BUHARI SCATTERS THE PARTY! OMG! WHERE IS THE CASH TO BUY ASO ROCK?

They obviously thought Buhari was their 'mugu'. They were sure they could manipulate him anyhow and anytime they want. At the APC primaries, they outfoxed him. A few months to his departure from Aso Rock, Buhari has put his foot down and shown that stubborn streak that made millions of Nigerians vote for him in the first place. Muhammadu Buhari may have become Robin Hood and the APC High command cannot understand what is going on. They are in disarray!  

The APC governors and their other kingpins appear to have gone gaga. The Naira redesign policy of the CBN has caught them napping. They have applied pressure everywhere. Some people even tried to take out Godwin Emiefele and the guy went into hiding.  They have been twisting arms. From Aso Rock to the National Assembly and then to the Supreme Court. The result? So much motion and no movement. After making his 'concession' speech of allowing the old 200 Naira notes to remain in circulation for two months, the President went to the airport and flew away to Addis Ababa leaving the APC high command more and more frustrated.

Anybody who has dealt with our governors and big politicians know that most of them are cash men. Some of them are reputed to have whole rooms packed with cash which they deploy to do and undo anything that takes their fancy. Some of them are like mini gods. They can deploy bundles of Naira notes just to take over your girlfriend or even your wife. The APC leader and presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the ultimate Mr. Bullion Van. The way they see it, whatever money cannot do, more money can do it! Barely a week to the most important election in Nigerian history, the huge amount of cash planned for the bullion vans are no more as useful as toilet paper. Buhari and Emiefele have knocked the engines of the bullion vans and there is anguish in the APC camp. All of them are talking at the same time. Is the party unravelling?

Can you believe that without resigning his appointment, Festus Keyamo, a minister in the Buhari government, is on live television widely gesticulating and blatantly rubbishing the directives of the man he serves as minister? Things truly have fallen apart.   

I used to think that Nasir El Rufai was one of the more intelligent politicians around. Pray, when did Kaduna State become a sovereign nation? Please, where did Governor Nasir El Rufai obtain the power to make a broadcast asking the people of Kaduna State to ignore the President and continue to use the old 1000 and 500 Naira notes both of which the President of the Federal Republic and the Governor of the Central Bank have said, in no uncertain terms, are no longer legal tender in Nigeria?

I had to do a quick check of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to see whether there has been a new amendment. For where? Item 15 of Part 1 of the Second Schedule still states clearly that currency, coinage and legal tender are in the Exclusive Legislative list. In other words, the issue of Legal tender is outside the purview of any state governor including El Rufai.

In any case, I do not know if any person in Kaduna State is still taking El Rufai serious on this matter when the birds have already flown away!

Nasir El Rufai has anchored his defiant statement on the ex-parte Order of the Supreme Court following the recent application to the court by Kaduna, Zamfara and Kogi states. The matter is not as straight forward as the Kaduna State governor may pretend. Did the Supreme Court make any Order against the Central Bank of Nigeria which the CBN has refused to obey? The Central Bank of Nigeria is a juristic person. It can sue and be sued, but in their suit, the states were careful not to join the CBN which implements the Naira swap policy. Was that a mistake? No!

The states did not join the CBN because of their desire to invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as stated in Section 232 of the constitution and make sure that any order they get cannot be appealed. They had to manufacture a dispute between the states and the federation which will bring the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court into play. Really… really, in this case, is there a true dispute between the states and the federation? It is like filing an election petition without joining INEC!

It would be interesting to see if anyone in the APC will have the temerity to ask that the head of their party, President Mohammed Buhari, be held for contempt of court. With his immunity and all…  

Let us be serious. How can a nation which has 85% of its currency outside the banking system make any progress in today's world? How many times have you been visited by a sexily dressed young lady from a bank desperately looking for a deposit from you when there is N2.7 trillion of cash on the streets? What is that kind of unchecked and mostly illicit money on the streets doing? Ballooning inflation, fueling insecurity, evading transparency, making nonsense of the exchange rate, causing unemployment and pauperizing the Nigeria people… How can the economy grow when serious hardworking Nigerians cannot get loans from banks at decent rates to start new businesses or fund their existing businesses?

By the way, since the Naira swap exercise, how many kidnapers and bandits have requested for millions of Naira in ransom? In what currency? By bank transfer?

Please, let us stop this crocodile tears from the APC band who say that they are agitating because they love Nigerians who are suffering. Since when did they start this love for the Nigerian people that they have pushed into unconscionable poverty and want? I hear that Governor Ganduje of Kano State is complaining that Buhari wants to destroy the APC by the time he leaves Aso Rock. Why should the average Nigerian care? If the destruction of the APC would lead to a better Nigeria, so be it.

Do you remember those famous words of Muhammed Buhari spoken on the day he was sworn in as President, "I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody"? It looks like they are playing out at last.

See you next week.

THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE WITH PETER OBI (REPRISE)

 

It was a bright weekday afternoon, some years ago. I was at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport in Abuja on my way to Lagos after an exhausting trip to the nation's capital. As I do, now and again, before walking into the Departure Hall, I sought to buy some "kilishi" from the omnipresent dry meat hawkers in front of the airport terminal, to take to my folks in Lagos.

While haggling with one of the kilishi sellers, I felt someone tap me on the back. I was wondering who it could be. I turned and discovered to my surprise that it was the Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi. There were no airs about him. No aide was accompanying him. He was not wearing any big agbada and was carrying his small suitcase himself.

In his falsetto voice, he asked, "Tony. where are you off to?" I told him I was going to Lagos. He said to me that he was flying to Enugu on his way to Awka. The Governor waited for me to finish my haggling with the kilishi seller. We then walked together towards the Departure Hall and bantered along the way. I offered to help him with his luggage. He smiled and declined, telling me that he was still young enough to carry such a small piece of luggage.

As we entered the Departure Hall, the Governor went to the back of the line and waited for his turn to process his boarding pass. He appeared unfazed by the commotion which his presence was causing as many people identified him and pointed excitedly at him.

As we both went to board our different airplanes, I fell in love with this gentleman who clearly understands that we are all passengers in the journey of life and that on our appointed day, each of us will be at the departure hall to fly off to our maker and at that point, it would not matter whether you are an "Excellency" or a janitor.

If you think that my experience with Peter Obi was a scene for a particular day, please bury the thought. Several people have talked to me about their individual encounters with Mr. Obi which are not significantly different from mine. I have also met Obi's wife, Margarete, a daughter of Akwa Ibom State. She carries herself with the same quiet dignity that her husband does. 

My reaction to Peter Obi is based on the fact that we seem to share the same ideals. With Peter Obi, you do not find the unnecessary bigmanism that clouds the average Nigerian in a position of power. He is as simple as simple can be. That disposition makes the undiscerning to underestimate him. Peter Obi is a quiet warrior. He will fight tooth and nail, using the levers of the rule of law to establish justice. He has survived coups upon coups upon coups.      

In 2003, Peter Obi contested the Anambra State governorship election as the APGA candidate. His opponent, Chris Ngige of the PDP, was declared winner by INEC. It took almost three years of battle in the courts for Ngige's purported victory to be over-turned by the Court of Appeal on March 15, 2006 and Obi to move into Government House, Awka.

After seven months of Obi taking office on March 17, 2006, he was impeached by the State House of Assembly on November 2, 2006. That was how his deputy, Virginia Etiaba, became the first ever female governor in Nigeria's history. Obi once gain went to court and was re-instated as Anambra State Governor on February 9, 2007 by the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu and Etiaba handed power back to him.

Governor Peter Obi was once again forced out of office on May 29, 2007 as a result of the governorship elections said to have been won by Andy Uba. Once again, Obi headed for the courts contending that his four-year term won in the 2003 elections only started to run when he took office in March 2006. The Supreme Court agreed with him and Governor Obi was returned to office for the third time on the wings of the rule of law, putting paid to Andy Uba's ambition to be Governor of Anambra State. Of course, Governor Obi went on to easily win a second four-year term.  Obi's legal victories have become important precedents in the rules governing elections in Nigeria.

Peter Obi has been revealed to Nigerians as being very different from the usual Nigerian politician. His sassy grasp of issues and his confident use of data, figures and statistics to break down complex problems has caught the eyes of many. In an environment, where most politicians simply hope, wish and pray, Obi talks with facts and numbers and not conjecture. He is clearly a digital leader in a digital age.

I have no doubt that on February 25, Peter Gregory Obi will do well in the general elections. He connects well across the board: age, intellect, tribe, religion, etc. He has done what none of the other politicians have been unable to do, inspire an army of young Nigerians who do not see themselves just as Tiv, Hausa, Edo, Igbo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Efik, Itsekiri, etc., but as Nigerians.  His body language does not put anyone off. You will not see any Peter Obi promo on Channels TV or Arise TV. None! He has no posters or banners anywhere in Lagos, but no serious person doubts anymore that his "four guys tweeting from one room" has become a major political force to contend with in Nigeria. The guy without any structure and who does not give "shishi" is making the people with "structures" and bullion vans filled with cash, sweat.

Two weeks to go! Let nobody find any reason to reschedule, postpone or cancel the elections. Please, none of the usual Nigerian political abracadabra! No Supreme Court summersaults! No June 12 type annulment! I have brought out my PVC and wiped it clean. Let's all go and vote! Two weeks to find out if there will be real change in Nigeria or if Nigeria will slide further into anarchy. Two weeks!

 

See you next week.

WHAT IF THE JAGABAN ARMY LOSES THE WAR IN THREE WEEKS?

I was bewildered when the APC spokesperson, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo, went public at a press conference and shouted that he was proceeding to court against the presidential candidate of the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar. Keyamo was insistent that he would ask for orders from the Federal High Court, requesting the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest Atiku over allegations made by one Michael Achimugu, who claimed to be a former aide to the PDP candidate. Achimugu, in a series of social media posts had accused Atiku of using Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to commit financial fraud and fleece the country of huge sums of money. True to his words, Keyamo filed his suit. Did Keyamo think he would have the last word?

Before the ink was dry on the reports of the APC press conference, the PDP 'bone crusher', Dino Melaye, was live on every major TV station in the country demanding the immediate arrest of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the APC Presidential candidate, over his alleged involvement in the controversial drug issues that have dogged him for many months. The Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organisation held its own press conference and announced that it had resolved to approach the courts to declare the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu ineligible to contest the February 25 presidential election having "been convicted" by a United States court over drug related offences. New issues about Columbia appeared and a circular firing squad, in which the two camps set out to annihilate each other, became the game in town. Meanwhile, suffering Nigerians watched this bizarre hand-to-hand combat in amazement at a time of desperate national challenges.

Was Keyamo just playing to the gallery or was he serious? I used to consider him a good lawyer, knowledgeable enough to understand that no Judge worth his title would at this point in the history of Nigeria, grant the order he was seeking. Even if any Judge dared to do that, the decision would immediately be appealed and it would come to nothing. At the end of the day, what did Festus Keyamo achieve? In my humble opinion, he scored a big own goal. The arguments over the Tinubu drug issue were no longer making the headlines. Keyamo brought them back to the center of the field. I am not clairvoyant and do not know what transpired between Atiku and Achimugu during the Obasanjo regime. I am however concerned with the character of any aide who would purportedly be secretly and illicitly recording private conversations with his principal and releasing those conversations many years after.   

The Jagaban Army has shot their bazookas full blast at anybody that suggests that Tinubu may not be the President that Nigerians want in May 2023. I believe that in this matter, it is the right of every Nigerian to hold whatever opinion he does.

I was surprised by how they went after Atedo Peterside over the ANAP/NOI polls with respect to the 2023 presidential elections, calling him all kinds of unprintable names because the polls did not predict that Tinubu will win. Before their outrage over the polls, they had gone with ballistic missiles after Nduka Obaigbena and his operatives at Arise TV and Thisday Newspaper over the Arise News Town Hall series. Jesus! My guys did not just throw the kitchen sink, they shattered open the soak-away pit and loaded their missiles with all the smelly stuff they can dredge out of the pit!

I was truly bewildered about their reaction to the New Year letter written by former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, a letter that frontally addressed what is possibly Nigeria's biggest challenge of the last several decades: the divisions, suspicions and mistrust in the country which have held Nigeria hostage and led to so much bloodshed and dehumanization and bred the many separatist militias across the country and fueled the politics of hatred.

In the historic letter, President Obasanjo had asked, "Can we let the past go? I appeal to young Nigerians to stop inheriting other people's prejudices and enemies. Make your own friends and stop inheriting your father's enemies".

What was the response from the Jagaban Army? "Obasanjo is not a democrat anyone should be proud to be associated with". Wait a minute …. Not long ago, Tinubu and his coterie of supporters were very well reported with photos and videos to have travelled to Abeokuta in desperate search of the endorsement of the same man who is not a democrat anyone should be proud to be associated with!

Recently, political activist and a director in the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Hajia Naja'atu Bala Muhammad resigned her position in the council and her membership of the ruling party. Mohammed who was the Director, Civil Society Liaison at the council said she has discovered that her values no longer align with the current political setting. They have gone, gun blazing, after Mohammed who was their friend just a few weeks ago.

Remember how they went after elder stateman, Chief Ayo Adebanjo for not supporting their candidate and almost tore Afenifere apart. It has been war on every front!

A number of the people in the Bola Tinubu campaign are people I consider my friends and whom I otherwise respect. I am truly bewildered at how they have continued to jump from one self-inflicted bruhaha to another. I have written here before that my understanding of political campaigning is that it is a game of addition and multiplication and not one of subtraction and division. I watch this take-no-prisoner fight in all directions and wonder how making so many enemies would help the objectives of the Jagaban.

Except the Jagaban camp has understood their objective to be simply to get hold of Aso Rock. No! Nigerians desperately want good government that can move the nation forward. It makes you think of the great 1978 song by the group, Third World; "Now that we've found love, what are we goanna do with it?"

Every serious Nigerian knows that one of our biggest problems is the huge cracks among us that have resulted in significant hatred, lack of trust, huge suspicions and inability to work with others for the good of all.  The Jagaban battles in every direction and the terrible language deployed make reconciliation almost impossible after the elections and make leadership much more difficult. Indeed, they make the acceptance of the results of the elections hard to swallow for the losers.

Now, the Jagaban army has gone after Emiefele and an unnamed cabal at Aso Rock, their home tuff. The bullion van deployment seems to be in trouble. They are flailing in every direction, almost begging for enemies. Everywhere you go, there is a Tinubu poster, banner, bunting, radio and television promos. Tinubu has spent a humungous amount of money on the elections, far more money than anyone else, yet his team appears to be frustrated.  

What if on February 25, the Jagaban Army loses, with the iron clad "Emilokan" mentality, will there be peace in Nigeria?

I have said it before that you might not like Peter Obi, but you must concede that he is a master at diffusing attacks. Several times, he has shown that he is calm under fire. He is not busy making enemies, a quality a new Nigerian leader must have in abundance.

 

See you next week.