Clay Richie

They struck again in two different parts of the country on different turfs. In Plateau, the bloody revenge mission by Miyetti Allah for the right of passage for cows left at least 100 dead.

My friend and Comrade, Onyeisi Chiemeke, posted the following on his Facebook timeline. I am reading two books now. One is titled: Who Financed Hitler? It was written by two siblings; James and Suzanne Pool. One key argument of the book is that most evils (Jos on my mind) are fueled by the rich and powerful from far and wide. For instance, how many people know that the great Time Magazine gave Hitler, Man of the Year Award in 1934? This was outside other editorial supports. The lesson here; the media is too critical to society, to be believed hook, line and sinker. Further the Ford Group and many wealthy Jewish families also invested heavily on the Hitler’s project. Why did they finance Hitler? The book provided the answers. Except that it is a very voluminous book – more than 500 pages. The second book is Michael Parenti’s, Blackshirts and the Reds. Incidentally it focused on Hitler’s twin partner then in Europe; Mussolini. The core of Parenti’s argument, is that without a cor...

Fellow Nigerians, nothing is more uppermost in the minds of Nigerians and friends of Nigeria than that of Nigeria’s general elections next year and, in particular, the Presidential race. I have had the honour of talking to a few of the Presidential aspirants in recent times, one or one or by telephone. So far, I have interacted with former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Cross River State Governor, Mr Donald Duke, the Chairman of BEN TV London, Mr Alistair Soyode, and my former running-mate, Dr Yunusa Tanko. Two nights ago, I succeeded in sitting down with two very formidable aspirants, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, at their homes in Abuja. The separate meetings, which took place one after the other, lasted till the wee hours of Friday morning.

Sometime in the 1970s, the Juju music maestro, then known as Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, did a track wherein a line lamented the cheapness of death in the country. The line “iku di mejiepinni,” meaning “death has become two for a penny,” spoke about the frequency with which people, especially young ones died. It talked about the low life expectancy in the country and waxed spiritual by wondering whether this was a result of sin. Were he still in his elements today, one can only imagine what the great music composer and musical artiste would be singing.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) kicked up a storm about transparency and accountability during the electioneering and immediately President Muhammadu Buhari was inaugurated. Indeed, the government tagged nearly everyone who had held office in the last administration corrupt. It was the selling narrative and I must confess, it was appealing and convenient to the charge. With a believing public (or should I say a gullible public), it was easily a home run. It’s been three years since this government took over the reins of power, yet corruption has become even more pervasive despite all the noise of purportedly fighting the hydra-head monster, at least going by the Transparency International and US Country reports released recently.

“Let me make you this promise today: We will protect your children. We will protect your wealth. We will make this country work again.” – President Muhammadu Buhari, January 6, 2015. Three years ago, President Buhari made you a promise.  It reverberated around the walls of your existence, persuading you that redemption was indeed possible, that your country could indeed be saved. Reading the quote above now, in the context of the recent terrorist attacks claiming countrymen, it feels like the punchline to a morbid joke no one finds at all funny.

The moment we entered the premises of the International Office of Migration (IOM) safe house in Bamako and the girls saw Mrs Abimbola Wonosikou, the Minister (Consul) at the Nigerian embassy in Mali, they were very excited. Some rushed to embrace her shouting ‘welcome mommy’. But it also did not escape my attention, as I surveyed the environment, that the young and brutalized girls, who had been weaned from their ‘Madams’ were only putting up brave faces. I picked a particular one and sat beside her. I did not even have to prod before she started telling me her heartrending story of the hazards of being sold into prostitution in a foreign land.

Any good Nigerian that does well to observe political events in Nigeria would easily agree that the present crop of politicians are better by miles than many of the not-thoroughly-cooked ‘actors’ in Nollywood, currently the world’s second largest film industry in terms of output. Perhaps with their inputs in Nigerian films, we could boast of being number one in the industry and that can be pass as an achievement in a 21st century world. Their theatrics if put into a movie would certainly put the country on the map; in this case not for its ingenuity but for the master classic joke that we have become in the international community.

There are possibly four things that motivate people towards criminality; being ignorant of the consequences of their actions, knowing but not caring about the consequences, knowing but thinking they can avoid the consequences and not even believing there will be consequences at all. People who are engaged in senseless killings in Nigeria and by extension, many parts of Africa are apparently motivated by all four factors; something the government and its justice system have largely failed to address virtually since independence.

It’s 2030 and the number of users on Nigeria-owned social media platform, Tanmo, just hit over 500 million users. Its gaining grounds quicker than any other medium across the continent because of its African appeal. The medium which allows users to connect socially, market their businesses and advertise has been dubbed the African Facebook.

The future of Nigeria looks bright as it is predicted to be the first African nation to reach $1trillion in GDP by 2030. The continent’s most populous country with its biggest economy is blessed with abundant human resources. With a current population of approximately 200 million, of which over 60% are under the age of 25, the availability of a buoyant workforce cannot be questioned. More so, given the population of this age group is projected to exceed 250 million by 2050. It is important to realise that this projection is just over 30 years away. Children in primary school today will be in their mid-thirties by the time the nation has such a large population under the age of 25.

Mr President and Commander in Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari, having watched with consternation the criminal massacre of our fellow Nigerians especially in the first half of this year without any evidence of fierce sense of urgency on the part of your government to end the abnormality, I have a simple question for you today. Are you by any strange possibility in need of the spilt blood of your citizens? I personally reckon that the answer to this outlandish question which some of your citizens are now asking in utter frustration is NO.

Former governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was destined to be national chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) at this intersection in the nation’s political evolution. His emergence approximates a part of the philosophy in the muses of H.L. Detridge that “we are all victims of our actions; our destinies are controlled by the cosmic rolls of the dice, the whims of the stars and the vagrant breeze of fortune that blows from the windmills of the gods.”    Divine elements, apparently working in harmony with existential considerations as well as the avuncular disposition and approbation by President Muhammadu Buhari, had culminated in the consensual coronation of Oshiomhole at the party’s June 23 national convention in Abuja. The magnitude of the strategic political concession that produced the Oshiomhole consensus also bore the obligatory imprimatur of the party’s 24 state governors who provided the essential validation that resolved the previou...

It has been ten years since the self-styled “strong man of Ibadan politics”, Chief Lamidi Ariyibi Akanji Adedibu, died. He died on June 11, 2008. I do not recall seeing many tributes or advertisements in the newspapers or other media commemorating his life and legacy. There was no public lecture or any important statements from those who were his protégés. That this is so is a useful lesson to today’s political Godfathers and henchmen in Nigerian politics who behave as if history has already assigned to them an immortal space on its pages.

Our president never disappoints. But it’s high time we reminded him that he swore on oath to protect lives and properties. Perhaps he has forgotten that he was not elected to enjoy the appurtenances of office alone, but to lead and lead decisively. Burying his head in the sand like an ostrich and speaking platitudes cannot make the country’s security challenges go away, just as he must have discovered now that criminal elements don’t respect his numerous “I have ordered” after every clash.

Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s finance minister, was quite pleased to inform the public last week that the federal government had released a total of N1.6 trillion for capital spending tied to the 2017 budget. According to her, the amount was the highest spent by any administration on capital projects. Of the N1.6 trillion, the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing got N523 billion, accounting for 33.10% of total releases, Defence and Security – N197.6 billion (12.50%), Agriculture and Water Resources – N149.5 billion (9.46%), Transportation – N126.3 billion (7.99%), Health and Education – N98.2 billion (6.21%) and Others – N485.7 billion (30.74%).

I hope Nigeria will make it. I want Nigeria to make it. However, I have one fear, one doubt: how does a nation that has lost even the most elementary notion of humanity make it? I have been traveling since Saturday evening. One of those yeye flights with long layovers involving hotel sleeps so I only arrived home in Ottawa this morning. I took the advice of one egbon to rest during my layovers - no devices, no news.

After three tumultuous years, Nigerians are entitled to ask what sort of administration, is Buhari’s Presidency? When it comes to the value of human life, is he insensitive, callous, or just incompetent? How could the Nigerian political class, security chiefs, ministers, senators and members of the House of Rep be sleeping peacefully in their hotel rooms guarded by heavily armed security men, while inhabitants at the foot of the plateaus and plains of the savannah are slaughtered by herdsmen and armed bandits? Will these senseless killings herald the political obituary of Buhari’s presidency?

“In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else’s mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one’s own place and economy.

In 2011, a brilliant, fine gentleman from the south-south was elected into the Nigerian senate. He was full of hopes and dreams. At a dinner with journalist friends, he outlined his vision and spoke enthusiastically about pursuing “developmental legislative agenda”. He would make a difference, he promised. Two months after inauguration, the senator came to see his friends in Lagos with his tail between his legs. He said in a defeated voice: “If development is this way (he pointed forward), we are facing this direction (he pointed backward). Since our inauguration, all we have been discussing is money, money, money. It is all about our individual account balances.”

At a critical stage of the 2015 presidential election, the rival People’s Democratic Party (PDP) alarmed the nation that, if elected, candidate Muhammadu Buhari would be pushed around by one of his lieutenants. This doubt obviously accounted for a seeming passive almost unnoticeable portion of Buhari’s inaugural speech in which he said “I am for nobody, I am for everybody.”

Not sure which one grate more, the fact that Governor Abdul’aziz Yari of Zamfara State claimed to have ‘resigned’ from his responsibility as the chief security officer of the state on Friday, June 15, and that he was right on the podium on Tuesday, June 19, at a campaign event in Ado Ekiti to campaign for a friend of President Muhammadu Buhari as one of APC leaders told us.

Fellow Nigerians, please, allow me to put it the way the late cerebral politician and legal luminary, Chief Bola Ige – former Governor of Oyo State in the Second Republic, former Minister for Power and Steel and later, Attorney-General and Minister Justice under President Olusegun Obasanjo – also known as the Cicero of Esa Oke, would have described it: “today may be a day of the long knives within the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC”. The problem will not be with filling the various positions which exist on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling Party, but with the way and manner in which those positions will be filled, especially those factions of the Party that will benefit and those who will not.

The news these days is replete with conversations about the innumerable challenges we face as a nation. Every day, there is a barrage of tales of corruption, terrorism & kidnappings, political instability, dilapidated infrastructure, social injustice, poverty, crime, poor health care, broken educational system, all of which are the consequences of a convoluted mix of structural issues, cyclical issues and occasional shocks.

“The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood and they thought it was one of them.” – Anonymous I have been waiting for the auspicious time to comprehensively interrogate Governor Ayodele Fayose’s “Continuity Agenda” which—-for all practical purposes—-the only pillar upon which his support for Prof. Kolapo Olusola (his deputy) in the July 14th governorship election in Ekiti state is anchored. While waiting, I have also been thinking about the appropriate angle from which—-for all

Incredibly, after Nigerians have waited with baited breathe for an unprecedented 7 months that seemed like eternity, President Muhammadu Buhari has in the course of signing the 2018 appropriation bill into law on Wednesday 20th of June stated that the document that he signed is radically different from what he submitted to the National Assembly, NASS.

Insertion! This word entered my offender’s register in 2016. At the time, Abdulmumin Jibrin, former chairman, house committee on appropriations, was a caterwauler; he cried out, alleging that the leadership of the house of representatives was involved in impassioned “insertions”.

There is a video circulating on WhatsApp that calls to question the integrity of the Nigeria Police Force and highlights the challenge of national security in our country. Given the frequency with which the four-minute video clip is being passed around, it is inconceivable that the attention of the authorities has not been drawn to it. But in the unlikely event that the Inspector General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris to whom it was directed, is not aware of the video, below is the scary information as provided by the young lady who should be commended for the effort:

As members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) gather for the party’s elective convention in Abuja this weekend, the APC can hardly look in the mirror and recognise itself as the vibrant coalition that swept the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from office three years ago.

Of what good is the humongous monthly security votes the executive governors of every state in Nigeria collects when they are actually not in total control of the security apparatus of the states they are voted to protect? I have said it before and I want to say it again: the current constitution of Nigeria has too many holes like a punctured tyre and to be sincere with ourselves—it cannot birth the nation of our dreams. Our current constitution makes god out of one man—who sits, eats, and sleeps far away from the rest of us. It can never work in this century.

Expressing helplessness, Governor Abdul’aziz Yari of Zamfara said last Friday that he no longer considered himself the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of the state. The governor’s lamentation was embodied in a message to the people of the state as they celebrated Eid el Fitri.

When he was farcically rigged out as Governor of Ekiti State four years ago, the perpetrators of that dastardly electoral gangsterism thought that Dr. Kayode Fayemi was finished in Nigerian politics. They have many reasons to think so. Then, the erstwhile ruling party, PDP, was going lyrical with horrific electoral shenanigans on which its claim of dominance of the country’s political space since 1999 rested. Again, in former President Jonathan, the PDP had a mindless Trojan horse whose desire to vanquish the state and put it under his putative thumbs and that of his PDP was legendary. Also, the electoral system was firmly subjected to the crude force of PDP’s bestial gerrymandering as nothing but outright procurement of electoral triumph against its opponents through very foul means satisfied this maniacal craze by PDP. But those that hastily wrote the political obituary of Fayemi based on the putrid outcome of the Ekiti farce of 2014 never took time to study his political histor...

Like him or loathe him, any poll conducted now to determine the popularity of President Muhammadu Buhari in the south west in particular and Nigeria as a whole would reveal an uptick from the level it could have been before the announcement of adoption of June 12,1993 Democracy Day.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines torture as “the act of causing great physical or mental pain in order to persuade someone to do something or to give information, or to be cruel to a person or animal”.

There has been nothing in recent memory like the build-up to Nigeria’s first match at the on-going 2018 FIFA World Cup tournament in Russia. Football is Nigeria’s greatest unifier: when it is football, our compatriots drop all ethnic, religious and ideological differences and profess the missing faith and ideology of one Nigeria.

The creation of a functional and balance human system is largely dependent on in-built mechanisms and processes that serve as necessary architectural framework for self regulations. These instilled checks and balances avert exploitations, despotism and totalitarianism while aligning all branches and units with the projections of corporate benefits to all stakeholders as well as the promoters and strengthening institutions value foundation.

No one, I think, would disagree that Ochereome Nnanna’s reference to Yorubas as “sophisticated morons” was inappropriate and deserves the criticism it has drawn, and that it calls for the “unreserved apology” he has tendered. I would call it an unfortunate oxymoron with no intention of punning.

‘There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps’. – Peter A. Cohen ‘A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark’. – Dante

Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president, has cried out that President Muhammadu Buhari plans to arrest him. I consider it the mother of all false alarms: Buhari lacks motivation for such an action.

I have been feeling very uneasy at the re-opened debate over the June 12, 1993 presidential election impasse after President Muhammadu Buhari decided to honour the presumed winner, Chief MKO Abiola, and his running mate, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, as well as declare June 12 as Nigeria’s Democracy Day. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I thought it would finally bring the sad experience of June 12 to closure. But what I am seeing instead is the re-opening of old wounds and a concerted effort to revise history, apportion blame, re-cast some people as villains, re-mould some as heroes, and revive the fault lines that so easily ruin a genuine national conversation.

The 2018 governorship election in Ekiti State presents an interesting opportunity for analysis. The election will be interesting in more sense than one. It is now becoming clearer why the immediate former governor of the state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who was defeated in the election that produced incumbent Governor Ayo Fayose, said the 2014 election was an unsettled matter. To Fayemi, 2018 provides an opportunity for him to settle scores with Fayose and redeem his battered ego, as a result of scandalously losing the last governorship election. Though Fayose is not directly contesting the governorship election, the governor has not cloaked his avowed interest in making sure that his deputy, Professor Kolapo Olusola, succeeds him. It is, therefore, as if it is Fayose that is actually contesting the election against Fayemi and others.

In a democracy, when two elephants [political leaders] fight, the grass [masses] becomes greener as a result of manure [good policies] from their droppings [actions]. Such is the beauty of democracy, where political advantage over opponents can only be gained by getting the support of the majority. This majority can only be obtained by sustained good governance mechanisms that satisfy the political aspirations and socio-economic needs of the people.

Fellow Nigerians, we are now back to basics after the euphoria and giddiness of the June 12 reactivation and revalidation by President Muhamadu Buhari.

Whenever this historical epoch of Nigeria’s political evolution is to be evaluated the role being played by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo will not go unnoticed or be swept under the carpet. In the last three years of this administration he has worked tirelessly with President Muhammadu Buhari to help realise the vision and mission of the administration as encapsulated in the ‘’change agenda’’ and several other policy documents. In doing this he has brought his extensive knowledge of law, public and private sector experiences to bear in the many successes of the Buhari /Osinbajo administration.

President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in 2015 after emphasising his track record of tackling corruption, and his pledge to stop public officials from looting the country’s treasury after he rightly declared: “if we don’t kill corruption, this corruption will kill us.”

This article sets out two central developments revolving around President Muhammadu Buhari and two key figures. The first is his sudden recognition of the late MKO Abiola and the second, his reported idolisation of the late head of state, General Sani Abacha.

Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, which is currently running, was born on May 29, 1999—with Olusegun Obasanjo as inaugural executive president. A year later, on May 29, 2000, the president proclaimed May 29 of every year Nigeria’s “Democracy Day”. The day was also added to the list of the country’s national public holidays. It was a unilateral executive decision—by which I mean that neither the proclamation of “Democracy Day” nor the declaration of public holiday was endorsed, before the acts, by the constitution or any legislative body or any other institution of the Nigerian state or any organized public opinion.

A day after I joined THISDAY from Concord Press in February 1999 as deputy editor of The Sunday newspaper, I was directed to proceed to Kaduna to cover the presidential primaries of the All Peoples Party (APP) then chaired by the late Senator Mahmud Waziri. As I recall, some of the aspirants jostling for the party’s ticket were Chief Arthur Nzeribe, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the late Dr Abubakar Olusola Saraki, Dr Ogbonaya Onu, Dr Bode Olajumoke and Chief Harry Akande who added razzmatazz to the occasion by flying into the city in his private aircraft which was parked at the airport and said to be loaded to the brim with bundles of new naira notes!

As a graduate of the University of Ibadan (UI), I get into talks with students from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), University of Lagos, and the University of Ilorin, discussing which is the best university in Nigeria. My schoolmates will say UI is the first and best, but on our bad days, we may lose the rankings to any of these schools, but we always console ourselves by saying “no matter what happens, UI will always be the first university in Nigeria”. This is the story of Muhammadu Buhari and the June 12 memorial.

“A great man is not a hero in the sense that he can stop, or change, the natural course of things, but in the sense that his activities are the conscious and free expression of this inevitable and unconscious course. Herein lies all his significance; herein lies his whole power…” – George Plekhanov (1856-1918)