Just thinking out loud, Icheoku queries who really is in charge in czarist Russia, a President Medvedev or Prime Minister Putin? Is it true that President Dimtri Medvedev is just a president in name only akin to a ceremonial presidency and that his supposed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is the real man of power who determines what goes and how it goes in mother Russia? Is Medvedev beholden to Putin and holds his office at Putin's pleasure? Icheoku's sudden interest in who calls the shot in the former communist enclave is born out of the now extended prison stay levied on the former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on the prodding of the Russian authorities.
While some commentators say Putin influenced the decision of the courts, others thought it was Russia's lawyer president Medvedev weakness and inability to reinvigorate an already supine judiciary that gave room for such manipulation of the courts, in attaching extra six years for a crime which took place about seventeen years ago and which has been to all intent and purposes prosecuted and for which Mr. Khodorkovsky has been in prison for the past eight years. But in Putin's Russia, what Comrade Putin wants, Comrade Putin gets and now he wants Khodorkovsky put away until the 2012 Russia's election when he hopes to remount the saddle again; thus getting back the office which Medvedev is currently holding in trust on his behalf. Should this scenario play itself out in 2012 as is widely anticipated, Russia would have formally transformed itself into a full fledged banana republic where one man calls the shot. Icheoku hopes it does not happen and that Medvedev will develop enough political real estate and muscle as well as courage to emasculate Comrade Putin or even fire him from office before then; afterall he is the president and Putin is supposed to be serving under his pleasure as his prime minister?
However, Icheoku is not interested in Mikhail Khodorkovsky or his current travails, but makes bold to say that anyone who goes to the devil to accept some favors must be prepared to remain at the devils beck and call; and if in doubt, he/she should watch the movie, Devil's Advocate. If you accept a bequeath from the devil, then be prepared to accept the terms of that gift since the devil does not give any free meals; and in defiance, have the big hammer from hell descend on you to knock you down worse than you were before the encounter. This is the extent Icheoku understands the underlying reasons of the political schenanigans playing itself out before the world with the current six more years of elongation of prison term for Mr. Khodorkovsky.
The Russian mafia led by Putin made him an emergent oil billionaire overnight and they expected him to at least show some gratitude and a little respect by staying off the political trails; but like all money people all over including Nigerian MKO Abiola, he thought that his wealth can see him through. But boy was he wrong and he was drastically burnt in the process with all his wealth taken in the same flash as it was handed over to him. Mikhail Khodorkovsky forgot too soon how he became stupendously rich and that somebody made it possible by skewering the system to favor him. He also forgot that the somebody who made him can also unmake him and that somebody is still around and in the Kremlin and that somebody's name is PUTIN. Now you know the veracity of the Igbo adage that 'the okro shrub can never grows taller than the planter who planted it;' get it. But this still does not conclusively answer the Russian political question, who is really and actually in charge in Russia; except you bought into the western media talking-point that Vladimir Putin is it.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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Khodorkovsky became the owner of Yukos, the largest oil company in Russia. Many say he did so by selling shares to himself in illegal auctions and by keeping most of his assets in offshore tax shelters, thus avoiding paying his taxes. By 2004, Khodorkovsky amassed an estimated fortune of $15 billion, landing him on the Forbes List of The World's Richest People. When the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a young, intelligent man armed with a degree in engineering decided to become a businessman. The Soviet Union was in chaos during its final years. As a result, Khodorkovsky and other oligarchs, or Russian business magnates, took advantage of the chaos and begin to buy up all the state industries such as telecommunications, mines, factories, banks and oil companies.
ReplyDeleteThe oligarchs gobbled up all of Russia's big businesses, and as many experts agree, did so in unethical and possibly illegal ways. Ordinary Russian citizens watched it all happen as did the flailing Russian government.But Khodorkovsky was not satisfied with all his money. He wanted more power, political power, which led to his eventual downfall. He had friends in high places in both the liberal and Communist political parties of Russia. These ties stemmed back to his days opening his first business, a small cafe.Vladimir Putin, a virtual unknown, was Yeltsin's appointed successor. In July 2000, he warned all the oligarchs, including Khodorkovsky, to stay out of politics or he would come after them. Some listened, like Roman Abramovich. Others did not, like Vladimir Gusinksy and Khodorkovsky. Oligarchs fled the country or pledged their allegiance to Putin. But Khodorkovsky chose to openly speak out against Putin. He spent millions of dollars on anti-Putin opposition campaigns.F. William Engdahl of Global Research reports that Khodorkovsky's real crime was making close ties with power players in the West. He befriended Henry Kissinger and Jacob Lord Rothschild, who served on the board of Khodorkovsky's charitable foundation Open Russia. As Engdahl reports, Khodorkovsky made friends with some of the highest political powers in the West while taking an adviser position in the Carlyle Group with George H.W. Bush and other influential politicos. With the West on his side, Khodorkovsky planned to run for president of Russia or as Engdahl says "(aided by) a US-backed coup." Khodorkovsky would control the ownership of oil and he was allegedly in the midst of a deal with Chevron or ExxonMobil to sell 40 percent of Yukos, in which he negotiated with George H.W. Bush.