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Tag: Dele Alake

  • Presidency reveals when ministerial nomination list will be released

    Presidency reveals when ministerial nomination list will be released

    President Tinubu’s Special Adviser, Special Duties, Communications and Strategy, Dele Alake, has revealed when the ministerial nomination list will be released.

    According to Alake, the list will be released when it’s ready.

    Responding to  questions on the speculated list out in the media, Alake said Tinubu would make the list of nominees known when he is good and ready.

    His words “When the President is good and ready. You will be the first to know about his intentions” Alake said while briefing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Thursday.

    “About the ministerial list, the simple truth is this is an executive presidency. We’re not running a parliamentary system.

    “So the President, the bucks stops on his table, and he decides when it’s fit and proper for him to make his cabinet list.

    “We are not unaware of all the speculations, and innuendos and rumours, all kinds of things in the media. Now, as a media man, I chuckled to myself that people just want to sell, so they just fabricate. There is no iota of truth in all of those things. When the President is good and ready, you will be the first to know about his intentions.”

    The presidential aide said Tinubu was still within the 60-day window for President and all governors to announce their Ministers and Commissioners, respectively.

    Recall that In March, Alake who was then a Special Adviser to the President-elect said Tinubu would convene his cabinet within one month of assuming office.

    Alake said this is in line with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution mandating presidents-elect and governors-elect to submit the names of their ministerial and commissioner nominees within 60 days of taking the oath of office for confirmation by the Senate or state House of Assembly.

    He said, “I told you in an earlier interview that it didn’t take Asiwaju more than three weeks to form his cabinet as governor.

    “That was as at that time. I think 60 days is even too much.

    “A month, maximum, is enough for any serious government to form its cabinet and put a structure of government in place after the swearing-in.”

  • We reject European Union’s Conclusions on 2023 General Elections – Dele Alake 

    We reject European Union’s Conclusions on 2023 General Elections – Dele Alake 

    Sometimes in May, we alerted the nation, through a press statement, to the plan by a continental multi-lateral institution to discredit the 2023 general elections conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The main target was the presidential election, clearly and fairly won by the then candidate of All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
    While we did not mention the name of the organisation in the said statement, we made it abundantly clear to Nigerians how this foreign institution had been unrelenting in its assault on the credibility of the electoral process, the sovereignty of our country and on our ability as a people to organise ourselves. We find it preposterous and unconscionable that in this day and age, any foreign organisation of whatever hue can continue to insist on its own yardstick and assessment as the only way to determine the credibility and transparency of our elections.
    Now that the organisation has submitted what it claimed to be its final report on the elections, we can now categorically let Nigerians and the entire world know that we were not unaware of the machinations of the European Union to sustain its, largely, unfounded bias and claims on the election outcomes.
    For emphasis, we want to reiterate that the 2023 general elections, most especially the presidential election, won by President Bola Tinubu/All Progressives Congress, were credible, peaceful, free, fair and the best organised general elections in Nigeria since 1999.
    There is no substantial evidence provided by the European Union or any foreign and local organisation that is viable enough to impeach the integrity of the 2023 election outcomes.
    It is worth restating that the limitation of EU final assessment and conclusions on our elections was made very bare in the text of the press conference addressed by the Head of its Electoral Observation Mission, Barry Andrews. While addressing journalists in Abuja on the so-called final report, Andrews noted that EU-EOM monitored the pre-election and post-election processes in Nigeria from January 11 to April 11, 2023 as an INEC accredited election monitoring group. Within this period, EU-EOM observed the elections through 11 Abuja-based analysts, and 40 election observers spread across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. With the level of personnel deployed, which was barely an average of one person per state, we wonder how EU-EOM independently monitored election in over 176,000 polling units across Nigeria.
    We would like to know and even ask EU, how it reached the conclusions in the submitted final report with the very limited coverage of the elections by their observers who, without doubt, relied more on rumours, hearsay, cocktails of prejudiced and uninformed social media commentaries and opposition talking heads.
    We are convinced that what EU-EOM called final report on our recent elections is a product of a poorly done desk job that relied heavily on few instances of skirmishes in less than 1000 polling units out of over 176,000 where Nigerians voted on election day.
    We have many reasons to believe the jaundiced report, based on the views of fewer than 50 observers, was to merely sustain the same premature denunciatory stance contained in EU’s preliminary report released in March.
    We strongly reject, in its entirety, any notion and idea from any organisation, group and individual remotely suggesting that the 2023 election was fraudulent.
    Our earlier position that the technology-aided 2023 general elections were the most transparent and best organised elections since the return of civil rule in Nigeria has been validated by all non-partisan foreign and local observers such are the African Union, ECOWAS, Commonwealth Observer Mission and the Nigerian Bar Association.
    Unlike EU-EOM that deployed fewer than 50 observers, the Nigerian Bar Association that sent out over 1000 observers spread across the entire country for same election gave a more holistic and accurate assessment of the elections in their own report.
    NBA, an organisation of eminent lawyers and an important voice within the civic space, reported that 91.8 per cent of Nigerians rated the conduct of the national and state elections as credible and satisfactory. Any election that over 90% of the citizens considered transparent should be celebrated anywhere in the world.
    It is heart-warming that INEC, through its National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Mr. Festus Okoye, has come out to defend the integrity of the election it conducted by rejecting the false narratives in the EU report.
    It is also gratifying that the electoral umpire, as an institution that is open to learning and continuous improvements, has also committed to taking on board more ideas, innovation and reforms that will further enhance the integrity and credibility of our electoral process.
    As a country, we have put the elections behind us. President Tinubu is facing the arduous task of nation-building, while those who have reasons to challenge the process continue to do so through the courts. In just one month in office, Nigerians appear satisfied with the decisive leadership of President Tinubu and the manner he is redirecting the country to the path of fiscal sustainability and socio-economic reforms. We urge the EU and other foreign interests to be objective in all their assessments of the internal affairs of our country and allow Nigeria to breathe.
    Dele Alake
    Special Adviser to the President
    (Special Duties, Communications and Strategy)
  • Obi and ‘fake news’ on 114% pay hike for govt officials – By Ehichioya Ezomon

    Obi and ‘fake news’ on 114% pay hike for govt officials – By Ehichioya Ezomon

    Thursday, June 22, wasn’t a good day for opposition presidential candidate in the 2023 General Election, Peter Obi. Misjudging Nigerians’ mood under a rash of harsh economic policies by the 28-day-old administration of President Bola Tinubu, Obi tweeted his usual.

    Lacking or ungrasping the relevant information – unexpected of someone of his public standing – Obi uncautionably dabbled in the ruckus over 114% increase in remuneration for political, public and judicial officers.

    Thus, the former Anambra State governor inserted himself as the message, and became the butt of critics, who labelled him a “desperate opportunist” baying for crisis to avenge his defeat in the February 25 presidential poll.

    A Tinubu critic pre and post-the election, Obi literally accused the President of approving pay raise for himself and officials of his administration that’ll be one month on June 29.

    “I learnt, with great reservation, the approval of a 114% increase in the salaries of elected politicians, including the president, vice president, governors, lawmakers, as well as judicial and public office holders by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC),” Obi tweeted unguardedly on June 22.

    “This is not the appropriate time for such salary increment, if it is at all necessary,” he said, and urged its immediate reversal.

    “We are living in a time when an average Nigerian is struggling with many harsh economic realities, and with over 130 million Nigerians now living in poverty,” Obi said.

    “This is a moment when recent reform measures by the government have increased living costs astronomically. The sacrifice, at this time in our nation, should be borne by the leaders.

    “The increment should be reversed immediately, and the savings should be devoted to fixing education, healthcare and poverty alleviation, especially in the remote rural areas.”

    And quoting from Shakespeare’s, he urged that average Nigerians be the first to benefit, to mitigate the effects of “Tinubunomics.”

    “In the immortal words of Shakespeare’s Julius Ceaser, ‘What touches us ourself shall be last served,’” Obi said, adding, “The leaders, therefore, should prioritise what affects the masses and those on the lower strata of society over themselves.”

    Obi got right the optic of the consequential effects of the economic policies the Tinubu government has unleashed on long-suffering Nigerians.

    Still, Obi goofed by helping to amplify what’s obviously “fake news” because there’s nothing on the President’s table to approve, as the reported pay increment was a RMAFC proposal that’ll endure a marathon race round the country to become an implementable law.

    The proposal needs to pass the litmus test at the Federal Executive Council (FEC), before the Executive prepares a Bill and sends to the National Assembly (NASS), which will, in turn, dispatch copies of the Bill to the 36 State Assemblies for consideration and passage, and same returned to the NASS for concurrence, before a clean copy is sent to the President for assent into law that’ll bind the three tiers of government: Federal, State and Local Government Council.

    As reported by @NTANewsNow, RMAFC’s Chairman, Muhammadu Bello Shehu, on June 19 in Birni-Kebbi, Kebbi State, presented the reviewed remuneration packages to Governor Nasir Idris.

    Represented by Federal Commissioner Rakiya Tanko-Ayuba Haruna, Shehu urged the 36 Houses of Assembly to hasten amendment of the relevant laws, to allow the commencement of implementation of the reviewed remuneration packages for political, public and judicial officers.

    The chairman said the move was in line with provisions of Paragraph 32(d) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the amended 1999 Constitution of Nigeria.

    He noted that the last review of remuneration was conducted in 2007, culminating in the “Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances,  Etc) (Amendment) Act 2008.”

    The Act empowers the RMAFC “to determine the remuneration appropriate for political office-holders, including the President, Vice President, Governors, Deputy Governors, Ministers, Commissioners, Special Advisers, Legislators and holders of the offices mentioned in Sections 84 and 124 of the Constitution,” Shehu said.

    “Sixteen years after the last review, it is imperative that the remuneration packages for the categories of the office holders mentioned in relevant sections (84 and 124) of the 1999 Constitution should be reviewed,” Shehu said.

    He recalled that on February 1, 2023, RMAFC held a simultaneous one-day public hearing on the review of the remuneration packages in the six geo-political zones of the country.

    “The aim of the exercise was to harvest inputs/ideas from a broad spectrum of stakeholders,” Shehu said, adding that RMAFC had objectively and subjectively reviewed the salary packages in the reports, and the commission “adheres to the rules of equity and fairness, risk and responsibilities, national order and precedence.”

    The remuneration reports have sparked outrage across Nigeria, with the angst directed at President Tinubu, who’s been preaching sacrifices to Nigerians facing the effects of removal of subsidies from petrol, electricity, tuition and floating of the Naira.

    Still, there’s nothing in the RMAFC reports to suggest – even remotely – that the Presidency had approved higher remuneration for political, public and judicial officers.

    But Obi jumped into the fray, and earned rebuttals from RMAFC and the Presidency, and criticism and labelling from Nigerians and civil society organisations (CSOs), who, otherwise, are sympathic to his legal battle to “retrieve” his “stolen mandate” at the February 25 poll.

    RMAFC’s spokesperson, Christian Nwachukwu, said the proposed salary increment hadn’t been approved.

    “No approval yet. There is no approval yet,” Mr Nwachukwu told Leadership Newspaper on June 21. “I don’t know the source of that story. Everything is under the process. It has to come as a Bill for Mr President to assent,” he added.

    Presidential spokesman, Dele Alake, said the Presidency, like most Nigerians, followed, with consternation, the viral story of the purported 114% increase in the salaries of political, public and judicial officers.

    In a statement on June 22, Mr Alake’s unequivocal that President Tinubu hadn’t approved any salary increase, “and no such proposal has been brought before him for consideration.

    Affirming the constitutional remit of RMAFC to propose and fix salaries and allowances of office-holders, Alake said “such can’t come into effect until it’s been considered and approved by the President.”

    He noted that the prominence the “unfounded story” gained on social media, and in the mainstream media, has reinforced “the danger fake news poses to society and our national well-being.”

    His words: “The misinformation was, obviously, contrived to create ill-will for the new administration, slow down the upward momentum and massive goodwill the Tinubu-led administration is currently enjoying among Nigerians as a result of its fast paced, dynamic and progressive policies.

    “It is important to reiterate to journalists, media managers, and members of the public that stories on government activities and policy issues that do not emanate from approved official communication channels should be ignored.

    “Media practitioners are enjoined to, at all times, cross-check their stories to ensure accurate reportage, which is the hallmark of responsible journalism.”

    However, some CSOs weren’t as circumspect, accusing Obi of being a “desperate opportunist” for amplifying fake reports on salary increment, and intent on inciting the public against the government.

    Safe Neighbourhoods Movement described Obi as “a sore loser and an undemocratic actor incapable of moving past an election he lost and joining efforts to reform and rebuild the country,” reports The Podium Reporters on June 22.

    “It is unfortunate that the presidential candidate of a country is peddling fake news. No approval has been given to increase salaries of public officers and none is imminent.

    “The RMAFC, with the constitutional mandate to facilitate such a review, requires the approval of the National Assembly and State Assemblies in all 36 states of the country, if it is to succeed. It is not something the president simply decrees.”

    The movement noted that, “it is either these facts are available to Mr Obi and he chose to disregard them in service of his partisan agenda or he is unaware of them, further indicating himself as an ignorant political operative unprepared for the country’s leadership.

    “Either way, his action has shown that Nigerians were right to reject him at the polls,” it added.

    Another CSO urged Obi to tame his “attention-seeking antics and desperate opportunism,” as they aren’t in the interest of the nation’s wellbeing.

    “Government opposition cannot be done through fake news and unpatriotic incitement. Is Obi willing to bring an end to Nigeria just because his ‘religious war’ failed? Something must be done to checkmate him,” the group said.

    In these trying times, it behoves media practitioners, and members of the public – the likes who trade patriotism for partisan interests – to heed Alake’s advice, to curb fake news and needless heating up of the polity!

    Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

  • Subsidy: Dele Alake reveals outcome of FG’s meeting with labour unions

    Subsidy: Dele Alake reveals outcome of FG’s meeting with labour unions

    The Nigerian government and organized Labour on Monday reconvened at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to look into ways of cushioning the effects of removal of subsidy on the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

    Mr Dele Alake, Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy, said that steering and technical committees have been set up to help achieve the planned interventions for Nigerians.

    “As we promised the last time we met; when labour called off their planned strike, we held a meeting today. We went through all the demands that labour had tabled, that is government and the labour unions last time.

    “They said they were going to go back to their executives and make consultations so that we reconvene today. That is exactly what we did.

    “At today’s meeting, both parties went through the list and we ticked off the viable ones which are now broken into three categories; those can be given immediate attention, and those that can be achieved in the medium term and long term.”

    Alake added that the committees would help actualize the dream of providing the interventions to cushion the effects of removal of subsidy.

    “Work groups have been constituted at today’s meeting. There is a steering committee that will serve as a clearing house and there are other committees comprising both parties; government and labour.

    “They will work together very harmoniously and efficiently to arrive at the final resolution of all the demands of labour and what we (government) call interventions,” he said.

    The President of Nigeria Labour Congress, Joseph Ajero and his Trade Union Congress counterpart, Festus Osifo both confirmed the setting up of steering and technical committees.

    They said that the committees would commence work immediately and complete the assessments within a maximum period of eight weeks.

  • Why President Tinubu is travelling to Paris

    Why President Tinubu is travelling to Paris

    President Bola Tinubu will join world leaders in Paris on Thursday to review and sign a New Global Financial Pact that places vulnerable countries on a priority list.

    These countries would enjoy support and investment, following the devastating impact of climate change, the energy crisis and after effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    A statement by Mr Dele Alake, Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communication and Strategy, said the summit would hold between June 22 and  23.

    Alake said the summit would look at opportunities to restore fiscal space to countries that faced difficult short-term financial challenges, especially the most indebted.

    He said it would mobilize innovative financing for countries vulnerable to climate change and foster development in low-income countries.

    It would also encourage investment in “green” infrastructure for the energy transition in emerging and developing economies.

    Alake said that Tinubu and other global leaders, multilateral institutions, financial experts and economists would take a more holistic look at the recovery of economies from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

    Alake said the summit would look at the rising cases of poverty, with a view to providing access to finance and investment to leverage inclusive growth.

    The Summit, which would be hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France, would  be held at Palais Brongniart.

    The President would be accompanied by members of the Presidential Policy Advisory Council and other senior government officials.

    The President will return to Abuja on Saturday.

  • No appointment has been made, says Dele Alake

    No appointment has been made, says Dele Alake

    The Director of Strategic Communication of the defunct Tinubu Campaign Council, Dele Alake has said his rumoured appointment as the Spokesman to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not true.

    Alake noted that no appointment has been made in the new regime.

    The former Commissioner for Information in Lagos State described the appointment as fake news.

    TheNewsGuru.com recalled that immediately after President Tinubu was sworn-in on Monday, May 29, 2023 reports started emerging that the President had announced his first set of appointments.

    However, in a chat with selected reporters in Abuja, Alake denied getting appointed as the presidential spokesperson, saying that the reports circulating on social media are false and baseless.

    He said: “No appointment has been made. The story out there is false.”

  • Alake raises alarm on alleged NADECO impostor, Lloyd Ukwu

    Alake raises alarm on alleged NADECO impostor, Lloyd Ukwu

    Mr. Dele Alake, Special Adviser to the President-elect, Sen. Bola Tinubu, has said that one Mr. Lloyd Ukwu, who claims to be the Executive Director of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) is an impostor.

    Alake said this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja while reacting to a report that Ukwu planned to organise a press conference where he would allegedly disparage and cast aspersions on the credibility of the Feb. 25 presidential poll.

    Alake said the election was freely and fairly won by Tinubu.

    “It must be stated emphatically and without any ambiguity that Ukwu is an impostor, hell-bent on hoodwinking unsuspecting Nigerians in the Diaspora and the international community,” Alake said.

    Alake alleged that Ukwu’s aim was to further a sinister agenda on behalf of the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, who came a distant third in the presidential poll.

    He alleged that Ukwu’s attempt to fraudulently exploit the NADECO platform for Peter Obi against Tinubu was laughable and a grave insult to the sensibilities of Nigerians.

    Alake said Nigerians witnessed first-hand the struggle by the pro-democracy group in restoring democratic rule to Nigeria and the roles played by prominent Nigerians, including independence hero and nationalist, the late Chief Anthony Enahoro.

    Alake listed other heroes to include Tinubu, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, the late Commodore Dan Suleiman, the late Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi and Chief Cornelius Adebayo.

    Alake reiterated that Ukwu was very peripheral to this group of eminent statesmen and illustrious Nigerians who bore the pain and peril of exile so that Nigeria could be free from the jackboot of military dictatorship of the late Gen. Sani Abacha.

    He reminded Ukwu that while Tinubu put his life and resources on the line during those challenging times, the likes of Peter Obi were allegedly hobnobbing with the military or nowhere to be found.

    “In trying to robe himself in an unbefitting garb, Ukwu’s desperation to confer credibility on his mission by using NADECO name is bound to hit a dead-end and ignominy.

    “To hide under the name of NADECO to deceive the international media and interest groups is an act that should be condemned by right thinking people.

    “Majority of Nigerians have spoken loud and clear that Tinubu is their choice to lead Nigeria from May 29, 2023. There is absolutely nothing Ukwu and his ilk can do to change this fact of history,” Alake said.

  • Lest Nigerian Youths Be Deceived By Obasanjo’s Sanctimony And Revisionism – By Dele Alake

    Lest Nigerian Youths Be Deceived By Obasanjo’s Sanctimony And Revisionism – By Dele Alake

    By Dele Alake

     

    On the whole, the latest epistolary misadventure by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a gratuitous insult on the collective intelligence of Nigerians. In particular, his laborious attempt to prey on the innocence of much younger generation constitutes a grievous assault on public morality, seeking to force morsels of sheer falsehood down the throats of a demography perhaps too young to comprehend events which Obasanjo furiously tried to misrepresent.

    It is noteworthy that it was the Obasanjo administration that abolished the teaching of history in Nigerian schools ostensibly to aid this kind of historical revisionism he routinely engages in; a decision now happily reversed by the President Muhammadu Buhari government.

    Contestants for the presidential office in Nigeria routinely consult with and court Obasanjo, not because of his electoral value which is minuscule, but out of respect for his status as a former Head of State. It is, however, obvious that the man himself has no respect for that status, as he continuously embroils himself in partisan politics in a most pretentious and dishonest manner and refuses to rise to the demands of statesmanship.

    In the statement entitled “My Appeal To All Nigerians Particularly Young Nigerians”, General Obasanjo rtd plumbed into new depth in hubris and hypocrisy never seen in all his career as political busybody after office who seems to see Nigeria as a movie where only he is the all-conquering hero while others are doomed villains. Some psychoanalysts are wont to diagnose this Obasanjo’s peculiar political affliction as post-power-withdrawal-syndrome (PPWS): false omniscience compounded by chronic inability to accept the reality of being out of political office.

    Even in the US, whose variant of presidential system of government we practise, former Presidents maintain a decorous distance from government after office, opting wisely not to be a distraction to their successors. Not so the meddlesome Obasanjo.

    That same mindset led him to stab MKO Abiola in the back in faraway Harare, Zimbabwe, by saying he was not “a messiah” even when most Nigerians had started viewing the winner of the June 12 polls of 1993 as the symbol of democracy after the annulment. It soon came to light that whereas a group of retired generals including Muhammadu Buhari and Theophilus Danjuma were resolute in their call for the de-annulment through the platform of a “committee of elders”, Obasanjo, the supposed “convener”, was said to have plotted the floating of an “interim government” to replace the now discredited Babangida regime.

    While Obasanjo’s right to support any candidate of his choice in the forthcoming presidential polls must be recognized as guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution, how condescending of him to decree his preference on Nigerians based on a cocktail of bare-faced lies and crude revisionism. In fact, there’s a widespread allegation that the latest gambit by the political busybody of Ota is part of a larger nefarious scheme to incite disorder around the country with a view to clearing the grounds for the resurrection of his favourite contraption: interim national government (ING) !

    Third term agenda

    Contrary to his posturing as a democrat who came to office for the second time at a questionable age 62 and left at 70, Obasanjo’s feverish gamble for life presidency between 2005 and 2006 was actually thwarted by a pro-democracy coalition of progressives like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and several others.

    Bribes ranging from N50m to N100m (amounting to whopping N20bn of public funds) were allegedly handed over to federal lawmakers to approve a clause smuggled into the list of amendments proposed by a “confab” (hurriedly set up by Obasanjo), removing the cap on the two-term limit enshrined by the 1999 constitution. Despite the outrage expressed across the land, Obasanjo had soldiered on through his battalion of political foot soldiers. But on the day the contentious bill was to be decided, the lawmakers voted their conscience and stood firm on the side of Nigerians against Obasanjo’s imperial life presidency ambition.
    Is it not therefore ironic that a man unwilling to vacate Aso Rock at 70 (in 2007) is now moralizing against anyone above age 70 aspiring for the same office today? It’s always been known that Obasanjo suffers deep insecurities manifesting in his “Mr. Too Know” antics. But never did anyone imagine that the chicken farmer would carry his accustomed charlatanism as far as arrogating medical expertise to himself as to now also be certifying who is fit or not for the rigor of office through nothing but the estimation of the eyes based on “my own personal experience”.

    Obasanjo’s waste versus Buhari’s prudence

    While it can be said that prevailing anaemic circumstances of the world economy in 2015 were not quite favorable to the Buhari administration upon takeoff, we make bold to say that, contrary to doomsday scenario painted by Obasanjo, President Muhammadu Buhari has been more prudent in the management of the little the country has earned. How ironic that Buhari that inherited a wrecked economy in 2015 from PDP under the influence of Obasanjo is now being blamed for the hardship suffered by Nigerians, hardship that truly resulted from systemic damage inflicted by PDP’s 16 years of sustained squandermania. Discerning Nigerians surely know better. They can see and feel the relief brought about by Buhari’s rail revolution, massive investment in infrastructure like the second Niger Bridge and numerous roads built or reconstructed across the country. However, despite that oil price averaged $100 per barrel for most of the Obasanjo years and two subsequent PDP administrations, Nigeria has very little or nothing to show for it, other than tales of bare-faced looting and waste for 16 years.

    Under Obasanjo’s watch, a senate panel found that national assets — indeed our common patrimony built from independence in 1960 — worth $100bn were auctioned to cronies and fronts at a ridiculous $1.3bn through a dubious privatization programme. This constituted the root of the massive joblessness in the country.

    Also, House of Reps committee found that Obasanjo wasted $16bn on the so-called power projects. Rather than electricity, Nigerians experienced worst darkness. According to his deputy then and incidentally the present PDP’s flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar, “In some cases, some contractors were paid 100 percent of the contract sum’’ …without performance !
    So pervasive was sleaze under Obasanjo that Atiku, while testifying before another senate committee in 2007, revealed that his boss was fond of “sending handwritten notes to PTDF (Petroleum Trust Development Fund) to release money to buy vehicles for his girlfriends”.

    In one last act of moral, political and financial atrocity in 2007, Obasanjo literally commandeered captains of industry and PDP governors to Ota to raise over N7bn for the building of his personal library (memorably dubbed “Presidential Laundromat” by Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka).
    For a man who enrolled in PDP in 1998 with only N20,000 reportedly in his bank account after a stint in prison, Obasanjo left power in 2007 stupendously wealthy with vast farm estates in many states and private university.

    False claim of mentorship

    Typically, megalomaniac Obasanjo lied that the leading presidential candidates who had visited him addressed him as “mentor” and that, according to him, their respective quest for the No 1 job in the land was to continue where he stopped his “good work”. We presume that included Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. It is another shameless lie by a meddlesome interloper in an orgy of self-adulation.

    To start with, many will easily recall that the same Obasanjo had issued a statement shortly after the APC candidate paid him a courtesy call months back categorically stating that the visit was “non-political” in response to “misconception in a section of the media”. So, how come this contradiction now? In any case, keen watchers of political events will attest that Tinubu’s accustomed progressive leaning is antithetical to Obasanjo’s imperial messianism. It is an ideological contestation dating back to 1999.

    All through Obasanjo’s eight-year imperial presidency, Tinubu’s fidelity to progressive ideology led him to challenge Obasanjo’s excesses through the instrumentality of the courts and constitutionalism. Indeed, through constant diligent litigations, Lagos under Tinubu was able to win over 13 landmark cases against the federal government at the Supreme Court that not only enriched constitutionalism but also extended the frontiers of federalism in Nigeria.

    Tinubu’s opposition also manifested in his refusal to be deceived by Obasanjo’s antics in 2003 in the latter’s desperation to capture the South-west and end his personal shame as a President without political home-base. It is on record that Tinubu emerged the only Yoruba governor who survived Obasanjo’s onslaught against the entire South West. Ever so treacherous, Obasanjo betrayed the other five AD governors by rigging them out of office, with Tinubu becoming “the last man standing”.

    His petty hatred for Asiwaju and lack of vision led him into scuttling the first-of-its-kind Independent Power Project (IPP) initiated by Lagos State in 1999. It also explained Obasanjo’s illegal withholding of councils fund belonging to Lagos for over two years following the creation of 37 additional council areas. Even after the Supreme Court ruling directed the release, Obasanjo continued his unconstitutional perfidy of withholding the state’s local government revenue, to punish Lagos. The funds were not released until President Umar Yar’Adua assumed power in 2007.

    Indeed, the redrawing of Nigeria’s electioneering calendar is a testament of Obasanjo’s rigging inclination. Today, off-season governorship contests are organised by INEC in states like Edo, Osun, Ekiti, and Kogi due to the theft of popular mandate under Obasanjo’s watch, having declared the 2007 polls a “do or die” for his party. In Edo, Osun and Ekiti in particular, it is a well-known fact that Tinubu spear-headed the struggle to retrieve the stolen mandates through the court. So, how could Obasanjo therefore list Tinubu among his “mentees” who wish to continue where he “stopped”?

    He mischievously twisted Tinubu’s ‘Emilokan’ statement before the APC presidential primaries out of context in a futile bid to de-market the APC candidate. The very poor understanding of that phrase by a supposed Yoruba (?) man will only fuel doubts already expressed in some informed quarters about Obasanjo’s roots. Tinubu made his statement within the context of the internal dynamics of APC , and the fact that he later emerged as candidate by an overwhelming majority shows that his claims are infallible. Nobody worked as hard as Tinubu to win the support of delegates during the primaries and today he is second to none in aggressively seeking the support of voters across the country to achieve success in next month’s elections. Ironically, the only concrete reason Obasanjo offers for supporting Peter Obi is that it is “the turn” of the South-East! What a contradiction!!

    Capacity to identify and nurture leaders

    It is laughable that Obasanjo has the temerity to deem himself qualified to lecture Nigerians on who to elect as a leader. Throughout his political trajectory in public life, he has unfailingly demonstrated gross incompetence in this regard. In 1979, his military regime was designed to produce the weakest leadership in a political terrain that had such proven leadership talents as Adamu Ciroma, Aminu Kano, Maitama Sule, Waziri Ibrahim, Nnamdi Azikwe or Obafemi Awolowo among others. In 2007, after his two-term tenure and the failure of his third term agenda, he influenced the emergence of two PDP successors who failed partly because of weak institutional foundation he had laid and partly because of their own limitations. Obasanjo in a fit of mindless hypocrisy claims that strength and vitality are requirements for the presidency but was the same man who knew of the late good man Umaru Yar a dua’s terminal condition and still used the coercive agencies of state to impose him on Nigeria ! The late president Yar adua himself publicly acknowledged that the 2007 election under Obasanjo was extremely flawed . This is in sharp contrast to Lagos State where the Tinubu administration designed a 25-year development Masterplan for the state and inspired a succession of competent leaders who not only sustained but also improved on the legacies of Tinubu’s administration, making Lagos the fastest growing in Nigeria and the 5th largest economy in Africa today.
    In endorsing Obi, Obasanjo resorted to verbose and nebulous generalities without telling Nigerians in concrete terms what were his preferred candidate’s track record of performance as governor in Anambra state.

    The shame of Anambra

    Perhaps the most laughable of the megalomaniac stunts by Obasanjo was naming Peter Obi among his “mentees”. Older Nigerians and just anyone old enough to comprehend series of abominable occurrences on the political landscape around 2003 must have reacted to such claim with derisive laughter and guffaw. It is perhaps a reflection of Obasanjo’s penchant to prey on the poor memory of the average Nigerian that he now seeks to dress Obi, his one-time victim, as a “mentee”. Given the well-known facts of history, many are left wondering if it was not the same Obi that Obasanjo’s thuggish enforcer, Chris Uba, robbed of Anambra governorship in 2003. It took the refusal of Dr. Chris Ngige to surrender Anambra’s treasury to Obasanjo’s surrogates (Chris Uba and co) for Nigerians to know that the polls were rigged in favour of PDP in Anambra at the expense of APGA’s Peter Obi. While the dirty fight lasted between the electoral robbers in Anambra, the police were implicated in a botched attempt to kidnap the then sitting Anambra governor and force him to resign from office. When that failed, hapless people of Anambra woke up one morning soon afterward to witness a reign of terror unleashed on Awka, the state capital, with Government House and other government structures either razed or vandalized by armed thugs. Fingers were pointed at Chris Uba, the self-styled “godfather of all godfathers”. While the show of shame lasted, it came to light that the Uba was working for Obasanjo. When asked to clarify his relationship with Chris Ubah during a Presidential Chat transmitted live by NTA soon afterwards, Obasanjo shamelessly downplayed the infamy by describing him as an “enthusiastic party (PDP) supporter” in Anambra!

    With this brazen attempt at revisionism by this political megalomaniac, discerning Nigerians are unlikely to miss the audacity of willful mendacity. This speaks to Obasanjo’s incorrigible penchant to always twist facts, manufacture lies to launder his dirty undergarment and project himself as Nigeria’s only messiah since independence.

    But informed Nigerian voters surely can see through Obasanjo’s chicanery. That is why they will not heed his self-serving call. Rather, come February 25, they will go out in large numbers and vote Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the only one among the present parade of candidates with the requisite capacity, competence and character to leap Nigeria from a country of potentials to one of greatness.

    Obasanjo’s selfish plot to impose a puppet and regain his lost maniacal grip on power shall fail , again…just as his perfidious and pernicious third term agenda !

    Dele Alake , former commissioner for Information and Strategy Lagos State, is the Adviser Media, Communications and Public Affairs of the APC Presidential Campaign Council.

  • Onanuga, Alake And Obaigbena At Thessalonica – By Festus Adedayo

    Onanuga, Alake And Obaigbena At Thessalonica – By Festus Adedayo

    By Festus Adedayo

    To many, the recent virulent attacks and counter attacks by top Nigerian journalists, served a la carte to the world in the last two weeks, are indications of an autumn for journalism practice in Nigeria. Nigerians have thus been treated to a disgraceful brew of damaging and ignoble exchanges from these media warlords. The public spat has made Nigerians to call to question the integrity of their media practitioners. To them, the media space, in the name of politics, has become a hostile jungle, revealing the patent biases of its practitioners in the coverage of society.

    Three warlords are at the centre of this spat. They are, Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Nduka Obaigbena. Except for Obaigbena, publisher of the Thisday newspaper, whose current political leaning is a subject of intense guesswork, the other two have apparently gone to Thessalonica. As biblical Paul awaited execution, he lamented how Demas, his friend and associate, had forsaken him “because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica.” Thessalonica signifies the world of perfidy. Judging by its abhorrence of partisanship, journalism profession seems to be shawled in lamentations today at the apostasy of these barons “because (they love) the things of this life.”

    To be fair to both Alake and Onanuga, they possess lofty pedigree of media practice. After graduating in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos in 1980, Onanuga worked with the Ogun State Television where he began practice. He moved to The Guardian and thereafter to the National Concord and African Concord magazine before finally founding TheNEWS, TEMPO magazine, as well as P.M NEWS. In 2014, Onanuga opted to contest the Ogun East district senatorial ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), an ambition which got botched. He thereafter became the DG of NAN.

    Alake’s media foray is not totally dissimilar from Onanuga’s. After a degree in Political Science from the University of Lagos and an internship with the Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation, (OGBC) he joined the Lagos State Broadcasting Corporation (LSBC) as Senior Sub-Editor but in 1985, joined business mogul, MKO Abiola’s Concord Group of Newspapers wherein, in 1989, he was appointed editor of Sunday Concord and in 1995, editor of the National Concord. He held this post till June, 1999 when then governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, appointed him Information Commissioner. Since then, Alake has literally gone to Thessalonica, away from journalism. He is implicated in virtually every sub-media construction, deconstruction and misconstruction of the Tinubu perspectives in the Nigerian media. In 2010, Alake also made an attempt to contest the senatorial seat of his Ekiti State home’s Central District but retreated in the heat of defeat staring him in the face. Onanuga and Alake are today major sharks in the Tinubu media ocean in his bid to clinch the Nigerian presidency in the 2023 election, having been appointed Presidential Campaign Council’s (PCC) Director of Media and Publicity and Director, Strategic Communication respectively.

    The two have escalated their defence of public angst and disgust at their principal, Tinubu’s peremptory gaffes at public events, locating these gaffes at the doorsteps of a claimed disaffection Obaigbena and his media group have for Tinubu. While the gaffes and speech incoherence have made many to submit that Tinubu either lacks the mythical depth attributed to him by his lieutenants over the years or is suffering from an unnamed mental disconnect, Onanuga and Alake have pursued the narrative that Tinubu is neither of both. Obaigbena’s group has however doubled down, in an overarching manner, on the need for public scrutiny of both claims.

    Two journalists in the Obaigbena Arise Television group – highly respected Reuben Abati and Oseni Rufai – have been held as culprits by the Tinubu group. Common sense should have dictated that the path to walk was to address the fears that Tinubu, if elected, would be a worse replica of Nigeria’s current infirmary-bound president. This view, if they care to investigate, is ten-a-dime on Nigerian streets. Rather, Onanuga and Alake have sought to make a victim of Tinubu, insisting that the Arise group’s invitation to him to attend a Town Hall debate it organized was designed to “embarrass” Tinubu. The result is that both Onanuga and Alake have gone very low in their pursuit of this mindset. This they did by dwelling on what they claimed was Obaigbena’s crooked media dealings. They have since vowed never to make available “our candidate” to validate a scheme which they said, “in the light of unassailable information at our disposal,” is nothing but “a racket by the Arise TV owner, designed to embarrass our candidate.”

    Apart from their gambit to criminalize scrutiny into Tinubu’s past and any demand for him to attend any presidential debate, Onanuga and Alake’s plan is to make Obaigbena, Abati, Oseni and their Thisday and Arise TV media worthless to the public, giving them the Dan Rather treatment before the 2023 election. Rather, a CBS News icon, in September 2004, fell to his own and foibles. A few months to the presidential election of that year, he had commented on some documents that were critical of President George Bush’s Air National Guard service. The Bush Internet bloggers, within minutes, went into action and documents presented by Rather as forged. Rather’s thirty-three-year-long career on CBS came crashing and his worth reduced to the basest.

    In response to Arise’s demand of satisfactory answer to the circumstances surrounding the forfeiture of funds to the US government by Tinubu in an alleged Chicago drug dealing, Onanuga and Alake went into the abyss of argumentative fallacies. They regurgitated irrelevant traits alleged to be their opponents’ and attacking their personal matters. For instance, they claimed that the Thisday founder owes taxes abroad and is a slave driver. While I am yet to know whether their principal’s media house is free of these charges, I submit that these are different and irrelevant matters entirely to the riveting allegation that is expected of them to defend.

    The truth is that, the Nigerian public is wary of an impending inclination to elect a drug peddler as president and needs clinical answers to queries on Tinubu.

    What to do, methinks, is to offer documentary, unassailable evidence of Tinubu being above board. But as it is known with ad hominine arguments, Onanuga and Alake chose to deal in the person of their victims. Again, they committed what is called the Strawman fallacy in argument when, rather than provide irrefutable evidence that Tinubu didn’t do drugs, they brought out a third party, Buruji Kashamu, who became their referent and his association with Abati an apt response to the Chicago drug allegation. Is Abati running for the Nigerian presidency?

    Is association immoral, criminal or both? So, if every association is immoral, how does one rate their own association with Tinubu? Does it make them guilty of all moral/criminal drawbacks that Tinubu has been alleged to be complicit of?

    One error made by the public is to see erstwhile practitioners of media in the same mould as when they were active in the profession. These are persons who have entered into liaison with politically exposed persons. Yoruba call this the horrific error of viewing the dead same way as they were when alive. The punishment for this error, Yoruba say of this error, is a call on the gnome – the Ebora – to de-robe such ignoramus. It is thus a great blunder to refer to the three main musketeers at the centre of the debate on the role of the media in these shameful exchanges as journalists. Dog tenders know that the moment a dog tastes blood, it is ripe to be excised from tame animals. Onanuga, Alake and Obaigbena can no longer be referred to as journalists, in the true sense of it. Judging by their current preoccupation, they can conveniently be referred to as merchants of news, who merchandize and have a consumeric relationship with news and journalism. At the least, they are journal-preneurs, if there is anything so called.

    I have always maintained that the moment a journalist, columnist or even an activist, bails out of active practice and mingles with politicians, they most times lose their erstwhile objectivity. The people, who used to be their constituency, are substituted for the politically exposed persons who are now their employers. In this wise, it would be tantamount to waiting for Godot for society to expect such erstwhile media practitioners to preference the people, at the expense of their principals.

    In the tiff between Onanuga and Alake on one side and Obaigbena on the other, ordinary Nigerian people are not in their consideration at all. It is the warlords’ bellies, businesses, political principals and their projected political positions in the federal government that are at issue. So when Nigerians now obfuscate the issues as if journalism practice is on parade and is implicated, it beats me hollow. Where they are today is comparable to that of a vulture which sees carcass from a purely gourmet point of view and not as a dying creation. The exchanges Nigerians read from these people are gourmand epistles.

    As is the allegation Onanuga and Alake leveled against Obaigbena, most media houses in Nigeria and even in other democracies of the world, are explicitly linked to particular politicians. These politicians are their friends and associates. To many others, due to economic interests and political association or affiliation of their publishers or owners, they are forced to trade in politically tainted views. In the process, news and opinions reflect those political interests, leanings and loyalties and facts are relegated to the background.

    In a chapter in a book entitled Reflections on a decade of democratization in Nigeria (2010), a project of the German Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung Foundation, edited by Prof Lai Olurode which we entitled A decade of democratization: The Nigerian press and ethno-proprietorial influences, authored by Prof Adigun Agbaje and I, we submitted that the Nigerian media has always been a battleground of interests. We looked at how the Nigerian press of the First Republic was not blameless in the fall of the First and Second republic Nigeria and how journalists, pandering to proprietorial, financial and ethnic interests, have, since the advent of the Fourth republic, been tossing Nigeria right, left and centre.

    The strategy of shielding candidates from public scrutiny which Alake and his PCC are attempting was same path they trod with Buhari as presidential candidate. Buhari’s health and depth limitations were shielded from the Nigerian public, through all manner of shenanigans, by Alake as Media Director in the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organization in 2014, in company with his colleagues. Nigerians will be making another huge mistake if they allow a reactivation and effectuation of same strategy. It only led us to the Buhari doom in our hands. So, if Alake and Onanuga feel that the Arise TV of Obaigbena are attempting to embarrass Tinubu – which is a valid fear – let them bring their principal to the TVC which is public knowledge that he owns, for an organized debate. The debate must however be coordinated by respected Nigerians as anchors. Tinubu must answer critical enquiries that will help voters evaluate his mental depth, cohesion of thoughts and ability to govern Nigeria. Nigerians must refuse to be cowed by Onanuga and Alake at all.

    AriseTV and Thisday group must also proceed from zeroing in on Tinubu alone into grilling Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as well. We need to ask Abubakar questions about scandals that rocked his time in office. In 2007, The Guardian of London reported that senators accused Abubakar, then sitting vice-president, of diverting more than $100m (£51m) of public funds into companies he was connected to. His boss, President Oluesgun Obasanjo, was said to have petitioned the senate. A Senate inquiry, according to the newspaper, recommended that Abubakar should be prosecuted. Abubakar office’s reply was that “the legislative body should not allow its name to be dragged into the mud by a few members who may be pursuing their own hidden agenda”.

    A plethora of other allegations, especially one flowing from William Jefferson and the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) scandal which involved Atiku Abubakar and Obasanjo, must also be totally explained. Despite the senate indicting him and Obasanjo in the PTDF scandal, no action has been taken against them since 2007. It should be same for Peter Obi. Allegations of any fraud connected to him must be brought to the public space and he must be made to answer them. These two too must be brought to the open by the Arise/Thisday group and indeed on any Nigerian media platform. We cannot afford to have a country presided over by malefactors and journal-preneurs in Thessalonica who are prescribing and imposing on us their own brand of the Nigerian moral code.

  • Thisday, Arise media group replies Alake, Onanuga, says allegations are false, baseless

    Thisday, Arise media group replies Alake, Onanuga, says allegations are false, baseless

    Following the barrage of attacks in form of an article co-written by the aides of the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Messrs Dele Alake and Bayo Onanuga, on Thisday, Arise News Channel, and its media group have jointly issued a statement.

    The publisher in Chief, Nduka Obaigbena, CON through his media group has now responded to all the allegations levelled against him and his media company.

    The group noted that attacks from the duo of Alake and Onanuga were described as false and baseless, adding that it has no iota of truth in them.

    Arise/ Thisday Media group categorized its responses into four phases for clarity purposes.

    The group claimed that Obaigbena was a senatorial candidate in 1994 under the auspices of the National Republican Convention (NRC) while MKO Abiola was in the Social Democratic Party (PDP) and as such couldn’t have supported or worked for him in 1993.

    However, the group insists that Obaigbena and Abiola were best of friends even as political opponents as at then.

    It added that they started working together again the moment the Abacha junta came into power in 1995 and ended the SDP, NRC debate.

    The group further explained that Abiola’s last public outing was an Obaigbena event at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in 1994.

    Continuing the group noted that Abiola and Obaigbena stumbled on eachother on a flight to Johannesburg and still chatted all through the trip.

    On the expulsion of Obaigben’s medium  from the United Kingdom, over tax payment, the group said that the matter is still in court and wouldn’t want to give details on it but claims Alake and Onanuga were still economical with the truth.

    The group also claimed that Alake and Onanuga  lied about Obaigbena’s detention by Economic and Financial Crime Commission, saying that he was invited and cleared by the body upon interrogation.

    The group added that the Nations Newspaper owned by Bola Tinubu also got an invitation by EFCC.

    Continuing, it said the former president was challenged in court over some irregularities and sanctions against Newspaper houses and he agreed to settle out of court and paid the sum of 10 million naira each to 13 media houses that met deadline applications.

    It added that the Buhari administration asked that the money be refunded claiming it was taken from the government purse which Thisday obliged.

    On the 500 Million, Alake and Onanuga claimed Obaigbena collected, he said the government offered to pay compesation following Thisday office complex attack by Boko Haram.

    The government offered to pay compensation or rebuild the complex.

    The group claimed that the money has since been refunded and the office complex still unbuilt till today by the Nigerian government.

    On the allegation of owing staff salaries, the group claims that the staffers of both Thisday and Arise TV are being paid as and when due.

    It accused Bayo Onanuga of overseeing a media organization  in 1996/97 where staff salaries were owed with impunity, thereby triggering staff protest in the process and forcing protesting staffers to forfeit 5-months salaries as contributions to domestic struggles.

    However, The group posited that the harsh economic conditions, high cost of living have forced many media house to owe salaries or liquidate because many cannot meet up any longer.