Saturday, January 29, 2011

Jos:The Consequence Of No Consequence:Genocide!

I have just been informed by a friend, that people are fighting in Jos, Plateau state Nigeria, again! It is becoming like a broken record, and I am afraid that we are becoming desensitized to the mindless killing!


The killing has reached a level where it does not matter who is right anymore! Only one party is at fault, the government!


Everything we are now seeing in Jos, is genocide! It is becoming ethnic cleansing, terrorism and pure brigandage!


Our minders in Abuja, have offered very little, by way of leadership! 


Asleep at the helm of the ship of state, they are safe, and secure, in the knowledge that the violence would never touch them!


But it is a false hope! The killing of the All Nigeria People's Party's gubernatorial candidate in Borno State, along with the brother of the current governor, is proof that we are all at the mercy of these evil people! 


The Boko Haram sect, which is suspected of the killings, has declared it's intention to kill the governor himself! They have declared a fatwah,an Islamic death sentence, to be carried out by all true believers on him!  


The helpless people of Jos, from the time this crisis began, have claimed that very powerful individuals in government, and outside it, were complicit in the violence! 


No one listened to them, they were ordinary folks! But last week, a serving anti riot mobile policeman, was arrested in Barkin Ladi,Plateau state. This was just the latest in a long thread of evidence confirming their claims! 


In the past, people had been killed within a kilometer of soldiers meant to be keeping the peace. Some of the survivors claimed that they had seen soldiers participating in the killings!


The mindless bloodshed in Jos, continues today, because the perpetrators of the violence have not been visited with the consequence their lawlessness deserves!


Those charged with upholding the law, are negligent, and culpable by their inaction!


The violence in Jos, is gradually defining the presidency of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan! If he was taken by surprise the first time it happened, what is his excuse for the twentieth time in six months?


It is now a case of one week, one incident!


The duty of government is the maintenance of law and order; to govern, and prevent anarchy and chaos! This government seems to have abdicated this responsibility, or it is not even aware of it's duty!


Nigeria is in need of serious sincere leadership, it is also in need of proactive leadership, right now, those two qualities are alien to our national landscape!   


I usually do not advocate prayers as solution for problems that are within the purview of men to solve; right now, I am inclined to change my mind: let us say a prayer for Jos! 


The people who should have the solution, are twiddling their thumbs, and and fiddling, as Jos burns!


Please pray for Jos, please pray for Nigeria, our only help lies with God!


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA, MY NIGERIA, FOREVER!






Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Land Of Absurd Titles!

The story is told of an Igbo man, who wanted to have a one of a kind title, one more distinguished than just the usual "chief".
As he perused a publication on our nation's founding fathers, he found that they all had a common prefix, "late", before their names. It was an elite group, an exclusive club of sorts, he liked what he saw.


The result of his intellectual pursuits, became apparent the next day at an event. He stood up to announce his donation, to every one's shock he announced " I, Sir, High Chief, Mazi, Late Cornelius Okafor, I donate the sum of Fifty thousand naira! The master of ceremonies was not sure what he had heard, and the audience all looked at him in shock, so the young man asked the chief to repeat his donation for the audience to hear properly. 


From the stunned silence, the chief knew that his new title was having the desired effect, so he cleared his throat, and belted out with gusto, "I say I, Sir, High Chief, Mazi, Late Cornelius Okwudili Okafor, Ebenebe One of Umu Ego Autonomous community, will give Fifty thousand naira! He then smiled for the camera, as the audience began to laugh!


As they laughed at him, he nodded his head in appreciation, he loved the accolade, and adulation!


Poor fellow!


There are many Late Mazi Cornelius Okwudilis running amok in Nigeria today. Men with no claim to integrity, or any contribution to mankind, other than the fact that they have money. Sometimes, money made in very dubious ways!


In the eighties in Nigeria, people who wanted to buy respect, bought titles, in the nineties, they bought honourary doctorate degrees, now, they are buying dubious political titles.


I do not blame them because even people in government who have titles that are clearly defined constitutionally, are also adulterating their titles too!


We have governors being addressed as "Executive Governors" Pray is there anything like a non-executive governor? It is like saying the hot fire, or the wet water! It is the height of silliness, and idiocy!




Then you have those who were not elected, but were appointed, they go by titles like, Special Assistant, Senior Special Assistant, Special Adviser to the Senior Special Assistant! Just as the titles are ridiculous, so are the job descriptions. We have Special Adviser on the diaspora, the newest one, it must be that the ministry of Foreign Affairs is now too busy to attend to Nigerians in the diaspora. Then we have Special Assistants, and Special Advisers for job descriptions for which we already have two ministers, a "Senior Ministers, and Ministers of State!


Haba!


We seem to be lost in the woods!


How many politicians do you need to change a light bulb? One to define what darkness is, one to identify it, another to determine it's size, one to identify, and define the solution, one to define the light bulb, one to buy it, one to collect the receipt, and one to pass it to the one who would fix it! And all of them would have titles designating their roles in the bulb changing exercise!


Nigeria has been subjected to hordes of Philistines who have never seen the insides of a university, but insist to be addressed as "Dr"


This ego trip is also very prominent among professional people who ought to know better. That is why we have people insisting they be called "Architect, Surveyor,Lawyer, Pharmacist, xyz! You even hear people in the police giving themselves titles like "Supol" for superintendent of police, and "Compol" for commissioner of police! No one seems to be in charge, we are like the boys on the island in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" Basking in the light of chaos, and wallowing in the mire of lawlessness!


We are showing classic signs of a society that is deficient in intrinsic values! Money has become the be all, and end all of our people! It does not matter how the money is made, the money legitimizes the man! 


We do not understand that we look like certified clowns to the rest of the civilized world. We are like monkeys dressing up like humans: a circus!


It is time to end this comedy, and tell people who do not deserve these dubious honours, that we are unto them.


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA FOREVER!







Wednesday, January 26, 2011

How To Make Nigeria Great!





"Often times, social media activists do not define the goals of their movements appropriately. Many Facebook pages for instance are organised around the idea of gathering people online and sharing links and information with them. While this is perfectly valid if the goal is solely to equip people with information, if the goal is to organise people to act in the real world, creating a Facebook page is often not sufficient. It should be viewed instead as the first step to getting people to act. For instance, if the goal is to solve a given national problem, then sharing links, comments and opinions online is merely a first step. At some point a face to face meet-up should be set up where concrete actions and project plans can be drawn out and discussed for implementation. Afterwards, subsequent follow up meet-ups should be organised until the goal is achieved" Nmachi Jidenma

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Opinion/5664614-


Great nations are born, and borne, on the decisions of ordinary people!
The civil rights movement in America received a spark from the defiant decision of Rosa Parks, a harmless woman.


Indians were awakened to their potential as a great nation by the pacific stance of Mohandas Gandhi!


The ongoing Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, was sparked by an act of self-immolation (setting oneself on fire) by a twenty six year old, Mohammed Bouazizi. 

He had become fed up with the status quo, and sought the most vehement, and symbolic way, to express his dissatisfaction! 


Of the three examples cited above, two things are common.

Firstly, act of individual defiance, galvanized a whole nation. 

Secondly, the initiators did not necessarily set out to benefit in any way from their acts of defiance! They believed they were just doing the right thing.

Rosa Parks changed a nation, Mohandas Gandhi gave birth to one, and Mohammed Bouazizi, freed one!

Nigeria, as at today, needs all three! 

We need change, we need to be born anew, and we need to be freed from our internal colonizers! 

We have talked about Nigeria for so long, that if talk alone could change a nation, ours would be an El Dorado, and Shangri-La, rolled into one!

We have formed groups, and established pages to promote change in cyberspace, all that is good, but remains a declaration of intent, and not a practical step for change!

Tunisia is showing Nigeria, and the rest of the world, that people power still works! 

Our first step in ensuring change, is to register to vote. There are many obstacles in our path right now, but with patience, we can all register! 

The next line of action would be to identify candidates that can bring the change we need, not the change we want!

The last link in the chain, is to defend our collective choice at the elections! 

Nigeria has underperformed for two long, our nation is so backward, that it is in the same class,in school, with the great grand children of her contemporaries! 

We deserve better!
Let us move Nigeria forward!

MAY GOD BLESS THIS GREAT, SLEEPING, GIANT AMEN!


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Registration Of Voters:A Tragedy In The Making!

I have said in many places, and at different times, that it is in the afternoon you look for a black goat! 


You do not wait until night time, when everywhere is dark, before you begin your search. That is why I am raising this alarm now!


I am angry! Virulently angry! I have spent more than four days trying to register! I have refused to be discouraged, but I can imagine that there are many who have given up already! Last night, some fellows in my estate containing one thousand houses, went to the registration point at midnight to begin to collate the names of those who intend to register. In so doing, they upturned the previous list we had all written our names on the day before.


It is an indication of the desperation, and desire of the people!


This desire, however, is not matched by the Independent national Electoral Commission,INEC, their staff, and the equipment on offer!


From what I can see on ground,INEC seems to be clueless! 


As at midday, today, they had only registered twenty four people.It was the same thing the day before, and the same thing on Sunday! It is looking like they may not register more than fifty everyday! 


If we have one thousand houses in my estate, and there are just three people in each house, which equals three thousand people, it means that it would take two months to register all those eligible to vote in my estate alone!


And you and I know that, in Africa, our families are usually larger than just three!


I am wondering at the chaos going on in high density areas. I hope it would not get to a point where people would be paying money to be registered! Already, some fellows are selling their places on the queue in some communities for two hundred naira.


It is tragic that, considering the billions of naira spent on this exercise, we are only reaping pain and anguish at the moment. I am beginning to think that we have been sold a re herring! The equipment being used for the exercise do not seem to be purpose manufactured for such an exercise. It is a simple configuration involving an external hard drive, a battery pack, a lap top, and a web cam! This is radically different from the data capture machines used during the national id card debacle!


We have been told by J E G A (J onathan E bele G oodluck A zikiwe) that nothing good comes easy. What we are now seeing, is that what is supposed to be easy, is not good at all!


As we watch, and hope,


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA FOREVER!


Monday, January 24, 2011

Registration Of Voters:Matters Arising

Finally, the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, has decided to have mercy on us, and open a registration point at our estate. I am aware that some of the other estates around like Sun City, and Games Village, do not have yet!


I have decided that it is safer to register at a point near my house, than the land'send Galadimawa where I went last week Friday.


When I got to the point yesterday, I assumed that because it was Sunday, that the crowd would not be much. I was truly shocked! I was told that they had stopped writing names for the day, and that I had to come back the next day. As soon as the cock crowed, I left my house at six am, armed with a sheet of paper, hoping to be the first: I was wrong! I was told that some more serious people had come to write down their names at three am in the morning!


I was speechless! By the time I would write my name, I was number one hundred and thirty three on the list! All this before seven am! 


This goes to show the level of the zeal of our people for the exercise!
My concern, is that less hardy souls may become dispirited, and loose out on the exercise. Can we truly register all the eligible voters, in the time alloted for the exercise? Is there a way we can do it, to make it possible for voters to be registered all year round, instead of the crisis prone method we are currently using!


If one is to use the tenor of the present zeal of the people to register, as a barometer, I fear that this year's elections would not be business, as usual. People are so focussed, that I fear they may do a Tunisia, if there are any attempts to thwart their will at the polls!


Wherever you are, try and register. It is your one chance to make true change happen.


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA,MY NIGERIA, FOREVER! 



Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Nigerian Factor

In my culture (I spent my first three years on earth with my grandparents, and I actually have vivid, and fond memories from that time) when a person is giving excuses on why he cannot do something, we call him Inyeke! We even have a song for such a fellow, we would sing, and clap,


Inyeke vha ya erah, owe o to mhe!
(Inyeke go fetch firewood,  he responds, my leg hurts!)
Inyeke vha ya eda, owe o to mhe! 
(Inyeke go fetch some water from the stream, he responds, my leg hurts!)
Inyeke vha ya ime, owe o to mhe  
(Inyeke go to the farm, he responds, my leg hurts!)
Inyeke vha l' ema, owe o po! 
(Inyeke come and eat, he responds my leg is healed!)
In Nigeria today, there is one euphemism we use to exculpate ourselves from guilt, and to excuse our failings, and foibles!
And I hate it, each time I hear it. We call it the "Nigerian Factor"

You cannot go through a discussion on why we have underperformed without hearing someone throwing up their arms in frustration, and sighing, and promptly concluding "It is the Nigerian Factor"

It is almost as if we are saying Nigerians are not human, they are not normal, they are some subspecies of homosepiens! Their metabolism, and thought process, is wired differently from the rest of the world!



What is the "Nigerian Factor? Is there an "American Factor" and a "British Factor" too?


How come it is always mentioned with our legendary capacity to underperform? 
So we produce crude oil, and have refineries that do not refine, but instead we import refined petroleum products, we attribute it to the "Nigerian Factor" 

We have hydro electric potentials, but cannot seem to get out acts together to generate, and distribute what we require, it is all down to, you guessed it"the Nigerian Factor!
Our policemen are some of the most corrupt in the world,but when they go out on peacekeeping duties, they are recognized for their utmost professionalism, when you ask why this is so, someone whines "it is the Nigerian Factor!

Our students struggle to pass exams at home, but once you take them to another country, they become first class materials, we sigh "it is the Nigerian Factor!

Is there something that makes us hopelessly useless to ourselves, and the rest of the world, once we have to deal with ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves? 

We are like Inyeke, the sloth in the folksong above! 

We have an excuse for every inadequacy! It is so bad now, that we have come to expect the worst each time something has to be done by this country! 

We expect our government to be corrupt, we expect people to drive against traffic, we expect elections to be rigged, we expect electricity supply to fail, we expect something bad to happen, because it is "the Nigerian Factor"

The ancient Chinese believe in the Yin and the Yang, the two energies that they say cause everything to happen. It is represented by two tadpole-like designs in a circle. One black, the other white, they seem to be pursuing each other in a never-ending race that has no beginning, or end. They believe one leads to another, just as hot becomes cold, and the cold becomes hot again. The Yin is the black, while the Yang is the white. In our own case, it seems all we have is "Yin and Yin". Which would equate with black and black, or down, and down!

This our seemingly eternal acceptance of our inability for the positive, and anything good, our acceptance of reprobate as our lot in life, is sad! It an admission of failure even before the examination is taken!

It is as if we have accepted that we are incapable of any good, or success!

Our people have had their expectations shattered so many times, that they have become conditioned to expecting the worst!

It is a failure of leadership! Not just leadership from government, but leadership from each of us as individuals! 

What do we do when we see a problem? Many of us turn our eyes away, and cross to the other side of the road like the man in the Biblical story of the good Samaritan. 

We are afraid of what would happen to us if we speak up, we are afraid of loosing our jobs, our friends, or some other thing which does not really define us! Have we ever wondered what this country would be like, if we all spoke out against evil? Have we ever wondered what would happen, if we called all these thieving politicians by their real names, and refused to call them chiefs, but thieves?

Because we have shown that we are comfortable in our oppression, and deprivation, it goes on unabated, and unmitigated! 

People used to steal thousands of naira from the national treasury, but because we did not complain, they moved on to millions, and since we seemed to love it, they have now gone to billions of naira. I suspect that someone is scheming how he would steal trillions tomorrow! And when it happens, what would be our response, that annoying defeatist euphemism, "It is the Nigerian Factor!

It is said that  "people deserve the government they get", I would like to add that they also deserve the country they live in, because they have worked hard doing something, or nothing, to get it to where it is!

As we work towards joining the rest of the world in building a better world, by building a better nation, let us all determine that we would make the "Nigerian Factor" extinct!

MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA, OUR NIGERIA FOREVER!


Friday, January 21, 2011

Registration Of Voters,What I Saw

I have just spent two hours looking for a place to register to vote in the next elections. I believe I am fairly educated, not too much,so finding a place should not be difficult. At least, so I thought. I was wrong, very much wrong! 






I found none in my estate that has over six hundred houses! I found none in the other estates around! I was beginning to worry, so I kept asking people in my neighbourhood. I live in one of the numerous modern estates around the Apo Legislators Quarters, and the population of the combined estates should be about one hundred thousand, or more!


So here I am, early on Friday morning, the missus in tow, looking for a place to register! The people kept giving me information that turned out to be wrong. I was becoming frustrated, no one was going to pay me to vote, and I was not even running in the election. In addition, I had abandoned all my business appointments for the day to do this. I was beginning to feel like the child whose parents want to get him out of the house, and is hence sent on a wild goose, or is it guinea fowl? chase!


We had to start calling friends to find out if they had registered, and finally we got a name. We were told to go to Galadimawa! If you live around Sun City Estate, Abuja, you would know that Galadimawa is a little nondescript, decrepit shanty settlement living on borrowed time. Everything in that settlement is an illegal structure. The only thing legitimate there is the primary school.




And that was where the second surprise waited. I found people sitting around, they looked like they were doing nothing, but their body language told me differently: they actually were on a queue, each had been given a number that determined the order in which they would be attended to. 


I was impressed, but not for long! I asked where I could obtain my number, and was told that I could not get a number anymore for today! You can imagine my shock! so I asked a foolish question, how many people do you register in one day? Someone replied, "If we are lucky, they register almost the one hundred people with numbers!


I was speechless!


There is trouble afoot! And I suspect it is the offspring of mischief, official mischief! 




A lady came and sought to put down her name against tomorrow. She was told tomorrow's one hundred had been exhausted, what about Sunday, she inquired? That too was gone, we ended up putting our name on the list for Monday! And based on what was on ground, there was no guarantee we would be registered on Monday!


If you ask me, this is a recipe for anarchy, and rigging! 


Could some people be hoarding the machines, and be ensuring that only party stalwarts, people who are sure to vote for the party, have access to be registered? 


Is it also possible, that some individuals might put down their names, like I did, and another would come, and claim to be me, and hence disenfranchise me, by registering in my place?


Professor Jega, the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, chair, has hinted at the possibility of extending the registration deadline! I believe this would still not be enough! The machines provided do not seem to be enough. And Professor Jega, seems not to be aware. 




There is a deeply entrenched voter apathy, they believe the elections will not be fair, that no matter what they do, and how they vote, the final outcome of the elections, would not be their will!


These are legitimate fears that cannot be glossed over, or dismissed, they have been validated by our immediate past history.


It would be sad if, with all the money spent on the exercise, and the sacrificing of one month of our children's education, the whole exercise ends up as a well choreographed lesson in deception!


President Jonathan, in his Facebook post, has asked Nigerians to be patient, that nothing good comes easy.


I find that laughable, because registration of voters is the easiest part of the electoral process. What he is indirectly admitting, is that what other leaders, and nations, find easy to do, is difficult for him, and the Nigeria he presides over! Platitudes,and mollyfying statementswill just not do! He has told us he is capable of returning this nation to greatness; this is the first mock exam we are giving him, and he is already giving us excuses!




The next logical question is "If we are experiencing this degree of difficulty registering, only God knows the level of anguish awaiting us on election day!


You should try and register, it is your civic duty, and an opportunity to effect change! If you are denied that change at the polls, your vote might count when the courts decide!


As you do so,


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA,OUR NIGERIA,FOREVER!  

Friday, January 14, 2011

Our Ethereal Disembodied,Quasi Democracy!

I am watching the national convention of the People's Democratic Party,PDP, Nigeria' ruling party on television. They are electing their presidential candidate for the next general election!  It is all calm on the surface, but beneath are powerful riptides! 


To the uninformed observer, it is the genteel,civilized, art of one man, one vote: democracy in action. 


Nothing could be more alien from the truth.




What we are witnessing, is the unveiling of the results of diabolical political prostitution,skulduggery,and fraud!


There were allegations in the media, that the incumbent president, Jonathan Goodluck, bribed each of the delegates with $7,000.00 for their votes. His challenger, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, was only able to afford $5,000.00! 


When computed, they had both spent over three million dollars!


I live in Abuja, and I heard a lot of vehicular movement last night, many of them escorted by siren blaring vehicles! The media alleged that it was the bribe money that was circulating then.


No matter what the outcome of this patently perfidious parody is tonight, one thing is sure:if we were under any illusions before on our practicing democracy, that myth is now shattered! 


What we have is a travesty of everything democratic, and a celebration of political sleight of hand, and arcane thievery!


The two candidates have not stolen from each other, they have stolen from us, the ordinary Nigerians who wish to have a say in who becomes our leader! 


They have robbed us of our money, because the money used to bribe delegates, was stolen from Nigerians, and more importantly, they have robbed us of our most important right, our inalienable right to choose!


There was a third candidate in the race, the affable, erudite, and ebullient Sarah Jubril.


In almost all of the states so far, she got no votes at all! 


In my opinion, this lady is more intelligent, articulate, and morally upright, than the two pachyderms throwing their financial weights around! But that is what our democracy has been reduced to, an auction at London's Sotheby's, where the highest bidder wins!     


With all that is unfolding, I am under no illusions that the next general elections are going to be free, or fair! 


I had argued earlier that for the elections to have any hope of being free, and fair, the umpire had to be someone unbiased! That is hard to see now. 




We have witnessed the precursor, and dress rehearsal, of the next general elections, the recently concluded Delta State election. It was riddled with fraud to the extent that Professor Jega, the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, could only throw up his hands in frustration, and exculpate his commission from all blame!


He acknowledged the manifest fraud, but blamed others for it, since he was not in control of security, or the behaviour of others! 


While we await the final outcome of the comedy in Abuja,


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA,OUR NIGERIA,FOREVER!



Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Open Season Of Silliness!

It is that time again, after four years. The worst scripted dramas are running in the different political parties. They lack substance, and there are not too many surprises. One thing we can thank God for, is that there are subplots that ease the ennui.




The parties are selecting their "flag bearers" for the general elections. And things are looking good! At least 84 People's Democratic Party,PDP senators, are not coming back, at least on the platform of the PDP. While I have very little regard for them, I feel for our democratic "misadventure? When greed drives a political process, this is what happens.There is a high turnover!


What this means, first of all, is that we are likely to have eighty four green lawmakers in the next senate. With 109 members, the Senate is set for wholesale change. Let us hope the people coming, are not worse.


They would need to be trained all over again, and they would need to establish new threads of lawmaking, we are definitely back to our routine "One step forward, two steps backward!


The PDP is also holding it's convention this week, and things have been more of an anticlimax, than the crescendo we were expecting. Atiku is still accusing Jonathan of pinching him, and Jonathan is accusing Atiku of winking at him!


They have not given us cause to hope.


Yes, one of them would win, and Nigeria would loose! The PDP is not the messiah Nigeria is waiting for, it is the country's executioner, and undertaker! It has presided over the worst period of national decline in the history of this country. The country as an entity has made a lot of money from rising crude oil prices, but poverty has somehow increased! 


It is hard to believe that all we have had, and heard from the PDP, are mere words! Just empty hollow platitudes! 


The taps are still dry, the roads pot-holed, and our fridges (and stomachs) are empty! 


But each year, to our collective consternation, the national budget increases! God de!(There is God somewhere !)


In closing, I would like to share part of the ongoing silliness with you. The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps has just graduated fifteen dogs it intends to use for the PDP primaries. One of the dogs  is even reputed to be a general in rank, and is also fifteen years old. I suspect that the dogs are probably wiser, have better plans for Nigeria, and are more articulate, than some of the politicians we are going to be seeing over the next few weeks!


Please register to vote, your vote might eventually count when the various tribunals order recounts,that is when the real elections would hold: in court! 


Then the votes of the Mike Tysons of this world would be expunged from the election!


Lastly, you are aware that bombers have arrived our shores, so certain ground rules are important!


Be smart, open your eyes. Stay alive. If you see any suspicious bag,or package anywhere, do not touch it, and alert the police. There are too many evil people out there, and they do not mean well!


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA,OUR NIGERIA,FOREVER! 



A Letter To The Animals In Jos, Nigeria.

My dear despised(not beloved) animals in Jos! It is with a very sad,and heavy, heart that I write this letter to you. I am impelled to by the fact that you have grown more brazen by the day,in your attacks on innocent human beings! 


Plateau State used to be called "Plateau the beautiful, the home of peace and tourism! Now it is "Plateau the horrible, the home of pain and terror! 




You have turned our beloved city into a cauldron of nightmares! 




For those of us who do not come from Jos, but have always harboured a secret desire to one day settle in the peaceful,serene,and clement Jos, you have shattered that dream, and made it an illusion. 




We now drive through Jos in fear, each time we visit. We are afraid that someone would snuff out our lives, just because the way we serve our God, is different from the way they serve theirs!


Two incidents recounted to me this week, have convinced me that the animals of Jos need to deliver the city to the humans who live there! 


Enough is enough! This madness must end!


I was told that a team from a federal agency visited a mosque to distribute relief materials, while there, the chief Imam told them, because there were Christians among them, that he could not guarantee their safety in the mosque, the house of God! 


They had to be spirited away through the back gate of the mosque! 


A few days after this incident, the staff of the same agency were informed that Christians were coming to kill the Moslems working there. This is because the agency is located in a "Christian" part of Jos! 


When did we become beastly, that we would attack people we do not know, and have no quarrel with before, just because of their religion? We have turned Jos to Kosovo, Munster,and Pristina, the killing fields of the Balkan war! This is Nigeria, my beautiful Nigeria, and only humans are allowed here!


It is only rabid animals, too weak to hunt agile prey, that become man eaters!


To the animals in Jos, I have one suggestion for you, whether you call on Jesus, or call on Prophet Mohammed, SAS, you need to get in touch with yourselves, and arrange for a grand showdown, far from the metropolis where humans live. 




Preferably, choose one of the many lush plateaus to stage you final act of combat. If you do this, I would respect you. I would because when animals kill each other, it is not a crime, it is predation, but when they kill people, it becomes a crime, and such animals need to be put down!


Nigerians already suffer enough as it is, it is criminal to now lade them with a conflict not of their making.


To those who fund, and profit from this senseless killings, you who refuse to send your own children to die, your children will die in the far flung places you have taken them to.


Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap, you have killed the children of others, evil will never leave your homes, evil will be the sun that shines upon you, and the rain that waters you; even the ground you walk on,will be evil! Evil will go before you, and support you from behind. 


When you sow anything, you will reap evil, when you sleep, you will dream of evil!


Because you have killed the innocents, and made widows of wives, widowers of husbands, and orphans of children, may the evil you have visited on Plateau state consume you, and wipe out your generation from the earth!




To the authorities who seem to be vacillating, and twiddling their thumbs, please end this nightmare! If people are dying in peace time like this, may we never have a national crisis. It means we would be worse than Rwanda, and Burundi!  




If you love this nation,Nigeria, speak out against this evil. It must end now!


Please do,


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA,OUR WONDERFUL NIGERIA,FOREVER!




Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Senseless Forced Closure Of Primary And Secondary Schools In Nigeria.

When some people want to argue for the merit of Jonathan's presidency, they point to  the fact that he holds a doctorate degree! It is true, the man has a doctorate,but he has shown a phenomenally abysmal regard for education in this country!


The possession of any type of degree, is no guarantee, that a fellow is intelligent! A degree just means the fulfillment of certain conditions necessary for it's award, sometimes, people even cheat their way to one. That is why having one does not confer automatic wisdom,omniscience,or intelligence! Wisdom is the ability to apply what you have acquired in school to real life situations, in an intelligent fashion.


Not too long ago, his government decided to scrap monotechnics, and special universities.This was a reversal of more than twenty years of carefully thought out policy. We spent money implementing the policy in the past, and now, for reasons which have not been explained to us,probably because there are none, things have to change!


His latest faux pas is the one month forced closure of schools in the country.


The obvious questions is, if the closure is for the registration exercise, why did the government not use the long vacation that is just coming to an end? Or did the government not know that it would register voters. I can here the Jonathanistas (The inveterate dyed-in-wool supporters of the man) saying, the president does not run the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC. If he does not run INEC, why is he taking such a fundamentally disruptive decision to help them?


The closure has also been extended to private educational institutions! I thought the notion of being private is that the government does not own,or interfere with the running of these schools, except with the view to making sure that standards are not compromised! I know that no private school would allow the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC to use her facilities for the exercise.


Does the government realize how much economic damage this would cause to the interests of the owners of these schools, and to suppliers of things like foodstuff,and other perishable goods to these institutions?The policy was announced less than three days to the commencement of the new school term. I am sure no compensation would be paid for losses incurred. Proprietors of schools would pay salaries to teachers who would not have worked for the period, this is in addition to the normal losses our inefficient system engenders.


As usual, I am sure the government spokesman, Ima Niboro, would come out and say the president did not take the decision, and that it was "a purely administrative,and internal affair of the education ministry" But let me ask a stupid question, who heads the government of which the education ministry is a part ?Does it mean that Jonathan does not run this government, and that he does not know what some people are doing on the other side of this humongous mound of pounded yam called the PDP government ? That is a very spurious,lame,and disingenuous, excuse. Like President Harry Truman said "The buck stops right here! 


Government has shown a lack of intelligence, and scant thought, in dealing with many issues confronting us. We seem to wallow in the morass of knee-jerk reactions in solving this country's problems. Each new decision spawns new problems, and hardship, for the innocent helpless citizenry. It is as if no one in government is thinking at all! 


Nigeria seems to think that it exists in a separate dimension from the rest of the world. We dream up hare-brained, gobbledegook, schemes that,in more civilized places would cause governments to suffer votes of no confidence!


But over here, things are different, it seems the more bizarre an action is, the more the government is likely to embrace it. 


Nigeria needs help finding her way out of the woods. The current guides are over the legal limit allowed!  And they are cross-eyed, and colour blind!


We need help fast, and the ballot box does not promise any relief!


MAY GOD BLESS OUR BEWILDERED NIGERIA FOREVER!