APC South West Chieftain Strongly Warns Northern Elders, 2017 Not 1993

APC South West Chieftain Strongly Warns Northern Elders, 2017 Not 1993 

The day before yesterday we were told by the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, that her husband was not as ill as most of us believed and that despite his obvious challenges he has continued to “carry out his responsibilities”. 

On the same day the media went to great lengths to convince us, without providing any pictures, that the President had resumed work and that he had had a series of fruitful and productive meetings with his Minister of Justice and the Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) respectively. 

They assured us that he would definately preside over the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting which was scheduled to hold the following day. 

All of these assertions proved to be false. Buhari has now missed his FOURTH Federal Ececutive Council meeting in a row due to his chronic and debilitating ill health.

Whoever is holding this poor, frail, sick and elderly man to ransom and keeping him in the Presidential Villa, probably against his will, is wicked and ungodly and he or she is committing a grave sin against God and the Nigerian people. 

It is clear that the President is no longer fit to govern. It is obvious that his time is almost up. It is self-evident that for him the bell is tolling. 

It is incontrovertible that those around him have held him captive and are indulging in what I once described in an essay that I wrote seven years during the last days of President Umaru Yar’adua as “corpsocracy”. The essay was titled ”Corpocracy; A Gift From Umaru To The Modern World”. 

Simply put corpsocracy means the rulership of the living by the dead. It is the art of hiding a walking corpse, a comatose zombie or what some have described as the “living dead” in a cupboard in the Presidential Villa, telling the world that it is hale and hearty and then ruling and running the country in its name.

This is what happened during Yar’adua’s last four months on earth whilst he still had one foot in the land of the living and it is happening to Buhari today. 

Such was the ruthless and cold-blooded deception that Yar’adua’s inner circle brought into the equation that they managed to convince the Nigerian people and indeed the entire world that a President that was totally comatose and literally brain-dead managed to sign the 2010 budget all the way from dream-land. 

They also managed to conjure up a fake but convincing telephone interview with the … television service which millions of unsuspecting viewers, including yours truly, watched and listened to from all over the world. 

Such was the angst of the management of the … when the truth was unearthed and they finally discovered that they had been misled, conned, duped and used that the northern Nigerian woman that organised the so-called “interview”, passing off Yar’adua’s brother’s voice as Yar’adua himself, was expeditiously and unceremoniously sacked.

Her name was …. and she was the head of the … at the time. She was also a double agent of both the MI6, the United Kingdom’s secretive international spy agency and Nigeria’s external spy agency known as the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). One is constrained to ask: what have the Nigerian people not been subjected to or seen? 

All these dirty games conducted in a sqaulid and sordid attempt to hold on to power at all costs. Yet worse of all are the nauseating mendacities that the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, keeps churning out. Yesterday he told us that Buhari did not attend the FEC meeting this week because he was “still resting”. 

Equally amusing was the absurd assertion from the Minister of Transport, as Rotimi Amaechi, who claims that he “is not corrupt” and that he “does not like money” and who told Nigerians that Buhari was now “putting on weight”, was “much better” and that he was “fit enough to run for the Presidency in 2019”.

Honestly one wonders if these creatures have any genuine love and compassion for their principal because if they did instead of telling us lies about his medical condition they would simply get on their knees and beg him to resign. 

One wonders if they have any shame. It is very clear to me that they are all under an accursed hex or Luciferean spell. They have been bound and blinded in body, spirit and soul. 

This is a classic case of the Living God hardening Pharaoh’s heart unto destruction. Yet sadly those in power, including Buhari himself, are so obsessed with that power that they cannot see it. 

Instead of letting God’s people go and bringing to an end the wickedness, persecution, slaughter and destruction of their perceived enemies, the Buhari administration has gone into full throttle and unleashed even more havoc on members of the opposition and those that they hate.

A few examples will suffice. 

A couple of weeks ago when my younger brother Mr. Deji Adeyanju, the stormy petrel of Nigerian political activism, together with his equally dynamic colleague Mr. Ariyo Dare Atoye, organised protest marches across the country demanding for the release of the great Biafran leader and irrepressable Igbo nationalist Prince Nnamdi Kanu, they were both promptly arrested and briefly detained by the police. 

The same thing happened to them again in Abuja a few days later after they organised yet another demonstration, this time calling for the release of two online bloggers and journalists, Mr. Austin Okai and Miss Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo. 

It didn’t stop there. Two days ago the Southern Kaduna’s Peoples Union (SOKAPU) went on a march in Unity Square, Abuja protesting about the continued mass murder, genocide, butchering and ethnic cleansing of their Christian brothers and sisters and people by Buhari’s kinsmen, the Fulani militias and herdsmen.

Amongst their ranks was the courageous, refreshing, young, articulate, brilliant and bright rising star of Nigeria’s Middle Belt zone, Miss Ndi Kato. 

Sadly instead of being treated with sensitivity and compassion and being given assurances that the killings would stop and the killers would be brought to justice, they were insulted, beaten, brutalised and dispersed with batons and tear gas by the Nigerian police. 

When elements of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group led by Mrs. Aisha Yesufu joined them as a mark of solidarity, they were brutalised and dispersed as well. 

Worse still Aliyu Babangida, the former Governor of Niger State, Sule Lamido, the former Governor of Jigawa state, Ibrahim El Zak Zaky, the leader of Nigeria’s Shiite Muslims, Sambo Dasuki, the former National Security Advisor to President Goodluck Jonathan and countless other opposition leaders and opponents of the government remain languishing in detention cells and prisons all over the country whilst plans are afoot to frame up and arrest numerous others like the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu. 

This is clearly a government and a President of “no going back”. Like Shakespeare’s Macbeth they are “so far steeped in blood that should they wade no more, returning would be as tedious as to go over”. 

Yet the price for their chosen path, their sheer cruelty and callousness and their sanguine disposition is very high. 

It is not just a matter of Buhari possibly dying in office as a consequence of whatever it is that has afflicted him but also what the aftermath of his death will bring. 

Baba Bisi Akande, a leading member of the APC and one of the most reverred and credible figures in the country, has already fired a warning shot on behalf of the Vice President and the south-west by saying that nobody should mistake 2017 for 1993.

For those that are too young to know what he is saying is that if Buhari dies no-one should dream of scuttling Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s succession and thereby deprive the south-west of the Presidency like they did in 1993 when Chief MKO Abiola’s mandate was annuled by the northern military simply because they did not want a southern President. 

This is a timely and useful intervention by Baba Akande but sadly it has fallen on deaf ears. The cabal and the ultra-conservative core north (which is the constituency that Buhari represents) has already made up its mind. 

As a matter of fact the spokesman of the Northern Patriotic Assembly issued a prompt response to him yesterday and warned him and other “leaders from the south-west” to desist from making what they described as “such immoral and despicable statements”.

Again at the instance of the northern elders and leaders, the APC Youth Wing issued an even sterner warning and advised Akande to “go for a physchiatric test” for suggesting that the ill health of the President was taking its toll on the nation. 

As far as these people are concerned the Presidency of Nigeria belongs to the north and whether Buhari lives or dies, it must stay there. 

Worse still their view is that if they cannot have it then nobody will. That is the beastly mindset of those that we are contending with. And those that suffer from it will certainly come to an equally beastly end. 

The truth is that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and those that they represent …. They have been rejected by the Living God.

His is a government of compulsive liars, sadistic tyrants, blood-thirsty pyschopaths, closet kleptomaniacs, ethnic supremacists, radical Islamists, skull and bone diviners and voodoo merchants. 

The fact of the matter is that whether they like it or not we are entering the end game. Everything is coming to a head. The next few months will be instructive and critical and much will happen that will surprise and shock the world and the Nigerian people. 

To the spiritually sensitive and discerning one thing is clear: this dispensation is almost over. The beast is dying. The flesh is rotting. The vultures are gathering. The sky has turned black and a new era approaches. 

Yet even in sickness, death and decay the tyrant and his followers revel in deception, treachery, doublespeak, blood-lust and wickedness. 

My advice to them is to humble themselves and FEAR GOD before it is too late!

My counsel to them is to let this sick and elderly man resign in peace and allow him to go home to take care of his health and make his peace with God. 

My appeal to them is to be sensitive to the Spirit and to recognise the fact that he has been struck and mortally wounded by the sword of the Lord. 

My prayer to them is to accept the fact that he has been pierced with the arrow of God, he has been hit by the east wind of destruction, he has been afflicted with a deep spiritual wound and he is suffering from God’s judgement: it is time for him to GO!

 SOURCE http://www.infoauthentic.com/2017/05/apc-south-west-chieftain-strongly-warns.html

Saraki & ‘Stolen Money’

Saraki Owns Warehouse Where He Stores ‘Stolen Money’ Why We Stole N310m, Aides Claim

 Some of Senate President Bukola Saraki’s aides involved in the November 20, 2015, theft of N310 million being transported to the senator have disclosed why they stole the cash. The aides snatched the cash from a bureau de change operator at 5 Nana Close, Maitama in Abuja.

Tracked down by SaharaReporters and speaking anonymously, some of Mr. Saraki’s aides, who are currently on the run, said the senator was in the habit of warehousing large volumes of cash, mainly for use as bribes to judges, investigators and prosecutors to ensure the scuttling of his trial for false assets declaration by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

The theft, first reported by SaharaReporters, featured five officers of the Department of State Security (DSS) led by Abdulrasheed Maigari, the most senior of the DSS officers attached to Senator Sarak‎i. Mr. Maigari hails from Dungo local government area of Taraba State. The other DSS officers involved in the heist were Ibbi George from Adamawa State, Patrick Ishaya from Plateau State, Peter Okoye from Delta State, and Solomon Yunusa from Kogi State. Other participants included four other aides of Mr. Saraki and five serving military officers led by one Captain Hassan Mshelia.

The aides at large revealed to a correspondent of SaharaReporters that Senator Saraki often used a house, 18 Lake Chad Crescent, Abuja, as a warehouse for illegally acquired money. They said huge stashes of cash from First Bank Plc. branch located at Coomassie House in Abuja were often stored in the house. The aides added that the funds were then moved on behalf of the Senate President for use in a variety of special “political assignments” ordered by Mr. Saraki.

The sources said cash was regularly moved from the bank and the house on Lake Chad Crescent to Mr. Saraki’s mansion at 5 Nana Close in Maitama, from which lawyers, as well as judges and their designated representatives, collect the cash to obstruct justice.

They said Mr. Saraki regularly used five of his official security aides, supported by five soldiers usually chosen by Paul Ibok, his Chief Security Officer, to move the funds. The aides disclosed to SaharaReporters that, between October and November 2015, there were three cash movements to No 5 Nana Close.

According to them, the cash was usually received by Mr. Saraki’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Peter Makanjuola, who also has the duty of distributing it to judicial officers with whom various deals had been struck regarding plots to scuttle the Senate President’s trial.

In one instance, the aides disclosed, N550 million was delivered to Justice Alfa Belgore, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, to carry out an illicit assignment of obstructing justice on behalf of Mr. Saraki. On another occasion, DSS officers working with soldiers took the sum of N370 million to a venue. According to the wanted DSS operatives, the Senate President had 23 DSS operatives attached to him. The DSS officers are split into two teams (A and B), with both teams taking turns to provide security for the Senate President, who lives in an eight-bedroom official residence. The building, known as “White House,” shares a wall with the official residence of the Inspector-General of Police.

Our sources said that having observed the unrestricted movement of large sums to Senator Saraki’s home, some of his DSS aides also developed an appetite for cash. Thus, on November 20, 2015, an aide of Mr. Saraki directed the leader of Team A, Ibrahim Shariff, to call Mr. Maigari, who had been off duty, to return to work for a “special assignment”. On his return, Mr. Maigari was told to join four colleagues and five soldiers to go meet one Ibrahim Kabir, a First Bank employee, to pick up money for the Senate President. They said Mr. Kabir happens to be the account officer for Hassan Abubakar Dankani, Mr. Saraki’s favorite bureau de change operator. One longtime associate stated that Mr. Saraki had been using Mr. Dandani to launder funds since the senator’s days as the governor of Kwara State.

Our sources said that, with the increasing scrutiny on him, Senator Saraki had decided against using the DSS officers attached to him to escort cash movement. Instead, the senator asked the management of the bureau de change to make their own arrangement for security escorts to move the cash to Senator Saraki’s home.

However, with their own growing hunger for money, Senator Saraki’s security details had hatched a plot to corner the cash. And they recruited other colleagues and Captain Mshelia. Dressed in military fatigue, the security agents positioned themselves near the senator’s home and ambushed the vehicle in which the bureau de change operator was conveying the cash. SaharaReporters learned that the security officers told those moving the cash that they were under arrest for money laundering. The police officers hired as escorts by the bureau de change operator had to leave the scene when the DSS men showed their identification tags, which gave the impression that they were on legal duty.

Once the policemen had left, the DSS officers, including those attached to Mr. Saraki, told the bureau de change operator that they knew of the destination for the cash and that moving huge sums of cash outside the banking system was illegal. The DSS officers then demanded N350 million in order to allow the vehicle to proceed. After a period of haggling, the officers settled for N310 million.

When Mr. Dankani was informed of the development, he phoned Senator Saraki, who instructed him never to mention his name in connection with the cash. Unaware that those who carried out the theft included members of his security detail, Mr. Saraki thought he was safe from being exposed.

Abdulrasheed Ahmadu Maigari, Saraki’s Details
Photo Credit: Sahara Reporters

 Shortly after SaharaReporters reported the heist, disclosing that the cash belonged to Mr. Saraki, the senator’s spokesman, Yusuf Olaniyonu, issued a statement denying the senator’s ownership of the stolen money. “We want to say categorically that Dr. Saraki is not the owner of the stolen money. He does not know the owner who is said to be a bureau de change operator. The police that investigated the robbery incident and the SSS, which issued a statement on it, can confirm that there is no link between the Senate President with the ownership of the money,” Mr. Olaniyonu claimed in a statement.

Mr. Olaniyonu also told SaharaReporters that the police had issued a statement on the matter. But when SaharaReporters demanded where to find the said police statement, he said we should check a ThisDay report, which he claimed contained the police statement.

The paper quoted Wilson Inalegwu, Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, as saying: “In the course of the investigation, we were able to get the names and identities of some of them (the suspects). Unfortunately, two of the DSS operatives are attached to the Senate President.”

Ibbi George, A DSS Officer Arrested
Photo Credit: Sahara Reporters

Every step of the way, Mr. Saraki made valiant efforts, abetted by the DSS boss, to prevent the money from being linked to him. Mr. Dankani, the owner of the bureau de change, said the robbery took place at 5 Nana Close, off Mississippi Road in Maitama and claimed that the robbers dropped off his boys on the outskirts of Abuja. His version of events, however, was disputed by Mr. Saraki’s DSS aides, who told this online newspaper that there was no need to have taken them, as there was no confrontation between them and Mr. Dankani’s boys. After taking the cash, the aides said, they left for Maigari’s house in Keffi, Nasarawa State, where they shared the loot before returning to work with Mr. Saraki.

Mr. Dankani also told SaharaReporters that he is a nephew of the former military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Mr. Saraki’s DSS aides disclosed to SaharaReporters that the ex-head of state and the Senate President are very close friends, adding that they had accompanied him numerous times on his visits to Abubakar at his Lake Chad Crescent mansion.

Six days after the theft, both Mr. Maigari and Mr. Ibbi were arrested around 8:30 pm, as they prepared to accompany Senator Saraki to see President Muhammadu Buhari. After their arrest, the wanted aides narrated, they requested to see the DSS Director-General (DG), Lawal Daura, to explain why they stole the money. Mr. Daura declined the request but sent a DSS officer to tell them that the matter would be resolved internally. He sent firm instructions through the officer that the arrested officers should make statements, but ensure that such statements should not link the stolen cash to Mr. Saraki in any way. As such, the detained officers wrote choreographed statements dictated to them by investigators.

Mr. Saraki’s aides on the run disclosed that Mr. Daura and the Senate President are intimate friends and that, on at least four occasions, he secretly met with the senator after the latter’s corruption trial had begun. The first of the clandestine meetings took place at Barcelona Apartments in Abuja. On two other occasions, Mr. Daura and Senator Saraki met at night at the Senate President’s official residence. SaharaReporters has constantly reported that the DSS boss, Mr. Daura, was providing strategic support to the Senate President to help him frustrate his trial.

A statement issued by the DSS on December 6, 2015, was carefully tweaked to give the public the misleading impression that the stolen cash belonged to the bureau de change operator. The statement also failed to provide details of the purported robbery. Signed by Tony Opuiyo, the DSS statement said: “The Department of State Services (DSS) wishes to inform the general public that the Service has arrested two (2) out of five (5) of its staff involved in the robbery and sharing, on November 20th, 2015, of the sum of three hundred and ten million Naira (N310m) belonging to a Bureau De Change operator in Abuja. While three (3) of the DSS staff are now at large, the Military Authorities have commenced a detailed investigation of five (5) of its personnel involved in the crime.” It added that preliminary investigations revealed that Mr. Maigari conspired with four colleagues to steal the money.

Currently, only Mr. Maigari and Mr. Ibbi are in detention at Kuje Prison, awaiting trial. The others are at large. Representatives of the detained operatives said the DSS first charged them to court in April 2016, after media reports revealed that the money stolen belonged to Mr. Saraki. They were charged to court for planning to demand their freedom through the filing of a fundamental right enforcement suit in Abuja.

Mr. Saraki’s security aides who remain on the run told SaharaReporters that five soldiers are also in detention at Kuje Prison in connection with the theft. In April, the police charged the soldiers to court for robbery. But curiously, the soldiers are being tried separately from the DSS officers because the DSS refused to hand over Mr. Maigari and Mr. Ibbi to the police for prosecution, claiming it did not trust the police.

Representatives of the detained DSS officers said they recently discovered that Sunday Agaba, a man who accompanied them to steal and was described as a bureau de change operator, is actually a retired Army officer. He was shot by the police as they arrested him. When SaharaReporters blew the lid on this, both Mr. Maigari and Mr. Ibbi were removed from the underground cell where they had been kept and allowed for the first time to meet with their respective families. It was during such interactions that they realized they had been branded, armed robbers. They disclosed that if they were prosecuted along with the soldiers, they would give the exact narration of the alleged robbery incident.

SaharaReporters learned that Mr. Dankani was listed as a witness in the case. But on cross-examination in April, he claimed he was forced to come for the trial. When SaharaReporters contacted Mr. Dankani shortly before this report was written, he claimed to have a hazy recollection of what went on with the bullion van on the day of the incident. However, he insisted that the money stolen belonged to him.

The DSS operatives being prosecuted claimed that the stolen money was recovered from them in full. However, the DSS told the court that it recovered only N96 million.

The DSS operatives are due to appear again at the Federal Capital Territory High Court 18 when judges return from vacation.

Mr. Saraki too is on vacation with his entire family in Ibiza, Spain. The theft of N310 million was not the only time Mr. Saraki’s money laundering had provoked aides to steal from him. A group of aides at his house in Ilorin recently stole cash worth N110 million from his bedroom in Kwara State.

(SaharaReporters)https://therepublicannews.net/2017/04/30/saraki-owns-warehouse-where-he-stores-stolen-money-why-we-stole-n310m-aides-claim/

The man, Tunji Braithwaite

The man, Tunji Braithwaite

— 29th March 2016

By Cosmas Omegoh and Ndubuisi Orji 

“ALL the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts,…” says Williams Shakespeare in one of his writing.

For social critic, Tunji Braithwaite, it was time to exit the stage, as he passed on after 82 eventful years, yesterday, while Christians worldwide were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

His death effectively drew the curtain on his many years of political and social activism.

A man of many parts – lawyer, activist and politician – he would be remembered as a man who was never afraid to say his mind at any given time and on any issue.

Although, he had a very successful legal career, Braithwaite’s foray into politics did not produce the desired result for him.

Born in 1933, he was educated at the CMS Grammar School between 1946 and 1953, sat for his ‘A’ Levels at the London University at Kennington College in 1955, enrolled as Law student at the Council of Legal Education, London in 1957, graduated as a barrister in 1960 and was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in February 1961. Thereafter, he signed the Rolls of Barristers at the High Court of Justice, Strand, London before returning to Nigeria, where he was enrolled as a Barrister and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in March 1961.

A fearless and controversial lawyer, Braithwaite in 1962 at barely 27, was one of the legal team that defended former premier of Western Region, the late Obafemi Awolowo in the celebrated treasonable felony case brought against him by the Federal Government. He also represented the late Afrobeat icon Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and his brother, Beko Kuti in the famous unknown soldier saga in 1977. In the case to seek redress against the military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo, who had detained the duo, Braithwaite fought through the High Court to the Supreme Court.

His politics  

Braithwaite joined politics in 1978 with the launch of his party, the Nigeria Advance Party (NAP) on October 7, 1978. In December 1978, three political pressure groups joined the party. However, the party was denied registration by the electoral commission based on insufficient grassroots support, an action he termed “ neo-colonialist nonsense,” because to him, “ you don’t need permission from any government to form association, to canvass for political positions, so that was where our disagreement started from.”

NAP was eventually registered prior to the 1983 general election and was one of the six political parties that participated in the presidential election that year. The campaign slogan of NAP in the 1983 presidential election was a promise to rid Nigeria of rodents, rats, mosquitoes and cockroaches, euphemism for corruption. The party ceased to exist after the military junta of Major General Muhammadu Buhari took over power in 1983, few months after the election.

However, the party came back to life in the present political dispensation, following the mass registration of political parties, after late Gani Fawehinmi floored the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in court over the non-registration of his party, the National Conscience Party (NCP).

Braithwaite was a member of the 2014 National Conference convened by former President Goodluck Jonathan to fashion out solutions to some of the problems confronting the nation. Until his death, he was in the vanguard for the implementation of the report of that conference.

 http://sunnewsonline.com/the-man-tunji-braithwaite/

SALVINI IN NIGERIA?..... PERSONA NON GRATA ....!!

La Nigeria "respinge" Salvini: negato il visto sul passaporto

Il leader del Carroccio ribatte al Papa sull'immigrazione: "I muri cadono se ci sono regole". E attacca Renzi: "È senza palle, in Siria usi le armi". Poi lancia Souad Sbai al Comune di Roma

Sergio Rame - Lun, 28/09/2015 - 16:42

Il viaggio in Nigeria non ci sarà. La partenza era prevista per domani ma Matteo Salvini ha ritirato il passaporto senza il visto necessario.

"Me ne farò una ragione, ci tornerò quando avranno compreso che noi siamo qua per aiutarli", ha detto Salvini a Radio Padania spiegando con una certa delusione che "era tutto pronto". "Avevo anche fatto la vaccinazione per la febbre gialla e sono stato due giorni a letto - ha raccontato - e invece non si parte. La cosa assurda è che vengono in migliaia qui come clandestini e poi noi... non possiamo andare in certi paesi". Secondo il segretario federale, i nigeriani non avevano capito che "volevamo portare lì sviluppo e investimenti"."Peccato - ha chiosato - saremo più fortunati la prossima volta".

Lo sguardo di Salvini non è limitato ai confini italiani. Se da una parte torna a bombardare il governo ("Semmai dovessi fare la fine di Matteo Renzi difendendo l’indifendibile, ricoveratemi"), dall'altra entra a gamba tesa sulla politica estera. Sempre dai microfoni di Radio Padania, bersaglia papa Francesco: "arla alle anime e probabilmente ha ragione a dire che i muri cadranno ma cadranno solo quando ci saranno limiti e regole. Non si risolve il problema immigrazione - aggiunge - invitando le parrocchie e le famiglie a prendersi immigrati in casa". E, proprio per porre un freno all'immigrazione incontrollata che dal fronte siriano arriva lungo la rotta balcanica, chiede un impegno militare maggiore contro lo Stato islamico: "Renzi ha detto di no agli interventi militare in Siria: è un senza palle. Io sono sempre per il dialogo, ma non con i tagliagole, in Siria e in Libia bisogna intervenire con le armi, militarmente e massicciamente".

Salvini stava lavorando da mesi a una missione di quattro giorni in Nigeria, fissata a partire da domani, per dimostrare che si possono "aiutare a casa loro" gli immigrati che vengono in Italia. "Avremmo voluto andare a testimoniare la solidarietà vera e concreta", spiega il segretario della Lega aggiungendo che il visto sarebbe stato negato "a tutti" i componenti della delegazione, formata da "imprenditori e assessori regionali" del Nord. "Il dubbio - continua - è che essendo stata organizzata la missione dalla Lega per portare sviluppo, a qualcuno dava fastidio". Salvini è molto rammaricato di non aver "potuto concretizzare l’aiutiamoli a casa loro", ma assicura di essere già al lavoro per organizzare altre missioni in Paesi come il Marocco.

Per quanto riguarda la politica interna, Salvini lancia un nuovo nome nella mischia per il dopo Ignazio Marino. Solo ieri il candidato che avrebbe potuto unire il centrodestra sembrava essere Giorgia Meloni. Oggi, invece, il leader lumbard lancia Souad Sbai. "Non mi dispiacerebbe vederla sindaco - dice con franchezza - una parlamentare che si occupa di diritti delle donne e che lotta contro la violenza islamica da anni".

 http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/niente-nigeria-salvini-manca-visto-sul-passaporto-1176448.html

After the wait, the storm

By Mahmud Jega | Publish Date: Aug 31 2015 6:50AM | Updated Date: Aug 31 2015 6:50AM

President Muhammadu Buhari

 ------------------------------------------------------- 

Appointment of men and women to occupy key offices in the new administration was delayed for three months “in order to get it right” and also “to avoid making mistakes,” as President Muhammadu Buhari variously explained. In the event, as soon as he appointed a Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF], Chief of Staff and four other important officials last Thursday, a storm of social media criticism greeted the appointments. Apparently, the strategy of delaying appointments for several months in order to get everything right failed, in some citizens’ eyes, to ensure balance and fairness in a diverse federation.
I had wondered several times on this page whether trying to get things right warrants several months’ delay. A man who gets to become an elected president of a populous country such as Nigeria should know enough people all over the place that can be trusted to hold important posts. This is especially true of Buhari who was a soldier for 32 years, was military governor of a very large state, was minister in charge of the richest Federal Ministry, was a military Head of State and who has also been in politics for 13 years now. If that experience was not enough to know good people all over Nigeria, I don’t know what else is.
If personal knowledge of good material comes short, that is what political parties are for.  The problem is that Buhari does not think that his party shares in his vision, beyond mouthing the change slogan at rallies.  His insistence from the start that he will not rely on party state chapters to nominate ministers is indicative of this distrust.
At the end of the long wait, Buhari appointed three men who are known to be very close to him to three top positions. Chief of Staff Malam Abba Kyari, SGF David Babachir Lawal and Customs boss Colonel Hameed Ali have all been with Buhari during most of his 13 year quest for the presidency. The  message that other APC chieftains will get from these appointments is that Buhari has rewarded the men who stood by him the longest. The question is, why did it take three months’ search, only to end up with the men who were closest to him all along? 
For three months the president threatened to jettison considerations of party loyalty for technocratic merit. In the event, he rewarded the longest-standing loyalty. This is not bad at all, but old ACN and ANPP elements are likely to say that well, old CPC members deserve consideration but then, without our coming on board, Buhari would never have made it to the presidency. Afterall, they will say, he tried three times with the CPC circle around him but he never made it until we came along.
ACN and ANPP chieftains think their role was decisive in Buhari’s victory but yet another element, old nPDP, believe that they were the final straw that broke the obstinate PDP camel’s back. They believe that without their coming over, APC would not have been able to defeat PDP. A still later camp joiner is Obasanjo, who seems to believe that the missiles he hurled at Jonathan made all the difference. It is noticeable that none of these APC camps came out to defend Buhari’s latest appointments from charges of lopsidedness. It was left to Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Femi Adesina to say on Friday that the president will ensure balance in his future appointments. That is to say, the president agrees that the ones he has made so far are not balanced and he also agrees that balancing is necessary in Nigeria.
Only three days prior to last Thursday’s appointments, the [opportunistic] Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly had criticised a situation where Northerners hold the offices of President, Senate President, House Speaker, Chief Justice, Head of Service and National Security Adviser. The fact that Buhari did not appoint the Chief Justice or the Head of Service and the fact that he opposed the emergence of both Senate President and House Speaker was conveniently overlooked by SNPA.
The army of Northern social media warriors that rushed to Buhari’s defence were equally selective with facts, history and principle. Some said that Jonathan’s appointments were similarly skewed, a horrible way to defend anything. Others said that the president still has many appointments to make. While that argument was plausible a week ago, it became tenuous after last Thursday. The most important appointments yet to be made are ministerial, which contain an in-built balancing scheme since the constitution requires that each state must have at least one minister. Still others argued that balancing is a selfish elite issue. It is, but you ignore it at your peril because societies often rise and fall on the back of selfish elite issues. 
Still other social media warriors said that President Buhari should be given a free hand to pick his aides purely on merit without regard to regional balancing. Any Northerner who makes this argument could be suffering from historical amnesia. Forty years ago when most Federal public servants were Southerners, they insisted that “merit” must be used as the basis for all public service appointments. Northerners however insisted on “federal character” and succeeded in writing it into the 1979 Constitution. Northerners’ vigilance has kept it in the Constitution ever since.
Not that the Southern Nigerian elite is more principled than its Northern counterpart. In the late 1970s, even while arguing against federal character in public service appointments in one breath, the Southern elite pushed for the adoption of “zoning” in the political theatre, where it was disadvantaged. Twenty years later the Southern elite amplified zoning into the principle of power shift. So, the promotion of self-serving principles that suit their immediate needs is not the preserve of one regional elite in Nigeria.  However, it will be doubly opportunistic if the North comes round at this point to adopt the Southern position of 40 years ago because the tables are now reversed.
Federal character principle was so contentious in 1980 that the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies [NIPPS] organised a national seminar on it.  At that seminar, prominent Southern intellectuals such as Godwin Sogolo, Eghosa Osaghae and Peter Ekeh defended it as a form of affirmative action, saying an arrangement that keeps a diverse Federation in peace is superior to the need for “merit.” To those who said federal character lowers standards, Sogolo said no standard is lowered if a federation works out an arrangement that guarantees peaceful co-existence within it because there is no higher standard than that.
Balancing aside, last Thursday’s appointments threw up a few other issues. The new SGF Lawal’s CV did not show that he had any experience in the mainstream public service. Equally curious is the appointment of Colonel Hameed Ali to head the Customs.  This is not the first time that a non-Customs officer is being sent to head the paramilitary organisation. In 1989 the IBB regime brought Dr. Bello Haliru Mohamed from outside to head the Customs. The Abacha regime later sent Army Brigadier Samuel Ango to head the Customs.
There was uproar in the 1990s when Abacha appointed Major General Haladu Hananiya to head the Federal Road Safety Corps. Under the military regimes, soldiers headed many civilian agencies including Nigeria Airways, Federal Housing Authority, Nigeria Railways and National Sports Commission. Since then however, the trend has been to allow large state agencies to nurture their own leaders. Speculations before the appointments were that Ali was to be sent to EFCC. While the Customs Service could do with some of his tough guy reputation, Customs has grown in recent years into a sophisticated operation with a huge IT system infrastructure driving its destination inspection and other complicated trade rules.
Whatever are the president’s calculations, he ought to remember that an Army General who is launching a big military offensive does not leave his flanks badly exposed. The same rule applies in politics. Trenchant criticism of his fairness in appointments as well as silent restiveness within his party’s ranks could outflank the president in his main offensive battles against Boko Haram and corruption.
 http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/columns/after-the-wait-the-storm/108668.html

Why Igbos don't need the Senate Presidency: Post election musings.

Why Igbos don't need the Senate Presidency: Post election musings.

The most retrogressive argument I have heard people make after the election is that the Igbos have committed a political suicide by voting overwhelmingly for the PDP. The fallacy of this assumption is that the proponents think Nigeria should suddenly become a one party state because somebody is shouting change. This definitely is not democracy. Someone even argued that they should have at least voted some people into the National Assembly to win the golden price of Presidency of the Senate or Speaker of House of Reps. Since when do ethnic groups meet to decide to give some votes to one party and some to others. Again I am baffled at our shortsightedness for the following reasons;

1. During the inglorious years of Obasanjo in power, the Igbos had the Senate Presidency for 8 years without any corresponding dividend to our people. Instead the most anti- democracy President we ever had ensured that touts kidnapped a seating Governor in the East. What will the senate Presidency change now?

2. The proponents are so parochial that they think that the more than 200 other minority ethnic groups in Nigeria are not good enough for these positions. Otherwise how will the famous advocates of change think that Nigeria is a kingdom divided among the three major ethnic groups-hence Hausa for President, Yoruba for Vice and oh Igbos just lost the opportunity to present a Senate President. I think we are not being fair to the minority from where Goodluck Jonathan comes from. Could that be the reason why he was promised no peace during his administration and so it came to be. 

3. If history should be our guide, take a ride back toI1998 when the PDP lost in South West (Yoruba) and the six states went to the opposition Alliance for Democracy. President Obasanjo actually lost in his ward. Nobody called it political naivety. In 2003, on ethnic consideration, the AD governors decided to vote Obasanjo of PDP for the presidency and to vote AD for governorship. Note that this was an election against the current face of change Gen. Buhari. The agreement went soar and Obasanjo rigged all gubernatorial elections in favour of PDP. Tinubu the then Governor of Lagos state was the only survivor. I think students of history will admit that what the Igbos did is neither a precedent nor strange in our land. 

4. In conclusion, the Igbos are comfortable in the opposition and vibrant opposition is one of the most important elements in a healthy democracy. Suffice it to say that we will be deepening the democratic process from our current position and we don't want any mourners crying for the Igbo people.

 by IKENNA UGWU

Why I won’t be celebrating Nigerian independence

Why I won’t be celebrating Nigerian independence

'When you toast to independence, you are toasting ignorance and a culture of impunity,' writes Ade Onibada

Written by Ade Onibada
01/10/2014 01:33 PM

THIS YEAR I’ve made the decision that I will not be participating in any Nigerian Independence Day celebrations.
And before you raise your glasses and toast to 54 years since we shook off our colonial oppressors, you may want to ask yourself: ‘is there really much to celebrate?’
In April, approximately 276 girls were kidnapped from a boarding school in the area of Chibok, Nigeria – an event that without a grassroots movement would have been silenced and swept under a proverbial rug. Five months later, they are yet to be returned.
When you toast to independence, you are toasting ignorance and a culture of impunity. Your celebration inadvertently implies that you are applauding a nation where, more recently, the failings surpass its successes.
RESOURCES
The Nigeria population has been let down when resources as basic as consistent electricity current remain a rarity.
It is a nation sitting in the shadow cast by corrupt and self-serving political figures that pillage its resources like an all-you-can-eat buffet with a two-hour seating time.
The girls of Chibok were failed again when the hashtag #bringbackourgirls was hijacked and revamped as #BringBackJonathan2015 on posters hanging audaciously over the side of buildings to promote President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign. They were only removed once international criticism began to mount; prompting Jonathan to make a statement that he had never endorsed them in the first place.
Rather than making toasts, throwing parties and tying gaudy geles, what this Independence Day should do is prompt critical thought about what 54 years of self-determination has produced.
In an article on the subject by acclaimed Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, he wrote: “If a people must survive, the reign of impunity must end.” This isn’t a critique on terrorism or on corruption; but a critique on ignorance.
Political figures control public resources and are in no genuine manner accountable. Under the fallacy of democracy, continued cultural conflicts have been allowed to divide a nation already historically fragile.
Nigeria is riddled with many inconvenient truths often blanketed by the cloak of patriotism.
The inconvenient truths would identify the number of public figures who manoeuvre and manipulate political circles for personal gain, including an investigation that unearthed and confirmed suspicions of Boko Haram financiers.
Among them, allegedly, is an individual working at the Nigerian Central Bank and another former governor and recent presidential travel companion.
I wonder how the girls of Chibok would have typically celebrated Independence Day; certainly this year would be starkly different to what they’re accustomed to.
If we are toast to anything this year, then let’s celebrate ourselves. Let’s celebrate the enduring nature of the Nigerian people but let’s stop enabling those who are failing the nation with complicit behaviour and premature celebrations.
The next time I celebrate Nigerian independence it will be when the girls of Chibok can celebrate alongside the rest of us and no longer facing a life in captivity, slavery or worse.
Ade Onibada is a freelance journalist, feminist and politics graduate. She is also a proud British Nigerian.

Posted on: 01/10/2014 01:33 PM

http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/why-i-won%E2%80%99t-be-celebrating-nigerian-independence