This article could just as well have been written under the title IS JOURNALISM A PROFESSION? Since our return to civil rule in 1999, the rapid turnover of editors, columnists and reporters, after every election points to the fact that in Nigeria, unlike most of the advanced countries, media work is seen by journalists as a mere stepping stone to something else – not a career in itself.

“Nigeria is not my country; I am not coming back to Nigeria”.
Lamide, 5 years old, two days after arriving in London on her first visit to the U.K.

At a time when most Nigerians were covering before the brutal regime of General Sani Abacha, a few brave souls were fighting, what to most of our fellow countrymen, a lost cause. To those brave souls, we owe this day. I was also busy on this page writing columns in defence of freedom, which one of my old friends, Ayo Olagunjoye, former Managing Director of National Bank, called suicidal.

One of the worst things the IOCs do to Nigeria is to turn ordinarily articulate Nigerians into enemies of their own countries. Their stock-in-trade is bribery and corruption, not only in Nigeria but worldwide. Tolu typifies the Nigerian working for an IOC – extremely well-paid and brainwashed to defend EVERYTHING the IOC does -right or wrong.

To some people in Nigeria, you hate someone when you tell the truth about him simply because they want those truths buried. I received so many text messages about my hatred for Jonathan instead of people disputing my facts that I now know why people fail exams.

My last born is now 19 years old. He has just told me he will vote, but wants to know who to vote for. I said I thought Jonathan is a wimp. Buhari is arrogant, aloof and ignorant of his rigid wicked selectivity. Ribadu is a deluded megalomaniac. He basks in the power and privilege of his lineage and former office. Okotie is as pretentious now in his pronouncement as he was as a singer! So, brother, how do we help our son pick a candidate to give his vote? Give him a name please, not a guideline. He needs a voice to follow at this age. You are it! He believes in you!”

Long before the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, was formed after another Arab-Israeli War, the International Oil Companies, IOC, called the “Sisters”, dictated the price of crude oil globally. On the eve of the creation of OPEC, it was three cents a barrel.

That message was at the tail end of the text sent to me by my friend, Tolu, on March 13, 2011. As it turned out, some other folks anxious for me to visit Akwa Ibom State, had not only sent me a leaflet entitled, bondages of Akpabioism, which they claim is now being widely distributed in the state. Going under the name of Free Akwa Ibom Committee, FAIC, the group, in the leaflet under reference, drew everybody’s attention to the fact that Governor Akpabio had in the first three years in office collected from the Federation account and other sources N700 billion.

“As from today, you are expected to represent Christ. You are an ambassador of Christ. Never again will the name of God be soiled through you.” — Venerable Tayo Aduloju, talking to Bode George, February 26, 2011, at the Christ Church Cathedral, Lagos.

Future historians writing about Nigeria might be forgiven for observing that the slave trade in the country lasted until 2011 – the year David Mark was the President of the Senate. Mark is ably supported by the Minister of Petroleum Resources and the GMD of NNPC, whose tenure had been elongated – probably to help get the atrocious bill passed as it is. The country’s number three citizen might eventually have an accomplice in the Federal Government – if the Presidency signs the bill before May 29, 2011.

I was in Abuja last week with my nose to the ground as usual and to get in touch with scouts in various ministries when this story came out in the Peoples Daily, a paper most people don’t read but which carries a lot of interesting news. And, the news popped out of several. The Ministry of Petroleum, as my readers must know by now, is hot bed of spies for International Oil Companies, IOCs, and unpatriotic Nigerians ready to sell Nigeria to their paymasters. I quickly got in touch with a few people who confirmed that it is true that the ministry has started to spend money meant for the implementation of a bill that has not even been passed.

“Presido, RE: PIB. What u said about Mark and Bankole is, as usual, monumental. They can make history & name. Let us watch and see what they do.” Chukwukere, Garki.

President Goodluck Jonathan did not give $9,000 to PDP delegates for their votes. That is authoritative. But, some people, from shady sources including, perhaps, donations from some international oil companies and beneficiaries of inflated contracts combined with his campaign organisation to give out real American dollars to delegates. The least given, from my own sources, was $9,000; some received as much as $20,000.

“Traitors….are an unfortunate class of people. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be traitors. They conspire to bust up a country; they fail, and they are traitors. They bust her, and they become statesmen (and women) and heroes (and heroines). (Translated from original).
Artemis Ward, 1872, in “The Tower of London.”

“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”.