Clay Richie

Few can dispute the fact that President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Ebora Owu, was one of those that brought President Muhammadu Buhari to power in 2015. Without Obasanjo’s wholesale and comprehensive endorsement Buhari would have failed woefully at the polls three years ago.

Hip-hop musician Harrisong, it was, who grafted the slang into the national lexicon two years ago with his hit, “Reggae and Blues”. Invoking the protest word “reggae” as metaphor for war and “blues” for peace, he muses about the desirability of making up after falling out.

Back in 2013 when Olusegun Obasanjo wrote his now famous letter ‘Before Is Too Late’ to President Goodluck Jonathan, every single newspaper sold out. Some publishers had to print extra copies. But they still weren’t enough. Copies and photocopies of the letter were printed on street corners and sold to a rattled public who seemed to have been jolted into consciousness from trance. It was a bestseller. Had the letter been a book, it would easily have been the most sold out book in Nigeria since independence. This spoke volumes about the political climate and general mood in the country.

I agree with former President Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigeria needs to be rescued from the “misgovernance guillotine” of the APC and the PDP. Obasanjo expressed his desire for the deracination of these bands of misfortune in his latest missive.

Investor sentiment towards the Nigerian economy was dealt a slight blow, after the MPC cancelled the January meeting due to their “inability to form a quorum”. Although the missed central bank meeting is likely to have little impact on the economy, it has the potential to reinforce market concerns over the nation’s poor policy management. An unwelcome return of political risk and uncertainty amid the current developments could create significant headwinds for the nation as it continues to consolidate the growth that began last year.

More than a week after President Olusegun Obasanjo released his state of the nation commentary and devastating assessment of the Buhari administration, it has remained the main subject in the public arena in Nigeria. It is a measure of the stature, influence and capacity of the elder statesman that whenever he intervenes as he has done, he sets the tone for public debate and the country’s future political direction. I have already commented at length on the appropriateness, timeliness, depth, brutal honesty and shortcoming of that statement on both television and radio, more than twice, but there is an additional aspect that the statement further throws up, namely the nature and extent of presidential powers to wit: should Obasanjo blame Buhari?

I was in a meeting when former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “letter bomb” rent the “news-sphere”. When I received the news alert, I hastened my business because I was seized by capricious anxiety to read the former president’s missive. I must say, Obasanjo has taken the art of letter-writing to an enchanted stratosphere. And I admire his preferred means of intervening in Nigeria’s socio-political malaise.

Even the Federal Government, the beneficiary of his latest of the series of his love letters, has described him as a patriot. Chief, Doctor Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, GCFR, is one of the luckiest Nigerians ever, as aptly observed by my former editor, Mr Simon Kolawale. Who am I to disagree?

Tribute to Dr. Alex Ekwueme “For instance, if you are a civil servant on level 10 and you are driving a Mercedes Jeep (SUV) and you are living in a palace in Maitama (Abuja) and your lifestyle is such that cannot be justified or defended  by your legitimate earnings, then you are deemed guilty until you prove otherwise” – Above is an excerpt from an interview Dr. Ekwueme granted in 2013. We shall return to this later.

“The future will have no pity for those men who, possessing the exceptional privilege of being able to speak words of truth to their oppressors, have taken refuge in an attitude of passivity, of mute indifference, and sometimes of cold complicity.”—Frantz Fanon.

About five years ago, in late January and early February 2013, The Guardian carried my three-part column titled “Struggling for seats in a sinking boat.” When, recently, I examined the first part of that series (the one that appeared on January 31, 2013), I was struck by the freshness of what I wrote. For a moment I thought I was commenting on the current situation.

You know elections are close when politicians begin to confess their love for Nigeria. Suddenly strange bedfellows are walking side-by-side, arms locked, lovey-dovey. Arch rivals and sworn enemies are dining and planning and plotting and plotting and planning. Politicians who have contributed immensely to the underdevelopment of Nigeria begin to tell us exactly what we want to hear: that the country is drifting and they have arrived to rescue us. They become our new messiahs, the patriots who love Nigeria like Jesus loves his church. I bear witness that Nigerian politicians are very good at winning power. Pity, they don’t know how to use it for Nigeria’s progress.

Congratulations to President Olusegun Obasanjo on his conferment of a PhD degree in Theology. Clearly, age is not an impediment to knowledge acquisition. This feat should be inspirational to our youths especially with the pervasive desire for wealth acquisition by all means possible which bodes danger for our well being.

While writing on certain things is sometimes a complete waste of time, not doing so is sometimes a complete disservice. After all, there’s virtually no single socio-political problem in Nigeria you will comment on without repeating yourself or recycling the same solutions you offered before. This sadly signifies the little or no progress we are making towards national development. Many people had rightly advocated for the ‘take the message and leave the messenger’ formula whenever Chief Obasanjo speaks. The truth however is, the issue is far much more beyond that, for if allowed, Obasanjo will erase and rewrite history before our very eyes.

Fellow Nigerians, I’m sure this must have been a very interesting week for you like it has been for me. I spent the first few days attending the Inauguration ceremony for the brand new President of the Republic of Liberia, former World Footballer, George Opong Weah and his Vice President, Senator Jewel Howard Taylor. I must say I was greatly inspired by what I saw in Liberia, a country which is like another home for me. About ten years ago, I received one of the greatest honours in the country when I was “gowned” and made a Chief with the powerful title, The Kiazolu of The Grand Cape Mount County. I’m eternally grateful to the Council of Traditional Chiefs of Liberia for such privilege. Interestingly, one of the dignitaries at my “gowning ceremony” then is now the new Vice President, Senator Jewel Taylor.

In the next few days, I will be discussing former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s public letter to President Muhammadu Buhari. I don’t think any Nigerian who knows me doubts that I do not want President Buhari reelected if he presents himself for reelection. In fact, I have already written an open letter to him asking him to resign and go rest shortly after he returned from his last medical treatment abroad. But, apart from the normal human feeling, one has for someone that advanced in age and struggling with his or her health, Buhari is ideologically not my cup of tea. He should not have been elected in the first place and having governed for almost three years now, we all can see what a monumental mistake we made by electing him.

Believe me; President Muhammadu Buhari should face stiff political headwinds, if he goes against his conscience to seek re-election. Look everywhere, but at the truth. In April 2015, days before his inauguration, Buhari penned an op-ed for the New York Times. It was a clever propaganda to present himself to the world as a ready-man. In that op-ed, Buhari quoted former South African President, Nelson Mandela, to make essential his message.

Today, President Muhammadu Buhari is in a position that no one can envy. His ride to power followed a rough terrain. He had critics including myself. He had admirers too. They were full of hopes in what his military-induced sense of obstinacy would bring to bear on Governance in a Jonathan-battered Nigeria. After all, Olusegun Obasanjo before him, had shown how easily a former military General could step on toes for the good of the country, at least, in his own perception. He also had haters and die-hard ones at that. His irredeemable haters will have nothing to do with his ethnic descent. They consider northern Nigerians as enemies of the country for their historical arrogance in leadership. Above all else, though, they naturally detest his military home-based attachment to the unity of Nigeria and that is what the minds that are endeared to his predecessor hated and still hate the most. Buhari was known for modesty and a measured lifestyle. Not known to be corrupt or encouraging ...

President Buhari has made history as the first C-in-C in power when the precious citizens of Nigeria suffered for months to access PMS. The ongoing fuel scarcity started in the Month of November 2017 and till this moment; our people are still suffering to buy FUEL for 200naira per litre in both Lagos and Ogun States. I am told it is costlier in some other parts of our struggling and fraught nation. The question is; how do you expect people to be suffering to access what we do have in abundance and at the same time rolling out drums, dancing and praising your hero—PMB and his bungling and disorganized team?

Without much argument, anyone who believes in God must agree that the man, Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo, Nigeria’s two-time leader, is a beneficiary of the inexhaustible grace of God. In fact, when I think about the Holy Bible’s assertion of the tendency of God to have mercy on whom he pleases, Obasanjo comes to mind as one, who, in spite of the feeling of many of his compatriots, continues to receive unmerited favour from God.

Conventional wisdom teaches that when you get to a situation where your friends and enemies are singing from the same page on issues affecting you, it is time to reflect on what you are doing wrong. Against the background of a groundswell of disaffection to his stewardship and the yet-to-be declared aspiration for a second term, that wisdom will serve President Muhammadu Buhari very well. For a man who came to office with much adulation, the president has squandered such enormous goodwill that he is now the object of all manner of unpleasant memes on social media, including those being promoted right from The Other Room.

Any response that is less than charitable to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s yesterday’s “Special Statement” stands the grave risk of being misunderstood given the widespread mood of despair in the land. This is because of the complexity of the situation. In the statement entitled “The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement,” Obasanjo calls for a third political force having ruled out the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as forces capable of dealing with the problem at hand. Yet what the nation sorely needs is a critical engagement with the moment and its definitions from various perspectives. The mood also calls for a sincere political introspection.

Truth, as one likes to say, is a pest. It is left for those haunted to device their own coping strategies. As for President Muhammadu Buhari, it does appear that when silence is not deployed fiercely as shield against uncomfortable questions, a few other tactics are improvised with a view to purchasing time or rehabilitating the truth.

It has been as expected…the torrents of vitriolic commentaries being heaped on former President Obasanjo for publicly excoriating President Buhari and daring to call for the formation of a Coalition of Nigerians to help rescue the country.  Those who will die with Buhari...the Abobakus of the #SaiBaba and #Change mantras…do not think “Evil” Obasanjo has the moral right to criticize “Saint” Buhari.

For most Nigerian politicians, the countdown to 2019 general elections began, even long before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) advertised the elections’ timetable, in March 2017. That is one of the negative characteristics of Nigeria’s electoral system or politicking, wherein barely midway into the four-year life of an administration, political activities will gear up and governance, the primary purpose of winning political office, will be relegated to the background. Of course, with politicking in full swing, office seekers will concentrate ample efforts on their selfish quest to win elections.

Did Wike’s bounty create the magic that found those agents of the tragic, the killers who menaced his state, and served their gang a bitter fate? – Ikeogu Oke, “Wike’s Bounty” As we seek solutions to the mass killings that have wracked our nation’s peace in recent times, the N200 million bounty Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike placed on the killers of 17 people in the state on January 1, 2018, should specially interest us. So should the swift response of security operatives who liquidated the alleged culprits. “For desperate ills, desperate remedies,” goes a French saying. Which captures the circumstances of Wike’s and the security operatives’ response, though the ideal is for such suspects to be punished as sentenced by the law.

Mrs. Aisha M. Buhari, the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari is probably the most loved person in Nigeria today, especially by critics of her husband’s administration. She first came to our notice in this regard when in the course of her ailing husband’s medical vacation in London, she famously declared through BBC Hausa Service that the Buhari administration had been hijacked by a cabal. Long before anybody raised the issue, she was the first to observe that President Buhari has no business seeking a second term in office the way he was carrying on. She even added that she would not join him for any second-term campaign. I had written a piece at the time titled “Aisha and that BBC interview”.

Narratives of hatred and violence are similar all over the world. Take for instance Hitler’s Nazis. Jews were subhuman and were comparable only to maggots, lice and rats, the narrative went. In pre and post-President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda’s murder in April 1994, (the Falcon 50 aircraft conveying him and Burundi’s President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as well as twelve presidential aides, was shot down) the narrative was not dissimilar.

The persistent fuel crisis Nigeria has been made to undergo reflects the curse which oil has become to an oil rich country; in fact, the sixth largest oil producer in the world. That curse shows glaringly in the paradox that such an endowed country almost wholly depends on imported finished fuel products for driving its energy needs. Yes, the country has drunk full from the blessings from oil. Oil has yielded bountifully since it was discovered in commercial quantity. Oil has yielded rich harvest to a country that is equally blessed with other resources. But from all indices, oil has rather led to a harvest of tears and regrets as its discovery marks the abandonment of other resources in preference to the effortless mining of oil and the huge payoff that comes from crude. How best to show this than that before the advent of oil, Nigeria was running very efficiently as an agricultural nation where cash crop was the source of an efficient system that benefitted the people and added g...

I believe in the formation of a radical, spirited and peoples' centered political movement in Nigeria, a movement that is designed with a specific mandate to redeem and salvage Nigeria. We urgently need a mass movement that will place Nigeria above other considerations.

The circumstantial case against Buhari is compelling and may help explain the signature failures of his administrations, from his neglect of the deadly violence of armed herdsmen to the collapse of his war against corruption.  A few facts will suffice.

The bloodletting in the Benue is a classic case of ‘The Heart of Darkness’. Of course, there are ceremonies of death across the world. If ISIS or such Islamic terror organizations are not bombing the shit out of some global metropolis like London, Paris or New York; then hurricane and other natural disasters are killing hundreds. So we seem to have entered the age of reckless deaths. So one can say: ‘what the heck about Benue?

It would be just a matter of weeks before the general elections. That is if Buhari doesn’t decide to postpone an inevitable tragedy like his predecessor did. Security was what GEJ cited and issues bordering round that have quadrupled since PMB took over. The Niger Delta militancy and the clamour for a Biafran state may have abated but he also has the Fulani herdsmen to complement a resurgent Boko Haram.

This year is not looking good for President Muhammadu Buhari. The incurious president has spent half of January confronting what he had ignored—the herdsmen extremism.

These are very difficult times in our country. Sad, mournful and dolorous times, as the New Year opened with killings in Rivers, Kaduna, Taraba, and Benue states, among others. Of course, there had been gruesome carnage on the Mambilla plateau mid last year, and bloodletting in Numan, Adamawa State, as well as in other places. Hell suddenly seemed to have enlarged itself against Nigeria. Sincere condolences to those who are grieving and mourning the loss of loved ones.

Your Excellency, let me start by telling you that this letter is not intended to flatter you but to show my profound appreciation, and that of so many like minds, for your uncommon sagacity at a time it seems wisdom has taken leave from most people in our dear beloved country and they are more engaged in flights of fancy. You are a classic example of that adage that says “behind every successful man is a woman.” Let me assure you that you are in a class of your own. And I thank God for blessing Nigeria with your kind.

The mouths of babes speak truths that the hoary and the wise dare not utter. This may be an unusual way to begin an address on the political challenges that lie before us. But I have good reason for this unique entrance. Before I provide that reason, permit me to commend the Daily Trust for having the foresight to inaugurate this important event 15 years ago.

There is an ugly, depressing reality of Nigeria that beggars understanding. The leaders and the institutions they run have generally been skewed to revere and pamper themselves as the demi-gods, while utterly placing no value on the lives and aspirations of ordinary citizens outside the circle of the ruling elites. The public systems and institutions are not designed for problem solving mechanisms. Which is why the culture of public blame is a pastime of both the political class and the military jackboots. The buck starts with the rulers and must be forced to stop with the hoi poloi and the retched dregs. There’s frequently a problem here, a crisis, there always. But not once do you see the engagement of clear-headed thinking to dissect the problem with a view to bring an elaborate solution.

Oby Ezekwesili has remained a news staple in the country. Among the miscellany of yesterday’s men and women, she exudes the most coruscating charm. And she is like a pop-star with an affective reckoning.

I still do not know why President Muhammadu Buhari is in mortal fear of prospects that we need to discuss the restructuring of Nigeria. From his utterances each time he found the gumption to speak on the issue, the President sounds like giving Nigerians the opportunity to talk about these issues might lead to the breaking-up of the country and make him the last leader of a united Nigeria. It seems he has agreed with himself to continue to suppress proponents of such an “offensive” thought rather than allow the death of the country he has loved and fought for all his life.

You get accidentally knocked down by a car in the middle of Ibadan…knocked down hard into unconsciousness…what do you think bystanders would do (or can do) to help save your life? It’s an accident, no fault of yours and probably no fault of the driver’s…just plain accident…what do you think will happen immediately? There you lay in a pool of your own blood with a couple of broken bones, perhaps even a cracked spine or skull, gasping for breath…what do you think will happen next?

On a sunny day in January 2010, in a small town in Kuru Karama, Plateau State, a Muslim mother watched helplessly as Christian men bludgeoned and hacked to death her two young children. About the same time, in a nearby village in Fan district, a Fulani pastoralist witnessed farmers from the Berom ethnic group—his neighbours—burn his house and kill his uncle. A year later, Berom residents in Fan district witnessed former Fulani neighbours kill Berom women and children in a murderous night raid.

There is no denying what is obvious. Herdsmen have attacked rural communities in different parts of Nigeria. The attacks are often brutal; the attackers would surround a village in the dead of night, shoot indiscriminately and set fire to huts. The killing is also indiscriminate; they kill anyone they can find, make the rest of the community to flee, then melt away into the hills and bushes almost without trace. The police almost never find the culprits.

How can anyone explain that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, could go to the investigative public hearing by a Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Petroleum Downstream to tell the whole world that 4501 trucks/tankers loaded with petrol could not be traced as they just vanished from the Nigerian radar? What did he actually set out to achieve by this gaffe?

Without a doubt, fervent ethnicity is one of the greatest bulwarks holding down the growth and progress of the country and in this mad inclination to the idol of ethnicity, all Nigerians are guilty. This single problem has so divided and calibrated Nigerians that every issue is looked at from the prism of ethnicity, judgment reached and often, these judgments have been pejorative and meant to arrest the growth of the country than to facilitate it. The country is today being held hostage by forces of ethnicity which paws and scratches at the basis of the country’s existence like a recalcitrant ennui. Ethnicity has hobbled the peace and wellbeing of Nigerians and has so wrecked the assured strength a hugely diversified country like Nigeria should draw from its diversity. In this scorched earth milieu, good policies have been shot down, killed and buried solely on the grounds of ethnicity. Good ideas have been destroyed and interred on the graves of ethnic intolerance. What serves ...

All eyes were on the Benue crisis last week until a group of seven thoughtless governors decided to take our attention away, albeit momentarily. The governors of Yobe, Kogi, Niger, Kano, Kaduna, Adamawa and Plateau States threw caution to the wind, assaulting our sensibilities in the process even when we were united in collective grief.

Days after General Muhammadu Buhari won Nigeria’s presidential election in 2015, I participated in a meeting in a United Nations office. Everyone was on time, but the meeting began late.  Nigeria was in the air.  The two Nigerians, one of whom was to chair the meeting, were treated rather like rock stars.  Nigeria was about to C-H-A-N-G E!   A Daniel had arrived!!

“I wish I could travel to the US right now” “Why? Why not wait till summer time?” “No, I feel like going there physically to tell President Donald Trump exactly how I feel about the statements he has been making about the black world.”

Six communities in the Logo and Guma Local Government Areas of Benue state were attacked on January 1 by herdsmen armed with automatic rifles. Not less than 73 people were killed. Subsequently, there have been similar attacks in Kaduna, Taraba, Adamawa and Ondo states within the first two weeks of the year. The response of the federal government has been lukewarm. The need to tackle this rising menace of deadly conflict cannot be overemphasized.

Are we one of the countries Donald Trump had in mind when he wondered why US lawmakers were seeking protection for “all these people from shithole countries” —  immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries? To be clear, this question is not original to Nigeria. It has been appropriated — and I am thoroughly ashamed to admit this — from Botswana.