POLITICAL LESSON 1- YORUBA PEOPLE

I hope the other regions of Nigeria are beginning to learn some lessons about Yoruba.
Do not be excited when you ride on the support of the Yoruba people to office, especially Presidency.

They are fiercely loyal to causes they believe in, but they will demand accountability and quick result. They can get very impatient with mediocrity and can bring down what they built for one year in one minute if they perceived injustice.

Grabbing The Spaces - Bamidele Ademola-Olateju

While the governors in the Southwest, South, and Southeast are busy consolidating their business interests, plotting their return or trying hard to appoint a successor, the governors in the north are either in Abuja cornering Agric funds for their states, encouraging farmers cooperatives to present a unified front. When they are not doing any of these, they are not standing in the way of their people.

While the northern northern business men are acting as offtakers, forming alliances with global corporate leaders like Syngenta and looking for ways for the north to become the undisputed national leader in food security provisions, our Southwest business people are going to Abuja individually, looking to grab that big funding without the land and the global alliances that can convince anyone to part with billions in funding.

Muhammadu Buhari: Cleaning the Augean Stables By Mike Rapu

Augeas, the mythical king of Elis, kept great stables that held 3,000 oxen and had not been cleaned for thirty years – until Hercules was assigned the job. Hercules accomplished this task by causing two rivers to run through the stables. This story depicts two things: the misfortune of inheriting a messed up estate, and the level of creativity and innovation required to clean up the mess. To be clear, here, I refer to the mess President Muhammadu Buhari inherited from 16 wasted years of the Peoples Democratic Party’s hold on the reins of leadership in our dear country.

I write as an independent Nigerian, suffering what every other person is suffering, plying the bad roads every other Nigerian plies and like many other graduates, I spent years searching for a job. I also wish to say here that I am not a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) neither am I a member of Buhari’s administration. 

LOOTING: THE RELIGION OF ACCIDENTAL SENATORS

Nigeria Senate

Since the advent of this democray, the Nigeria National Assembly has been very corrupt and when it comes to looting in Nigeria, there is no difference between political parties or "honest" or dishonest legislators. Simply put, there is no honesty. Furthermore, there is no difference between ethnicity, religion or region. They all have one common purpose: to loot Nigeria at any slight opportunity.

99.9% of Nigerian legislators (whether in the Senate or House of Representatives or State Assemblies; whether they are Christians, Muslims, Traditionalists, Atheists or what have you or whether they are Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Fulani, Ijaw, Kanuri, Ibibio, Nupe, Tiv, etc) they are very dishonest. The only language they understand or religion they have in common is LOOTING. Some might pretend to be honest, showing outwardly to the people that they are honest and that they are for the people. It's all pretense and what has been happening in the National Assembly since 1999 till date are all the numerious evidences. I can tell you right now, none of them is honest. They are all self-seeking. Once it comes to money, positions, expectations, what will benefit them and their families now or in the future at the expense of the citizens, they will all agree on that very quickly, even the remaining .1% will switch side at the last minute. That is Nigeria.

NIGERIA - A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE

I do not favour a divided Nigeria for numerous reasons. However, Nigeria seems to be naive about the present trend of events in Eastern Nigeria and the monstrous risk it brings to the table. The call for a breakout State is getting louder and more desperate especially among the youth, who in most countries always constitute the engine of successful uprising. They are more reachable on all variations of social media and have the energy and drive. The movement is getting organized worldwide with branches in many countries as seen on the internet. Let’s remember Tunisia, Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya, Yemen etc.

I have inquired directly from some moderate and educated activists, on the root cause of these sentiments in favour of a breakout or Biafra. Of all voices, the single common reason I heard from all was the hate-like attitude gaining popularity mainly among our Yoruba brothers and sisters. There were less complains of such slant directed towards the Hausas. It is alleged that an average Yoruba adult attaches strong negative sentiments to the phrase “Igbo man”. The remonstrance goes that Yorubas see Igbos as dominating the real estate business nationwide, trying to dominate commerce in the country and trade only in fake goods. However, the same Igbos I spoke to hold that the terms “Oluwole” and “Tokumbo” are not of Igbo origin and claim that the Yorubas are more fraudulent but louder. In all, this is a very unhealthy strapping debate for citizens of “one nation”. I will be immensely delighted if all I heard from these activists is false.

Jonathan enlists Anyaoku to beg PMB not to probe his administration

I just heard with one ear that former President Goodluck Jonathan has enlisted the good offices of Elder Statesman, Emeka Anyaoku, to beg President Buhari not to probe his administration.

If - and this is a very big if - my employers at Sahara Reporters are right, that it is to say if this news is true, then President Jonathan has made an excellent and a commendable move at two levels.

Level 1 Commendable move: President Jonathan is a study in personal development after office. I like what I have been seeing in terms of his resumption of ordinary citizenship and humanhood. He has learnt to stop listening to the marionettes who deified and destroyed him. I keep saying this: no history of the Jonathan presidency would be complete without chapters written on the rise and evolution of the most irresponsible followership ever known to the African continent - especially his social media caterwauling hordes who are even still at it, claiming superhuman infallibility for their hero as I write.

WE CREATE OUR GODS BY FASEYIKU

It was a flight from Leeds. I had worried myself sick about missing the flight because I made wrong assumptions about how long the drive to the airport was. It took nearly 45 minutes and cost £22 pounds instead of 30 minutes and not more than £15 I was advised by AYT. By the way, AYT is my daughter and travel advisor. She takes a keen interest in everything daddy does. We both can tell each others moods. She seems to smile eternally. But I know when those smiles are not there even when the teeth is flashing. I can always tell when I see those lucid, penetrating, questioning eyes communicating something else. This time she was questioning why I was going to Nigeria. And when I said to her that this trip was a holiday to somewhere different, the smiles came back. But I could feel the question she didn't ask. Why is Nigeria always bad news? Bombs in Kaduna; rustlers in Jos; billions embezzled in Abuja; ritual killings of humans in Soka, Ibadan; kidnappings in the east; oil installations blown up in the delta; Boko Haram insurgent attacks in Borno; political upheavals in Ekiti. How come there is never something positive coming out of this enclave.

A Muslim/Muslim Presidential Disaster for the APC, By Femi Aribisala

"Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. The APC plan for a Muslim/Muslim ticket in this day and age in Nigeria is nothing short of madness. It will not fly. It will not only be rejected outright by Nigerians, it will tear the APC apart."

Bola Tinubu is standing on the horns of a dilemma. He became the godfather of the APC out of burning personal ambition to seek greener political pastures for himself in Abuja. The APC calculus is to present a Northern presidential and Southern vice-presidential ticket against the PDP’s Jonathan/Sambo ticket in the 2015 presidential election. If that APC vice-presidential candidate is not Tinubu himself, then all bets are off as far as Tinubu is concerned. However, the prospect of a ticket with Tinubu as vice-president is already ensuring that the APC is badly in need of aspirin.

An APC vice-president that is not Tinubu poses grave political danger to Tinubu. It means Tinubu has been sowing for somebody else to reap. If that person happens to be Yoruba, he or she could quickly become a contender for Tinubu’s much-vaunted position as the Asiwaju of South-West politics in Nigeria. That is the reason why Tinubu schemed against Mulikat Akande becoming the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Therefore, all systems are “go.” Tinubu must be APC’s vice-presidential candidate by hook or crook. If not, it is most likely Tinubu will end up by scheming against the APC in the coming presidential election.

Goodluck Jonathan faces challenge from anti-corruption ex-general By William Wallis in London

Muhammadu Buhari, who could emerge as the main challenger to Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan at next year’s elections, is positioning himself as the strongman needed to root out corruption and roll back the brutal Islamist insurgency tearing at the country.

“We are almost over the cliff,” says the 71-year old former general, who seized power in 1983 and ruled Africa’s most populous nation with authoritarian zeal before being overthrown by rival generals 20 months later.

The coalition he formed last year alongside Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state and political godfather in Nigeria’s Yoruba-speaking southwest, and Atiku Abubakar, a wealthy former vice-president, will on Friday begin the delicate task of choosing party leaders.

Adamawa Governor Murtala Nyako Indicts Pres. Jonathan Of Sponsoring Boko Haram

Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, accused Nigeria’s President and key government officials of possibly supporting state terrorism during a speech on security challenges in Northern Nigeria at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, DC.

Ukrine Crisis: Crimea Belongs to Russia, Putin Should Annex Eastern Ukraine Too - Fani-Kayode

           Support for Russians Gains More Momentum

 Claiming that the Crimea is not Russian is absurd and it betrays nothing but ignorance says the former Nigerian minister, Femi Fani- Kayode while reacting to the Ukrainian-Russian crisis in Crimea peninsula. 

According to Fani-Kayode; "it is rather like saying that the people of the city of Ilorin and it's environs in Kwara state and the people of Kabba, Yagba-West, Yagba-East, Mopa-Amuro, Ijumu and Kabba-Bunu local government areas in Kogi state respectively are not Yoruba and that those areas are not part of Yoruba land".

"Historically the Crimea has always been part of Russia and 70 per cent of it's population are not only ethnic Russians but they also speak nothing but the Russian language. There are also massive and substantial pockets of Russian populations in eastern Ukraine."

It is absolutely absurd for anyone to assume that the Russian Federation would sit by silently and allow the lives, the future and the fortunes of their kinsmen from those parts to be in any way threatened. I am therefore in total agreement with the actions of President Vladimir Putin of Russia in the Crimea. 

The former Minister said Russian Putin has done the proper thing in protecting the Russians' interests and that he need to go further to annex the Eastern Ukraine as well.