Nigeria at 55: full text of President Buhari’s speech

“October 1st is a day for joy and celebrations for us Nigerians, whatever the circumstances we find ourselves in because it is the day, 55 years ago; we liberated ourselves from the shackles of colonialism and began our long march to nationhood and to greatness.

“No temporary problems or passing challenges should stop us from honouring this day. Let us remind ourselves of the gifts God has given us. Our Creator has bequeathed to us Numbers – Nigeria is the ninth most populated country on the planet. We have in addition arable land; water; forests; oil and gas; coastline; and solid minerals

Why Everybody Is Calling On Buhari By Comrade Timi Frank

 By Comrade Timi Frank

The Presidency on Sunday stated that the ongoing trial of the president of the Senate, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, is purely a judicial and constitutional issue. Senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, in a statement, had described the attempt to link the Presidency to Saraki’s trial as unacceptable. The statement also frowned at views to the effect that the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) could only act upon external instigation. Well said. Nobody can tell Buhari to stop the trial of the Senate president by the CCT. However, I don’t think calls on Mr President to ensure that concerned institutions of state follow due process in carrying out their duties are tantamount to calling on him to outrightly stop the trial. Nobody can do that. To stop a perceived criminal trial by fiat would be totally unconstitutional

When It Rains It Pours By Hannatu Musawa

Hannatu Musawa

There have only been a few other instances when the term ‘when it rains it pours’ has had such a literal application. Within the last week, the cloudburst of torrential rain not only poured to its heart’s desire, it also caused the devastation of lives in many states all over Nigeria. The nous of the saying is that sometimes in life, when one thing goes wrong, many others follow. That was true for the thousands of people caught up in the disaster. People lost family, livelihood and homes.
Following the tragic loss of human life and extensive destruction of property and infrastructure, those affected are still experiencing the effects of the storm, as homeless survivors are forced to live on contaminated, disease-infested waters.
Information is that in order to avert dehydration and quench thirst most of the survivors continue to drink the polluted water, thus exposing themselves to malaria and other diseases from the swarms of mosquitoes and viruses breeding in the flood waters

HOPE FOR A NEW FUTURE

I’ve been hearing words as strong as hate

Even before I turned eight

Yet we behave as if we are saints

We have no hope for change

We move up and down as if we own the world

Speaking fire not minding the effect of our words

Not minding what will become the lots of our wards

Throwing legacy into the wind as long as we feel safe within our walls

If today should be your last day

If asked how well you have done, what will you say?

Do we all forget the day of old,

Because of what we have been told?

Jumping up and down like a toad

Feeling safe because we are in the boat

And forgetting there may be storm untold

Nobody has ever become anything by his own power

Stop the plan to set everywhere on fire

There is little that can be done by godfather

Always remember we all have our desire

The future is bright this I know

It doesn’t matter for how long it snow

A time is coming for us to reap what we have sown

Written By: FADARE O. ENOCH

As the Senate Resumes: Expectations and Fears By Chima Chime

By Chima Chime

After the long wait, the resumption of the National Assembly – after the lawmaker’s annual vacation – has finally arrived. As plenary is about to begin, Chima Chime, writes to examine some of the issues that Nigerians can expect to see coming from the upper legislative chamber.

EXPECTATIONS

E-PARLIAMENT: Before the 8th Senate went on recess the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki challenged the Senate Committee on Rules and Business to evolve an e-parliament system, which is set to foster transparency in the affairs of the Senate. It is expected that the implementation of this new system will commence immediately plenary begins, as Nigerians are patiently waiting to witness this new effort at promoting transparency in the affairs of the Senate for the first time in Nigeria’s legislative history

The Colours of Change by Akanni Ola Balogun

It is yet to be seen if the ruling government and the party intend to come out stronger from the trial of Senator Bukola Saraki
Olawale Olaleye


“Because of the inordinate ambition of one man and lust to be the Senate President by all means, Saraki ignored the President, the Vice-President, APC governors, Senators, House of Reps members etc to sacrifice the unity of his party. Senator Saraki compounded the problems of APC, and mounted a major road block for its smooth take-off considering that it is just coming to power after 16 years in opposition.
“This man put spanners in the works and initiated a serious internal crisis within the ruling party that nearly made Nigerians who massively voted for APC to begin to lose hope. Saraki and his gang of 40 thieves devastated the master plan of our great party to choose the right people to serve as the Principal Officers in the National Assembly.”
Those were some of the words of the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the gaseous Joe Igbokwe. His clearly unguarded but instigated position has further compounded fears if this whole drama of trial is all about the fight against graft or sheer power game.

The choice of the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki as the scapegoat of President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-graft crusade may have been circumstantial as it is made to appear; it is however curious – from all indications. Although President Buhari may have been inconsistent with the modus operandi to the extent of his inaugural speech, it appears evident that the trial is more political than a genuine resolve to unravel any wrongdoing and establish justice.

If not for Saraki’s patriotic magnanimity… by YOMI ODUNUGA

Dr. Bukola Saraki, the Kwara State-born politician and, by all sense of the word, a true inheritor of his late father’s exploits in the political terrain, takes his vocation more seriously than many would have imagined. The former banker, two-time governor and aide to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo recently plotted a coup that saw him perching at the prestigious seat of Nigeria’s President of the Senate, even to the consternation of the leadership of his party, the All Progressives Congress. Some say he is perching precariously on the tip of a dangling rope. That is neither here or there. With the benefits of hindsight, I have no shred of doubt that Saraki must have exploited all the wily tricks in and out of the books to – with cold calmness – manoeuvre his way to the seat. Some say the feat was achieved through a combination of treachery and stone-cold ambition. I beg to disagree. I see his emergence strictly from the prism of what his supporters call Saraki’s patriotic magnanimity

Conflict of powers and interests by DAYO SOBOWALE

The African wisecrack that when elephants fight it is the grass that suffers is the compass  for our safari today into the corridors of power globally. We  shall  look at events in Nigeria where the President of  the Senate is on trial on his asset  declaration in the past and   has  declared in open court that his trial is  political. We shall  draw an inference and lesson from that in the light of Nigeria’s presidential  system which operates on the concept of strict  separation  of powers. We  then  proceed to  Russia where the President received the Prime  Minister  of Israel in the Kremlin amidst global  concern that Russia had decided to step  up militarily  its support for the Assad regime in its fight against rebels and ISIS and  the import  of  that for the influx  of  refugees to  Europe. We  then round up on the role of  German motor  giant  Volkswagon  in   using technology to fool environmental regulators in the US on  diesel engine emissions tests and  the import  of that for global  corporate  governance  and ethics

Algerian Hacks 200 US Banks, Financial Institutions; Donates Millions Of Dollars To Palestinian Charities

Bendelladj was dubbed the ‘happy hacker’ because he was photographed smiling after he was taken into custody in Bangkok [EPA

Depending on who you ask, Hamza Bendelladj is either a Robin Hood-esque hero or a cyber-age hoodlum.

The 27-year-old Algerian computer science graduate will be sentenced on Tuesday in a US court for using a computer virus to steal money from more than 200 American banks and financial institutions. He then reportedly gave millions of dollars to Palestinian charities.

Bendelladj, who is alleged to be the co-creator of a banking trojan horse called SpyEye, was indicted in absentia by US authorities in 2011. The program – a malware toolkit that saw its popularity peak between 2009 and 2011 – is believed to have infected more than 1.4 million computers in the US and elsewhere, according to Wired, a San Francisco-based technology magazine. The software enabled users to steal login information for online financial accounts, which they then pillaged.

On Tuesday, Bendelladj, who hails from Tizi Ouzou in Algeria, will be sentenced in court in the US state of Georgia. He has already pleaded guilty and faces a prison sentence of more than 65 years and up to $14m in fines, according to the US Department of Justice.

List of Senators that followed Saraki to Tribunal ( check out for your senator)

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu led 29 other senators to the CCT in solidarity with the Senate President.

Senators at the CCT are:
1. Amori Ighoyota (Delta Central)
2. Bassey Albert Akpan (Akwa North East)
3. Abdulrahman Abubakar (Kogi East)
4. Tayo Alasoadura (Ondo Central)
5. Kabiru Gaya (Kano Central)

SENATE PRESIDENT BUKOLA SARAKI (M) AND OTHER LEGISLATORS AT THE CODE OF CONDUCT TRIBUNAL HE WENT TO TAKE HIS PLEA IN THE 13-COUNT CHARGE SLAMMED ON HIM OVER ALLEGED FALSE DECLARATION OF HIS ASSETS, IN ABUJA ON TUESDAY (22/9/15)

6. Peter Nwaoboshi (Delta North)
7. Aliyu Wamako (Sokoto North)
8. Shaaba Lafiagi (Kwara North)
9. Theodore Orji (Abia Central)
Others are Senators
10. Ben Murray-Bruce (Bayelsa East)
11. Emmanuel Paulker (Bayelsa Central)
12. Ogola Foster (Bayelsa West)
13. Mao Ohuabunwa (Abia North)
14. Gilbert Nnaji (Enugu East)
15. Rose Oko (Cross River North)
16. Sam Egwu (Ebonyi North)
17. Olaka Nwogu (Rivers South East)
18. Samuel Anyanwu (Imo East)

Of Absalom And Bukola Saraki [MUST READ] by Bayo Adeyinka

Nigeria's Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki

by Bayo Adeyinka

2 Samuel 14:28– “So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and saw not the king’s face”.

I’ve refrained from sharing my thoughts on the Bukola Saraki issue until now. I’ve read tons of comments and I’ve often laughed at the analysis of folks. Most people seem to forget we have passed this way before. Nothing is new in Nigeria. It’s just a game of musical chairs and all depends on whoever is conducting the symphony. So here are my thoughts:

1. Firstly, I hope Goodluck Jonathan had a great cup of coffee or whatever enemies say he drinks as he watched Bukola Saraki sitting in the dock. That should be the price of disloyalty. According to Dwight Eisenhower, there is a difference between honest dissent and disloyal subversion. Saraki subverted PDP. If not for Saraki and the PDP Governors

Saraki: Time to step down by OLATUNJI DARE

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

This is the time-tested piece of advice I would have passed on to the beleaguered Senate President Bukola Saraki if he was not too far gone in his self- absorption, his overweening sense of entitlement, his predilection for cutting corners, and his Raskolnikov Complex, the delusion named for the central character in Dostoyevsky great novel,Crime and Punishment, that the rules do not apply to him.

Summoned to appear before the Code of Conduct Tribunal(CCT) in the investigation of some baffling inconsistencies in his declaration of assets, he spurns the order, dismisses the charges as false and frivolous, awards himself an acquittal, and seeks a court to block the Tribunal’sproceedings.

In response to this contumacy, the CCT issued a Bench warrant for his arrest.  Saraki petitioned another court in a bid to void the warrant.  Based on that petition, he again failed to show up before the CCT.

The CCT, Saraki charged, was being used to fight political opponents “to achieve through the back door what some people cannot get through democratic process.”

It is almost as if it was through the front door, and in a process emblematic of the best democratic practice, that he had emerged Senate president.  I use the word “emerged” deliberately.  By his own account, he had been in hiding until it was safe to join his

Next level indeed by TUNJI ADEGBOYEGA

•Some of the dollar bills allegedly swallowed

Nigerians devise new way to launder money: swallow dollars!

Some years back, gonorrhea was seen as a disease of the famous in the country. At least that was the way those selling what they regarded as its cure in Molue buses used to advertise the product/s. The reason why the disease was so regarded probably has to do with the temptations that come with fame, some of which are irresistible. Attraction to the opposite sex ranks high. Since the idea of asking people to zip up was not yet common then, chances of people contracting gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were very high.  What the gonorrhea cure vendors were saying in essence is that should someone who is not too famous contract the disease, he or she had nothing to be ashamed of. He or she should just walk into any hospital or contact

Wanted Noisemakers By Aniebo Nwamu

By Aniebo Nwamu

With technocrats in the civil service doing all the work needed for effective governance, Nigeria has little need for ministers. That is close to the truth, albeit not the whole truth, President Muhammadu Buhari told his interviewer in Paris last week. The declaration came when France 24 TV asked him if the lack of a finance minister was not hurting Nigeria’s economy. “No,” he replied. “The ministers are there, I think, to make a lot of noise – for the politicians to make a lot of noise. But the job is being done by the technocrats.”

The president’s statement in a foreign land, however, needs some clarifications: He couldn’t have written ministers off, for he himself was once a minister in a military regime. He said the technocrats do “most of the job”, not the whole job. Though “the end of the month is coming too quickly for my liking”, he still promised to name his ministers in September. And he didn’t consider noisemaking completely useless in politics.

Ministers may be named this week or next, but it’s not likely they will start work before the end of October. What the president promised is to send his list to the National Assembly in September. The Senate, battling with “cash crunch” and its leadership crisis, may require unusual time to screen them. Politicians that will not be comfortable with the ministerial list may also attempt to make trouble. To douse tension, the Presidency may follow up with ambassadorial nominees, and then fill some more positions in government agencies. We should expect President Buhari to start working with a full cabinet from next year.

But for the Nigerian constitution, which prescribes at least one minister from each state, it would have been advisable for the president to work without minsters until the end of his tenure in 2019. What he has saved the nation in the past four months alone runs into billions of naira. In fact, the salaries of 40 or 42 ministers and their aides in one month exceed N1billion. Do the maths: Three years ago, when senators were being criticised for earning N22million each monthly, they pointed fingers at ministers who, they said, were receiving more.

I know President Buhari likes cutting costs. But can he gamble also? He would have a hard time justifying his action before fellow politicians if he simply converted the permanent secretaries he has been working with to minsters. They would ask him where the technocrats were when they [the politicians] were working for his election.

Noisemaking has its uses,

The 7 Sins Of Saraki Since He Became Senate President By Micheal Abimboye

Senate President Bukola Saraki

by Michael Abimboye

Since emerging president of the Senate and chairman of the 8th national assembly, Bukola Saraki, has been involved in one scandal or the other, with the most recent been the declaration of his former business associate, Kennedy Izuagbe, a former director of Societe Generale Bank Nigeria wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Interestingly, the corruption cases resurfaced when Saraki beat the leadership of the ruling All Progressive Congress to emerge Senate President.

The former Kwara state governor has linked the various corruption cases to his political enemies within the APC who believe Saraki is nursing a presidential ambition come 2019.

Saraki however thinks the cases against his person are “not an anti-corruption driven case and cannot be part of the moves aimed at fighting

The ‘Dasukilization’ Of Bukola Saraki By Favour Afolabi

Senate President, Bukola Saraki and President Muhammadu Buhari 

When as a Democrat, you sit by as “Democratic Institutions” are used to maliciously to deal with others, you never know the day it will be your turn.

From all indications, Saraki is about to become the next public official [ex or serving] that will be commando-ed by security forces by force or by fire to face Justice, for the very reason of not being in the good books of the President – the same President that was voted in using the same democratic institutions – in fact, who in a landmark way became the first man in the democratic history of Nigeria to unseat an incumbent President!

A few days ago, I raised the subject of the ambivalence of the West in largely looking away as President Kagame of Rwanda was able to manipulate the constitution to seek a third-term in office, effectively meaning he would be the leader of the nation

A tale of two states by FEMI OREBE

fayose

By FEMI OREBE

Perspicacious Ekitis, if any remains at all, should ask themselves where El Rufai got  the tens of  billions he is going to spend providing free education in Kaduna State but Fayose must inflict this punishment on poor Ekiti parents.

On these pages last Sunday, I showed how President Goodluck Jonathan, eager to ensure his own victory at the 2015 Presidential election, suborned the entire Nigerian army to rig the 2014 Ekiti gubernatorial election for candidate Ayo Fayose of the PDP. As should be expected with an order from the Commander-in-Chief, Major-General Kenneth Tobiah Minimah, the Army Chief of Staff, a Cross Riverian, unerringly delivered Ekiti to Ayo Fayose. Since his ‘victory’ and inauguration on October 15, 2014, Governor Fayose has shown abundantly, that he is a product of the gun, and not of the ballot box, no matter how many times he repeats 16:0, 20: 0. He can, of course, take consolation in the fact that he is ruling over an awe-struck, fawning and adoring Ekiti people. Concerning this emerging Ekiti sociology which tramples

Buhari presidency more exciting than first thought By IDOWU AKINLOTAN

By IDOWU AKINLOTAN

Senate President Bukola Saraki will be the first person to tell anyone who accuses the Buhari presidency of dullness of making a terrible mistake. He should know. Since Dr Saraki’s enthronement in early June as Senate President, or more accurately, since his seizure of the Senate throne, he has not had a day of respite. He is unlikely to have a minute of respite anytime soon. The Nigerian presidency is a very strong one indeed. And while everyone, including his party members and feared federal agencies, is busy reading the president’s body language and second-guessing him, Dr Saraki has chosen to construct a contrasting and countervailing body language of his own, hoping presumptuously that the president would read it and probably subordinate his own beneath the Senate President’s. There is no other way to explain the stalemate in the Senate or make sense of the cold-shoulder the president has given him.

Except Dr Saraki himself, perhaps no one else knows what emboldens the Senate President to chart what he whimsically and idealistically describes as legislative independence. Might the president’s “I belong to everybody and belong to nobody” inauguration euphoria be responsible for Dr Saraki’s chutzpah? Or, having fought many battles and won handily, including

Kogi 2015: Wada versus Audu by IDOWU AKINLOTAN

•Wada - •Audu

Barring any legal upset, Kogi State will be electing its next governor in November. The choice is between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Idris Wada, who is the current governor, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) Abubakar Audu, who was twice governor on the platforms of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) between 1990 and 2003 and the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) between 1992 and 1993 under the Gen Ibrahim Babangida transition programme. Mr Wada is a retired pilot, and Prince Audu a banker and accountant. Both will lock horns brutally and fiercely in about two months from now to determine who will run the affairs of the largely silent and bucolic state for the next four years.

There is some idle chatter that the election will be close and the outcome uncertain for two simple reasons: first, that Prince Audu is proud and insufferable, and Mr Wada lethargic and clueless; and second, that the latter is an incumbent determined to deploy the power of incumbency remorselessly, and the former has taken a Lagos-based Kogite with uncertain electoral value as running

Labour’s anti-corruption theatrics by SEGUN AYOBOLU

•President Buhari

It is amazing. He has admittedly not done much in three months and could not have been expected to even if he had not inherited the depth of rot left behind by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after 16 years of the ravaging locusts. But President Muhammadu Buhari, has performed a veritable miracle in just a little over a 100 days in office. He has managed to convert us all into anti-corruption revolutionaries of sorts.

We are all born again Nigerians now. Astonishingly, PMB, our emergent political Messiah, is himself no revolutionary in any meaningful sense of the word. Yes, he is ascetic. He makes no distinction between corruption and stealing. He hates graft with a passion. But PMB has always been a stout defender of the system. A revolutionary is fervently committed to overthrowing the status quo and fundamentally changing a society’s inequitable class relations.

Paradoxically, both in his first coming as military Head of State and now elected President PMB seeks to change the system only in order to save, stabilise and preserve it. Thus, neither PMB nor his party the All Progressives Congress (APC) is, at least for now,

The Senate and Buhari’s Body Language by Magnus Oladesu

By Magnus Oladesu

The appointment of Senator Ita Enang as the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) and the dragging of the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, to the Code of Conduct Tribunal are two events in quick succession that leave no one in doubt that President Mohammadu Buhari may have declared total war on the Senate and its leadership.

While tongues were still wagging over the moves by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, against Mrs. Toyin Saraki, wife of the Senate President, came Senator Ita Enang’s appointment.   While a good number of Nigerians opine that his appointment is well deserved, the preponderance of opinion is that it is a miscarry and payback for working with the Senate Unity Forum, a group of Senators loyal to the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

Give it to Senator Enang; he is experienced in legislative business. He became a Councilor in his Ibinono Local Government Council on a zero party in 1987 and moved on to the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly on the platform of the defunct National Republican Convention in 1991 during Ibrahim Babangida’s phantom transition programme. He moved up to the House of Representatives in 1999 on Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) platform and served for three consecutive terms before his elevation to the Senate. Thanks to ex-Governor Godswill Akpabio who kicked out ranking Senator Effiong Bob to install him.

Give it to him again; he made his presence felt in the Senate

Okorocha: When Love For Grandeur Beclouds Reason By Sam Nzeh

There appears to be no let-up in the love of grandeur by Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, most often, at the expense of the tax payer.
Take his jetting out of Nigeria last Wednesday, leading a 100-man delegation to Turkey on a three-day visit, which according to his handlers, is to explore business and investment opportunities in that country.
This is Okorocha’s second trip in less than a year to the selfsame Turkey on the nebulous ground of exploring business and investment opportunities.

The governor had traveled with a large contingent to the same country some months ago. The trip of course was bankrolled by the state. When asked upon return from the trip, Okorocha said the gains would be seen in no distant time.

Sadly, months after, the gains of the trip are yet to materialise despite the huge amount expended. But Okorocha is not moved and this can be seen in his second trip with

Attacks on Buhari’s war against corruption - the case of Nwabueze by anyichietochukwu@yahoo.com

President Muhammadu Buhari

Last week’s piece on Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah’s objections to President Muhammadu Buhari’s declared war on corruption during Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, has elicited by far the largest number of reactions to this column so far this year – 84 texts and three emails in all. Out of the 84 texts only three vehemently disagreed with my criticism of the bishop. Another six or so shared my view but disagreed with my hunch that religion had much to do with the bishop’s position. The rest were critical of him with no caveats.  

I think the number of the readers’ reactions alone suggests that most Nigerians, regardless of religion or tribe, consider the fight against corruption the country’s topmost priority. If my guess is right, Professor Ben Nwabueze must then belong to a minority who think otherwise. For the professor, religion, specifically Islam, and not corruption, poses the greatest threat to Nigeria’s peace and progress.
In an over 3,300-word interview in The PUNCH of August 9 he said so categorically. Asked if he agreed with the widespread public opinion that corruption posed the biggest challenge the country faces, he said no. Corruption, he said, was only “the second biggest.”
The first, he said, “is the crisis arising from the religious divide. That is the first and the most terrible. After that comes corruption. All other things are subsidiaries.” 
Our Constitution, he said, contained two contradictory ideologies, one favoured by Christianity and the other by Islam. The ideology preferred

Obasanjo on the South South by Amanze Obi (Broken Tongues)

FORMER president, Olusegun Obasanjo, is not letting up on his derision of the South-South region of Nigeria. When he had cause, in 2013, to write the then president, Goodluck Jonathan, he remarked that Jonathan was behaving as if he was elected into office by his Ijaw ethnic group. He went further to say that Jonathan might be the only Nigerian president of Ijaw extraction given what he saw as his (Jonathan’s) ethnic disposition.

Since he released that tumultuous open letter to Jonathan, Obasanjo has stopped at nothing in his scathing criticism of Jonathan. As far as Obasanjo is concerned, Jonathan’s performance in office as president of Nigeria was mediocre. It was below average. Many do not agree with Obasanjo on this score. But he

Conspiracy of silence by Amanze Obi (Broken Tongues)

IT will not be out of place to charge the former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Alexander Badeh, with conspiracy of silence. That is what his latter-day declaration on the state of the Nigerian military amounts. The other day, Badeh quibbled to no end over the Boko Haram insurgency. He said the Nigerian military under him did not have adequate arms and am­munition with which to confront Boko Haram, let alone defeat it. That was during the traditional pull-out ceremony organised in his honour by the military.

That was Badeh, the master of doublespeak. He was known with

Our Girls; PMB: Farmland is not ‘No Man’s Land’, NLC; ‘aguntasolo.com’; Roads or ‘Nigeria Airways By TONY MARINHO

By TONY MARINHO

Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. The military coalition is making progress. If done three years ago, we would never have had 20,000+ murdered and four million unhappy and often helpless ‘Internally Displaced Persons’. We must add as a cause of IDPs, the over 20,000 killed in the 20 year+ lethal Fulani herdsmen vs farmers war. Why do the herdsmen see farm land as ‘Federal No Man’s Land’ with ‘free’ cattle fodder, with no compensation offered? Is this a thinly disguised attempt to redress past failed ‘conquest and humiliate’ strategies? President Buhari must stop this war. The recent marches in Plateau and Nassarawa states where I did my NYSC in 1975/6 in Jos and Lafia leave me cold at the crimes committed. It is so easy to kill in Nigeria and we are so easy to kill. Just call yourself a ‘militia’ and you can kill at will. When Boko Haram is curbed, the same military is required for the Fulani herdsmen/farmers war, and the soldiers must ensure ‘‘Freedom and Security for Farmers in the ‘Front Line States’ ‘’.

Happily the Third War in Nigeria, The Anti-Corruption War, is active at federal Level. All thieves must return amounts stolen and be imprisoned in proportion. A financial crime is as deadly

Before they self-destruct! by Olalekan Waheed Adigun

 By Olalekan Waheed Adigun

Before the Nigerian presidential election early this year, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters were so full of confidence of their abilities to “deliver”. Their deluded confidence only made them depended on their so-called “Incumbency advantage” to save their party from a shameful defeat. Some of them on the pages of newspapers spoke even more confidently of their party’s victory as a done deal, a confidence even President Jonathan himself never had. It only required Nigerians to go to the polls on March 28 for some of these men (and their women too) to wake up from their slumber. We are still waiting for some to honour their words. The lousiest among them had said that they will relocate elsewhere should the All Progressives Candidate (APC) General Muhammadu Buhari ever wins. Another still threatened to “shut down the country” should the APC win. More indecorously, one of them said Buhari will not last in office due to his “poor health”. (I can bet Buhari at 72 is healthier than this

My Fears for Buhari (Part 2) by Dele Agekameh

By Dele Agekameh

Last week, this column dwelt on the president’s 100 days in office. It highlighted the initial hiccups, particularly the unending drama at the National Assembly which, by all account, is still simmering and could slow down the wheel of governance. It also touched on other problems and prospects of the Buhari administration.

Quite refreshingly, Nigerians have embarked on a countdown to the formation of the much-awaited new cabinet which the president has promised to put together before the end of this month. Sure, the composition of the new cabinet will provide a binocular for people to view the direction of the new administration, most importantly, the road it will take to usher in its change agenda.

Only last week, the president insisted that past officials of government, including elected governors, ministers and other appointees who still had in their possession, diplomatic passports, should hand them over immediately. That, in itself, is a departure from the rotten past where former government officials who had ended their services to the country or who were even disgraced out of office, still enjoy the perks of office, including waving their