Clay Richie

Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu has disclosed that he received a security alert that suspected Fulani herdsmen were planning to attack the Nimbo community in Uzo Uwani local government area of the state, adding that the heads of security agencies assured him that they had mobilized their operatives to protect the threatened town.

“As they campaign vigorously for elections, you would think they are coming to grow the economy, enthrone justice, breed unity and tolerance, love for one another. No, they are coming to enthrone Hausa/Fulani supremacy, to reposition the security agencies by sacking all competent hands and replace them with their kinsmen in order to drive their ethnic domination of the south; the Fulani herdsmen will be armed and encouraged to slaughter us with impunity and their masters will protect them. They are coming to ensure that my people are enslaved forever. Those who do not believe me will soon see it happen before their eyes” – Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), in an address to an assembly of the Igbo in the UK on February 6, 2014.

It is very likely that corruption has been the reason for our past jobless growth. The vast component of our GDP, which is made up of black money, cannot create much jobs. My hypothesis is that corruption constitutes a vast portion of our so called $500 billion economy. In this article, I will give ‘empirical evidences’ to show that my hypothesis is correct.

Fellow Africans, please, join me in thanking God for this baby of circumstance that was born through some excruciating pain 20 years ago in the city of London. The genesis of Ovation International could only have been by divine conception. I won’t know any other way to describe it. The original idea was first ignited after my controversial exit from my high flying job as the Editor of Nigeria’s foremost celebrity journal, Classique magazine, owned by May Ellen Ezekiel Mofe-Damijo, now of blessed memory. That is a story for another day.

Last week, Dino Melaye, the delinquent senator from Kogi West, traveled to the farthest possible extreme of the continuum of sycophancy. He sketched his own obituary in lieu of fealty to his tarnished idol. He vowed that he would sooner die than live to see Bukola Saraki, the career thief standing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, ejected from the office of the senate president.

Recently, the media (print and electronic, including social media) have been awash with outcries on the proposed `National Grazing Reserve Establishment and Development Commission Bill (SB. 60)’, which the 8th Senate has come out strongly to deny. But we need to make certain clarifications here. The Senate denied the presence of such a bill in this 8th Senate; it did not deny the existence of such bill. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Babajide Omoworare admitted that the bill was presented to the 7th Senate by Senator Zaynab Kure (representing Niger Central) but was not passed.This clarification by the Senate, commendable as it is, has done very little to calm down nerves especially of people down southern Nigeria; neither has it explained why a bill supposedly dead at the 7th Senate should suddenly become a front-burner issue even when it has not been allegedly re-presented to the 8th Senate. The truth is that someone is not telling us the truth. As

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, ratified the decision of its zoning committee which zoned office of the party’s national chairman to the North-east. This development came ahead of the national convention of the party slated for May 21, 2016, in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State.

“No matter how far the town, there is another beyond it” – Fulani Proverb There has been so much emotionalism developing around the subject of the recent clashes between nomadic pastoralists and farmers, and the seeming emergence of the former as the new Boko Haram, forbidding not Western education this time, but the right of other Nigerians to live in peace and dignity, and to have control over their own geographical territory.

The trial of Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, for false and improper declaration of assets by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) is getting more and more curious by the day. As I write,   protesting members of the civil society group,  Citizens United for Peace and Stability are protesting at the National Assembly, Abuja. The group, just as the Senate President predicted earlier, is calling for his resignation over what it described as his myriad of corruption cases, the purchase of SUVs for senators at an exorbitant price and his alleged attempt to frustrate the 2016 budget.

On 30th July, 2013, the parents of the ten Directorate of State Security (DSS) operatives killed two months earlier by the Ombatse cult in Nasarawa State staged a peaceful protest in Lafia where the then Vice President Namadi Sambo was due to commission some projects. The protesters were responding to the statement by the then DSS Director General, Mr. Ita Ekpenyong that the service had ‘forgiven’ the criminals who killed the DSS operatives while on a legitimate duty.

When a few weeks ago, the Senate resumed discussions on a probable amendment to the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act 2004, many of the citizens were outraged. The Act empowers the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal to collect and verify asset declaration forms for public office holders and prosecute those who fail of comply. Asset declaration is a mandatory constitutional provision for all public officers including members of executive, legislative and judicial arms of government. Activists, civil society organisations, opinion leaders, and the media including social media activists came out in a united opposition to and total condemnation of the proposed legislative action. In many ways, the people who revolted against the Senate were right and I stand with them.

The title of this piece “Road Not Taken” was the name of Robert Frost’s poem written in 1916. The narrator regrets not following a particular branch to his destination, after choosing another road, the narrator tells himself that he would come back to this branch one day in order to try the other road. However, he realizes that it is unlikely that he will ever have the opportunity to come back to this specific point in time because his choice of path will simply lead to other branches in the road (and other decisions). The narrator ends on a nostalgic note, wondering how different things would have been had he chosen the other path.

We are concerned about the rising conflicts over livelihood in our country, especially the incidents and associated fatalities between pastoralists and sedentary farming communities. Over the past decade, the intensity, frequency and geographical scope of these incidents have risen sharply and rapidly. Thousands have been killed; many more have been displaced; properties, crops and livestock worth billions of naira destroyed.

Potter Stewart, a renown Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court who played a significant role in the interpretation of Civil Rights laws, coined the basic phrase: “Fairness is what Justice really is.” This phrase, conceived to propel the notion of every individual’s equitable right under the law, demonstrates that an unbiased legal system, is a necessary component for justice to be dispensed.

President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, says all the grey areas in the 2016 Budget have been resolved. Saraki said this on Tuesday night while speaking with State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.

I thank the organizers for the opportunity to participate in this very important summit and in this panel.  As Africa struggles to live up to the expectation as the next big investment frontier it is appropriate to focus on what will be the key driver of Africa’s advancement – Africa’s human resources.

If you happen to know any Nigerian armed robber, pickpocket, small-time con artist, low-level 419-er or participant in medium-grade crime, do invite them to read this important piece, a novel and indispensable how-to-survive manual. Verily, verily I say unto this fraternity of felons: If you hearken to my message and manual, you shall no longer know the peril of torture, detention or death. Instead, you shall be exalted by society and exult in a new found, judicially enforced freedom and prestige.

A lot of people remember Professor Charles Soludo for his banking consolidation, but as a civil engineer, and as someone who wants Nigeria to be like Dubai, I remember him as the pioneer chairman of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). In the midst of the rising inflation and hardship in the country, someone asked if anything good can come out of Nigeria. The answer to that question is simple – something good is happening in Nigeria and it is happening in Lagos.

I believe this is a legitimate question Nigerians must ask as the so-called Fulani herdsmen, continue to wage war against Nigeria. I disagree with calling them herdsmen. We have written to advise the Nigerian Security department to stop patronising this malicious and false classification which endangers real Nigerian Fulani herdsmen. The armed incendiarist murderers ravaging the nation are simply terrorists, Boko Haram terrorists to be precise.

A national teachable moment happened recently on Twitter between Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, Nigeria’s Area Father Plenipotentiary of commonsense, and Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, who needs no introduction. There is a background to that Twitter spat that most commentators have not critically examined. The said background is wholly rooted in the tragedy of our collective definition of Nigeria and our stubborn persistence to clinch to an understanding of nationhood and statehood in the 21st century that is inferior to how Askia the Great understood those notions in the late 15th century.

Dear President Buhari, On January 4, 2016, between 12 and 38 people were killed in Udeni Ruwa, in Nasarawa State. On January 10, up to 45 were killed in Agatu, Benue State.

The Yoruba term of Abobaku is a phrase that translates literally as: One who dies with the King. This is derived from the culture of burying dead monarchs with trusted and most sycophantic aide(s). It is therefore save to say that an Abobaku is the one that though enjoys all the trappings in the king’s backyard while it lasts, but eventually ends up being buried with the king!

I am really at a loss about how to respond to the column of my friend, Femi Orebe on the 8th Senate. He correctly identified my exasperation with things as they are. But more than being exasperated, Orebe might never understand the magnitude of the harrowing sorrow I daily feel pertaining in general to the sordid affairs of my country and in particular to the nadir of disrepute to which the senate has been sunk. So discouraged have I been of late that by last week, I had begun to see myself as a colossal failure in my foray into Nigerian politics. I had seriously considered going back to Ilesa Grammar School, my alma mater, to teach science.

President Muhammadu Buhari last night appealed to Nigerians to bear with him over the difficulties in the land, saying Nigerians were seeing the darkest days before dawn. While appealing to Nigerians who he said were known for their inner strength to soldier on, he said the change which they voted for was at the corner and about to rock every nook and cranny of the country. In a strategic move to counter the difficult times, the President ordered the release of 10,000 tons of grains from the national strategic grains reserves.

The vessel named Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared May Day on the high seas, its compass is malfunctioning, the ship is leaking and lifeboats are limited, the successive exit of Captains has left the ship with poorly trained seafarers piloting the ship. Destination is unclear as no map exist for the now promoted captains to navigate, even where they saw a torn map they could not read it as their training did not equip them for ocean navigation. Sadly, many of the passengers are dancing on the lower deck oblivious of the great danger awaiting the vessel. The few who questioned the new captain and his band of seamen were threatened with de – boarding mid-sea. Where will the vessel dock? What happened to the vessel? Many wondered. This is the story of the PDP.

It is no longer news that Senator Olubukola Saraki, Nigeria’s Senate President is standing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal over allegations bordering on assets declaration while in office. One must commend the vision of those who birthed the idea and worked towards the establishment of such a noble institution meant to safeguard our public institutions and check the corrupt tendencies of public officials.

The monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting was held the other day in Abuja, with the representatives of state governments again cap in hand, asking for their share of federal revenue – read: oil revenue, or better still, national cake, or our money. A paragraph in the report by the online newspaper, Premium Times, caught my attention and here it is: “But at the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting, representatives of the 36 state governments went home SAD (emphasis mine), as they were handed parlous shares from a total N299.75 billion statutory allocation for the month, the lowest allocations in more than five years.” For the month of March 2016, the states shared N55.34 billion, compared to N64.52 billion in February 2016. I have deliberately emphasized the word sad, because the day may well come when after the sharing of national revenue, we may be told that some Commissioners of Finance left the meeting crying, or wailing.

”The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it lose and it will defend itself”- St. Augustine. For the last few weeks I have been the subject of absurd and outlandish headline stories in various newspapers who have accused me of being a fraudster and who have claimed that funds were transferred into my bank account by the former National Security Advisor, Col. Sambo Dasuki and by the Governor of the Central Bank Bank of Nigeria.

After reading several rave reviews, I decided to watch the movie, “Eye in the Sky” which essentially centres around the ethical dilemma of the use of drones in modern warfare. Released last September, it features a British military officer (played by Helen Mirren) who, in the process of commanding a joint (British and American) operation to capture some Al-Shabaab terrorists in Nairobi, Kenya, discovered that not only did they have explosives, the insurgents were also preparing two suicide bombers for a fresh attack.

Earlier, I set out to state my opinion on the bill before the National Assembly proposing to establish the National Grazing Routes and Reserve Commission, and instead, I ended up writing about the un-scalable absurdism that exists in Nigeria or as Nigeria (The choice is yours). Ironically, this piece will focus on yet another dippy piece of legislation by our Rohypnol-starved National Assembly.

It is heart-rending to realise that Nigerians have succeeded in assembling a terrible group of people who are clothed in the respected garment of 'lawmakers'. But to utter a cry of lamentation at this time is to confirm our persistent stupidity. These so-called lawmakers are the product of our collective ignorance and stupendous greed which we exhibit every four years at the polls without a moment of retrospection. They may indeed pay to buy our votes and to massively rig our electoral voices, but they do not supervise the entire process. We do it for them, unmindful of the catastrophic results that await the destiny of our nation and its people. The implication is that we produce political 'leaders' who prove that they are morally deficient even before they are ushered to oversee the affairs of the state.

Some hours ago, Senator Dino Melaye wrote that he would be the last person to leave Saraki. He reaffirmed his loyalty. It didn’t matter to Melaye that the kind of publicity Senator Bukola Saraki was getting was casting the Senate in a bad light. It didn’t matter to Melaye that the friction in the Senate was indirectly affecting the economy of Nigeria. All that mattered to Melaye was loyalty and politics.

My dear brother Dele, let me thank you most sincerely for your article last weekend, “My Candid Letter to Saraki.” I take everything you said in that article to heart and I must commend you for your candidness indeed and the sincerity of your intentions.

If the past administration took the Boko Haram for granted, making the disaster a justification for grand public treasury theft and even in service of a refusal to correct perception of tacit support for the group in conspiracy theories promoted to gullible and polarised citizens, the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, despite its controversial handling of the economy, clearly takes its predecessors as a bad model for conflict management.

Dilemmas and difficulties forced Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, to act against his will. Last week, Buhari crossed the pacific ocean to beg for new loan and the restructure of the existing one in Beijing.

The renewed conversation about cars purchased by the National Assembly in this austere economy compelled me to go into the archive. Below is an abridged version of an article written a few months ago. I find it relevant to this discourse.

The present Senate serving the Nigerian people runs the risk of being remembered as the worst since 1999.  Public Relations Consultants and media officials of this particular Senate have done their part flooding both the print and the online media with details of how productive the Bukola Saraki-led Senate has been, and they have been quite aggressive in telling us about 30 important Bills which when passed, will change the face of Nigeria and deliver change.

Last Wednesday, i received a phone call from a reporter at one of Italy’s major newspapers, la Repubblica. It was the second anniversary of the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State. In a macabre move, the terrorist group that abducted the girls, Boko Haram, had released a video featuring some of their victims. The Italian reporter sought my response to the traumatic event.

This piece is precipitated by a private message I received from a friend on Facebook on Wednesday April 20, 2016 seeking to ascertain whether it is possible to abolish the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Let me sincerly tender an unreserved apology to the few decent men and women in the 8th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for using the above caption to describe them. I am led to use this caption because of the signals emanating from the 8th Senate since its inception last year. I am not trying to throw away the baby with the bathe water but to rebuke men and women who do not know what Nigerians need at this critical point in the nation’s history. I am trying to call to order these leaders who are yet to come to terms that Change is here to stay in Nigeria for the better. I am persuaded to call the Senators names because I have seen the Senate turning into a national broken mirror.

It is sobbering to read that Bukola Saraki, the beleaguered Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in the dock for charges of fraud, theft and corruption, slips in and out of sleep, leaving the shell of his body as his consciousness intermittently escapes from and returns to the proceedings of his trial

The commentaries, sighs, trepidation and confusion that greeted the 2016 national (padded)budget, has turned it into a simple meal with no frills in a nation that promises so much but delivered very little. This padded document takes its roots in precedent, only that, this particular one, has left many a Nigerian disillusioned and disappointed; and coming swiftly after the people spoke with their right hand thumbs,in a tone that echoed resounding’change’, across the length and breadth of the nation.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has disowned media report claiming that the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has been named as the commission’s “Anti-Corruption Ambassador”.

With a population of over 180 million and growing, Nigeria with an average power generation of 4,500mw, requires 12,000mw megawatts to ensure steady power supply, but ultimately needs 200,000mw for all her electricity requirements. To meet this power need, the present administration has vowed to look towards other sources of producing electricity away from the hydro and gas-powered plants, which has been a source of epileptic power supply into the national grid.

 Nigerian Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, has said that Boko Haram is 100 per cent a Muslim problem, accusing some people in the North of “cooperating with and working to protect them.”

In a story authored by Con Coughlin, the Defence Editor of the UK Telegraph, in the same newspaper on April 12, 2016, titled “Nigeria using UK aid to persecute president’s political foes rather to fight Boko Haram” it was reported that Nigeria’s president, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), is using foreign aid meant to fight Boko Haram insurgents to persecute his political opponents.

On April 18th 2016 Mr. Okonkwo Afamefuna wrote the following on his Facebook wall. "I decided to read a copy of the National Grazing Reserve Bill and I was surprised at what I saw. The Bill creates a council to be chaired by a Chairman to be appointed by the president. The council shall have the power to take your land anywhere the land is located in the country and then pay you compensation.

We are living in the state of nature in this country. The centre has been broken and human life which is the greatest value has been cheapened and mur¬dered with impunity. We not only experience terri¬ble economic and religio-political aggravation , we are under siege by barbarians in the forms of kid¬nappers, armed robbers, ritualists, unconscionable serial rapists and most deadly, Fulani herdsmen’s open audacity in hostage-taking, stealing, maim¬ing, killing and destruction of people’s hard earned farmlands. We can see innocent Nigerians butch¬ered and brutalized in the most inhuman style, and yet nothing is done to those monster perpetrators.

It is now over a year since Nigerians made history proving to the world again that peaceful transition was, in fact, possible in Africa. The election having been won and lost, it appears that some people still feels the scars of the pains of defeat as though it happened yesterday. One of such persons is a political commentator, Femi Aribisala.

Going by the number of Memoranda of Understanding, MoUs signed by Nigerian delegation, it’s being reported that president Muhamadu Buhari’s China trip has already yielded a plethora of harvests of projects for partnerships in Nigeria. Take the six (6) billion dollars Chinese  loan of which foreign affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama said Nigeria has been given a blank cheque, to draw from as soon as appropriate projects to apply the funds are identified.