SAI BUHARI: THE EISENHOWER EFFECT

SAI BUHARI: THE EISENHOWER EFFECT

Many Nigerians will readily agree that the brand of democracy we practice now was “photoshopped” from the American system but without true federalism and separation of powers. This distorted form of democracy has allowed for the enthronement of a dynasty which is focused on earning another bite of the cherry when all their teeth are already decayed and with little or no achievements to show for nearly 6 years on the throne.

 It is no doubt that the fault lines which suture Nigeria together have become apparent and exploited now more than ever before. The rage harbored since 1970 in some quarters has flared up and most times disguised as wisdom. The conflicts that occur daily on social media clearly reveal how fractured the nation is with many degenerating to name calling and derogatory terms to describe those from other tribes or religions. A lot of assumption occurs and it highlights the primitive and elementary nature of many Nigerians. People no longer take time to read what others write; even when they do read, they either fail to understand what is written or choose to deliberately misinterpret or resist the truth because of preexisting prejudices. 

I had to take up someone on Facebook recently who saw my display picture and assumed I was female. He went on and on ranting chauvinistic comments at me with vulgar words because I countered whatever he had posted in support of the incumbent president. It is very worrisome when supposedly educated young people in particular hide behind their native and chronic sentiments to queue behind gross incompetence and mammoth failure. The worst groups of people in my opinion are those who do not do anything to vote and those who claim to desire change but publicly condemn and categorize all the political parties as the same and unworthy whilst remaining  closet supporters of the failed incumbent.

I had the good pleasure of attending one of the secondary schools established after the civil war to help mend the wounds of the conflict and build bridges destroyed by blackmail and vengeance. It was thought that aggregating a cross-section of young minds from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds would help eliminate suspicion and build trusts and lasting friendships. I would be a liar if I said it did not work because it worked for those of us who had the chance. The flaw in this approach is that it was just like a drum of paint in the Atlantic. The military persisted and the several attempts at democratic rule were total train wrecks. The educational system in the country became sadly paralyzed most especially at the state levels. The higher institutions were plagued by cultism, strikes and gross underfunding. Whatever was achieved from the unification process at the secondary school level could not be effectively translated unto the institutions of higher learning many of which subsequently became incubators to brood ethnic and religious animosity. 

I remember a northern friend a few years back who once said to me that my University in the South was mainly for admitting “Yoruba” students and I vigorous challenged that misconception. I attended secondary school with the sons and daughters of prominent people at the time and to some extent; we saw ourselves as equals and interacted largely based on common interests such as sports, clubs and societies, academics with less emphasis on ethnicity or religion. The students had a huge role in the choice of school prefects and it had next to nothing to do with tribe or God. Nigerian schools at secondary and tertiary levels have now become unattractive to many Nigerians with even those directly benefitting from the governments leading the way in extracting their children out of our shores to other climes for their education.

Some of the sentiments currently being employed by the ruling party’s spokespersons regarding the forthcoming election are geared to discredit the opposition candidate Major General Muhammadu Buhari. They have decided not to inform Nigerians about how the incumbent president plans to tackle corruption and put a permanent stop to power outages in the coming 4 years but constantly pick on mundane issues regarding the age of the General, his academic achievements, his military background and the fact that he has no oil blocs despite occupying the roles of Federal Commissioner of Petroleum and the Head of the Supreme Military Council after the ouster of the Shagari-led government. 

Many Nigerians particularly those of a certain ethnic group confuse the events of the civil war with his 20 month reign and pour out their venom of the civil war on him because he is a Northern Muslim. Key players from that era are Christian and are still alive. General Yakubu Gowon is from Plateau state and Lieutenant General Olusegun Obasanjo is from Ogun; both are alive and well but they hardly get any stick for whatever roles they played in that infamous and avoidable war. A few people attempted to have a go at the running mate of the opposition candidate; Prof. Osinbajo by questioning his pastoral call and one comic went ahead to ask why he was in support of someone who allegedly ordered the harassment of the late grandfather of his wife and former Premiere of the old Western region Obafemi Awolowo. The quicksand that some people have chosen to dip into is mindboggling. The PDP chairman Mu’azu currently has something similar on his Facebook page.

Those who question his age forget that the great Awo and Zik were 70 and 75 respectively when they contested for presidency in 1979. Can we say that Awo would have been unable to preside over Nigeria if he had won in 1979? Let us not forget that the 2 men contested again four years later in 1983 with Aminu Kano and Waziri. The great South African Nelson Mandela was almost 76 when he became president and the only thing that I believe qualified him for such honor was his proposal to help salvage his very unstable nation and ensure peace. It was not the 27 years spent in jail as he was not the only man who had prison experience. What he proposed and executed is what still holds that fragile nation together and sane. 

The most silly of all jabs shot at Buhari remains the issue of his Military credentials. To suggest that a soldier who rose up the ranks by passing through highly rated military training establishments in various countries is semi-literate is plain stupid and laughable. When a supposed professor opts to stereotype the general because of his demeanor and characteristic speech pattern, we would need to verify if such a professor is truly one indeed. There is a reason why there are Non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers cadres in the Nigerian military. It requires a lot of training and experience to attain the rank of general or its equivalent; such ranks are not meant for semi-literate and illiterate men or women except such people ordained themselves.

Many have canvassed for younger people to hold sway over the affairs of Nigeria suggesting that the younger Goodluck Jonathan who is already 57 fits the profile of what we need. They continue to point at 30+ years ago when Buhari occupied certain offices with many wondering why he is still the center piece at 72. I have repeatedly mentioned it on several platforms that the young people of Nigeria as we stand are already severely compromised, blighted by primitive sentiments and propelled by greed and lust for luxury. I do not want to go into how the young men of the mid and late sixties caused so much agitation and provoked an unnecessary civil war which could have been ended much earlier than it actually did but for pride and the desire for vain glory. 

The youth of our day are actively involved in the scams, illegalities and “get-rich-quick” schemes perpetrated in the civil service, banking sector and even in churches. They are the ones who patrol social media invoking the gods of thunder, iron and brimstone to destroy any perceived opponent to their feasting and festivities. These are not the people to entrust the navigation of a very unstable nation into their hands. Our definition of what corruption is has been altered; we cannot accurately define patriotism to save our lives. Some have redefined patriotism to mean a blind support of individuals above the overall interest especially when tribal, religious or social parameters are involved. Mediocrity has become our new word for excellence and incompetence is a ready substitute for merit and ability.

The dynamics involved during the overthrow of the Shagari government remains distorted in the minds of prejudiced or ignorant Nigerians despite the availability of information to alter such perception. The Military collectively overthrew the democratic government they had only 4 years earlier handed over to without compulsion. This was very similar to what occurred in Ghana when Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings took over power from the same group of civilians he had handed over to following his first coup in 1979. Rawlings was seen as a no nonsense officer, a top professional who graduated top of his class in flight school. His initial coup failed and he was apprehended and faced a death sentence. He gave a speech at his trial which spurred the public to support him and motivated other soldiers to break him out of jail. What happened next were the conclusion of the coup and a purge of some of the top officers in the Ghanaian military. 

Rawlings went on to rule Ghana from the start of 1982 to January 2001 inclusive of 8 years as a civilian president. Buhari has not ceased to proclaim what actually are the problems retarding the development of Nigeria; he worked as he deemed fit in 1984-1985 to eradicate the problems but this process was halted by the very same soldiers who had installed him above all other contenders to provide the legitimacy and public understanding they needed after halting the democratic government at that time. The events from August 1985 to August 1993 clearly vindicate the hard stance maintained by the Buhari-Idiagbon led junta; corruption became full-blown and the economy crashed to the abyss but we regained the affection of the Queen and her prime minister.

The charges of imprisonments, executions and muzzling of the press although not acceptable are not idiosyncratic of the Buhari government. Similar events happened during other military regimes but to varying degrees. Where Buhari stopped the press from publishing certain types of news report, Babaginda was friendly with them and one of those jailed by the decree 4 of 1984 became Babaginda’s press secretary and happened to handle the document that announced the annulment of the June 12 elections in 1993. When much is said about the enactment of a retroactive law to ensure that 3 men were executed for drug trafficking, I look at the first decree passed by Olusegun Obasanjo on the 27^th of February 1976 to ensure that civilians involved in the February 13^th abortive coup were tried by the same military tribunal set up just like the soldiers who were clearly involved or suspected. General Jack Gowon’s brother-in-law was executed in like manner to the soldiers sentenced. Obasanjo later passed another decree called the “Public officers (protection against false accusation) Decree 1976” on the 17^th of March 1976 which was backdated to take effect on the 29^th of July 1975. 

Public officers in this case were defined as members of the Supreme Military Council, members of the National Council of States or Federal Executive Council, military governors, Federal and state commissioners, military and police officers; public office holders in the Federal or state public services and in any corporate body or company established under a federal or state law or any in which the governments had controlling interests. Seven armed robbers were sentenced to death on the 7^th of September 1977 for conspiracy and robbing a man (also injuring him) of a Mercedes Benz lorry and 492 cartons of sardine along the Ikorodu/ Sagamu road about 3 months earlier. Two of the men were brothers and the other 5 included a driver, an applicant, a fisherman and a labourer. These issues occurred when Obasanjo was military head of state but we hardly get to hear about them as loudly as the events that occurred when Buhari reigned. If these issues among others were not deemed heavyweight enough to discredit an Obasanjo presidency; why do certain individuals suddenly become undertakers every four years to exhume dirt that ought to be buried eternally? What are they really afraid of? Would we ever get to hear about such things if Buhari was a PDP man?

Another dirty pool constantly stirred up to bash the general is the issue of the right to rule. I understand the sentiments surrounding the role played by the colonial rulers to grant the North an undue advantage over the South to serve their personal interests and to ensure that the infant nation failed to thrive. Someone once asked a very important question; he asked if a region rendered less academically exposed by the British could have been termed as having an advantage over the more dynamic and exposed Southerners. The structures left behind after the British withdrawal can be described as unstable but workable. Sadly, the regional Premiers failed to draw on their strengths to enable each region thrive at the same or near equal pace. The colonialist or supremacist attributes learned from the British to varying degrees drove wedges between entire regions and between some of the smaller nations inherent within the larger Nigeria. Discontent and agitations were neutralized with force and the infant military was exposed to the ills of democratic rule. Bloody and palace coups, mutinies as well as a costly civil war have ravaged governments since independence and any semblance to what was the initial framework for a lasting nation is long gone. 

The regions were divided and now even the people cannot accurately discern where the landmarks of the old regions were sited. The Hausa/Fulani who many Southerners accuse of having a “birthright” mentality have only had one of theirs spend just over two years since 1999 in the highest office in the land. When we do count the number of years from 1960, a good number of years have been occupied by Northern officers of the present day middle-belt or North-central region. I ask those who raise this point at times if their grouse is actually with the Hausa/Fulani tribes or the entire Northern region itself. They say Buhari is desperate; is Goodluck who has spent almost 6years at the helms in a classic rags to riches tale not desperate to hang on for another 4 years he does not merit and openly agreed not to contest for?

It is very funny when people say that a Buhari presidency would mean a return to military dictatorship even if this is almost 30 years after the man was deposed and retired from the Army. Obasanjo was a military man and although he exhibited traces of frank dictatorship, one cannot say he was not a civilian president. The present senate president was retired as a Brigadier General and some current and past governors and senators were top military officers. Why is it that it only becomes a subject of discussion when Buhari’s name is involved? Babaginda and Ike Nwachukwu are ex-Generals and have at one time or the other vied for the presidency albeit unsuccessfully. Do Nigerians expect their erstwhile military officers to be ashamed of their past? Do we just regard them as mindless cyborgs simply because of the unpleasant history we have had with a few notable military juntas especially the Babaginda and Abacha led governments? 

Buhari would most likely have certain regrets about his military career but his 20months as the head of state however blighted by mixed reviews should not obliterate whatever successes he had as a commander in the Northeast of Nigeria and as commander of garrisons. That conflict seems to have metamorphosed into a more malignant form of warfare and someone with a previous exposure to what now threatens to tear up our nation ought to be considered at this time for a rescue mission. Many have said he is a patron of the dreaded Boko Haram sect and nurtures an Islamization agenda for Nigeria. This is very inconsistent with an individual who had absolute powers as a military head of state but did not deem it fit to enroll Nigeria as a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries. The man who sanctioned that move has also been severally linked to the destructive sect and he belongs to the ruling party; he was recently referred to by a grinning President Jonathan as his father. If Buhari was on the same page as Babaginda with respect to funding Boko Haram, would it not make good sense if they were on the same party platform? What better way for Buhari to achieve any religious and fundamentalist agenda by ridding on the election rigging machinery of the ruling People’s Democratic Party and getting bankrolled by the possessor of the Gulf war oil windfall.

Is the Islamization of Nigeria a reasonable fear to have? Is it even possible to render the thousands of churches and camp grounds that dot the Nigerian landscape desolate in 4 or 8 years? Would Buhari threaten Christians with nuclear arsenal if they refused to pray facing east like Nebuchadnezzar threatened the Hebrew boys? Many “Christians” apparently have a crossover of the neurons from the religious and ethnic cortices of their brains and therefore are unable to differentiate stimuli that trigger either center. A personal testimony of Buhari’s conversion to democracy after witnessing the demise and disintegration of the Soviet Union without lead propelled from a barrel does not suffice for many Christians. I am certain these ones would have stoned Apostle Paul to death for supervising the persecution of the early church and execution of some of the early church leaders. 

The choice of an ordained pastor who doubles as a Law professor still does not cut it for these bigoted lot; they will rather opt to sink with their tribesman who frequently tours Jerusalem with a high powered delegation of assorted clergy and who recently was likened to Jesus Christ for his ability to bear the burdens of Nigeria. They ask “who is Osinbajo” like they knew who Goodluck Jonathan was in 2007, many do not even know the name of the current vice president or if we have one at all. Many Christians who contest the age of Buhari readily forget that some leading pastors in the land are also advanced in years. Pastor Enoch Adeboye is 72 and Pastor Kumuyi is 73 for examples; I do not think I have ever heard any clamor for them to relinquish their portfolios for younger, more vibrant and modern men.

Although the American democracy cannot be compared in any way to Nigeria’s; it is still important to state that 12 past American presidents were Generals, 5 were Colonels, 2 were Navy Commanders and 12 others of lower ranks with most having significant and successful military careers. Many aspirants as well were equally well decorated officers and those who did not have such history were most likely not drafted, deferred deployment or served in other capacities as private officials during conflict periods. Two of the 12 Generals actually attained the highest rank possible in the US Army: General of the Army. They were the first President George Washington and the 34^th president Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower was born in 1890 and attended the US Military Academy at WestPoint because he could not afford fees for college. He was responsible for planning and executing many battles during the Second World War and rose to become a 5-star general in 1944. 

The 33^rd president Harry Truman who was a democrat thought he would be a good president and he tried to urge him to contest the 1948 elections on the platform of the Democratic Party with Truman running as deputy. General Eisenhower had never contested for any public office before and only entered the race for the 1952 elections as a Republican when he gained sufficient support from within the Republican fold. His only major role that was not military based was serving as the president of Columbia University from 1948-1952 which was interjected by a spell as the first commander of NATO forces. Eisenhower retired from the army just in time to get into full-time campaigning in May 1952 and the political novice won a landslide election by 442 to 89 electoral votes over the democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson because the people thought he was the man for that season.

Eisenhower was said to have been persuaded to enter the race because his main Republican rival was poised to maintain a Non-interventionist stance if elected especially with the perceived threat of communism spreading across Central America and Southeast Asia. The cold war with Russia intensified; he helped to halt the Korean War by making appropriate threats with nuclear attacks and dipped his hands in Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, China, Jordan and Vietnam amongst other nations. He was not perfect but his two terms were marked with relative peace and prosperity; he has been rated by some sources as one of the best American presidents ever despite beginning his term at 62 and ending at 70 without any previous democratic experience.

I have not attempted to draw any personality similarities between Eisenhower and Buhari. I was only struck that a through and through military man could make a good president; he seemed to have a mission and dealt reasonably well with the prominent issues at the time. I am not sure if Buhari can win by a landslide because of the peculiarities of our electoral process and the sharp divide that holds our various ethnicities apart. I am optimistic because the incumbent has not performed and he would need to reproduce an outright simple majority win he will not be able to defend to guarantee a second term. The voting projections clearly do not favor the incumbent as Buhari seems poised to get the minimum 25% ratio required and most probably the overall majority count. It is only those who have opted not to take a closer look at the breakdown of the last election and previous ones that would disagree. All the Southeastern (SE) and South-south (SS) states all won by the PDP in 2011 with over 95% of total votes cast were all amongst the top 15 states with the highest percentage voters turnout of registered voters except Ebonyi (23^rd). 8 out of the top 10 with respect to voters’ turnout were either SE or SS with the other 2 being Kaduna (Sambo’s state) and Bauchi (lost to Buhari). The bottom 5 were all Southwest states with Ogun taking the bottom place with 28.01% turnout and Lagos 3^rd from bottom with 31.84% despite having 6,108,069 registered voters; the highest in the country.

Some of the states won by the PDP in 2011 have since changed color and dumped umbrellas for brooms, the North East and Northwest seem poised to vote massively for Buhari again and the Southwest appears ready to fully participate this time around. I am not sure if the magic formula that secured a more than 95% of SE and SS votes can be reenacted without raising any eyebrows. Jonathan obtained over 10million of his total votes of 22,495,187 votes in 2011 from just the top 10 states with the highest voters’ turnout. His 2,789,417 Southwest votes despite winning in all SW states except Osun will surely not remain the same come February especially when compared with the 4,918,651 SE and 4,952,979 SS (including Edo) votes he was awarded in 2011 having won over 95% of the votes cast in the SE and SS states and 87.28% of Edo votes. Jonathan will have to relive the 1964 elections which was concluded in 1965 due to violence in two Western region states or he could simple do what Shagari and FEDECO did in 1983 when his ratings and percentage votes obtained shot up from 33.77% in 1979 to 47.5% in 1983 despite intense corruption and poor ratings overall. 

He could also try the 2003 trick which saw a 69.1% overall voters’ turnout and a 61.94% (24,456,140) of the votes for Obasanjo and 32.19% (12,710,022) for Buhari despite the heavy rainfall that day and the widely broadcast low voters turnout nationwide following the disappointing events of the parliamentary elections the previous week. The one he should not even dare to try is the deeply flawed and widely acclaimed “worst ever election” in Nigeria’s history: the 2007 Yar’adua landslide. Yar’adua was basically away on health grounds and campaigned for by Obasanjo who had Jonathan as his sidekick. Yar’adua was awarded 69.6% of total votes while the closest candidate to him was Buhari who was awarded 18.66% (6,605,299) despite being from the same state and region as Yar’adua. The third on that ballot was Atiku who polled 2,637,848 votes (7.45%) while Odumegwu Ojukwu who had polled 1,297,445 votes 4 years earlier to come third was awarded a miserly 155,947 votes in 2007.

An election meant to have been quashed by the Supreme Court was allowed to stand and this has directly led to the unfortunate situation we find ourselves as a nation. How was it possible for the icon of the Biafran struggle to gain only 155,947 votes in 2007 and yet have the same people who remember their days by the River of Babylon vote massively for Yar’adua in the same election and contribute almost 5million votes for Goodluck Azikwe Jonathan in 2011; someone who belongs to the same ethnicity as the legendary Major Isaac Adaka Boro of the Federal army who led many onslaughts in the 3Marine Commando sector of the civil war to quench the desires of the Biafran Army? Do people really vote or is everything just about permutations and code generation?

2015 is a rate limiting step for Nigeria in my opinion; it is either going to build up or destroy. For me, this is all that matters for now. It is a Queen Esther situation for me, one I feel I was born a Nigerian for. It goes beyond General Buhari; it is all about the people waking up to their responsible to put out this fire and working towards ensuring that this nation thrives and fulfils every ounce of her potential. It is a call for change, to realize we can change our situation at any given time for the benefit of all and sundry instead of a few bandits and vandals.

Nigeria is in need of someone who is ready to fight the status quo, there is a man who has maintained his cry since 2003 without opting to join in at the PDP dining table like Ribadu and Shekarau have recently done. He has more or less been a lone voice crying in the wilderness but he is now riding in an imperfect vehicle to get to his destination.

Let us help him get there, that way we help ourselves and break the yoke of our oppressors. We may not survive as a nation beyond 2015 if we do not do what is right and vote for change.

SAI BUHARI and HAPPY NEW YEAR.

J’olee Akeju

31/12/2014

The things our eyes see!!!

The things our eyes see!!!

I walked past the laundry section of the hospital this evening to gain access to the car park. I turned to my right and saw various shades of male traditional outfits, "buba and soro" hung on the cloth lines to dry. I was about to breeze past when I suddenly realized that those were the same lines that hospital beddings and theatre scrubs were spread out to dry after washing them.

I asked myself who could have brought his clothes to get them dried at work or if such clothing was now in regular use in our hospital. The only logical explanation was that someone with access to the laundry equipment utilized such for his/her personal laundry job. But are the laundry staff not part of the ongoing JOHESU strike which has been on for more than 5 weeks?

What if there was no strike, should hospital equipment or space be used for personal "runs"? If in fact the laundry folks are part of the strike, only God knows what the others are indulging in under the cover of the strike. Government hospitals have been sadly paralyzed by the absence of a huge pool of workers for weeks now but no one is persistently talking about it; not even the section of the media who had no nice words for doctors during the Ebola season.

I soon left the hospital compound and headed towards western avenue via Akerele. As I reached the junction where I was to turn right onto western avenue instead of heading straight towards the national stadium, an incident occurred very rapidly right in front of me.  A  black Honda accord with the  red badge of a very popular church in Lagos pulled up beside a yellow cab driven by an elderly man who had only just obstructed his path while driving rather dangerously in the other direction. I observed that the pair exchanged a few words only for the younger man in the accord to hurl an object from his car through the windows of both cars before speeding away. The angry cab man shot out of his car in a flash holding an empty "pure" water sachet as if he was about to launch his own missile or at least put on his puma running shoes to go after the young man who had  had the gonads to pelt him. I burst out laughing feeling little pity for the cab driver but put myself in the shoes of the other man and remembered what I did yesterday to the red van that brushed my car in heavy traffic although I did not approve of the missile hurled at the older man even if the words exchanged may have been hurtful.

I must confess that it could really pose a great challenge at times to resist having a go at people who offend us especially with the conditions inherent in this country. It requires great grace but we forget that it  is available beforehand to resist such urges in the first instance before all that is unpleasant is said and done.

Thankfully, we need not dwell in shame and regret when we fall short. Our duty is to get back up and do better by utilizing grace.

joa

221214

"PUT ON THE GENERATOR"

"PUT ON THE GENERATOR"

My older sister and I have a couple of things in common which include our love for sports, reading novels and a kind of addiction to always having a bottle of the branded PZ product "ROBB" handy. Her passion for soccer may have waned over the past few years but she has developed more than keen interests in formula one and horse racing. 

I remember the night Manchester United overcame a one goal deficit in the final minutes of a champions league final against Bayern Munich in 1999. I remember it because I did not actually watch the game live on TV but got the details from my sister who had gone to a neighbor's flat to watch the game. There was no electricity that night and coupled with the relative lack of access to cable; my dad decided not to allow me intrude our neighbour's place with my sister.

It was normal for people in the early 90s to barge into the homes of neighbours and friends to watch episodes of their favorite  weekly Mexican or Brazilian series whenever power cuts occurred. It was also common for children and even adults in the 80s and 90s to scream "Up NEPA" whenever electricity was restored. There were only a few people who utilized generators to augment whatever supply of electricity they got but these numbers increased gradually due to the unreliability and inconsistency of the distribution company. My parents eventually succumbed to the need for a generator in 2005 just before my sister's wedding and we have not looked back ever since.

Responsibility for the diminishing productivity of the electricity authority could have been readily placed at the doorsteps of successive military regimes. In 1999, the Abdulsalam Abubakar government stepped aside and Olusegun Obasanjo was handed the reigns. He seemed to say the right things at the time like promising that power outage would be long gone from the vocabulary of Nigerians by 2003 leaving many Nigerians in ecstasy. It has been proven that he actually ploughed some billions into a power project which yielded no result. 2003 vanished and by 2006 he was wrestling and scheming for an unconstitutional third term. I want to believe that his prison to palace Mandela-esque experience may have caused him to believe he was in the same realm as the South African who is loved till eternity by his people.

The next phase in our power project was embedded in a mind boggling 7 point agenda. There have been many name changes, bundlings and unbundlings of the power sector since 2007 without any significant increase in the generated megawatts of electricity despite the additional huge billions flushed down that sewage pipe just like it happened under Obasanjo.

I watched a video clip of a South African parliamentary sitting where an aggrieved female member vented her anger at the "corrupt" dealings of the sitting president and his associates in a power generation project which is poised to add about 20,000 MW to the RSA grid. She was upset that the financial conditions were designed to favor Jacob Zuma, his relatives and close associates to the detriment of the nation and locals in the region where it was set to be established. She unapologetically continued to call Mr Zuma a thief despite warnings to withdraw the word or be thrown out. It was quite a hilarious clip but seriously, would anyone call Goodluck Jonathan a thief if he arranged a deal in 2010 that would have generated 20,000MW by the end of 2014? Would Nigerians have been even a bit bothered if Stella Oduah bought an armoured tank or if madam Alison had a space shuttle or if Mama Bipi spent everyday in Germany doing manicures and pedicures.

I got home this evening and opened the door for my three and a half year old son to walk in. He stepped into the darkness and said with a sad tone; "there is no light again". A few minutes later he said; "daddy put on the generator". He needed to see what he was going to draw in addition to his Mickey mouse sketch he had showed me earlier. 

I know some folks will say that the APC and PDP are in no way different because of certain  ex-members of the PDP who are now buddies with the opposition. I will always ask them to shelve their skepticism  and return when they can prove to me that the likes of Buhari, Osinbajo, Fashola, Aregbesola and many others were once part of the PDP which has wasted nearly 16years of our time and resources without making Nigeria appear like a refuse dump from the sky at night.

May our children cease from shouting  "up nepa" and getting tormented by the unending noise from generators.

joa

231214

ARE WE CURSED OR WHAT?

ARE WE CURSED OR WHAT?

My weekend has been very eventful with me missing two weddings and barely showing my face for another. One of my cousins had hers in my hometown in Ekiti while another had his in Ondo. The one I was able to attend was in Akure although my initial plan was to somehow make the two weddings in Ondo state.

Work commitments meant that I could only leave for Akure with my wife on Saturday morning. I had spent Friday evening with great tasting pizza and "zobo" which however led to undesirable consequences on Saturday morning meaning that we could not leave as early as I thought. It was not yet 7am when I turned into Ikorudu road only to realise that the outbound traffic was congested. Tweets from Twitter did not suggest favorable conditions on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway so I turned towards Agege thinking that I could access Ibadan through Abeokuta to bypass any traffic towards Ibadan. I soon abandoned that thought and turned towards Ikeja to gain access to Berger via Isheri. I realised there was no direct turn to get on the road leading out of Lagos and a moment of confusion later; I was heading to Lagos island on the third mainland bridge.

We thought about heading back towards Ojota but I insisted on pressing on to Lekki, then to Ijebu to link Ore even though I had never driven past that route before. My brother-in-law was our navigator monitoring our location on Google maps and we found the experience of Epe and Ijebu rather interesting. The bridges, waterways, palm trees and wooden houses located under a particular bridge were interesting. We eventually linked up with the Ijebu-Ife end of the Sagamu-Ore-Benin expressway and I had a horrid and unpleasant about 2hours drive towards traffic evading potholes and craters. At a point, I quit racing the car to make way for others more willing to give their vehicles a hiding. 

It was difficult indeed until just before Ore when an apparently recently tarred stretch of road began but not without intermittent spots of damage. I stopped briefly at Ore to replenish my circulating glucose and thereafter turned left towards Ondo. The state of the road to Ondo town was better off than that from Ijebu to Ore and the rest of our trip was uneventful. We made it to the reception venue at about 2:15pm after an almost 7 hours trip excluding the initial early morning merry-go-round. There was no chance that I would have embarked on an immediate return trip so I decided to pay my aunt a surprise visit with my family before retiring for the day.

The road network in Akure I must say was impressive. There were obviously new roads and the older ones I was more familiar with like the central Oba Adesida road retained a few of its landmarks including the primitive footbridge close to the Deji's palace which was built in 92/93 by a former civilian governor just before the June 12 presidential election annulment. I thought that the roads were generally in very good  condition until I had to drive through the landmine ravaged road on the way to my aunt's house. I must applaud the current governor's efforts with Akure roads but he will get serious stick from me for allowing the road I once walked on as a young boy back in 1992 to degenerate to a state of disrepair and pity. 

We took our time today before setting out of Akure at about 11am. I expected a smooth drive on a Sunday but I was soon confronted by an officer of the federal road safety corp at the beginning of the Akure-Ilesha road. They profiled me in the slow moving traffic they had apparently initiated and perhaps thought their Christmas bonanza had come early. One officer came to my window and I asked him what the problem was and why I was stopped. I was already steaming at being asked to move aside considering the distance I had to cover. The man, Olabode asked for my driver's licence and I took the temporary card I recently collected out of my wallet. Obviously irritated by my audacity to speak up to him, he asked for the papers of my vehicle. I opened the glove compartment of the car and handed him some of the papers but not before I took back my licence. He looked through and asked for the proof of ownership of the car which I thought was among the papers already in his possession. I asked him why he wanted that because every other document was before him. I turned to locate the one paper he thought he could hold me on but he began to walk away with my papers like he was going to signal for another vehicle to be stopped. I turned to him and asked why he was walking away with my papers when we were not yet done and he replied that he could walk anywhere he wanted and suggested that I did not have the right to ask such a question. I eventually found the certificate and almost shoved it into his hand only for him to decide to have a show of strength. 

He demanded to see my fire extinguisher, then my triangle and then the spare tire. I opened the boot and showed him everything he wanted. I was up for the show he thought he was staring in and I asked for my papers back so I could get back to my journey. He refused and thought he could further waste my time. At this point, some of his fellow officers had moved towards the action and one in particular appealed to me to calm down. I turned towards Mr. Olabode and asked him for the location of the superior officer of that team so I could take the situation up with him. He told me I had asked a foolish question of which I asked how demanding to see the man or woman who authorised a stop and search and unlawful delay of someone with complete papers, extinguisher, triangle and spare tire was foolish. This was the moment I spotted his name and addressed him as such. He was visibly uncomfortable that I decided to confront him on his turf and he kept ranting about how he was a federal officer doing his work bla bla bla. I told him sorry that was just in words because that was what he wanted to hear and he handed me back my papers with the licence belonging to another driver he had collected earlier. That is how confused he became and I was grateful for that encounter because it was the much needed adrenaline shot I needed to continue driving. I am certain his business plan for today was dented and his mind properly refocused to do the exact thing he was paid for.

The journey onwards was uneventful and smooth until we arrived at about 3pm at a bottle neck just before the Sagamu axis of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. There have been reports of many protracted "logjams" over the past few weeks and this one soon proved to be one of such. I stayed on the main road only leaving once and returning to overtake a broken-down bus. Many vehicles in a bid to gain advantage got onto the rough and bare portions on the sides of the road and a royal rumble ensued. Many vehicles labored to reach liberation, some overheated and some kissed and made up. I also played my part and managed to get away with only some red paint stain behind my side mirror after which I chased down the rickety bus and dished out 3 or 4 blows with my left hand to the side of the bus as my "revenge". Three hours and 15minutes is what it took to eventually break free just before the MFM ground and we still could not identify the source of the traffic jam.

The last time I was on the Lagos-Ibadan road was in August. Since then, I must say that I am completely unimpressed with the progress of the repair work which is ongoing. It is a fact that many spend extended periods traveling along the major highways of the federation daily, weekly or more frequently. A mobile broadcasting vehicle belonging to Channels television rumbled on the uneven road to my left and I wondered why they did not stop to capture the events. I also witnessed two Caucasians in a 4WD struggling through the heat and dust to join in our struggle.

A lot of these individuals still fail to identify the true reason for their travails. They think a morbid fear and rejection of a Muslim man would suddenly cause a perfect stretch of asphalt laid road to appear from the sky. We may need to ask ourselves if we are not under a spell or a curse in order to explain why we go through these daily hardships and yet be unmoved for real change. 

Change is here and as proof that we are perhaps set free from bondage; we need to root out the weed which continues to choke and mortgage our futures. I pray that you nor your family will ever have to spend 8 hours for a 4 hour journey. May your mothers and grandmothers not have to duck behind bushes or in plain site to take a leak because of endless traffic.

The time to be dissatisfied in now; the battle to save the soul of Nigeria and to break the yoke of oppressors and opportunists has begun. 

Joa

21/12/14

THE GRAND FRAUD

Attending medical school in Nigeria at least from my own experience is very traumatic with potentially severe physical, psychological and emotional side effects. The examinations could be very toxic made up of several hours of intensive objective and essay papers; practicals, and sometimes oral examinations.

Although  these examinations are seasonal, the enormous workload, hours of preparation and sleepless nights that go into them are many times neutralized  or deflated by underwhelming results which could mean ordinary passes, resists, repeats or outright withdrawals for some. Most times, the objective styled examinations are littered with abundant booby traps otherwise called banana peels. The penalty for getting questions wrong in many schools could be very severe resulting in the deduction of half or a whole mark for every wrong answer. 

Our lecturers used to justify such measures by saying stuff like a patient's chances of living or dying under our care was not to be left to chance and guess work. If we guessed and did so wrongly, we would get the hammer of deduction. The truth is that we never really guessed for all the questions we got wrong; some wrong answers may have been actually given out of conviction that they were right or they were in fact correct but wrong on the examiners marking template.

Anyway, the standards were set very high and we always had to adjust. However, not a few still fell by the wayside and were asked to withdraw from the medical school program for failing to satisfy the examiners and perhaps repeatedly failing examinations. It was always about life or death for us.

If the bar to permit the graduation of medical students who would eventually be entrusted with delivering babies, opening craniums, handling schizophrenics and withstanding radiation among other tasks can be raised so high; how much more the simple matter of presiding over the affairs of 100+ million people belonging to an array of tribal, ethnic, religious and social groups.

Why do a people who claim to be intelligent and educated degenerate to primordial existence and dictated to by religious fraudsters before making their judgement on identifying who ought to govern our land come 2015? They say we shouldn't vote for Buhari because he plans to Islamize Nigeria; the same lines they have been using since he joined politics. They used it in 2011 and hoodwinked many to line up blindly behind the one who had no shoes. This is 4 years later and many have fled their homes with some scattered to mere cells and tissue leaving their footwears  behind. Many of those who carry weapons in uploaded BH videos are seen running around without shoes. A policy to provide shoes for every Nigerian could have halted insurgency I think.

Four years later and they have not performed but are singing the same tune about an Islamic agenda as if there are no Muslims in their party. How do they know the difference between the Islam practiced by Buhari and that done by Nuhu Ribadu?

I will attempt to unearth as many reasons why Goodluck and Patience should not be returned as president; this is now about life and death. Buhari is a necessary intervention at this hour and we must charge with him to pull down every exalted high place of corruption and impunity.

JOA

AMBER

AMBER

“At least there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.”… Job 14:7-9 (NIV)

I do not think I have ever been as anxious as I was yesterday running the battery of my phone flat repeatedly just to get any update whatsoever on the grand slam action that was going on at the main bowl of the Teslim Balogun stadium in Surulere. I roamed from Twitter to Facebook during the weekly academic seminar of my department; I doubt if the talks on special stains and restorative materials left any lasting impression on my limbic system; the thought of circulating currency and credit alerts flooding the stadium and deciding the outcome caused me great distress indeed.

I altered the channels on my television set on Wednesday night to locate any station airing live the All Progressives Congress’ convention but realized that the Africa Independent Television and the Nigerian Television Authority were covering the same PDP event. I tuned in at the period when Sammie Okposu was belting choruses from a stage to an audience some of whom were seated unexcited behind the bullet-proof glass frame of the executive box at the Eagle square in Abuja. I spotted Alhaji Sambo with a lemon-green hijab wearing female I presumed to be his wife seated to his right. I was baffled that the news of the coronation of the Gandhi incarnate evaded me; how on earth did I miss the trailer for the “One man show” in Abuja? I eventually realized that only the Lagos state Television out of the local stations available on my bouquet was airing the APC event live but I could not continue due to a combination of tiredness and lack of any externally generated megawatts to power my house.

The thought of another candidate winning ahead of General Buhari was not permissible in my mind; I hoped and prayed that the thousands of delegates from Mercury and Neptune would realize what I had already processed in my head that Buhari was the most realistic option to shake the foundations of the incumbent party despite the lure of financial prosperity. The chance of having another four years of the Jonathan-Sambo tag team seems to me like a nightmare I may have to deal with until that chance is extinguished come February. 

I did not get to vote in 2003 because of what I will term a clever tactic by the then president to disenfranchise would-be voters. We all got to register at polling centers located within the campus of the University of Ibadan but a “mysterious” strike action by Academic Staff Union of Universities from January to June 2003 delayed resumption. The strike ended and the school was reopened after elections had been concluded and the president sworn in for a second term. I ended up getting stuck in Lagos and watched from afar as Bola Tinubu fought tooth and nail to marginal edge the victory in the Lagos state gubernatorial elections over the late Williams. The presidential election held first in 2003 with General Obasanjo winning by even more votes than he secured in 1999 largely justified by the tactical maneuvering of the Alliance for Democracy to support a regional agenda over national interest. I watched the late Abraham Adesanya on a television interview say boldly to the cameras that he had looked through the list of candidates and could not find anyone better than Obasanjo. I wondered then why these Southwest leaders opted to ridicule themselves and campaign openly for a candidate they so greatly opposed only four years prior.

They went about asking the electorate to vote PDP at the center but AD at the state levels without the PDP reciprocating in kind. Five out of six states fell in one blow to in some cases, far less credible PDP candidates except Lagos. The governorship election that day was marked by apathy and heavy torrential rainfall that lasted almost the entire day. Nigerians generally did not turn up because of the result they received from the presidential election the week earlier. It dawned on many that their votes would not count and this trickling in of voters was broadcast by the media. Strangely, the total votes recorded that day seemed nearly equal to the previous week irrespective of the very low turnout. That to me was a major sign that the election was deeply flawed but that did not matter to the main beneficiary of that setup. The Action Group cloned opposition died  and the likes of Adesanya lost any claim they had with winning the war for democracy’s restoration but what he gained was his daughter getting a ministerial appointment in Obasanjo’s cabinet.

THE RISE OF JAGABAN

The metamorphosis of Bola Ahmed Tinubu into what he is now must have been revealed to him in a dream as there is no way I can explain how a man once distracted by the small matter of a potential certificate scandal rose to lead a charge to nearly reclaim all the lost grounds from the PDP hinged mainly on the hope-laden performance of his “anointed” successor in Lagos state. The outgoing Lagos state governor could easily rap with the names of all the streets in Lagos. He seemed to know the location of every pothole in the Lagos metropolis and the needs of every local government area. The man just took governance to a whole different level. BRF is a very likeable man despite his intermittent skirmishes with doctors and also with those industries vigorously resistant to change; especially the transporters, traders and bikers. Many suggested that a Fashola presidency should have been the joker for 2015 but they forget that dislodging the incumbent has nothing to do with the age or educational qualifications of the likes of Fashola. The incumbent’s attack dogs would have still mentioned that he was younger and inexperienced compared to their patron and discredited him with Lagos’ debt issues, deportation of Southeasterners to Anambra and banning “okadas”. Many would have been too lazy to find out that the Primary Health centers across Lagos are absolutely good enough for the exact reason they were established.

I can only speculate on the reason(s) why a last minute alliance of the CPC and ACN failed in 2011. A few gossip columns said it was due to BAT seeking a slot on the joint ticket and one or two said it had to do with the inclusion of Pastor Bakare. Jonathan eventually secured over 1million votes from Lagos alone while the ACN’s candidate Nuhu Ribadu could only muster over 2million votes in total. The very young CPC led by Gen. Buhari was seen as just a regional party but still managed to score over 12million votes in total. Many said he would have secured even more if only he had been less rigid and campaigned in the Southeast while others opined that a successful last minute alliance with the APC could have forced a rerun at least.

MAJOR GENERAL

Buhari to an extent is rigid and old fashioned which may explain why he launched a party so late towards 2011 and why he relied on the mammoth electorate in Northern Nigeria to do the trick. However, the enormous war chest at the disposal of the incumbent should not be ignored. They keep saying that we had a “free and fair” election in 2011 but when a president has a vast pool of resources which the other candidates did not possess including a fleet of exotic jets; such a poll should not have been termed fair especially with the limited time that was available for campaigning. That electoral process witnessed the acting president evade a much publicized debate organized by a private media outfit but instead chose to debate with ghosts and desks at one organized by government owned and funded media outfits.

I do not claim to know the General from close range or from afar but I choose to trust my impressions of who he is from what I have learned. I do not believe the man at 71, soon to be 72 years old is desperate for power especially for selfish or an evil agenda. It seems to me that he is a very easy target for fabricated rhetoric and simply someone from Nigeria’s past who is available to be blamed for all that is evil and regrettable about it. Many refer to him like he plunged Nigeria into the civil war, calling him unprintable names and even accuse him of creating and/or sponsoring the current Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the Northeast of the country. They continue to refer to the 20months he ruled as the head of the supreme military council after the highly corrupt and unpopular Shagari-led government was toppled. I wish I could go back in time using Dr. Who’s time machine to witness for myself all that played out from the 1st of January 1984 to late August 1985. Most coups that happened on our shores mostly bore the names and tags of those individuals whose appearances, utterances and actions dominated the events of those episodes. Most of the chief architects were lost in transit and their actions consumed by the more active participants. Who was the chief planner of the December 1983 coup? Why did two hardliners get the nod to head an “anti-corruption” junta while a certain Armoured corp officer dropped to the number 3 position despite being technically the second highest placed army officer at a time under the Shagari-led government? I believe the setup of Buhari’s government was deeply flawed and compromised from the onset. They tried to keep a brave public front but networks within worked very hard to justify an impending overthrow.

A number of people too lazy to search the volumes choose to believe any construction of words without scrutinizing such. Buhari has been labelled evil and the cause of the deaths of “many” people especially jailed politicians who did not particularly die under his watch. There is constant reference to a retroactive decree that ensured 3 drug couriers were executed; it is easy to forget that Obasanjo as head of state oversaw a new decree in March 1976 which was backdated to ensure the execution of those apprehended for the failed bloody February 1976 coup attempt which claimed the life of Murtala Mohammed, his ADC and driver as well as a few other army officers. Thirty-nine people in total were executed, 32 in March and 7 in May inclusive of the civilian brother-in-law of General Gowon. The police officer and well educated former governor of the defunct Benue-Plateau state, Gomwalk was tried a second time after he was initially cleared before being executed alongside Lt. Col Dimka. Do we remind Olusegun Obasanjo about the army officers who were guiltless but yet executed in 1976?

Murtala Muhammed is mainly remembered for his 3months of firing civil servants and retiring Judges and military officers in a widespread purge to fight corruption. Many describe the nature of his death as extremely violent and unfair hence his legendary status in the annals of Nigeria. His less than 6months reign has somehow compensated for his leading role in the July 66 mutiny which consumed a host of Eastern officers and the Asaba massacre which occurred under his watch as commander of 2 Division during the civil war.

Ibrahim Babangida gave a host of reasons why he toppled Buhari in a palace coup and assumed the headship of the government. He talked about Buhari’s unpopular decrees and policies as well as his stubborn refusal to accept an IMF loan offer. IBB flung open the prison gates and the politicians of 79-83 began to merry again. He took the loans and plunged the economy he accused Buhari of mismanaging down the abyss. We still do not know who is responsible for Dele Giwa’s death and one of the two reporters jailed under Buhari’s decree worked closely with IBB even handling the annulment speech that scuttled the June 12 1993 elections. I guess that was destiny for him. They have said time and time again that Buhari never had a plan to handover to a democratic government which is accurate. They do not realize that Gowon as the head of government usually chose Independence Day speeches to announce a delay or postponement of such lofty dreams thereby staying on for 8 years while the tactful and more liberal IBB executed at least two handover plans failing every time before eventually stepping aside. IBB was witty and had a lot of loyal soldiers in his inner circle and politicians alike. He engaged the media positively and even got the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka with his cousin Prof. Ransom-Kuti to work for his government at different times. Buhari spent 20 months as the head of state and did not launch Nigeria on the path of joining any Islamic organization; we all know who did that.

The 53.

The issue of 53 suitcases constantly deployed to discredit Buhari is most outrageous to me. The incident involved the former Emir of Gwandu who also doubled as the father of Buhari’s ADC, Major Jokolo. He had arrived Lagos from Saudi Arabia with an entourage of just over 10 people which included a close relative of General Buhari. On board the same plane was a diplomat who was returning to the country with his large family to take up a new appointment as the protocol officer to the head of state. The head of the National security Organization was said to have facilitated the exit of the diplomat and his crew out of the airport without the mandated check of their luggage which would have amounted to at least 20 if all them had one luggage each assuming the baggage allowance in the 80s was one luggage per traveler.

There was a directive in April 1984 to shut the borders in preparedness for a sudden alteration in the color of the local currency. The closing of the borders was aimed at preventing the haulage of illegally stored currency into other nations in order to change them into foreign currency before the color change was effected. I am not sure if it also had to do with foreign currency being shipped in to convert into the new currency for re-storage after the change. Any baggage brought into the country and exiting at the airports was meant to be checked irrespective of the individual(s) concerned. It was common knowledge then that some politicians were found with stockpiles of money when the military took over on the 31st of December 1983; this currency tactic was targeted at forcing others with similar stockpiles to move to have them changed before the notes became useless. The head of the customs service at the airport was the former vice president Atiku Abubakar. He was said to have addressed the media that 53 cases allegedly belonging to the Emir were taken away by soldiers without being checked suggesting that all were perhaps filled with foreign currency. Major Jokolo had been permitted by his commander in chief to meet his father at the airport that day in April. It was the Major who gave his own account that his father’s suitcases were never 35 not to talk of 53 and he also highlighted the dimension of the diplomat and his family but many still choose to take Atiku’s word above Jokolo’s without cross-examining the details.

Was it true that a certain diplomat arrived aboard the same plane with the Emir? Was it a fact that the man had a large family with him? If the Emir indeed arrived with 53 suitcases loaded with foreign currency, where did he get the money he exchanged the cash with? I guess he must have transported an almost equivalent amount of suitcases loaded with the soon to be old naira notes out of Nigeria considering the exchange rate at that time via the same Lagos airport when he left the country initially. Did the customs officers miss an old man with at least 10 co-travelers and their over 53 suitcases leaving Nigeria? Would I risk transporting 53 cases filled with cash through baggage handlers and on an aircraft that could very well fall from the skies? General Buhari has been repeatedly accused on this matter for covering up for his ADC and exhibiting double standards in the fight against corruption. I ask those who keep exhuming this coffin, would you transport millions of cash in suitcases and not fireproof safes across oceans and deserts? Assuming the Emir indeed brought in the alleged monies without initially taking out any naira notes, would he have changed it back to the new naira notes and stored them under his bed or deposited it in the bank? Let it die.

General Buhari is old school and appears to me like he feels so frustrated at constantly being misunderstood or misrepresented. He is no doubt not a saint and has definitely done or said things wrong in the past. He is not an orator but is definitely not stupid as some would suggest. They pick on the way he speaks and his advancing age. When they are countered by making reference to Mandela who became the South African president when he was over 75 years of age; they refer to such as invalid and another kettle of fish. He has at various times condemned the activities of armed insurgents and rejected the toga of religious fundamentalism. His views on the controversial sharia law as it applies to a secular state of Nigeria is regularly taken out of context and inflated beyond measure. He has just emerged as the APC candidate and the next moment Femi Fani-Kayode comes out with a religious assault on the man. He claimed Buhari said Muslims should only vote for Muslims among other things; he has now called on Nigerians to avoid him calling it a battle for the soul of Nigeria and a battle between the forces of light and darkness. Is Goodluck Jonathan now the force of light in a nation where people crawl around in the dark and contend with fumes and noise from their internally generated megawatt facilities? Who are the people he is hoping will heed his advice to stop an Islamic fundamentalist? Muslims? What is the difference between a man who is accused of asking Muslims to vote only for Muslims and a man who has openly asked Christians to vote for a grossly incompetent Christian?

Do Christians or Muslims ask for the religious or tribal affiliations of the pilots of aircrafts before they decide to board? Should a Christian stranded on the highway with darkness approaching and two punctured tires refuse a spare from a turban wearing sheik because he is Muslim? Do we care about the ethnicity or religion of our football players but whether they put the ball in the back of the net and win games? I remember Nigerian fans stoning the bus that carried the Super Eagles after a barren draw in the second group game against Congo at the 2000 African Nations’ cup. The team returned for the third game at the National stadium in Surulere and put up an impressive display, defeating Morocco by two goals. The same Nigerian fans pulled off their shirts and cleaned the bus as the players were driven away from the stadium. Would we not give anything to have the imperious Rashidi Yekini at his peak striking for Nigeria? Who cared for a second that the late maestro was a Muslim?

Jonathan’s loyalists have reduced criticism to a battle of “those who are for are more than those who are against”. They label anyone with a contrary view as disgruntled and trying to make the country ungovernable. Many Nigerians have degenerated to the point of being unable to discern right from wrong and to rise above primordial sentiments. If we are able to discern when a football manager is underperforming and perhaps deserving of a sack, why do we find it so difficult to infer that the incumbent manager of Nigeria’s affairs is deserving of a retirement and confinement to whatever piece of land he has acquired in his hometown? If only Jonathan had an AFCON trophy like Keshi, I could have understood if anyone stood by him on the principle of achieving something of really great significance over the past 6 years but that sadly is only a mirage.

Nigeria is in freefall but the reigning government constantly claims that we are revolving round the sun and close to economic paradise. We need a reformatting of our allegiance to the nation that may not have given us more than the portion of her land we stand upon. Buhari is not a magic tonic to vaporize all our problems but at least he clearly identifies what our true problems are and he could be the catalyst for drastic and emergency change that we so desperately need even if some people think we are fabulous as we are. 2015 for me is beyond Buhari, it is about the average Nigerian waking up to the reality of all that is absolutely possible. That the common man on the street can meet up with the economic power brokers on Broad Street and be in sync whenever change is required. A time should come when the secondary school students understand their roles in the future of our great nation and will resist the urge and lure of corruption, mediocrity and wickedness to humanity.

I could not bring myself to ponder about Buhari not winning the ticket of the APC. He is not the best candidate by any parameter but when a surgeon needs to stop a bleeder on his table, he basically would grab anything he can improvise with if the ideal tool is not forthcoming. The ideal situation is to have young, dynamic and exception talents in the land take over and take Nigeria beyond our wildest dreams. That unfortunately is not realistic at the moment because vandals and bandits are sitting on the throne of our development and the system which they are operating is depriving the young access and in some cases cutting their lives short while the emperors continue to flourish. Nigeria at this time needs those of us born about the time when Buhari was supreme commander to rally alongside him into this battle to rescue our futures in order for us to be in prime position when he exits the stage and we will then be able to pursue the goal of achieving the Nigeria of our dreams. Anything short of that will be endless voyages to find El Dorado for many of us and a vandalized republic far worse than Somalia where black gold will be bitter to the taste buds and poison to the blood.

I waited for a sign that there was a slim chance for Nigeria yesterday; I was restless for the red traffic light to become amber. It did by whatever force and that is sufficient for me to believe again that Nigeria is possible.

Sai Buhari.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Joa

12-12-14