Before I start on what I want to really talk about, I have to sound the alarm bells. Remember when I
talked about Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's appearance on HardTalk, I mentioned
the web page of the Federal Ministry of Finance that gave us access to the Federation account. I said at the time that no one had dared to remove it. Someone has. The site is down. HELP!!!
Umaru Yar'AduaAs rightly said a few weeks back, the PDP nomination has gone to Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua. Which makes him the 'president in waiting' more or less.
Who is Umaru Yar'Adua?
Some may be expecting an expose with tons of dirt on the man.
Naija people sef, una too like amebo! The man himself appears squeaky clean. The 'dirt' in his name emanates from among others his late brother who of course was in the first Obasanjo government, and featured prominently in many Fela songs :D, then from Obasanjo himself, and his efforts to secure this nomination for his friend's brother.
The positivesBorn in 1951, Umaru Yar’Adua, is a former Chemistry teacher who once said that '
to move forward, we have to start from the poor'. In terms of intellectual and working experience, Yar’Adua is qualified and only very few of the politicians in Nigeria can boast of his academic credentials. He holds a Bachelor's and a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and was a lecturer at Katsina Polytechnic for several years, rising to Head of Department there. He also lectured at the Kaduna State College of Arts, Science and Technology in Zaria and later at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. All this was before going into business and politics. He has been on the board and management of several prestigious establishments.
Under Umaru Yar'Adua, Katsina State has not been indebted to any individual, group or institution since his administration has had no reason to borrow money from anybody either as local or foreign loan. His administration is in fact keeping a reserve of N6.5billion in the state treasury as of today. His focus as governor was in 'people oriented' programmes with education and public health being top of the agenda.
His transparency has been attested to by no less a man of impeccable integrity as Muhammadu Buhari, also from Katsina, but belonging to the ANPP. In 2002, the Nigerian Union of Journalists awarded a trophy to Yar’Adua as the most transparent governor in the country and invited Buhari to chair the occasion. The former Head of State, who until then had never attended any media event, said that he only came to attest to the fact that Yar’Adua was indeed, incorruptible.
He is married to Hajia Turai Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and I have been unable to find evidence or allegations of any other women in his life, which makes him come across as a disciplined fellow.
The negativesHe was one of those that introduced
Shar'ia in his state back in 1999. My opinion on that remains very simple. According to the Nigerian constitution we are Nigerians first, then Christians and/or Muslims and/or Hausa and/or Igbo and/or Yoruba thereafter. He took his oath of office by that constitution, and the introduction of the
Shar'ia law over the common constitutional law is in my opinion a breach of that oath.
Word on the street is that he didn't have the money to pick up the presidential nomination form, so that was arranged for him at Obasanjo's behest by James Ibori. If that is true, then it means that certain crooks would escape justice for another eight years at least.
There are also complaints coming from some quarters in Katsina that he is a bit of an autocrat, and like Obasanjo doesn't take too kindly to opposition. More on that as it becomes clearer.
Why is Obasanjo taking more that a passing interest in who would succeed him? On the surface it looks like he is interested simply so that his reforms can continue, but there could be a more sinister motive? More on that later on in this post...
Another issue with Yar'Adua is that he is a little like George Bush in the sense that he is not at all widely travelled. According to a friend of mine, in his entire seven years thus far as governor, he has only left Katsina (not including medical trips) a grand total of thirteen times! Wow! Compare that with Turaki just a stone throw away in Jigawa. The problem with the fact that he is relatively poorly travelled is that he more than likely has little or no idea, much less a grasp of the monumental differences and issues that 'divide' the people he wants to serve. You see, Katsina is a largely homogeneous state, almost the only state in Nigeria with a single dialect, and the vast majority of people there are of one religion. So administering such a state would be a walk in the park as compared to a multi ethnic entity where a lot of the groups feel short changed.
Sadly his health is a problem. He is said to have very serious kidney ailments and is kept from complete kidney failure through dialysis. He used to go to Germany for treatment until it became available in Kano, then he began making the short trip to Kano for said treatment. This however, is where there is a problem.
Enter the battle for Vice President...
According to the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (Section 146):
The Vice-President shall hold the office of President if the office of President becomes vacant by reason of death or resignation, impeachment, permanent incapacity or the removal of the President from office for any other reason in accordance with section 143. Section 143 basically consists of the jargon that are the reasons that the president could be removed for.
Now, if Yar'Adua is on dialysis, it stands to reason that he may not in all probability be able to complete his tenure as President, Federal Republic of Nigeria. Who becomes president then? Why it is the Vice President, and that is where the real fight is. You see, Yar'Adua himself is known to be a quiet almost reclusive man. He was one governor who hardly joined the regular jamborees to Abuja, which implies that he may not even be in total control when (and if) he becomes president, the vice will be the one calling the shots.
At the moment, there are a lot of names being mooted about for the position of Vice President, all from the South-South and South-East. Names floating around include Mike Akhigbe, Peter Odili, Donald Duke, Ken Nnamani, Andy Uba and Victor Attah. Apparently, the fine art of political manoeuvring which includes the ability to reach a compromise is still somewhere out of the reach of these groups. It has become an '
every man for himself' affair. Then later we would turn around and scream marginalisation. Ojukwu and Obasanjo must be having a nice chuckle at the drama.
Kai! We will never learn.
From a personal view point, I would like to see Duke take that position, but he seems to have lost the balls for the fight. Someone said that he '
wept like a woman' when Obasanjo instructed him to step down for Yar'Adua. Jeez! Nigerians can be a callous lot. The story making the rounds is that Odili has been distributing a lot of cash to make sure that he gets it. Uncle Nuhu are you hearing? Akhigbe is pulling all the available military strings. Victor Attah is being checked out by the EFCC so that almost definitely rules him out. On another hand Obasanjo is said to favour Andy Uba, who has won nomination to contest for the governorship of Anambra State. However, the opposition to an Uba candidature would be colossal, I don't think that even Uncle Sege can pull that off. Ken Nnamani?
Removing my personal preference for Duke, I think that of the lot who have been mentioned, that Nnamani may be the most desirable, based on the fact that he proved 'incorruptible' during the third term palaver. However that makes him less than appealing to Obasanjo. Unfortunately for Obj, there seems to be a lack of consensus among the candidates from the South-South as Odili and Duke want it badly, while Akhigbe is also very interested, and is in no mood to back down. This has played out in favour of Nnamani. Problem is that Obasanjo may not have exactly forgiven him for failing to support the third term thing. How the whole mathematics would play out over the next few days would make for an interesting story...
This is a crucial fight for Obj because he needs cover after leaving office. For all his 'war against corruption', he himself has skeletons in his closet. Questions that still need answering include the Transcorp affair, the Sao Tome deal, oil blocks 'dashed' to his friends and allies such as Danjuma, and the almost endless flow of g-m-g bags to the House of Assembly whenever he had something that he wanted passed. We will also need answers for his stewardship of the NNPC. Remember that Uncle Sege has more or less been Petroleum Minister for the last eight years.
Added to that is the fact that there are a lot of people waiting to extract their pound of flesh (and blood, Portia has no say here) because he screwed them over again and again over the last seven years. We have the Atikus, the Babangidas, the Adedibus, and remember, Nigerians can be a vicious and unforgiving lot when it suits them. Also remember the spate of unresolved murders during Obasanjo's tenure. Bola Ige, Funso Williams, Harry Marshall. All these issues will come up after he leaves office, and he needs someone in is camp to keep an eye on Yar'Adua.
It is important to him that he manipulates this election to an 'acceptable' end result or else it would not be an easy retirement for him, and the elder-statesmanship he craves so much will be denied him.
Ashawo na work o
I'm sure most of you have heard of the Ipswich murders, so there is no need to go into the gory details. However, I have two things I want to point out:
1) According to the
James O'Brien show on was it Wednesday or Thursday? I can't remember exactly, one of the dead girls featured above (I won't name which please, let's respect the dead), used to charge £30 a pop, and used to service up to 10 clients a night in order to feed her heroin habit. Damn! £30 a pop, 10 clients a night computes to £300 a night. Compute that for a five day working week, then for a four month working month, that translates to £6000. Then convert it to Naira at the rate of 250 to the Pound sterling! Imagine what she would have been after a year of such 'hard work' if she had no heroin habit, and was instead investing all the money in the stock market. And they say 'ashawo no be work'...
2)What is wrong with TV networks? Why do the BBC and Sky reporters have to go and stand in front of the forest where the bodies were found in the pouring rain? And make no mistakes, as at when this fellow on BBC 24 was making his report, it was pissing rain and he was shivering. Do we need them to do that? Would it bring the girls back? We need more complete reporting, not these attempts to make the whole thing look like a soap opera...
20/20...that horrible BBC and Sky reporting brings me to the next set of humans up for it. The ABC crew. A lot of Nigerians have been howling about the report on 20/20 titled '
Scamming the scammer'. Why are we bothered? What Brian Ross said was true, only that his reporting was unbalanced. The only part of the report that made me flinch was his description of Lagos as 'a disgrace of a city'. But if we are to be honest, Lagos is a disgrace. We all admit it, and are only angry because some bloody foreigner has decided to air our soiled under-garments in public. But we shouldn't fall head over heels to appease a bunch of bigots. I
told Jeremy sometime ago when he talked about American reporting on Nigeria, that
Nkem's article about the same issue told the whole story.
It is almost unreal the apparent glee with which the American media latch on the any bad news coming out of Naija, and at the same time actively attempt to ignore the good. This can be seen from the difference in the way the following international news agencies reported yesterday's PDP polls:
CNN,
BBC,
Reuters and
Al-Jazeera. Take a critical look at the wording of each report and you will see that the CNN report especially is subtly themed to emphasise the rifts and differences between all concerned. Nothing new. They do it all the time. So why bother with Ross? I can guarantee that until he decided to do his report, he had probably never heard of Nigeria. It is sad that someone who in this day and age can decide to tar a whole peoples with a bad brush based on the actions of a few has a widely watched show all to himself. But then, freedom of speech. After all is said and done,
Pat Robertson still has a following doesn't he? There is
David Duke. So why complain about common Brian Ross?
We should take solace in the fact that the people who matter
have removed Nigeria from the list of countries that aren't doing enough to fight dirty money.
We can also take solace in the fact that that surgeon lost money. I have no sympathy for him. He is a thief.
Juve watchWe are down to third in the table. We didn't play this weekend, so Bologna and Genoa overtook us. We are two points behind with a game in hand. Two Juve Belletti players (feeder team) drowned on Friday, so the game with Cesena was postponed as a mark of respect. May they rest in peace.
