At the bottom of these public letters that must be making the rest of the world wonder, “what manner of country is this” is money – vast amounts, and right next to it is power or nearness to it; without these, hardly any multimillionaires, billionaires exist in Nigeria.

Why has retired General Obasanjo who reportedly left Abacha’s gulag with under $200.00 – yeah, N20,000 – to his name in a bank account become a stupendously-rich man after eight years as the country’s president?

Why did Mr. Kashamu, a guy reportedly under a court case in the USA on drug charges sink N3 billion – around US$20 million – on wrestling PDP power from former Ogun State’s governor, Gbenga Daniel FOR Obasanjo?

Why this letter, bordering on shamelessness and “STUPIDITY” – to borrow a word Iyabo Obasanjo used for her own father, among other despicable ones, no matter what, AND

Why can’t Obasanjo just settle into old age and enjoy being a country’s head of state TWICE?

Why, why, why?

Money, power, closeness to power, more money, power in perpetuity, closeness to power …

Now, I’m not saying Iyabo has taken money from Jonathan, ACP … as she herself is quick to point out but these things are never far from people’s imagination in Nigeria because it often is not far from the truth.

Everybody – including Nigeria – must wonder why Mr. Kashamu, whose business employs over 800 Beninois and Nigerians expend $20 million on the politics of a state?

As a true daughter of a Yoruba father, I cannot but wonder why Iyabo would lay so much out for the world to see if just to prove that she had always warned her father who was not only a bad husband to her mom but a bad father & grandfather to his offspring. I wonder what a bright former Queen’s College student, a Vet graduate from UI and a post-grad from Harvard or wherever in the States think this public letter has gained her or her family.

Would Iyabo Obasanjo have written this mail if her father had been able to rig the PDP governorship candidacy for her and then the elections?

Could Iyabo have gone to the Senate if not for this same father whose “egoistic craving for power” saw to it that a state he did not win in the presidential election sent a daughter who became very self-entitled and enjoyed the power of the presidency – to the Senate?

How did Doctor of Animals (Vet Doctor) become the Commissioner for Health in Ogun State, a place where she became a bone in the throat of Gbenga Daniel, another guy who saw me lower than “an animal called man”?

Here is my short comment on Sahara about this latest shameful letter:

Iyabo, you’ve crossed a line you never should have
Submitted by tola adenle on Dec, 18 2013, 3:12PM.

Dear Iyabo Obasanjo, Anybody who read me in THE NATION ON SUNDAY once your dad showed he was no democrat knows I was one of a very very few essayists who never spared him. I’m not one of those who saw his wily ways, and his children’s self-entitled ways, INCLUDING YOU AND GBENGA – after he left office. You have, young woman, crossed a line neither in yr interest nor your family’s; at least you still bear that OBASANJO name. //You may have ppl praising you now but there’s no gain in this STUPID public mail. You are part of a dysfunctional family in a dysfunctional country & you did benefit from the rot we have.

Somehow, I hope the young woman would step out and disown this letter; it’s not our way in Yoruba culture.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2013

By Joy Akosa/Nigeriafilms.com

Well, things are really unraveling in Nigeria as Ms. Obasanjo has reportedly denied writing any such letter. So, who did? What kind of sick mind is operating in Nigeria? TOLA.

See what Iyabo says:
Obasanjo exposed the bitter truth and the man helped made president decided to blackmail him?

“If President Jonathan want to reply the letter my father wrote him, he should be man enough to reply direct. Why are they trying to make me a scape goat? I know my father very well and I don’t question his judgement, I believe my father wrote his letter in the best interest of the nation. If Mr President disagree with some of the allegations in the letter, let him be man enough to talk directly to my father, he should stop involving me in an issue I know nothing about.

“How can you write a letter to insult my father and claim I, the daughter is the source. If that is how Ijaw people insult their father, I am a Yoruba Woman; we respect our parent in all circumstances.

http://www.modernghana.com/movie/25889/4/i-didnt-write-any-letter-i-love-my-father-so-much-.html

I know; as it supposedly is in Nassarawa, so is it at “federal” level and in most states. All the same, below are the mind-boggling stats for a tiny state that is almost like an exurb of the “Federal” Capital Territory, Abuja. What changes these huge amounts would have made possible in various parts of Nigeria could better be imagined. Follow the link to the PREMIUM TIMES STORY published by a group called ‘Civil Society Network against Corruption’.
TOLA.

Each MP takes home
annually:
Ÿ 48M AS SALARY
Ÿ 10M for foreign
trips
Ÿ N30M for ghost
Constituency
projects

http://premiumtimesng.com/docs_download/Nasarawa%20Legislooters%202.pdf

Even if one is to post nothing but the looting that goes on at all levels of what passes for “governance” in Nigeria, I’m sure there’ll be more than a story to post daily.

Here is a story sent to me by one of the blog’s most active readers, Mr. Tao who has provided an apt lead-in to another explosive story, this time from THE PUNCH in an interview by John Alechenu.

May be somebody with the tools and capacity to fight this kind of stench that makes foreigners believe and say that in Nigeria, being dishonest/corrupt is not socially frowned upon.

Mr. Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a man who has proved ready and capable to take on fights on behalf of the country and the masses should be able to know how to go about channeling this through the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) referred to by Tao in his accompanying mail to me (below). TOLA.

The Mbadinuju story is not only morally reprehensible but full of acts and omissions in breach of known Nigerian laws. Fortunately the nigerian political community lacks the rigidity and harshness of punishment in theocratic political Communities or he and his friends would loose a hand or two or at least be publicly stoned or thrashed.

The Obasanjo finger is in this pie too! Can we appeal to the Federal prosecutor (DPP.?) to do his job and enforce the laws of the land. Even if the Supreme Court ends up not knowing a crime,the possibility of a prison term should be a deterrent or as the French say…..pour encourage les autres? THE BARBARIANS ARE EVERYWHERE BUT HAVE NO FUTURE.

Tao

And here’s the link to the Punch story:

http://www.punchng.com/news/i-was-forced-to-pay-a-godfather-n10m-monthly-as-anambra-governor-mbadinuju/

December 21, 2013.

Why APC should not be considered a progressive party — Femi Falana to Festus Owete of Premium Times

Now, Mr. Falana, I believe with your bold and courageous statement, a discussion of the political situation in the country, and where Nigeria is headed, has just begun. When I read of retired Brigadier Oyinlola, Osun’s former governor who left a mountain of debt – among others of reactionary stripes – crossing to APC, I knew the motley crowd that was being gathered has become a win-election strategy with no ideological goal in mind. Thanks for not wavering. My regards. TOLA ADENLE.

For now, the difference between APC and PDP is like the difference between six and half a dozen. Frankly speaking, serious political parties are not built around big names or personalities but on the platform of ideology. From the look of things both APC and PDP subscribe to the dominance of market forces, currency devaluation, privatisation of the nation’s resources and the commercialisation of education, health and other social services. The leaders of both parties who have been in government at one time or the other in the past 30 years or there about believe in the neo-colonial capitalist system. Essentially, both APC and PDP are two sides of the same coin.

For the rest of the interview, follow the link below:

http://premiumtimesng.com/news/151842-interview-why-apc-should-not-be-considered-a-progressive-party-femi-falana.html

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2013.

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has warned that Nigeria might be headed for a shipwreck as top officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC) visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo to court his support.

In a statement titled “SHIPWRECK AHEAD!” Mr. Soyinka warned that Nigeria would need urgent rescue operations if the APC wants to invite people like Mr. Obasanjo to serve as a navigator for the ship of state.

Part of Mr. Soyinka’s short statement read: “An APC-led group, we understand, has been paying courtesy visits to former Heads of States.” Then he asked: “Would it be correct to state that their purpose is captured in the following Mission Statement? ‘Tinubu added that the APC had resolved to rescue Nigeria, appealing to Obasanjo to lead the mission. We’re resolved and determined to rescue Nigeria. We want you as navigator,’ he said.”

Mr. Soyinka, who is one of the strongest critics of former President Obasanjo, then added: “If this attribution is correct, may I urge you, as an urgent public service, to advise families to begin the stockpiling of life-belts for the guaranteed crash. Don’t forget to alert the coastguards—ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), AU (African Union), UNO (United Nations Organization) etc etc—to be on the alert for possible salvage operations.

Nigeria’s foremost living writer then wondered, “If General Sani Abacha were alive today, would he also have been on the ship’s complement? As Captain perhaps?”

Mr. Obasanjo recently wrote a public letter criticizing President Goodluck Jonathan of deception and dishonesty, adding that the incumbent president was reneging on a commitment not to seek a third term in office. The former president’s Boston, Massachusetts-based first daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo, then wrote her own public letter to him, accusing her father of being a liar, hypocrite, megalomaniac and narcissist.

RELATED ESSAYS – Serious political parties are not built around big names or personalities but on the platform of ideology – Femi Falana
[http://emotanafricana.com/2013/12/22/serious-political-parties-are-not-built-around-big-names-or-personalities-but-on-the-platform-of-ideology-femi-falana/]

Tao shares some thoughts on Adesanmi’s “APC: The Cradle Memos”

http://emotanafricana.com/2013/08/06/8482/

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2013. 12:28 a.m. GMT

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/fresh-bmw-scandal-patience-jonathan-got-import-waivers-coscharis-motors-import-200-bmws-

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2013. 1:38 a.m.

Blogs elsewhere from the past – Tola Adenle

As we all settle down to enjoy the Yuletide season, I bring you some of my blogs from other sites to sit down with while nursing cups of eggnog, tea, coffee, wine or whatever goes best with reading-for-pleasure, especially at Christmastime. Cheers, TOLA.

Highlights of a recent story that led to the v. brief blog [below] on Business Day of December 13 [2011] is necessary here:

Airports authority spends N.74bn on staff training

Authorities of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) have spent N741,218,771.08 ($4.63million) on staff training between January and September 30, this year, an amount industry analysts are querying.

A document seen by BusinessDay detailing “FAAN Internally Generated Revenue Budget as at September 30th 2011” indicated that N542, 164,845.49 and N199, 053,925.08 were spent on foreign and local training respectively.

FAAN budgeted N700, 000,000 and N218, 000,000 for foreign and local training, including meetings, conferences and airport exchange programmes for 2011…

…

Olukunle explained that the staff went in five groups and were trained on recent developments in the aviation industry. He said this was besides other trainings conducted for other staff, in specific areas of need, such as airport operations, business development, fire fighting and airport security.

Olukunle further said that about 200 other staff underwent training, both at home and abroad in the same time span, adding that the amounts so spent, were duly approved by the appropriate authorities.

Similarly, the sum of N324, 521,742.73 was spent to clean an unspecified number of airports in the country within nine months, while the sums of N111,518,371.20 and N197,624,484.01 were spent on stationaries/printing/mailing and local travels and transport, according to the document seen by BusinessDay.

1 Tuesday, 13 December 2011 12:45 Business Day

TOLA ADENLE

I’m no “industry analyst” but would this money include – pardon the, perhaps, irrelevance – “training” those airport cleaners to hold on to bathroom toilet paper until travellers can beg for them?

Tola Adenle on the raid on NATION’S office

… Mr. Alamu, the jury is already back in re retired General Obasanjo’s presidency although Dr. Jonathan seems to be running his ill-fated “Third Term”. General Obasanjo IS the major problem with Nigeria … my mind, as often, went to Murtala and I wondered why Obasanjo did not just take The Nation to court. Nigeria continues to choose from the old primitive template and the result can therefore not be expected to differ except worse. emotanafricana.com

HOW BELGORE & MARK CAME UP WITH DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY

(From Segun Adeniyi’s book on his “adventure in power”; not book’s real title.)

The Nation, December 13, 2011

Tola Adenle

This book is deceitful and it is only in Nigeria where there are paid everything – including bloggers – that attention would be pd to this kind of crying-after-the-fact. Did Adeniyi not deceive Nigerians with tales of the wild like: Yar Adua knew of his trip to watch the Eagles in E. Africa and would be watching; when Yar Adua had purportedly “returned” after the lesser Hajj, did this guy not feed lies to the country and her citizens? Did he not encourage the idea of making one newsman at Leadership or somewhere in the North get slapped with “treason” be4 backing off, etcetera?

I believe in a saner clime, this guy should be the one to get slapped with ‘treason’, as in betraying his country. He shd have resigned but now he stands to rake in dubious accolades and tons of money. It’s a travesty that can only happen in the long-suffering Nigerias of this world. Go read “Borrowed robes and NigComSat” are inseparable in The Nation of one of the Sundays of December 2008 and see how this guy worked hard to cooperate with those who subverted the people’s will and hid material facts about Late President Yar Adua. Nigerians are no fools and no matter how this guy tries to launder his image, it’s destroyed for a long time. He could have kept quiet for a decade before spinning those tales. emotanafricana.com

============

Budget

(On news stories of deployment of detachments of army, police to the National Assembly complex for the president’s delivery of 2012 budget)

Submitted by tola adenle on December 13, 2011 – 19:04. [SAHARA REPORTERS)

The president should just have couriered the budget doc to the NA OR have his media aide hand out the papers to journalists. Best of all, though, in this information age would be for the president’s P.A. to email it to editors who would have downloaded it in a Budget Special Edition carrying only the Budget, no ads. Of course govt would have to pay newspapers for loss of ad revenues. Would have been another First in the World just as a budget presented while detachments of armed-to-the-teeth men rough-handle workers must be first of its kind. emotanafricana.com

“A crime syndicate masquerading as a nation” (On much-ballyhooed former governor, Gbenga Daniel’s EFCC queries)

Submitted by tola adenle on September 26, 2011 – 18:48, Sahara Reporters

Nothing is going to happen. Where is Saburi Bankole’s case headed? What happened to “recovered” initially “looted” funds? Why was or could NOT Dieziani Madueke be investigated and cleared be4 reappointment? The president promised “fresh air” over Nigeria and if all the goings-on fall within his idea of “fresh air”, then what is stench? Relax, everybody. This guy, Gbenga Daniel was the president’s manager of campaign or whatever. It’s the masses that will continue to suffer in Nigeria. emotanafricana.com

Loss of communication between Nigeria & Swiss justice system? (On Swiss court to retry Abacha’s son)

Submitted by tola adenle on September 21, 2011 – 18:37, Sahara Reporters

Abacha, Jr. is NOT guilty in Nigeria. All he had to do was NEGOTIATE how much to return and presto, he was clean enough to run for head of state. The last we heard, the guy was on the ticket of “Africa’s largest” and most corrupt political party for a chance to rule one of Nigeria’s largest states. His type of case is hardly strange to Nigeria: what happened to Bankole’s case? Or should he not prove he was wrongly accused? What happened to Tafa Balogun’s looted funds that were “recovered” and later reported missing? What happened to … what happened to … in a “crime syndicate masquerading as a nation”? Ibori built a court to exonerate him in Nigeria but now sleeps he in a cell not large enough to hold his cash in Nigeria. May be the Swiss would HELP us try Abacha, Jr.. emotanafricana.com

THIS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN A YORUBA “NATIONAL” CONFERENCE

Submitted by tola adenle on October 8, 2011 – 07:22, Sahara Reporters

Yoruba come in various political stripes but describing a gathering of PDP members as a Yoruba “National” Conference even when held at the home of our reverred leader, AWO with his “jewel” presiding is incorrect. A “National” conference that omits key Yoruba leaders like the Alaafin is a joke. PDP chieftains should stop using Mama Awolowo as a masquerade.// The home of the late sage is not and cannot be “Yoruba Secretariat” as political mis-adventurists are using it for their end game. The admonition of the sermonist at The Oni’s 80th birthday celebration Church Service is worth recalling: that this traditional ruler is 80, and “what more are you looking for”? He shd forget the divisiveness of the past to forge a true Yoruba “nation” emotanafricana.com

===================

Posted by TOLA ADENLE on Oct 03 2011, 234NEXT

“Disregard criticism, Oshiomhole charges Jonathan” –

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5744176-146/disregard_criticism_oshiomhole_charges_jonathan_.csp

“Nigeria is far safer than some other countries in the world” is not good enough for the majority of Nigerians, Mr. Former Labor Leader. A very sad selfish opinion, considering who’s talking. Re-election outreach from a “progressive”? emotanafricanacom

====================

TOLA ADENLE

December 1, 2011 – 3:47 am, The Nation

This is wrong, dangerous and negates whatever Jonathan may claim as “president” of Nigeria. The Southwest has been systematically shunned by the Jonathan administration since he became president. During the Ibadan floods, it would take him a week or so before he set foot in Ibadan, and that is over-stating what he actually did. He arrived Ibadan and helicoptered to an unfinished project of the last Oyo State governor, I read. Now, it’s pay-back time – as far as we can see – for Aregbesola for not bowing before him at a public function in the capital recently.

A president who stands by as his ministers/party top officials flout court orders is NOT the president that Nigeria needs. There is time for change, President E.G. Jonathan. emotanafricana.com

BEYOND SOVEREIGNTY tatalo in The Nation on Sunday, 12/11/2011
Tola Adenle

To those of us who have held Dr. Iweala suspect as representing NOT Nigeria or Nigerians’ interest in spite of Jonathan’s apparent capitulation over the economy to her, our loss of sovereignty when it becomes formal, will not come as any surprise. One of the salvos was fired recently when the U.S. ambassador let out who’s in charge around “here” by announcing his – and Obama’s support for “subsidy removal” at Nigeria’s Minister of Labor’s office. Many other pointers abound. Thanks. emotanafricana.com

Iweala: fuel subsidy still intact Nation, Dec. 15

Dr. Iweala, “the president is consulting widely” contradicts his words – and yours – that “removal of subsidy is inevitable”. What is he consulting about? Or, does “consulting” now mean the same as “lobby” the Nigerian way? Jonathan may not want it because he knows Nigerians do not want it but the West does (U.S. Ambassador said so); donor agencies represented by The World Bank does and you definitely do if your words mean anything and you are a Company Woman. For posterity, you should just resign because your unquestionable qualification and expertise are not yielding Nigerians any appreciable result.

=======================

Segun Adeniyi’s review of his book’s public presentation which included listing & thanking powerful attendees & benefactors. His This Day, Column of Dec. 15, 2010

The number and “quality” of attendees at the book presentation matters little and cannot obliterate the fact that the book is an attempt at image rehab to most Nigerians as these things follow a uniquely-Nigerian pattern: paying “debts” – tangible and intangible and agenda-setting/agenda meeting … emotanafricana.com

============

A video on police not-new practice of extortion on Nigeria’s highways from Sahara Reporters recently led to the following blog

It’s nice to know you are always careful, young man.

Submitted by tola adenle on December 17, 2011 – 13:12. Sahara Reporters

Thanks for taking these sordid scenes to the outside world but it’s often worse even on that road U travelled to Akure. Some years bk, a newly-married couple, their Little Bride & MANY passengers in other vehicles were burnt to death when police stopped to extort bribe at the old toll gate at Ile-Ife. Multiple crashes occurred & the police bolted away after causing several deaths. They used to just halt motorists but now they arrange huge logs of wood in such manner that motorists have to snake around them. U must have seen them. Around Igbara-Oke/Ilara the same month you were in Nig., a Bribery Post caused a trailer to crash. Too many to count. Police hierarchy pretend it does not happen but it is said deliveries are done up the chain. You are right in your concluding description or as a blogger once put it beautifully on this site, “a crime syndicate masquerading as a nation.” emotanafricana.com

=======================

Two blogs; UNKNOWN DATES & SUBJECTS in the recent past. The Nation on Sunday

Tola Adenle

Thanks, as always, Mr. Palladium. I know it’s no use repeating this but if the president had not insisted on running during the last election, may be the pool of presidential contenders might have thrown up others one of whom would have been better able to tackle Nigeria’s present worsening problems. His post-presidency would not only have given him more joy because his appearance of being in way over his head, pardon me for no other expression readily comes to mind, would not have been known to people who should look to him for leadership. He would – at the least, be in a situation that would have somehow led him to the kind of destination that would enable him “seek refuge in books written by great leaders”. Most great rulers in history, including military ones who left their marks on their countries/kingdoms were thinkers/philosophers …

And even within the short interregnum, he could have strengthened other institutions beyond the electoral body if he was not fighting the forces that stood on his way to Aso Rock for a Term of His Own. At under 60 years old, he would then return to a country that might have become a nation. A deeper and more independent-minded Jonathan with his natural tendencies could have landed in better political company and could still have ruled a better-structured Nigeria which would owe a lot to him.

Mercifully, I do not watch television but I do read quite some of the speeches flowing from Abuja and they all fall short of a president who wants to go down in history as a “transformational leader” but the one you mentioned baffled, even if impromptu. When added to the lashing out – that’s what he did – to his “critics” during the same period, it made me feel as a star student asked to play Mark Antony would feel in secondary school when it was his turn at Caesar’s funeral and all he could keep repeating was idiotic nonsense that he, himself could not fathom where it came from: “Brutus is not a bad man, fellow Romans …”.

Worse, he’s stuck on this mad quest for a 7-year presidency which he has told Nigerians he’s not doing for himself. What’s wrong with the 4-year he and Nigeria’s expensive legislators have been given, and what exactly has he achieved with his – and they with theirs? emotanafricana.com

Tola Adenle

=====================

First, Mr. Agbako: why don’t you let us know who you really are? Even in disguise using various shadowy names, writing style is like fingerprinting, Sir.

Mr. Palladium, I do not have the finesse in writing that you abundantly possess and cannot, therefore, refer to anybody deserving the shame of the disgraceful outcome this may have brought Jonathan’s government as “the villa”, “top villa officials”, etcetera. Dr. Jonathan’s presidency is an extension of retd. General Obasanjo’s. Those who “voted for Jonathan not the PDP” can now see.

By the way, isn’t it a sad commentary on the immaturity of those in power to always see writers as being sponsored? Retd. General Oyinlola as Osun despoiler and his Ogun counterpart, Gbenga Daniel at different times took vilification of my contributions to public discourse to new lows by taking newspaper ads and Nigeria’s public relations organization about my being paid by the Nation’s management. People who cannot think for themselves apparently must find it conceivable that ALL newspaper writers answer to their newspaper management. In about 9 years of contributing to THE COMET and THE NATION, I attended a single editorial meeting at the invitation of my editor: to say farewell and meet my editor face to face! emotanafricana.com

This posting of Blogs Elsewhere was first used exactly two years ago today but is being re-posted in view of happenings that show if we do not take care of cases of corruption and mismanagement, etcetera, the same problems would keep up re-occurring. Looking at a single case above, isn’t it the same FAAN of the infamous armored vehicle purchase that spent all the humongous amounts on staff training, etcetera?

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2013. 1:43 a.m.

Do people really stand for anything these days? Is it not rare nowadays to meet Nigerians who are actuated by any sets of principles, beliefs or moral standards? Is it not even rarer to encounter present-day politicians who set any great store by ideological considerations in their careers? It is almost as if Nigerians believe that since the pursuit of happiness, defined in this instance only in terms of material acquisition, is possible without any directive precepts for the guidance of morality, further ethical considerations in behavior and attitude impose extraneous burden on society.

In the youth, an arid mind devoid of the fertility and excitement of good education leads to a culture of listlessness which, invariably, is the precursor of warped social values. A mind that does not understand the great questions of why we must believe in the centrality of God to our existence, freedom to unleash our hidden potentials and God-given talents, the need to seek spiritual immortality and other ennobling life pursuits, cannot be impelled towards any moral loftiness. Thus when the meaning of life itself is unclear and the essence of existence is clouded in some vagueness, impressionable minds try to view the world from a lens of comfortable shortsightedness.
These former youths grow up without any moral compass and with an inverted values-system to become apologists for due-process circumvention and chorus boys for the-end-justifies-the-means strategy in the climb of life’s ladder of achievement. This is why such social vices like corruption, nepotism, sleaze, inefficiency etc, are endemic within the Nigerian system. The people under their leaders encourage corruptive tendencies by an over-bloated sense of financial and material entitlement that the latter can only discharge through mindless graft and sundry underhand methods.

A place or country that is almost encouraging of sleaze in her public officials and politicians, of course, is vitiating and stultifying the odium that in other climes would be an essential deterrent to committing the vice. The effect of this is so perniciously widespread that the Nigerian judiciary seems to share in the lack of revulsion in this gradual erosion of values as the temple of justice merely sometimes, gives a slap on the wrist, as penalties or punishments for fraud involving humongous amount of money. No wonder the country is not doing too well in the Transparency International, (TI), corruption perception indices report, which has Nigeria sliding down from last year’s 124th out of 177 countries, to the 144th position this year.

In the political field, this apparent lack of values in the civil society has manifested in what can best be termed as amoral politics: politics completely abstracted from the reality of the people’s existence and condition; politics obsessed with the capture of power and the pompous and self-edifying display of it. Rather than an articulate enunciation of the manifestos of political parties detailing the route to be taken for the welfare of the people, incidentally the raison d’etre of all party formations, political parties in Nigeria, after the Second Republic, seem not to care about the defining ideologies of their parties, opting rather to treat the shades of the political continuum between the two extreme political world-views of progressivism and conservatism, as a vacuum.

That explains why in Nigeria, dyed-in-the-wool conservative politicians think nothing of becoming overnight “bleeding-heart-liberals” of the progressive mould. It is the reason why a reflexive conservative like retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari finds himself surrounded by Awolowo disciples like Chief Ayo Fasanmi, Bola Ige protégé, Chief Bisi Akande and “progressive” poster boy, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The dearth of political ideology in our politics is responsible for the lack of the understanding of the service essence to the people when politicians are in power.

Due to this, the need for garnering a plurality of votes in an election trumps the propriety and necessity of been identified with a course of action; pragmatism supplants reasonableness and rectitude of action. Strange bedfellows become the norm rather than the exception in Nigeria as eclectic arrays of politicians band together without any unifying ideological sameness but with only the single minded pursuit of wrestling power to the patchwork of political coalitions. For example, whatever has compelled Bola Tinubu’s APC to seek the “navigational” prowess of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP in the political sea of Nigeria is not only intriguing to foremost man of letters, Prof. Wole Soyinka but, also alarming to a lot of Nigerians who have witnessed a few shipwrecks under the same captain!

The unbridled desire for power for its sake, is a direct function of politics devoid of ideology just as the craze for materialism, the de-emphasis on education and the disregard for the dignity of labour are direct fallouts of the inversion of values in the society. The country suffers from indirect and secondary manifestations of these ethical and political failings because our warped sense of values becomes obstructive to ideals of societal greatness while the lack of animating ideologies in our politics promote the rise of politicians removed from issues, alienated from objective realities of the people but fixated on matters of the self.

There must be an admission of these two flaws before a comprehensive effort is made to address them. The solution should be a societal nudge towards a fundamental reappraisal of the ways Nigerians think of, define and perceive life’s success; it should be towards an embrace of old-time values that have become universal as the ingredients of success: hard work; perseverance; good education and integrity. When this is in place, the absurdity and the dubiousness of politicians operating in an ideological void will be so glaring as to compel them to submit their manifestos to the electorate for approval.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2013. 1:41:53 a.m. GMT

by Bassey Udo, Premium Times

Included in 2014 Appropriation Bill laid before the two chambers by Ngozi Iweala, Finance Minister & Economy Director

*** N1,5 billion deposit for the proposed jet; [It ill be Nigeria's president's 11th jet]
*** N747 million to take care of its aircraft fuel cost during the year;
*** the presidency to purchase a new embalming machine for the State House, for which a budget of N1.65 billion has been made;
*** N17.5 million has also been set aside by the presidency for the provision of magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, building and mortuary conversion machine;
*** N1.3 billion for the construction of the VIP wing of the State House Medical Centre’
*** about N17.5 million would go for the construction of hospitals and health centre in the State House;
*** N70 million would be spent for the building and installation of oxygen and other gases generating plant at the State House;
*** N6 million for two sauna baths;
*** N14.5 million to purchase two wildlife animals not mentioned in the budget;
*** upgrade of Villa facilities would gulp about N1.5 billion;
*** upgrade of Villa Telecommunication Exchange and spare parts would take N220 million;
*** About N50 million has been included in the budget for improvement of electrical installation in the State House Banquet Hall;
*** N15 million for renovation of Horses’ stable/paddock;
*** N1.8 million would go for six wardrobe/towel shelves for the presidential lodge;
*** Transmission Company of Nigeria which transmits generated electricity, about N24.9 billion for its operations in 2014; [Never heard of this one!]
*** Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, successor generation companies also have an allocation of N1.143 billion for the year; [THOUGHT IT'S BEEN PRIVATIZED!]

SOURCE: Premium Times: http://premiumtimesng.com/news/152015-jonathan-spend-least-n1-5-billion-another-presidential-jet.html

THURSDAY, BOXING DAY [Dec. 26], 2013.

This is almost surreal! What a state we are in, a young man almost blandly ammoral and bloodlessly cold in describing his fraudulent activities as a bank official …..IT IS ONLY 27 and not 50 million naira and he doesn’t actually take what belongs to others,he just borrows interest free from the customers of his employers. FRAUDULENT TAKING AND STEALING OTHER PEOPLES MONEY NOW MEAN …….BORROWING TO BE REPAID???

And the bank? GTB is supposed to be one of the leading new generation banks in Nigeria with branches all over West Aftica and the world……where is its inspectorate machinery?

Someone should monitor this case and let us see how it ends for Nigeria.

Tao

THANKS, TAO. TOLA.

The Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos State, has arrested an account officer with Guaranty Trust Homes, Adeola Olokojobi, in connection with a N50m fraud at the financial institution.

Prior to his arrest, Olokojobi was said to be working at the GT Homes, Saka Tinubu branch, Victoria Island.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the SFU had received a petition in October 2013, from a customer of the branch where Olokojobi worked. The customer had alleged that Olokojobi, who was his account officer, had “not been forthcoming with his account balances.”

A statement by the SFU Commissioner of Police, Mr. Tunde Ogunsakin, said, “The petitioner also alleged that the balance given to him was at variance with his actual balance in the account.

FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW TO READ THE REST OF THE INCREDIBLE STORY:

http://www.punchng.com/news/banker-arrested-for-withdrawing-n50m-from-customers-accounts/

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2013. 8:35 p.m. [GMT]

As the late Nelson Mandela put it: “The world will not respect Africa until Nigeria earns that respect. The black people of the world need Nigeria to be great as a source of pride and confidence.” – THE PATCHWORK NATION

The Patchwork Nation

By ADEWALE MAJA-PEARCE, Contributing Op-Ed Writer
Published: December 26, 2013

LAGOS, Nigeria — In 2005, the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises Washington’s director of central intelligence, published a report that raised the specter of “the outright collapse of Nigeria.” It echoed an earlier council report on global trends through 2015 that was pessimistic about the future of the so-called giant of Africa.

The findings struck a nerve. They were repeated ad nauseam in Nigerian newspapers, over the airwaves and in beer parlors throughout the land, inflated with each retelling to the point that many Nigerians actually came to believe that the United States government was predicting their nation’s imminent collapse.

Regardless of its accuracy, the anxious chatter reflected the fears of many Nigerian citizens that their country, which promised so much at independence 53 years ago, has delivered so little. Despite its great wealth, Nigeria today has a worse rate of infant mortality than neighboring Liberia.

Much of the problem lies in the sheer ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of this patchwork country — a legacy of the British empire. It is common to talk about the “largely Muslim north” and the “largely Christian south,” a characterization that is itself something of an oversimplification (there are plenty of both Muslims and Christians in either region), but a deeper problem is the existence of some 350 competing ethnicities.

Just three groups (the Hausa/Fulani, the Igbo and the Yoruba) comprise roughly 70 percent of the total population of nearly 170 million people. All the rest are minorities.

In the years before independence in 1960, the smaller tribes all expressed fear of domination by the three largest ethnic groups once, as one early nationalist put it, the “restraining and liberalizing” hand of Britain was removed. In an effort to address those fears, the British appointed the Willinks commission to examine how best to reorganize the soon-to-be liberated country. But its report, published two years before independence, hardly helped their cause.

“It is seldom possible to draw a clean boundary which does not create a fresh minority,” the commission concluded.

The result, in any case, was the creation at independence of three, semi-autonomous regions for the three main groups — and for the minorities the subjugation they had foreseen and feared. The worst affected groups were those in the oil-rich Niger Delta, which accounts for at least 80 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. The problem was displayed most brutally in 1995 with the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental activist and author, for demanding a more equitable share of his patrimony.

The struggle between the Big Three groups for dominance led to civil war and long years of military rule, which finally ended in 1999. In the process, the role of the federal government was strengthened while the three regions (and a short-lived fourth) were dismantled, first to form 12 states, then 19, then 21, then 30 and, finally 36.

In other words, and no doubt unwittingly, the country is gradually breaking up into the smaller and smaller ethnic-centered units that the Willinks Commission feared. As presently constituted, they are almost all dependent on their monthly allocations from the federal administration (i.e. oil earnings), but this is only because of the suffocating powers vested in the central government.

There is no reason why the states should not be able to form alliances for their mutual interests — except that this is forbidden by the Constitution, which also forbids the states from even counting the people they are supposed to be governing. Only the federal government can conduct a census, only the federal government can generate electricity, only the federal government can run the railroads. … The list is a long one.

The result is a dysfunctional country that nobody cares about, except the cabal that milks it for all it is worth. Meanwhile, things fall apart, as the late Chinua Achebe presciently titled his famous first novel, published the same year as the Willinks report.

The most obvious manifestations of the slow slide to disintegration are the Islamic fundamentalists in the “largely Muslim” north, and the Niger Delta militants in the “largely Christian” south. But the lawlessness includes widespread kidnappings and armed attacks on both commercial and private vessels off the country’s long coastline, apparently without any response from the navy.

Unfortunately, President Goodluck Jonathan, who is fixated on retaining his post until the 2015 election — to the exclusion of all else — appears to believe that we will somehow muddle through. The irony is that Mr. Jonathan himself is a member of a Niger Delta minority. His own Ijaw people launched an armed struggle against what they saw as an illegitimate government in the wake of Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s execution. Evidently, things look very different when you’re in the driving seat.

That Nigeria will have to restructure is not in doubt, but it is a great pity that we are about to miss an opportunity to do so in a peaceful, constructive manner. There are good reasons why Nigeria should stay together. With its natural wealth and gifted people, it has the potential to become a serious presence on the world stage, one of the few African countries with the wherewithal to do so. But to do this it needs to devolve power to all its component parts, thereby giving them a stake in its future.

The alternative is a great fracturing into yet more African countries, each with its own flag, national anthem and seat at the United Nations, but doomed to survive on the goodwill of others.

As the late Nelson Mandela put it: “The world will not respect Africa until Nigeria earns that respect. The black people of the world need Nigeria to be great as a source of pride and confidence.”

Adewale Maja-Pearce is a writer and critic, and the author of “Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Other Essays.”

YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ: Haiti, and the tragedy that Nigeria’s failure represents to people of African descent – Tola Adenle

http://emotanafricana.com/2013/06/27/haiti-and-the-tragedy-that-nigerias-failure-represents-to-people-of-african-descent-tola-adenle/

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2013. 3:15 a.m. [GMT]

How low will Nigeria go, how deep will she sink before the bottom finally falls off on her way to becoming an Haiti despite her huge wealth that continues to be parceled off to a few under the guise of privatization? – TOLA.

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/jonathan-minister%E2%80%99s-cronies-%E2%80%9Cbuy%E2%80%9D%C2%A0port%C2%A0harcourt%C2%A0refineries

DECEMBER 30, 2013. 11: 54 a.m. [GMT]

In August, this blog carried an interview that Mohammed Baba Ibaku gave after the state’s governor declared that 90% of the state’s revenue is enjoyed by 1% of the state’s population.

Baba Ibaku, is the Chairman, Committee on Media and Information of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly and what he said in the interview to the International Centre for Investigative Reporting shows that the problem of legislators in Nassarawa is not new. It is also apparent that the Nasarawa example is what is happening in most states of the country. They are all merely following the example of the federal government. Nigerian politicians have gone ‘nuclear,’ so to speak as far as remuneration is concerned compared with earlier era, and compared specifically with the Second Republic. Here is what Baba Ibaku said in that interview when asked about the fact that legislators in the state collect various amounts of money that total millions of Naira:

How do you react to allegations that you and other legislators collect N10 million every quarter for constituency allowance and there is not much to show for it?

Who told you that they assigned N10 million to us? I am not a first timer … So, my people should be the ones that will ask me what I am doing with the money. By the way, what is N10 million? …

Do you know what this constituency allowance is meant for? Constituency allowance is meant for anything that you may not even know. Go and get a definition of constituency allowance then I will tell you what I have been doing with my people for the past six years and they are still happy with me.

What do you use N10 million for? What is the money for?

What is this money for? If your wife is sick and I carry her to the hospital, how do I quantify that? If I take people to hajj, how do I quantify that? For the past six years, how many people have I sponsored to Jerusalem? Will I use my father’s money to do that?
If maybe I decide to buy a vehicle for somebody, is it bad? …

I can remember there was a debate about salaries in the federal legislature during the time (Second Republic), and the UPN legislators, led by late Senator Odebiyi, objected to the proposed exorbitant salaries. These days when it comes to salaries and perquisites, however, all legislators are on the same page irrespective of party affiliation. How times change.

The fact that revenues accrue to states with ease every month – and whether legislators work or not does not help matters. I believe that resource control, which has been discussed widely in newspapers and other media, will curb the appetite for such exorbitant salaries when state-level politicians realize that such easy revenues will no longer be forthcoming.

It is one of the major reasons why the forthcoming National conference is a must because we cannot afford to continue with the present state of affairs that has financial recklessness as its beacon. Any proposed elections in 2015 without first ironing out our problems via the conference is asking for trouble – a lot of trouble!

Yes, the politicians are just toying with us. Even though I am supposed to belong to APC, I do not feel comfortable with either of the political parties anymore. To put it mildly, I think we have been had. We need to get a peoples’ party that is strictly for development-centred and development-oriented governance.

Tokunbo Ajasin, Ibadan, Nigeria

FRIDAY, JANUARY 3,2014. 11:15 p.m. [GMT]

For many years, Nigerian Press has been filled with essays and reports about Dr. Iweala’s ability to “use her links with donor agencies to HELP Nigeria get loans with low interest rates …” I have always not just wondered about the mindset where such borrowings could be described as HELP came from but have often pointed out in my essays that the World Bank is a commissioned agent which collects commissions on the borrowings …

Mr. Dọtun Ọlọkọ’s recent public letter on Sahara Reporters to Dr. Iweala – first and last two paragraphs – below comes not a moment too soon.

Dotun Oloko, a Nigerian based in the United Kingdom, has sent an open letter to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance, urging her, in the wake of the dispute between former and current Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, to make public certain information she previously expressed privately and indicated she would go public with.

Recalling the exchange of correspondence between himself and the Minister “on a matter related to our beloved country,” Oloko noted that was because of Okonjo-Iweala’s international reputation and position as Finance Minister.

“I am now writing this open letter to you because of a related matter concerning our dear country,” he told the Minister. “In the course of our exchange of correspondence you expressed some views and opinions which I believe you should now make public in the wake of the dispute between Obasanjo and Jonathan. I must therefore call on you to do your duty to God and our country and act on those views and opinions, before it is too late.”

It’s great that people are now beaming searchlights on Dr. Ngozi Iweala.

While I have never impugned her integrity or doubted her credentials as my reasons for the many critical essays on Iweala’s unsuitability for her top positions in Nigeria’s Finance/Economy soon after leaving retired General Obasanjo’s presidency, the many critical essays I’ve written on her started with her South African public pronouncement that Nigeria still needed loans soon after leaving rGO’s government wondered at her seeming duplicity.

A single essay from three years ago typifies along the line I’ve written but my reasons for being so critical of her work to the point of asking her to resign centers around the following:
• Her call for more loans and the very aggressive pushing of such on the central government which state governments have also followed, borrowing billions of Naira, the payments of which will burden such states for a very long time. The budgets that now run into trillions and hundreds of billions of Naira are nothing but deficit budgeting which as the loans that lie at the bottom of such may power highfalutin projects but would slow down real growth;

• The incompatibility of an above-board person with remaining at ease amidst the muck that runs deep at every level of government;

• Iweala’s helplessness in the face of the gasoline price hike two years ago when IMF’s M.A., Lagarde, stole in eve of New Year to force Nigerian masses into poverty’s laps through a gasoline hike of double digit over which Iweala seemingly had no word, and lately,
is the challenge of Dr. Ezekwezili about the budget that met with abuses from her aides.

Here was a former Finance Minister who not only recommended loan repayment but played active roles in having the loans repaid. Why? It is a good thing now that Nigerians are more than starting to wonder at how and why Iweala can continue to remain in Dr. Jonathan’s government despite all the hues and cries of the situation of the economy and the corruption at all levels of government.

Of several not-good-enough-for-an-Economy-Czarina essays over the years many of which can be found on this blog, here is a single one that encapsulates the points central to all essays I ever wrote on Dr. Iweala but skewed each time to deal with points raised by her actions/inactions:

http://emotanafricana.com/2011/06/16/abracadabra-nigerian-government-accounting/

And below is the link to the SR’s open letter by Dọtun Ọlọkọ:

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/massive-corruption-under-president-jonathan-uk-based-nigerian-challenges-okonjo-iweala-dem

Mr. Dotun Oloko’s lives in England.

MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2014. 8:08 p.m. [GMT]

After Sahara Reporters reported on Monday that the U.S. college where Ms. Oduah claimed to have received a Masters degree NEVER had a graduate (post graduate) program, Nigeria’s Osun Defender and later, Nigeria’s Premium Times have today reported the editing of Ms. Oduah’s resume on WIKIPEDIA, an online tool that many Nigerians are turning to laundering and promoting themselves because anybody can enter any information about himself/herself on WIKI, information that can be changed at will.

Here’s the evidence of recent activity on the entry of “Princess Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi” on a page that carries her photographs:

This page was last modified on 7 January 2014 at 16:21.

And here are a few questions for Ms. Oduah as well as a brief comment on this sordid affair:

Information from DIVERSE ISSUES ON HIGHER EDUCATION dated May 31, 2013 written by Denise B. Hawkins indicates that St. Paul’s College, the purported college (American for university) has had problems for a while and its accreditation was withdrawn but following legal adjudication, the college went on two-year probation which expired end of May 2013. Since the college was unable to change its situation during the probation period: “lack of financial stability and too many faculty without terminal degrees”, it finally closed its doors on June 30, 2013. This, in effect, means that the college has had been in distress before 2011. President Jonathan was elected in April 2011.

Here are a few questions and a brief commentary on the purported “cover up of certificate forgery”:
Ms. Oduah, what did you edit out of your resume at 2:40 p.m. today on Wikipedia? I’m sure that you are aware that material once posted on the web, even when deleted by the originator, is still accessible to those who operate sites, or are you not? How would you feel if WIKILEAK decides to leak your original document? Or do you not worry that there were others who may have the original document since it was supposedly submitted to the House of Reps for your confirmation hearing?

Like most Nigerians, Mr. President, I know that our people consider most Nigerian politicians shameless but don’t you feel Ms. Oduah has swum in enough muck, and brought more shame on your government and on all Nigerians than perhaps others to just be told to resign if she would not do it of her own volition rather than keep all Nigerians on the front burners of international odium where our leaders seem to perpetually dump us? Would this not be a step, even if a small one, towards achieving a no one would be spared of corruption allegation?

A blogger just read and commented that Ms. Oduah’s posting on WIKI was edited – again – at 18:00 hours; I checked it out and he’s right.TOLA [6:48 GMT; 7:48 Nigerian Time.]

http://emotanafricana.com/2014/01/07/stella-oduah-nigerias-aviation-minister-what-did-you-edit-in-the-self-promotional-wikipedia-today-at-241-p-m-tola-adenle/

JANUARY 7, 2014. 6:01 p.m. [GMT]

[Photo credit: Depo Adenle for emotanafricana.com Library

NOTE: Here is yet another update in the early hours of today, Wednesday, January 8, 2014: This page was last modified on 8 January 2014 at 02:01.

BRIEF CITATION ON PRINCESS STELLA ADAEZE ODUAH, OON - HONOURABLE MINISTER OF AVIATION FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah was born on the 5th of January 1962 into the Royal family of HRH, Igwe D.O Oduah, the Igwe of Akili-Ozizor in Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State. William Shakespeare wrote in one of his many literary works that “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”. Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah was born and has achieved greatness not by any stroke of luck but through years of hard work, dedication, focus and determination. There was therefore no surprise that she rode roughshod and carved a niche for herself in a male-dominated industry.

She realized very early in life the indispensability of a sound education in her growth plans in life and therefore pursued her education with all diligence and sense of purpose. Her educational development began in Anambra state where she had her primary and secondary education at St. John’s Primary School Odoakpu and Zixton Secondary School Ozubulu before proceeding to St. Paul’s College Lawrenceville from 1978-1982, where she bagged her first Degree in Accounting. On completion of her first degree, she was not lured into taking up paid employment but was determined to have the best education and at the highest level, so she immediately stayed back to study for her Masters Degree which she achieved in 1983. [Emphasis blogger's.]

Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah returned to her Fatherland in 1983 to participate in the mandatory National Youth Service Corps Scheme (NYSC) and she was posted to NECA for her place of primary assignment. On successful completion of her National youth service she got a permanent employment with the NNPC where she worked for years before voluntarily retiring into private business. During her period of employment with NNPC, she served in different capacities and won numerous accolades and awards for excellent performance including the “THE NNPC GMD AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE”

Spurred on by her entrepreneurial abilities, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah left the NNPC to establish her own business. This led to the birth of SEA PETROLEUM & GAS COMPANY LIMITED, a company that was to become a leading player in the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria. Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah nurtured this company from humble beginnings to an enviable position in local, regional and global business. The company is today a conglomerate with no fewer than 7 subsidiaries offering diverse services and providing employment for the youths and people of Nigeria.

Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah has a large philanthropic heart and is involved in numerous philanthropic initiatives some of which are provision of a farmers loan scheme in Ogbaru and Benin to enable farmers have access to soft loans, construction of schools and skill acquisition centers for orphanages and communities, scholarship schemes, construction of health centers for primary health care. The list is endless and this goes to show that Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah is and continues to be a blessing to humanity.

In recognition of her immense contribution to national, society and business development in Nigeria, Princess Stella has been honoured with numerous awards for outstanding achievements, including the National Honour of “Officer of the Order of the Niger,OON” by the Federal Government of Nigeria. There are others too numerous to mention here. She also holds membership of renowned and numerous social and business associations.

Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah has built a very successful business empire through hard work and dedication which makes her one of the foremost business personalities in Nigeria. This is a coat she wore until her recent call to National service, first as Chairman of the Board of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN and now the HONOURABLE MINISTER OF AVIATION, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.

Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah,OON is indeed a gem of our generation and a blessing to this Country. WE BELIEVE IN HER TRANSFORMATION AGENDA FOR THE AVIATION MINISTRY !!!! CONGRATULATIONS OUR DEAR HONORABLE MINISTER.

January 8, 2014. 2:12 a.m. GMT

First, we learnt that her supposed Masters Degree was obtained at about the same time that St. Paul’s College that supposedly issued it (and her first degree) lost its accreditation before a court issued a 2-year probation AND ABOUT THE TIME THAT PRESIDENT JONATHAN WON ELECTION – in 2011 … There would be none to ask questions about “Princess Stella Oduah’s” academic achievements, etcetera, from. The masters is fake and the honorary doctorate is also fake.

Now, many readers may already have read the story from Premium Times that the American National Centre for Education Statistics has told Premium Times that Pacific Christian University at Glendale, California which Oduah claims awarded her a honorary doctorate degree DOES NOT EXIST!

Okay, what next could be revealed about this minister that should shock: that she’s of a different gender and had been in love with heavy female eye make-up!

And those should be the last words from me on Oduah’s present misadventure – except visitors’ comments – on this blog.

+ + + +

“I voted for Jonathan, not the PDP” was the refrain back then but the first sentence on this blog back in March 2011 was the following and it’s from the only essay I’ve written for THE NATION after I had stopped writing for it on December 26, 2010, “Letters to my Niece: The writing life and saying goodbye” already reproduced on this blog. It was a one-sentence paragraph:
God willing, I will cast my presidential vote for retd. General Buhari and that is more than a personal quantum leap.

In Nigeria, journalists are not generally known for airing their opinions till AFTER THE FACT which is also generally when politically- and conveniently-expedient. While the then-as-known Acting President Jonathan for whom I was also one of the very few public essayists who wrote in support of during late Alhaji Yar Adua’s dark-clouds-over-Nigeria-days – could be described as nothing but a decent man outside politics, I could not see myself casting my vote for anybody who came out of the evil machinations of the PDP machinery engineered by the former president, retired General Obasanjo – Christian or not – as many people claimed as their single reason.

I wonder where that “christianity” has landed Nigeria which is one of the basic problems in Nigeria today; and ethnicity; and political godfatherism; and politics-as-commerce which is the father of the “politics without principles” of Mahatma Gandhi’s “Seven Social Sins”.

Get on the web and read ANY essay on Nigerian politics from give-em-hell sites like SAHARA REPORTERS or PREMIUM TIMES that allow commentators to merely log in and post, and the ethnic divide in Nigeria could not be more apparent. It does not stop at that. Yoruba, Ibo and other Southerners are united on calling Northerners names on matters of Christianity versus Muslim religion even though either side is not made up of people of a single religion but the bile really comes flowing when it comes to Ibo on Yoruba, Ibo on Hausas or the other way round.

Where I stood when I wrote that essay before the elections of 2011 may not be where I stand now and that does not mean I’m hedging my bet as I’m not cut from that cloth. After all, retired General Buhari – whom I supported – is now in the same camp with ACN – for which I voted in all but the presidential elections though not for the same reason that an ACN friend told me THEY were not going to vote for the party’s “candidate”. The problem I have is that I do not think I would vote for anybody from ACN as presently constituted because I do not see ACN, with all the motley crowd it has acquired representing what I believed it did back in 2011. AN END SHOULD NEVER JUSTIFY THE MEANS.

Now, for the [dis]honourable Ms. Stella Oduah’s recurring and shameful story by Premium Times’ Musikilu, if you still have the stomach for it – please follow this lead:

http://premiumtimesng.com/news/152990-american-education-dept-university-confirm-stella-oduahs-honorary-ph-d-is-fake.html

And if you’d like to read the first essay on this blog, a here-I-stand piece earlier used by the NATION after I had stopped writing weekly essays for the paper in 2011, please check out:

http://emotanafricana.com/2011/03/30/nigeria-2011-elections-nigeria-must-be-rid-of-cancer-like-pdp/

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014. 8.22 p.m. GMT

A statesman’s political graph should be able to be extrapolated when it comes to matters of morality and ethics in politics. Chief Obafemi Awolowo had long said as a matter of principle, he would not serve in an unelected government. When pressed upon by the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon to serve as federal Finance Commissioner and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council during the civil war years, he accepted on the ground that the prosecution of the war was a national emergency against which his previous stand had to give way. At the conclusion of the war in 1971, the old sage did not need to be reminded of his philosophy of political participation: he voluntarily quit the government to wait for the signal for the beginning of elective politics.

READ ON:

Given the maze of challenges to be overcome and the labyrinths of political structures to be erected in the pursuit of power, the ultimate goal of politics, political philosophers have often wondered whether it is necessary at all to be restricted by considerations for moral judgements in taking political decisions. Political ethics, which deals with making moral judgements on political actions, is divided into ethics of process and ethics of policy. The famous Niccolo Machiavelli’s belief in the end justifying the means concerns the ethics of process while certain socio-economic ends of politics, in their inherent negation of the principle of universality, like the economic policy of progressive taxation and the policy of affirmative action, raise the possibility of the ethics of process.

While advocates for ethics in politics are not only after the submission of everybody to ideal justice, they are also after the entrenchment of moral values without which most democratic societies will lose the capacity to distinguish between competing notions of right and wrong. On their part, political realists posit that ethics has no place in politics and that for political leaders to be effective in the real world, considerations for the larger national interests, rather than concerns for sectional human interests, should be their instructing motives.

The late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was once quoted as saying that “nothing can be morally wrong and politically right at the same time”. The icon of progressivism in Nigeria so much based his politics on certain parameters of ethics that he cared very little whether his political gospel could have been more attractive to more people had he been less ethical and, his political party, more embracing had he been less doctrinaire in his politics that was suffused with streaks of morality. So high was the expectation of conformity to certain exactitude of political behavior in the First Republic that certain words like “perfidy”; “betrayal”; “disloyalty”; “treachery”; “political perdition”, were the currencies of the political language used to describe turncoats in that era.

It is to the undeniable testimony of the power of money and its corrosive and negative deployment on our value-systems that our present political discourse has since been emptied of such words and is being presently replaced with such political lexicon as “do-or-die mentality”; “election-rigging”; “monetization of votes”; “electoral banditry” and all such words and phrases that indicate the amorality of our politics. In the aftermath of the bestial rule of late General Sani Abacha in 1998, and during the ensuing politics of the present Fourth Republic, a political party, the Alliance for Democracy, AD, had sought to put itself above the depravities of the defunct regime by canvassing for some moral and political distance away from those politicians who had actively collaborated with the dark-goggled ruler to foist a most odious regime on the generality of Nigerians. Predictably, the party with its ethical purity emblem, met with little electoral success beyond the boundaries of the southwestern geo-political zone having as it were, been confined to that area by the party of all comers – the People Democratic Party, PDP, in the elections of 1999 and 2003.

Such was the boast of the PDP as being a microcosm of the nation’s will that one of its former chairmen, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, way back in 2008 and apparently basking in the pan-Nigerian composition of the party, saints and sinners alike, saw no reason for their stranglehold on power to be broken for six continuous decades in the country! What the party lacked in campaign finesse was more than made up for in the sheer determination of their then leader and president of the country, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to brook no countervailing influence to his power under the guise of allowing opposition politics in a democracy. And oh boy, did he wield the big stick!

In distinctly amoral moves almost from the pages of Machiavelli’s book “The Prince”, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo went about decapitating and defanging his political opponents by any means possible. If there needed to be collusion with legitimate law enforcement officers to execute extra-legal objectives such as the kidnap of a sitting governor as in the case of Anambra’s Dr. Chris Ngige, so be it; if the services of self-confessed habitual liars, serial enforcers and merchants of metropolitan mayhem of the kind of late Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu were necessary to impeach recalcitrant governors like Rasheed Ladoja of Oyo state, you would be his guest; no margin of victory at the polls could guarantee gubernatorial candidates safe rides to government houses unless with his imprimatur.

At the end of the 2011 election and with the routing of PDP in the southwest at both the federal and state assembly elections by ACN (former AD), it was not unusual to read of retired president Obasanjo’s political cavorting with Kashamu Buruji Esq, in a last ditch effort to resuscitate a near moribund political structure, rendered so through collateral damage suffered from a long-drawn out political battle with departing Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State. Also known in some circles as Esho Jinadu, Buruji, a recent billionaire returnee from Benin republic has sworn to have used his apparently bottomless pocket to reinstate Chief Olusegun Obasanjo into political reckoning within the PDP in Ogun State and, in the process, has achieved a measure of closeness and chumminess to the former president that few people will ever believe.

The letter from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to the PDP chairman Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, intimating the latter of his desire to take a temporary leave from the affairs of PDP both at the state and federal levels because of the immorality of having “a wanted habitual criminal … for whom extradition has been requested by the US government” as Chairman of the party’s organization and mobilization committee, raises even more questions about ethics. For example, when did former President Obasanjo know that Buruji is a habitual criminal wanted for drug- related crimes? Why did he not do the due process analysis of Kashamu Buruji’s character before admitting him into his sanctum sanctorum?

While this column agrees to a measure of morality in politics, it disagrees with Chief Obasanjo’s penchant to approbate and reprobate simultaneously on the ground of morality. Cavorting with people of questionable character and pedigree as a means to an end has not only opened the end to questionable functional morality, it has exposed one’s inner consciousness as a place of ethical neutrality, oscillating between competing notions of good and bad as opportunity demands.

A statesman’s political graph should be able to be extrapolated when it comes to matters of morality and ethics in politics. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had long said as a matter of principle, that he would not serve in an unelected government. When pressed upon by the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon to serve as federal Finance Commissioner and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council during the civil war years, he accepted on the ground that the prosecution of the war was a national emergency against which his previous stand had to give way. At the conclusion of the war in 1971, the old sage did not need to be reminded of his philosophy of political participation: he voluntarily quit the government to wait for the signal for the beginning of elective politics.

Nigeria’s president, Dr. E.G. Jonathan has assented to a stiff law not only banning homosexual relationships but making it a crime for homosexuals to hold meetings, have a club, society or organization. Stiff jail terms await those who break this law.

Not surprisingly, the law has received heavy approval from Nigerians most of whom are either conservative Christians or conservative Muslim adherents in a country where there is massive corruption at every level of governance by Christians and Muslims alike. There are other many ills plaguing the country principal among which is the ungodly kidnapping both for rituals and for huge ransoms.

The law was expected to pass. After all, it’s the same “law-making” body that found nothing wrong in 12-year olds getting married when it recently passed the underage marriage act; by the way, a Nigerian senator is married to a girl of about that age but I understand the baby has gone back to her family who reportedly took millions in bride price.

On a Sunday in July 2003, I presented readers of The Comet on Sunday with “A homosexual does not belong in jail” which forms part of the first essay with the link below in 2011. The other, by D.H. Habeeb, a regular commentator on this blog, is the futility of legislating against homosexuality.

There are quite a few others on this blog; if you input ‘homosexuals in Africa’ into the search box, it will turn up some, beginning in 2011 with:

http://emotanafricana.com/2011/11/30/the-siege-on-homosexuals-in-africa-a-nigerian-case-from-the-not-too-distant-past/

and including a recent one six months ago:

http://emotanafricana.com/2013/07/28/the-futility-of-nigerias-national-assemblys-legislation-against-homosexuality-the-growing-international-gay-rights-agitation-d-h-habeeb/

Funny, though not in a mirthful way, the same constituency where the call from jail-the-gays come from is supposedly the same constituency which has been murmured for decades as practitioners of the “not natural human behavior” of homosexuality.

A country that holds up such “high moral values” should come up with what to do with those who loot the common wealth that deprives the country the opportunity to develop to the level where countries with less natural resources are, and majority of its citizens the chance to live decent lives.

I am personally very much against capital punishment but if homosexuals and/or those who are linked to them are sent to jail for the lengthy period of a decade and one half, I believe corrupt politicians, civil servants … which are all “those who cannot account for their wealth” as Singapore elegantly describes looters – should be considered economic saboteurs, unarmed burglars, and worse. Here are my suggested punishments for them:

In public squares/market places of their cities, towns, villages across Nigeria or in the places of their abode where they are known in case [should in case, in Nigerian-ese] they can no longer trace their ancestral homes:

1. Their least punishment first: read out their life sentences, and jails built from a fraction of their loot which would be their home for the rest of their lives with no pardons enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution should be their destinations enter from that date of assemblies around the country.

2. The keys to the jail cells would be handed over to respected human rights fighter in each area who will throw the in-lock keys to the nearest River Niger tributary or lagoon/sea ; the one for my Southwest Region naturally goes to Femi Falana.

3. For humanitarian reason, all their self-entitled family members will be given the oldest homes built by their thieving father/mother which, as things are in Nigeria, would be a model house.

4. ALL other properties in Nigeria and those that can be traced abroad would be confiscated. Ditto cash and other assets.

5. All wives, children and beneficiary relations who can be stopped before they “jet out” in private or commercial planes would not be allowed to travel outside Nigeria for ten years.

6. A suggestion once raised by Soyinka that all tertiary institutions be closed for a number of years I cannot now remember so that things can be straightened out would be put into effect and a mere 10% of looted funds that lie in the vaults of those conniving banks WITHIN Nigeria would be spent in restructuring education.

By the way, pardon this as most would consider the suggestion as coming from one who, like most oldies, consider things much worse than during their own time: All level 4 students in MOST government-owned universities would go back to Higher School Certificate classes (HSC), and so on, and so forth.

TO ENSURE THAT MOST LOOT is recovered as all cannot, a provision of a certain percentage of loot pointed out and traced to be true would be given to the squealer!

ABSURD SUGGESTIONS?

Not to me, and I am sure not to majority of Nigerians, nor are they as absurd as rendering a Nigerian with a doctorate degree of many years and with a university stable teaching job a car-less individual, nor as absurd as a university FULL professor preferring to take a local government job as chairman or councillor because there’s money to loot in those lower jobs or, nor a university graduate preferring to drive a three-wheel taxi – rickshaw, if a spade be called its proper name – or serve as a driver at Abuja to a guy who can barely write his name, nor – lest we forget the subject we are on – sending people to jail because we consider them as having what we consider “abnormal” sexual preferences.

Nigeria is a very sick country but who will heal it, or when the healing will start, nobody knows.

JANUARY 14, 2014. 5:05 p.m. [GMT]