WHEN General Muhammadu Buhari received a group of CPC loyalists from Niger State, in Kaduna last week, he probably never thought that his admonition for free and fair polls in 2015, would become the hottest political potato of recent weeks in Nigeria.
I SHARE the indignation which informed VANGUARD’s editorial of Monday, May 7th, 2012, titled “NIGERIA-MISTAKE SINCE WHEN?” The editorial noted that “contenders for disintegrating Nigeria are increasing” and the latest recruit into this cast was Prof. AngoAbdullahi, former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
I WAS in total bewilderment last Friday evening when news broke of the tragic death of former national football star, RashidiYekini.
PDP got it wrong from the beginning. The party started by saying Mr. A can rule, and Mr. B cannot rule, according to PDP conventions, rules and regulations are not according to the constitution. That created a climate for what is happening or manifesting itself in the country.
THE circumstance has made it almost impossible to write this week’s piece. I am in Las Vegas, in the US state of Nevada, to attend this year’s NAB Show. NAB is the National Association of Broadcasters, and the show brings broadcasters and the industry together annually, in a showcase of content and the cutting-edge delivery modes.
OBASANJO is quite personable- much of the time-and…like most rulers, he desperately wanted to be accepted as a political and economic strategist, and thinker…our hero represented a model of power of an unusual-and dangerous- kind, most especially as he remains basically insecure, and thus pathologically in need of proving himself-preferably at the expense of others.
LAST week, a few events significantly impacted upon my thoughts about our country. The first was the national response to Bola Tinubu’s 60th birthday; it galvanized tremendous enthusiasm for Tinubu’s political acumen and the role he has played in the nation’s political space, especially since 1999.
IN the end, what the PDP dished was a standard menu of ‘consensus’; candidates were an outcome of a smoke-filled inner recesses horse-trading, which ensured that the power blocs in the party divided amongst themselves the spoils. President Goodluck Jonathan got his man, the venerable AlhajiBamangaTukur; just like the old despot, Obasanjo got his, a pair of them, really and the different governors.
A WEEK can be a very long time in politics. And the past week has been most interesting in the cloak-and-dagger world of Nigerian politics; or more appropriately, the cut-throat world of PDP’s politics.
LAST week, the Suprem Court affirmed that Abdulfatai Ahmed, was winner of the April 2011 gubernatorial election in Kwara state. The verdict effectively closed the judicial challenge which followed arguably, the most keenly contested governorship election in recent history, in Kwara state.
WHILE reporting James Ibori’s guilty plea to the 10-counts charge of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, last week, in a London court, the BBC reminded that Ibori was “once seen as one of Nigeria’s wealthiest and most influential politicians”. At the height of his national influence, during the Yar’Adua administration, James Ibori formed a powerful duo with former Kwara state governor, BukolaSaraki.
LAST weekend, the deputy president of Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, held an interactive session with lawyers of South-eastern origin in Lagos. The topic of his presentation was “Constitution Amendment, Ndigbo and Quest for State Creation”.
FOR three days, last week, Vintage Press, the publishers of Bola Tinubu’s THE NATION newspapers, hosted a Legislative Summit on Regional Integration, in Ibadan, regional capital of the old Western Region of Nigeria. It brought legislators from the states that make up the Southwest of today’s Nigeria.
OVER the weekend, Nigerian newspapers reproduced the interview given to the Financial Times (FT) of London, by Andrew Owoye Azazi, President Goodluck Jonathan’s National Security Adviser (NSA).
