Okezie Ikpeazu’s Self Imposed Woes And A Warning To Future Office Holders by Dodoh Okafor

This post is Dodoh Okafor's opinion on the perceived misrule of Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.

It is a shame that the current governor of Abia state is more of a vassal to his predecessor- Mr Theodore Orji and his son- Chinedu. Mr Ikpeazu does indeed deserve pity for rather than stamp his feet on the ground and assert himself as the governor, he has continued to answer endless summons by the Orji family over every innocuous pronouncement or action he takes.

The Abia state governor has never had a moment of respite in the 44 months since he ascended the throne of Abia governorship- albeit on a stolen mandate. He is always constantly reminded by his benefactors that he could not have had any access to the inner chambers of the government house had it not been for them.

The governor of course knows too well that he has no business being at the government house had it not been for the Orjis so he dare not argue or as much as express an opinion where a Theodore or Chinedu is present.

Abia State resources- IGR, FAAC, Intervention Funds, Loans, Grants from multilateral agencies- are butchered long in advance before Ikpeazu even gets an idea of how much has been realised from each income stream.

I understand that more than 60% of the state’s income is funnelled to the godfathers through the backdoor every month in the form of direct transfers and payment for questionable consultancy services.

It may shock you to note that project costs are highest in Abia State when compared with what obtains in other states. As against the average national average of 200million naira per kilometre for road rehabilitations, the Ikpeazu government pay over a billion naira for the fixing of 1 kilometre of road.

Abians would have had next-to-no reason to complain if the projects are executed and delivered at the humongous sum. Hell no, the Aba road in Umuahia for example has remained uncompleted in the last 40 months- despite the huge sum voted for its completion.

The average cost of building a double lane flyover in other Igbo states is 1.8 billion naira. Okezie Ikpeazu is however paying over 5 billion naira for a single lane flyover at Osisioma. Tragically- it appears all the money paid for the project has gone under as any hope of completion of the project by the administration had since been tossed aside.

How did Abia pay a whopping 5 billion naira for a one-lane flyover with practically nothing to show for it? This is a question auditors and forensic investigators will seek to find answers to as soon as a new administration takes over this May.

Mr Ikpeazu’s government has been remarkable only in its gross failure and grand incompetence. It is a shame that certain elementary demands of governance such as payment of salaries, pensions and environmental sanitation have all been completely abandoned.

Ikpeazu has made a habit of pointing accusing fingers at anyone but himself when trying to explain his woeful run as governor- the worst ever.

He has blamed Mr Alex Otti of APGA for “distracting him.” This has however proven to be a fat lie because Mr Chris Ngige today is regarded by many as a champion of Anambra liberation struggle despite the endless legal battle Mr Peter Obi (rightfully) instituted against him which ultimately cost him his seat.

In under 40 months- Mr Ngige set a new bar on development in Anambra state, reawakened the state to a new consciousness and made people realise that our development is by no means arrested by “Hausa-Fulanis” as Mr Nnamdi Kanu tries to brainwash his followers into believing.

Ngige- who like Okezie Ikpeazu rose to become governor on the strength of a stolen mandate- did demonstrate that our biggest problem in Igboland are selfish and unconscionable political rulers who do not give a damn about development.

Mr Ngige in his relatively short term opened up several access roads in Anambra, built new ones, cleared outstanding arrears of teachers, civil servants and made Anambra a place to reckon with in Nigeria once again.

Many had imagined that in Okezie Ikpeazu, Abia would have her own Chris Ngige- a man who would stand up to the godfathers to align with the people and turn the fortunes of the state around. How sad many were when it became public knowledge that Mr Ikpeazu does not possess Chris Ngige’s balls.

Theodore and Chinedu Orji are not the only forces holding Mr Ikpeazu down- matter of fact- the Orji family is only a secondary factor. Mr Ikpeazu’s biggest undoing is his lack of moral character. A leader whose moral bars are generally acknowledged to be very low is automatically open to all forms of manipulations.

It is therefore easy to understand why the Abia state governor has remained hostage to all sorts of interests- blackmailers, his kinsmen and those who insist that they too are entitled to the finest wines and spirit in the market.

Mr Ikpeazu would forever be remembered as the man who as Chinua Achebe would say- managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This man could have been the father of a new Abia- he could have been a champion of people’s liberation who would wipe the tears of criminal leadership from our state.

Sadly- our memory of the Ikpeazu government would only be that of a failure who rather than take the yoke of bad rulership off our necks elected to perpetuate it. He will go down in infamy and his name shall forever be remembered in scorn and derision.

For Ndi Abia however, a new opportunity beckons and we all must be committed to doing whatever it takes to see the back of Mr Ikpeazu and his backers.

In the guber election billed for the 2nd of March this year- Abians will have the opportunity of electing someone who truly understands the dynamics of modern development, one whose moral character cannot be impugned and a leader who does not need to help himself with the resources of the state because he is made.

I encourage all of us to be prepared to vote and defend our votes on Saturday, 2nd of March. The PDP appataricks would attempt all sorts of tricks and intimidation to retain political control of the state but we must stop them.

Appeal to sentiments must be cast aside. We have no interest in equity or Ikpeazu’s version of “social justice.” We are only interested in development and improved standard of living. We want our children back to school and quality jobs when they graduate.

The Ikpeazu debacle must forever teach us a lesson or two. One- we must never sublet leadership recruitment process to the elites ever again. We must be prepared to hire the best at all times.

Thanks for reading- have a nice weekend and may God bless and keep you. Remember to make peace with the Creator by reconciling with His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. He knows the way.

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The Message Nigerians Must Deliver To Buhari Next Week by Dele Momodu

This post is Dele Momodu's opinion on the reelection bid of President Muhammadu Buhari in the coming General Election.

Fellow Nigerians, please, permit me to make some quick clarifications in this season of general bickering and mutual distrust and spiteful hatred.

One. I do not work for any campaign organisation. I’m supporting the PDP candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, same way I voluntarily supported Major General Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. I do so because there is no viable or electable alternative among the fringe candidates. I believe it is within my fundamental right of association and freedom of speech to support whosoever I wish. Similarly, I respect the rights of others to support any candidate of their choice and see no reason why anyone should get angry and jittery over mine.

Two. I did not choose Atiku for pecuniary or any other gain. I have not been paid by him or anybody acting on his behalf. I would not sell myself where the future of my country, Nigeria, is concerned. As I write, I’m already on my way to Oxford University to resume and engage in academic ventures for the next six months. I’m gainfully employed and happy and content to manage my modest income, so I’m not desperate for government appointment or patronage, as the social media trolls try to suggest about opposition figures.

But I cannot watch my country disintegrate or watch an incompetent government drown our dear beloved country in an ocean of bigotry, backwardness, bitterness and bestiality. I owe it to myself, and fellow compatriots, to stand for truth, and nothing but the truth, as one of those it has pleased God to give some visibility and voice globally. What shall it profit a man who keeps silent in the face of unbridled tyranny and abysmal cluelessness. If I wished, I could have supported PDP in the 2015 elections. Every comfort was assured and guaranteed. But I chose to support a supposed poor man we believed would be a Mandela figure that would rescue us from the scourge of PDP. Little did I imagine we were in the process of inviting a worse pestilence on our nation.

Three. I bear no grudge or personal animosity against Buhari. I love him the way I love mankind and respect the office he occupies which I once attempted to enter when I contested in 2011. I believe President Muhammadu Buhari has not reciprocated the massive goodwill bestowed on him in 2015 and that he has treated us with great contempt and disdain. He has also not properly utilised his professional, competent and capable Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. Had he done so, maybe we would now be saying something else.

This is not to cause any disaffection within their ranks, but every discerning Nigerian knows that this quintessential gentleman is the reason that there is any real noteworthy success for this administration. Otherwise, Buhari has embarrassed his supporters, endlessly, with his reckless, insensitive and uninformed decisions. What many of those supporting him in public today say behind him is unbelievable and unspeakable. I have friends who confess to private threats of business and physical annihilation and are thus forced to endorse a man they know can never take Nigeria to anywhere meaningful, even if given four terms.

Four. I have tried strenuously to be fair to Buhari and wrote copiously to advise him, from time to time, as I promised him when we met in his office, one on one, in 2015. I gave up hope, after some time, when I saw the direction he was headed and noticed the irredeemable obstinacy in his DNA. Four years ago, many of us were very excited about the hope this great General offered to our nation. Perhaps, we overrated his capabilities. It has become clear that we wittingly dressed him in borrowed robes and we were all hypnotised and brainwashed, somehow. Today, our eyes have cleared from that giddiness and I’m ready to add my voice to those of others who genuinely believe, Buhari must go. I do this with every sense of responsibility to God and to my country. I will give my reasons shortly.

I have had to apologise in the last couple of months to those who feel very aggrieved that a self-confessed democrat like me could ever support a blatant dictator like Buhari. You can never imagine the gale of verbal attacks I suffered and endured for what I considered my innocuous support. The last one that really hit me was in Ghana recently.

I ran into the respected Legal luminary, Mr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, at the lounge in Kotoka International Airport. There were two ladies seated with him, one of who I believe is his wife. I greeted them but the other lady snubbed me, and said, “Dele, I will never greet you.” I looked blank and wondered if we’ve ever met, and how I might have offended her. Madam soon threw a sucker punch. “Dele, you are one of those who brought that disaster called Buhari on us…” and she went into her tirade. I tried to explain that I’m indeed very sorry and it was not my fault that I fell for the charms and scam of APC. The woman was practically inconsolable.

I have encountered many people like her. A guy almost went physical with me on a flight to London, grumbling aloud about how some of Buhari’s ignorant decisions have messed up Nigeria, his business and family. All I could do was plead for understanding. Unfortunately, Buhari himself is totally oblivious to the way Nigerians feel or just couldn’t be bothered or is probably insulated from objective criticism by selfish advisers. The tragedy of it all is his Messianic complex. He and his cronies behave as if Nigerians owe them a load of gratitude for favours received. Such hocus-pocus and inanity.

I have no iota of doubt left in me that President Muhammadu Buhari has performed well below expectations and that he should be voted out, peacefully, on February 16, 2019. The message should be clear henceforth that there is no automatic second term for incompetence, irresponsibility, irreverence and impunity. It is a miracle that Nigeria has not exploded into a civil war with the manner Buhari has treated some parts as second-class citizens with no right to complain. Let me now give reasons why we cannot afford to donate a second term to Buhari when he has clearly not earned it.

One. At 76, and with a failing health, Buhari should go into permanent retirement at the expiration of his tenure on May 29, 2019. No man can cheat nature and Buhari isn’t an exception.

Two. Buhari has not been in charge or on top of government and governance since he assumed office on May 29, 2015. Some cronies, otherwise known and addressed as ‘the cabal’, have been ruling without being elected. This can only get worse if Buhari is awarded a second term through our collective stupidity.

Three. The human rights record of Buhari has never been anything to praise or applaud at any time. 

Nothing has changed since he was kicked out of power by President Ibrahim Babangida in 1985. He has refused to adhere to the rule of law and has continued to trample on the rights of Nigerian citizens despite several court orders. What makes matters worse is that he behaves like Constantin Demiris, a character in Sidney Sheldon’s Memories of Midnight, who never forgets a favour and never forgives an injury. He has kept his presumed enemies in prison, indefinitely and compensated a few of his benefactors with appointments.

Buhari does not hold the Constitution of Nigeria dear to heart and as such behaves with maximum use of force. His goons have been harassing the Legislature and the Judiciary on the pretext that they are fighting corruption, but they deliberately target those they consider inimical to their hold on power. They have invaded homes of Judges in the middle of the night, breaking down doors, and swarmed on the National Assembly with thugs and later with hooded and gun-totting secret agents in broad daylight. He has suspended the Chief Justice of Nigeria when he has neither the authority nor the power to do so. 

Buhari and those who support this brigandage and total assault on recognized and reverent principles of law and established constitutional institutions choose to forget that the worst kind of corruption is the abuse of power itself. When it is for ulterior and base motives, as is now obviously the case, it becomes a menace that all well-meaning and true democrats must resist with all their might. There can be no excuse or justification. Otherwise we may as well embrace not just dictatorship, but anarchy.

Four, Buhari has been a divisive leader who appears not to believe in the unity of Nigeria. Under his government, Nigeria and Nigerians have been more divided. The lop-sidedness of his security appointments have been dangerously fixated on people of the same ethnic group and religious persuasion, and he does it with nonchalance and condescension. If you like, jump into the Atlantic Ocean, our President won’t blink an eye. He claims, with a straight face that he makes appointments on merit, but we’ve not seen the reflection and positive effects of this merit on the war against corruption, terrorists and insurgents.

Five. Buhari’s economic blueprint has been more involved in his stereotypical tightening up the noose on the economy, scaring investors away with ill-thought economic policies and reversal of contractual obligations without negotiations with parties involved, instead of opening up the economy. This has all happened because of his obsession with so-called corruption. Yet, under his watch, not much has been achieved because of his desperation to hold on to power. This has forced him to compromise, capitulate and led him to bring the biggest and possibly most corrupt chieftains of other parties closer to him.

He turns the proverbial blind eye to the infamous activities of these nefarious characters because they are perceived as being able to achieve his unbridled ambition for a second term. He had lost elections on three previous occasions and only won when he got the so-called bad guys to help him attain power. Right now, he is heavily relying on them again to bail him out of imminent defeat next week. And this is the man who falsely claims to espouse anti-corruption credentials and touts himself as a man of integrity.

Six. Buhari has failed spectacularly on all his major campaign promises. Nigeria is far worse than he met it. I will be the first to congratulate the government on its achievements in the rail sector and also the success with the militant problem in the Niger Delta. Other than that, he could not even stabilise what he inherited talk less of improving on it. His government has been struggling to control the free-fall of the Naira against the Dollar. He has not been able to cancel and eliminate fuel subsidies which he once described as a big scam and on which the corruption fight has been largely hinged. In fact, payments have more than doubled and the NNPC now holds a monopoly on importation of petroleum products with attendant risk of corruption in high places. We are none the wiser about security spending by him. This was the second plank on which the anti-corruption war was predicated. Loans have ballooned astronomically, yet infrastructure development remains outlandishly backward. We only get to read about monumental achievements on paper.

Seven. The last but not the least in my view is the perpetual and puerile blame game. Four years after getting power from PDP, Buhari has not stopped blaming his predecessors, forgetting that this was precisely the reason PDP was sacked from power. Buhari won those elections not on his own accord, but because the general populace had become totally disenchanted with PDP, it’s profligacy, looting and mendacity. Sadly, It seems we have come full circle.

Since Buhari has shown the inability to perform the magic he promised, it is time to send him back home, with the sure message that whosoever comes next will suffer the same fate. It is a democratic template we must put in place now and forever. Otherwise, we must accept whatever fate befalls our dear country.

The world is watching.



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Ganduje as the Epitome of the Many Contradictions of Buhari' by Reno Omokri

This post is a personal opinion of Reno Omokri on Nigeria politics.

One of the most shameful spectacles ever to have happened in the history of Nigeria occurred on Thursday, January 31st of 2019 when President Muhammadu Buhari gleefully and with much aplomb, raised up the hand of the Governor of Kano, Umar Ganduje, and urged the crowd at the Sani Abacha stadium to vote for the Governor for a second term. 

In case you have forgotten, this is the same man who was caught red handed on camera receiving bribes. He has been nicknamed Gandollar because of that and I christened him the father of babanriga mobile banking. 

This man, this thief, this rogue, is who President Buhari endorsed. Imagine that! It was fitting that the endorsement of Ganduje by President Buhari was done at the Sani Abacha stadium in Kano. What better venue for the show of shame than a monument to Nigeria’s biggest ever thief! 

And President Buhari’s conscience is obviously convicting him, because shortly after the dishonourable endorsement, Garba Shehu, the Any Government in Power political prostitute, released a statement explaining that President Buhari was powerless to prosecute Ganduje because of his immunity. 

First of all, this is not true. Udom Emmanuel, the Akwa-Ibom Governor, also has immunity like Governor Umar Ganduje, yet the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission filed fraud charges against the Akwa Ibom governor on December 18, 2018. So Buhari’s excuse that he cannot do anything to Ganduje because of his immunity is just that-an excuse. 

But even if it were true, does the Constitution also compels him to associate with known criminals? By endorsing Governor Ganduje, President Buhari has become guilty of his crimes and is at best an accessory after the fact. How can a President associate with known crooks and still brandish his anti-corruption image? 

President Buhari’s desperation for a second term has caused him to abandon even his pretense of fighting corruption. He has canonized Orji Kalu, the alleged eja nla thief as a saint. The man was declared wanted by the EFCC only to turn up at President Buhari’s right hand during his rally in Abia. How could the EFCC have missed him? The man was at that stadium for two hours. A wanted man. 

The hypocrisy even got to suffocating levels when Senator Abdullahi Adamu, who was enmeshed in an EFCC multi million Naira fraud and whose son, not to be outdone, is under trial for a multi-billion Naira fraud, joined President Buhari on stage as he campaigned in Minna and praised the President’s anti-corruption war. 

It does not occur to him that if the President was truly fighting corruption, he and his son would be in a really nasty guest house belonging to the federal government. 

What is worse, Senator Adamu is the North Central Presidential Director for the Buhari-Osinbajo campaign organisation. I could not make up such nonsense even if I tried. How can a man who was fingered in a multi-billion Naira corruption case be your coordinator? What am I even saying? Isn’t Akpabio also his coordinator? 

At this stage, only a simpleton would still believe in Buhari’s alleged integrity. His integrity, if he ever had any, died with the late Major General Tunde Idiagbon (rtd) of blessed memory. 

Even his wife, Aisha Buhari, seems unable to bear the stench of her husband’s hypocrisy. Have you seen her in recent days on the campaign trail? I admire Aisha. I suspect she does not want to share the stage with the likes of Gandollar, Akpabio and Orji. 

Buhari’s moral depravity and his unfitness for power are now all too clear. Consider the following for example:

1. SACKS Onnoghen. BACKS Ganduje. 
2. Abacha DID NOT steal. PDP Stole
3. Kemi Adeosun escorted to airport. Adeleke escorted to court
4. Obanikoro: A thief when in PDP. A saint after he decamped to APC

The saddest fact of all in this saga is the fact that President Buhari is not even ashamed. He is so brazen and in your face about his hypocrisy because he feels that he has a captive audience in the North that will vote for him no matter the situation. 

He is also counting on Tinubu’s desperation to be President after him to ensure that he gets the Yoruba vote. Whether his gambit works, I do not know. But what I know is this, the name Buhari will go down in history as a byword for hypocrisy and disappointment, the likes of which Nigeria has never seen before and may never see again. 

As to the EFCC, I quote the last words of Brigadier Mamman Vatsa ‘as to the Nigerian Army, let me warn you that the minute you start insulting yourself, you will never lack those willing to help you insult yourself’. In endorsing Ganduje, Buhari has insulted you and you have clapped for him.

Secondary Source: Nigeria News Update (NNU)

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