TheNewsGuru

Author: Peter Tuketu

  • Why and How Ovie Omo-Agege lost in Delta State – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Why and How Ovie Omo-Agege lost in Delta State – By Mideno Bayagbon

    A lot has been said in the media, especially on political platforms on television and in the social media, about the gubernatorial elections in Delta State, which the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, the Right Honourable Sheriff Francis Oborevwori, won convincingly, pulling over 360,060 votes to Ovie Omo-Agege, the APC’s candidate’s 240,000. The fire works  have expectedly heightened and the intense battle which engulfed the state during the campaigns, and the elections proper, are set to shift to the courts. As has become the tradition with our politicians, especially in the South of Nigeria, no politician agrees he or she was fairly beaten, clean and square.

    That is why, typically, the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege of the APC, who was the main opponent of the PDP in the contest, in refusing to accept defeat and congratulate his rival, has amply served notice that he is heading to the courts to “retrieve” what he claims is his mandate.  Under Nigerian law, and as it has become the norm, the  Courts have over the years become the final arbiter, whose vote decides who occupies which office and who does not. Sometimes, the Court rulings are so outlandish, so stupendously buried in legalese, most people have been left wondering how technicalities supervene and out-do the will of the people. In carrying out their duty, the courts, especially the Supreme Court, have unfortunately acquired an unsavoury reputation in the public eye.

    For some of the politicians, it is a case of impunity. They do everything and anything possible to be declared winners. Then they tell their opponents: go to court. For some, it does not matter whether they are declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, or not. They tell whoever cares to listen that they know their ways around the courts. One of such persons is the current governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, who is called, by his people, the Supreme Court Governor of Imo State. Like him, DSP Omo-Agege, and his followers boast, that no matter what, they can always get the courts to declare the APC candidate winner. They point to the two previous elections which he has won through the courts as evidence.

    Nevertheless, even as both parties prepare to present their evidence in court, as an active participant, and as most Deltans will testify, there are some cogent reasons, both from what happened on election day and precursors to it, why the candidate of the APC, Omo-Agege, could not have won. Yet he had so many things going for him. The first of these is the implosion in the rival PDP, the factions which sprouted uncontrollably from the disagreements between the acclaimed leader of the party in the State, Chief James Ibori and Governor Ifeanyi Okowa over who should be the candidate of their party in the March 18th governorship elections. Their divided house became the hunting ground for the APC candidate. The unthinkable happened. An aggrieved Ibori, was said to have sworn that over his dead body would the Ifeanyi Okowa-supported Sheriff Oborevwori, who emerged the candidate of the party, become governor of the state.

    Expectedly, because of his influence in the party and in the state, a lot of people kow-towed to him. Many who were sitting on the fence claimed they got personal calls or visits from the Odidigborigbo himself to not allow Sheriff Oborevwori become governor of Delta State. A lot of them obeyed and resigned from the party, even at the dying hours, to throw their weight, behind the candidate of the APC who most of them, before now, could not stand, and had no respect or regard for. The Ovuozorie Macauleys, the Omizu Odebalas and other known  heavyweight chieftains of the PDP  jumped over the fence and landed on the laps of Ovie Omo-Agege. An impotent feat, it turned out, as most of them lost in their units and wards during the elections. But Ovie had expected to reap much political capital from the problem in the PDP and from the high powered defections.

    It is either he and Chief Ibori did not study well the political terrain and the impact of the deliberate Okowa political engineering, wrought over the last almost eight years, or they underestimated it and thought overwhelming it would be a walk in the park. I think they somehow failed to understand what Senator Okowa has done to the PDP, in the years of James Ibori’s absence. While the party structure on ground was built around the big party men in each ward and local government when Ibori and Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan held sway, Okowa turned the applecart and devolved power to the units and the wards, built several layers of leadership that are not dependent on any “big politician”. The structure of PDP in the state today is built in the image of Governor Okowa who has control of it. That’s why Ibori’s candidate and others were beaten silly during the primaries. That explains why those who defected to the APC could not move with the structures in their areas, and could not deliver the vote.

    Ovie Omo-Agege, like Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, started this dream run for the governorship of the state early. He had ample strategies which he diligently implemented over the last four years. He appointed a lot of Special Assistants from all the eight local government areas of Delta Central, spreading his tentacles to other parts of the state in a bid to build a formidable groundswell for his ambition. This was further enhanced when he was able to convince the Buhari government to award the monthly N4.5 billion Pipeline Surveillance Contract to three entities: Tompolo;  his own younger brother, Jimmy Omo-Agege; and a company linked to Friday Osanebi;  who ended up as his deputy governorship candidate, in their failed bid to be the occupants of Osadebe House, the Delta State Government House.

    With this, Ovie’s brother, Jimmy,  had a lot of “boys” enrolled who got mostly a N60,000 monthly stipend, instead of between N200,000 to N250,000 which Tompolo pays his enrolees. He was seemingly able to build a formidable war chest from this and from the five federal projects he attracted to his Oromuru-Orogun village. He also had some constituency projects in some parts of Delta Central, in what his main opponent, Oborevwori, described as N35,000 solar powered streetlights which worked only for a time. He also had some low hanging fruits projects executed in some communities. But his senatorial zone, it seems, did not forgive him, that all the major projects which the federal government assigned to the state, he took all to his small Oromuru-Orogun village. We are talking about high ticket, hundreds of billion Naira projects. None was sited elsewhere else. All were warehoused by him.

    DSP Omo-Agege, before now, was known as a revered member of IGBE group, a cult-like family religion of marine spirit  worshippers. His grand father established it. His father, who at a time, was the Chief Judge of Bendel State, took over the mantle when his own father died and the DSP and his siblings, have a modern, grandiose shrine in their family  house where hundreds and at times thousands of worshippers frequently congregate to fellowship.

    In the heat of the elections, as public angst rose, members of the IGBE cult did videos promoting him and taunting his opponents, swearing that they were set to occupy the Christian Chapel in Government House, Asaba. The Christian community, in the state, rose in  furious anger. It became a battle of altars: whose God would be supreme in the state. A mosquito campaign, mouth to mouth, strategy ensured that all Christians heard the boast of the IGBE cult group. It became expedient, while not dissociating him entirely from the IGBE  group, to announce that Ovie Omo-Agege is a baptized and confirmed Catholic. But the IGBE group, his friends and associates inflicted wounds have irretrievably gone viral; damage done. It was too late for damage control.

    The Deputy Senate President will agree that the churches helped to mobilise against him. So did the people of Delta North who from his antecedents, believe that he will never allow that zone of the state to ever produce a governor again, as he is against the zoning arrangement in the PDP. Added to this is the fact that there are no significant leaders of the party in Delta North who are not in one turf war or the other with him. Senator Peter Nwaobosi is in jail for corruption. Ex Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Victor Oche, is at daggers drawn with him, just like Cairo Ojuogbo, who has come out forcefully, openly in television interviews, to laugh at him and state why  Omo-Agege lost woefully. Add to that the fact that the APC is virtually non-existent in the nine local government areas which make up Delta north.

    His attempt to win over Government Ekpemupolo, the one they call Tompolo, with the Pipeline Surveillance contract did not yield the desired result too.  Tompolo chose to be neutral while his two brothers worked assiduously for Sheriff Oborevwori, the candidate of the PDP. With Godsday Orubebe hardly a significant force in the Ijaw enclave and Ayiri Emami a spent force in Itsekiri-land, having been stripped of his title and consigned to the background, the likes of Ereyitomi, JFK Omatsone, Michael Diden, (Ejele) (who though could not actualise his senatorial dream), ensured, that along with the Itsekiris, Ijaws and Urhobos of the Warri, their local government areas remain strongholds of the PDP.

    Even in Delta Central, his home constituency, none of the top leaders who helped establish the APC in the state were with him. He had earlier schemed most of them out of the party. Great Ogboru was pushed out. Festus Keyamo even as the only federal minister from the state could not get a leg room because of the manipulations which Omo-Agege entrenched to be the Lord of the Manor. His brash, ego and ambition fueled takeover of the party meant that he became a big fish in a very small pond. Aggrieved APC members saw the elections as pay back time.

    Other reasons for the failure must include the fact that with the tsunami caused by the Obidients group in the state, and the failure of INEC’s BVAS and iREV, those who thought they could do election business as usual were shocked by INEC’s zeal to make the BVAS and iREV work in the Gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections.

    Almost all the candidates fell for the new scam in town after the Obidients wreaked havoc in the Presidential Election. Remember the Obidients and the Christians propelled by the desire to stop Alhaji Bola Tinubu’s Moslem-Moslem ticket,  easily swept aside the old guards to register their voice forcefully in the state. The scramble for the youth votes saw the APC candidate and others courting a plurality of newly emergent groups, who all claim to be the engine room of the Obidient group in the state. They were easily duped.

    Even the Labour Party candidate fell for it. He attempted to rev up a nonexistent campaign, spurning offers from the APC candidate to step down for him and mobilise the Obidients in his favour. In his desperation, Omo-Agege fell for most of these groups of young men and women, evidently scammers, who all claim they will replicate the seeming magic of the Presidential Election in the state, for him. They were, however, nowhere to be found on election day. Instead, it was the old women and men, the Igbos and non-Deltans, and the Christian community who came out in their numbers.

    There is no doubt that a swat of Deltans, beaten black and blue, pauperized and traumatized by the wicked and grossly incompetent  General Muhammadu Buhari APC government, wanted nothing to do with Ovie, who as DSP was the number five citizen of Nigeria in the last four years. He did not hide his uncritical adoration  of the President. Not once did he empathize with the common people who could not get their own money to take care of their needs. Secured in his huge retinue of security details, he seemed unconcerned about Deltans who lived a scarred live, induced by the runaway insecurity of unrestrained killer herdsmen, kidnappers and sundry terrorists. The APC candidate is the Delta Star face of this bad government. Rewarding him with their vote was out of the question.

    In his quiet moments, when it is between him, his conscience and his God, Ovie Omo-Agege knows he could not have and did not win the gubernatorial elections of 18th March, 2023. The courts, when they eventually sit can only confirm the will of the people of Delta State who wanted the streetwise Sheriff Oborevwori, who collects his certificate from INEC today, to be their governor.

  • Sheriff Oborevwori vs Ovie Omo-Agege: politicians drag me into their fray – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Sheriff Oborevwori vs Ovie Omo-Agege: politicians drag me into their fray – By Mideno Bayagbon

    For one who has shied away from getting actively involved in Nigerian politics, someone who  had rejected all political appointments and had privately vowed, long ago, not to get entangled in it, I am sorry to report I got lured, tempted beyond self interest and found myself in the steamy, sweaty room of this seemingly demonic Nigerian enclave. I temporarily, finally, decided to throw aside the cloak of non-partisanship, and taste, first hand, Nigerian politics in all its glorious and gory dimensions. I got myself swamped in the small, troubled and dirty pond of Delta State politics. What an eye opener it turned out to be. But no, I didn’t fall in love with it.

    We have a local adage, which loosely translated says getting involved in the village square dance usually starts with an innocent shaking of the head, a tapping of the foot or hand claps. All involuntarily, it seems, until one gets lured by the rhythmic drums, the sonorous minstrels, and the enchanting dance steps of the active participants. Before you know it, you are one with the crowd stomping and swaying and gyrating, singing and dancing the night away. So it was with me.

    It all started innocently. News came that the governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, was trying to play God like most politicians who hold political offices in our clime. He was accused of trying, singlehandedly, to choose his successor. Buried in that, for those who know Delta State politics, is an affront on the sensibilities of the people, especially supporters of the Odidigborigbo of Africa, Chief James Onanefe Ibori who most Deltans regard as the leader of the political elites of the state.  It turns out that Okowa and Ibori could not agree on the candidacy of Chief Ibori’s preferred candidate: David Edevbie.

    If you know Delta State politics, you already know that James Ibori is the clone of Bola Ahmed Tinubu who holds Lagos politics in a vice grip. He holds sway in all matters politics such that even when he was in prison in the United Kingdom, he still decided who got what and when in the state. He was highly revered and most Deltans had shut eyes to all his faults. He was well loved and respected. Not to them the odium and infamy which other Nigerians attach to him. So Deltans rose up against Okowa. The belief was that Ibori not having his way is disrespectful and an attempt to reduce his influence and  retire him from dominance of the politics of the state. His adherents saw it as an attempt to demystify him,  and consign him into political irrelevance.

    Let’s take a step back. To his credit, Chief Ibori who was governor of the state from 1999 to 2007 instituted a triangular zonal arrangement in his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, whereby, in turns, the senatorial zones are to present governorship candidates exclusively. Ibori was from Delta Central, he was succeeded by Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan from Delta South who in turn was succeeded by Dr Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa of Delta North. The ball, this time, returns to Delta Central where the three zones in Urhobo were expected to bring forth someone from the Okpe, Sapele and Uvwie axis. The two other zones Ethiope and Ughelli federal constituencies have had their share in Jereton Mariere, Felix Ibru and James Ibori.

    David Edevbie is not from the favoured Okpe zone but Ibori insists it must be him. This irked some Deltans, including yours sincerely. It caused a rumpus among his supporters and Deltans generally.

    But then the Delta Central senatorial zone, Chief Ibori’s home zone, set up a screening committee, headed by Ibori’s right hand man, Chief Ighoyota Amori, for all the candidates from the zone, who were interested in vying for the position. A deluge of names showed up but were finally pruned to three: David Edevbie, Sheriff Oborevwori and Kenneth Gbagi. Eventually, they all went into the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party. Chief Ibori supported David Edevbie; Governor Okowa supported the dark horse, two-term Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Sheriff Oborevwori, while Kenneth Gbagi, a foundation member of the PDP and former federal minister stood on his own strength.

    Sheriff Oborevwori won with a landslide. Then the war started. And the PDP set itself on  the path of self immolation. Mud slinging. Tons of court cases. Factions sprouted like locus beans and the centre could no longer hold. Life long friends found themselves on different divides, became enemies. Opportunists prowled and preyed on the divisions. The stage was set for political drama of epic proportions. The worst acrimony to hit the party which had held sway since 1999 in the state.

    The winning candidate, Sheriff Oborevwori, became the victim of massive demonization, abuse and denigration. For a man who has an MSc in Political Science, for a legislator who has been a two term Speaker of the House, the ruse was sold that he was an “uncertificated illiterate”. The claim is that Sheriff was not his original name, that his WASC result belonged to someone else and that he never saw the four walls of any university; that the results he parades, belong to someone else.

    The public bought the lies spread all over the social media. Until the truth, like dawning light started rising like a sphinx. His classmates, teachers, lecturers and professors, unlike those of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, started coming out to testify that indeed it is true Sheriff Oborevwori was either their classmate or student. One of his lecturers, who is now the dean of their faculty wrote to testify to the many security agencies sent to all the schools to investigate him, that indeed, Sheriff Oborevwori graduated with a second class, (upper division) degree.

    But the battle and the cases elongated into bitter ego contests. Betrayals were rampant. Decamping from the PDP became the order of the day to the joy and excited hope of the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, who is the formidable opponent of the PDP and its candidate, Sheriff Oborevwori. An adept political player, the DSP never relented in his quest to exploit the cracks in the PDP to cement his own quest to be the one to occupy Osadebe House, the Delta State Government House, come May 29th, 2023. Somehow, Delta Central became the battle ground. The north and south stood solidly behind the PDP candidate.

    Both Omo-Agege and Oborevwori are from Delta Central occupied solely by the state’s largest ethnic group, the Urhobo. The difference is that, while the PDP candidate represented the Okpe-Sapele-Uvwie side of the Urhobo three federal constituencies, the APC candidate is from the same zone as Jereton Mariere and Ibru who have previously been governors .

    Those who know me know that  once I put my heart and mind to something, I will always side with the oppressed. So it was a given that I will take the side of the badly maligned Sheriff Oborevwori, the street wise guy who by a dint of divine favour, serious hard work and focus rose from the streets of Effurun and Osubi village to be Governor-Elect of Delta State two days back.

    With him I traversed all the rivers and creeks and oceans of Delta State; met all the traditional rulers and chiefs; all the indigenous groups; pounded the streets and villages; knocked on doors; witnessed first hand the Sheriffication of Delta State. I was an eye witness to deviousness and betrayals, to how funny and devilish some of those who call themselves political friends and party members can come to your house on a Monday, eat breakfast with you, take pictures with the candidate and post on social media; come for a meeting on Wednesday morning at 11am and same day at 2pm decamp to the opposition party!

    Let’s end it here for now and leave all the intrigues of the election proper for another day.

     

    Mideno Bayagbon
    (mideno@thenewsguru.ng)

  • Why Deltans will vote Sheriff Oborevwori as Governor – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Why Deltans will vote Sheriff Oborevwori as Governor – By Mideno Bayagbon

    In three days time, Deltans, like in most states in Nigeria, will be flooding voting centres to decide who should be their next Governor. It will be a straight fight between the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Sheriff Francis Oborevwori and Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege. While Oborevwori is of the Peoples Democratic Party, Omo-Agege is of the All Progressives Congress. Nevertheless, put on a scale, the much maligned, abused and denigrated Sheriff Oborevwori stands a better chance of emerging Governor of the state than Omo-Agege. I will explain.

    Of course there are other contestants in the race. Buoyed by the massive votes which the Obidient tsunami wreaked on Delta State, the little known candidate of the Labour Party in the state, Ken Pela, has suddenly revved his formerly nonexistent campaign, is holding court and now believes that the Obidient group will invade the polling centres once again and he will be the beneficiary of their votes. Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, the habitual contestant for the office of Governor of Delta State, who was the first to hit the road, is also courting the Obidient group and hoping too that they will look his way.

    For the first time in his political career, he was able, during the presidential election, to win the voting units in his Oginibo village. Wealthy and a six month minister in Jonathan’s government, Gbagi has combed the state severally but most Deltans do not see him as a serious candidate or one they should invest their future in. By now too, Olorogun Great Ovedje Ogboru, who was dislodged by Ovie Omo-Agege from the APC where he ran for governor the last time, knows that he stands no chance of winning the race. But they are all in the race with little or no outsider chance of wearing the crown.

    Let me make my position clear and state clearly that I support Sheriff Francis Oborevwori despite the fact that the candidates of the PDP and APC are my friends. And here is why I am lending my support to Oborevwori: I am intrigued by the story of his life, how through thick and thin, he has managed to move from one level of development to a higher one. At every stage of his life, hard work and seemingly divine hands have tended to propel him to higher realms. I am talking about the lived reality of the Delta State Speaker. I m touched by his unparalleled humility, his unquenchable desire to learn, his unabashed association with the common people of the state, what his supporters and himself, have described as his street credibility. It’s amazing that he has lived all his life in Effurun and his village Osubi. So he is a homeboy through and through. He is what Gordons, the comedian, has aptly described as the lion and the lamb: fearless but very compassionate. He is a strong believer in God and an elder of Bishop Oyedepo’s church, Winners Chapel, (Living Faith).

    His zest to learn, to constantly improve on his level of knowledge is commendable. For example, he rewrote his WASC as an upcoming businessman, as former supervising councillor of the then Okpe-Uvwie-Udu local government area, community chairman and as a married father of children in 1998. His classmates and lecturers at the department of Political Science, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, speak of him in admirable tones. Even his professors at Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka, in written testimonials to the many security authorities which were spurred into investigating the certificates of the Delta State Speaker, because his opponents sold the lie that he is an “uncertificated illiterate”, assert that he indeed was their student who not only attended classes, passed his exams but indeed defended his thesis creditably and was awarded an MSc degreee.

    The Deputy Senate President, on the other hand, has had, and lived, a cushioned life from infancy till date. Son of a former Chief Judge of Delta State who happened to also head the Igbe Society (devotees of a marine spirit religious sect), he went to private schools and graduated with a law degree from the University of Benin where he was a boy about town. His sojourn in America was nearly truncated when he ran into troubled waters with the authorities and was disbarred from practicing law in the United States.

    His return to Nigeria and entrance into politics have seen him progress from one level of political relevance to the other. In the last four years he has served as the Deputy Senate President, a seeming reward for his alleged mastermind of the stealing of the mace of the Senate in a gangster, bravado style; a feat which seemingly saved President Muhammadu Buhari from the threat of impeachment during his first term. Omo-Agege loves and wields power and brooks no foes. A student of power, when he defected to the APC, he easily dislodged the one they call the peoples general, Great Ogboru and all the leaders of the APC in Delta State, seizing the structure and remodelling it in his own image.

    Not known to have established or run any major business in the last 22 years, he is today a very wealthy politician. Indeed, his two years or so engagement in Delta state government saw him developing and acquiring eye-popping mansions in Effurun and Orogun his village, a home in the US where his family resides till date. He owns one of the biggest mansions in the billionaire enclave of Asokoro which he acquired when he was SSG of Delta State.

    A leader of men, Ovie knows how to court and use men to his given ends. Ruthless in the pursuit of power, his rumoured romance with the Odidigborigbo, James Ibori, who nurses a personal grudge against Governor Ifeanyi Okowa for sidelining him in choosing his successor, has so far led to some defections from the ruling PDP in Delta State to Omo-Agege’s APC. Chief James Ibori, who many see as the leader of the PDP in Delta State, and who is still highly respected, has not raised any objection to some of his supporters defecting to the APC.

    However, his cousin and successor in office, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, who is a strong pillar of the Ibori political family is one of the notable exceptions. He has chosen to take a stand for Sheriff Oborevwori who he believes will do a better job of governing Delta State than Ovie Omo-Agege. He and others are not comfortable with Omo-Agege’s style of politics. They level many allegations against him. One of these is that Ovie Omo-Agege stands accused of being clannish in warehousing projects to himself and his brother Jimmy; and in siting all of the federal government projects, his office as Deputy Senate President attracted to the state, to his village. There are six major ones.

    The first of this, which was warehoused and is now a major cash cow, is the Pipeline Surveillance contract. Unknown to many, there are three companies involved. But the general public know of only Tompolo’s. A company owned by Omo-Agege’s brother, Jimmy, has a huge chunk while the running mate to Omo-Agege, Osanebi, supplied a company name which has the third tranche of the contracts. Evidently, we now know why the youths whose names were used to obtain the surveillance contracts were not paid their stipends all these months until shortly before the presidential elections.

    That apart, every single federal government project approved for Delta State was not just warehoused, the five of them were all sited in the Orhomoru-Orogun, the village of the Deputy Senate President. The rest of Delta Central which he represents at the Senate, was left empty and not considered fit to have any of these projects.

    Recall too that not once in the last eight years that his party, APC, has wrecked the economy and thrown majority of Nigerians into abysmal poverty, did Ovie speak out in the interest of the people. Not even when terrorists, killer herdsmen, kidnappers and sundry other merchants of death took over the country. Also in our sensitive religious climate, Omo-Agege was the first politician to publicly endorse Tinubu’s Moslem-Moslem ticket. Which is not surprising since he is not known to be a Christian. I find his “self above others” kind of politics unacceptable and Deltans do not deserve his kind of leadership at this critical time.

    Among political pundits, the thinking is that the biggest threat to Oborevwori’s aspiration, currently are not the Obidient gang but the boast among supporters of the APC candidate that Omo-Agege is more adept at handling elections, given his history in the state, than the one they call Street-Wise. Already, using federal might, he has had the Divisional Police Officers in Ughelli North and South, as well as the ones in Agbarho, redeployed and replaced. The Army too, his supporters boast will be available to ensure the methods the APC used in enthroning Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the presidential election, are brought to bear on Delta State.

    One can only appeal that the will of the people should be allowed to decide who govern Delta State from May 29th.

  • Here is who I think will win the presidential elections; and why – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Here is who I think will win the presidential elections; and why – By Mideno Bayagbon

    This Saturday Nigerians will be trooping to the polls to elect the one, they think, should succeed President Muhammadu Buhari as President. After that, it is going to be a nail biting experience, as they wait for the announcement of who has emerged as President between Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, Mr Peter Obi of Labour Party and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC. It is a three horse race with an appendage. NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso would have played a significant role had he teamed up with any of the three top contenders. But ego and the undying, but misplaced, belief by politicians that they will eventually be victorious even in the face of glaring defeat, is set to make this election a cliffhanger.

    But I have my guess how the game will eventually pan out and a winner emerge. It will be a mixture of guesswork and facts on the ground. As we all know, though politics pretends to be a branch of science, human behaviour in any given situation is usually, as the economists would say, a game of, on the one hand or the other. It rests on many strands, human variables which can most times defy  predictions.

    So here is what I think will happen. It might be very difficult for a winner to emerge on the first ballot this Saturday. There is likely to be a run-off, like many including myself, have said severally. But by the standing of the three major contenders, as at today, Atiku Abubakar is definitely not in the position he would have been had Peter Obi not emerged to shake the tables, so badly. Were the contest to be between Atiku and Tinubu, PDP versus APC alone, given so many variables which we would come to soon, it would have been a clear walk in the park for the PDP candidate. And this is why: most Nigerians are today disgruntled and are vengefully baying for blood, having been impoverished by the grossly incompetent, clannish  and better forgotten government of Major General Muhammadu Buhari. The economy is in ruins. Poverty walks on skeletal feet. Despair rules the affairs of the land.

    Add to this the many observable failings of the candidate of the APC, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Add to that the fact that there is an ongoing war currently leading into the elections in the APC. For most Nigerians, Tinubu, who could have been considered a very good candidate, five, ten years ago is today a shadow of himself. Frail, stuttering, forgetful and unable to hold an intelligent conversation for two minutes without major gaffes, Nigerians shudder to think that they will have an evidently unwell President succeed the outgoing one who spent the last eight years, junketing from one hospital to the other in Europe, especially, the United Kingdom.

    Opinions are divided on what the possible causes of the observable impediment of the Emilokan believer are. But there is suspicion out there which says that the Jagaban might be suffering from Dementia or Alzheimer. That is why his handlers fight tooth and nail to ensure he never granted any major interview or participate in any town hall meeting or debate. His ambition would have come crashing irrevocably.

    Then there is the fear in Christian circles about the possibility of having a Moslem-Moslem ticket, (President and Vice President), at this time when religious harmony is at its  direst. The activities of Boko Haram, ISWAP and a coterie of other Islamic groups ravaging the country with terrorism, kidnapping, social and economic upheavals make such a prospect too dangerous to contemplate. Yet Tinubu picks a Moslem of one of the strictest strands of Islam, a man who as Governor of Borno, was found harbouring one of the top Boko Haram terrorists in his house. The fear is palpable and will impact very negatively on an already very bad ticket. So were it a straight fight between him and the candidate of the PDP, without the Peter Obi phenomenon, Atiku would have easily dusted him.

    This is more so, given that the North, the Islamic North will tend to favour an Atiku Abubakar, who is one of their own, than a Southern Moslem.  Add to that the fact also that the mythic figure of President Buhari in the north is now badly damaged. He has become more of an albatross than a positive on the APC’s desire to retain power at the centre. It is projected that even his home state will fall to the PDP and Atiku this time. So are other APC states. Kano, the major vote base of the party is in tatters, torn among triangular contenders. An Obi is hopeless here as Rabiu Kwankwaso, Atiku Abubakar and Tinubu are neck and neck. Even Kaduna, despite the rascality of El Rufai, their governor, is up for grabs. Tinubu may end up third or fourth behind Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso.

    Atiku Abubakar, on the other hand, will have a hard time in the South generally as two of PDP’s votes powerhouses have tilted towards the Labour Party candidate, Obi. It will be a big struggle for Atiku to get 25% votes in two of the five South East States. Even in the six South South states, Obi is clearly a present danger. None for sure can say where the pendulum will swing here even though this is a zone that is traditionally PDP. It will be a three horse  race in Edo and Rivers states (Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu). In the remaining four states, only in Cross River State can Tinubu  hope to get an appreciable vote. Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom will be battle grounds for Atiku and Obi. Godswill Akpabio will have to pull all the stops and may still fall short of getting Tinubu 25% votes here.

    Not so the South West where Tinubu hopes to make a kill. I suspect, however, that he may end up having his balloon of votes burst in Lagos, Oyo and Ogun states which are home to most of the big pentecostal churches in Nigeria. A surprise might just await the Asiwaju in his own turf. Atiku and PDP will end a poor third in Lagos while the real battle will be between Tinubu and Peter Obi. PDP votes in Oyo, Osun and maybe Ondo might see Atiku Abubakar getting 25% votes in at least three of the South West states. Obi on the other hand will get at least 25% votes in at least two of the South West states.

    The North central will also be a battle ground where Obi, Tinubu and Atiku will battle for supremacy. Tinubu will come third generally in some states in this zone, but not in Kogi, Nasarawa and Kwara where he may get at least 40% of the votes. The FCT, Abuja, which used to be a PDP zone will fall to Peter Obi with spill over into the urban areas of the Capital. It is a given that the Christian votes in the north will be shared majorly by Obi and Atiku.

    Also, if the suspicion holds true, the bulk of the northern votes, in both APC and PDP controlled states might end up with Atiku to the chagrin of Tinubu. Until the votes are collated, no one can say for sure if the boast of the APC governors in the north that they and their people are solidly behind Tinubu will hold true.

    For the youths and elites who are projecting and working hard for an Obi presidency, except things change significantly in the next few days, it will be a herculean task for him to get 25% of the votes in 24 states of the federation. His starting late in the race, the lack of a solid structure in the core north to propel his votes and other mitigating factors might just be the dampener on the dreams of Nigerians for a fresh start, and the doing away with of old politicians and their jaundiced political structures.

    By my calculations, whether at the first ballot or a repeat, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar might just end up President-elect. But then, it is only God who can of certainty say who the next President of Nigeria will be. Can Obi or Tinubu spring a surprise? Only time will tell.

  • An angry Supreme Court and bolekaja judgments – By Mideno Bayagbon

    An angry Supreme Court and bolekaja judgments – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, was boiling with anger all through last week. And to those who stoke his anger, he issued a stern warning. To them and to those Nigerians, who, he says, want to bring opprobrium on the Supreme Court of Nigerian Justices, he promised them a red eye. No one, he declared, should dare the authority of the Supreme Court and its ability to wield the big gun.

    As we all know, we are in a season of general, overflowing anger; a season of collective pain. It is a season, the authorities, which have made life a living hell for most Nigerians upped the ante and compounded the woes of the people, with an ill-thought-through policy which the politicians and saboteur-bankers latched on to, to wreak havoc on the citizenry. i am of course talking about the instigated hooplas, the fiasco which attended the withdrawal of three denominations of the Nigerian currency. It turned out a week of boiling mischief, anger and frustration.

    Nigerians are hopelessly at their wits end. No Light. No money. No Fuel. They are engulfed in a death-and-life situation. This for a fault traceable to politicians, the CBN, corrupt bankers and the federal government. They are moaning and groaning. Their inability to get the new Naira notes, or at worst the old ones, to buy even groceries or transact ordinary daily chores, has become a death sentence. Politicians are shouting from impure mouths, both in favour and against. All, nonetheless, agree that something needs to be done to ease the pains of the ordinary people on the street. Meaning: “CBN, don’t interfere with our ability to use money to influence the outcome of the proposed elections.”

    Then the Supreme Court attempted an intervention which will either be solidified today or thrown to the dogs when it rules on the objection brought before it by the CBN and the Attorney General. The CBN order came in the form of a rather controversial pronouncement. Almost all were taken unawares. To some pleasantly and to others, a curious, raised eyebrow. This is because not many were aware that a case had been instituted at the Supreme Court or any court for that matter, not to talk of an order emanating therefrom, unexpectedly.

    Attempting to douse the tension in the land, the Supreme Court ruled that the Central Bank of Nigeria and the federal authorities should not implement the then new deadline to roll out fully, and end the use of the old N1000, N500 and N200 notes till the determination of a case brought before it by three northern states All Progressives Congress, APC, governors. The old notes were to cease to be legal tenders since last week Friday, the 10th of February, 2023. A fact the CBN reiterated yesterday.

    Recall that the APC and its presidential flag bearer, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, have been up in arms against the Naira Redesign policy which they claimed was specifically targeted at them. They decided to use the services of the Supreme Court in thwarting the full implementation of the policy. Without joining the CBN and other critical stakeholders, they got the Supreme Court to grant them an ex parte order which the opposition parties, especially the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, squirmed at. A potpourri of commentaries have since flooded the media space, coating the Supreme Court in demonic hues of an appendage to certain individuals and party.

    This has prompted a riled CJN to warn that the Supreme Court’s silence, on attacks on its judicial officers, must not be mistaken for weakness or cowardice. Of course, the CJN did not just get angry over the muted criticism of this particular judgement alone. For truth be told, he has not had an easy time with the media and some critics since he went to Port Harcourt and committed a faux pax that needed a massive re-interpretation of what he said and/or did not say. Controversial Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, hosted him to a dinner where he made comments which were widely interpreted to mean that he was in agreement with the G5 Governors. To growing criticism, the Supreme Court came out with a denial. After that there was also the need to issue another rebuttal, a statement to debunk an alleged interrogation of the CJN by the DSS over these comment and other contrived ones.

    Add to this the public disbelief, when assumed clear cases of senatorial aspirants under the APC who lost at the lower courts were all given a clean bill by the Supreme Court. Starting with Governor Dave Umayi of Ebonyi state, to Godswill Obot Akpabio of Akwa Ibom state; and recently, Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, who wanted to be president and so didn’t contest in the party’s initial primaries for senatorial candidates. The Supreme Court gave all of them their tickets. This is even against the background that there is already a Governor of Imo State, who the opposition till today calls the Supreme Court governor of Imo State. Recall that in the elections, he came a distant fourth but went to court pleading what not. He had a bullion van of votes which INEC said were not part of the electoral votes on the day. Based on some technicalities, the impossible happened. He was pronounced the elected candidate by the Supreme Court to the utter shock and disbelief of the people of Imo State and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, whose candidate, INEC had earlier declared as duly elected; and had been sworn in.

    It is getting to a stage that not a few Nigerians are losing respect for some judgements of the Supreme Court. It is from this angle, I think, Justice Ariwoola will do more than just issuing a threat to deal with those who make a mockery of the justices of the court and their judgements. The CJN can always remember that the impression is out there, like Richard Akinnola once pointed out, that Justice Ariwoola should not be seen as trying to muscle and put the press on a leach. That will bring him more odium than he can ever live down. He should work to win the respect of Nigerians.

    That said, Chief Justice Ariwoola is gradually acquiring an unsavoury reputation, swarmed by controversies and rebuttal press releases.

  • New Naira Notes: Tinubu, APC are crying; Nigerians angry, frustrated – By Mideno Bayagbon

    New Naira Notes: Tinubu, APC are crying; Nigerians angry, frustrated – By Mideno Bayagbon

    What a week last week turned out to be: Pain and sorrow and blood and the worst of our humanity crawled out of their dingy holes and made life hell for majority of Nigerians. I am talking about saboteurs and government-induced sufferings occasioned by scarcity of the redesigned Naira notes and petrol. Life which hasalready made us natives of the Hobbesian state found a new wickedness, a verve to kick the average Nigerian in the groin, again and again.  Life wore a never-before-seen hopelessness which donned a brutish, nasty and short  cavalier babaringa. I am talking about such hopelessness that will drive a married woman to go completely naked in a banking hall or a fifty-something year old grand father going unclad to protest their inability to withdraw their hard earned money to take care of pressing family needs.

    When I was penning last week’sepisode of An Eye on Politics in which I laid the blame for the shoddy release of the redesigned Naira notes on the banks and collaborating politicians, little did I know that the worst was yet to come. Queues to withdraw the currency notes at ATMs rivalled kilometres long, desperate, snaky car queues searching for fuel. Turning on our comic side, someone wrote: we are queuing all night long at the banks to withdraw money to go and queue all night at the filling stations so we can go and queue to collect our PVCs. Desperation turned to shouting matches, to fisticuffs, to rivers of blood; and death in the banking halls. We are talking of such raging anger that fuels a crowd to descend on armed soldiers who tried to jump the long queue at the ATM, starred bullets in the eye, and beat the hell out of them.

    The Almajiris in Kano were the only ones bold enough to take it out on the high and mighty, pelting the convoy of Mr President, Muhammadu Buhari with stones, to a surprising no repercussion. This was when the president went to commission some projects built by the Kano State Governor, Alhaji Ganduje. Anger, hunger, desperation ruled the land. Neither the old Naira notes nor the redesigned ones were anywhere to be seen except in hidden bank vaults and the sequestered cupboards of the high and mighty who, despite the CBN regulations managed to fill their tills to the brim with the new notes. Late Abami Eda, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, couldn’t have sang it better: it was a week of sorrow, tears and blood for the average Nigerian.

    Predictably, in the cacophony of anguished voices which enveloped the land, amidst hurried ineffectual meetings, which left the substance and solutions, our politicians still managed to make the whole situation all about them. First was the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who shouted to high heavens that he was the major target of the redesigned Naira notes and the unending fuel scarcity. Not providing any explanation, he went nevertheless, in the dark of the night to meet with the President. His party and members taking a cue from him have shouted themselves hoarse painting  their candidate with dubious victimhood. They too fail to show in what way their party and their candidate, and not generality of Nigerians, are the major victims. All the APC governors met up and paid the president a visit whose outcome led to the president promising to look into the matter in 10 days, if the  issues around the redesigned Naira notes, getting into the hands of the ordinary Nigerians, have not been resolved by then.

    Then came in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate into the fray. They pointedly accuse the APC and their candidate of crying foul because the redesigned Naira notes has denied them the ability to use money to buy votes. The roforofo fight is still on, even as the courts have foolishly lend themselves to the politicians to use as their battering rams. One of them has already issued an exparte order granting the wish of some to compel the CBN and the federal government not to extend the expiration date of the old notes. Other cases, in other courts, are urging the contrary, to wit,  that the CBN must be compelled to extend the expiration date. In typical Nigerian fashion, Nigerians are left to lick their wounds while the politicians and government fiddle away.

    PDP TURNS THE HEAT ON WIKE, G5

    Please join me in laughing in Ikwerre and in Igbo, as the the gang of Governors, first known as G5 and later Integrity Group, scamper about looking for a hiding place. The PDP having given up on its errant members in the Integrity Group, of ever coming back into the umbrella’s covering, has brought out the long knives. The party did not even wait until the end of January before it started showing its hands. Recall that Governor Nyesom Nzenwo Wike had boasted, and later recanted, that his group will unveil to the public the presidential candidate it has adopted for the 2023 elections in January, 2023. Suddenly, as January was coming to an end, Wike, not known as a born again Christian started speaking in familial tongues. He claims, unsuccessfully, that he never told anyone the Integrity Group will publicly announce their choice candidate. Only those who should know will be subtly informed, he now says.

    That was just before he started crying that a case he instituted against the APC and LP in Port Harcourt, was thwarted by the National PDP whose legal adviser wrote to discontinue the case since only the national body has the legal teeth to so institute a case. Sensing the door about to slam in his face Wike rushed to the Federal High Court, in Abuja, begging that PDP should be compelled not to expel or suspend him. The hunter has suddenly turned the hunted and Wike’s bravado is evaporating and a wimp is emerging therefrom. But there is no doubt now that he is all for the APC candidate, Tinubu. This has made Rivers State a three horse race from which I suspect Bola Tinubu will get at least a mandatory 25 percent but might still come third in the state.  PDP is the traditional party in the state while Peter Obi’s  Labour Party has developed a strong following in the state. If Wike thinks he can deliver the state for Tinubu in the sweeping form the PDP used to, then like I wrote last week, he has a dirty slap heading his way.

    While it was purely unexpected that the hand picked PDP governorship candidate in Abia state wouldsuddenly fall ill, felled by a stroke, a fatal heart attack which took him to England, in a desperate search of a cure and eventually death, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has found himself castrated. Spineless groveling has become his lot. PDP national holds him in a very bad place: they are the only one who can conduct  and did conduct the new primary to choose Professor Uche Ikonne’s replacement. The national chairman must sign the letter nominating the new candidate, Governor Ikpeazu’s former Chief of Staff, Okey Ahaiwe, to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Ikpeazu has been forced to eat his vomit.

    As Fela Anikulapo Kuti would say, for the G5 Governors and their Integrity Group, yeye don dey smell. They have boxed themselves into a rabbit hole and there appears to be no way they can dig themselves out.

     

    Mideno Bayagbon: mideno@thenewsguru.ng

  • New Naira Notes: Who are the saboteurs: Bank MDs or CBN’s Emefiele? – By Mideno Bayagbon

    New Naira Notes: Who are the saboteurs: Bank MDs or CBN’s Emefiele? – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Today we are going to just skirt around a kaleidoscope of issues, a kind of look at the major trending issues of the past one week. The most current of these is the extension granted by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, for the submission of the old Naira notes to the banks and the  coming into effect of the new Naira notes. Emefiele’s volte face, after he and the president had sworn that “no Jupiter” would make them consider an extension to the January 31st date, we are told, emanated from the President, Muhammadu Buhari, who under pressure from top politicians and some eminent Nigerians had to cave in.

    And it is a reasonable thing to do. Given that the process has seemingly been hijacked by the ubiquitous Nigerian factor, and our penchant for “last minute dot.com” it was almost like a fait accompli for the governing authorities to do the needful and extend the deadline.

    The major saboteurs of the current Naira redesign deadline appear to be the banks. Despite the claim by the CBN that they are well funded with the redesigned notes, they choose to complicate the process. They blatantly disobeyed the CBN who had asked that they stop stocking ATMs with the old notes. Rather they chose to make it a hellish experience for Nigerians who still have the old notes with them. The queues at the ATMs and banks were frighteningly long and skirmishes were beginning to entice frustrated Nigerians who wanted to beat the deadline. Then the extension announcement came. According to the CBN Governor, Emefiele, instead of the earlier January 31st deadline, ten days grace of February 10th, was the new date.

    The question cannot but be asked: why do we like complicating simple issues? Why can’t we get the simplest of things right? How much does the average Nigerian have stored at home or in some hidden locale that they can’t get the old notes exchanged for new within 100 days? As usual, the real culprit of the new policy are using the back door, sabotaging the system, and laughing all the way at the stupidity of policy makers and Nigerians. For them, there is always a solution, no matter how devious it is, to countermand any policy designed to checkmate their criminal excesses. They do know how to beat the system. This they have shown again and again. By the time the CBN finds time to do an audit of how much was returned to the banks as old notes, it will be clear that the smart Alecs, have once again rubbed excreta on all our faces.

    For me, I smell a huge racketeering rat; a syndicated compromise geared towards making illicit cash available to politicians through the back door to corrupt the looming elections. As we all know, most of the politicians, through corrupt practices, have amassed huge Naira war chests intended to fight the presidential, national and state elections. It is now plausible that they are in cahoots with the banks, some of whom they own, to make of no effect, the withdrawal of the old Naira notes.

    Another reason why the bank managing directors should be thoroughly investigated is the fact that while they claim their banks did not receive enough new notes from the Central Bank, syndicates across major cities in Nigeria have a surfeit of the new notes, which they undoubtedly got from the banks, in total disregard of the new withdrawal limits set by the authorities. This they now get their foot soldiers to sell in street corners while other big men who have also breached the system, with the active connivance of the bank MDs, spray in bundles at parties.

    As exclusively reported by TheNewsGuru.com, TNG, on Monday this week, even POS operators are forced to buy the new notes from the bank syndicates hence anyone who wants to collect the new notes from them must forfeit a punishing 10 percent of whatever amount they want to withdraw. So for an example, if you want to withdraw N20,000 you will only get N18000, with N2000 as cost.

    There is no other plausible explanation as to why the banks have baulked the orders, deliberately frustrated Nigerians who have over the last 100 days tried to exchange their old notes for new ones, only to get the same notes paid to them at the ATMs and even at the banks’ counters. As we all know, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC has left no one in doubt that the policy was specifically targeted at him. He has not fully disclosed his reasons for this assertion but the federal government fell just short of saying it is a policy targeting the politicians who hope to buy their way through the elections. It euphemistically told the nation last week that it was Nigerian “big men” who are the targets. Nocturnal visits to Aso Rock by the candidates of the APC, PDP and others are said to be the last straw that truncated January 31st as the final deadline to return the old notes.

    ….SCARY NEWS FROM OSUN ELECTION TRIBUNAL

    The long awaited Osun Governorship Election Tribunal finally came out with a verdict which annulled the election of Senator Adeleke as Governor of Osun State. Sincerely, however, that is not the main news of the verdict. The devastating news, however, is the huge blow to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, who have before now assured us that the BVAS system which it has introduced as the long awaited solution to election rigging and over voting in Nigeria. The Tribunal results show that BVAS can be compromised and over voting can still be perpetrated. In 700 units, in the Ede  and other electoral strongholds of the Adelekes, it was successfully shown that announced votes did not tally with BVAS. Unfortunately, if a proper forensic audit is done across the state, we may just find out that BVAS is still a long  way from our free and fair elections dream. INEC releasing two different sets of BVAS results for the election adds more scarce fuel to the electoral manipulation confusion. This holds dire consequences for the Presidential and other elections afoot.

    …..AND DSS HAS NOT ARRESTED THE ISLAMIC CLERIC

    Karl Marx, the renowned political theorist and socialist revolutionary, once noted that religion is the opium of the masses . And nowhere, globally, is this more true than in poverty ravaged Africa; especially so in Nigeria. As over 103 million Nigerians stew in the strangulating poverty brought on them by the incompetent Buhari government  currently grinding, mercifully, to an end, and there emerges the possibilities of resetting the button of governance, a little known Islamic cleric, in Kano, was trending all week where he was seen urging Moslem faithful not to consider voting for “infidels” meaning Peter Obi and other Christian politicians. Owning up to the attack on the Labour Party Presidential Candidate last week in Kano, he was full of venom and peddled so much hate speech it is a good thing all the major security apparatus are headed by Moslems appointed by the Moslem President Buhari. If they are not conniving and are in agreement with him, it is a miracle he is still walking about vomiting his hatred against those he considers as infidels?

  • See why the whole world is laughing at Wike and G5 – By Mideno Bayagbon

    See why the whole world is laughing at Wike and G5 – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Teddy Pendergrass,  it was,  who had the hit song: The Whole Town’s Laughing at Me, the lyrics of which went thus:

    Yeah, I had your love right here

    In the palm of my hands

    And I lost it and I lost it

    Had a love so real, when a man can truly feel

    And I lost it and I lost it

    And maybe if I had spent more time with you

    Maybe then, maybe then you’d still be mine

    Oh and only if I had been just a little more kind to you

    There’d be no need, for the man to be crying

    The whole town’s laughing at me, yes they are

    Silly fool, how’d you lose such a good thing?

    This is the song that comes to mind each time I remember how Governor Nyesom Wike and his gang of five governors and a sprinkling of some political heavyweights in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, called Integrity Group, have boxed themselves into a quagmire they are finding it difficult to extricate themselves from. And they are beginning to behave like the fake Nigerian prophets who wait for a convenient time and favourable situations to roll out their self–induced prophesies. Faced with an unpalatable reality, disunited with uncommon interests, they are about either choking on, or swallowing their vomits. They are currently in a very uncomfortable place where shame and disgrace are welcoming giants before them. And I laugh in Ikwerre dialect!

    The painful thing is that the man they ganged up against has damned them, dared them  to do their worst. And the entire nation has been waiting for their garrulous and pompous leader, Nyesom Wike, to draw the carpet from off the feet of the Waziri Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, their party’s presidential candidate in next month’s presidential elections. They had predicted a tsunami so devastating to the dream of Atiku Abubakar going into the elections, one of the clear favourites, will be a bad dream sadly remembered. But not so have events turned out.

    Governor Wike and the Integrity Group which has as members the Governors of Abia, Enugu, Oyo and Benue; and that of Bauchi who is still doing hide-and-seek with his party, having promoted themselves as the beautiful bride of the 2023 Presidential Elections, have been holding court, indulging in intra and inter-party rascalities and tottering on the verge of pledging their support either to the Emilokan of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the one and only Bola Ahmed Tinubu; or to the trail blazing leader of the Obidient Gang, Peter Obi. Consultations upon consultations, after the many ego trips to London, Paris, Ibadan, Lagos, Benue and Port Harcourt, they are suddenly finding their dream of being the brokers of who emerges the President on February 25th, 2023,  becoming a candle flickering in the wind, its wick sucking in the last wax, before its oxygen is snuffed out, asphyxiated.

    Today, they are a disunited front. Self interest and the quest for their individual political interests have driven a wedge into the supposed unity of the Integrity Group. Three of the Governors, Abia’s Ikpeazu, Enugu’s Ugwuanyi, Benue’s Ortom are pursuing senatorial dreams under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, while Seyi Makinde and Bala Mohammed of Bauchi want to return as governors of Oyo and Bauchi states, respectively. The only one who is not entangled and double crossed by any election blues is Governor Wike and now the WB Yeats’ fabled falcon cannot hear the falconer; and the centre of their unity cannot hold anymore, for they have become a house divided against itself. Disparate self interests have revealed the fowl’s yansh!  Their claim of fighting for the interest of the people of the South against the oppressive moves of the northern cabal in the PDP, it is now clear, is their self interest they have hitherto masqueraded as interest of the people of the South and  the Middlebelt.

    Even at that, the truth remains that for most of them, their ambitions, even without their pitching their tents with Wike in the G5 and later Integrity Group, is in serious jeopardy at home. It will be a miracle for example for Governor Ikpeazu to emerge victorious in his senatorial quest in the Ngwa area of Abia State. Three things stand against him. His poor performance as a two term governor of Abia, the sweeping take over of his state by the Obidient Group, and the fact that he is contesting against a political war veteran, former deputy governor, former senator Enyinnaya Abaribe! As it is, he needs the PDP more than the PDP needs him.

    Same is true of the one they call Gburugburu in Enugu state. For a man who has had a very quiet reign as Governor of Enugu; a man who remained incognito and seemingly inconsequential to national issues and debate, his foray into the G5 and Integrity Group was a major surprise. Like Abia, Enugu has tipped over, falling headlong into the strong grasp of the Obidient Group. For Governor Lawrence Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the road to a senatorial seat is very rough indeed. Whether he foolishly joins to support Bola Tinubu of APC, a no-starter in Enugu; or selfishly throws his hat into supporting Peter Obi, it will be a hard sell for him to throw his party under the trailer and hope to win the seat.

    Seyi Makinde seems to be realising late that he is between the devil and the deep blue sea. He will either eat the humble pie and go back into the mainstream of the  PDP in the state, which means supporting an Atiku Abubakar presidency and hope for the best or he can continue to seek Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s support while hoping the Jagaban will abandon his own party candidate. He should, by now,know that the political re-engineering in the state means the main stream faction of the party are likely to throw their support for the Accord Party candidate should he follow through his current seemingly foolhardy position. Truth, with position as they currently are in the state, Governor Makinde is with his own hands donating the governorship seat to the All Progressives Congress.

    Samuel Ortom, Governor of Benue State,  might just be luckier than his other colleagues. First, his senatorial zone is likely still going to vote for him despite the Peter Obi movement taking strategic strongholds in the state. His perceived fight against Fulani herdsmen and his smart  alignment with the Obidient Gang might just see him as the only member of the group who might make it to the Senate of the National Assembly.

    The most foolish move Governor Nyesom Wike will make is to declare support for the APC presidential candidate. If he does, it will mean he truly thinks too highly of himself and that he is oblivious to the current position of the people of his state. If he declares his support for Tinubu, he will be roundly disgraced. The APC as a party is decimated in the state. The two strongest parties dominating the politics of the state now are Peter Obi’s Labour Party and the PDP. With the days of writing fictitious elections result gladly in the past, Nyesom Wike has only one option, as a face saving measure, to throw his weight behind Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi.

    These are the reasons the whole world is laughing at Governor Wike and his gang who have dribbled themselves into a cul de sac. With January ending a few days away, and his end of tenure as a governor, four short months away, Governor Wike must desperately now look for a way to save face.

  • Who would you have your children be like: Tinubu, Atiku or Obi? – By Mideno Bayagbon

    Who would you have your children be like: Tinubu, Atiku or Obi? – By Mideno Bayagbon

    I don’t know if readers saw one video that trended last week in the social media, in which one Bishop Samuel Olumakinde Alawode prayed a prayer most of his congregants were unable to say a uniform, loud affirmative “AMEN’” He started quite innocently and his church members apparently were caught unawares by the content of the prayer their pastor rendered. They sat numbed, stunned.

    The Bishop started by saying: “Those of you that are going to vote, I want to pray a prayer for you and I want your loud amen. That man you want to vote for, may your children have his character in Jesus name.” The church erupted in palpable silence, disturbed. Then a smattering of tepid “amens” and guilty smiles and indecipherable noise stole the air. Some of the congregants can even be seen rolling their hands over their heads in the traditional way of saying “I reject it!” in rejecting the prayer of their Bishop.

    Undeterred, the Bishop continued: “you perhaps didn’t get it. That man you want to vote for, that man you are rooting for, that man you are shouting on Facebook about, may your children’s children have his destiny in Jesus name.” Silence. “May they act like him.” Silence. “Behave like him.” Silence. “You are not saying amen? If you don’t want a leader that your children will look like, why do you want to vote for him? If you know you don’t want a leader that will be the future picture of your own children, why do you want to cast your vote for such a person? I want to pray again: whoever you vote for, may their destiny, good or bad, come upon your children.” Murmurings; shifting chairs and muted voices disagreeing and rejecting the Bishop’s prayer. A few unsure amens, however, are heard.

    He continues and concludes thus: “I say this because I want you to take the election seriously. Don’t put your vote on anybody your heart cannot tell you this is a picture of our future. If you do it, you are bringing a curse upon your children.” There was rumbling and great discomfort among the members as the Bishop’s prayer rounded off. Which is not surprising.

    This unusual prayer generated a lot of discussions in social media. Typically, self-righteousness rules the roost. Everyone is ventilating their biases, condemning the congregants who could not say a loud amen to such an audacious, soul-checking prayer. Everyone is a patriot on social media while the next person is considered a devil. But truly the Bishop’s prayer should serve as a warning shot, a call to self-love, to destiny changing decisions about who the average Nigerian should consider casting his votes for. As it is, the coming elections is like an open wound that only the right treatment and medication can heal.

    The choice before Nigerians next month and the month after is one in a life time to turn personal and the nation’s fortunes around. It is a time to be self-centred, a time to put one’s economic, social and political interests first. It is a time to put the four front-line parties and their candidates on a scale, measured against one’s self-interest. It is the time to ask ones self: of the array of candidates, who among them best serves my interest for a better life for me and my children? Who among them has the pedigree, the policies and vitality to ensure that the past eight years of the locust do not repeat themselves? Who among the candidates best approximates a new start, heralds the possibilities of a better tomorrow for us and our children?

    There is the critical issue of our destroyed economy exemplified by the destruction of the Naira and the hunger that is ravaging the land. There is the wanton killings and insecurity walking about with raised shoulders all over the nation. Over 63 percent of the population is stewing in unimaginable poverty.

    Yes, there are no saints among the candidates. This is why perhaps the church members, referred to above, were unable to say “amen” to their children being endowed with the character traits and destinies of their preferred candidates. Candidly, the candidates are like the same-faced, three edged coin. Who to choose is a tricky problem. That is why, Nigerians, hungry for a good leader, need to put each of them on a scale, and because their pear fell next to a smelling excreta, they need to pluck a leaf to cover  the offensive pooh, in a bid to pick their pear. In simple terms, Nigerians need to put aside all the religious, ethnic, and other gimmicks – the smelling excreta – which has held them down in abject poverty and shame among the comity of nations. They need to take the bold step of not falling to the trickery and pranks of the politicians in picking who they best think can liberate them and Nigeria, currently at the precipice and near tumbling over.

    Let’s take a passing glance at the top three candidates, one of whom is most likely to emerge the president-elect after the February 25th Presidential Elections. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, from book makers point of view, appears to be the most prepared for the job having been a two term Vice-President with a huge financial war chest, a known employer of labour and educationist who has a large body of studies he commissioned on the Nigerian economy and state and how to tackle the many hydra-headed problems which bedevil the Nigerian state. But he is very old and tainted with massive corruption allegations. It is also feared that like President Buhari, he might treat the threat of Islamic jihadists with kids gloves. That is apart from the fact that he too, like Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has the inordinate belief that the Nigerian presidency is his birth-right. Until the Governor Nyesom Wike led Integrity Group, a band of political renegades called his bluff, he was already parading himself as a president-in-waiting.

    Then there is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the acclaimed Jagaban of South West politics. A former Governor, and some claim builder of modern Lagos, is one of the known patriots who fought on the side of the people during the heady days of General Abacha fear-induced rule of the country. Back by the ruling party, APC, he is believed by some to be the front runner. His party controls more states in the federation, especially in the north. He has the South West wrapped up and believes the north is his for the taking. The Governor Nyesom Wike-led group is said to be looking in his direction too. He believes it is his turn to rule the country. Promoted as a man who carefully selects and build men, he believes he can slay the many problems of the country through a careful selection of men and a frontal attack of the problems. Were it to be 10 or 15 years ago, there is no doubt he would have perhaps made a very good president. But he is a man of many baggages. Little is known about his background, source of his humongous wealth and true state of health. He is old and showing it. The Muslim-Muslim ticket he is running with is a huge baggage.

    Peter Obi, like the one eyed man in the city of the blind, appears to be the one the elite and youths are building their hopes on. Relatively “young” at 62 years old this year, he comes with a message which resonates with the people especially in the South and Middle Belt. A simple and easy going wealthy billionaire, he has been able to cast himself as a prudent handler of public funds, a solution provider who will build productive forces and abrogate the consumption mentality which is the ruin of the country today. His claims of managing the resources of Anambra State where he was governor, exaggerated in some places, is designed to position him as a nonconformist who, though was part of those who descended into the pigs-sty, came out squeaky clean. Of course this is not entirely true but Nigerians hungry for redemption appear to be overlooking a lot of his known faults. He represents the Obama moment in Nigerian politics. His major drawback has been his inability to penetrate the north and the so called lack of structures to run a nationwide election. His state governor, Prof Charles Soludo and some critical South East leaders, are against his ambition. Some of the people think too that he will not win enough states to be crowned the president-elect. Constitutionally, he needs 25 percent of the votes in at least 24 states of the federation. His opponents use that to urge voters not to “waste” their votes on him.

    Of course each of the candidates have their good and bad characteristics but the question remains: who do Nigerians think is better positioned to tackle the many suffocating problems making Nigerians to begin to eat from the rubbish bins. Who they think can bring the country from the precipice of implosion which the terribly clueless and incompetent Muhammadu Buhari government has pushed it? And like the Bishop prayed, who among them do you want your children to have his characteristics? As for me, I have made up my mind. I will vote for the one who will best serve my interests and rescue the nation.

     

    Mideno Bayagbon: mideno@thenewsguru.ng

  • Delta 2023 and Those Who Live in Glass Houses – By Daniel Nwakolu

    Delta 2023 and Those Who Live in Glass Houses – By Daniel Nwakolu

    By Daniel Nwakolu

    Politics has become a game in which those who participate use persuasion to win the hearts of the people so that they can also get their votes during election time. In order to realize that goal, politicians tell the people what they want to do differently to better their lives. The goals of politics and government which are the welfare and security of the people remain the same anywhere and everywhere.  What the politicians tell the people or should be telling them is what they intend to do differently and how in order to ensure their security and welfare. This is why the idea of a manifesto which is a candidate’s statement of action is usually not taken for granted in politics especially at election period. This is now the acceptable practice all over the world because people have come to accept that it is better to “jaw jaw” than to “war war”. It should be added that the practice is healthy and it is a way of holding public office holders accountable to their promises as the people will always draw their attention and remind them about what they said when they were campaigning for their votes.

    The above makes for a smooth and crisis-free manner of politicking. But sadly, the Delta State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the person of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege does not see politics as civil engagement. To him politics is war where he uses uncouth language, lies, wild claims and issue uncivil and unlawful threats. He thinks that politics should be about propaganda and that he who tells the most lies and shouts the most will win election and govern the State. His style of politics is to take Delta State back to the era of jaguda politics where rough and inhuman tactics are the order of the day. Omo-Agege has shown little integrity and his desperation further makes him behave in a way that casts doubts on a number of things about him. His behaviour has led to such questions like is this man educated? Is he a lawyer? Did he really live in the US where politics is so refined and people driven? Is he really the son of an erudite chief judge? Does he have the interest of Delta State and her people at heart? What manner of a leader will he be?

    Omo-Agege is principally a political opportunist. He has the high record of decamping from one political party to another. Politics is for him a business where only profits are accumulated. Politics is not purely for service and sacrifice for Omo-Agege. It is about grabbing power and using it for self to the detriment of the generality of the people. Omo-Agege has never seen politics as being about the welfare of the people. Yet, this is the man who stands on campaign podium to throw stones at people he accuses of corruption when in truth they have done all to better the lot of Deltans. Since he lacks a convincing and well-articulated manifesto, Omo-Agege’s stock in trade is to cast aspersions and heap lies upon lies against the better politicians like Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State who is also the vice presidential candidate of the PDP and Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly and the Delta State governorship candidate of the PDP.

    Omo-Agege is in mortal dread of both Okowa and Oborevwori. He is reminded every minute of the imminence of his defeat in the forthcoming election. What he adopted as a strategy is to lie against both men in order to discredit them. But this strategy is not working and instead of thinking outside the box and doing something constructive, Omo-Agege is descending more and more into the mud of shame. Interestingly, Okowa and Oborevwori have chosen not to join issues with him. So as he abuses them and tells unfounded lies against them, they maintain a dignified silence that makes Omo-Agege look like a brat used to throwing tantrums.

    Omo-Agege is a political roughneck who has neither an ideology nor a convincing vision for Delta State. What politicians do today or will do tomorrow is a function of what they did in time past. This is why the good people of Delta State should critically question and scrutinize Omo-Agege’s public service record. Omo-Agege as personal assistant, executive assistant, commissioner and secretary to the state government was desperately on the prowl.  For a one who fled from America with nothing to become a billioniare without doing any noticeable business except being an appointee of government is a source for concern.

    Omo-Agege cannot deceive Deltans because the polytechnic he claims he is building in Orogun was actually riddled with so many questions. He is said to have held back the project until other senators threatened to drag him to the EFFC before he rushed contractors back to site. He has also not been able to account for federal government projects for Edo and Delta States which were under his purview as Deputy Senate President. Yet, this is the man who is accusing others of looting Delta State. He must learn the wisdom in the saying that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. He is the pot calling the kettle black.

    It is also surprising that Omo-Agege will accuse Governor Okowa of betraying Chief James Ibori, the former Governor of Delta State. Omo-Agege who stabbed his benefactor Chief Great Ogboru in the back can actually call Governor Okowa, one of Nigeria’s most decent politicians a betrayer? Haba, Augustine Ovie Omo-Agege, please, stop throwing stones because you are living in a glass house. Nigerians and Deltans have not forgotten that you were accused of mace snatching.