Ghana

African Cup of Nation: Old Rivalries Rekindled

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Adeola Aderounmu

Ghana vs. Nigeria and Algeria vs. Egypt. These are classical games. On paper, Egypt and Ghana should be heading to the finals. This is because Egypt has won all the matches played so far. They are also out to prove a point that losing to Algeria in Sudan was an unfair result for them. The Algerians have emerged from being humbled by the Malawians to a great force after seeing to the exit of highly rated Ivory Coast.

Ghana has not been spectacular but they have shown more enthusiasm than their Nigeria counterparts. Nigeria struggled to beat Zambia and only after the penalty shoot out did Nigeria manage to scale through to the semi-final.

I hope that security are in place to prevent the ugly scenes from Sudan, Egypt and Algeria that we had 2 months ago during the world cup qualifiers that Algeria finally won by a lone goal in Khartoum. It will be shameful it the North Africans come to Angola to show their violent tendencies. We have had enough of that and please let us see some beautiful football and live in peace.

One also hopes to find a good centre referee. Officiating has been disastrous in this tournament. Ivory Coast got an equaliser against Algeria but it was wrongly ruled as offside by a careless linesman. The demoralising of Cameroun was completed by another catastrophic officiating that ruled for a goal when the ball didn’t even touch the line.

If FIFA has been reasonable to introduce TECHNOLOGY into this game, it would have taken less than 1 minute to verify these “2 disasters” among several others. Until then, cheating and useless decisions will continue to take the beauty of the game away.

May the better team win on Thursday and may we get a beautiful final.

Between Obama, Ghana and Nigeria

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Between Obama, Ghana and Nigeria

By Adeola Aderounmu

I have no problems with Obama going to Ghana. My problem is the hypocritical stance of the US government. Democracy is on a strong footing in Ghana. Ghana is a model of good governance and Ghana might as well (to some extent) represent some of the hopes that we have for Africa. Therefore this visit to Ghana is in order.

However I will like to take Obama to task on some issues that affects Nigeria. There are serious allegations against Obama’s United States that the US is a major contributor to the corruption and bad leadership in Nigeria. Nigeria is a leading producer of crude oil and the United States has been implicated in the crises rocking the Nigerian corrupt government and the genocides that have been perpetrated in the Niger Delta.

I want Mr. Obama the president of the United States to take these allegations seriously because if he is not going to Nigeria, it might perhaps also be as a result of the shame resulting from the activities and the role of the United States in the government of Nigeria and the Niger Delta oil crises.

In 1993, Nigeria conducted the best election in her history. The winner of that election was denied of his mandate. As a matter of historical fact MKO Abiola, the winner of that election was killed in prison when he received visitors from Obama’s United States. It remains a mystery why such an act was committed in the presence of the representatives of Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was the president of the United States and our own president-in-waiting died when delegates from Bill were visiting.

I will like Mr. Obama to respond to the situation. Let him take a look at the history books and also a run through the list of the United States delegate. What is America’s story in the death of the hope of millions of Nigeria-MKO Abiola? Former Nigerian military gangster Abdusalami Abubakar was charged to court for this murder. Was he standing trial then on behalf of the US? President Obama should tell us what happened.

There is an allegation that the US always support any presidential candidate in Nigeria who will oppress the people if necessary just to ensure that the oil quota that goes to the US from the Niger Delta remain constant or that such a candidate promises a prospect of increase. Nigeria’s former dictator wiped out en entire community for the sake of the black gold and the US or the UN does not see that as a crime against humanity. The US did not press for the trial of Gen Obasanjo. Instead Gen Obasanjo was rewarded with a UN job to Congo. What a world!

This year, Mr Yar’ Adua who was selected as Nigeria’s leader 2007 in the worst election ever in human history has also committed genocide in the same Niger Delta region. The British and the US have not condemned such act. In fact Britain through Gordon Brown is a major arms supplier to Yar’Adua. Yar Adua had committed genocide and he is killing civilians including women and children. Mr. Obama has never condemned the genocide and Gordon Brown will rather talk about Mugabe.

The US was very slow to codemn the elections that brought Yar’Adua to power because they know that he is there to protect their interest in the Niger Delta. George Bush wanted the US marine in the Delta, almost setting up an African center. American interest in Nigeria is primarily the oil and not the welfare of the people.

Really, I don’t blame the United States at all. In my native language, we say that if the wall if not open, the lizard will not find a space to hide. Nigeria is a corrupt country no doubt and the rulers are just there to line their stomach and pockets. These notorious acts serve any imperialist perfectly. They need block heads and looters to sustain their own interests.

Therefore Mr. Obama should go to Ghana in peace and stop telling us why he is going to Ghana. The US can siphon our oil and give aids to Ghana. Nigeria does not need aid!! Ten Nigerian politicians can give 20 billion US dollars to Africa. With people like Babangida, Yar Adua, Obasanjo, Odili, Ibori, Anenih, Tafa Balogun, Gbenga Daniels, Bukola Saraki, Dimeji Bankole and David Mark just to mention a few, 20 billion dollars is a piece of cake in Nigeria!

Obama should watch out for Nigeria politicians in Ghana, they may be approaching him with loads of Ghana-must-go bags! They will surely contain dollars enough to entice Obama to Nigeria as early as next week.
My pain is that with 140m people, only a few hundred gangsters have taken us into perpetual slavery. When illegitimate and corrupt governments in Nigeria are backed by the British and the United States, the Nigerian masses are invariably helpless.

The destiny of Nigeria lies in the hands of Nigerians.

The Most Corrupt People I know

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By Adeola Aderounmu.

Mrs. Waziri said she is prepared to sacrifice her life in the pursuit of her job as the boss of the EFCC. I have heard or listened to many useless comments before and this is one of the most useless remarks you can hear from a Nigerian official. What about all the corrupt charges hanging on her neck plus all the sacred cows she has preserved for Umaru’s next campaign?

I have tried to raise my head high at all times-and I am still doing that. I wear clothes with N.I.G.E.R.I.A on the back and coats of arm on the front. I have a Nigerian flag standing on my parlour shelf and a big Nigerian flag is hanging conspicuously on my window in a white-dominated environment. Despite being torn apart between the choices of nationalities I continue to remind myself that I am Nigerian. I don’t know how much longer I can bear the huge cross. It comes with a lot of humiliation-accepting the responsibilities and bearing the shame for what some ignoble people have done and what others are still doing. Thank heaven for the game of football else there will be almost nothing positive about the green-white-green.

Everyday I rehearse at least 1 article in my mind yet I have written less than 7 in the last 6 months. This is because I long for real participation in the struggle that will emancipate Nigerians from the madness that has pervaded the country for 49 years. I thought about my (radical) activities and the plans I had just few weeks before I left Nigeria and I wondered if I would not have been forgotten in the prison by now. Maybe not…

Sometimes I ask myself: Is it just me? Maybe I am crazy. But the answers are quick to come. Human nature is besieged with greed, envy and insatiation. If you add this to the complete lack of cognitive ability in the crude men and women who control violent-takeover of power with ill-gotten wealth in the peculiar Nigerian political landscape, you will end up with probably the most unreliable collection of political aspirators in the universe. This is equals to extremely wicked and selfish people.

I have written on a number of occasions in this square that Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world. I stand by my observation. In those articles, I have also argued and explained why. The amazing thing is that the situation remains the same. I know about the corruption in South America and South East Asia and elsewhere. The most corrupt people that I know are in Nigeria. I have compared the level of developments in Mexico and Thailand to that of Nigeria and I know that a European tourist will rather go to Mexico with Swine flu than to Nigeria. No amount of Tsunami or molestation of foreigners can derail the tourism industry in Thailand. It will bounce back-branding or no branding.

It is not that Nigeria does not plan. We do. It is not that we don’t have visions or missions. We do proclaim those. The very few sensible people among the leaders in Nigeria are very good with textbook versions of how things should be done. But the reality is that the mad act called corruption is the stumbling block to almost everything.

Nigeria as a country will not make progress. Not too soon anyway because the most corrupt people that I have ever known in my life are in charge in Nigeria. Mr Yar Adua is a symbol of corruption. He personifies corruption to the highest power. It is ridiculously shameful. It is one of the major weight hanging on my green-white-green curtain. I am not proud of the position of that office right now. It weighs me down than my personal burdens.

The guy has openly confessed that he was rigged into power. He has also insulted the intelligence of anyone who cares to know that he cannot prosecute all the corrupt people around him because literarily they are all the same. Men and women who have no honour! Altogether, these people have no integrity and their sense of judgments is clouded by greed, selfishness and the corruption that goes with power.

How can any plan, vision or mission work out in such a counterproductive country like Nigeria? The country makes monies that are shared among crooks, godfathers, opportunists, sycophants and extremely corrupt individuals. It takes madness to store money in foreign accounts when Nigerians are starving. In Yar Adua’s Katsina, thousands of women fetched dirty water to sell from deep wells. They make less than 1 dollar a day! Generally while Nigerian masses are classified among the poorest in the world, Nigerian politicians are the highest paid in the history of man. Paradox or irony?

Schools has dilapidated, hospitals are so unsecured that even Yar Adua himself depends on voodoo and foreign hospitals. Schools have been shut, opened and shut again. School fees are above the clouds, far beyond the sky and education is no longer for all. Billions of dollars are resting in private accounts and the deaths on the dilapidated roads are blamed on witches and wizards. The electricity supply is the worst in the whole world and the seventh largest producer of crude oil is now a laughing stock in the comity of nations. A nation of 150m people depend on less than 3 000 MW of electricity. Michael Faraday must be turning in his grave. The Niger Delta is now a killing field to the delights of the clique whose groundnuts have been grounded.

President Obama is visiting Ghana because Nigeria is so unbelievably corrupt that any attempt by Obama to visit Nigeria can destroy his political career. Nigerians have been deceived again that the economy will be among the greatest 20 by year 2020. Nonsense! How can that happen? What about the persistence of the crooks and political jobbers that are siphoning the money that we will use to build the economy and infrastructure. Even when I think about FIFA and the world cup saga, I just think that FIFA is simply stupid.

It is only in Nigeria that FIFA deals with government which is against the statutory procedures of FIFA. FIFA knows very well that Nigeria lacks the infrastructure and when we do have them, we don’t maintain them. Yet FIFA is still looking in the direction of Nigeria. Will it take a 10 year old boy (born in 1999 when we hosted the world) to inform FIFA that the corruption in Nigeria will not allow us to do anything right? FIFA is not even thinking about the heat in Nigeria and that matches cannot be played at night because of lack of electricity. How does FIFA think sef?

I simply do not understand why Nigerians are allowing all this rubbish. It beats me! Is this why the intelligence question is dangling over our head? How dull are we really? I was expecting a total revolt or some kind of revolution with the nonsense that took place in Ekiti. Was what an election? E gba mi o..! That was absolute rubbish and to think that it passed is unimaginable and unthinkable. What happened to the song we sang those days: how many people police go kill o, how many people police go kill…? What has happened to the resistance that pursued and hastened IBB to Abuja? Some people deserved to be chased to the bush right now.

The most corrupt people that I know are working with the Nigerian government headed by one unserious and incapable Yar Adua and the earlier Nigerians wake up, the better for the future of their children. I seriously do think we need to do something now. The time is now. We must enforced an appropriate electoral reform and pursue early elections. Let’s see if we’ve learnt any lesson. Our future is ruined. The future of our children is stolen..!

Democracy day is not May 29. It is JUNE 12

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By Adeola Aderounmu

10 years of irresponsible governance

The best election in Nigeria’s history was annulled in 1993. In 1999, a sad page was opened in the history of Nigeria. It continues till today. It is sad because Nigerians have surprisingly not been able to participate in any credible election. The votes have never been counted.

May 29 1999 saw the emergence of the evil party in Nigeria. The PDP has destroyed lives. They have destroyed dreams and they have destroyed the pillars of democracy. Obasanjo spent 8 years to run the country into pit and the present leadership of Yar Adua has not done anything tangible to lift the people out of poverty.

There are more than 140m people in Nigeria. Over 90m live from hand to mouth. Uncountable numbers of women die from preventable conditions relating to child birth and diseases. Health care is on ground zero. The Universities that used to be the best in Africa are now ranked among the worst in the world. Primary education is almost non-existent. Teachers are not well paid and their salaries are irregular. School and education have become reserved for the elites-the rich and the well-to-do in the society.

Corruption is now a way of life and ill-gotten wealth is the norm. Children and youth lack decent role models and the society is now ridden with abnormal adaptations of abominable vices. Housing has never been planned with the poor and weak in mind. There are no social security systems to cater for the multitudes of unemployed, children, orphan, the old, fragile and helpless.

After 10 years of uninterrupted (stupid version of) democracy, the gains have been with the politicians getting richer by continuous looting of the treasury. Across Nigeria, the politicians continue to get richer, acquire wealth illegally and award themselves contracts and monies in reckless manners. They’ll do anything to be rich, to loot and crazily become stinkingly rich. The people that they are supposed to serve are reduced to beggars and losers. It is sad. It has gone for 49 years in total and there is no end in sight.

So as “they” celebrate and in very expensive manner, the masses are crying with great pain and extreme difficulties. They are completely hopeless. The electricity generated in Nigeria can barely serve one local government, yet the entire federation is supposed to use this worthless quantity of electricity. What is wrong with Nigeria?

Refineries are not working because some people are getting scandalously rich daily from the misfortunes of the nation. I cannot believe that these anomalies are perpetrated by normal people. People who fail to understand the purpose of governance and the transiency of human existence. I am convinced that the leadership of Nigeria is unintelligent and lacks the cognitive abilities to comprehend the meaning of public service. This is definitely a mad act syndrome that has infected almost everyone in Nigeria public service.

This is the only way I can explain acquisition of wealth beyond the needs of a normal person. It is the only way I can comprehend billions of dollars in Swiss banks while people are dying of poverty and impoverishment in Nigeria. Sad!

So, it’s 10 years..! 10 years of waste! 10 years of near zero achievements. 10 years of waiting in vain. 10 years of continuous stealing and looting by the wicked and heartless politicians. 10 years of hopelessness! 10 years of insanity! 10 years of zero future planning..! 10 + 39 years of wastefulness and visionless leadership.

What is needed in Nigeria is a group of young men/ women who are committed to nation building. A group of people who don’t care about the madness of riches. People who are happy with one car or even a bicycle to get around. People who will not permit corruption or looting of the treasury. We need men and women with brain, mission, vision and purpose to help this great nation to take its rightful place among the comity of nations. We need people with the proper leadership qualities who can harness the wealth and potential of this country to a positive outcome.

We definitely also need to redefine our method of governance. We need to shift the power from the centre to the regions. We need to bring governance to the people and out of the people. We need a system that allows dialogue and promotes participation. This system where one robot in abuja regulates everyone else is completely senseless, negative and uncivilised to the core.

Nigerians, wake up and save this country for the future. Think about your children and begin to adopt the right approach towards governance. You know why Obama is not coming to Abuja; he cannot been seen to physically support the unelected government in Nigeria when democraticall elected government exist in Ghana, Sierra Leone and even Liberia! Obama cannot afford the risk of been seen with all the corrupt looters who are friends and actors of the regime in Nigeria. The scandal is something he cannot afford.

If we don’t put out house in order and begin to use our intelligence in a positive way, there will be more national embarrassment in the future. But eh! What does a Nigerian Politician care? Seriously, this dilemma is getting beyond human comprehension. We need help..!

June 12 is the legitimate democracy day in Nigeria