Monday, May 10, 2010
PRESIDENT JONATHAN GOODLUCK GET OBASANJO CLOSER, CONGRATULATIONS!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
PRESIDENT UMARU MUSA YAR'ADUA, THE FINAL EPILOGUE!
For the records, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was the first university-educated executive president of Nigeria since independence; discountenancing Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, Nigeria's first ceremonial president, a Lincoln USA University graduand? It is also instructive to note that late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was the fifth Nigeria President/Head of State to die in office;Tafawa Balewa was killed in a 1966 army putsch, Aguiyi Ironsi was killed in counter-coup of July 1966, Muritala Mohammed was killed in 1976 Buka Suka Dimka led coup attempt, the midget of Kano Sani Abacha was poisoned in 1998 and now President Umaru Yar'Adua; the only one to die of natural causes of Churg Strauss Syndrome, by kidney problems, heart problems and acute pericarditis which was accelerated by an overbearing wife's selfish power intoxication, which made her keep him away from his other family members, friends, government officials as well as the Nigerian people. Turai maintained this false imprisonment of the president for more than 150 days until the cold steely hands of death plucked him away from her, his family and the Nigerian people. President Umaru Yar'Adua was also the first and the only president of Nigeria to ever publicly declare his assets.
Hopefully, one of his most memorable remarks, "Our collective goal is to deliver for our children a Nigeria better, stronger, more peaceful, more secure and more prosperous than we met it," will now serve as his hopeful and enduring legacy which Icheoku hopes, shall be lived out in those succeeding him in office? The intention is commendable and its implementation, a laudable cause. President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua will be remembered by different people for so many different reasons:- to his wife, as a loving and caring husband; to his children, a doting father who rose to become president; to his people of Katsina State, a former governor and kinsman; to Islamic Sharia Northern Nigeria, a devout Islamic zealot who ushered in and laid the ground work for sharia laws in northern Nigeria; to his government officials, the get-along president that never barked out orders; and to the Nigerian people, an imposed president who earned the acronym, Mr. Go-Slow or Baba Slow for the very slow paced with which he approached governance. To Icheoku, we shall remember him as that collaborator who conspired or agreed to be used by Olusegun Obasanjo to effect the worst election outcome or 'selection' ever in Nigeria. The late president admitted this much after his swearing in when he opined that his election was flawed? We thought he would go a step further in calling for fresh elections, but he never did and his government was hounded by this credibility gap until he expired late Wednesday. Luckily death is a universal debt which every living thing owes and now, President Umaru Yar'Adua is debt-free. Icheoku wishes him glorious transition into eternity; and to his family, friends and Nigerians in general, the fortitude to bear the loss. May his Allah accept his soul in their paradise, adieu President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
THE PEOPLE OF NIGERIA vs. BABANGIDA, A 9 COUNTS CRIMINAL INDICTMENT?
Monday, May 3, 2010
NY TIMES SQUARE TERRORIST, GOT SO CLOSE BUT FOR PROVIDENCE?
Saturday, May 1, 2010
NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT IS VERY DANGEROUS, SAYS EL RUFAI?
Friday, April 30, 2010
THE SACK OF IWU, A CAPITULATION BY ACTING PRESIDENT JONATHAN?
Icheoku says, it is a cruel irony to hate the hen for laying eggs and yet, savoring such eggs? If one does not like something, let him/her please completely reject it and whatever it represents or brings to the table. But it does not make sense to hate something so much and still like some other thing about it or its product? It is akin to a stone-throwing protesting Middle-Eastern boy shouting "I hate America" and is wearing a Nike cap, a Jordan's tennis shoes, a Gap T-shirt and drinking Coca-Cola to quench his thirst? It is the same logic on its head wherein a woman is condemned for having adulterous affair while the married man she had it with is exonerated; and you ask yourself wherein was the consummation or completion of the illicit affair without a culpable party? The sacking of Professor Maurice Iwu is done and there is no amount of brooding that will make undone what is already done, so Nigeria's elections must move on without him. However, Icheoku rejects this cherry-picking of culpability and the scape-goating of only Maurice Iwu, in a motley crowd of election riggers and manipulators including Acting President Jonathan Goodluck who was installed a vice president on the orders of Olusegun Obasanjo to Maurice Iwu's INEC. Maurice Iwu was not the only participant in the election malpractice and fairness would have seen everyone who benefited from such election fraud suffer some consequence or reprimand for their roles, including Olusegun Obasanjo himself, the master-mind of the outcome and who was pulling the strings of puppet Iwu. Like earlier noted, Icheoku does not hold the brief of Iwu, but that justice would have been had in what was an apparent capitulation of Nigeria's Acting President Jonathan Goodluck to an over-bearing American influence. Hopefully this Washington's arm-twisting will end with this firing of Iwu; but Icheoku is afraid that as we reported earlier this year, the Obama administration is going full-stream and head-on to make the second coming of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida a fait-accompli. But that is where the cookie will crumble as Nigerians will resist such selfish imposition with all they got, including protests, riots, work-stoppages and demonstrations. Finally, the only good thing out of this Maurice Iwu's humiliating dismissal is that it sends a message to so many other would-be willing collaborators on how not to be shriveling servants of these brute politicians and army men who usually use and dump them after realising their objective. Professor Humphery Nwosu was similarly used by Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, but unlike Maurice Iwu, he produced a credible election result of MKO Abiola's June 12th, despite the dark-wish of Babangida for him not to carry through with the election and declare its results? This makes Professor Nwosu a more respectable election conductor within the Nigeria political forum. It is with a heart filled with sympathy that Icheoku renders its verdict on Professor Maurice Iwu, whose reputation has permanently been damaged as an election manipulator; and the man who facilitated the emergence of rogue elements, a sick president, a senate populated by 419 operators and pedophiles, a house full of fraudsters, illiterates and marauders and questionable human-beings occupying governorship offices and other elected offices in Nigeria. This is a cross he will have to carry for the rest of his natural life and which Icheoku does not begrudge or envy him about. As we anxiously wait for the 'messiah' who will finally deliver Nigeria's elections from itself, and hand to Nigerians a gift of a Ghana-type election; we pray that IBB does not or is not allowed to run in 2011; and if he runs, is not voted for; and if voted for, is not elected; and if elected, is not allowed to serve!