By Dele Sobowale
“Who calls them the happy people of Columbia?” I asked.
“Everyone’, said Dudley. “That’s why nothing ever happens here. The government doesn’t do anything here. They don’t have to. They know the people are happy, so they don’t give them anything”.

Paul Theroux, 1979, in The Old Patagonian Express.

Another report released by a foreign research group, recently, claimed Nigerians are among the “happiest” people on earth. Reading parts of that report, it occurred to me that while compiling the VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS I had come across a reference to a country in Latin America whose people were also called “Happy People”.

It has taken me almost two weeks going through a mountain of books (I should head the President’s Book drive really) in my house to find the book and the place. And, it suddenly became clearer why Nigerians are regarded as “happy”. Pa. Chukwukere, residing in Abuja, and one of my constant readers had been trying to impress upon me the fact that Nigerians are easy to badly govern because they are docile. I think Papa must have got fed up with me for not taking it up. But, I needed time and events to make any impact with a broad statement like that. Now the time is here.

The Columbians were/are regarded as the “Happy People” because, of all the Latin Americans, theirs was a nation of human mules. Nigerians, among all Africans, can also be called “happy” because most of us have the mentality of 150 million mules. We can be ill-treated by officials with impunity and they know that there will be no reprisals. The people of most countries in Latin America, unlike the Columbians, made sure there were reprisals, either while the officials were still in office or after leaving office.

Judging by the number of churches and mosques we have in Nigeria, we must be the most religious nation on earth. And our leading religions mostly teach us to “obey” leaders because they were made leaders by God. To the best of my knowledge nobody had ever offered proof of this – other than to refer to another page of the holy books from which the statement is lifted.

Did God then impose Idi Amin, Abacha, Gbagbo, Bokassa, Mengistu, and the murderous rulers of Rwanda and Sudan? And if God did why is our President going about trying to undo “God’s” work in Cote D’Ivoire? Nigerians have been urged to observe three days of fasting and praying since 1980s and it has been asserted, as usual without proof, that “only prayers had saved Nigeria from disintegration”. Why have the same prayers had not given us good leaders?

Without living political elders and without clear proof that more prayers will yield good leadership perhaps we will be well advised to shout to our dead ancestors for help. But, after that, we should be prepared to take the battle to the oppressors of the people. Let me start with Ogun State and the disgraceful role the President of Nigeria plays in that state.

Personally, I don’t blame Governor Gbenga Daniel. The governor is only doing what anybody else, faced with his problems, would do. With six Assembly members for him and fifteen against, he knows too well that once the House of Assembly is opened, the first, and only bill, will be the bill to impeach the Governor.

Only a blockhead will provide the guillotine with which his head will be lopped off. The real culprits in this impasse are, the Speaker of the Federal House, Bankole and President Jonathan, who have failed to uphold the constitution to which they swore…..

PDP CONVENTION RESULT: WITHER GOES THE NORTH?
“If you continue to play with glue, sooner or later you are going to get stuck”.
Anonymous.

Today, you don’t have to be an expert to know that the North is stuck. They not only face the second election which the north might lose against the south; they run the risk of being in the power wilderness for sixteen years – made up of eight years of Jonathan and eight years of the Southeast; if the existing accord between the two zones hold up.

For the second time since Nigeria’s independence, the northern political power structure lost in a straight contest to a coalition from the other zones of Nigeria including some parts of the north itself. The most important question facing the leaders as well as the Arewa Consultative Forum now is: how to snatch victory from the seeming jaws of imminent defeat. For once, the north is not in total control.

Already, the PDP as platform for the actualization of their eight years ambition –till 2015— had collapsed. They need another platform; and they need it fast. Is everything lost? Not really. But, all is not rosy either — for the candidates and for the country. A quick trip to the north last week, testing the waters, indicates that the vast majority of northerners, outside of the main political parties, have not yet emerged from the shock of the PDP convention. They, and not the governors of the PDP, will determine the outcome of the northern vote.

They have three candidates in the race –Buhari, Ribadu and Shekarau. Those to whom I spoke expect the number to be reduced to one as a result of alliances and political horse-trading aimed at making it a straight contest between Jonathan and the Northern candidate.

Corruption in government promises to be a major campaign issue and in that regard Jonathan and  the PDP come up a poor fourth compared with Buhari, Ribadu and Shekarau in that order. The invasion of the Bureau De Changes by PDP delegates wanting to change dollars to Naira has once again opened the eyes of the people of the Federal Capital Territory to how totally corrupt the PDP has become –even with Jonathan as leader of the party. Where, one might ask, is this “the breath of fresh air”? By comparison the CPC convention was a sober and neat affair; no votes sold; none bought.

NASS: SACK THEM ALL –3
“0805-516-0172
Presido, Ur call is being adhered to. About half of the seating Members of the NASS have lost re-election primaries! .O.N. Chukwukere, Garki, Abuja.

Dear Pa Chukwukere, I was delighted with the results. Let us, the voters, go and send the rest packing; especially Mark and Bankole. That will make 2011 a glorious year for Nigeria.

Perhaps now, all my friends, “Can’t Be Dones”, can now see how a quiet revolution can be achieved. If we send half of the rest home, we would have achieved a 75% turnover. Who now says “it can’t be done”? Not me. And for once in my life I will soon get in the trenches and fight alongside honest people to remove the looters we now have in government. Not for me a President who budgets to spend N1.57 million a day on food and a Vice President planning N.75 million on the same day in a country where the average person does not eat two good meals a day. You will soon know where I stand. And no shaking……