PS.
Hon Kennedy Emetulu
You say , "Not sure what you are talking about in that bit about justice for Umaru Dikko and so on. I can't remember making any such promise to you or anybody. If you insist I did, you might want to tell me where and when. I always keep my promise and if I can't, I'll let you know why"
I was referring to your statement here below:
"Then the regime's secret attempt to smuggle Umaru Dikko (a former Minister of Transport in the ousted Shagari government) back from London in a crate sealed the regime's fate internationally and embarrassed Nigeria greatly in the comity of nations. This affair, which I shall discuss in more detail later, further exposed the vacuousness and viciousness of the regime. The leadership was thereafter seen as thuggish and tyrannical and not many people were dealing with them outside Africa."
Sincerely,
Cornelius
On Tuesday, 3 February 2015 13:33:38 UTC+1, keme...@googlemail.com wrote:
…
Cornelius Hamelberg,
I do not think I have ever engaged you in a discussion on this forum, possibly because apart from posting sparingly, I'm hardly here. In fact, I did not see your response on my incoming email feed. It was IBK that posted it on a Facebook group that both of us belong to and which necessitated that I come to the USAAfricaDialogue listserv to read it for myself and make a response.
First, I thank you for your view. We are in a political season and the beauty of democracy is that everyone has a voice. Those who refuse to exercise theirs are their own worst enemies. We are lucky.
Now, you accuse me of recycling lies and quoted my comment on Buhari and the money stolen under his watch as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum to buttress your point. You then seem to think the comment of someone here had since settled the matter. This fellow you referenced is Salimonu Kadiri, who apparently responded to my article "Buharists and their Stockholm Syndrome". Here is how Salimonu Kadiri began his response to me (11/6/14):
"Kennedy Emetulu is not a Jonathan-nist but a political mercenary employed by Jonathan's Subsidy Re-investment Empowerment Program (SURE -P). I will come to what that means later. Kennedy Emetulu would have justified his SURE-P employment if he had supported his long epistle with facts instead of innuendos. If I have to respond in full to his lengthy sermon from SURE-P mountain, it would cover several hundred pages. Therefore, I will just remove three blocks on which Emetulu has built the house of lies on Buhari for the house to crumble".
Now, let's think of that for a minute. A man I have never met in my life, a man who knows nothing about me comes here in public space and states that my public commentary, which I probably started before he got into diapers is being motivated by a supposed employment with SURE-P or because I'm getting some benefit from them. Then he grants himself the immunity of providing proof for this absurd claim by saying if he had to provide some, "it would cover several hundred pages". So, who is afraid of hundreds of pages of proof for an allegation you've made in public? Shouldn't that have helped all of us here understand who Kennedy Emetulu is? I mean, I wrote my piece and didn't mention SURE-P and never revealed upfront for the purposes of full disclosure that I work with them or that I'm a contractor with them or that I benefit from them in any way. So, if someone comes up here and says he knows about my relationship with SURE-P, what prevents the decent people of this listserv from saying: "Hold on a minute, Salimonu, why not provide the proof of the accusation you've made against Kennedy Emetulu?" Why did nobody ask him to provide just any form of evidence of his claim?
You see, I read a lot of cranks making all sorts of allegations against me, but I'm never bothered and most times I totally ignore them. I'm not bothered, because people who know me know me and I know myself. I don't know anybody in SURE-P, I have never applied for anything in SURE-P on behalf of myself or anyone else, I do not have any benefit from them directly or indirectly, I'm not a government contractor and have never been, I don't get paid by anybody directly or indirectly to say what I say. I speak publicly out of belief and I can walk through the gates of hell defending whatever I present as fact, while I accept that people can have a different opinion, even if I don't agree with them. You do not expect me to come here and respond to a desperate fool, a vermin who would manufacture a lie as bad as this out of thin air in an attempt discredit someone he cannot challenge with truth. I call out Salimonu Kadiri to come out here and provide evidence of his claim. I call on him in the name of all that he truly believes in to come out here and back up his claim or forever remain a caterwauling creepy-crawly that he is! God will judge him for bearing false witness against me.
Now, with regard to the issue here, below is the portion of Salimonu Kadiri's piece that you're saying settles the matter:
"In his mud slinging essay against Buhari, Kennedy Emetulu asked, "Should I start with the scandal of the N2.8 billion NNPC money that got stolen under his watch as Petroleum Minister and head of NNPC in 1978? ... the Shehu Shagari government ...set up a Senate probe which traced the money to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari from where the money again got missing." For the mere fact that Emetulu is telling readers that N2.8 billion NNPC money got stolen under Buhari's watch exempted Buhari from the actual stealing of the said amount of money. Secondly, Shehu Shagari's government could not have set up a Senate probe because, according to the Republican Constitution, there was separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature. While it was true that the Senate set up a committee headed by Senator Olusola Saraki, the committee completed its investigation in 1981 without any public or official report on their findings. If the N2.8 billion NNPC money was traced to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari, then we need to know the number of the account and for the money to disappear from the said bank, it should either be withdrawn or transferred by someone. We are talking about London, England, and not Nigeria where employed ghosts at all levels of government do normally get promoted, sign and cash salaries in the banks undetected. If we are to believe the tale by the moonlight being touted by Emetulu that the motive behind the military coup of December 1983 was to obstruct or destroy documents pertaining to the N2.8 billion NNPC money, why should they wait until two years after the investigation had been completed? There is no sense in the story".
Mr Hamelberg, okay, ask yourself, does the above really look like a proper response to my accusation against Buhari? What has Salimonu Kadiri said in the above excerpt to debunk me? How can a man of such extraordinary ignorance convince you that "Shehu Shagari's government could not have set up a Senate probe because, according to the Republican Constitution, there was separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature"? Is this the type of pedantic argument real adults or reasonably educated people should be having here or elsewhere? Was the Senate of the Second Republic not a part of the Shagari government of the Second Republic? Did I not indicate clearly there the branch of the government that set up the probe? I mean, the funny Mr Kadiri actually admitted that "the Senate set up a committee headed by Senator Olusola Saraki" but that "the committee completed its investigation in 1981 without any public or official report on their findings". So, where is the argument? Did you yourself read my piece and the things I said? Did Salimonu Kadiri dispute what Dr Saraki told Vera Ifudu? Did he dispute the fact that the NTA under the Buhari regime sacked Vera Ifudu over this affair and that she went to court and got a huge payout just to shut her mouth? Did Buhari not send soldiers on coup day to go ransack the Senate building? Does all that indicate that Buhari is above board in this matter?
Now, let me also bring something to your attention: Sometime ago, my good friend and brother, Professor Moses Ochonu had an exchange with me on Facebook and by way of clarifying this issue, he said the following:
"In 1977, the military head of state, Lt. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, set up a crude oil sales tribunal to investigate the operations of the Nigerian National Oil Company (NNOC, which metamorphosed into NNPC same year). The tribunal found out that in three years, NNOC had failed to collect its equity share of oil produced by Shell, Mobil and Gulf. As a joint venture partner, NNOC was entitled to 182.95 million barrels of oil production. But NNOC did not find buyers for its own share, thereby losing a potential income of $2.8 billion. But it was instead reported by the media that $2.8 billion was missing." – (Quoted from Moses Ochonu's post in the exchange)
Here was my response:
"Agreed that the Nigerian political space is swarming with historical rumors of all types; but, please, do not declare the N2.8 billion issue a mere rumor and then substitute it with another manufactured rumor without applying due diligence and looking at it logically. I say this, because you are one of the most credible public intellectuals we have from Nigeria and one of the most dependable commentators on national affairs. I say this, because I can bet my bottom dollar that if you had taken the pains to look more closely at the issue, you wouldn't publicly declare it one of the "enduring rumors and urban legends in Nigerian politics and history…mischievously recycled every now and then to discredit General Buhari, who has been running for president since 2003, because he was the Petroleum minister when the money allegedly went missing".
"First, the thing you've stated here as the truth is not backed up by any contemporaneous report, quite apart from the fact that the claim is totally illogical. I mean, from 1974, which was the height of the oil boom, Nigeria could not sell its share for three years? They could not find buyers at a time Nigeria engaged in some of the most grandiose capital intensive projects of the time, that is at a time Gowon was proclaiming that we have too much money and that our problem was how to spend it? So, what money were we spending all that while? Who were the members of this crude oil sales tribunal? Where is this report? Where did they sit and what at the time linked their report, if any, with the N2.8 billion issue? The honest truth is any person who has a basic idea of how the oil market works will not buy such embarrassingly childish explanation! It is obvious that this is a latter-day manufactured explanation to get Buhari out of the pickle!
"Secondly, the Irikefe report which claimed no money was lost did not produce this explanation neither did the Saraki Senate report. In fact, Obasanjo had to quickly go to court to obtain an order to stop his appearance before the Irikefe Panel. If he or any member of his government, including Buhari had any logical explanation or even the above explanation you are tendering here, why didn't they go to the Panel to explain this? What you are quoting here as the truth is actually something plucked from thin air by Simon Kolawole of ThisDay in his June 1 2014 column of the paper. Kolawole is someone who is unapologetically a Buhari acolyte. His claim is not backed up anywhere on record or in public space. It is one of those historical rewrites that a lot of them have today invested in on behalf of Buhari in this whole mission of selling him to unsuspecting and uninformed Nigerians as incorruptible. It will not work!
"True, the N2.8 billion issue is enmeshed in mystery, but you would expect such abracadabra in anything to do with public corruption in Nigeria, especially one of this nature and with the personalities mentioned. We do not expect that they would all come out to us and publicly confess that indeed such money was missing. All we can do is reasonably conjecture with publicly available facts. What is fact is that Dr Olusola Saraki, the Second Republic Senate Leader and head of a Senate Committee established to look into the matter did publicly confirm on NTA that indeed the money was missing and that it had been traced to a London account belonging to Buhari. While anyone can pick issues with that, Buhari's own reaction told us something about the issue as well and where the truth may lie. I mean, why did he upon taking over as head of state pressurize NTA to sack Vera Ifudu, the journalist who interviewed Saraki and who stood by what she was told? Why did the court, upon review of the evidence, grant the prayers of Ifudu over the matter of wrongful dismissal? Why did NTA quickly pay her a huge sum, including making her to sign a confidentiality agreement? Saraki lived until November 2012 and never at any point recanted on his position and Buhari never publicly challenged him while he was alive or even after, even though he jailed the man for more than a year when he took over on no charges at all whatsoever. Whatever anyone says, Buhari has not discharged the responsibility of explaining what happened. Everything he has said and that has been said on his behalf points to guilt strongly.
"My brother, let me say clearly that I get the point you are trying to make about rumors in our public life, but this N2.8 billion affair is not a basis of such a psychological or sociological study of the phenomenon in Nigerian politics to the extent of freeing Buhari. Buhari is part of the corrupt elite and should therefore spare us the hypocrisy of pointing fingers! Yeah, we need change, but not this hollow type preached by him and his fellow travellers! The fact that he has been a beneficiary of Nigeria's culture of useless probes does not make the N2.8 billion story a mere rumor. There are very good reasons to believe that he himself has always been economical with the truth. For instance, when he was asked about this is an old interview with the Sun Newspapers published on 24 December 2012, all he could offer by way of defence or explanation was that Professor Awojobi, Tai Solarin and Fela went to the Irikefe Panel with newspaper cuttings as proof of the missing money and that Clemet Isong, who was the then Central Bank Governor said such money couldn't have been missing. Why should we believe Clement Isong who himself was potentially culpable as this happened under his watch and who at the time of the Irikefe Panel was already a career politician as Governor of the old Cross River State? Why did Buhari not make any reference to the Saraki Senate Panel and the claims publicly made by Saraki? Why did he not refer to the Vera Ifudu affair?"
The reason I have taken the pains to also post the above exchange with Professor Ochonu is to let you see that every day, people are manufacturing excuses for Buhari from thin air as a way of airbrushing his reputation. It is also to let you see that though the issue has been mired in controversy, one consistent thing is that the powers that be have one way or the other ensured that whatever probe instituted over this matter never ever gets conclusive or where conclusive never sees the light of day officially. This is the hallmark of a consistent attempt to protect someone or a group of people. I have stated my own view on it by way of assessment of all the facts and making reasonable conjectures from them. You are entitled to your view, but don't tell me some vermin has settled the matter with his lies and ignorance.
"I'm still looking forward to the epistle in which he promised to take up the attempted kidnap and bringing home to Justice of the late Umaru Dikko. Patiently waiting. All he can come up with just now is some cheap shots about Great Britain's extradition laws being contravened as if he is not aware of what happened with President Noriega – or better still as if he has never heard of Simon Wiesenthal - not that I'm comparing the late Umaru Dikko to the sort of scum that Simon Wiesenthal was hunting, but I was one of the people waiting patiently in Port Harcourt and very disappointed as to how things turned out at the last moment. The crowd was hoping that Mr. Dikko would "vomit the money" – only that the crowd does not know that to have about £5 billion Sterling in the Bank of England is a lot of money. It confers great privileges, can even terminate an extradition order – and there are several looters currently enjoying a life of luxury, mansions, Rolls Royces, country estates, hotels in Spain and California and other pieces of property everywhere…" – Cornelius Hamelberg
Not sure what you are talking about in that bit about justice for Umaru Dikko and so on. I can't remember making any such promise to you or anybody. If you insist I did, you might want to tell me where and when. I always keep my promise and if I can't, I'll let you know why.
I'm not sure why you think the example of the US kidnap of Noregia justifies whatever Buhari planned over Umaru Dikko. The world was united in pointing out that the US Operation Nifty Package or Operation Just Cause breached Panamanian and international law in kidnapping Noregia; but for the United States, they were technically at war with Panama, so kidnapping the military leader with whom they were at war was par the course. They were further boosted by the Vatican declaration that Noregia who had taken refuge in the Apostolic Nunciature in Panama City had no asylum. Thereafter what the world wanted to see was a fair trial in a US court and Mr Noregia got that. It's enough for me that you have admitted that you are not comparing Umaru Dikko to the sort of scum Simon Wiesenthal was hunting, which is precisely why the Dikko kidnap was a bad advertisement for a government supposedly fighting for corruption.
I'm not going to join in you to debate Amaechi and his silly claims in that Hardtalk programme you mentioned neither am I going to engage you on the various charges of corruption being bandied about at the moment, because both parties and Nigerians are all guilty of this and until we come together to deal with the matter institutionally, rather than pointing hypocritical fingers, we won't go anywhere. My hope is that with the implementation of the recommendations of the National Conference and the institution of true federalism (including its fiscal aspects), we will begin to appreciate how we can use institutional measures to cut out corruption in public service through better accountability.
At the moment, we are in a political season and my own support for Jonathan is clear. For several months now I have come out to say I support him against anybody the APC produces. In fact, I can say it's a decision I've taken for more than a year now. But my principle is that being a partisan does not give you the licence to lie in an attempt to sell your candidate. True, Jonathan would ordinarily not be my candidate in a presidential election, because I believe he's just an average leader and in these times, I expect an above average leader to take Nigeria forward. But the system has conspired to produce for us a Hobson's choice and in the circumstances, I'm supporting Jonathan by default, not because he's the best thing since Agege bread. Buhari is a no-no, not only because of his antecedents but also because of where I think he'll taking the nation. He is returning us to the Dark Ages and nothing anyone says can convince me otherwise, because I have reviewed the evidence thoroughly before reaching this conclusion.
In any case, having adopted Jonathan, I have to sell him in the best possible way without undermining my own credibility. It's important to let people know you are a partisan who is only expressing your opinion. Anyone can debate your opinion with you, but let the facts remain sacred. As I have implied, the two viable choices in Jonathan and Buhari are not the best, but Jonathan is infinitely better for now and the future of Nigeria than Buhari. Those behind the Buhari hype know this, but as I said, they are using him as a stalking horse to take us back to the hounds. With all due respect to your position, I will do everything legitimately within my power and capacity to stop Buhari from getting to that seat again. So, yeah, pray for me, 'cause I need the prayers. More importantly, pray that the Good Lord continue to protect our people and our nation from those who want to destroy it.
In conclusion, I think you should be keeping faith with your agreement with Professor Segun Ogungbemi who you quoted as saying "All that has been said negatively against Buhari needs to be investigated." and that "Secondly, Buhari needs to defend himself at well organized debates." Buhari has the opportunity to address these issues openly with Nigerians in a presidential debate now, encourage him to take the opportunity, rather than this stonewalling and hiding he's busy perfecting. The ball is in his court.
CHEERS AND STAY BLESSED!
…
On Monday, February 2, 2015 at 12:34:51 PM UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:It's disgusting. Kennedy Emetulu is absolutely guilty of what he accuses others of: recycling lies and hoping that with sufficient repetition the atrocious lies will miraculously transform into some truth, like Jesus turning some water into wine
RE- "As Federal Commissioner for Petroleum in a military government in the late seventies, the records show that he presided over the stealing of $3 billion of Nigeria's money. After a public demand that the issue be probed, Buhari was indicted by the Senate of the Second Republic, but he then returned at the head of a military coup to sack that government and the first thing he did when he took over as the leader of that military junta was to ransack the Senate and destroy all papers and resolutions relating to the stolen money." (Kennedy Emetulu – again!)
Salimonu Kadiri has already settled that score here - and yet Emetulu brings it up again. I'm still looking forward to the epistle in which he promised to take up the attempted kidnap and bringing home to Justice of the late Umaru Dikko. Patiently waiting. All he can come up with just now is some cheap shots about Great Britain's extradition laws being contravened as if he is not aware of what happened with President Noriega – or better still as if he has never heard of Simon Wiesenthal - not that I'm comparing the late Umaru Dikko to the sort of scum that Simon Wiesenthal was hunting, but I was one of the people waiting patiently in Port Harcourt and very disappointed as to how things turned out at the last moment. The crowd was hoping that Mr. Dikko would "vomit the money" – only that the crowd does not know that to have about £5 billion Sterling in the Bank of England is a lot of money. It confers great privileges, can even terminate an extradition order – and there are several looters currently enjoying a life of luxury, mansions, Rolls Royces, country estates, hotels in Spain and California and other pieces of property everywhere…
"Discerning Nigerians know that the change we crave is already here and we are experiencing it for real under President Goodluck Jonathan" (Kennedy Emetulu).
I wonder on which planet he is living.
Does this not bother you: As western oil companies loot some $140 Billion a year of Nigeria's black gold two thirds of the country's 100 million people live on less than $2 a day
How is this permitted to happen on such a grand scale and who is it that permits it? The Goodluck Jonathan Government? The Niger Delta Militants who say that all the oil that is located in their backyard rightfully belongs to them – and that they should be given a free hand to do what they like with it?
Governor Rotimi Amaechi explained some of these phenomena on BBC Hardtalk – about Nigeria losing $1 billion a month of oil revenues to oil thieves – and mind you, this is happening during the tenure of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. That's a lot of money. You must agree that $1 billion dollars a month could overhaul the Nigerian educational system, even create some top notch university students, and produce the first Nigerian automobile, the Nobel Prize in Economics or Medicine...
"...what Jonathan has done is to establish the condition for the growth of a viable opposition in order to strengthen our democracy and give Nigerians real alternatives" (Kennedy Emetulu).
Are we to suppose that accounts for people deserting his PDP party in droves and joining the APC?
And please, which/what "industrial-military complex" is Emetulu talking about?
The elections are now only eleven days away!
Over here the Stockholm temperatures are still below zero
Pray for yourselves, pray for Kennedy Emetulu and pray for us too.
On Monday, 2 February 2015 03:04:58 UTC+1, Kennedy Emetulu wrote:.....Lola Shoneyin's False TestamentI like Lola Shoneyin. I like her for her literary work, but political commentary is way over her head. After reading her piece of kindergarten PR titled: "How my father's jailer can offer Nigeria a fresh start", published in the London Guardian of Saturday, 31 January 2015, I sincerely advise her to stick to her day job. Of course, any literary writer can write anything and use the fact that he/she is a writer to launder such in the international media, but when all is said and done, whatever they write will have to walk the plank of intellectual inquiry. Let's just say Lola failed woefully here.First, the fact that Lola's father today embraces his erstwhile tormentor is not a new phenomenon. People can do this as a way of showing forgiveness or moving on from the trauma or the experience. But whatever the case, you don't get many people later embracing their tormentors, which is why you will not get many people that Muhammadu Buhari had tortured celebrating the fact he's looking to return to govern Nigeria again.However, while we will not question the personal or psychological reasons behind her father's decision to embrace Buhari, we cannot but question the public reasons proffered here by Lola, because we are talking the same country in which we all have a stake. Lola says she was 10 years at the time Buhari was military head of state, I was 20 and in university and by the time he was overthrown, I was out of university already. So, my account of Buhari's time as head of state is no fairy-tale; it's experience. For old enough British readers, let me remind them that the fellow Lola Shoneyin is rooting for here is the same person who as Nigeria's military head of state on Thursday, 5th of July, 1984 criminally undermined British extradition laws by attempting the kidnap of Dr Umaru Dikko, a Nigerian exile living at the time in London. If you think such a man should be trusted, then trust Lola Shoneyin's account!Honestly, Lola needs to review her account of events and admit that there is no logic to her story and the relationship between the account of her family or father's misfortune under the Buhari regime and the support and supposed credibility she and her father are giving the Buhari presidential run today. If she wants us to believe that she and her father are supporting Buhari today, because he is the only face or one of the few faces of anti-corruption known to Nigerians today, then her story about her father not being guilty of the charges that took him to Buhari's gulag in 1984 cannot be true. I mean, if her father went to prison on trumped-up charges, then Buhari is not only corrupt to let that happen, he is also a tyrant for putting an innocent man in jail. If Buhari is not corrupt and he's no tyrant, then her father was a corrupt criminal duly put in jail by Buhari after a fair judicial process had found him guilty upon a consideration of all the evidence. In that context, we can accept that her father's happy-clappy return from prison and his rededication to Buhari's cause today is an admission that he was a thief now reformed and now prepared to carry the Buhari anti-corruption message to the rest of Nigeria.If we understand the above distinction, then Lola needs to admit that it cannot be both. It's either her dad was corrupt, in which case his support for Buhari can be understood, having served time and reformed himself and reconciled himself to the truth that Buhari did him justice or he was and is still not corrupt, in which case we would have expected him to stand firm against a corrupt and tyrannical Buhari who jailed him and turned his life and that of his family upside down, despite him being innocent of the charges.But, while opinion is free, facts are sacred. Lola's fact-free endorsement of the present Buhari political misadventure is only good enough for her and those gorging up on the new Buhari gravy train. I mean, which opposition governor in Nigeria is being starved of funds or harassed for not doing the bidding of the first lady? Is Lola by any chance talking of Rotimi Amaechi, the governor of the first lady's home state of Rivers State who chose to insult her and the President? Okay, whatever the political differences between them, was Rotimi Amaechi ever starved of funds? Isn't this same Amaechi today a byword for corruption in Nigeria? Isn't he the same man who rather than pay salaries of public workers, fleeced the state of public funds which he poured into the Buhari campaign in his quest to be the vice presidential candidate? Is she talking of the same APC governors that have stolen their people blind? So, where did they get all this money they're throwing around in their campaign to make Buhari president? Would any person truly serious about fighting corruption be associating with Bola Tinubu, possibly the most corrupt politician in Nigeria?Lola disappointed me greatly when she repeated a lie that has been severally disproved, which is that Buhari wrote to the minister of finance "requesting that he only receive 10% of the allowance that all past presidents receive on a monthly basis". When and where did this happen? Which finance m inister did he write and where is a copy of that letter? Did Buhari himself state this? Did the Ministry of Finance confirm this and is there a record available today to indicate he receives only 10% of this allowance? Of course, all this is a lie! This is an urban legend planted on the social network by some Buhari supporters without any basis whatsoever, yet Lola finds it convenient to state it as fact!So, what are the facts? Buhari's anti-corruption toga is borrowed, if not stolen. As Federal Commissioner for Petroleum in a military government in the late seventies, the records show that he presided over the stealing of $3 billion of Nigeria's money. After a public demand that the issue be probed, Buhari was indicted by the Senate of the Second Republic, but he then returned at the head of a military coup to sack that government and the first thing he did when he took over as the leader of that military junta was to ransack the Senate and destroy all papers and resolutions relating to the stolen money.The above was not the only issue that exposed Buhari's corruption. For instance, Buhari was one of the henchmen of the murderous General Sani Abacha regime. At the time, he was given charge of a hurriedly-created outfit called Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which had at its disposal vast sums of public money that Buhari and his cohorts syphoned and for which he was indicted by an official inquiry set up by then President Olusegun Obasanjo, despite the attempt by that same Obasanjo to shield him today as part of the military old boys' conspiracy to oust President Jonathan. So, despite this manic frenzy to airbrush Buhari's very poor public record with regard to corruption, there is enough information out there for those yet to be informed to look up. I dealt with some of this in an article titled: "Buharists and their Stockholm Syndrome":Now, here is the truth that anyone interested in Nigerian politics today should know. Buhari is the candidate of the Islamist fundamentalists and the Hausa-Fulani ethnic jingoists who think power should return to the North (despite the fact that they've had it for about 40 years of our 54 years of flag independence and have achieved nothing with it). More crucially, he is the candidate of the industrial-military complex that had held Nigeria down for 45 years before the election of President Goodluck Jonathan who rightly removed their prebendal hands from the national throat. They have now all ganged up in the APC as a majoritarian oligarchy, using propaganda and false narratives about national development to undermine the great work President Goodluck Jonathan has been doing, including helping to sabotage our war against Islamist terrorism in the North –East with the aim of removing Jonathan as president. But they will fail. They will fail, because Nigeria is God's project and no amalgam of liars, thieves and murderers will return to lord it over us again now that we have crossed our Red Sea.Discerning Nigerians know that the change we crave is already here and we are experiencing it for real under President Goodluck Jonathan. We know this, because change is not an event. It's a process and as a process it takes time. But those who have been part of it can attest to it, despite the lies being vigorously put out there by the opposition. Of course, post-1999 Nigerian democracy has been short-circuited by the military types or people with strong relationship with the military, like Obasanjo and Umaru Yar'Adua who had ruled the country since return to civilian rule. But Jonathan is the first president since the end of the First Republic without ties to the industrial-military complex. Thus the change he has brought to Nigerian politics is mainly in temperament.Unlike many African leaders, Jonathan has resisted the urge to use the big stick, even when it is in his personal interest to do so. He has accepted the opposition casting him as clueless and without any serious achievements, even as he quietly changes the political topography and culture while investing heavily in agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructural development, power generation, transport, education and so on. They've shouted wolf over the election, accusing him of having rigging intentions, even as he continues to allow Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be strengthened institutionally to the extent that the ruling party losing elections is the norm as the judiciary became less burdened by electoral disputations. It is his quiet internal revolution within the PDP that took power from the predatory members of the industrial-military complex and which led to all the hoopla within the PDP and the flurry of decampments to the ACP by characters who want a new vehicle to retain power or seize power to continue with their impunity.For instance, one of the greatest achievements of the Jonathan government is in agriculture, but it wasn't easy. For those who do not know, in time past, large-scale farming was a preserve of military generals who use it as a cover to acquire vast lands and create a fertilizer cartel to milk the nation dry. But Jonathan comes and democratized the fertilizer distribution process and freed it of the corruption of the generals with the attendant result being the achievement of great success in our agricultural sector for the first time since we abandoned it almost half a century ago and the generals are not happy. So, when we see the old political generals running to the APC and shouting change, we know the beat they are dancing to. They think with their colleague Buhari in power they will return Nigeria to the days when they used agriculture to fleece the nation without producing anything. They are dead wrong.So, despite Lola's fairytales, Nigerians know the truth. They know that the leading lights within the APC rabble shouting change today are part of the architecture of the Nigerian problem. They are no less corrupt and no less inept than those they rail against. They can see that what Jonathan has done is to establish the condition for the growth of a viable opposition in order to strengthen our democracy and give Nigerians real alternatives. This is clearly something an Obasanjo or a Yar'Adua would never allow. But Jonathan knows it is imperative for national growth. Yet, that's all he can do. He cannot people the opposition with the right characters. They also have to fall or stand on their records, antecedents and processes.Today, Nigerians can see that Buhari is all gloss, no substance. His campaign has the best media and campaign advisers from America, Europe and Australia, all oiled by Arab money and money stolen from public coffers by Bola Tinubu and the APC governors backing him, but they still cannot do magic with a candidate that is damaged goods. The hoopla over him lying on oath about his qualifications has exposed his corruption and the fact that he has been a leech on the state. His refusal to take part in a public debate with President Jonathan has confirmed the suspicion of many that he really has nothing to offer. I mean, not that this needs any type of confirmation, as he is clearly a glorified illiterate who knows nothing about modern governance. To think that 72-year old Buhari is the symbol of change that the APC proposes for Nigeria in 2015 is mindboggling. But we know he's just a stalking horse for their scheme to take the nation back to the hounds.Curiously, Lola says he's been travelling with the Buhari campaign team for the last three weeks before she penned her piece and that this was because she had a personal need to understand this Buhari man who's run for office a record three times. Yet, Lola would not tell us in what capacity she was hanging around the campaign. Is she or was she a paid or unpaid adviser to the campaign? Wouldn't a full disclosure be in order? She says in that time, he's had several conversations with him and "have come to understand what the mass hysteria is all about and why Nigerians would vote for this soft-spoken but highly principled 72-year-old". Really? So, what did they talk about and why is Lola not sharing that with the rest of the world? What is it Nigerians and the world don't know about this man that Nigerians have rejected at the polls for the past 12 years? One would expect that Lola would be eager to share with us the man's vision of national development, but she's chosen to keep all that close to her chest while selling us blind messianism.Merely telling us that Buhari "has surrounded himself with a brilliant, savvy team of young Nigerians" and that she much enjoys "the passion with which he talks about his three main priorities: unemployment, insecurity and education" is a fudge. Who are the members of this savvy team of young Nigerians and what have they done in this campaign to exhibit their brilliance. Is it the poor advice he received over the certificate debacle or him doing a runner from the debate? The only passion Buhari has is in his desperation to be president, but he exhibits none when he speaks of unemployment, insecurity and education, because up till now, Nigerians have no idea what he would do about these except his repetitive declaration of fighting this or fighting that without any exposition or expatiation apropos to the issues.The fact that Lola thinks she can pull the wool over our eyes about Buhari's lack of political and intellectual gravitas is the tragedy of her piece. Worse still is the fraudulent idea of offering us Buhari as the nation's opportunity of a fresh start. How does an old dictator who still stridently justify all the atrocities he committed as a military Head of State and who arrogantly says he regrets no decision he took or any effect of any such decisions or actions qualify as the harbinger of a fresh start? How does a man who's threatened to send people to Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison without due process in a democracy represent anything but a dinosaur? Does a 72-years old man who thinks he has the power to singularly stabilize oil price have what it takes to lead Nigeria in 2015? I don't think so. The joke has gone too far already and we can't wait for February 14 to come, so we show the world that majority of us Nigerians are not suffering from amnesia or Stockholm syndrome.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment