Yar’Adua’s Obituary

Written by Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

Just like you and I, Yar’Adua will die. Someday. I want to be the first to write his obituary. It is the greatest honor I can give to the man. Yar’Adua should be able to read it while resting comfortably in his hospital bed. Not many people will have such a privilege. So here you go, Mr. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua:

There lies a sick man stranded at the presidency. The damage he wrecked could only be accessed posthumously. Beneath his grave is the bile of our epilogue.

Mr. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the second president of Nigeria’s fourth republic, was tied to the presidential stake by the devil himself. (Yes, there is a devil. And his name is Olusegun Obasanjo).

Yar’Adua spared nobody of any pretension to leadership, so we should spare him no pretension to polite tribute.

Yar’Adua’s era had no poetry. His days had no imagination. If not for his sickness, he could as well have been an anonymous president. I can bet my last naira that no parent named their child Umaru or Musa or Yar’Adua as a consequence of his sojourn at the presidency.

Yar’Adua subverted whatever remained of the Nigerian spirit. He never had a cult. He never had a worshiper. He was an unfinished failure. He was a god that did not make it.

As the governor of Kastina state, Yar’Adua instituted the sharia law that sentenced Amina Lawal to death for adultery. She was to be stoned to death. Later an appeal court freed her. No appeal court could free Yar’Adua’s daughters from being auctioned to the highest bidder.

If Yar’Adua only stole the cup of invincibility from Nigeria, it would have been pardonable. But he dropped it into a latrine. The adventures of Yar’Adua would make for a bad children’s coloring book. His gargantuan body of achievement dwarfed those of the legendry turtle. Yar’Adua proved that if you change the clothes without changing the diaper, what stinks will continue to stink. He distinguished himself as an arch-Nigerian- ignoramus hanging on the wing of inaction.

He whetted no man’s appetite. He brought no smile on any citizen’s face. His posture was uninspiring. His program was invisible. He was too pathetic to be laughed at. Our eternal respect for him was in his complete lack of comic value. There was no distinction to be made between his government and the government of a dash.

Before Yar’Adua, the universally acclaimed mantra was that, “Nigeria is the only country in the world where the best is impossible and the worst never happens.” But after Yar’Adua, Nigeria became a country where the worst is impossible and the best never happens. In essence, Nigeria hit the bottom after Yar’Adua.

Before Yar’Adua, Nigeria was governed by two kinds of leaders. It was either “a fool surrounded by idiots or an idiot surrounded by fools.” It was Yar’Adua that first established a government led by a dead man surrounded by vultures. What comes after Yar’Adua will be a government of vultures surrounded by dead men.

I have often argued that the problem with Nigerian leaders was that they forget that they were mortals. Yar’Adua proved that men who are conscious of their mortality will not necessarily perform any better. While Yar’Adua daily knocked on the door of hell, his wife, Turai, was busy stuffing oil blocks inside her bra.

Yar’Adua will forever live in one mythology – his was the definitive proof of how not to be president. He performed so woefully that if Nigerians were people who valued excellence, they would staple a tail to his corpse. So that when he reincarnates and aspires to a leadership position, he will be promptly identified and quarantined.

Yar’Adua studied Analytical Chemistry at ABU but had no understanding of the law of Thermodynamics. On its own, heat cannot flow from an area of cold to an area of hot, says the second law. Yet, Yar’Adua’s Vision 2020 hoped to go from an area of cold to an area of hot on its own.

Faraday's Law states that “the weight of any element liberated during electrolysis is proportional to the quantity of electricity passing through the cell and also to the equivalent weight of the element.” What Yar’Adua did not grasp at school was that this law means that the moral authority of any politician following an election is proportional to the amount of fraud that took place during the electoral process and also to the moral state of the politician.

Yar’Adua was the last “Nigerian” president. Hundred years from now, when the history of that territory formerly called Nigeria is written, historians will note that it was Yar’Adua who finally brought an end to the farce. They will note that his physical ailment was a reminder to the people trapped in that dead and dirty pond that they, too, were sick. The predicament of Yar’Adua was the predicament of the Nigerian lot - an incapability to know when to quit.

If the tears of the downtrodden did not make him raise a finger against corruption, nothing else would. If the histrionics of the vultures around him did not make him question his reality, nothing else would. If an obituary like this did not make him rethink his legacy, nothing else would.

May his soul, and the soul of all those who die, unnecessarily, every day, in that occupied territory, rest in peace.

In lieu of dancing in the street, play squash in honor of the dead president. In lieu of flowers, send assault weapons to his gun-loving son.

(culled from www.saharareporters.com, Wednesday, 02 December 2009)

Restructuring the (Nigerian) Federation (2)

Written by Edwin Madunagu

IN the first part of this piece, I posed four related questions: One: What type of federation is currently being operated in Nigeria? Two: What type of federation is prescribed by the 1999 Constitution? Three: What type of federation is desirable in Nigeria? Four: What social-political forces currently exist, or can be created, to fight for the realisation of a desirable federal system? Having looked at aspects of the first two questions we may now turn to the last two.

In lieu of preface, let us briefly review relevant experiences in five countries - three of which no longer exist: the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Somalia and Rwanda. In 1922, the Soviet Union was constituted as a Union of 15 constituent republics. The Constitution granted each republic the right to self-determination up to, and including, the right to secede from the Union. The ruling Bolshevik Party was serious about the secession clause and, to demonstrate this, the Union was constituted in such a way that each Union republic shared borders with at least one foreign country. This made secession, if decided upon, practicable. A "land-locked" republic, completely surrounded by some other Union republics, would find it impossible to secede. The same principle and practical approach informed the constitution of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The first two of these three countries - the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia - disintegrated peacefully in the early 1990s partly because none of their constituent, or federating, republics was "land-locked'. Yugoslavia, with six constituent republics, could have gone the same way but for a factor which we in Nigeria must ponder seriously: Serb nationalists within and outside Serbia - the largest constituent republic - did not want the break-up of the country. But when disintegration became inevitable, Serb nationalists responded with two alternative strategies: to create a Greater Serbia by incorporating, into Serbia, ethnic Serbs outside Serbia, or to create independent Serb enclaves in constituent republics dominated by non-Serbs. We know the result.

Somalia has no "ethnic problem" as such. Beyond that the country is a Muslim majority nation. What happened in 1991 was that an attempted coup d'etat led to a break-up of the country into armed clans that descended into parallel civil wars and anarchy. Somalia has had no central government since then. And the country is today a model of "failed state". The tragedy of ethnic-divided Rwanda is still fresh in our collective memory: An armed struggle to remove a government in 1994 led to the assassination of a president and triggered the slaughter of almost a million people. Nigeria has profound lessons to learn from the experiences of these five countries - that is, if the lessons of our (1967-1970) Civil War are not sufficient.

Now to Nigeria. I subscribe to a geopolitical restructuring of the country as an immediate task. As basis for this particular discussion we may turn to the Draft Constitution proposed in August 2006 by Peoples' National Conference (PNC). In place of the present 36-state structure, the draft Constitution proposed a federation of 18 ethnically-based regions. Twelve of the regions are mono-ethnic and six are multi-ethnic. A map of Nigeria's ethnic nationalities sharing the 18 regions is shown on the cover of the document.

The proposed mono-ethnic nationality regions, each of which is proposed as a federation, are, in alphabetical order: Ibibio, Ijaw, Igbo, Urhobo, Edo, Yoruba, Tiv, Nupe, Fulah, Gbagyi, Kanuri, and Hausa. The six multi-ethnic nationality regions, each of which is also proposed as a federation, are: South East, East Delta, West Delta, West Middle Belt, Central Middle Belt, and East Middle Belt. According to the draft Constitution under review, the federating entities in the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be the regions. State creation will be the responsibility of the regions and the states will be responsible for the creation of local government areas.

My first observation here is that the People's National Conference actually took pains to list Nigeria's ethnic nationalities in the Draft Constitution. This should be commended. This level of thoroughness and seriousness has set a standard for what has to be done to produce a new Constitution for Nigeria. It also reminds me of what Chief Tayo Akpata said recently in an interview, namely, that the task of reviewing or re-writing the Constitution is too serious to be left entirely in the hands of the National Assembly. Chief Akpata, the Ima of Benin, is a veteran progressive politician and administrator and - before then - an activist nationalist. Yes, a new Constitution which is as inevitable as it is desirable - if the country must survive and remain one - cannot be, and must not be, the exclusive task of the National Assembly.

The second observation is that going by the proposed restructuring based on the Ethnic Nationalities Map of Nigeria on the cover and last page of the document before me, some of the 18 proposed federating regions are actually "land-locked" in the sense the term has been used in this piece. The "land-locked" regions, as I can see, include: Edo, Igbo, Central Middle-Belt, Nupe and Gbagyi. Maybe there are more; but that is what I can see. The point is that the Draft Constitution includes the secession clause - which I endorse completely. But it does not provide for the practicability of secession by ensuring that no federating region is "land-locked". To this I object - also completely.

The third observation strengthens the main fear I have concerning restructuring along ethnic nationality lines, or rather, along strictly ethnic nationality lines. Drawing the boundaries in some areas will be almost impossible through conferences - whether national or not, whether sovereign or not. It can be done only through war or other forms of armed imposition. Let me say here - with all responsibility and humility - that I was one of the first to propose the (regional) restructuring of Nigeria and I was also one of the first to introduce the term Sovereign National Conference (SNC). This was as early as 1992. But I knew, and still know, the limits of conferences in dealing with the question of power - especially when rapacious, selfish, oppressive, anti-people, capitalist-oriented and utterly unpatriotic classes and blocs, as in Nigeria, are in power.

We may summarise the three points so far made: the listing of ethnic nationalities is a commendable undertaking; some proposed regions are "land-locked", and this is problematic, to say the least; and there are limits to what conferences can achieve in drawing up boundaries between ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. But having said this, I have to re-state my belief that Nigeria has to be restructured and reconstituted, through appropriate constitutional arrangements, along lines that eliminate ethnic domination, enhance self-determination at the grassroots, promote popular political participation, radically raise the quality of life across the whole country and radically reduce regional disparities. This is a big agenda.

Adopting current political language, I support resource control, fiscal federalism and true federalism. In particular, I see no difference between Regions collecting revenues and paying taxes or making contributions to the Federal Government and Federal Government collecting revenues and sharing with the Regions. All provided, of course, that the principles are clear and just and, more importantly, provided, that popular-democratic and pan-Nigerian forces are in power.

Yes. The social forces that can fight for a just and democratic restructuring must be popular-democratic (and in the present historical context, also radical and revolutionary) and pan-Nigerian. Any social forces that already believe that Nigeria must either break up or be restructured strictly along ethnic nationality lines cannot fight for the type of restructuring that I believe is desirable and realisable. I am not afraid of disintegration. I am only afraid of the inevitable bloody process - given the history and experiences of Nigeria and the level of national integration. Why should one be afraid? If the ruling classes and blocks continue to behave as if Nigeria is their property and Nigerians are their slaves - to exploit as they wish - and if popular-democratic and pan-Nigerian forces cannot remove them from power, then a fate worse than disintegration will befall us.

We now come to the question of governmental structure at the centre. I shall be sketchy and will draw from the interview, earlier mentioned, that was recently granted by Chief Tayo Akpata to The Guardian and published in the paper's edition of Sunday, July 5, 2009. Modifying Chief Akpata's suggestion, we may proposed two possible systems - each of which is a mixture of presidential and parliamentary systems of government. In the first system, a newly elected National Assembly meets to elect members of the Presidential Council - one member for each federating region. The Council is chaired, in rotation, by its members.

The Collective and Rotational Presidency described above may either be an executive one or share executive power with a cabinet headed by a Prime Minister. Each alternative produces a different system. Finally, for any new system, the measure of its desirability, in the final analysis, is the degree to which the working and toiling people, together with all other oppressed segments of the population, including women, liberate themselves and assume control of their lives and the means of reproducing their lives and, by so doing, liberate the society as a whole. In other words, without a promise of popular liberation neither the present Nigeria nor a restructured one is desirable.

* Concluded.

(culled from www.nigerialog.com)

Restructuring the (Nigerian) Federation (1)

Written by Edwin Madunagu

FRONTLINE nationalist and elder statesman, Chief Anthony Enahoro, was recently reported to have said that those of them who fought for Nigeria’s independence devoted more energy and time to the struggle to expel British colonial power than the time and energy they expended in laying the foundations for a democratic and just independent Nigerian nation. He was speaking to some reporters in July 2009 on the 86th anniversary of his birth. I salute this living legend for his humility and modesty. Were I present at the press briefing I would have made some exceptions – which would have included him. But Enahoro did not make any exceptions and this made his statement more profound.

Chief Enahoro was referring, in particular, to the enduring ethnic nationality question and the present geopolitical structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. For more than two decades he has been campaigning, on several platforms and in combination with various people and groups, for a fundamental geopolitical restructuring of the country. Briefly stated, according to my own understanding, Enahoro has been campaigning for the restructuring of the federation along ethnic nationality lines where the federating entities will enjoy more powers and exercise more responsibilities and control of their affairs than the existing states-relative, of course, to the Federal Government.

It is also my understanding that the restructured Federal Republic of Nigeria will operate within the framework of liberal democracy, expanded human rights, and what some Nigerian feminists would call “empowered womanhood”.

The present piece is inspired by the formulation given above. The following simple questions may be posed: What type of federation is currently being run in Nigeria? What type of federation does the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prescribe? What type of federation is desirable for Nigeria? What socio-political forces currently exist in Nigeria, or can be created, to fight for the desirable federal structure? The last question is of critical importance because for a political programme to be taken seriously it has to prescribe, identify or propose the social forces that can fight for it. Even if we are drafting a programme for future generations, and not as an immediate political task, intellectual responsibility demands that we envisage some historical agencies. We all know that these agencies cannot be constructed arbitrarily, but must be linked to the nature of the programme and the (political) history of the country.

The first question, namely, what type of federation we are currently operating in Nigeria, is the easiest to answer. The simple answer is that no one knows. In particular, no one knows the entities that are “federating”. Is it the states that are federating or the states and local government areas? Do you still call Nigeria a federation – even with this uncertainty? The classical federal principle recognises two levels of government: The Federal Government and federating Regional Governments. K.C. Wheare, in his classic, Federal Government, put the relationship between the two levels of government like this: “What is necessary for the federal principle is not merely that the Federal Government, like the Regional Government, should operate directly upon the people, but, further, that each government should be limited to its own sphere and, within that sphere, should be independent of the other”.

The federal principle has, of course, developed in time and in space beyond what K.C. Wheare and other classical writers formulated and prescribed. But, the two levels of government should “operate directly upon the people”. If not, what we have is a confederation and not a federation. This has to be borne in mind by many of our compatriots who formulate the question of restructuring in a way that suggests that the Federal Government should “hands off” almost everything. Secondly, for each level of government, there should be clearly defined powers and responsibilities, and clearly defined “spheres” where these powers and responsibilities may be exercised without interference from the other level. If not, what we have is not federation, but unitarism, or anarchy, or “Somalia”, or something worse.

Now, what type of federation does the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prescribe? The most charitable answer is that it is unclear. We may illustrate my response with what the Constitution says about the local government system. Section 7(1) stipulates: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every states shall, subject to Section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils”.

We shall return to this statement, but let us briefly look at what Section 8 says. The relevant subsections empower a State Government to create new local government areas, and adjust boundaries between existing ones, within the area it governs. But the subsections also prescribe the conditions to be met and steps to be taken before this can be done. This is clear enough. But since the local government areas currently existing in the country together with their headquarters, are listed in the Constitution, the process of creating new local government areas cannot be completed until some parts of the Constitution are amended. This is again clear enough and the Supreme Court had said so. However, since the power to amend the Constitution is vested in the National Assembly, the final picture is that new local government areas cannot come into existence until the National Assembly performs its own part of the task, namely, amending the relevant parts of the Constitution.

Now, what happens if the National Assembly, for some reasons or for no reasons at all, refuses to amend, or “unduly” delays the amendments of, the Constitution as required? The logical answer is that the State government concerned either drops the matter, that is, forgets the creation of new local government areas, or goes to the Supreme Court to request it to force the National Assembly to do its work. On the other hand, what happens if a State Government, having completed its own part of the process of creating new local government areas, goes ahead, without waiting for the national Assembly, to conduct council elections, inaugurate the new councils and put them to work?

The logical answer is that the State Government can be dragged before the Supreme Court. But by whom? The National Assembly? The President? Any Nigerian citizen? Should the matter be “forced” by the Federal Government? Definitely No. Does there not emanate the need for a particular “watchdog” of the Constitution empowered to receive complaints of violation of the Constitution from governments, institutions and citizens and bring same to the Supreme Court – if convinced that a case has been made? I think this system exists in Turkey. It is not a dormant law, but a constitutional provision that is vigorously enforced.

We may go back to Section 7(1) of the Constitution. I know that in Natural Sciences and in Mathematics, in particular, authors try to ensure that there are no ambiguities in the formulation of rules. It is not sufficient to argue that “common sense” will assist us to attach correct contextual meanings and implications to phrases and words. We should be explicit where doing so costs little or nothing in space consumption. When, for instance, subsection 7(1) says that: the Government of every state shall ensure the existence of local government councils under a Law which provides for… “common sense” may indicate that it is the state that is empowered to make the Law. But there is nothing in the formulation of that subsection that compels that interpretation.

A local government council within a state is empowered by Section 7(1) to participate in economic planning and development in its area of authority and, for this purpose, the subsection prescribes the establishment of an economic planning board by a Law enacted by the State House of Assembly. But it is not states explicitly that local government councils will be represented in the “economic planning board”. But should they not?

Finally Section 7(1) states that: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the National Assembly shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils in the Federation; and the House of Assembly of a state shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils within the state”. A simple but critical question is whether the money flowing from the centre to local government councils should pass through the State Governments or go straight, undiminished, to the local government councils. The answer is again left to “common sense”.

The Fourth Schedule to the Constitution lists the “main functions” of a local government council. In others, the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stipulates the minimum functions to be performed by local government councils. The list is really long, and includes “participation in the Government of a State” in some critical areas of people’s needs. The question is whether the councils have the material and human resources capacity to perform even the “minimum” functions. My answer is No.

The conclusion here is that the type of federation we are currently operating in not clear, and the Constitution does not make the situation any clearer.

(culled from www.nigerialog.com)

REWORKING THE NIGERIAN STATE (1)

Written by Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya

Nigerians are expected to be patriotic and to work hard or even give their lives in efforts towards preserving the entity presently known as Nigeria. But I want to shock you with this statement: Nigeria, as we presently know it and has known it since 1914, is not worth preserving. Similarly, Nigeria is not worth any self sacrifice by anybody who is truly African, in any effort whatsoever towards its preservation.

The country, Nigeria, is presently steeply immersed in a whole lot of dreadful morass and quagmire, politically, economically, socially, culturally, name them. To the rest of the world and to the majority of her citizens, Nigeria has been and regrettably continues to be a huge failure in progress. And this failure is almost reaching a state of perfection or absoluteness. The most updated diagnosis of this country's ailments will show that at worst, Nigeria is now what even prominent Nigerians have identified as a failed state, while at best it is a perfect, societal example of the word, stagnation. The reasons are not far fetched.

So why is Nigeria failing? It is because in this society, there is a now deeply entrenched and hallowed culture that prescribes that problems are never meant to be solved but only to be indulged and got rotten in. And the people of this country for decades have followed this prescription with a most amazing and intense religious fervour. Nigeria's greatest problem is this believe by Nigerian citizens or particularly the few citizen elements in Nigeria who currently have a near monopolistic access to power within this 'somewhat' sovereign polity, or rather the pretence by these elements to believe that a state carved out, established and forcibly being sustained by an entirely non-African and a complete colonial and later imperial vested interests, can and need to and must be preserved by the people presently seen as Nigerians. Subscription to this misplaced believe culture in Nigeria goes, of course, all around but with very few and yet significant exception.

Nigeria, as everybody knows, is a British creation. One man called Frederick Lugard did it for his country Britain while working for their colonial interest over the territory that presently constitute Nigeria. His girlfriend and later wife, coined the name Nigeria, as we are told, and the colonial power wasted no time afterward to slap the name upon all the peoples found within this marked out territory of Nigeria located along the eastern edge of what is now known as West Africa. And almost a century later, we the indigenes found within this territory which is now an independent and sovereign political state, are being expected by the territory's contemporary rulers and local overlords (who remains more or less the colonial and imperial representatives in this former British colonial territory) to be proud of and proudly wear around this garb beautifully made for us by the Briton called Frederick Luggard and his girlfriend Flora Shaw; and if and when called upon, to sacrifice our lives as “patriotic” Nigerians towards preserving this 'sacred' creation by Britain.

Of course we don't see this as a problem at all in Nigeria presently. That is why in an era when the consequences of centuries of wicked exploitations by the old colonial powers of Europe, as well as the consequences of the post colonial and ongoing exploitations by the modern and advancing imperialistic powers of North America, Western Europe and Asia, are all being laid bare globally for judgement as they are telling heavily on the exploited continents and countries of Africa and of the rest Third World; and in a time when the souls and spirits of the peoples of these exploited continents are crying and yearning and demanding for justice and liberation, we in Nigeria are still being deeply immersed in an indoctrination to be proudly Nigerian and be patriotic enough to give our lives and all to defend and preserve Nigeria just as the British created it. Good people, great nation with the status quo intact. Incredible! But here is exactly where the Nigerian morass and quagmire of the moment actively lies.

Name some of the key Nigerian ailments of the moment about which the majority of this country's citizens are lamenting to high heavens, albeit passively, and see if you can't trace their roots to the greatest folly ever in the world that is presently going on in Nigeria in the name of running a country along a more or less colonial status quo and trying hard to make Nigerians believe it is all working out well or going to be fine despite the glaring outcome that says otherwise. Inter-ethnic strives; religious fanaticism; self enthroned and self perpetuating, greedy, and devourer ruling cabal; governmental corruption and fraud; dearth of values and norms in the society; continuous erosion of indigenous culture, traditions, and customs of the people; social, economic and political stuntness and retrogression; infrastructural precipice; and perpetual vulnerability to imperialistic vultures of the world; etc. These are phrases that best describes Nigeria of today. And they all have direct roots in the kind of country structure that Nigeria inherited from its colonial foundation and has since inception strives to maintain with an bewildering manic intensity folly never seen before in history.

Nigeria's President Yar'Adua is MIA!

Nigeria's President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is Missing In Action. He was last seen on the 23rd of November, 2009. America has finally got the message. But in a sarcastic manner. How sad. Nigeria is now an object of pun and ridicule in the American media. Should we blame them?

The Nigeria State Rework and Revolutionary Alliance (NISRRA) as a group, and as it is with other well meaning Nigerian groups and individuals, have been very concerned about the unknown whereabout of a serving President of our country. All we know was that the president took ill around that time of November 23, 2009, and has been very ill even before his coming to office as the President and Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria, through a very controversial election which bogged down his government with the issues of illegitimacy and immense ineptitude.

Following his disappearance, there have been massive calls, both in Nigeria and from international quarters for his resignation or outright removal from office by the National Assembly of Nigeria, a call that NISRRA fully supports.

However as a visionary and revolutionary group, our interest is beyond Mr Yar'Adua's resignation or removal from office as Nigeria's President. Rather, ours is composed of a vision to urgently recreate a viable sovereign state out of the present British colonial mis-creation called Nigeria. We are poised to launch the creation a new and truly African envisioned and willed sovereign nation state where people like Goodluck Jonathan, the current Vice President of Nigeria, other members of the current government of Mr Yar'Adua, and most members of the present National Assembly of Nigeria will be unfit to be even amongst the least public servants of the new Nation State.

(Written By NISRRA)

Have Turai Yar'Adua, Yakubu Tanimu-Kurfi, Michael Aondoakaa and other members of the Over-Failed Yar'Adua Government the right to deceive Nigerians?

Written by Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya

We know exactly what is going on in Nigeria today. It is a situation where few individuals, who in any case ranks amongst the lowest of the “dumbest” and most daft people in Nigeria, now thinks they can outsmart the rest of Nigerians - a population of over 140million according to the Nigerian government's official figure on the country's population. These “dumbees” are not just thinking but are doing everything within their really large muscles to prove themselves capable of fooling the rest of us that are foolish enough to go around with this tag of being Nigerian. And I'm afraid, they are really doing a good job. They are winning, and we are becoming more foolish and stupid by the day as a result.

But have these people the right to do what they are doing, making a mess of an entire country, of a whole nation state, of an internationally recognized sovereign? It is unbelievable what we, the various peoples and ethnic nationalities that constitutes this political entity presently called Nigeria, can really put up with.

No! In my own opinion, the likes of Mrs Yar'Adua, Tanimu-Kurfi, Aondoakaa, and other members of the failed President Yar'Adua's kitchen cabinet have no right whatsoever to take an entire country and its peoples on a dummies ride. These individuals for even thinking of - not to talk of acting out - the course of action they are on at the moment, deserves to be slammed with the highest charge of treasonable felony ever known in history.

But looking at the whole issue closely, who actually handed over the power to these individuals to do to Nigeria what they are doing at the moment? To answer this question, let's go to Honduras, a small country which it's people recently proved more intelligent than Nigerians and that such rubbish going on in Nigeria today can never happen in their country.

According to a report dated July 7, 2009 by the news website, www.telegraph.co.uk, in June 28, 2009, the Honduran vainglorious President Manuel Zeleya was “bundled out of bed at gunpoint by his own soldiers, and sent into exile, following a bitter dispute with the country's establishment over his controversial push for Venezuelan-style constitutional reform. But that his administration had taken a radical turn in the first place was something of a surprise. After being elected by a slim margin in 2005, as the candidate of the centrist Liberal party, the moustachioed six-footer with slicked-back hair made headlines for his flamboyance... Admittedly, he courted controversy by singing along with troubadours, lionising drug traffickers, and calling for such narcotics to be legalised as a way of controlling the drugs trade. But what really alarmed conservatives was his dramatic move Leftwards, into the orbit of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president who uses his country's oil wealth to fund a regional bloc of protégés.

Mr Zelaya had initially persuaded many Hondurans, even members of the business community, that he was merely signing up for the economic aid and subsidised fuel that Mr Chavez lavishes on friendly states. But over the past two years it became increasingly clear that Mr Zelaya had bought into the political package, too. Earlier this year, during a pilgrimage to Havana, he was pictured listening reverentially to Fidel Castro. It was an image that sent shivers down the spine of many Hondurans. At home, Mr Zelaya boosted the minimum wage by 60 per cent, a populist move that forced thousands of small businesses to lay off workers; picked fights with the country's top entrepreneurs, while fending off persistent accusations of crony capitalism; and was constantly at loggerheads with the media magnates. As a result of this increasingly confrontational and unpredictable behaviour, there were widespread fears over his proposed constitutional reforms. Mr Zelaya's plans, which would enhance the president's power and remove the term limits on his tenure, seemed to be modelled on those adopted by other Chavez allies, and he was pressing ahead with the vote despite it being ruled illegal by the courts. It was, for his enemies, the last straw.”

The simple observation here is that if a small country like Honduras can be so intolerant to nonsense to the extent that they rose to bundle their serving President out of office because of the President's insistence on pushing forward with a controversial constitutional reform in addition to other previous excesses of his, what is wrong with Nigeria and Nigerians where an obviously arrant nonsense is going on, a kind of nonsense that will be very difficult for a people like Hondurans to even comprehend.

Here is a country where it's very clear that the president is “dead” and the immediate family and close associates of the dead man have vowed to keep the information away from the rest of the country in a very criminal bid to hold the entire country hostage and bring it to a wicked halt in the fashion of a dog in a manger. And yet there are people who are in the position and have all the required resources and power to do the right things, to rein in these criminals and bring them to justice while causing the country to continue again in the vital forward motion. But these individuals have refused to do anything.

When ex President Manuel Zeleya was given the booth by his no nonsense countrymen, he was subsequently replaced by Roberto Micheletti who was serving as the chairman of the Honduran parliament, or the Tegucigalpa congress, before the removal of Zeleya. Micheletti was no doubt amongst the arrowheads and Honduras elites who championed the riddance of the bad rubbish called Zeleya from the body politic of Honduras at that mattering moment. He was a political leader who was courageous enough to use his position well to the service of his country which he believes so much in. The most interesting thing about the Honduras case is that both Manuel Zeleya and Roberto Micheletti are from the same Liberal Party of Honduras.

According to the report by the Telegraph website, Mrs Zeleya went into hiding following the deposition of her husband as President of Honduras. And this is exactly where Turai Yar'Adua should be now – in shameful hiding – if we the so foolish Nigerians hadn't given her the power to be doing what she is doing at the moment: attempting to run, on behalf of some dead men, a country which her “dead” husband was incapable and has failed woefully to run.

Nigeria: The Arrival of the GRAND SCAM.

Make no mistake. I'm not talking about the Grand Slam or the Grand Prix! I'm talking about notorious crime of fraud and SCAM, and the country that can now be most certainly pointed at as the Land of the World Greatest Champions in Scam acts.

Nigeria's notoriety as a haven of scammers, as least in the eyes of the West, has never been in doubt. But what the West has never known all this while is that the Champion of Champions in Nigerian Scam talent and expertise, are yet to arrive. But one can now tell the world right away and very categorically and without any fear of contradiction that the World-class Scam Champions that Nigeria has ever produced have finally arrived. Unfortunately, they didn't arrive as private citizens that worked so hard all by themselves and by their sheer talent to rise to the very top. Rather they coasted to the top and are recklessly and vehemently plying their trade through the vehicle of the Government of a Sovereign Nation State presently called Nigeria.

Who then are these just unveiled Nigerian, world class SCAM Champion of Champions? They are the immediate family and close associates of Nigeria's current but very sick President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua whose location is presently unknown to the general majority of the population of the country which he, the President Yar'Adua, and his family and cronies claim to be serving.

In Nigeria, Scam or Fraud of whatever kind, has a better name. It is called 419! The name was taken from a similarly titled section in the Constitution of the Republic of Nigeria where punishments are prescribed for the crime of scam or fraud perpetuated by any individual or group against another. But ironically, rather than scare people from the horrible crime of scam and fraud, the section and it's titular became, especially for those Nigerians with much dubious access to the government, a fashion code that must be subscribed to, albeit in the opposite sense, with all ferocity imaginable. Over the years the Nigerian government officials have only been successful in most hypocritically bringing to book private citizens engaged in the 419 crime, a very marginal success indeed because the 419 culture is so much embraced by these government officials themselves. But this so religiously made subscription to this culture by the government officials has somewhat been wrapped well under pretence in something that the Nigerian public do very well know as an open secret. However, this has just changed.

Recently, the Nigerian government, because of the extreme greed of Yar'Adua's family and his close cronies, became finally stripped of all its pretences and self-deceitful open secrecy veil; and its true image as an ultimate 419 machine has finally been laid bare before the entire world. No. Before now, the Nigerian government has never been the ultimate 419 machine. It has only been a 419 machine. But this “Ultimate” dimension was just added by Mrs. Yar'Adua, her children and in-laws and the cronies and very crooked friends and government cabinet members of the dying President, including one Michael Aondoakaa, who parades himself currently as Nigeria's Minister of Justice. You can call them the “Yar'Adua Ultimate Scam Team.” And this team members, whose population is not even up to one hundred in number, are winning against an entire population of a sovereign country numbering more than 150million. A grand shame!

(Written by NISRRA)

An On-going Historic Rape of Nigeria

A country without a President in control and without anybody exactly in-charge of its government since November 23, 2009; a country with a Parliament and political class dominated by fraudsters; and a country with massive governmental acts of illegality and fraud against the people, as now on-going in Nigeria with reckless abandon; is a perfect breeding ground for terrorists!

The list is endless of the presently on-going massive governmental acts of illegality and monumental fraud against the citizens of Nigeria, by the fraudsters who, as time has now fully revealed, are in control of the Yar'Adua's failed government. Here is just a few of them:

1) A serving President of a country proceeded on a sick leave without duly and officially informing the people he serves.

2) A serving President of a country went on an AWOL (away from duty without leave) and refused to properly empower his Vice President to be in-charge of the affairs of State, while he, the president is temporarily away.

3) A serving President of a country, who right from day one of his assumption of office, mobilized and used the resources of the country to continuously pull wool over the eyes of the people he serves on issues concerning the truthful state of his health; and also who recklessly deployed the resources of the country to get himself medically cared for in world class hospitals and healthcare systems which his government and his ruling political party, despite being in power for some ten years and counting and despite having all the wherewithal, has criminally refused to provide at home for the benefit of the generality of the Nigerian population.

4) A government in which the Minister of Justice and Attorney General and few other ministers who are appointees of the President, are openly more powerful than and disrespectful to the Vice President of the country who was "duly elected" alongside the President by the people of Nigeria.

5) A country which its President, from anywhere and nowhere in particular and with an unseen hand - in an age of advancement and sophistication of signature forgery - can append his signature to such an important national instrumental document as the country's national budget, a singular act which will make the document a law that will affect the lives over 150million people; and the people are being told to take it like that and keep quite because the constitution is silent about where and how the President should perform such an exercise as budget signing.

6) A country where an outgoing Chief Judge or Chief Justice of the country swears in his successor as has never happened before in the country's history, usurping an oath administering duty belonging to the President or his lawful second-in-command or appropriately and lawfully delegated proxy; and the citizens are being told that they should keep quiet, take it that way, and be happy because it is legal.
If Chief Judges or Chief Justices of Nigeria can swear in their successors, as outgoing Chief Justice Idris Kutigi just did by swearing in “Mr.” Kastina-Alu as his (Kutigi's) successor Chief Justice, what stops these Chief Judges/Justices from nominating and appointing their successors as well, thereby ushering in the long awaited era of independent judiciary in Nigeria?

NIGERIANS, ALL THESE ILLEGALITY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND!!!

(click link to read full stories on saharareporters.com)

Yar'Adua versus Competent Presidency for Nigeria: Talking it all away, again.

Written by Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya.

 

With the November 23, 2009 emergency evacuation of the ailing Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to Saudi Arabia for treatment in a "world class" Saudi hospital, a kind of which the Nigerian government controlled by President Yar'Adua's ruling Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) in the last ten years has failed woefully and continued failing to provide or even dream of providing in Nigeria for the benefit of the citizens despite the country's enormous revenues from crude oil; Nigerians got an immense opportunity as they have never had it ever before in their history to end the plenty arrant nonsense and business as usual attitudes of their rulers which have for so long kept the country in a coffin ready for burial.

When the news broke of Yar'Adua's latest round of ill health and need for hospitalization and quality medical care in a foreign hospital and in a kind of quality healthcare system which his administration and the PDP government in Nigeria since 1999 has repeatedly refused to create locally for the benefit of Nigeria's over 150million people who are in dire need of such quality healthcare system; I thought that the time has come for Nigerians to rise up and assert that it's high time for Nigerian rulers to start respecting the dignity of Nigerians and to stop insulting their collective intelligence, existence and image as a sovereign state under the sun.

However, as the situation unfolds and as the details became public knowledge regarding the scandalous reality of the President's penchant for treatment in world class hospitals which he obviously has not been able to provide at home nor seems interested in providing despite Nigeria having all the wherewithal and despite the man being a sickly president, which is enough to make the issue of provision of quality healthcare system in Nigeria a centerpiece of his administration's agenda; and also as reality emerged about how power greedy the man Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and his wife and close associates are to the extent that he, the President, blatantly refused to officially notify the Nigerian people who he claims to be their “servant leader” about his need to take some time off for a medical treatment and by so doing appropriately empower his Vice President to oversee, in the temporary absence of the President, the affairs of the State in the most appropriate capacity as the constitution of the country stipulates and as even the most common sense would always tell one as being the right thing to do; I for one became concerned that here again comes one important issue which the generality of Nigerians, and especially those Nigerians who have the right powers and prowess of articulation and communication and impact, will rather treat with a very unfortunate Nigerian culture and character of inaction and apathy which derives from a very strange believe system that views problems and challenges as things to wallow and rot in and lament helplessly about, rather than things to be solved with proactiveness and pragmatism.

I'm currently pursuing some further studies in one of the European countries where English language is the first language. And it is my first time of studying alongside so many different people from different nationalities and continents of the world. And some of these fellow students happen to be of pure English origin.

As English is the language of teaching and learning here, I started out with a high expectation towards these Englishmen/women colleagues of mine who are mostly young adults like me. High expectation in terms of their being there to lead in class communication and showing all others the best way to use this precious language of theirs which they must be very proud of, in my opinion, because of their forebears glorious success in making the language world's number one, if you understand what I mean.

Little did I know, however, that one of my first class presentations and a particular word that I used, will open up an interesting conversation and a window of clarity on something I have subconsciously believed in as our African folly particularly being carried on in a country like Nigeria.

The word was ACCESSION. Because of the usual debate over the best definition for any academic subject concept as can be found in almost all the academic disciplines by anyone who has studied in a third level educational setting, I was proposing that I would use the word “Capacity Accession” to supplant for the term “capacity building or capacity development” which are equally bogged down with such usually very confusing definitional debates as earlier mentioned. And my English friends wanted to know what the word ACCESSION means. At first I was shocked and showed it when I joked in my reply to the one who asked the question that he should be the living dictionary in the classroom at that moment. But in their characteristic Western honesty and curiorsity, he said he had no idea what the word means and demonstrated that when he failed the probing guess-what-it-means questioning from the lecturer. Impressed by this impressive English language skills of Nigerians, which he had obviously heard about before but had never experienced first hand, he cornered me for some conversation after class to express his delight, and we got talking.

Of course I told him not to praise me because – and it is true – I don't even know the language well enough and still feel extremely inadequate in spoken English despite the fact that I was born into it and have spent all my school years so far, now spanning over 20 years, learning English. I ended by telling him that if he however want to be really impressed, he should read Nigerian writers especially in the local newspapers or listen to Nigerians at home talk in the media about their country's problems. You will be really impressed at our English language skills, I told him, but this same skill is the greatest evidence of our Nigerian stupidity which has kept us as the very unfortunate, suppose-to-be-wealthy but so-poor-and-devastated country as the whole world currently sees us. And he replied jokingly, “well I'll take that to mean that a Nigerians writer or speaker can write or speak so much good English but actually understands so little about what he, the writer or speaker is even saying in English”. Grand joke!!

The joke wasn't his invention, anyway. In fact, he was only paraphrasing me to show that he understood, this time, what I was talking to him about in parables during our conversation. All that grammar by Nigerians always end up meaning nothing! “We really know stuff in Nigeria”, and I'm coming to appreciate from a first hand international vantage point the possibility that Nigerians might even be “speaking better English than the English people themselves”. Yes, one of the problems we have in Nigeria is this indulgence in showing off that we know how to 'blow' grammar over whatever issue that there is in the country at any particular moment but which in actual sense we ourselves understand only very little, or mean almost nothing of them whenever we talk about these issues with those beautiful English grammar resulting in our ending up doing absolutely nothing beyond our cheap circus small talking in English language about these issues at hand.

So what exactly am I actually pointing at? President Yar'Adua, since you asked. When is he stepping down or when are Nigerians going to assert that he leave office? Not at all with any prejudice towards physical disability but in vital tune with a great fact that this president has not achieved any tangible thing commensurate to the great fortune his administration and democratic dispensation has cost Nigeria so far since his now more than two years in office. This is what all Nigerians, particularly the media and the newspapers, should be saying now, in few words, with very little English, with all vital and huge actions than plenty words. But what are we seeing in our local Nigerian media and larger society today? The same old 'talk talk!' Time again for enough people to come forward only to demonstrate that they had Cambridge and Oxford Distinction in English language. Time to talk it all away and end up achieving nothing again.

(This article was also published on saharareporters.com, on November 27, 2009)