by the energy mafia group of companies continue to skyrocket.

The PDP does not need to present any new plan on energy and power generation because for 16 years all its plans have produced more darkness than light.

The APC has refused to provide a clear blueprint on how it intends to rectify this nonsense. No one knows how APC intend to transform the darkness in Nigeria to light. If it is on paper, l think people will like to hear it at a campaign by the person in charge of energy development in the APC camp.

What about security? The PDP government is not discussing much about security on its campaign trail because Goodluck Jonathan the lazy president has failed woefully. His army is in a tattered form. One wonders who is in control of the army. Is it Boko Haram or Olukayode or Jonathan?

But security is a big deal. Insecurity usually ends with civil war. By now 15% of Nigerian territory is in the hands of terrorists. This is shameful and scandalous!

Terrorists have bloomed under Goodluck Jonathan. In the beginning he was mouthy and promised to root them out because he said they are part of his government. Four years on Goodluck Jonathan continued to dine and wine with Boko Haram members in his government.

The PDP government has stated that the opposition, the APC, is behind the terror group based in Northern Nigeria. This statement is careless and senseless because what good governments do around the world is to arrest terrorists and their sponsors. After all these allegations against the opposition Goodluck Jonathan has not made or ordered any arrest within the opposition camp.

Ali Modu Sheriff is known all over the world to have massively sponsored Boko Haram especially during the 2003 elections. He openly made use of Boko Haram to suppress and oppress his opponents while vying for the governorship office. Ali Modu Sheriff is one of Jonathan’s best friends.

Without dwelling much on the terrorists in the Niger Delta creeks, isn’t it astonishing that they are also mostly friends of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan?

Anyway, the APC is boasting that it will stop Boko Haram. How? What will the APC do differently? By the way that brings a curious issue to the front. When the opposition says that it has the solutions to Boko Haram’s war, why have the solutions not be presented at the national assembly by APC legislators, even if the presentation is not made public for security reasons?

What I meant is that the opposition in a normal society is also part of governance and where the ruling party fails; the oppositions can apply their options through debate and national assembly decisions. The ruling government and the opposition parties are always supposed to work together. But Nigeria is no ordinary country where the winner takes it all.

Today, Nigeria is not a secured country and anybody can be killed or blown to pieces by suicide bombers or shot by Boko Haram group that continue to attack military installations, different residential communities, churches, mosques and schools.

The electorates should have asked the APC how it would tackle the menace of Boko Haram. They should ask whether these strategies have been presented to the ruling party before the situation deteriorated to what it looks like today.

Security of life and property is part of the issues for campaigns or plane level debates. Like power supply, the issue of security is also important when looking at the factors that affect the economic growth of a country.

Nigeria faces more challenges in the days ahead….(To be continued)

aderounmu@gmail.com

Why 113 million Nigerians Are Poor

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

Do you know that about 1% of Nigerians control more than 80% of the country’s wealth?

In 2015, Nigeria is listed among the world’s fastest growing economy whereas more than 90% of the population considered themselves to be poor already in 2010 and the figures are rising!

Why 113 million Nigerians Are Poor

By Adeola Aderounmu

Which Way Nigeria?

Nigeria still remains one of the most endowed countries in the world. In terms of natural resources, minerals and enormous prospects for agricultural development Nigerians stands out as a reservoir of abundant wealth.

Unfortunately and paradoxically Nigeria is presently home to about 113 million people living in absolute poverty. This figure represents more than 90% of the population.

Most of the blame for this anomaly lies at the doorsteps of Nigerian politicians and their partners in crime in the top military wing. A weak citizenry shares out of this whole mess.

At independence in 1960 the unprepared politicians inherited a structure that was built mainly for the purpose of colonization by the British. It was difficult to manage and the federation though functional crumbled in 1966 when the military interrupted the nascent democratic process.

In 1999 the military provided the basis for the democracy that Nigeria precariously thrives upon today. Again, this was not the foundation that Nigeria needed because of the enormous influence of the military and the enthronement of Olusegun Obasanjo ensured that the country even today is still in bondage.

To live in extreme poverty means that one barely has a roof over one’s head. In extreme situations people living in poverty have nowhere to call a home. Having food to eat is a difficult adventure and having money to buy clothes is a sort of luxury for those living in poverty.

Poverty is a broad term no doubts. It is also reflected in the lives of several millions of Nigerians through high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, inadequate vaccination in some parts of the country and an embarrassing life expectancy value.

Poverty extends to lack of access to essential public services. Nigeria is probably suffering from over population as well. The public schools are very few, inadequate and very dysfunctional as private educational institutions have taken over the initiation of providing quality but very expensive educational services  that are out of the reach of the poor masses.

In the same vein, access to quality health service is also very expensive as public health care remains under developed and sometimes costly. The percentage of Nigerians with access to paid employment is appalling, it’s very low. It is not uncommon for people to state that they are hustling. Hustling covers a wide range of illegal and seasonal ways of making money which unfortunately include armed robbery, fraud and vandalism.

All the parameters for defining or expressing poverty are unevenly distributed. The Niger Delta which is home to the oil wealth of Nigeria is also home to some of the world’s poorest people. From low literacy level to access to health care and vaccination, the northern part of Nigeria is even worst hit.

The recent media hype coming from CNN-Money putting Nigeria among the fastest growing economy in the world does not translate to food on the tables, roof over the heads and cloth on the bodies of the people suffering from poverty.

It must be emphasized that the economic wealth or well-being in Nigeria is concentrated in the hands of a very few people. About 1% of Nigerians control more than 80% of the country’s wealth.

This 1% is a category that includes Nigerian politicians and several elites across Nigeria. They have directly and indirectly kept the remaining citizens under check through bad politics, bad policies and non-implementations of the programs that are structured to eliminate poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Among this 1% are those who control not only the political scene, but also manipulate the oil wealth. Until recently the oil sector was the only major foreign exchange earner for Nigeria. It is still the biggest.

To be fair, a few sectors emerged recently and gave the Nigerian economy a boost. The film and music industry, the financial sector and not least the telecommunication sector that were not developed before the 1990s were taken into consideration when Nigeria was declared as the biggest economy in Africa in 2014.

Still, there exist a continuous neglect and misuse of the all the natural resources that are locked up in the different regions across Nigeria and agricultural is yet to take its number one position as it was before 1960.

There are probably 5% Nigerians doing well on their own. By hard work, luck, rare opportunities and the invisible hand of fate, these people are living above the poverty level and they have some measure of comfort. s

Whilst they can count themselves as fortunate, they should never use their own rare successes to classify or generalize the situation in Nigeria. They must never try to eradicate the reality that there are more than 113 million people living in poverty.

The lazy, irritating, selfish central governments over the years under both tropical military gangsters and civilian crooks have shunned the responsibilities of solving Nigeria’s political and economic problems.

There is no political will to return to true federalism which will remove the power at the center and help to systematically abolish the grip of the 1% controlling majority of Nigeria’s wealth.

Therefore Nigerians continue to buy generators to provide electricity for themselves. When the whole world is taken into account Nigeria probably provides the lowest level of electricity per citizen. Less than 4000 MW for a population that nears 200 million people is a disgrace to the intellectual capacity of Nigerians as a people.

In recent history both Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo and their cronies in the power sector squandered and embezzled the funds earmarked for electricity production.

Obasanjo promised 6 000MW. Yar Adua promised 20 000MW within 2 years. Jonathan wanted to do a magical 5 000MW in 2014. All the monies allocated for all these promises are gone! Nigerian rulers and those working against the progress of the power sectors (still part of the 1%) are pure criminals!

Apart from electricity millions of Nigerians provide their own water system, they find home for themselves or struggle to build one, they tar their own communal roads, they provide their own security systems and they find their own diverse ways of self-preservation.

The manner of unequal distribution of wealth is dehumanizing. The politicians have failed to stimulate the economy based on the distribution and spread of the resources in Nigeria. They relied too long on the oil wealth and they squandered and mismanaged the proceeds from it.

The postulation in 2014 that Nigeria is the 26th biggest economy in the world and the biggest economy in Africa has no tangible effects on the 113 million poor people. For a country suffering from bad planning, bad governance and an apparent overpopulation problem the economic indices are mere abstract figures.

Economic jargons like GDP of 1722 dollars per person in Nigeria do not put food on the table of poor people. How can one convince all the families of the unemployed graduates who died during the immigration examination scam that the economy is truly improved? What fates await the millions of unemployed school leavers and graduates?

In 2015 Nigeria entered an election year. In several articles l have warned about the postponement of the elections under several headlines and contents. This is something that the PDP cooked up a long time ago. It shocked me when the main stream media and the opposition finally understood a script that has existed for more than 6 months. O well, who controls the mainstream media if not the greedy 1%?

Irrespective of the decision that prevails the success of the election will eventually depend on the preparedness of INEC and the security situation across Nigeria. But I will never understand how it is business as usual in a country that entered an election year with so many uncertainties in the air including a war in some parts.

The credibility of the election is highly desirable but it will be like living in a fool’s paradise to expect a miracle afterwards. Nigeria does not have a simple solution anymore, not even as long as the almighty powerful center continues to exist.

The politicians have no political ideology. It has been too easy to move from one political party to another because each politician continues to look to butter his or her own bread every election year.

Remaining in the 1% bracket is crucial to the politicians; it is a matter of life and death. Call it do or die, you are still right.

It is more obvious that the political parties are almost the same as APC now looks like a party of PDP and CPC veterans and dropouts.

Nigerian politicians display clearly the mantra-no permanent enemies in politics, just permanent interests. They are liars and their permanent interest is to sustain the 1% club of national cabal and elites. Since the institutions of governance are weak or destroyed, they always seem to have their ways in the end.

The solutions to Nigeria’s problem may lie with the enlightened populace but they have refused to act appropriately. Many of them look forward to belonging to the club of the 1% that owns the economic wealth of Nigeria in their hands. Alternatively they look forward to belonging to the wider 5% through hope and rare opportunities. They don’t care about the rest!

This sad trend (that people are quiet as evil continues to persist) is one of the reasons for the increase in the number of people living in poverty from 55% in 2004 to 61% in 2010.

Hence regardless of the economic growth widely reported recently, the wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few.

In 2015, Nigeria is listed among the world’s fastest growing economy whereas more than 90% of the population considered themselves to be poor already in 2010 and the figures are rising!

Nigeria’s wealth is looted daily. More than 140 billion dollars were transferred illegally out of the country between 2002 and 2011 only. Where were they: Obasanjo, Sanusi J, Soludo, Yar Adua, Sanusi L, Jonathan and Mrs. Iweala? They are part of the 1% keeping the money safe for personal use at home and abroad!

Nigeria needs both a political and an economic way forward. It will not come from the 1% that controls 80% of the country’s wealth. It is not forthcoming from the less than 10% that thrives in the midst of this anomaly.

The politicians are part of the 1%, they are unwilling and it appears they will never change the useless political system that keeps them rich and above the law (with the immunity clause of life).

When the poor, more than 90% of the population of Nigeria, have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear and no roof over their heads anymore, they will one day pounce on the rich. For it seems that unless they stage a revolution they will never be free.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Reference: Nigeria’s goes to election in the shadow of Boko Haram, by Henrik Angerbrandt 2014

Obasanjo’s Medicine: Shake After Use

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

Obasanjo’s is shaking after taking his own medicine. He will not be canonized. He ran a corrupt government too. If it took him 8 years to realize he also handed over to corrupt people like him then he may have suffered from a form of premature dementia

Obasanjo’s Medicine: Shake After Use

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Around 1988 my physics teacher at Festac Grammar School Mr. Olatunji, a civil engineer by training told the class a joke. He said there was a man who was given a prescription by the doctor. So the man went his way, bought the medicine and took it.

After a few days his condition did not improve. So he picked up the bottle of medicine and read the instructions carefully. Somewhere on the bottle it stated “SHAKE BEFORE USE”.

When the man discovered the instruction, he started to jump up and down, whirled his waist and shook his belly at the same time. He wanted to ensure that all the medicine he had taken mix thoroughly inside of his body.

You’re guaranteed of getting wiser for every lesson you attended with Mr. Olatunji in front of the classroom. He told us at that time that with his knowledge and education-he should be sitting on the 35th floor of a civil engineering firm.

But he was stuck with us for a while, teaching and giving us hope for a brighter future. To make ends meet Mr. Olatunji also ran a private coaching outfit popularly called lesson. A very clever man with excellent skills in mathematics, I learnt later on that he found a job outside of teaching. I hope life treated you well, sir!

Now I look forward to reading General Obasanjo’s book. But I have seen a few of the previews that early birds have posted online.

Sometimes in late 2007, several Nigerians started the process of canonizing Obasanjo. It was either he controlled the media or the impatient people were doing an early comparison of his tenure as the ruler of Nigeria with that of the puppets that he almost singlehandedly installed after his failed third-term bid.

Some believed that Obasanjo brought in Yar Adua and Jonathan because he wanted to show Nigerians that they would have been better off with him as a life president. There are still many theories on why Obasanjo brought 2 peculiar political invalids to rule Nigeria.

I am trying to place Obasanjo in the positions of both the doctor and the patient in Mr. Olatunji’s narration.

As the former ruler of Nigeria for a total period of about 10 years, are there pieces of information in Obasanjo’s book that he could have applied in making Nigeria a better place for all? Were there prescriptions he didn’t read out loud when he addressed Nigerians for 10 years?

What efforts did Obasanjo make to minimize corruption under his regime as a military dictator and a civilian ruler? Does he have the justification to accuse other people of the same crimes that he committed? What efforts did he make to stop the introduction and implementation of extreme Islamism in Northern Nigeria?

Why did he employ the services of a criminal in the person of James Ibori to spearhead the change that would have ensured that he ran for the office of the Nigerian president for a record third time?

Then when the third term bid failed Obasanjo oversaw that Ibori continued to drain the resources of the people of the Niger Delta in promoting Yar Adua. Ibori, an ex-convict was almost going to become Nigeria’s vice president under Obasanjo’s watch, a road map that could also have placed him in line to the presidency.

Obasanjo is like the people he criticized in his new book. How did he get Otta back from scrap to a multi-billion naira project just after emerging as the military’s choice in 1999?

What happened to all the billions of naira spent on power generation under his watch? I hope I will read about his shady deals in his new book of revelations because from space Nigeria is still one of the darkest places in Africa today. What about the funds meant to equip the police force that ended up with his family members?

Obasanjo and some of the people mentioned in his book like Atiku where co-criminals at the helm of affairs in Nigeria. They even went a step ahead in their criminal pursuits in the international Halliburton bribery scandal. It was only in Nigeria that the criminals involved in this scandal were not punished. The criminal law system in Nigeria is a huge joke.

Obasanjo can win accolades for his book, for the gladiate contents. He likes to play to the gallery and that sort of excitement is what most Nigerians want.

They want to accept one form of evil above another. They want to agree that Obasanjo was better than Jonathan because the law system in Nigeria does not query, try and send people for prison for serious crimes like state murder and looting of the treasury with good governance as the opportunity cost.

How has the larger Nigerian populace benefitted from Obasanjo’s wit and tricks since he emerged as a PDP politician?

I am not thankful to Obasanjo for his contributions to the misery of the Nigerian life. I cannot appreciate him for his roles directly and indirectly in the demeaning of the Nigerian life.

In terms of establishing institutions and empowering people that will contribute to the progress of Nigeria Obasanjo is probably more clueless than Jonathan.

If the law and justice system in Nigeria are fair, would Obasanjo be a free man or a prisoner today? Who takes the responsibility for the political assassinations under his watch? Who killed Bola Ige? Did he provide the hints in his book?

Obasanjo enjoys having his hands and voice in everything. The preview of Obasanjo’s books that I’ve read placed him in the category of the people I described in my column last week-the people with foolish expectations.

He led a corrupt government and imposed another clueless corrupt government yet he’s out there crying over a foreseeable tragedy. What hypocrite!

In the same vein, when I would have read his book, I might still find it difficult to remove Obasanjo from the category of Nigerians on Lagbaja’s scale of mumuism.

Millions of Nigerians also fit in to the patient role in Mr. Olatunji’s story. They are now jumping up and down and wriggling their bellies because they have taken their medicines without reading the label where it state shake before use. We’ll see where this takes them in February 2015.

Obasanjo knew that Jonathan was incompetent as the governor of Bayelsa. Everybody in Bayelsa knew his deputy was in charge when he was a governor. If Obasanjo was not aware of that then he must have suffered from a premature dementia. If it took Obasanjo 8 years to realize that he handed over to a corrupt government like the one he managed, then he needs a quick help.

Millions of Nigerians were basking in 2011: we are voting for Jonathan, not the PDP. It was laughable, yet very sad to read the collective reasoning of a people drained of both mental and physical strengths. What options were available anyway? An endless dilemma it must be.

It sounded as foolish as when Babangida said he did not cancel the results of the 1993 elections, that he only annulled it. It’s the same rigmarole when he said he was stepping aside when he ought to have been arrested and imprisoned for treason.

It was that fateful cancelled elections that Obasanjo benefitted from. He even campaigned on behalf of the treason perpetrators like Ibrahim Babangida. Obasanjo said MKO Abiola was not the messiah.

Obasanjo’s messiah for Nigeria since 2009 was Mr. Jonathan. When did he detect the truth that now set his wicked mind free?

I am making efforts to get Obasanjo’s books to my domain. I look forward to reading Obasanjo’s explanation as to why he collected the Halliburton bribe.  Also I want to know how much he got. Was it a third of $74m or a straight N27b?

I will like to read Obasanjo’s book so I can mock his gullibility-that at his right and ripe ages in 1979 (Shagari), 1993 (Abiola), 2007 (Yar Adua) and 2011 (Jonathan) he was fooled or he fooled Nigerians.

Obasanjo’s is now shaking after taking his own medicine. Too late I am sorry.

When Mr. Obasanjo is done with whirling his waist or shaking his belly, I hope someone can tell him that some people actually read the labels and instructions on their medicines before they swallowed them.

If he ever gets another chance in his life time, one hopes that he reads the label before prescribing or taking the medicine himself.

For now he should stop crying over the milk he spilled as the search for true and exemplary leaders continue in the rising struggle to liberate Nigeria and Nigerians.

aderounmu@gmail.com