Nigeria: Terrorism, Stateless, Visionless, Aimless and Confusion-ism

Adeola Aderounmu

A Nigerian has been arrested for acts of terrorism. Nigeria is in partial turmoil-no light, no fuel, no good roads, no good public schools and so on and so forth.

Since 2007 we have battled with the illegal presidency of Yar Adua. Then came the shocker that the guy is working like a snail. The reason is because he has been sick even since we was a governor in Katsina.

I have condemned Nigerian rulers many times because they steal, loot and misrule us while forgetting to put in place the basic things that could be of help to them and the rest of us.

We have just received reports that Maryam Babangida died in a US hospital. Meanwhile her husband was president in Nigeria for 8 years. He too had an operation in France when he was our tyrannical ruler.

Present Yar Adua is in a Saudi Arabian Hospital, invariably terminally ill. As a governor and then fake president he didn’t see the need to build any hospital in Nigeria that could cater for his health needs. He suffers and 140m Nigerians suffer along with him. This country is sick, for real!

For over one month, Nigeria remains without a ruler (fake or real) and as the rest of the world rejoice and celebrate Xmas and look forward to a new year, Nigerians are groaning under the effects of fuel shortage, absolute darkness and a life so uncertain of what tomorrow will bring.

Yet the politicians keep toying with our lives and it appears that Turai the wife of Yar Adua has become a force to reckon with. This is so shameful. Nigerian politicians are acting like mad people, it seems what they will eat has robbed them of their senses.

Who can you blame? They were never elected in the first place so they do “anyhow”, toy with power and might and act as if there is no law and order in Nigeria.

2010 will bring additional challenges to the problems we already have. We have serious crises on our hands and the addition of terrorism to the list of our woes is just like the last straw-the camel’s back appeared to be broken.

As a matter of urgency, we need to fix our election palavers. We need to fix our problems with electricity. We need to look into infrastructure, schools, roads, and other pressing needs.

Nigeria must fight poverty and corruption tooth and nails. Nigeria must uphold the rule of law and get rid of people like Ibori and Aondoakaa from the public space. There are lots of idiots roaming around and destroying our national image and our lives.

Short and long term measures must be executed to address our problems nationally and internationally. The best form of rebranding will be to start a process of internalised cleansing by sacking all corrupt people, send them to jail and start a process of national re-awakening that will put Nigeria in her rightful place before the turn of the next century.

We must set out, before dawn!

Why the Price of Gas May Increase (Even More)

By Adeola Aderounmu

The activities of the Nigerian Militants have ensured that crude oil has almost stopped flowing in Nigeria. This means that tough days are ahead of Nigerians and the rest of us elsewhere in the world.

The pump price of gas may just continue to rise over the whole summer.

But in Nigeria the economy will suffer more dwindling fate. The cost of doing business will rise and the masses will pay more for transportation. Depending on the amount of reserves and the eventual severity of the situation, Nigerian workers must brace up for the worst.

This is the result of 49 years of absolute madness.

The illegal regime in Nigeria is working out an amnesty for the militants. It should actually be the other way round. The Niger Deltans should be the ones working out amnesty for the Nigerian govt and all the oil companies that have devasted the oil rich region. The govt should perhaps take a cue from SHELL that recently paid a token for some of its atrocities in the region.

The Nigerian government is one of the most corrupt in the world. Yar Adua is feasting and merrying with the most corrupt people ever known in Nigeria and he is telling us bullshits about the economy and he is committing genocide in the Niger Delta.

Yar Adua is a very corrupt man and he does not have the interst of Nigerians at heart. That is why he has surrounded himself with the likes of Ibori who has stolen all the money from the Niger Deltan people when he was a governor. Yar Adua has received loads of this money as a presidential candidate and it seems he is ready to get more and more. This is absolute madness and insanity.

In the meantime, Nigeria needs to go back to the days of old when Agriculture was our major earner of foreign exchange. We must stop depending on crude oil and we must stop destroying the environment in the Niger Delta. Until we focus and develop our agricultural systems/products, and until such a time that we remove all these looters who have destroyed the country by stealing more money than even what some african countries do have, we are not ready to move ahead in Nigeria.

Nigeria must also work hard to utilise the vast mineral deposits and resources in the country.

Nigeria’s Government WAR ON BLOGGERS and ACTIVISTS

Yar Adua’s government continues to arrest bloggers and activists. What kind of rubbish is that? Are we not free to express our opinions any longer?

I don’t understand why a civilian regime can undertake such a mission of arresting bloggers and activists. Are we under a military rule? Are we in the Stone Age when people are not free to express their opinions?

Yar Adua and his boys must be called to order. They must stop this mess. They should know that no one has the possibility to stop the flow of information and ideas. They must know that in this age of internet and advanced communication, there will be absolutely nothing they or anyone can do to stop BLOGGERS whether they like or hate the opinions expressed.

And if arresting, torturing, molesting or killing bloggers is what Yar Adua is telling the State Security Service to perpetrate, he is making one of the BIGGEST mistakes of his life. I have written before that this is one BATTLE he will NEVER win. NEVER!

My advice: Yar Adua should do his work and if he has no idea what he is doing, he should just get lost. We are tired of the molestation and harrassment. Leave Bloggers and Internet commentators alone.

Nonsense!

1960-2008: Nigeria has wasted 2 generations and 48 years

By Adeola Aderounmu.

Not everyone will agree that 2008 was another wasted year but in actual fact, it was wasted. To those who have managed to climb up and away from the poverty zone, it is a year of accomplishment. To those who have succeeded through hardwork and a little bit of luck, it is a wonderful year.

However, more than 90m Nigerians are still below the poverty level. Many of them living desperately on less than 2 USD per day. To be sure, there are some people in Nigeria who do not have any money or material comfort. These people are neither covered by any form of social security nor consoled by the any type of social amenity. They lack the basic things of life: water, food and good accommodation. In general, their standard of living is below acceptable human conditions.

Several millions of Nigerians will start 2009 just the way they started 2008-poor and facing extreme hopelessness. They will start a new year without electricity in their homes. Nigeria is currently generating less than 3000 MW of electricity! Power supply in the last quarter of 2008 is one of the worst in the history of Nigeria. There are many days of absolute power cut and (sometimes) intermittent supply of about 30min in 2 days. Is Nigeria really a country?

Yet Nigerians are addressing Yar Adua as president. What has he successfully presided over since he was illegally bundled into power by Obasanjo and Iwu? Nigerians know that they are being held as captives but they don’t know how to release themselves from the bondage.

No one can deny that the Nigerian masses are being held as captives by a clique of tropical gangsters who have “bought” the country and turned it to their paradise and our hell. It is so unbelievable that these monsters have held swayed for most part of the 48 years of Nigerian independence. It is also remarkable how they re-group and recruit new accomplices in order to ensure that evil and terror are perpetually unleashed on the common man.

For instance Yar Adua’s fake government is oiled by corruption just like the others before it. How long shall we repeat this? Everytime I hear Yar Adua condemning corruption, I get stomach pains. How can you condemn something that you are enmeshed in, something you are doing almost nothing about in the interest of the public even though you have the transient or stolen power to do so?

Can Yar Adua tell Nigerians why Ibori is not facing prosecution? Why did Lucky Igbinedion pay just 3 million naira after looting for 8 years? Why are all the indicted governors and Ministers from 1999 to 2007 free people? Yar Adua should please save us the hypocrisy of his pseudo-leadership. It is not possible to fool all the people all the time.

It is now known to all and sundry that Ibori is the one controlling the EFCC nowadays. This would explain why Farida is his foot mat. Ibori has perfected the act of escaping prosecution. This guy stole Delta State to dryness and he is enjoying a post-governorship immunity simply because he donated more money than anyone else in sponsoring Yar Adua to the global centre of corruption aka Aso Rock.

Among the people who have contributed to the waste and hopelessness in Nigeria, one should never fail to mention Obasanjo. In Nigeria today, NEPA is generating less than 3000MW and the misdeeds of Obasanjo and his co-looters is a principal factor in this debacle. For 8 years, this man deceived all Nigerians and made us believed in vain. Nigerian are invariably in for another ride of deceit-waiting in vain for a declaration of a state of emergency in the power sector.

Maurice Iwu has joined the long list of the men holding Nigerians as captives. All the elections held even after the sham of April 2007 are still condemnable. The worst political comment in the world in 2008 was made by Iwu when he said that the US should learn from Nigeria when it comes to conducting election. The comments of senile Mugabe (“Zimbabwe is mine” and “no cholera in Zimbabwe”) are child’s play compared to Iwu’s venomous utterances. Nigeria is surely condemned when men without defined visions or missions are in control.

Anyone who has been following the proceedings of the Nigerian Senate under the leadership of the mega-looter called David Mark would really feel sorry for Nigeria. There is almost no room for intelligent discussions and Mark is usually way off the mark when he makes his comments. Nigerians have sacrificed intelligence for stupidity and looting games in the Nigerian Senate and House of Assembly.

David Mark has no business in the Senate anyway. After participating in the looting of Nigeria, it is quite easy to understand the negative contributions he brings with him to the senate. The war on corruption, if we had one, should have engulfed his likes.

The reigning gangsters and looters in Nigeria are surely having a jolly ride with a man like Michael Aondoakaa in control of the legal system. He is not only shielding and defending the looters in Nigeria and abroad, his idea of rule of law is very instrumental in the spreading of poverty and deaths in Nigeria.

What these bad leaders don’t understand is that every little misdeed adds up to the misery of Nigerians. Why protect people who stole monies that they cannot spend in 10x their life span? Obviously he is gaining a lot in the process! One day na one day sha!

There is no way Babangida will not be on this parade. More than 12 billion dollars of Nigeria’s money alleged to be in his possession is enough to keep Nigeria in the doldrums for another decade or more. If 12 billion dollars is pumped into Nigeria’s scientific and medical research and development (R&D), almost all Nigerian scholars abroad will be heading home to contribute to the progress of the country.

We don’t need a prophecy to know that Nigerians will continue to suffer because of a few men in possession of the country’s wealth. If there is war on corruption in Nigeria, many of the people parading government houses in Nigeria today should be answering for corruption and crime against humanity.

There is no real anticorruption body in Nigeria and this is why politicians and government officials continue to steal. Obasanjo destroyed the EFCC by using it to crack down on all anti-third term groups and individuals. The rules have changed under Umaru-soft pedal for all and sundry. Slow and steady kill the case was the modification by Farida Waziri-a pure puppet.

If Nigeria has a proper anticorruption agency, it would be independent, open and sincere. The EFCC of today is a shield for the likes of Ibori and all the corrupt governors and politicians that served under Obasanjo. Those who served and lined their pockets before 1999 are not even moved. The only worried groups in Nigeria today are the yahoo-yahoo boys, cybercafé owners and of course the common man. EFCC has even dedicated a drama series to yahoo-yahoo boys on AIT. What a joke of an institution!

Forty-eight years of waste was solidify by the lukewarmness of the Nigerian judiciary. This organ of government has disappointed Nigerians over the years and more recently has produced highly questionable and contestable judgements. The court has made it possible for individuals who did not contest in elections to be winners. Serving convicts and ex-convicts contested and won elections in Nigeria. Imagine how many criminals are occupying political positions in Nigeria. The disposition of the Courts in Nigeria is one of the reasons that the police stations have been turned to firing squads. The Nigerian Police is a sick child on its own: a very sick child! When it mattered most, Nigerian law system usually becomes heavily compromised.

All of these evil acts that have confined Nigeria among the poorest nations in the world is actually the summation of the effects of a group fondly called “the cabal“. The cabal is the reason why sane and intelligent minds get to government houses and become stereotyped looting machines.

Even Nigerians who lived abroad before joining government have not been spared the initiation into the looting game. The cabal preaches a gospel of eat and go and don’t bug yourself with the status quo. This is why many nice people have become “new creatures” once they eat the forbidden fruits. It is because of the cabal that our elections have no values and are unworkable. The cabal is responsible for the annulment of the only free and fair election that took place in 1993.

The sins of the cabal are many but its prime approach is to promote fear and ignorance with the view of controlling the machinery of government forever. The newest approach being utilised by the cabal is the secrecy oath in the illegal presidency which is now being adopted across government institutions nationwide. What is secret about the illegality of the regime in Nigeria? What is the secret about the fact that they are all there to protect their personal interests and steal as much as they can just like the deceivers before them.

The problems in Nigeria are not going to be solved or ameliorated if we don’t take care of the stumbling blocks. Nigerians have been quiet for too long and everybody is after his or her own interests. It shouldn’t be like that. Some people have called for a revolution but Nigeria is a very complicated country and this complication is one of the weak points that the cabal and the corrupt leaders are using to oppress Nigerians more and more. Some people want the biblical call: To thy tent O’ Israel! The Niger Delta crisis, the threats of religious riots, tribal conflicts and secession bids are obvious indicators.

Rather than “every-man-to-himself” Nigerians should start thinking collectively of how rescue the over 90m people living hopelessly across the nation. We should come together and discuss whatever it will entail to capture this country back from the vultures who have been stealing and looting since 1960. If the outcome will send us back to our tents, so be it. Posterity should be the keyword.

After chasing Ghanaians out of Nigeria, they went home and built a formidable country that Nigerians are running to like rats. Ghana is now ranked as one of the most prosperous countries in Africa. The actions and leadership of one man changed Ghana forever. The lesson is that one man can make a difference. Enlightened Nigerians have the honour to take up this challenge and start building formidable forces and groups that will challenge the “status quo”.

We must do whatever it will take to break from this yoke. It’s too heavy a burden and one way or the other we all feel the effects. Let’s do what it takes to free our children and grandchildren from this burden.

Happy New Year!

Poor man wey steal Maggi cube..!

By Adeola Aderounmu.

 

It is becoming more obvious that the present illegal regime in Nigeria has nothing to offer the poor masses. That should not come as a surprise to anyone at all. Nigerians never voted for the man now parading the corridor of power aimlessly. When he is not parading himself in that fortress built with the blood and sweat of hardworking tax payers, he is on a flight to a secret place to rest or seeking some talismanic effects. This country don suffer..!

 

 

In this country, we will continue to speculate and anticipate. Yes o! when those who seized power using violent ballots and force have decided that secrecy and cultism is the way forward, then we have the right and freedom to use our imagination and cognitive powers. To quote an insider as your source will be tantamount to breaching security protocols and you may even be accused of sedition and then arrested on arrival. Many of us in this village square are definitely on our way to jail!

 

 

I appreciate Nigerian music a lot and Chinagoro (aka African China) has said it all in few phrases. Poor man wey steal maggi, them go show him face for crime fighter! Rich men (greedy politicians) wey steal money; we no dey see their face for crime fighters.

In Nigeria, you can go to jail for stealing a cube of maggi- a popular kitchen ingredient. That is if you are lucky that a policeman or an idle officer from the EFCC arrested you. If you are unlucky, the angry mob will dispense justice immediately-you are as good as dead. People will blame you if you go to jail or even if you die. Mumu, na maggi e steal sef…!

To avoid the short arm of the law in Nigeria, you gat to steal and steal BIG! You must be like Ibori or Obasanjo or Atiku or even Umoru himself to be above the law. You must steal a lot of money, in raw cash where possible. Load the monies (dollars, pounds, naira ati bee bee lo) inside your fridge, under your bed, inside suit case, inside brief case and inside your closet. Use any other technology available at your disposal to make sure that the money is not traceable to you. Use agents, offshore or recessive family members.

 

Start a business so that even if the money is traced to you, you can tell those fools at EFCC that it is money from your family business. You can even start an estate agency and tell them that you have sold one house and made profit and bought another one and then you now have an estate worth 20 billion dollars. Tell them and those internet junk journalists that you are an entrepreneur before you joined partisan politics. You must play politics like football; your aim is to always win. A draw must be your worst outcome.

 

Moving on-I have not written on the village square for a while now but I have continued to blog regularly. It’s more fun with the blog because you can describe some people as fools, idiots, thieves, looters, satanic, demonic, bad leaders and so on without anyone opposing your views or right to publish what you like! You can be hard on yourself as well and try to do things better. But someone will definitely not like your terms. Some people think it’s godly or angelic to steal, kill and make other people poor while you are merrying.

 

Blogging allows me to be who I am. I am not an apostle of perfection but I detest dishonesty and bad governance- the type that has continued to deprive more than 90m people of decent existence. The government of Nigeria has continued to maintain the ordinary citizens’ livelihood at the rat-race level predominated by competition for limited resources in a kill and go manner.

 

In no small measure, I practically hate all the hypocrites who parade government houses across Nigeria and I regret that I am still not able to do anything practical or physical to change the status quo. I regret that the trust and hope that we continue to build over the years have continued to crumble as well. In my mind, I have only families to return to, not country.

 

Farida and Nuhu do not make any difference in my perspectives of what crime fighting is all about. What I continue to visualize is a gang of thieves or looters changing the characteristics of the sheriff that they’ve appointed in their caucus meeting. Nigeria is not a normal country. The geographical area called Nigeria is managed by suspicious arrangements and oppression of common good. This is why there is still no real democracy in Nigeria.

 

Nuhu fought Obasanjo’s enemies with zeal whereas Obasanjo, his friends and families looted the treasury. What is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Was I the only one who learnt that in the moral instruction class in 1980? Half bread can only be better than none if the other half is saving another life.

 

You can’t fight financial corruption or embezzlement when the person initiating the fight against the corruption is corrupt. It is the same with other crimes. The situation is peculiar and made worse because the Nigerian Police is full of people of questionable characters (from the boss to the last man standing on the street) who extort money from the other people. A recent report shows that the Nigerian Police is the number one violator of human rights in Nigeria. The EFCC is part of the police and therefore remains incompetent to fight crime or corruption.

 

For example, the EFCC cannot investigate or prosecute Obasanjo, Babangida, Atiku and others. The EFCC is seriously programmed like an apoptotic cell. It has its limits and boundaries. This is why the EFCC is specialised in terrorising yahoo yahoo boys and fighting ringworm even though leprosy is deadlier. This is also the reason for the non-performance (apoptosis) of Farida when it comes to fighting the real war. Does anyone for instance expect her to investigate or prosecute the likes of Obasanjo or Babangida? No! That was not in the streotyping. If she dares, she will be sacked with immediate effect!

 

On a fair note, EFCC is not the problem with Nigeria. It is not even the police as a body. The problem is the system. It contains the wrong people (mostly rogues in plain term) in power. This is why they will instruct the police or SSS to arrest you at the airport and detain you in violation of your fundamental human rights! If they have their way, these rogues will kill you one time! The nest of killers (first used by Wole Soyinka) has always been a part of our existence but it materialises in different forms, shapes and sizes.

 

I have argued that being privileged or fortunate to escape poverty or penury in Nigeria has blinded many people to the real situations in Nigeria. A few flashes here and there have also been used to divert our attention from the real calamities: the prevalence of mass poverty in the population (which of course has been treated by several authors).

 

There are options for Nigeria and hopefully I will dwell on one or two of them in another article. We cannot continue like this. As an introduction into what I intend to discuss: there are options along the lines of changing the system totally or changing what the country is all about. The emphasis would be on the nature, composition and effects of a new system so that it becomes a complete deviation from that which sows hate, distrust and poverty. We may be deceiving ourselves especially with the emphasis on one nation. The time has come to look at the existence of this country more critically.

 

We cannot continue to ignore the options available to us. We must look at them and use our senses to come up with a viable road map that will serve the interest of everyone called a Nigerian. This country must stop serving the purpose of a few (who will charge the rest of us with sedition because the status quo was made for them and their likes).

 

The final irrevocable truth is if we don’t define how we want to live and what we want from living now (like some nations did in the last century), we cannot stop the future generation from doing that. One generation will break these curses and disappointments. It will happen!

 

 

EFCC: Mrs. Farida Waziri’s nonsense talk!

BY Adeola Aderounmu

CHAIRMAN of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri, has said the anti-graft agency is not investigating former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. According to a Guardian Newspaper report of 14th October 2008, she said that Obasanjo has no case before EFCC.

That is very true-Obasanjo has no case before the EFCC. However he has a case before Nigerians. Obasanjo made Nigerians poorer than he met them in 1999. There was partial darkness in Nigeria when Obasanjo came to power. When he left in 2007 and after spending billions upon billions of naira he left Nigerians in total darkness.

Under Obasanjo’s regime, which marked his second time in power after ruling the country as a military gangster in 1978-79, several citizens were killed in a cover-up genocide. An entire village was wiped off the map. The people of Odi saw hell in Nigeria under Obasanjo’s antocratic reign. The rest of us suffered endlessly as we tried to put food on the centre table.

The politicians became richer and even Obasanjo who was a poor man when he came to power became rich overnight. He sold everything that belongs to the government to his families and friends in the name of privatization. A member of his family stole the money that was meant for the reform of the Nigerian Police.

I am not going to waste more time to highlight the many ways that this man deprived Nigerians of a good life. And people should stop giving him the credit for the gsmisation of Nigeria. There is more to the gsm than the gimmick that Obasanjo put up. An idea whose time has come can never be stopped. So whether he liked it or not, the wave of the gsm was destined to sweep over Nigeria as it has done in the rest of the world.

Obasanjo alone cannot be blamed for the woes in Nigeria but he played a significant role and for 8 years he could make enough impact to pull at least 50m out of the poverty zone. Instead more people were pushed down below the survival zone-to absolute penury. This way, Obasanjo ended up in the league of demonic dictators like Abacha and Babangida.

Obasanjo holds the world record for the greatest treachery in modern history. In a country of 140m people, he singlehandedly installed a robot slash puppet called Yar Adua as the president of Nigeria. With the help of one idiot called Maurice Iwu as the head of the electoral body, Obasanjo manipulated the electoral commission to install Umaru Yar Adua as the president of election rendering the power of votes absolutely useless and worthless. The mechanism employed was crude, brutal and non-compromising. Citing Nigeria’s notorious electoral history sine 1959 Obasanjo was proud to say that that is the way to do elections in Nigeria AND the people (including me) kept their calm. What a country!

The EFCC is presently one of the most useless organs of government in Nigeria. It ranks with the likes of INEC and NEPA as essentially useless bodies. OF what use is an institution that has no plan and no purpose? I have stated times without number that as long as people like Babangida and Obasanjo are free men in Nigeria; the fight against corruption does not exist. Imagine a man Like Ibori James living free in Nigeria. Ridiculous and scandalous. The government of Nigeria should stop deceiving people with the EFCC. EFCC’s only job is to burst yahoo yahoo 419 boys who were created by the negligence of the state in the first place.

EFCC should be tackling the head of the problem. Those who are Ex ministers, ex governors, ex dictators, ex state of assembly members, ex senators, ex this, ex that. These are looters, pure and absolute thieves who should be spending the rest of their lives in jails. The keys to such jails should even be thrown in the Atlantic Ocean. And here we are with EFCC telling us that thieves, looters and murderers have no case to answer.

It is simple, all man for himself in Nigeria. The looting continues, the poverty will never end and the devastation will mount. About 100m people living under extreme poverty, working tirelessly under the sun to make ends meet. And a few idiots in power stealing and merrying and gallivanting the globe in splendor.

No case to answer indeed. Madam please shut up! What else does one expect from a Nigerian cop? …….A history of dishonesty, violence, abuse, violation, treachery, dirty talk, meaningless utterances and what else?