President Jonathan is a leadership disaster, surely he will preside over the total disintegration of the Nigerian nation. Watch out!

Prophet Meshullam Teshuwah Gaddiel

08134588642

The Federal Government and President Jonathan are fooling themselves; they do not understand Islam and what Boko Haram is fighting for. Jonathan had allowed Northern political and religious leaders to fool him. The only ground on which international Jihadist organisations backed Boko Haram can accept dialogue or amnesty is if 12 states of the Nigerian nation are given to them to control religiously and politically. Outside, FG is living in fools’ paradise. However, Jonathan is ready to mortgage this country for 2015, which no power on earth will make him win.

Prophet Meshullam U.T. Gaddiel

08134588642

Oga, please, help me beg MEND in the name of JESUS CHRIST not to bomb any Mosque, any Islamic gathering and  not to harass any Muslim anywhere in the nation for any reason.

Solomon U.C. Okezie. 08032634142

I now know that you are a true Catholic and not even a Christian. 08032634142

Re: Amnesty-for-all

My dear Steve Nwosu, I doff my hat for you Pastor Igwe, Femi Adesina and Mike Awoyinfa. May God continue to guide you in your undertaking. Please, tell Mr. President Jonathan to recall all the soldiers dismissed on minor or serious offences and pay them their entitlement to date, most of them were dismissed because they had no godfather in the Army. Please, I am ready to substantiate my request. 08074055411

Nwosu! I doff my cap for you. You have just said it the way they are. But I will first beg your late uncle to forgive you for rejecting to be a commissioner in your state. Yes, we should extend the amnesty to Oby Ezekwesili for telling us how much we have squandered, pardon RIBADU for heading a task force against  our dear holy NNPC, forgive Aig-Imokhuede for attempting to take over Capital Oil and Gas, amnesty to those criminals that attacked you last year, forget that somebody promised us fresh air, that he will not contest 2015 election. In fact, create minister of Boko Haram; crime pays.

Mazi Ogbonna, Abuja. 08069165559

Thanks once again. God bless and protect you as you continue to shed light on nothing but the truth. 08066253108

Thank you so much; you made my yesterday with your frank talk “amnesty as dividend of democracy.” 08098987877

Let amnesty be extended to pensioners, especially at the state and local government levels, to reduce the spate of mortality in their ranks. Most pensioners’ crime is simply that they chose to serve the fatherland in the wrong places that did not give them access to the public till. Grant them amnesty, pay them their entitlements and warn them never to allow their children commit the same crime.

From Wilfred Segun-Dare,

Ekinri-Adde Kogi State

08053645787

Bros. FRANK, thank you very much for that beautiful write up on amnesty as dividend of democracy but it seems to me that you forgot to remind the government of the need to free all those in the prisons and also beg them for wrong imprisonment. The victims of all those you mentioned must wake up from their graves and be tried for the calamity they caused the land-standing on harm’s way.

•Mr. Ani Dickson, Warri Nigeria.

08052802882

Frank, your frank talk of today is something else. When they use the word corruption, I dey laugh. It is no longer corruption/crime, it is now WICKEDNESS in both HIGH and LOW places, Boko Haram inclusive. The fulfillment of second term and even third term. Weep not my brother, reserve it for Chinua Achebe’s burial. The centre can never ever hold.

Mazi Kanu Moore. 08158635963

Grant them state pardon too, Steve, my dear. Considering the number of people killed and the copious amount of blood shed, I strongly add state pardon. The government should do anything within its capability to end this madness. Look at the situation very critically, the armed forces, due to the strategy of Boko Haram, may not easily win this ugly war. Absence of identifiable war front and mercy of the civilian population are the factors that can make the fighting very hard. Many notable Northerners have felt that amnesty can do the magic or the madness would go on. Let there be amnesty so that the Northern economy can be spared from further damage and education spared from further ruin. 0803674573

In fact, I’m addicted to your write up. You know what my prayer is, that God will continue to give you more revelations. I wish you well. God bless you, my brother.

Albert, from Oshodi. 08102767867

Steve, I love your article today as always. All Nigerians need amnesty from abject poverty in the land, poverty created by our leaders. It’s a shame that until Niger Delta militancy, no leader deemed it right to provide education, employment, light, etc., which is their right as citizens and so be it for all other Nigerians too!

Engr. Abdu Usman Misau, Bauchi, Nigeria. 08036185864

In fact, what worries me is that the innocent citizens are always left out of the amnesty programme. I agree with you amnesty should be given to everybody, let’s all Nigerians start afresh.

Engr. Enn. Anolue, Aguata

Aguluezechukwu. 08037114167

Steve, your frank talk of today was superb and I join you to appeal to Boko Haram people to grant us amnesty because they started the war and so, should pardon us for their war on us. I don’t agree that pardon should be granted to everybody, including the sect and its sponsors.

Emma Irem

Asst. Sec NUJ Ebonyi council

08052800483

Thank you, sir; this is the crux of the whole trouble! Our politicians have started a fire they cannot put out and there’s no hiding place for all of us!

Remain blessed…

Idris Yusuf. 08055813111

Steve Nwosu or whatever you call yourself. Did Niger Delta people commit any crime, are you in support of Boko Haram or what? Your write up on Amnesty as dividend of democracy is nonsense and unfair to Christians. 08180479927

Steve, your picture of JONATHAN is wrong. Do you think he is laughing over this issue? (Amnesty write up). 08036690177

Hello Steve, your column today on Amnesty was very refreshing. Thanks for making my day. 08033010251

A good piece. Your piece titled “AMNESTY AS DIVIDEND OF DEMOCRACY” was a good outing. Keep writing.

Achonwa Ugochukwu. 080383895431

Steve, I strongly agree with you. Let’s grant amnesty to every Nigerian. Even those that are presently in prison should be released and granted amnesty. This is the only way dividend of democracy will reach all and sundry. If we fail to do so, the money we pretend to be saving may end up in private purses.

(Agbaka Fidelis)

Owerri

08034104215

Steve, your piece on Amnesty as dividend of democracy was exceptional. I wouldn’t ‘ve expected anything more. It’s simply a sermon in Daily Sun.

Bar. S.U. Anyia, Ekwulobia.

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Sir, the latent craze in Nigeria is how to take up arms against Nigerians government that is the shortest means of making it big via amnesty. I’m aware of some group of university students that dropped their education and are about to form a militant group. White collar job is no longer fashionable. If am telling lies, please, ask High Chief Gani Adams or our high tempo Chief Asari Dokunbo. Who says criminality does not pay? It pays in my country. If you think it is a lie, try being virtuous, you will die like Tai Solarin. My only advice to all aspiring militants is that there should be fast about it before Jonathan’s government runs out of money for settling militants. In truth, we all need amnesty let it be way of sharing the national cake. After all, the money belong to all of us.

Obiora Nelius Agbai. 08165842194

Thank you very much, Mr. Steve, for saying it loud.

08060037078

My good brother, Steve, I am sincerely impressed  with your write-up. “Amnesty as dividend of democracy” in today’s Daily Sun. Keep it up. God bless you.

Chief Isiocha, Enugu. 08050780636

Wonders shall never end in this jet age, only the Nigerian govt always talks about ‘problem maintenance and not fixing it permanently.

Manifestoes still from ‘I will build good roads; give pipe-borne water; steady power; empower the youths, to giving “free” education and medical care. Amnesty is now the real dividend of democracy and state-sponsored oversea health trips for the OGAS’ and their relatives at the TOP.

Dr. Jukari Kalu

0808136116184

Steve, one day you will kill me with this your frank talk.

Ngene I.

Gboko, Benue State

08063628513

Stevo, what a frank talk. Amnesty is the only dividend of democracy. Only GOD knows the next group that will take up arms against the state because of amnesty. In fact, I’m an ex-militant. I need govt to send me abroad to learn something good to fend for myself.

From your fan, Mohd., Lagos

0805293479

Hi Steve, someone offended me and I got angry but reading your Frank Talk on amnesty has brightened me today. More grease to your elbows.

Igwe M.E.

From Oteyi Abulado.

08033085535

Just finished going through a wonderful, carefully prepared piece of yours to serve the reading community. It is horrifying we found ourselves in these messy circumstances duly articulated and carried out by few unpatriotic and probably their foreign cohorts. Of what benefits is amnesty when they have vehemently refused abandoning these ruthless killings? Innocent  Nwobodo, Lagos. 08091986434

Your piece is a beautiful satire. Your lily-livered leader will soon ruin this nation.

08060803688

Nwosu, no matter what you get from them; just keep quiet. This matter is above you.

08069611761

Frankly Frank Nigeria is hastily moving to disintegration if Goodluck grants amnesty to these Boko Haram people, there will be no leadership in Nigeria after that.. Ndigbo be on the alert, Mgbe ha chere na udo di, nnukwu ila n’iyi na onwu ga adi. Dalu.

From Arinze Nze

08062281491

Amnesty as dividend of democracy: Methinks your article is a masterpiece; yes we all deserve amnesty. Oscar,  From Mmiat Anam. 08173501923

I just finished reading your thought provoking article. I agree with you. It will amount to injustice if Boko Haram is granted amnesty and it is not extended to all ex-convicts,  Awaiting Trial Inmates, convicts, prisoners and those under investigation. Afterall, their offences are very far less than BH’s atrocities against humanity. Let us begin afresh. Uncommon sense tells me this amnesty seed shall grow to a mighty Iroko tree that will one day fall and crush this make shift fabrication called Nigeria. Egbemode, Adesina and you should keep it up. May your pen never dry.

Amos Ogbu, Ifo, Ogun State.

08179563696

Dear Steve, too bad you did not include the secessionist Biafrans in the amnesty deal; that they may be paid with a sovereign state.

Secondly, President Jonathan should create a new ministry to oversee all these, it shall be called ‘Ministry of Amnesty’. And let our Coat of Arms bear ‘Amnesty for All’ as our motto. Steve, you are yourself the ‘Sun’… be gold!

Malik, Enugu. 08033886964

You have actually hit the nail on the head. I am suggesting that the track where Eedris sang ‘everything scatter, scatter, Nigeria scatter’ should replace our National Anthem.

(Uzomba Kanu J. Calabar). 07051926518

And our President must convert to Islam so that he becomes the spiritual leader of our new Islamic republic of Nigeria and every one will now go to sleep with our two eyes closed like Pakistan, Egypt, Syria. Annonymous

In fact, a reader brought this to my attention penultimate week while responding to an earlier article of mine. According to him, if the presidency spent a quarter of the time and energy devoted to fighting Rotimi Amaechi, for instance, we would be having uninterrupted power supply by now. And I’d add; we’d probably have found a way of taming Boko Haram, instead of the current approach of going to beg them, with our tails tucked between our hind legs.

Of course, that is not saying that we should not beg Boko Haram o! In fact, if possible, we can add a few cabinet positions to the basket of goodies we are bringing to the begging (sorry, negotiation) table. I would even suggest that we add the still vacant Defence Minister portfolio. Because they can manufacture more bombs than our entire defence budget can import in one year. Of course, we already know that they outgun the police with ease and match the JTF bullet for bullet, rifle for rifle. We can also add the Petroleum Ministry, everyone seems to be scared to death about how powerful Diezani Allision would become with the PIB under her belt (sorry, under her wrapper). They forget that the woman is only eager to clear the rot in an industry she knows inside-out, even as she herself is aware that she will not be petroleum minister for ever and that in a few year’s time, she would leave the ministry and all the ministerial powers we so dread today would revert to someone else – who could even be from one of the frontier states. It even makes a lot of sense, since the seat of Boko Haram power appears to be in some of the frontier states. If there is still space in the FG’s Begging Basket, we can also throw in former Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim whose blood the Islamist sect seems to particularly thirst for. We could apply to UK government to extradite him back home (even when we refused to honour the request of Queen Elizabeth’s country to send Alamieyeseigha back to the UK) so we can offer him as a sacrificial lamb at the altar of Boko Haram. At least, with that, they could stop further defilement of Jigawa which had until last Sunday remained one of the few havens of peace in the far North.

But I will resist every temptation, this week, to get carried away with Boko Haram issues, so that I don’t end up narrowing myself to what I regard as just one of the many symptoms of the main malaise troubling this country: the Emperor Nero Syndrome. It is a disease made popular by that infamous emperor of the old Roman Empire who fiddled away while Rome burnt.

While the 4500 mega watts our country of over 160 million people  so shamelessly celebrated a few months back is going down, our ruling party is spending all of the four years they extorted from us at gunpoint sacking, reconstituting and plotting sack its NEC and NWC. And as if that was not enough distraction, they have put it on national agenda. I can’t now vouch it is not a major agenda at the weekly FEC meeting. Because there now seems to be a co-relation between this distraction and the way and manner the Justice ministry, the Aviation ministry, those of Police Affairs, Niger Delta Affairs and lately too, the Internal Affairs and Defence do their job. It just reminds one of the Abacha/Diya/Al-Mustapha and the ‘masterminder’ theory.

Yes, while unemployment is at an all-time high, we are busy grounding planes, plotting impeachments, unsettling state assemblies and party excos, fiddling with Nigerian Governors’ Forum, setting up an army of presidential attack dogs and leaving them to their own ‘fertile’ imagination – to create real and imagined enemies of the president and then go ahead to draw tax payers’ money to fight such contrived enemies and prosecute the wars that exist only in their imagination. The painful part is that after a short while of hammering on this falsehood, the president and the rest of us are soon begin to believe them, having now been held hostage to this evil conjecture. We busy ourselves and devote a lot of public space debating contraptions. Fully distracted from the real issues.

Yes, while Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed robbers, pension and subsidy robber kindred spirits and hired killers who move about in the guise of bus, trailer and lorry drivers (ask FRSC’s Osita Chidoka, if you doubt me) unleash tears, blood and sorrow on the populace, our government of the day is busy shadow-boxing around the resolve to probe Obasanjo’s eight-year rule. Luckily the old fox is a master of the game. He knows he’s the target and has openly come out and dared them to go ahead. He knows there are not enough balls in Aso Rock to try it. He is a wise old man who knows that for every accusing finger pointed at Obasanjo, the other four fingers are pointing back at the Villa. So, like OBJ, I dare them to probe.

Of course, it is not as though it’s only PDP leaders who are guilty of this. Many of the opposition party-ies-controlled states are not doing any better. Each governor, in the guise of creating jobs, is setting up his own army of thugs, ballot box snatchers, internet hackers  and all manner of  ‘volunteer’ forces ahead the next guber polls and 2015 presidential election. Many of these machineries are test-run with the local government elections. Posters (and in some cases, buildings) of prospective opponents are been pulled down left right and centre. People are bagging 45 years jail term for stealing governors’ phones and others are been murdered for daring to decamp to other parties, while others are been impeached for nursing ambition to contest for higher offices in 2015. In some other cases,the  opposition kill, kidnap people and hang the murder on PDP. The mess is everywhere.  It is just that with more than two thirds of our 36 states in the grip of PDP (and with their threat to extend the control to 30 in 2015) much of our future, or the lack of it, is tied to their decisions and indecisions.

And while they are busy at their distractions, erosion had never, for one day, given the South East any breathing space. It keeps swallowing up more and more land. The desert is eating up the whole of our northern frontiers. Polio is making a comeback. Malaria still kills like it did in the days of Mungo Park. The roads are still largely as bad as they have always been. Yes, there are a few bright spots in Agriculture, a lot of cleaning of mess in aviation, supervision of the economy, steady work on the controversial East-West Road, due process and all that, but how many non-civil service job does that create? How does this textbook fall in inflation and 7% growth rate translate to food on the table? The real job-creating sectors of the economy are still chocking out of breath. Meanwhile, FEC is awarding contract after contract every Wednesday. Everyone is very busy in all the government and state houses. So, what are they really doing? Fiddling like Nero? Or chasing rats, like the proverbial madman whose house is on fire? But like I said from the beginning, our leaders are no madmen, Wallahi! It is just that there is a new epidemic in the land. It is called the Emperor Nero Syndrome. And if it has taken us this many years to battle polio without success, only God knows for how long we would have to suffer this new disease.

My only consolation is that everything the rest of us outside the presidency say on all these happenings is bunkum. All 160 million of us, including the members of the House of Representatives, are too daft to see that this is not about 2015 PDP presidential ticket. That is why only the wise ones amongst us are in the Presidency.

But I just wonder; if they eventually allocate the PDP ticket, would we also be free to vote for a presidential candidate on another platform? Do we still have the final say, as the electorate?

But that one-liner has served me well over the years. Yes, crime pays, it only depends on what side of the coin one is looking at. Take for instance what has happened in the country since the dawn of democracy in 1999. It would appear the first persons in the line of beneficiaries of the dividends of democracy were those who, over the years, had invested in one crime or the other. First, it was former senior public officers (Perm. Secs, Directors, ex-this and ex-that) who had helped themselves, while providing the bureaucratic and technocratic back-up for the military regimes as they plundered the public till, that had any reasonable financial war-chest to fund campaigns and contest election.

And when they got into the fray, they recruited all manner of roughnecks who they paid handsomely to unleash their boys on opponents, help snatch ballot boxes where necessary and, when the need arises, to thumb-print on ballot papers procured ahead of actual polling.  Of course, the boys got paid well – at least, enough to ensure a steady supply of weed and spirits. In so many instances, some of the boys even got to be picked to run various local government councils – either as councilors or even chairman outright.

Several others found their way into the state house of assembly or even the national assembly, where they could fix their own remunerations at whatever figure they so desired and pass it into law. Those who could not find accommodation within the new governments were left to fend for themselves with arms and ammunition procured for them to prosecute the election. For these ones, robbery, kidnapping and pipeline vandalisation became the more preferred vocation. It would later be taken to another level in the Niger Delta, where the miscreants soon joined the agitation of the rights activists.

The rest, as they say, is history. They were granted amnesty, pampered, spoiled, lavished with government contracts and appointments, given outright cash, sent abroad, placed on monthly salaries. In short, crime, again, paid off. Suddenly, people who should be in jail became the first-line beneficiaries of government patronage. They are really, the first to enjoy the dividends of democracy. But everybody agreed it was not too much of a price to pay for peace. I too agree.

And because we treated the Niger Deltans (by the way, my Imo State is also a beneficiary), so lavishly, cynics now allege that the North has managed to concoct its own militants as well. The argument is: If they do not get derivation or generous IGR or any mineral deposit that is of any interest presently to the federal government, they could at least bargain with Boko Haram. Of course I consider that a wicked assessment of the situation.

But, considering that we have lost more Nigerians in this Boko Haram insurgence of the last couple of years than we lost in decades of agitation in the Niger Delta, I think it may not be a bad idea to pay an even higher price for peace than we paid in the Niger Delta amnesty programme. We are desperate for peace. But let’s not forget; there can be no peace without justice. That is where the CAN point comes into play.

But then, my question to CAN is: if we oppose amnesty for Boko Haram, on the ground that we’d be forgetting the fate of their victims, would it be better we stick to our guns and allow Boko Haram continue with the bloodletting? If we take care of the Christian victims and their families, what happens then to the Muslim victims? And the other victims who do not fall into any of the two categories? And if we don’t spend the money on amnesty and let it trickle down to the masses (whose poverty and unemployment have served to feed Boko Haram with a ceaseless supply of suicide bombers, what is the guarantee that the money would not be stolen by those in Abuja? Or their brothers in the state capitals? Or their distant cousins in the local government headquarters?

What is the guarantee that their ever will be any dividend of democracy to these bottom-of-the-ladder Nigerians in this our might-is-right polity? Is it not because it is now clear that government discusses with only those who have a proven propensity to commit crime and hold the state to ransom that every unemployed youth (and even elders) in the Niger Delta is claiming to be an ex-militant who is entitled to government largess?  Is that not why some people from one particular ethnic group in Delta State are now turning round to say they should be incorporated into the amnesty programme because they too surrendered guns. Even when they made it clear back then that they were no militants but were surrendering guns they used for self-defence and inter-tribal wars.

For me, therefore, I think we should just grant this amnesty across board – to every Nigerian. Let us grant it to the Itsekiri youths, to the Akwa Ibom youth who recently carried placard to Abuja, to the 5,000 Abia youths who recently petitioned the national assembly claiming to be ex-criminals who want to turn a new leaf. To journalists (including those four from Leadership newspaper) whom the government continue to brand unpatriotic, to the cult boys in our various campuses, to all former and serving governors whom EFCC and ICPC and Code of Conduct Bureau are hounding all over the place, to the serving governors like Amaechi, Lamido, Babangida Aliyu and all the others accused of terrorizing Jonathan (let’s forget about tracking down the people behind the posters that emerge overnight), to Akpabio, Shema, Suswam and all the others accused of terrorizing fellow governors on behalf of Jonathan. We should also grant amnesty to Bamanga Tukur and his state governor, so we can stop this over-heating of the polity with talk of removal or no removal. Amnesty should also go to Oyinlola, Segun Oni and the people who kidnapped Okonjo-Iweala’s mum. Bode George is also deserving of the amnesty (or is it pardon) granted Alamieyeseigha.

In short, let’s grant amnesty to everybody, because we have all sinned and fallen short of the vision of our founding fathers. We can then make a new beginning. We can even extend the amnesty to the pension fund thieves, to pipeline vandals, to the ministers who stole generating sets, to the IGPs who looted the police blind, to the police over extra-judicial killings, to the subsidy cabal and the rest of them. We could forget that Otedola ever released any tape. Let us pretend that we are not suspecting any lawmaker of tucking dollars into his Shagari cap. As my people would say, let’s just take whatever stung us in the darkness of night to be mosquito, and not dig any further. Let us grant everyone amnesty and make a fresh start.

My only problem is with the Boko Haram people who do not want to accept the amnesty deal. They insist they are the ones who should be granting the rest of us amnesty. Even that is acceptable with me. Let Boko Haram grant us their own amnesty. Let us tell them that we are sorry. Let the married men amongst us look at it as a wife/husband situation; you still have to apologise even when it is clear that you are the wronged party.

So, my plea to the Boko Haram leaders is: dear jihadists, if you would not accept our offer of amnesty (on the ground that it is you who should be granting us the amnesty), could you then, please, grant us your own amnesty. We are ready to accept. Since you are the maker, giver and detonator of bombs and other IEDs, please, could just agree to stop and give us your conditions.

We are sorry for trying to defend ourselves from your bombs and bullets and knives. We know we have offended you by failing to view Islam strictly from your own perspective. We are sorry for reading the wrong Quran and Hadiths. We are sorry for refusing to turn Nigeria into an Islamic society and suspending the 1999 Constitution for a Sharia regime. But since the deed has already been done, and it is too late in the day to begin to retrace our steps, could you please, show us some magnanimity by granting us amnesty from the wrath of your angered commander – for we are helpless. Every effort to stop you by force has unleashed more death on our hapless citizenry. Yes, the same citizens we claim to want to protect from your ubiquitous executioners.

It usually works like this: After you have slaughtered some of the citizens in an attack, we, in the guise of coming to smoke you out from the place, end up killing more innocent citizens – because your messengers of death would have quietly vanished into thin air before our JTF people get there. And since the task force must have evidence to prove that they are ‘on top of the situation’, they open fire on anybody they sight there. Yes, we chop off the head in order to cure ourselves of a headache. Just consider it as our own dividend of democracy from you and grant us amnesty.

Yours sincerely

The frank talker

I am sure, by now, nobody is still in doubt whether or not crime pays.

It lays bare the inherent fraud in many of the mega-budgets that are annually thrust at our faces at virtually all the tiers of government. While not underrating the contributions of the governors of such states as Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Ondo ,who have done impressively with big budgets, today’s piece is essentially a tribute to the governors of such small-budget states as Ekiti, Jigawa, Enugu, Anambra and, of course, Katsina, who continue to literally squeeze water out of stone.

Yes, oil money can make a world of difference but there is a mighty lot leaders can still accomplish without 13 per cent derivation. A certain Ibrahim Shehu Shema, literally and figuratively, is running rings around Katsina. If you take this to mean that, in a state, bursting at the seams with national heavy weights and political sharks, a certain ‘boy’ from Dustin-ma has not only held his own, but has held everyone spellbound and, in the process, inextricable etched his name on virtually every good thing that has to be said of modern Katsina State, may God help you.

Similarly, if you take the running of ring, to mean the tens of kilometres long six-lane Ring Road the Shema administration has just completed round the state capital, you may not also be far from the truth. But that is only one tiny aspect of the bigger picture. However, it does not remove from the fact that this singular road project, as hugely futuristic as it is, has in the present, opened up the state capital for present and future expansion. Or that it has made getting around and out of the state a lot easier and pleasurable. Or that it has seen otherwise poor farmers turn millionaires and prime landowners over night.

Yes! Plots of land on either side of new road, which, by the way, is complete with electricity, pipe borne water and boreholes at every two kilometres, have, in some places, jumped from a meager N30,000 per plot to as high as N7 million and N10 million in eight months. Even as other governors marvel at the foresight and sheer grandiose of this road project, Shema dismisses it with a wave of the hand, saying: “Anybody can build ‘ordinary’ road”; he forgets that this is no ‘ordinary road’.

But then, the question you ask is: If anybody can build ordinary road, why has it taken only the last six or so years of Katsina’s over 25 years of existence for such roads to begin to emerge? Was the state sleeping before now? But again, Shema is quick to remind you that he is only taking to the next level, what was conceptualised by his predecessor in office, the now late former president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. But that is not where the story of this book began. For me, the story of this book began from when I was contacted to write the foreword. Now, journalists, by nature, are usually cynical.

The true journalist, therefore, is likely to be that person, who never takes anything at its face value. The one, who looks beyond the veneer, probes deeper and is critical of almost everything. He is even more critical of politicians. For me, therefore, it was almost unbelievable that journalists would, on their own, decide to write so glowingly of a public officer – much less a politician, in the way that the NUJ in Katsina have approached the central subject of this book, who happens to be the incumbent governor of the state.

So, not wanting to be unwittingly drawn into any image laundering business by professional colleagues, my first reaction was to turn it down. Unfortunately, another hard-to-impress colleague on whom I had bounced the idea, believing he would re-enforce my decision, gave a most shocking comment; that Shema is one of only two shinning lights among all seven governors of the North West Zone.

I called for the manuscript. But the cynical journalist in me still won’t give in, even as I convinced myself that this was developmental journalism, which is genuinely lacking in our clime and that I could sincerely consider it my humble contribution to national development. After going through the manuscript and all the nice things my colleagues have said about Shema, I became even more suspicious. In over 20 years of practice, I have seen outright garbage packaged and veneered in great exterior. I have watched with disbelief as a politician told blatant lies, with his palm firmly on the Quran in front of him.

I have seen men kiss the Bible and tell lies that even the devil would cringe at. I have seen governors take photographs of roads in other places and advertise them in newspapers as their own completed projects! I have seen otherwise respected journalists, on the payroll of politicians (governors in particular), look the rest of us in the face and tell us white is black without bating an eyelid. As an editor, I have long known the pranks correspondents in the states sometimes get up to. So, seeing the unison with which those in Katsina gushed about the “good works” of Shema in the manuscript, before me, I naturally became even more curious. I then gave another condition: I needed to make a return visit to Katsina State.

In the last 10 or so years, I have tangentially driven past Katsina, at least, twice every year, but never really visited. Although I was only familiar with the border post at Jibia, I always thought of Katsina as another of those glorified village states of the North where every important person was either domiciled in Kaduna or Abuja. I was mistaken – or rather, I was behind time. Katsina has transformed. Six years has made all the difference. But to make sure one was not giving Shema credit for other people’s efforts, I made it a point of duty to stop intermittently to ask the people: When did this project A or B come into being?

The answers were the same everywhere: “A few months ago “, “one year”, last year”, “two years ago” “2008”,”2010” and so on. The new beginning seems to have started just a little before 2007. Aptly, therefore, this book, which is a study in dogged human, infrastructural, educational and economic development models is partially a study of the Shema phenomenon and his uncommon approach to the development of a state that is not among the richest in the country but has been lifted to rank among the best developing and the most efficient.

Because Shema believes every idiot can build roads (which several of his colleagues are gloating about in the media), he has shifted his attention to more enduring legacies and areas of development. No wonder then that his total agenda for the state has reduced to just three areas: 1. Education 2. Education 3. Education In this book, therefore, Katsina-based journalists attempt to capture how this agenda is translated in the different sectors of government. They spice it up with interviews of key players in the related fields.

They look at the key sectors of education, infrastructure, human development, agriculture, youth development and empowerment, amongst others. They capture the Youth Craft Centre, the refurbished and rebuilt primary schools, the model secondary schools, the tertiary education corridor on the Katsina – Kankia Road, etc. As you read, however, you are likely going to be so carried away by the sheer magnitude of the Shema revolution that you could fail to notice the economics of it, which is the very essence of the emerging Shemanomics.

It is a principle that enables Katsina accomplish both modest and big projects without recourse to big budgets. It explains why, with a combined monthly federal allocation and internally generated revenue earning of sometimes less than N5 billion, Katsina can accomplish landmark achievements without recourse to borrowing. Yes, a couple of other state governors may also claim that they too are not borrowing or owing, but that would be missing the Katsina edge.

In Katsina, Gov. Shema never started any project without the 100per cent money needed for it at hand. After the contractor is paid his mobilisation, the rest of the money (to be paid on completion) is put in a fixed deposit for the state. That way, no contractor is owed after completing his work, since the money is not tampered with. But that’s not all. In three years, interests accruing to such deposits came to an unbelievable N8 billion. It is with this seeming bonus that Shema bought land and has put up a Governor’s lodge for the state in Abuja.

It is also from it that he is finally building a new government House, which the elders and leaders of the state have long been yearning for, and he still manages to run free education, model health infrastructure, empowerment, educational infrastructure and all. This book captures all these in appreciable details. Of course I have resisted the temptation to edit the manuscript. I have refused to tighten the language in one or two places where I felt it was watery. It is intentional: to let the reader feel the passion of the writers/reporters – their raw views.

That was how the Tutuolas of this world (Palmwine Drinkard) got global acclaim. Sometimes, it’s better to serve the feelings and views as raw and unpolished as they come – even if the writer transliterated his mother tongue and imposed it on English language. It usually makes better reading because editing can sometimes take away the soul of written work. What the Katsina-based journalists have done without probably knowing it is that they have thrown up a national challenge: The fact that Nigeria has a lot to learn from the Shema model.

If it is projected on a national scale, would it not sound the death knell for big budget governments? Especially the big budgets that are low on deliverables but end up accumulating debts for generations unborn? I see this compilation as the first part of a study series on how society can be transformed to achieve its full potential through visionary leadership and financial discipline.

My only grouse with it is that I did not see too much of Katsina’s usually vibrant opposition voices. But then, I immediately forgave the authors because this is not really about politics; it is about development. From: Gov. Shema and the Transformation of Katsina State

It is hard to believe that the Achebe of whom we now speak so glowingly was the same man on whom, just a few weeks ago, we unleashed a lynch mob of pseudo intellectuals and ethnic jingoists who did everything they could to destroy everything that he stood for. But for the fact that the man had already acquired a larger-than-life image globally (his Things Fall Apart, remember, had, by as early as 1970, been translated and reprinted in no fewer than 50 international languages), he would have effectively been rubbished. Pulled down, in our characteristic Pull him Down (PhD syndrome). And what was Achebe’s offence, by the way?

He expressed his personal opinion of the Nigerian civil war. Incidentally, his was simply a re-tell of stories we have all heard over and over again. Even those of us who were still sucklings at the end of the war in 1970 grew up to hear all those stories. We even learnt a song that went like this: Awolowo… Yakubu Gowon, you cannot break the spirit of Biafra because Biafra will win the war… we’ll find our way to Gabon.

We will buy garri (the local name for the corn meal that came in the form of aid from Gabon and other such countries sympathetic to the Biafran cause) and give to those of our people afflicted with kwashiorkor It was rendered in melodious Igbo. So, simply put, Achebe told the story of every Igbo person who lived through the war on the Biafran side. It sounded like fiction to the rest of the country. But that was how unbelievable the atrocities of those 30 gory months were.

If you ask the likes of Emma Okocha to add the Asaba experience to all of that, nobody who has blood flowing in his veins would ever believe such beastly things ever happened. But they did. So, even though Achebe’s story was the ‘fiction’ that the rest of Nigeria wanted to run away from, it did not remove the fact that that story was the Igbo reality.

The whole truth! It does not matter that time has healed some of the wounds, or that many of us post-1970 Igbo who were too young to know anything that transpired then, now see the whole thing as folklore and fairytale, like the rest of Nigeria, those who lived through it all still remember. They may have forgiven, but they would be idiotic to forget. And it would even be more idiotic for the rest of Nigeria to expect them to forget.

Even if they have today understood the justification for the atrocities visited on then, it still does not remove the fact that the atrocities were indeed visited on them. It is history that we can’t run away from. But like they say; who feels it knows it. Achebe felt it. Incidentally, now that Achebe is dead, we have returned to our ritual of national deceit. Under the guise of not speaking ill of the dead, all the Achebe haters are paying glowing tribute, as a way of dancing on his grave. I am reading all of them and even reading between the lines.

Even those people whom we know all they ever read, and still read, were currency notes have suddenly begun to recollect how Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, No longer at Ease, A Man of the People and Anthills in Savannah turned their lives around. But it’s all lies. For, deep inside me, I know these same people are ‘the trouble with Nigeria’. Even the government whose National Honours award Achebe turned down twice is celebrating (sorry; mourning). They are talking of befitting burial. But if I know anything of Achebe, rather than state burial, he would be happy to have his Ogidi kinsmen take over his remains and inter it the simple way tradition prescribes. But none of us has the capacity to stop government.

Yes, the same government which, in life, drove Achebe away from us – into some sort of exile in America, is, in death, also plotting to hijack his remains from us, in the name of state burial. But our only consolation is that Achebe is a citizen of the world and only the whole world can give him the burial he earned. That is the irony of life – and death. However, the lesson one is taking away from Achebe’s death is that increasingly, it is becoming clearer that anybody desirous of meeting any Nigerian whom most of us would agree is patriotic and good, would have to look to the graves.

Yes, the best Nigerians are the dead ones. Awo, Zik, Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Aminu Kano, Michael Okpara, Akintola, Isa Kaita, Akanu Ibiam, Mbakwe, Rimi, Idiagbon, Ajasin, Olabisi Onabanjo, Ojukwu, Murtala Mohammed etc. It does not matter that we branded many of them thieves and even jailed them. Until you die, irrespective of your contributions to national development, we keep chipping something away from your profile – determined to reduce you to nothing (whether you are an Obasanjo, Ekwueme, Tanko Yakassai, Adamu Ciroma or just anybody). However, the moment you drop dead, you instantly become a saint.

And they begin to praise you to high heavens. But that is because you are no longer able to interfere in the running of government and in the anointing of those who run the government. We would then accord you state burial, not because we genuinely feel you deserve it, but because it would help us score political points for the next general election. Indeed, there was a country.

Mercifully, my Kano brothers, Badamasi Burji and Suleiman Uba Gaya came to my rescue. They checked me into a hotel where I spent the better part of those initially scary eight and a half hours sleeping. I needed it, having not had up to six hours of sleep in the previous three days. As we drove, first through Bompai GRA, and later, Sabon Gari, we lamented how Kano was fast losing its soul and allure. At Sabon Gari in particular, my guide talked about how the place was now safe and non-indigenes did not have any more reason to feel threatened, unsafe, or to want to run away from Kano. He pointed out how nearly all the buildings in the area were owned by Igbos and how the Boko Haram menace was gradually dying down. He spoke too soon.

Less than 24 hours later, the streets of Sabon Gari were flowing with blood. Mainly Igbo blood. I had resisted the temptation to cast a headline that Igbos had again come under attack in Kano with the latest attack, but I could almost tell the reaction of government. Government agents would remind me of how it is not only Igbos that use the luxury buses in Kano and how I was inciting reprisal attacks. How it was my headline of Tuesday that caused the attack of Monday (the previous day, that is). Yes! That is how we think. Instead of going after those who threw the bombs we would be chasing, and threatening, those who reported the explosion.

We would accuse them of inciting the public and planning to break up the country. Yes, I love this country! Well, I am waiting to know the identities of the dead and the injured. I want to confirm that Peter Obi, MASSOB and all the others do not really have to be shouting about any plot to exterminate Ndigbo. I also want to put a lie to Sir Victor Umeh’s claim that the blast is the continuation of the classic fate of Ndigbo in the Nigerian arrangement: That whenever a Hausa man and his wife have a misunderstanding, they kill an Igbo man to placate themselves. When OPC boys kill northerners in Ketu or Idi-Araba, the Hausas retaliate in the North by killing an Igbo man.

And now that President Goodluck Jonathan and the North have a political disagreement over whether or not Jonathan should contest in 2015, the North is angry and screaming betrayal. To assuage the anger, they have now, again, decided, to kill Igbos. The argument sounds so foolish, but in this season of the absurd, nearly everything is believable. That is why I do not want to waste my ink on the latest Kano bomb blast, especially, as it is coming not too long after the attack on Sarkin Kano, the health workers, policemen and many others.

This week I would rather look at the cult we have come to, in this part of the world, accept as government. Ever since I overheard a former head of state saying that there is always enough evidence to put anybody who has ever been in government (even if for only two days) in jail, I have continued to dread government. For no matter how clean you think you were in government, you are a potential prisoner as soon as the powers that be want your hide. May people say, even if you avoid trouble, your agbada (flowing robe) would manage drag the trouble to you. If you are in doubt, ask Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, former minister of education.

If she does not give you enough reason to believe, then ask Imo State governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha and his deputy, Jude Agbaso. After that, ask OBJ, Atiku, Ikedi Ohakim, Bukola Saraki, Ibrahim Shekarau, Saminu Turaki, Peter Odili, Orji Kalu, Nuhu Ribadu, Nasir el-Rufai or just anybody who had been in government (power) and is now out of office. You could even ask the directors of the infamous pension fund. You’d think all they did in government was to superintend our looting and state-sponsored scam. Government is like a cult; once you join, you can’t really get out. In fact, whether you join in the looting or not, you are sworn to an oath of secrecy: WHAT WE DO HERE, STAYS HERE! Conventional wisdom says you don’t talk while you’re eating.

The same applies to politics and government. You can be inside it and still be running your mouth. However, government also takes its code of silence into the officer’s post-service years. Even if you leave, you just can reveal all the shenanigan that goes on there. Or else, they’ll come after you. It is worse if a Pharaoh who does not know Joseph has suddenly come to the throne. They will come after you like a lynch mob. Yes, those of us who have followed Ezekwesili’s career know some of those things we can vouch for her on. We can vouch that she wouldn’t steal – neither from a person or government. But then, in government, you do not need to steel before you are branded a thief – and even convicted for stealing. That’s why it is called government.

That is why it is a cult. Ever since Ezekwesili made that comment about squandered reserves at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka lecture, she has not known peace. Suddenly, there appears to be a gang-up from the top to smear this celebrated public servant. Suddenly, the same government that over and over again acknowledged her contributions to repositioning Nigeria – in terms of integrity, transparency, due process and hard work is working desperately to rubbish those same records. Suddenly, persons who are not driven by nearly a quarter of the zeal and patriotism that propelled Oby Ezekwesili and other members of the famous Obasanjo economic team have come into the saddle and, one by one, they are now deconstructing the members of that team.

If it is not Nasir el-Rufai today, then it is Chukwuma Soludo tomorrow. After them, it would be the turn of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nuhu Ribadu and who next? Somehow, it is increasingly looking like an Obasanjo proxy war. I don’t know a great deal about foreign reserves beyond getting Salisu, my Malam (who, by the way, is no relation of the CBN governor – even though they are in ‘similar’ business) to change dollars for me whenever I am travelling. What I do know, however, is that $67 billion is a lot of money anywhere on earth, and even in heaven. I also know that there is a lot of mischief one can cause with a fraction of that amount in one’s bank account.

Now, I have not said the money is in anybody’s account. Or that anybody has collected interest on it. But this is government, and in government, anything can happen. That is why Ezekwesili’s transducers are no longer looking at her or her bank accounts, even as they are accusing her of mismanaging hundreds of billions. Instead, they are looking at her aides, consultants to the ministry whom she did not even engage and all that – just any thing that would look untidy which could be traced to her time as education minister.

And you know what? They will find. The only sure thing is that Ezekwesili would be hearing of it for the first time, but the government would make it stick. And this honest woman could soon be fighting to stay out of jail. That is government for you! Incidentally, if you consider all these troubles that come with government appointment and turn down such ‘opportunities’ whenever they come your way, people would think you’re insane.

Until his death, a few years ago, an uncle of mine believed that I am bewitched. According to him, someone who did not want the progress of my family (by that, he meant the entire Nwosu clan) had taken hold of my brain and, through some act of witchcraft, had turned my reasoning upside down – so much so, that I no longer knew what was good for me. And not only that, ‘Uncle’ believed that my poor mother should also share part of the blame, because, according to him, she had naively buried her soul in the Catholic Church was not doing enough in the search for solution to ‘my problem, And what was/is this problem that my uncle was so concerned about?

He learnt I had, at least, on two occasions, turned down an opportunity to take up a political appointment. He believed only a foolish person would turn than such an opportunity. At over 70 years of age, he believed he had seen enough of politicking and governance in Nigeria to know that a political appointment was the quickest and surest way of joining the billionaires club. So, irrespective of whatever landmarks I had made in my chosen journalism career, I was not yet a success until I landed a government. For him, it was not service, but an invitation to come and eat (apologies; Chief S.M. Afolabi).

Joining government, as far as ‘Uncle’ was concerned, was opportunity for me to go grab the family’s share of the national cake. He died a sad man; having waited in futility to see me join government. Today, in my quiet moments, I ask myself if indeed, I have not been bewitched. Like the madman in my village folklore, most times, ‘I know wetin I dey do, but na the one wey dey do me I no know’. May be, my uncle was right after all: I don’t know what is good for me I sometimes feel I should have trod the part of my experience-tutored uncle, especially, now that I know that only those who loot very well get given a second and third and fourth chance to come and loot again.

Yes, those who stole like there was no tomorrow. The only drawback is: If you loot too much ( and ‘too much’, by the way, depends on who is determining your case), you could actually be arraigned by your fellow looting colleagues – just to make it appear to we the masses as though they are fighting corruption. They collect some of your loot and strip you of some other benefits. But both the prosecuted and the prosecutor are all members of the same cult called government; so you all know that it is just for a short while.

After some time, you are granted pardon. Yes, they make us actually feel sorry for you; that you have suffered enough, that, ab initio, you were guilty with good reason. That you should not have gone to jail in the first place. That your going to jail was political vendetta. That people who stole more than you did are roaming the streets free. Of course we do not need to agree with them, any way. They just wanted to adduce reason to put in the records as to why you were granted official jailbreak. Of course, most of your benefits are returned. It clears the way for future public appointments. And you just continue the looting from where you stopped. I love this country!

Innocent Nwobodo, Lagos.

08091986434

Hello Steve, your Wednesday column March 6, 2013 amused me much on para 10! I can bet my 1 kobo…, positions in PDP…, NWC etc. The pen man keep to your war against evils in with your pen. God be with you.

Evangelist Ben, Awka.

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May the Lord keep the Vatican away from the PDP school of politics in Jesus name – Amen!

(Ndudim C. Nwaoha, Aba)

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In fact, Steve, you sounded more Frank than your Franktalk. Indeed, your ironical, satirical and suspense-ladden article in the Sun 8/3/13 Page 56 proves this.

Peter, Imo

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I agree with the piece that the PDP is a disaster to the toiling masses and a blessing to the bourgeois class. What it means is that the apprised should organize and wrest state power from the regime in order to build a new society and a new man. Thanks.

Amos Ejimonye, Isuikwuato,

Abia State.

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Mr Frank, can you publish this, why is it that in Cross River State, head of Departments are all headed by the Akwa-Ibomites, are the Crossiverans not capable of doing this?

08064676668

PDP and home-grown democracy is like NIG/CIV AFCON 2013 match. Despite big names CIV paraded, our home boys stood up to be counted, ask Drogba not  APC

Ugo Nwosu.

You write-up on ‘PDP organize the conclave’ is mind-blowing. Quite enlightening, keep it up. One area I desire you look into is the Dichotomy between HND and BSC degree holders existing in public service only. It’s causing a lot of disaffection. All the best.

From Lambert (Imo)

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Re: NEW POPE – Is a masterpiece, nothing  to add but to pray for the Lord’s benevolence and greater strength on you Steve, Femi, Funke and other SUN editors. Ugo Nwosu.

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Dear Steve, your treatise on the election of new Pope and that the Catholics should learn from PDP is a message that can only be appreciated by sane and godly people. Political parties and churches in Nigeria constitutes mainly of ungodly and satanic forces whose interest is not anything decent but self aggrandizement and insatiable acquisition of wealth which is made easier by getting into high public and ecclesiastical positions.

That accounts for the fact that 75 years old and above still contest public offices and those of them in churches will never resign. If they are not in these position, they will miss the mass looting of our treasury, manipulation of oil block allocation or donation of private jets. Iniquities and sins of this class is undoubtedly irredeemable unless the unusual or the unimaginable happens. When the likes of Ghadafi of Libyia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Ben Ali of Tunisia etc were in power for decades in their respective countries, they never imagined that they  will end up in disgrace. God is not asleep and one day the unexpected will redeem Nigerian masses. Steve.

Thanks for this sermon. Don’t relent.

Dr. Frank C. Oramulu

ichieupanddown@yahoo.com

08036664144

You again with another hilarious but lesson – filled piece on the new Pope and our dearest PDP. But APC is still strong enough to cure any form of headache. You simply belong to another class of creative writing. I love your style of writing. It is  a very generous cheque you are preparing for future writers to cash.

Frank Ombugadu in Lafia.

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You are the best! I just finished reading the todays write up in The Sun. I hope you will one day compile all your write ups into a book format. Honestly, I want it for my generations to come if Jesus tarries. I use to wonder how The Sun was able to bring the highly cerebral trinity of Femi Adesina, Steve Nwosu and Funke Egbemode together.

May God continue to bless you and protect you with our family. My wife loves your write up TOO MUCH.

Engr. David Adewoye

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Congrats on write-up on new Pope elections and PDP. My supper will digest very well.

Nworah.

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My dear Steve, I’ve follow the Franktalk conscientiously for five years. And I’m convinced you are the hero of the pen! Thanks for your piece of advice to PDP and naija politics!

08183674731

Dear writer Mr Steve, thanks so much for your article published today. You are really a reflective and analytic thinker. Kudos!

From Fr Peter Okonkwo.

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New Pope: Please, let PDP organize the conclave. Beautiful and I love it, Steve keep it on.

08037396523

You are very funny, but all you have said does not change Nigeria.

Eugene from Ihitte

Uboma.

08083146029

Thanks very plenty Mr. Nwosu for this master piece write-up: “New Pope please let PDP organize the conclave.” It is beautiful and the information content is nicely flavored with wisdom, humor and wits. Well done.

08037178055

Steve, you made me laugh by your piece of today. I’m a Catholic by birth, but I don’t belief that the process of electing\ a Pope is free from manipulations of every description. Otherwise, what do we make of the statement credited to Cardinal Francis Arinze immediately after the election of Joseph Reitzinger as next Pope (after the death of Pope John Paul II) that the West was not yet ready to accept a black Pope. On Femi Adesina, I think this time you don’t really have a choice because you work with him in same place. But next time, look for any of our Igbo brothers to support. I have no apologies to anybody. You can’t convince me that Gbenga Adefaye was not actuated by tribalism to want Adesina to succeed him … Adesina said so in Sun of 1/3/13. Also used his position to get the election done in Yoruba-land to ensure large turn out of Yoruba editors. PDP way! Forget the talk about competence and professionalism. Tribalism is evident. Thanks.

Barr Fabian

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I didn’t think of that!!! Or they should learn from CPC/ACN to pick a ‘consensus’ candidate, anointed by a godfather (or the founder of a party), without any form election in the convention (sorry conclave). Would that not be better?

E. Achinivu

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Steve, I’m impressed with your write-up on ‘New Pope: Please, let PDP organize the conclave! Your comparison and analysis were superb and it brought to fore the issue of ‘God fatherism, dirty, and pull-him down political arena’ we have in Nigeria today. I want to add that the New Pope must be careful after his election to avoid ABSU Senate revoking His certificate.

From Austin, Abuja

07031979744

Oga Steve, your piece – New Pope: Please, let PDP organize the conclave. Speaks volume that you are a ‘guru’ in writing business. But, is PDP as bad as expressed in your piece? Its time we showcase our country in good light to outside world.

Thanks.

Goddy.

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Yes, your reflection of the back of Sun newspaper today is very very interesting but God does not accept daily spiritual exercise of evil fellows therefore, PDP wouldn’t be allowed to select the next Pope for the Church of Christ.

Mr Etoh from Okigwe in Imo State.

Thanks!

07031079057

Great insight Frank your piece was perfect we have a lot to learn from the Catholic Church. Politics should be far development and not do or die.

Cheers.

Olisa

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Steve you harped so much on PDP, so how about Lagos State (all are ACN) from councilors to the governor. Does it make sense?

Emma, Owerri

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My bros, you have finished the big fools, call themselves PDP. Were they refused accept old age in good faith.

Thanks bros.

But I enjoy the gist.

Ben.

0068234821

Your piece on NEW POPE for the Catholic is satirical and brilliant. But singling out the PDP is what I disagree. All the political parties in Nigeria are guilty of this crime. An ACN/CPC/ANPP/APGA etc cardinal/Pope wouldn’t ‘ve had a conclave but APPOINT his relative. This is where we fail every election year.

08037559491

Sir, your master piece on New Pope is unique. How I wish our politicians can read and understand. We need to insist that they do the right thing with best acts.

My name is Prince McDonald Otoba

08030677499

You are a typical Igbo who knows little or nothing about POLITICS and Church politics. Who told you that the cardinals don’t know who there next POPE is going to be? would they not have candidates to be voted for? Even PDP know their presidential candidate before primaries.

SHINE YOUR EYE!

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Could you imagine that nearly all the Cardinals are already in Rome – without any crowd of travelling supporters, praise singers and thugs, with an assortment of amulets and rings and talisman fastened to their waists, fingers and upper arms. Even as virtually everyone is certain that a new Pope would emerge before Easter, we are yet to be furnished with the list of contestants. And the world has not come to an end. Nobody has raised any allegation of anybody trying to rig the election And come to think of it, how can they possibly be talking of election without any mention of zoning?

The outgoing Pope Benedict xvi came from Germany (Europe), should we allow Europe to produce his successor? Whatever happened to the dream of an American Pope? Has Africa not been marginalized enough to have the pope zoned to us? Would the Italians be comfortable having another non-Italian Pope again? And the South Americans? Are they just there to complete the numbers? Has it not occurred to the Cardinal now holding the forte until a new Pope emerges that he too can be Pope? These people should come and learn from PDP More surprises: how many governors or presidents in Nigeria would leave office without anointing (or making effort to anoint) his successor?

How come Cardinal Joseph Reitzinger (that was his name before he became Pope) did not try to manipulate the process and foist his anointed on the Catholic Church as the new Pope? Instances of this imposition exist everywhere in Nigeria. It is either the General Overseer hands over to his wife, son, son-in-law or he chooses some trusted lieutenant whom he would claim God pointed out to him. if only he had consulted ordinary CAN, they would have told him how politics is played even in the house of God. But the Vatican just never learns. Another confirmation of the fact that they don’t learn from other people’s experience is the determination to hold the all important Conclave in the afternoon.

In broad daylight! Don’t they know that such crucial matters of state (and church) are best decided in the night? At the unholiest of hours. When only witches move about freely. Ask the governors when their forum meets. Whether the authentic Nigerian Governors’ Forum or the child-of-necessity PDP governors forum, they all meet at night. Even the PDP BOT members know that they can only meet at night. These politically naïve cardinals don’t know that such meetings have to be fixed at a time it would be most inconvenient to rivals and opponents. If it is held in the dead of the night, then all those conservative old Cardinals who would normally oppose any cowboy, trouser-sagging young man emerging as Pope would have tired out and retired to bed.

In fact, the venue of the conclave can even be shifted from this Sistine whatever. As the PDP people, they would tell you what informed the relocation of its BoT meetings to the Aso Rock Villa. For there, it is a lot easier to screen out those BOT members the president (or his security aides) does not want to see. In fact I am told that from time to time, otherwise statutory members of the BoT who either refused to play ball (either with the president or his security people)get stopped by ‘security’ screening at the gatehouse and never make it to the BOT meeting inside the Villa. The other advantage of holding the conclave at night is that whatever smoke that appears at the end of balloting could be termed ‘White Smoke’. These Cardinals just don’t know how to play politics.

The only thing that they seem to have copied from us is the ‘doctrine of necessity’ which saw Pope Benedict xvi issue a decree to bring the date for the election forward, a move many saw as part of the determination of the Vatican to ensure that the Catholic world does not celebrate Easter without a Pope. It was the same doctrine of necessity that we evoked to empower the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to take over the responsibilities of the terminally ill President Umaru Yar’Adua. I can bet my last kobo that if the vote for a new Pope were to hold here in Nigeria, someone would by now be collecting all these seeming lapses as evidence to take to the tribunal to overturn the election subsequently.

A Cardinal who lost out would say his supporters did not even know that he was on the ballot. Somebody would be complaining about the dress of the new Pope which has already been made. He would allege that the tailors saw the result before the voting, and that was why they already knew the measurement of the new Pope, to have a dress ready for him Irrespective of the fact that it is a church matter, some Cardinals would still have gone to place sacrifice at three-road junctions, just to be doubly sure. Many of them would come to the Conclave with charms and amulets tied to their waists – just in case some other cardinals would need hypnotizing before they can ‘vote’ right. And yet others would have outrightly stolen the missal and other accoutrements of Pope’s office and gone to hide them in their village shrines – so that no other person can function as Pope unless they retrieve the materials.

The politicians (especially, the legislators) do it from time to time with the mace. And who told the Catholics that old men should not vote? Or are incapable of making sound judgment? When we are digging up all our old people, and resurrecting dead ones, and giving them choice positions in PDP NWC, CWC, BOT, NEC. They are the ones who would chart the way of our future for us as we get set for PDP’s 60 years rule. And they are all 70 years and above, with many already past 80. In fact, if that Conclave were to be organized by our dear PDP, many of the above-80 years Cardinals would still vote. They would either amend the constitution at the convention (sorry, conclave) venue or simply come to the election armed with fresh age-declaration certificates swearing to the fact that they are actually younger than their respective first-borns, and therefore, eligible to vote.

But, jokes apart, the lesson from the Vatican is that there is nothing in an election that makes it a do-or-die affair. That all the extraneous issues and tendencies we bring into our politics and elections only serve to corrupt the process and open unnecessary wars. I learnt this much in the just concluded elections of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). Left to the editors, it was a purely professional issue and only the best and most competent would do. But as soon as the politicians got interested, everything nearly turned upside-down. They reminded us that we were Nigerians and cannot therefore forget zoning and federal character. It then dawned on me that I was blindly supporting a Femi Adesina to take over from a Gbenga Adefaye (both of whom are not only Yorubas, but from the same Osun state), when no South Easterner had tasted the post several years after Chief Onyema Ugochukwu.

It then occurred to me that Hausas and Yorubas had been alternating the post between them. But I would not have come into this ‘awakening’ if I had not been reminded by politicians that we needed to look beyond integrity and competence in the search for a president of the guild. Thank God, professional solidarity prevailed over primordial sentiments in the end. That is why I am also very sure that the good of the church will ultimately override all mundane sentiments as the Cardinals gave to give Catholic faithful a new pontiff.

Every time he staggered past, his standard response was: “person wey do juju say make man no kill am, make spirit no kill am, na him go take him own hand kill himself”. Today, it is this drunkard’s favourite saying that comes to my mind every time I think about the PDP and how it is holding us at the jugular, boasting that no party or alliance, or merger can kick it out of power – insisting that it would rule (at the first instance) for a straight 60 years, and then, forever. So, while we are helplessly stranded with PDP, we are tirelessly assisting them with prayers to continue on their path of self-destruction.

And it would seem our prayers are being answered already. And it not because any APC has been born (although it would not be a bad idea to have a formidable party waiting on the wings) Rather than us exploding the PDP from outside, the PDP members have resolved to implode from within. They have provided us both government and opposition. So we are just sitting back and watching them erect and demolish their own structure. So, yes, the PDP will ultimately collapse, but no, neither the APC nor any merger will bring about that collapse. PDP people will see to it themselves. That is why there is a lot of internal combustion going on there right now. If the chairman is not fighting his governor, then he’d be fighting all the governors or the secretary would be fighting the BOT or central working committee or the national working committee members would be shouting about not being carried along.

Then there are all the several other proxy wars; Jonathan’s loyalists weeding off and kicking out Obasanjo’s cronies. Then, there is this grand irony of a party that is talking of reconciliation but is unwilling to reconcile with Atiku and Na’Abba and all the other notable present and former members who have issues with the party. Rather than any desire to build a formidable party that can take power on a sustainable basis, the PDP is a short-run gang arrangement used to capture power to serve immediate self interest. It is built around whoever is occupying the Aso Rock Villa and destroyed as soon as he leaves. Obasanjo did it; Yar’Adua tried it, now it is the turn of Jonathan.

Every president comes in and tries to build the PDP that he wants; the PDP that would serve his own ambition – and not necessarily the PDP that would serve the party, much less, the country. He changes exco, NWC, CWC, BoT and just any other thing that is perceived to have the potentials of playing any significant role in that real or perceived ambition.

Of late, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum has come into the mix of the amalgam of organs that must also be teleguided. That is why Gov Rotimi Amaechi has been fighting the battle of his life in recent times. Suddenly, every governor seen as a Jonathan ally has overnight developed interest in running the NGF. Of course all these have nothing to do with 2015. Amaechi is not consolidating on the NGF to use it as a launch pad for any presidential ambition in 2015. Similarly, the Northern governors who met with their Niger State counterpart to explore the possibility of producing the chairman of the NGF are doing so purely for altruistic reasons. They are not hoping to use the plat form to bargain for presidency in 2015. And, of course, we must count President Jonathan out of this 2015 hullabaloo. For Jonathan has yet to decide whether or not he should contest the 2015 presidential election.

Of course, I believe him. Even though we live in a country where politicians begin to think of the next election as soon as they are sworn into office on one mandate, Jonathan says he is not thinking of 2015 yet. Like me, I want every Nigerian to believe the president is saying nothing but the truth. It does not matter that we have heard those same lines over and over again from our politicians – and that on all those instances, it always turned out to be untrue. He is not campaigning and he has not told anybody to campaign for him.

Nothing said by Elder Godsday Orubebe or Kema Chikwe (that there is no vacancy in Aso Rock) has anything to do with Jonathan. Similarly, the return of Chief Tony Anenih (the famed Mr. Fix It) early yesterday morning as the new BoT chairman of the PDP has nothing to do with any plan to fix re-election. Even though PDP chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur says the President can now sleep well, now that the back of the Governors’ Forum appears broken, I refuse to believe that Jonathan has anything to do with the bid to unseat Amaechi. It is just unfounded media speculation.

That is why I can’t understand why people can’t take Jonathan out of the problems that Rivers State governor is speculated to have with Godswill Akpabio and his other colleagues at the NGF (or is it PGF?). Jonathan is not running. In fact, he is too busy delivering on his transformation agenda to think of 2015. What is baffling me, however, is: In all these, where does the vote of we the electorate figure in? Is this no longer a democracy? Is it no longer about one man, one vote? Watching the way the president Jonathan and his opponents are wooing, cornering and taking control of one body after the other, you’d be tempted to conclude that 2015 presidency would be conducted on the basis of electoral colleges or that the voting would be done by a select few – like in an aristocracy or even, a plutocracy. You’d think that by the time the governors, the PDP BoT and the national working/executive committees vote, the presidency would have been decided.

Nobody seems to be talking to those of us on the shop floor. Nobody is lobbying me for my vote. Nobody is giving a second thought to the fact that we’re actually supposed to be running a popular democracy. Or is this what home-grown democracy is all about? All the same, let’s welcome back Chief Anenih to a seat I personally believe he is cut out for. At least, we can be sure that he is a party man and might actually help in making the PDP a party once again.

Annie Okonkwo can sell anything from Tura soap to cream and rice. He has track record. Okorocha, being from my Orlu area, would be peerless in the sale of APC. He would sell it the same way we Orlu people would sell just any patent medicine. Or is this APC not for headache and fever? Or is it a Yoruba Gbogbonise? Like Epa Ijebu – the cure all medicine? Whatever it is for, we will sell it. In fact, I am getting confused. Only last week when they announced the birth of APC, I had planned to use the monthly meeting of my kinsmen in Lagos to announce the good news to them.

I wanted to tell them that those of them whose roadside shops had been demolished by Fashola now have cause to smile. They should just go back to the village and open shop – as Buhari had brought back the Essential Commodity (Essenco) regime and that we would be beginning with selling APC, a new drug that would cure everything (both real and imagined ailments). It would cure physical, spiritual, economic and political sicknesses, especially those with which we were infected by the PDP. I know some mischievous ones would want to misinterpret my drift today to mean that I am mocking the emergent ‘mega’ party. Far from it. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, suggesting that the opposition groups are swallowing analgesics for another person’s headache. No, no.

It is just that while proponents of the new All Progressive Congress (APC) pride themselves as having hoisted the ultimate Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) that would blow PDP away from power, they forget that many of my people in the village who know nothing about the sophistry of crime fighting know of only one APC – an Aspirin-based analgesic that was the senior brother of Cafenol, Phensic, Panadol and lately, Paracetamol. In fact, I also got carried away with the Armoured Personnel Carrier name until my MD, Tony Onyima, who is an Aba Brought Up (if you don’t know what that means, go and find out), reminded me that the most popular APC was a drug.

Of course that brought back sweet childhood memories. Memories of Papa Uwa and his army of medicine hawkers, who pioneered the Makossa dance steps in Nigeria (long before Awilo and Magic System came), dancing through the streets of Aba, selling APC, Conquer Mixture and all the rest of them. Whether this new APC, the drug or APC the anti-riot machine, it is not in doubt that we need something in that mould for our polity – either to attack the headache that PDP misrule has brought on all of us, or to squarely face the terrorism that the same PDP government is daily unleashing on us all under the pretext of governing us.

Although I agree with the need for some form of APC, I am, however, not presently well disposed to discussing whether, as some people allege, the new party is dead on arrival (as some PDP apologists would have us believe), or if it would actually live up to six months, as one former Senate President has generously suggested. It is also not in my place to determine whether Tinubu and Buhari can work together or not. I am also not interested in knowing which faction of the crumbling house of APGA is in this new order.

Let us, therefore, wish this new polygamous marriage well, even though we have not clearly defined who the husband is and who would play the wife (or wives) role. Even among the wives, we would still have to determine who would be the senior wife and which ones would be the junior wives and the amariya. I guess we would get to that when the next round of elections comes and ambitions begin to unfurl. That would be the acid test for this marriage of convenience, knowing that Nigerian politicians have never been the best examples of compromise politics – except when they really have no other choice.

The Papal example

Even though not too many people would claim to have seen me in any church lately, I was a very proud person all of yesterday. Proud to be a Catholic. For Pope Benedict XVI made me proud. Yes, in these times when leaders, governors, deputy governors, presidents, ministers, company CEOs, church leaders, chairmen of social clubs and even First Ladies refuse to own up to their health and other physical challenges for fear of losing the lucre of public office, it is almost saintly to see someone high up there turn his back on the attendant privileges and opt out.

The pope, who doctrinally is supposed to be infallible could have hidden behind that cloak and sat tight in the Vatican – for the church has the structure to take care of the visible gaps and carry on while keeping the Pontiff’s condition a secret. After all, churches have been known to cover up even more serious things, like monumental fraud, scandals and even, murder. If the Pope Benedict were to be a public officer in Nigeria today, much of what we have already learnt in the last 24 hours would still be shrouded in mystery and a litany of executive denials. Of course, if he were a civil servant, his true age would never have been known.

Even when he would long have been battling with all the ailments and conditions which usually come at the ninth decade of a man’s life, his official documents would be reading that he’s yet to reach the retirement age of 60. I saw one such man (a non-academic staff) in my undergraduate days. With a bent, frail frame and a hairline that revealed no less than two decades of near-religious use of Afrik Hair Dye, Papa, as we called him, was officially under 50 years of age.

The theatrical part of it was that a particularly lady whom Papa had taught in primary school was now in the same department with, and she billed to hit 60 (and therefore, retire) before him. But the deceit is not only in the civil service. It is right there in the house of God. In Nigeria for instance, several years after its founder went the way of all mortals, one particular church headquartered in southern Nigeria has refused to tell the world that the man is dead. Of late, they have been projecting the image of a new leader, but have continued to identify him with the name of the late founder.

It is a grand deceit that works well on new converts and the younger generation. But for those of us who were privileged to see the founder before he suddenly vanished, we know the face the church is pushing out today is that of an impostor. So, it was understandable that news of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation hit one like a bolt from the blue. Of course, Catholic or no Catholic, it was the journalist in me that first raised the alarm.

Having just recently purchased a new copy of that classic book ‘IN GOD’s NAME’, and having been here long enough to know some of the slime covered by the cassock, I immediately began to sniff around for the ‘scandal’ that may have made the Pope quit. Satisfied that there was none, I then began to look at the development on its merit. Now, I feel so proud to be a Catholic.