Clay Richie

Buhari’s silence on executive appointments seen as key to the full take-off of his administration has upset many chieftains of his party, All Progressives Congress. It has also provoked considerable anxiety about the roadmap he is reading after his swearing in as president on May 29.

Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmad Coomasie, a former Inspector General of Police, is also the Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). In this interview, he narrates the story of the return of power to the North and the role his group, among others, played in stopping President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid, thereby sending him from the Presidential Villa back to his Bayelsa village, Otuoke.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday attributed his successful political career to the efforts of former governor of Bayelsa, Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha. Jonathan, who was speaking at the thanksgiving service to round-off the civic reception organised in his honour by the Bayelsa Government, said he remained grateful to the former governor.

Abuja, Nigeria, 30 May 2015: President Muhammadu Buhari says officials of past administrations including ministers are entitled to their full rights and privileges under the constitution and must not be subjected to any undue harassment and intimidation at the airports or at other points of entry and exit.

Recently, a lady went to buy fuel at her neighbour’s station. She was allowed to jump the horrendous queue. Other motorists began to protest. One of them said: “All this nonsense will stop on May 29 when Baba becomes president. You people should continue to do whatever you like for now.” In seconds, the motorcyclists were chanting: “Sai Baba! Sai Baba! Sai Baba!” Buhari is, thankfully, not unaware of these huge expectations. Many see him as the messiah, the one who will liberate the country from decades of maladministration, corruption and indiscipline. He has been trying to cage these expectations in view of the enormous challenges ahead.

A political analyst, Mr. Ifeduba ThankGod has criticised the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to relocate the central command of the military to Maiduguri, Borno, to intensify the fight against Boko Haram insurgency. He described the move as the height of unprofessionalism and the most senseless decision any president has ever taken. He said this was because the people who work at the command centre were not regular combatant soldiers and as such would not contribute any more than they could from Abuja or anywhere for that matter.

Your Excellency, please permit me to start by congratulating you on your swearing-in as Nigeria’s President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Sir, it has been a very long and arduous journey back to the State House; such an epic battle, to say the least. Yours is an eloquent confirmation of the dictum that it is never over until it is over. There is a lesson for all to learn in your uncommon determination, extraordinary tenacity, great perseverance and tremendous patience and equanimity. According to William Shakespeare “all is well that ends well.”

This morning, my team member, Oluwatobi Soyombo and I sat in the office, and discharged our final responsibility to the Buhari Campaign Organisation – we changed the bio of the Muhammadu Buhari account across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and everywhere else to ‘President of Nigeria’.

Overwhelmed by the large turnout of people who came to welcome him as he arrived Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on Friday afternoon, former President Goodluck Jonathan was moved to tears and declared: “After six years in Abuja, I thought Bayelsa people will curse and boo me for some decisions made and development not attracted to the state.”

The coming of a new era in Nigeria with the election of a new president of the federal republic of Nigeria in the person of General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR brings a sigh of relief and hope for the common Nigerian, who expects a Change in the way the government is run, a Change in the behavioural attitudes of Nigerians and a Change in the way the world see us.

“We can’t continue to search the branches of a sick tree for the cause of its sickness.” – African Proverb As history unfolds in Nigeria, it does appear that “the more things change the more they remain the same”. As a military dictator, thirty two years ago, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), truncated Nigeria’s Second Republic which was reputed for its scandalous corruption. That intervention lasted twenty months. Today, Buhari will be sworn in as the fourth elected president of Nigeria since the country’s return to civil rule in 1999, replacing a government that was associated with monumental corruption.

I am immensely grateful to God Who Has preserved us to witness this day and this occasion. Today marks a triumph for Nigeria and an occasion to celebrate her freedom and cherish her democracy. Nigerians have shown their commitment to democracy and are determined to entrench its culture.

(CNN) Nigeria is the biggest exporter of petroleum in Africa and one of the world's largest exporters, it is also the one country in the world where its citizens often have to live through months of fuel scarcity. This is not the only paradox that defines Nigeria but it is one of the most telling of its many ironies. The current fuel scarcity cannot be isolated from the history of petroleum export and fuel supply in Nigeria.

It is all going to happen in a day.  One day to the great national revival and renewal.  One day to the rejuvenation and restoration of the Nigerian economy.  One day to the great “changi” we have all been waiting for.  One day to the arrival of the Nigerian messiah,   Muhammadu  Buhari.  I am sure we all can hardly wait.

If you divide the 940MWs of electricity that Nigeria currently generates, by its population of around 170million, what you get is 5watts per person or more precisely six people per bulb. This perhaps is Nigeria’s reality barely five days before the transition of power from one President to another and one political party to another.

As the country transits from one democratic dispensation to another, there is no gainsaying that the state of the nation’s economy is the focal point, especially with the unending fuel scarcity, which is gradually grinding the nation to a halt. No doubt, the best person to explain the state of the economy today is Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Honorable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, whose management of the nation’s resources in these past four years has elicited different reactions from Nigerians.

Muhammadu Buhari, who will be sworn in on Friday as Nigeria’s new president, is a one-time coup leader who once ruled Africa’s most populous nation with an iron fist. But he has undergone a remarkable transformation from military general to as he calls it a “converted democrat” whom many see as the solution to Nigeria’s many problems.

Nigerians are extremely patient; you won’t be making a mistake if you come to the conclusion that Nigerians are genetically modified to tolerate a mediocre government and still be thankful to this same government for providing services that it is their duty to provide.

As the Coaster bus tried to meander through the surging crowd and the sea of human heads, chanting “Sai Baba”, Mr. Muhammadu Buhari tapped his running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, by the shoulder, pointed in the direction of the vehicle’s window and asked: “Look at that man; what can you see from his face?”

ABUJA, Nigeria — Here in the Nigerian capital, the rows of campaign billboards promoting President Goodluck Jonathan have been ripped down. In some places, images of the soon-to-be ex-president have been defaced. Mr. Jonathan, with his legacy of economic and military disasters, cannot leave soon enough, in the eyes of many Nigerians.

First impressions, they say, are everything. Not the same for anyone who is president of a country like Nigeria. With Nigerians, last impressions are just as important as first impressions. Goodluck Jonathan’s last week as President has seen Nigeria shut down due to power cuts and fuel scarcity. Lives have been lost, airlines cancelled flights, media houses and banks closing early, telecom companies declaring their services would be hampered by the scarcity of diesel. One could argue, despite the turmoil that characterised his tenure, that this has been Jonathan’s worst week as President. In the midst of what has looked increasingly like a national security issue, the government has offered nothing in terms of explanations or an attempt to offer the way forward.

Okonjo-Iwela directs SURE-P to terminate pact with firm.” PUNCH, May 15, 2015, p 9. In one of her last face-saving measures, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Coordinationg Minister for the Economy, CME, “directed the immediate termination of the partnership between the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme and Forcecom Networks Limited on the Graduate Internship Scheme.”

Determined to govern Nigeria the Buhari way and put an end to the usual practise by past administrations in which governors submitted names of their preferred ministerial nominees to the president for him to make picks, President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has turned down a list of three nominees each submitted by governors elected under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

There are a number of places you can turn to for a glimpse of power as it changes hands in Nigeria. This week, the fedora-festooned photographs of the PhD-wielding canoe-carver’s son will climb down from the thousands of walls they adorn – government offices, hotels, banking halls, etc – to be replaced by the cap-donning, stern-faced mien of the retired General turned rancher.

The crisis being experienced in the country as a result of the scarcity of petroleum products may abate soon as major oil marketers association of Nigeria (MOMAN) today agreed to suspend their strike and resume the lifting of petroleum products across the country “in six hours”.

When I first coined the “Vacancy in Aso rock” phrase and JPEG image for a magazine I coauthor, during the fuel subsidy removal Occupy Nigeria riots of January 2012, perhaps I then did not appreciate the full gravity of the Nigerian dilemma.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday said Nigerians have a ” new opportunity” in the in – coming administration of General Muhammadu Buhari to make the country work for the better again.

To my greatest amazement, I stand to be corrected if I must believe, that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, has only been turned into an Advanced/ Glorified Police Station within the period under review cum the present leadership. Many may want to ask what may be the rationale behind this indignifiable assertion, yet do we really know how a Police Station look like in a layman’s understanding! This is the story of a Master turned Slave, as it depicts the present day running and operations of the EFCC.

How time flies. Really, really flies. Five years ago — on May 6, 2010, specifically — Dr. Goodluck Jonathan became the president of Nigeria. That was three months after assuming the office in an acting position. A year later, he won the presidential election, defeating Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. And four years later, Buhari came back to defeat him. On Friday, he will bow out of office in peace and in one piece. Again, I'm glad that I'm alive to witness this historic change of baton between a sitting president and his rival. Again, I'm glad that I've witnessed 16 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria. Better experienced than read in history books.

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration comes to an end in a few days time.It has been a topsy-turvy ride for the gentleman from Otuoke,whom providence helped rise from the position of a Deputy governor,to that of the President of this great country.For Jonathan,it has been a very eventful sixteen years.What has remained a constant in his life over the past sixteen years is history’s penchant for somehow attaching itself to the man.Today,interesting parts of Nigeria’s history cannot be recounted without his name mentioned especially that famous phone call to General Buhari to concede defeat in the March 28 Presidential elections.

Kaduna State governor-elect, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has blamed the outgoing government of President Goodluck Jonathan for the state of Nigeria’s economy. He noted that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was inheriting, perhaps, the worst ever set of human development indices in Nigeria’s history than any government has ever had to face. El-Rufai spoke on the second day of the policy dialogue organized by the APC. He stated that challenges facing the APC administration were enormous, but narrowed them down to five big issues.

Second Republic lawmaker, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, dismissed the call saying it would amount to rewarding criminals instead of punishing them for crimes against humanity. Prominent northerners including the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mohammed Uwais and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe and former Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Gambari in a meeting had asked the President -elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, rtd, declare amnesty for Boko Haram insurgents when he takes over power on May 29.

Prominent northerners including the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mohammed Uwais and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe and former Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Gambari have asked the President -elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, rtd, declare amnesty for Boko Haram after may 29 handover.

Our dear President, please permit me to write my last epistle to you as our leader and Commander-in-Chief. By this time next week, I expect you to have flown back to Yenagoa via Port Harcourt. How I wish I could have the opportunity of being on that last trip, not to mock you but to capture your swinging moods in those few moments of realising that the end has come eventually.  I would love to know how many of your big friends would take the pain to follow you or if most would abandon you to your fate and move on pronto to the new brides. Even as a writer with what I believe is vivid imagination, I’m not able to paint a picture of the sort of life or future that awaits you in Otuoke, Yenagoa, Abuja, Chad, Germany, Dubai or wherever you decide to hibernate in the short or long run.

There have been misconception that giving tax incentives to the rich help incentivise job creation, because the capitalists are perceived to be job creators. The truth is, they do not. Ordinary consumer is more of a job creator than a capitalist.

The outgoing Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which will soon take over as the opposition party in Nigeria will sabotage, blackmail and intimidate the APC govt just like it did to them when they held sway.

As the inauguration date of the new administration draws closer, various individuals have begun aligning and re-aligning to further extend their political relevance in the new dispensation; few, (if any) for the benefit of the nation, and the rest, for personal gains of looting the nations treasury. In the last couple of days, we have seen articles from 2 camps of the APC – the ‘technocrats‘ and the godfather(s); with each camp trying to tell us how terrible the other is – only time will tell which camp will emerge victorious.

Looking back through our history, Nigeria has been led by a series of heads of states and presidents. Some like Murtala Muhammed, Muhammadu Buhari the President-elect, and Yakubu Gowon left a legacy of service and wisdom.

It is immutable and incontrovertible that on the 29th May 2015, General Muhammadu Buhari would be inaugurated the 5th elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He had made three previous attempts in 2003, 2007 and 2007 to become the President of Nigeria and failed.

If you had to choose the fate of Lake Chad, which would you prefer: an oil and gas rich region or a rich eco-diversity driving prosperity through agribusiness? President-elect, Muhammad Buhari has dropped the hint that his administration would re-open oil prospecting in the Lake Chad Basin. On a face value, this sounds wise and reassuring to the political elites from the north of the country who not only treasure the allure of petro-wealth but love the idea that oil bragging right could also be theirs.

The Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, on Wednesday urged the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari to beware of sycophants ahead of his assumption of office on May 29.

When Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) made his intention known of contesting for the February 14, 2015 Presidential election on the Platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which was postponed to March 28, 2015, a lot was said about Buhari before and after the presidential election which I paid very close attention to and scrutinized every propaganda with my “Psycho-microscopic lens” and found out that although Buhari is not the best leader Nigeria needs, but with the gross incompetence and failure of Jonathan to fight corruption effectively which has worsen Nigeria’s many problems including insecurity, Buhari appears to be more than an angel to many Nigerians when compared with Jonathan.

Whether it is the downstream sector or the upstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry that you want to examine, what you see is nothing but doom and gloom. And the evidence is there right on the streets where petrol is now being sold at scandalous prices and in the number of hours Nigerians who would not patronise black market spend at fuel stations. Very soon, the people will also begin to feel the pinch in their pockets, assuming many are not already doing that. So we can safely conclude that for our country, the “years of plenty” are over without having had a “dreaming Joseph” to prepare us for the “lean years” that now lie ahead.

By Thisday There is probably no better way of summing up the eventual reconciliation of the factionalised Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) than to say all is well that ends well. After almost two years of deep crisis, the 36 governors of the federation in the early hours of yesterday put their partisan differences aside and asked the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to account for the $20 billion oil revenue the nation earned.

Media mogul and senator-elect, Ben Murray Bruce has reveled why he is fighting the elite.In an interview with Vanguard, he said

Since March 28 2015 when General Buhari made unforgettable history in a political landscape, I have put my eyes and ears on the ground to monitor the events around the President-elect whether he is in Daura, Katsina or at the Defense House, Abuja. All manner of people including those who are claiming to be trekking for the President elect (even though they may not have voted for the General), interlopers, intruders, scavengers, supporters of any government in power (SAGIP), Defectors from PDP, professional congratulators, food is ready professionals, Five Minutes to greatness vagabonds and cheats have not allowed the President elect to have a breathing space. They have no shame, no honor, no history, no antecedents, no records to show, no decency, no grace to show the world except the inordinate ambition and desire to belong at all cost.

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has received an honorary Doctorate degree from Yale University, one of the United State of America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning.

Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has revealed that Igbos did not vote for PDP in the manner that was portrayed in the last general election in the South-East, maintaining that the PDP massively rigged the election in the region.

Lateef Raji, a public policy analyst, in an article titled “Dwindling Oil Revenue: What Next for Nigeria?” posited that today, despite the pitiful state of unemployment in Nigeria, ironically, the nation is still rated as the third destination of investors and one of the fastest growing economy in the world. Raji noted that Nigeria is a golden land of numerous opportunities for those who are resourceful, ingenious, creative, innovative, inventive, ground-breaking, enterprising, hardworking, focused, visionary and most significantly, disciplined.

In the recent past, a great lot has transpired under the planet earth subdivision called Nigeria. Standing out like a sore thumb was the several unprintable utterances of politicians and their ilk, many of which have now been incorporated into our political lexicon under the sub-topic – Hate Speech. The political atmosphere was submerged in raw shows of unhealthy rivalry by supposed conveyors of peace. There was blazing display of babyish protestations for and against. An instance was an elder’s show of shame before the array of domestic and international cameras, one that spurred Wikipedia into action and prompted a profile update. Then, the vituperation of an Oba – a five-minute no-holds-barred ebullition that opened the monarch to all manner of reproof and punctured the sanctity of the traditional stool. These are just a fraction of the low moments.