Backstory of Osun Poll, and What’s Next for Adeleke, by Azu Ishiekwene
The money that politicians didn’t spend in Osun during the August 15 governorship election was the money they didn’t have and couldn’t steal. All kinds of figures have been bandied about, in hundreds of millions and billions. It’s difficult to say if these are over- or underestimations. But damn, it was some cash! Credible sources suggest […]
On Abuja Accord we stand?
PEOPLE of goodwill have been disturbed about the level of violence around our elections. Early this year, the fears here were succinctly captured in the words of Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth: “Nigeria has a history of election and post-election violence and the signs are already there that the same would be repeated if nothing is done about it”.
Does the PDP really want the 2015 election?
IT is important to ask at this time if the ruling Peoples Democratic Party is really interested in contesting the rescheduled 2015 elections. This question has become pertinent in view of what looks like a deliberate attempt by the party to continue to stonewall any attempt to have the election until such time as it feels ready for it. The ‘filibustering’ tactics of the PDP are too obvious to be ignored.
Ethnicity, Nigeria’s drug addiction
SOCIAL scientists determine ethnicity to be an artificial construct based on shared beliefs of identity created over time. Groups (and their leaders) create certain beliefs in order to implement political strategies and control their followers. Ethnicity is thus a construct based more on power and status than on any real, intrinsic feeling.
Fayose’s recklessness fast approaching that of a suicide bomber
ACTUALLY, it is a bit unfair to single out Mr Ayodele Fayose, the alleged rigged – into – office governor of Ekiti State( just listen to the hottest audio record in Nigeria, the Ekiti Election Rigging Tape) as the one, within the ruling party’s crowded barracoon of desperate power-mongers, whose recklessness is fast approaching a suicide bomber’s. Who, I ask you, plays second fiddle to another among these intrepid contestants for the prize of Enemy of Democracy Number One : Fayose; or Call-Me-a-Bastard-if-APC-Survives Doyin Okupe, aka Dr. Attack Lion; or Femi Fani-Kayode, whose congenital case of logorrhoea, “excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness,” is his only stock-in-trade; or AIG Joseph Mbu, non-card carrying member of the PDP; or Mujahedeen Asari Dokubo who threatens war if Jonathan loses the election; or National Security Adviser Dasuki, the de facto INEC Chairman; or Mrs. Patience Jonathan, who doesn’t need change because she is not a bus conductor and who knows a thing or two about “brain dead” people; or President Goodluck Jonathan himself, whose refusal to curb the excesses of his troops and corresponding eagerness to reward high crimes (as in nominating the prime suspect in the criminal subversion of democracy in Ekiti for ministerial reappointment), betrays a clear preference, his public utterances notwithstanding, for a hand-picked interim government over a democratically elected one?
Why Buhari will not agree to a debate with Jonathan
IN all my years of studying elections, I have never seen a campaign as bogus as that of Muhammadu Buhari. It is amazing that, for a man who is running for election as president for a marathon fourth time, Buhari is so bereft of ideas as to how he would do anything if he were to become president. Campaigning in 35 states, Buhari has spoken for a total of less than 60 minutes in all. Surely, he wants to be president; but he clearly has no presidential agenda.
