HEARTLESS: Listening to the
President speak during the last media chat I dare not say my President is
stupid. No, no, I dare not. The statement uttered that corruption is not the
number one problem of this nation can only come from a head that thinks nothing
but ogogoro. I have not seen corruption so pronounced in my years of existence
in this country than it is under this ‘transformation agenda”. How can just few
people that are employed by us, paid from our collective revenue tell us we are
not seeing what they are seeing?’ Ask the Coordinating minister of the Economy’
the President retorted; that is, talk to the Prime Minister, Ms Okonjo-Iweala.
The recent Oduahgate is long
expected when many of us did not deem it fit to talk about the shams that are
being done at the airport, especially Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA),
and we started praising Ms Oduah for her adroitness. Good work my foot. Billions
were quoted for the renovations but what do we have to show for it: Leaking
roofs, dark passage way to the tarmac, nauseating toilets, I know we all are
thanking God that finally our airports are getting the much desired facelift
that will make them to be regarded as world standard but in all we are much
scammed than served, I think, this time worse than in the past. Billions have
gone but our roofs are still leaking. They should have stuck to the earlier
claim that Madam is rich enough to buy the armored cars worth 225 million naira
from her personal purse, after weeks of noise from Nigerians, we would have
swallowed that better. I would not want to talk about the blood sucking vampire
in her because how can a reasonable person submit that these excusable air
crashes are God’s doing even when we all know that God does not do evil. I am
waiting to know the outcome of all the Administrative and Investigative Panels
set up to investigate an obvious case of scam that the blind-cum-imbecile could
even attest to. Anyway, it is typical of this government’s Transformation
Agenda for billions to get missing and not a single pulled off the perpetrators.
Oil Subsidy Scam is a current and will be a recurrent example. SURE-P is
another, I wonder how Baba Christopher Kolade allowed himself to be so used in
this regards. Baba!
They said we are not broke as a
nation but only having issues with Cash Flow. Madam Prime Minister, I don’t
get. Why do some people try as much as possible to present black as white?
Aunty, it is obvious we are in a mess as it has been obviously stated by the
Governor of Central Bank and Governors of some states as they said never have
their allocation been so delayed and deducted like under the present dispensation.
We have accusations and
counter-accusations. The economy is affected by about 400,000 barrels of oil
being stolen everyday by oil thieves. One would wonder if the NNPC and the almighty
Minister of Petroleum could give us an estimation of barrels of oil being
stolen, how come we do not even have an estimate of oil that is legally being
taken out of our wells to be refined in other countries. I have searched
records I have not found such account anywhere. Please, if anyone has it, I
will be glad to have a copy. I looked with so much anger as Ms Diezani fondled
herself in front of millions of Nigerians, dipping her arm inside of her blouse
and caressing herself during the Subsidy Regime Investigation Panel in the
National Assembly and I asked what happened to decency? Was she practically
telling the men or whoever on that panel ”let me go free and I service you
free”? That attitude could only come from a whore, and that kind of buttresses
the insinuations of the great services she renders to Mr President which makes
her untouchable.
Promises upon promises but this
government is never ready to deliver on anyone of them. Our universities have
practically been comatose for months due to the government irresponsibly
reneging on the agreement entered into by ASUU and the Federal Government in
2009. “LET YOUR YEA BE YEA IN ALL YOUR DEALINGS WITH ONE ANOTHER”, so says the
Bible and one would have believed that after a return from Israel the President
would have thought to act in line with the admonition of the Bible in dealing
with people. The President, rather than honour agreement, foot-dragged to the
point where a life was lost in the bid to finally resolve the crisis, a life
taken by a government vehicle, on a road neglected by the government. Professor
Iyayi, God bless his soul, paid the ultimate price.
TACTLESS: Governors have been deified, the G7 Governors
most especially. Take Amaechi for instance, he has become more popular than he
was before the President picked on him wanting to make him a scapegoat but like
the story of the donkey that fell into the well and refused to die shaking off
the pieces of earth meant to bury him and turning such to make steps that
brought him out of the well. Such is the case of Amaechi. He has used the media
so well making him to be seen and read by all and sundry even in the remotest
parts of the country and the world at large. I wonder what the aides of the
President do. Any student of politics will know that sometimes in politics you
court the friendship of your purported enemies in order to drown their
popularity. Obasanjo Vs Tinubu and Obansanjo Vs Osoba should be case studies
for them. I am using recent events so that the President’s aides will see
themselves for the inept clowns they are. In the former, Obasanjo refused to
give Tinubu, an opposition Governor, the allocation due to Lagos state on the
premise that Lagos state created more local governments than enshrined in the
constitution, the intention was to muscle and starve Lagos state of her
allocation believing the state will not be able to perform well enough to be
credible enough to win the next election so that the almighty PDP will take
over the state. Tinubu being a tactful politician sourced funds internally and
he left a mark that stands him out, such that even till today Lagos state has
become a model for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) that other states in the
country look up to, inadvertently making Tinubu a godfather. Rather than Tinubu
going into oblivion, Obasanjo’s muscle made him to realize his potentials to go
beyond the ordinary. Today, Bola is a political superhero, take it or leave it.
On the other hand, during the
2003 Gubernatorial Election, Ogun state, the homestate of Obasanjo needed to be
“captured” by all means to give the sitting President, Obasanjo, the credit of
delivering his state to his party. Obasanjo devised what I call “eat from the
same pot but poison the enemy” tactics. He went to Ogun state on the day of the
election, invited his brother, Osoba, to his home, they ate, chatted and played
the game of draft while the election was ongoing. That is, Obasanjo courted
Osoba’s friendship and doused his vigour on the day of the election so that he
won’t be able to make any last minute moves he might have had up his sleeves.
These current President’s aides
are not even trying to rescue their boss’ image from the pit of incompetence
where it is currently wallowing. They are making him look so incapable of
playing the politics that is expected of him. The years of “wet e” politics are
long passed. What is happening in Rivers state is just making Amaechi more
prominent because he is not coming back for a re-election so he has nothing to
lose in a way but it would have been a plus for the President if he has one
more friend in Amaechi. Muscle does not beget friendship especially when you
are playing this game called POLITIK.
Ms Okonjo-Iweala, when she came during
Obasanjo’s government, helped in negotiating many deals that took us out of our
deficit quagmire, but lately I do not think this Madame Prime Minister is doing
what is right. She is the only one seeing that the economy is good even when her
brother in CBN is saying otherwise. Kudos should be given to Obasanjo, though
he is a man fraught with faults, he
should however be commended for standing his ground by not allowing anyone to
come with CVs to intimidate him and today it is obvious that he himself did
some brain work , I think more because he had shoes when he was in the military
so nothing must have entered into his system to have gone to affect his
thinking to believe that once you have a CV that reads IMF, AFDB, and some
numerate skills that do not translate to obvious developments and growth of the
common man, then you should be taken as the almighty even when you yourself
claimed to have a PhD.
I will urge the President’s aides
to let him know that one does not cut a red tape at the foundation laying of a
house, but until such a building is completed; one does not talk from both
sides of the mouth, such will betray one’s mental acumen when as a sitting President
you respond “I don’t give a damn” on national television to an issue bordering
on national malaise. They need to arrange his schedule to allow him do some
reading and get him books on topical issues bothering on nation building
because it is demeaning for the office of the President to refer questions on
job creation and national growth to a private individual. “Dangote has said he
will help us….”
Please let the President do more
brainwork that will translate to national development so that he can salvage
his present sorry records. The world is
a civil place where election and re-election is based on records and
achievements respectively. And I must confess that people are wiser and will
not fall for I HAD NO SHOES the second time.
ADEBAYO COKER
So, here I am again confused as to what to write about, not
as much what to write about, but what to write about it – I want to write about
the future of those of us Nigerians forty years and below- should I join the others and continue to wail
and rail against the our present sad situation, or should I, like an eternal
optimist that I am, choose to tell people that things are improving and they
will continue to improve even when I know in reality we are moving at the pace
of a faulty unicycle, when we really need to move with the speed of Virgin’s
Booms. Let me make this very clear, I am not laying claim to superior
knowledge, but I can boldly say it without any qualms that the youths are
definitely not ready for the change we all crave.
Societies grow when there are systems and structures which
allow ideas to thrive, multiply, and morph into tangible development.
Structures such as economic, education, healthcare, judicial, and so on. Those
structures exist around here but only in a state of flummox. We have schools
but not education; we have hospitals but no healthcare, we have a government
structure but no economic development or judicial confidence. I fervently hope
the youths realise that most of those who make up the political elite will not
be here in fifty years, but most of us under the age of forty today will be
here with our children, our grandchildren and possibly grandchildren. What kind
of country will we have by then? One where the majority are uneducated, and
sick, and uncouth, and unable to contribute meaningfully to the economy.
