"If President Buhari was determined to fight against corruption, my feeling is that he gave up after losing election three times. Because the fourth time, he formed an alliance with people who he despised before. And they were not necessarily people who had a track record of being anti-corruption." - Femi Aribisala.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Sunday, March 27, 2016
"I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH ALL OF THE WOMEN" - TED CRUZ
Icheoku says then tell Americans those ones you had sex with; but please spare us all the deja vu general denial of "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky" of the Bill Clinton sexual escapade saga. Icheoku generally does not butt in nor have any beef with any man or woman who is cheating on their spouse. It is such a victim's spouse to either put up with such a philandering partner or throw them to the curbside. As far as Icheoku is concerned, it is those couples' private affair and it should be left solely as that, theirs alone to sort out. But where a supposedly upright man of God, who swears by the scriptures and lives the pretentious family value life, has any skeletons in his cupboard that make him less than the holy one he puts up appearance as; then such person has crossed the line. This double-faced life of living a lie, is what Icheoku has beef with.
Therefore Icheoku calls on Ted Cruz to categorically deny the National Inquirer story, disavow those women and challenge them to come up with evidence of the dalliance or shut up. A matter now made more pressing with three of the five women identified as Katrina Pierson, Sarah Isgar Flores and Amanda Carpenter. It is just not enough for the candidate, Ted Cruz, to dismissively wave the story aside as a hit piece done on him by camp Trump, because John Edwards tried same with his love child only to later leak his spit; ditto OJ Simpson with the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman; as well as the Bill Clinton's Monicagate Lewinsky scandal.
So while Icheoku is not saying that the tabloid got it right again this time with the story of the philandering Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz should go a step further to prove his innocence with a law suit or its threat; and also demand the recanting of the entire story as well as damages. This is the only plausible action of a man maligned or defamed; and if he fails to do so, the cloud of infidelity will continue to hover over him like a hallo and it will shadow him throughout this election season. So Ted Cruz, is it true?
So while Icheoku is not saying that the tabloid got it right again this time with the story of the philandering Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz should go a step further to prove his innocence with a law suit or its threat; and also demand the recanting of the entire story as well as damages. This is the only plausible action of a man maligned or defamed; and if he fails to do so, the cloud of infidelity will continue to hover over him like a hallo and it will shadow him throughout this election season. So Ted Cruz, is it true?
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
ISLAMIC TERRORISM, TOUCH-DOWN BELGIUM.
Icheoku says the fast metastasizing global Islamic terrorism, trying as hard as it may to impose Islamic will on civilized societies, managed to snake into Belgium today and wrecked its usual havoc and mayhem. At the end of the cowardly act of terror, 34 Belgians lay dead; with over 200 others wounded, many critically. The terrorists penetrated the security web of Belgium to rain down their usual sorrow, blood and tears and you wonder where else is safe and likely on their target to do list or rather bulls-eye?
From India to Somalia to Kenya to Nigeria to America to Canada to England to France to Spain to Afghanistan to Syria to Russia to Iraq to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to Egypt to Israel to China to Mali to Ivory Coast, as well as several other places it have struck, it is the same people, from the same religion and you wonder what is really going on. Is violence the exclusive preserve of these munchkins who think that they can intimidate mankind into their warped way of life and supposed religion? Anyway, it will not be too long for a king who does not know Joseph to call for rendering of account. Donald John Trump is coming and as the 45th president of America, he will decisively fight this cancer of Islamist extremism and the whole world will be a better and safer place when he finishes with them.
Icheoku says for those partisans who are calling out President Barack Obama for not calling off his visit to Cuba and Argentina and rush back to Washington because of the attack, Icheoku says Belgians have their own president and Belgium is not a 51st state of the United States of America. The president has done what is expected of him and should be done:- he acknowledged the attack; he prayed for the victims; he pledged assistance; possibly have spoken to Belgian leaders stating that America will stand shoulder to shoulder with Belgians, our friend and ally, in fighting terror world-wide and in bringing those terrorists to justice. But as always, partisans will always do what they do best, trying to milk every situation to push their partisan agenda. This is the reason for the season of Donald Trump; who is trumping everybody because Americans see and hear him as a leader they can trust to do what needs to be done without so much pandering or speaking on both sides of the mouth like all those other crass politicians.
Our hearts go out to all Belgians in this their hour of great tribulation; and to all those who lost their lives today in that unspeakable, horrible act of Islamist terrorism, Icheoku says rest in peace. Their 9/11; their Juis Charlie; their Bataclan massacre; their Boko Haram massacres; and their every other terrorists attacks suffered by every other people anywhere in the world, will not be forgotten. Icheoku says let Belgians and every other people in the world, afflicted or affected by Islamist terrorism, know that help is on the way and Donald Trump, the exterminator, will do what he said he will do to rid the world of this pestilence.
However, Icheoku does not understand why it is only whenever white people and white countries fall victim of terrorism that the world seem to hone in? Why does it take only a terror strike in Europe or America or Russia or China, that Islamist terrorism effervesces to the top center stage. How about Boko Haram Islamists terrorism that has been wrecking havoc on Nigeria for several years now? How about Syria? How about Pakistan? How about Turkey? How about Iraq? How about Kenya? How about Somalia? How about Egypt and how about everybody everywhere that has suffered in the hands of these animals. Every life should matter, whether black or white or brown or purple or pink; we are a one world and we all should be our brothers and sisters keepers, a one-cap fits all world. Belgians, the whole world is with you and together, those Islamists urchins will be routed. Our condolences.
Monday, March 21, 2016
OBAMA VISITS CASTRO'S CUBA.
Icheoku says this symbolic reaching out of hand of friendship and fellowship by President Barack Obama of America to Raul Castro's Cuba, is highly commendable. Icheoku hopes it will finally pave the way and be the igniting device for more things to come between the Island nation and the United States of America.
Two memorable quotes by the two leaders:-
"America believes in democracy. We believe that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion are not just American values but are universal values." - President Barack Obama.
"Tell me now. What political prisoners? Give me a name, or the names and if there are these political prisoners they will be free before nightfall." - President Raul Castro.
Icheoku wishes both countries well and prays for such mending of fences throughout the world. Iran is thawing, Cuba is on course and soon may be North Korea? Why not, since it costs less to live in peace than it costs to live edgily trigger-ready.
TEN THINGS I LIKE ABOUT TRUMP - JUDGE JEANIE
1. He thwarts the wishes of the Washington establishment class.
2. He is waaaaaay better than Mitt Romney…and will turn out the vote.
3. He’s a good dad.
4. They have a close,long lasting friendship.
5. He's a natural.
6. He has a string work ethic.
7. She agrees with him.
8. He can win in November.
9. He is free to speak his mind, because he understands he “isn’t responsible for someone else’s reaction” to his opinion.
10. He’s willing to change his mind when he gets new information.
As for Icheoku, everything about what Donald Trump says is in agreement with our own idea on the way forward; and together we will help make America great again.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
DONALD TRUMP'S TRAVAILS, EXPLAINED?
ICHEOKU says just like Jesus Christ survived his traducers who tried to stop him for speaking the truth, Donald Trump will survive the current umbrage of haters piling up on him and trying to stop him from reaching the White House. Donald Trump will eventually emerge victorious in his campaign to make America great again as the 45th president of the United States of America.
Donald Trump is speaking the truth and it is not a crime; admitted it takes a lot of courage and he got it mightily. The primary reason American people are flocking to Donald Trump is that he is speaking to their hearts and about what many things gone awry in and with the country, which many oddball politicians are thinking about but which political correctness does not allow them to vocalize. His utterances are music to the ears and only a blind man will not see the so many things wrong with America which needs urgent attention. The Greek philosopher Plato foresaw this many centuries ago and warned about it. Icheoku says Go Donald, build that wall, make America great again and no weapon fashioned against you will prosper IJN.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
ARIZONA AND UTAH, PLEASE HELP KEEP TRUMP ROLLING.
Icheoku says a vote for Donald Trump will disarm his detractors who are trying to steal the nomination which they could not win. So lets give establishment politicians and politics as usual a well deserved knock out punch, VOTE FOR TRUMP.
Friday, March 18, 2016
Thursday, March 17, 2016
NAIRA'S FLOP IS DOOMSDAY FORETOLD - JOSEF OMOROTIONMWAN
EVERY corruption case in Nigeria has an expiry date. This is one clear area where we shall consistently return to His Eminence, the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who we think can author a bestseller any day on the subject, being one Nigerian who thoroughly understands the Nigerian psyche and knows exactly when to do what. Truly, from very early in life, we have been indoctrinated into thinking that it is wrong to do any deep narrative on kings and the dead. While the latter must be allowed to rest in peace, the former deserve honour as God’s representatives on earth. Were these absolutely true, those volumes on the enlightened depots of centuries past would not have appeared. The Bible, which mainly chronicles the activities of the dead would never have been written.
For us, the King deserves deep reverence but he must be talked about. Those of them who have not respected the law must face the law. It is too soon to forget how Sanusi, as the immediate-past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, turned that body into a Republic within a Republic. Indeed, the collapse of the Naira today is doomsday foretold. We saw it coming. You can’t run the CBN with the type of impunity with which Idi-Amin ran the economy of Uganda and not expect the type of disaster we have in our hands today. Students of history will also easily remember that the Deutschemark suffered the same fate in post World-War II Germany.
Again, Sanusi represents an archetype of the average Nigerian in authority. Space will only permit us to provide a synopsis of some of his deeds: In about 63 “intervention projects” mainly in Northern Nigeria and sparsely in the South, Sanusi turned CBN into a Father Christmas by doling out about N163 billion from the public till without any legislative approval and authorisation in utter defiance of the provisions of Sections 80(1) and 80(2) of our 1999 Constitution, which deal with issues of revenue and expenditure of the Federation. In August 2009, the CBN, under Sanusi’s watch pumped N400 billion of public fund into bailing out Afribank, Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Oceanic Bank and Finbank. The CBN single-handedly decided which of the commercial banks manifested distress signs and how much to give to them, without recourse to any legislative approval.
In the eye of the Financial Reporting Council, FRC, the CBN under Sanusi’s watch embarked on a most reckless spending spree, the type of squander-mania never imagined in the history of the CBN, including N38.23 billion alleged missing in 2013. This amount was alleged to have been paid to the CBN subsidiary, MINT, but it never got to its destination. In 2011, CBN was said to have paid N38 billion to the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, NSPMC, for the printing of banknotes, when in the entire year, the total turnover of NSPMC was only N29 billion! In the same year, 2011, CBN allegedly claimed paying N511 million, N425 million and N1 billion to Emirate, Wing and Associated Airlines respectively, for currency distribution nationwide. While Emirate had no local charter service, Wing Airline was not even registered in Nigeria and Associated Airline had a total turnover of less than N1 billion in that year. The exhaustive list of rots in the CBN, which cannot be contained here is perhaps an arm-long.
Yet, in the process, Sanusi had an avalanche of superior and subordinate officers around him. If we say Sanusi is guilty as charged, it simply follows that those who were paid to supervise him must be ten times guilty! From a distance, we kept reminding Nigerians that Sanusi was operating a Republic within a Republic. We wrote several articles on the issue, including “Still Celebrating Profligacy” and “Who Is Now the President?” as far back as 2011 and 2013 respectively but Sanusi was evidently untouchable. If all these could happen in a small CBN, located at the city centre, you can imagine what happened in a bigger and clumsier place like NNPC, located largely in the creeks. And if Sanusi was untouchable as a public servant, who now wants to go to his new giddy heights? Long live the King! We expressed our initial concern on the Sanusi escapade when we asked in this column, “Who were Sanusi’s Supervisors?”
It takes more than one to be corrupt. Corruption is a chain, which like any other chain, is only as strong as its weakest link. Sanusi operated under Presidents and Ministers; he operated under a full-fledged National Assembly with its numerous bogus committees; and he operated literally with thousands of Nigerians who saw crime and didn’t call police! With Sanusi out of the system, the same people who facilitated his deeds are still in the system, doing for other corrupt elements what they did for Sanusi. And so, the chain continues. In Sanusi’s years, where there was no immediate cash to carry out his escapade, he proceeded to print the banknotes. Who, then, is still wondering why the Naira today is barely worth the paper on which it is printed? For all we know, a nation’s economy is like a fowl – it comes home to roost!
Until we evolve a system where every offender has a taste of his poison through prison experience, we are not fighting any corruption. That system stands on sinking sand, where at the end of tenure, a governor heads for jail and the legislators who consistently gave him his annual appropriations walk our streets in freedom when the approval of this year’s appropriation presupposes that legislators are satisfied with what the governor did with the previous year’s approval. What else is the essence of the legislative oversight of the administration? Yesterday, it was Sanusi; today, it is Dasuki; but between Sanusi and Dasuki, there are at least a thousand Nigerians who should not be walking our streets in freedom – if we are really serious about fighting corruption.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
SANDERS' HARD LESSON, ATTACKING TRUMP IS AKIN TO TAKING POISON.
Icheoku says if only the silver-haired grandpa Bernie Sanders had consulted JEB or any of the other now gone Republican presidential candidates wanna be, he would have known that staying alive this political season is abstaining from attacking Donald Trump. His hooligans attacked Trump's event in Chicago and the old man, instead of apologizing and restraining them, doubled up.
His punishment, he was trounced by the shrill-voiced woman, Hillary Clinton, abysmally losing to her throughout all the five states with no exception - Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Even states he would have ordinarily won, being nearly whites only, he still lost to that woman, Hillary Clinton. Icheoku says this is the fate which befalls and awaits any attacker who shall mouth off against the peoples' choice and God's anointed one to make America great again. Icheoku says it is Donald Trump all the way to the White House and everything is lined up in the stars to mission accomplish it. Go Trump and together lets make America great again. Also build the darn wall and make Mexico pay for it as there will be a great wall of America too.
WOLE SOYINKA HAS GONE WRONG AGAIN - CHUKS ILOEGBUNA
THE first time Wole Soyinka misdirected himself, it had to do with his “cautious endorsement” of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential candidacy. He offered a platter of reasons for the stunning faux pas, of course. But, post-election, his out of sync reading of Nigerian politics has been patently exposed. To recap, it happened that in the run-up to the presidential ballot, Professor Soyinka, long time combatant on the side of the oppressed, announced that the best thing that could happen to Nigeria was a President Buhari. His rationalisation: “It is pointlessly, and dangerously provocative to present General Buhari as something that he probably was not. It is however just as purblind to insist that he has not demonstrably striven to become what he most glaringly was not, to insist that he has not been chastened by intervening experience and – most critically – by a vastly transformed environment – both the localised and the global.”
Aware that his about-face would set teeth on edge, Soyinka took the pains to further explain his Road-to-Damascus conversion. He had become a Buhari flag-waver, having “studied him from a distance, questioned those who have closely interacted with him, including his former running-mate, Pastor Bakare, and dissected his key utterances past and current.” He underpinned his implausible argument with his location in Buhari of “A plausible transformation that comes close to that of another ex-military dictator, Mathieu Kerekou of the Benin Republic.” Some of those unconvinced at the time went public with their disagreement. How vindicated they now are! President Kerekou had apologised in front of his people for the wantonness of his military dictatorship before they granted him a shot at democratic leadership.
But, Buhari would have absolutely nothing to do with remorse and apologies, not even for heading a junta that executed its citizens on the strength of a retroactive decree, and not for other wild excesses of his despotic rule, for which Soyinka, in better days, had been indignant: “Of course, we know that human beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evidence suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler that the nation cannot call to order.”
Well, Buhari’s presidency is not even a year old and already the chickens have come home to roost. During the 1970s, Soyinka criticised Uganda’s Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada for converting his country’s universities into toys. Only recently, Buhari, with a mere press statement by one of his subordinates, fired the Vice Chancellors of 14 Federal universities, an irrational move unsupported by any known Nigerian statute. Is Soyinka unaware of this? In his Introduction to The movement of transition: a study of the plays of Wole Soyinka [Ibadan University Press, 1975], Professor Oyin Ogunba told the fascinating story of how, during an Ife Varsity conference, Soyinka had dramatically borrowed a piece of paper from someone, to pen an instant letter of resignation because a high official of the institution had mouthed a new and arbitrary administrative policy he could not live down. How time wounds all heels.
While, in-between global junketing, Buhari has been busy on a firing spree, his field commanders have been firing at and killing peaceful pro-Biafra demonstrators. In fact, they seem minded to match, if not surpass, the unenviable record of massacres set by Olusegun Obasanjo in Odi and Zaki Biam, when they massacred nearly a thousand Shias in Zaria. Pray, in what way does this contemporary preying on human lives begin to equate the transformation that our Soyinka discovered in Kerekou? While an undergraduate at Ife during the 1970s, and working on freelance basis for The Punch group of newspapers, I recall approaching Soyinka to issue a damning statement over the 20 or so suspects that suffocated inside a Police Black Maria, and he obliged!
This kind of memory jerks the consciousness into conceiving of our man at the barricades with placard-bearing demonstrators insisting that an immediate stoppage must be put to President Buhari’s human rites. Rather, our Soyinka of the “Justice is the first condition of humanity” fame, decided on appropriating a turf better left to the devices of by people with the éclat and élan for economics and public finance. Soyinka wants an ‘emergency conference” to fix the country’s “dire” economy! As was the case with his “cautious endorsement,” he is fluent with reasons. “Recovery is going to take quite a while…the President should call an emergency economic conference, with experts to be invited. Consumers, producers, labour unions, university experts, professors, etc. I think we really need an emergency economic conference, a rescue operation bringing as many heads as possible together to plot the way forward.”
Soyinka’s difficulty in this new adventure is three-pronged. To start with, it is preposterous, unless our man will claim that between the superstructure and the substructure, he would place primacy on the latter? In which case the onus would be on him to list the numerous ways in which the inhabitants of graves benefit from buoyant economies. Of course, the problem is also to do national amnesia. There was a national conference held recently in this country. Its report is presumably on the presidential shelf, gathering dust. It quite possibly has been binned. Now, if the report of a properly constituted national conference is unworthy of attention, where is the assurance that the outcome of Soyinka’s emergency conference will attract other than skeptical presidential smiles or guffaws?
Another fundamental disability of his recommendation is that the man in charge of the economy believes that it is soaring. As Soyinka was somewhere wailing about an economy going under, Buhari was elsewhere insisting that “Today, our country has the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world.” So, who really requires a talk shop on an economy that is firing on all cylinders? Soyinka’s third handicap is the most dangerous – to him! Through the past year, Buhari and all the newcomers have been hammering it into every thick skull that the country’s problem was and still is the PDP. Therefore, doesn’t it occur to the Nobel Laureate that his emergency conference is tied into the uncanny prospect of proffering the problem as solution?
How could we have “consumers, producers, labour unions, university experts, professors, etc.,” in whose ranks are PDP cadres, looters, stalwarts and foot soldiers, salvaging the economy? Doesn’t Soyinka realise that his idea, liable to contaminate the antiseptic purity of Buhari’s APC with tainted victims of change, could get him wrapped up on a treasonous charge? As an ardent and long-standing fan of Soyinka’s, I have advice for the “grey-haired lion”. Please leave President Buhari well alone. The man has experts in quantum, including those who would host a dinner for N82 million and others who would upgrade a personal website at N78 million, to confer with. Together, this amalgam can, in great speed, navigate the Nigerian economy to ether. Chuks Iloegbunam
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
THIS CHANGE IS KILLING US, OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUHARI - INIBEHE OFFING
Dear President Buhari,
It is with a deep sense of humility that I write to convey to you my sincere feelings on the state of affairs in our nation and my home State, Akwa Ibom. I am doing so as an ardent supporter who devoted his time; risked his safety; staked his integrity and passionately and vociferously defended your candidacy during the 2015 presidential election in defiance of the strong campaign of calumny mounted against you by those who never wanted you to be the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
If I had any other practicable and convenient channel of communicating with you, I would have graciously explored it. Accept my sincere apologies if you are discomfited by my resort to public engagement through this open letter.
During the electioneering campaigns, you went round the country and vigorously propagated the message of change and solicited the support and votes of the Nigerian people with a solemn undertaking that our precarious situation will be ameliorated upon your assumption of office. I was persuaded by your promises. Majority of Nigerians went to the polls on March 28, 2015 and overwhelmingly elected you as the president of Nigeria because you promised change.
The slogan was 'Sai Buhari'.
For once, I found dignity in my Nigerian citizenship. Many Nigerians, myself inclusive, kept vigil to monitor closely the events and controversies at the National Collation Centre. We were willing and prepared to march on the streets and defend your mandate if the Godsday Orubebes' of this world had suceeded in truncating the final collation of results.
I shed tears of joy when the then Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, declared you the winner of that fiercely contested election. It was a marvellous and glorious experience. The feeling was simply indescribable. Upon your declaration, you proceeded to the National Secretariat of your party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) where you addressed a world press conference and reiterated your mantra of change. That night, I slept like a little baby because I felt that a responsible, incorruptible and courageous leader had finally emerged in Nigeria in my lifetime to lead our country out of the precipice.
My dear President, ten months after your historic assumption of office, it has become increasingly tedious to defend the change we proudly supported and voted for. The hitherto much taunted "body language of the president" seems to have evaporated.
It is true that the corruption infested Goodluck Jonathan's regime and those before him had greatly destroyed, vandalised and polluted our country. It is also true that you met Nigeria in a terrible state. We are not unmindful of the myriad of challenges your administration is facing: from financial constraints due largely to low prices of crude oil at the international market; security problems orchestrated by the Boko Haram sect, the rampaging Fulani herdsmen and the very delicate agitation by the Pro-Biafran movement, etc. Nobody is expecting you to perform miracles or "turn things around overnight" as erroneously suggested by some of your aides.
The fact of the matter is that responsibility is the hallmark of leadership. What was the change gospel about if things were to remain the same? Yes you have a four year mandate. But ten months is enough time to resolve certain pressing and critical issues in the country and set a very precise and clear direction for the nation. There are problems that only require a firm presidential directive to solve but which has been neglected.
Mr President, just in case you are oblivious of the cost of fuel across the country, may I report to you that contrary to the pronouncement of your administration, fuel is not being sold for eighty six naira (N86) per liter. As at Sunday the 13th of March, 2016 when I wrote this open letter, I bought fuel at N125 per liter. In some places, it is much costlier than that. Does it mean that the federal government is incapable of keeping to its promises and enforcing policy decisions? It is not enough for the government to give excuses, the issue is that people are suffering because of the sheer incompetence of government.
If there is one problem that we expected the change government to address with vigour, it is the issue of epileptic power supply in the country. Before your election, our power generation was over 4000 megawatts. Data from Nigeria Electricity System Operator (NESO) showed that by 9.48am on Wednesday, 9th March, 2016 power generation was 1,580.6MW, with the Ikeja Electric getting 237.09MW; Abuja, 181.77MW; Eko, 173.87MW; Benin, 142.25MW; and Enugu, 142.25MW. Others are Ibadan, 205.48MW; Jos, 86.93MW; Kano, 126.45MW; Kaduna, 126.45MW; Port Harcourt, 102.74MW; and Yola, 55.32MW. See the Punch Newspaper report of Thursday, 10th March, 2016.
Despite this terrible power situation, the Minister Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) have gone ahead to implement a new electricity tariff regime. In other words, while the administration is insisting that the old tariff regime is not "commercially viable and sustainable", the reality on the ground is that Nigerians are being made to pay higher for darkness by a government that promised change.
Under your watch, commercial banks in the country are still carrying out illegal and unjustifiable deductions of funds belonging to their customers. Banks are still collecting inexplicable and offensive charges. Telecommunication service providers are still holding their subscribers to ransom in various ways. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) have respectively failed to stop this unwholesome practices. The Nigeria Police Force is still perpetuating extra-judicial killings and extortion.
Before your ascension to the presidency, a dollar sold for about N150. Currently a dollar goes for between 250 to N370 at the forex market. While the present depreciation in currency value may not be peculiar to Nigeria, the attendant effects on the economy and the well-being of Nigerians are self-evident and require no elucidation. The government has clearly not done enough to address this anomalous situation.
By Section 14 (2) (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government" (sic). Although incessant killing and massacre of people of various communities across the country by the well armed Fulani herdsmen predated your administration, there is reasonable basis to say that they are now more daring and emboldened than what we witnessed in the past.
The recent killings in Agatu community of Benue State adds credence to the view that the herdsmen seems to enjoy immunity from the Nigerian State. The federal government so far has not demonstrated serious commitment to end the bloodbath and bring the culprits to justice. While I commend the feats recorded by the federal government and the security agencies in its ongoing onslaught against Boko Haram, it is unfathomable that innocent Nigerians are being killed and slaughtered in Rivers State simply because of their political persuasion.
During the reign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), membership of the opposition party was treasonous especially in the South South region. That was the reason why a State like Akwa Ibom during the Godswill Akpabio dictatorship witnessed unprecedented murder(s) and kidnapping of opposition figures and critics.
It is therefore very saddening that even under the Buhari/APC-led federal government, the conscientious people of my State (Akwa Ibom) who risked their lives championing Buhari's message of change are still being haunted, humiliated and intimidated by Godswill Akpabio and his army. The case of Akwa Ibom is just so pathetic. The people were denied their constitutional right to freely exercise their franchise both at the March 28 presidential election and the April 11, 2015 governorship election.
The European Union, the American Embassy in Nigeria and the Nigerian Civil Society Election Situation Room all returned a unanimous verdict that the Akwa Ibom elections was a total sham which should not be allowed to stand. Even the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in their separate reports discredited the make-believe gubernatorial election. Several lives were lost. One of victims of that State sponsored terror, a 22 year old Mr Federick Richard Okon, from Mbierebe Akpawat village in Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State was only buried recently on Wednesday, 9th March, 2016.
Till date, no one has been prosecuted for the killings and violence that marred the Akwa Ibom elections.
Justifiably aggrieved by the outcome of that fraudulent election and in line with the advice of local and international observers, Mr Umana Okon Umana, the APC gubernatorial candidate, filed a petition at the Election Tribunal seeking a cancellation of the so-called election and presented over 350 documentary evidence and called 52 witnesses. The Tribunal partly agreed with him and nullified the election in eighteen (18) out of the thirty one (31) Local Government Areas of the State.
On their part, the Court of Appeal in a well considered judgment nullified the entire election and berated the Tribunal for ignoring the unchallenged evidence of over voting based on both the Card Reader and the Voters Register and the evidence that there was no collation of results which were never contested nor countered by the PDP and the other Respondents. On further appeal by the PDP, the Supreme Court did not only reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal but also set aside the partial nullification of election by the Tribunal.
On the day of the final judgment, Akpabio stormed the Supreme Court in fanfare some minutes before the Chief Justice of Nigeria and other Justices of the seven man panel returned from break to deliver their verdict in company of retinue of aides and supporters. The moment Akpabio entered the Supreme Court, movement of people were restricted by security men at the Court. His conduct inside the Supreme Court gave the impression that he merely came for celebration. Several reports in the media quoted him as declaring just before the judgment that it was "all over".
Mr President, where were you when all this was going on? Sir, I do not know of any president in the world who came to power on the platform of an opposition political party that has totally undermined and destroyed the party that brought him to power the way you have done. Respectfully Sir, you seem to operate under the illusion that for you to effect change in the country, you must abdicate from partisan politics.
In the name of non interference, you have allowed very bad people to assume underserved leadership positions through undemocratic means. Your seeming nonchalant attitude has emboldened predators to infiltrate and compromise critical institutions of state and organs of government at the peril of justice, national cohesion and development.
Least I forget, without consulting with anyone, you came to Akwa Ibom State and picked an ally of Godswill Akpabio and a card carrying member of the PDP, Senator Udo Udoma, as the ministerial nominee to represent the State in the Federal Executive Council. Respectfully Sir, that singular decision was/is a spite on the conscientious people of the State who supported and are still supporting you in the hope that you will protect them from the oppressive tendencies of Godswill Akpabio and his proteges. You may need to watch the video clip on YouTube showing how Akwa Ibom people reacted in Uyo the capital to your victory at the election. It speaks volume of the expectations of Akwa Ibom people.
Mr Udo Udoma is today reaping where he did not sow. Here is one very self-centered and egoistic politician from Akwa Ibom that does not have any affection for his people. He only cares about his selfish interest and that of his elitist cronies in the PDP. Udo Udoma has failed in his first critical assignment as Minister of Budget and National Planning given the recent budget imbroglio.
As if that was not enough humiliation for Akwa Ibom people, you sacked the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr Dan Abia, who merely occupied the slot of Akwa Ibom State and replaced him with Mrs. Ibim Semenitari from Rivers State. Frankly, I have no problem with the removal of Mr Abia for whatever misconduct he may have committed.
However, by the provisions of Sections 3 and 12 of the Niger Delta Development Commission (Establishment, etc) Act 2000, the position of Managing Director of the NDDC is statutorily rotated every four years among the oil producing States. That has been the practice. Therefore, any replacement for Mr Abia, whether in an Acting or substantive capacity, should have come from Akwa Ibom State until the expiration of the State's tenure. Simply put, Akwa Ibom has been cheated. It amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul. Even if the growing support of Akwa Ibom people for your administration means nothing to you, the State should be given her rightful place in federal appointments and citing of projects being the highest oil producing State in the federation.
My beloved president, you suffered from fraudulent elections on three previous occasions before Nigerians finally elected you in 2015. You fought up to the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2003 and 2007. In 2011, you declined seeking remedy in court having lost faith in the nation's judicial process. But your party, the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), went to Court and fought up to the Supreme Court and lost.
Experience they say is the best teacher. Even if you were to fail in every other aspect of governance, it should certainly not be in the restoration of the sanctity of the electoral process. You also have a historic responsibility to champion revolutionary changes in the Judiciary.
It is not defensible for you to sit back and say that you "will not interfere" when you have not effected a system or mechanism that stops other people from interfering with the judicial and electoral process. Nobody is asking you to help rig elections or inflence court judgments. All we are saying is that nobody should be able to do what the president himself has refused to do. Leaving people who staked their lives supporting you at the mercy of electoral predators is sinful and wicked. You have left the weak and vulnerable in Akwa Ibom State at the mercy of Godswill Akpabio and his army.
Sir, the current Inspector General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase, is an ally of Godswill Akpabio having served in Akwa Ibom State during Akpabio's regime as Commissioner of Police at a time politically motivated killings and other crimes were rife. That was why he instituted frivolous criminal charges against a lawyer, Mr Leo Ekpenyong, who has written series of petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against Akpabio. The EFCC till date has refused to act on those petitions. What then is the war against corruption about when people like Akpabio are allowed to walk freely and infiltrate critical institutions and organs of government in the country? Is Mr Solomon Arase not one of the saboteurs in your government?
Sir, without the support of the Democrats, President Obama would not have recorded his achievements in the United States of America in the last seven years of his presidency. The Republicans rarely give him a chance. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has succeeded because he has the support of the Conservative Party both in parliament and in the country. This explains why both leaders are very interested in the affairs of their parties. Obama is currently backing Hillary Clinton for the White House because he knows that if the Republicans win the November 8, 2016 presidential election, many of his landmark reforms like the ObamaCare will be truncated.
Since you came to power, your party the APC has recorded more defeats than victories. The APC is today fighting a cold war with itself. There are various camps: the Tinubu camp; Atiku camp; Saraki camp; your own camp and so on. Few days ago, it was Tinubu's daughter who led market women to protest at the APC Secretariat in Abuja. Across the States, members of your party feel abandoned. Even though I do not belong to the APC, I believe that what goes on in the ruling party will ultimately affect the entire country. If there was responsible leadership in the PDP, Nigeria will not be where it is today. The division and leadership failure in the PDP culminated in the defeat of Goodluck Jonathan at the polls.
Looking at the National Assembly today, one can clearly see the signature of your bad politics and error in judgment in the name of "non interference". If you had appreciated the fact that the composition of the leadership of the National Assembly will affect your administration, Senator Bukola Saraki would not have been the Senate President today. As long as the status quo remains, you will continue to face embarrassment and resistance from the National Assembly.
As a final postscript, permit me to say that the faith of the Nigerian people in your administration is eroding at a worrisome level. This is the hard fact that Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Mr Femi Adesina, Mallam Garba Shehu and other image managers of your administration may not tell you. You may need curtail your oversea trips if that will make you to fully appreciate the true situation of things in the country.
This "change" is killing us and the time to truly change things in the country is now.
I sincerely want you to succeed and may you succeed. May God give you the insight and the courage to do what is right for our nation.
Thank you.
Your loyal subject,
Inibehe Effiong (Esq.).
Monday, March 14, 2016
Sunday, March 13, 2016
BUHARI, KEEP NIGERIA OFF ISMAT - OCHEREOME NNANNA
The announcement by President Muhammadu Buhari that Nigeria will join ISMAT, a Saudi-led military coalition of Sunni Muslim countries fighting rival Muslim factions in the Middle East is capable of destabilizing Nigeria and unsettling its already seriously challenged unity in diversity. It is not only against the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but more than that, it is liable to reduce Northern Nigeria and the nation a whole to a theatre of Muslim proxy wars as we see in Yemen, Syria, Libya and other countries. President Buhari Many of us had warned, during the campaigns, that electing Buhari would put Nigeria in danger of its neutrality to issues of religion being undermined, given his avowal to carry the torch of Sharia to all corners of Nigeria. Although he has often said that no one can Islamise Nigeria, his intention to drag the nation into the 34-member ISMAT is, more than any other thing, an assumption that Nigeria is already a Muslim country, which it is not.
The first sign that Buhari would drag Nigeria into the petty but dangerous quarrels among factions of the Muslim faith showed in December 2015 when the Nigerian Army responded to a roadblock mounted by the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (the Shiites) by killing hundreds of its members, flattening its enclave in Zaria and taking away its leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky without putting him on trial for any offence till date. In spite of the outrage this provoked from amazed Nigerians and the human rights community, the Federal Government has been cool and unbothered by this crackdown, which elicited a call from Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani to President Buhari to register the concern of his country. The Army said it had to act the way it did to avoid a situation whereby the Zakzaky group would constitute itself into another insurgent group like Boko Haram.
This explanation probably helped in keeping many Nigerians quiet, but the warning from Shiite Iran betrayed the sectarian dimensions of the scorched earth killing of an ant with a sledgehammer. The plain truth is that majority of Nigerian Muslims (including Buhari) belong to the Sunni sect and do not see eye to eye with the Shiites. The danger of what happened was that Iran probably saw the action of the Nigerian Army which obviously had the backing of the President as official persecution of members of their sect. Shortly after this bloody incident, President Buhari started his many forays of official visits to the Arab world, ostensibly to rally their support to salvage the sagging prices of crude oil in the international market.
On February 23rd 2016, Buhari had initially and wisely shown his reluctance in directly involving Nigeria in the coalition of Muslim countries fighting Islamic terrorism with this statement: “even if we are not part of it we support you”. But surprisingly, he made an about-face after meeting with Saudi King, Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz. He now was quoted as saying: “We are part of it because we have got terrorists in Nigeria that everybody knows which claims they are Islamic” (referring to Boko Haram). He then added that those (like us) who oppose his intention to send our troops to join ISMAT are “religious bigots” and challenged us to go and fight Boko Haram.
Buhari is making it seem like joining ISMAT to fight Islamic terrorists is just like Nigeria joining ECOMOG or any other military alliance to confront a collective threat. This is a very myopic and dangerous assumption. In the first place, Nigeria is not qualified for ISMAT membership. There is no data to prove that Muslims are the majority in Nigeria. Even if they are (which I seriously doubt) it does not automatically make Nigeria a “Muslim” country. Senegal, with over 90 per cent of their population being Muslims does not classify itself as a Muslim country. All member-states of ISMAT are Muslim countries. Secondly, they are of the Sunni tradition.
So, it is like forcing Nigeria to take sides in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants (such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against the UK when the former was still involved in its insurgency to force Britain to grant independence to Northern Ireland). When it comes to quarrels between foreign powers, Nigeria has a subsisting policy of non-alignment. Nigeria only joins peacekeeping operations under the auspices of the United Nations and its regional subsets such as the African Union and ECOWAS. Nigeria never joins or openly sides with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or their rivals, the Warsaw Pact. In fact, Nigeria’s neutrality and independence was forcefully asserted by the students’ uprising against the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact barely two months after independence in 1960.
I wonder what the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs exists for if not to advise adventurous presidents like Buhari to stay away from committing the country the way he wants to. Nigeria is not a Muslim country. The constitution makes it clear that Nigeria does not have any state religion. Regrettably, successive Muslim presidents find it difficult to respect this constitutional principle. Apart from General Ibrahim Babangida sneaking Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and Buhari taking us to ISMAT, you see things like the Islamic figurines in our national currency called ajami in Arabic. You also see the motto of the Nigerian Army written in Arabic and translated to our common lingua franca, the English language as “Victory Comes From God”.
Reverend Father Matthew Hassan Kukah in one of his books disclosed that our presidential villa (Aso Rock Villa) built by General Babangida, is a Muslim architecture – in a country that constitutionally does not have state religion! Are these taunts obviously meant to provoke the non-Muslim Nigerians or challenge them to do their worst? Yet, Buhari will come out and proclaim: “no one can Islamise Nigeria”. Beyond the constitutional issue, the danger of Buhari dragging us into ISMAT is that if care is not taken, Northern Nigeria will soon become a theatre of proxy wars between Shiite sects sponsored by Iran and their Sunni counterparts financed by Saudi Arabia and backed by Buhari’s Presidency.
If we allow Buhari to send a contingent of our troops to help the Saudis to fight their Iran-sponsored enemies in the Middle East, nothing stops Iran from financing and arming Muslim groups to destabilise Nigeria. Already, we do not know who is sponsoring these so-called “Fulani herdsmen” who have been waging wars against communities in the North Central and Southern parts of Nigeria without Buhari saying a word, let alone taking decisive steps to eliminate these people and protect our citizens as he swore an oath to do. Unfortunately, Nigerian students, who rallied nationwide and successfully stopped Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa from signing the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact with Britain seem to have lost their consciousness, if not their conscience.
The National Assembly must step in and stop Buhari before he lands us in something people never bargained for when they voted for him. Let us control his eagerness to make Nigeria a Saudi satellite state, or the Islamic kingdom’s area of military influence, with its attendant consequences for the survival of Nigeria as a single entity. Take this from me: if Buhari ignores our rejection of his move to take Nigeria into ISMAT, we will have more Islamic terror groups operating in pockets of enclaves all over the North as soon as Boko Haram dies down. By then, Buhari might even no longer be in Aso Rock to face the consequences of his unilateral action. Buhari MUST be stopped from taking Nigeria to ISMAT!
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Friday, March 11, 2016
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
TRUMP IS THUMPING THEM ALL, WHITE HOUSE WITHIN GRASP.
Icheoku says believe any other thing to your detriment but Americans are in unison in saying enough of establishment politics. The winning is piling up as DT wins 3 out of 4 - Mississippi, Michigan and Hawaii; Icheoku says congratulations and together lets make America great again.
For all those supposed world officials acting as meddlesome interlopers in this purely internal affairs of the United States of America, Icheoku says BUTT OUT. Who Americans chooses to be their president is their sole prerogative and not anybody's business. Americans do not tell these other countries of the world who to choose as their own leaders, so why must they now try to dip their filthy fingers in American pie. Vatican has its wall; Jericho had its great wall; China has its great wall and America will have its own great wall. Go Trump and let them talk till the cows come home, but the next president of America, the 45th, is going to be President Donald J. Trump.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
MITT ROMNEY FORCED TO SWALLOW HIS VOMIT, TRUMP'S PRODUCTS.
Icheoku says the best treatment to an envious and jealous hater is to force the licking up of a vomit. A case made worst when the hater deliberately misrepresented verifiable facts that could be so easily checked and ascertained to be true. But the MORMON of Boston, Mitt Romney, who in 2012 blew away a glaring opportunity to become president of the United States of America, went on national television to tell bare faced lie against Donald Trump out of spite. In his words of disparagement or attempt thereto since he did not succeed in slowing the movement, Mitt Romney said:-
“Wait wait wait. Isn’t he a huge business success? Doesn’t he know what he’s talking about?” No, he isn’t. And no, he doesn’t. Look, his bankruptcies have crushed small businesses. And the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business; he didn’t create it. And what ever happened to Trump airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine. And Trump Vodka. And Trump Steaks. And Trump Mortgage. A business genius he is not."
Icheoku says now that Donald Trump has put forward his rebuttal to Mitt Romney's baseless attempt to misstate facts, by explaining that he sold his airlines, that his university will rebound after his court case, displayed his steak, his water, his wines, his magazine etc, would the better Mitt Romney stand up and apologize to both Donald Trump and the American people as well as the entire world he tried to mislead and deceive about Donald Trump businesses. What a shameless, hateful, little, dishonorable man this Mitt is and Icheoku bets he will not be gracious enough to admit that he lied.