This is a season of hire-wired deceits, misinformation, campaign of calumny and spewing of outright falsehood and lies – all to hoodwink and deceive ordinary and gullible Nigerians for their votes. I am not worried about these antics of the politicians. It is their way. For them, their business is politics and their politics is business. No scruple. My real worry is that many Nigerians who are the elites can see through some of these outright falsehoods but have decided to sit on fence and keep an embarrassing silence. They forget that millions of ordinary Nigerians who are confused and hoodwinked by these falsehoods and who do not have access to facts depend on their voices and guidance to make their choices. This is, therefore, a message directed at those silent Nigerian elites who should speak up at this time. For me, I have decided that enough is enough. This is the time to speak up.

Do not forget that I am from the Niger-Delta region and all my close friends and associates are the main supporters and aides of Mr. President. Two or three Governors who are either my former classmates or colleagues are the main backers of Mr. President. It is so easy, so convenient and so seemingly logical for me to get into that political mix and forget about the good of my country for personal gains. The disgusting message we hear all over the streets of that region every day at this time – promoted by the hirelings of the President – is that Goodluck Jonathan is “our son”, so we have no choice but to support him. In fact, I see some of my “brothers” from the Niger Delta region these days strutting all over the place, denigrating people from other regions. It is typical of what the Yorubas call “omo oju ori ola ri” (a person whose eyes have not seen wealth before).

But the question I ask those who tell me such nonsense and behave in such a manner is that, after the next four years, what is next for us? Is our entire future and that of our children dependent on a South-South President for the next four years?

Kindly note that in getting down from the fence and speaking up at this critical time, I do not mind if you speak up for Goodluck Jonathan. Yes, you have a right to do so as a Nigerian. But, as an elite, your stand must be known so that when the massacres continue because of cluelessness, when the unrestrained stealing of our public resources continue, when darkness continues to befall the nation because of lack of power, it is important we all remember those who betrayed their conscience and the people because of ethnicity and self-aggrandisement and for posterity to record it as such.

We have a President who has no single appetite to fight corruption – yes, none. Imagine a campaign that is dominated by the theme of corruption, yet the President has decided to appoint a person facing trial for money-laundering as his Director of Media and Publicity. If nobody would say it, I will say it because I am the one prosecuting the fellow in court and the case has been adjourned to February 23 and 24 for trial. Part of the lies told is that the fellow has been freed whereas some of the counts in the Charge were just struck out and the court held that he has a case to answer on some other counts. Yet nobody is asking the President these hard questions.

The President only mouths anti-corruption. The other day (December 23rd, 2014, I think) the President said he would like to erect a Hall of Shame for Nigerians who engage in corrupt and unwholesome activities that bring the country to disrepute. But he was the same person who brought a convicted criminal, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, out of the Hall of Shame to the Hall of Fame by misusing his power of Prerogative of Mercy when he granted pardon to this self-confessed ex-convict. Imagine the pain, the efforts and resources that go into securing a single conviction for corruption in this our clime. Yet, the President decided to spoil the party for anti-corruption campaigners. On top of that, he displayed corruption within corruption by selective pardon when the likes of Tarfa Balogun, Lucky Igbinedion and others who were convicted about the same period did not enjoy his Presidential pardon.

Yet nobody is asking these hard questions on the campaign trail. The funny thing is that, nearly six years into his tenure as President, Goodluck Jonathan said the other day that he is just coming up with a plan to tackle corruption!! Haba, Jona !

To add insult to injury, President Goodluck Jonathan decided to tackle the corruption of stealing of our resources in the high seas by empowering small-time crooks and criminals to police our waterways. This is because he has no idea as to how to revamp, re-organise and re-invigorate the Nigeria Navy to perform its constitutional duty. These days, it is an eyesore to see our military chiefs and officers kowtow to these empowered small-time crooks and criminals for appointment and promotions and other privileges. The disaster about this initiative of empowerment of crooks and criminals is that crude oil theft has never been so high, so rampant in the annals of this country than it is now. Why? Because the President has put a rat as a watchman over a morsel of fish. It is sad to say, but the President, by his actions, has shown no spine, no appetite, no nerve to fight corruption. He just continues to sink into an abyss of moral debauchery.

The other tragedy of this President is that, even as he is on the campaign trail, in the last one month, the omnipresent insurgents have attacked towns like Baga, Damaturu, Biu, Askira-Uba, Konduga, Marte and Gombe. Even as we speak, the Boko Haram insurgents are in total control of the whole of Borno State except Maiduguri, Monguno, Dikwa, Konduga and Biu. The insurgents are in total control of towns like Baga, Bama, Gwoza and Banki.

Before Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Boko Haram was nothing but a rag-tag group of extremists living in enclaves like Sambisa, while our proud military boys patrolled the towns. Now, under Jonathan, the reverse is the case. Our military boys are now in enclaves while Boko Haram patrol our towns. Is it not shocking that insurgents have a free reign to enter cities, abduct young girls like in Chibok, burn houses like in Baga, slaughter people for hours like in Konduga, Gwoza etc, yet our military men are nowhere to be found and they do not even give hot pursuit to the retreating insurgents? What is really going on?

One obvious flaw is that our President has lost control of the military and the top hierarchy of the military is merely feeding fat on this unfortunate situation and the President seems to be totally helpless in the face of this.

The only response the President and his handlers can proffer is to hide this glaring and crass incompetence under political gymnastics; they blame the opposition on the one hand and in the same breath, they say it is a world-wide trend and Nigeria is just having its fair share of a global malaise. Is this true? As President, you are the Commander-In-Chief. If you have evidence against the opposition, just come out with it and arrest the ring-leaders. Do not cry like a baby as Commander-in-Chief. Deal with the situation. That is why you occupy that seat. Till date, no single evidence has been produced against any of the opposition leaders linking them with the insurgency. Rather, what we see is a President who is supposedly bent on fighting insurgency but who is wining and dining with someone who has been directly linked with sponsoring the insurgents and even traveling with such a person to Chad at a time when the State Security Services officially invited that person to answer questions relating to the insurgency.

Another calamity and embarrassment is that our President, his Service Chiefs and security advisers were all led into wasting public funds by entering into a phantom cease-fire deal with fake Boko Haram leaders that left them with bloodied noses. Not to also mention the short-lived public celebration of the supposed killing of the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, by the President and his security team, only for the outlaw to appear in subsequent videos posted online, taunting the Nigerian government. Any four more years of a Jonathan Presidency can only lead to more carnage by the insurgents. He just does not have the requisite capacity to tackle this problem of insecurity. The truth must be told.

Yet you hear the President say that the nation will appreciate him better after he has left office. I am sorry, but we have seen enough bloodshed and incompetence in the last six years to know there is nothing more to expect the next four years and we have seen enough to do an assessment right now and not in the future.

In all his campaign tours, the President is already sounding like a broken record. He says he has made the rails to function again. He mentioned this so much that you imagine that he was primarily elected to revive a few train lines. It sounds very funny when you hear such things, whereas the primary duty of government is the protection of lives and properties. If that primary duty fails, then the government has failed. It is like an undergraduate hoping to be promoted to the next level by barely scraping through the ‘electives’ and failing the core courses. It will never happen. So, is the President providing train coaches to be transporting the dead bodies from the North to the South? Are the trains to be occupied by living human beings or dead human beings?

Make no mistake about it, like the President always says, it is true that we have a rise of terrorism around the world. But, we have all seen how governments around the world respond quickly and decisively to any attempt for terror to rear its ugly head within their society and how they quickly crush it. We saw it happen in the United States after 9/11; we saw it happen in Britain after the July 7, 2005 bus bombing; in the last few days, we have seen it happen in France and in Belgium. In all these cases, all attempts were nipped in the bud. Even, here in Nigeria, previous governments have nipped insurgency in the bud. The ONLY government that has allowed it to fester, germinate and grow into a full-blown war leading to a successful secession of some parts of the country is that of President Goodluck Jonathan. It is so bad that hardly a day passes by without reports of one insurgent activity or the other leading to loss of lives and limbs.

The President is also quick to mention that his administration has made the Nigerian economy the number one in Africa. He forgot to mention two things, though; one, that some of the major sectors of the Nigerian economy, that is, the telecom sector, financial services and the Nollywood industry that were taken into account to re-base the economy were sectors not created or grown by his government. Secondly, he forgot to mention that the so-called re-basing has no impact at all on the ordinary Nigerian as the 2014 World Bank Survey still shows that Nigeria is ranked third among world top five poorest countries with sixty-one percent (61%) of its citizens living below $1.25 dollar per day. No government can boast of any economic growth or theory that does not have a direct impact on the lives of its ordinary citizens. It is like a father coming home to announce and jubilate about a pay rise and promotion at workplace, yet the wife and children cannot eat or live better many months later.

The Nigerian people have tolerated too much and taken too much battering from the PDP-led Federal Government since 1999. Under the Jonathan Government, the situation in the country has sunk to an all-time low, except for the few benefitting directly from the government. They are blind to criticism and blind to healthy opposition. They hurl abuses at anyone who dares to point out these acts of maladministration. In saner societies, the President will not be allowed to campaign in many parts of the country. The people will rise against him and chase his convoy away.

The clear alternative to this monumental mess is the person of General Muhammadu Buhari. Let us be clear that Buhari does not present the total package Nigerians want at this time. He is human, he is not perfect. But at this point in our history, at this time, at this moment, he presents the only viable option and avenue for the people to vent their frustrations and anger against an inept and clueless Federal Government. He represents the rallying point for the frustrated and teeming masses of our people. He reminds me of MKO Abiola (with some of his imperfections) who became the rallying point in the struggle against military rule.

That is the change we are talking about. It is not a change from imperfection to perfection. It is a change from hopelessness and cluelessness to some hope and to some expectations.

All the personal attacks on the person of Buhari in the last few weeks have only convinced me that he is the best available option at this time. Anyone on the weaker side in any argument always resorts to personal abuses and attacks. Have you noticed that on corruption, the only accusation against Buhari is that, he was too high-handed in fighting corruption in the past? In other words, nobody can/has accused him of lacking the courage, zeal and will to fight corruption. On the other hand, the President eats, sleeps and wakes up with corruption. In one of his famous interviews, he did not even see stealing as corruption. That is why he does not see the point why he should not appoint a person standing trial for corruption as his Director of Media and Publicity. He just does not care.

So, Nigerians, we must decide what we want. When Buhari fought corruption and was supposedly high-handed, he was ruling with Decrees. Now, he has the Constitution, the National Assembly, and the Judiciary without ouster clauses to guide him. It is therefore only an idiot that will believe the propaganda that he would throw everyone suspected of corruption into jail. I feel so sorry at times for the gullible masses of this country who fall for such cheap propaganda. But it is his type of appetite and revulsion against corruption that we so dearly need at this time.

You may say whatever you like about Buhari, but in terms of the character, the steel, the competence to lead the nation out of this period of insurgency, nobody can compare a Goodluck Jonathan to a General Buhari. Just imagine the Service Chiefs (who were probably in secondary school when Buhari and others fought the Civil War) sitting in front of Buhari to brief him about the situation in the North East, and attempting to mislead him about movements of artillery, brigades or troops and, the strategy against the enemy!

The attack on Buhari’s certificate is most unfortunate. Only fools can be deceived that a sworn affidavit in place of a certificate that you cannot readily produce is not sufficient for certain purposes. What is important is that the school(s) and dates are mentioned in such affidavits which can be subject to verification. But unfortunately the President’s team has carried on as if leadership is a function of academic degrees and qualifications. This is so sad. Leadership is a divine quality, almost always bestowed at infancy so much so that even in primary schools, we see traits of leadership amongst pupils. If it were not so, then there would be no need for elections. We should just look for the most qualified professor in our Ivory Towers and make him President because that would be the best material for President.

Besides, what moral right has Jonathan got to discuss Buhari’s certificate when I have since informed him that his Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko forged all his certificates, yet the President has not even ordered a simple investigation into the matter. He has turned a willful blind eye to the issue.

The orchestration of the age of Buhari is just another mischief, symptomatic of the weaker side the President’s team find themselves in the argument. Agility and strength and good health is not exactly a function of age. Yar’Adua did not die in power because he was an old man. Abacha did not die in power because he was an old man. Obasanjo ruled until he was seventy (70) years and it is the same set of PDP big wigs that are now criticizing the age of Buhari that were promoting and supporting the third-term bid of Obasanjo that would have taken him to, perhaps, seventy-eight (78) years as President. Today, Obasanjo still jumps about at nearly eighty (80) years or perhaps more. Professor Wole Soyinka, at over eighty (80) years, still travels everywhere, delivering lectures.

The relevant question here is that, is the age more important than the character or the character more important than the age? For those who are Christians, remember that the Bible says in Proverbs 16:31 that grey-headedness is a crown of beauty if found in the ways of righteousness. It is idiotic to deride an elderly person who is still agile and upright in character, instead of us praying that we live up to that age and we are blessed with such strength at such an age. During the Second Republic, the South-West and South-East massively voted for Awolowo and Azikiwe respectively who were both over seventy (70) years old, yet nobody raised an eyebrow.

Finally, this is not the time to adopt the herd mentality by joining the so-called “winning train” because the ruling party is always expected to rig elections in its favour. What we are witnessing with the large followership of Buhari is a revolution, a mass movement, a display of anger by the people against Jonathan and his government. This is a time for well-meaning Nigerians, the elites to rise up and speak truth to power, regardless of whose ox is gored. We can halt the slide to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. by our simple votes. We must vote out incompetence, cluelessness and corruption.

The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST DESTROYED NIGERIA.

I have purged my conscience. Now, I can sleep.

Fellow Nigerians, please note that the title of my column today is written in the past tense. I must confess that I did it deliberately for reasons I will explain shortly. You probably remember an earlier article titled WHO’S MISLEADING OUR PRESIDENT? I had written too many unsolicited epistles in the past advising our dear President free of charge. Those accusing me of hating the President don’t know me. I lack the capacity to hate anyone, not even my enemy. It is sinful to hate your fellow human being. My Christian faith teaches me to love my neighbours and forgive those who trespass against me. I intend to abide by those injunctions to the very end.
What is there to hate in President Goodluck Jonathan? For me, he is a man richly blessed by God almighty. He has achieved what no man would in many lifetimes. His story is a stuff of fiction and fairytale. It is a classic case of grass to grace or from a valley to the mountain top. Every man should use Jonathan as HIS prayer point/contact with God and seek his type of uncommon favour. The depiction of his life’s trajectory had resonated with many Nigerians. We hoped and expected that he would know and appreciate the meaning of poverty. Nigeria badly needed a compassionate leader who would work for the general people and not for a few privileged fat cats.
We prayed and anticipated a relatively young and educated gentleman to come in and fix our comatose education. Dr Goodluck Jonathan fitted that bill almost in surreal terms with his PhD. Who could have been better suitable for such an onerous task if not Jonathan? We believed that here finally was a man to connect perfectly with the university eggheads and put an end to the incessant closure of our institutions of higher learning. But we were dead wrong. Our universities went on indefinite strike and at the height of this mutual madness, university lecturers who refused to go back to work were pronounced sacked with automatic alacrity.
Not even a military junta would have conjectured such ribaldry but a democratically elected government led by a former University Don not only envisioned it but made it reality. Beyond that, the substantive Minister of Education, a Professor in the person of Ruqayyah Ahmed Rufa’i was replaced by the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, a full-blown politician, whose understanding of his remit was undoubtedly suspect. It was a clear indication of how much disdain the Federal Government has for Education.
The President who was projected as a man who grew up without the basic necessities of life soon became a high-flying, jet-setting impresario. In fact, his government became so elitist that many started wondering why a man from a pedigree of frugality would become more flamboyant than any leader before him. Our President travelled at the flimsiest excuse. His unwieldy entourage, comprising of a multitude of acolytes, became a subject of international opprobrium. Yet the same government insisted that Nigerians must forgo the nebulous subsidy they had always enjoyed in varied forms in the past. The subsidy itself was a grand scam with the bill skyrocketing and quadrupling within the twinkle of an eye. Yet the citizens were told to pay more for the only semblance of privilege they should be enjoying.
The many mistakes of Jonathan are seemingly endless. The President behaved not like a national but a clannish Chieftain. It was as if he did not expect the year of reckoning to arrive sooner rather than later. I repeatedly warned against fighting on too many fronts which no reasonable General would indulge in. I’m yet to understand the logic behind alienating the rest of the nation as if their votes would never be needed. This is the most unfortunate attitude that led to what has become the President’s albatross today.
Nothing has redefined this government than the seeming nonchalance of President Jonathan to the spate of Killings in Northern Nigeria.  Thousands of our brothers and sisters have been massacred like locusts and the response from government has become too predictable and totally insensitive. The standard practice is for the Presidential spokesman to come out with a cut and paste template of regurgitated message of alleged sadness and sympathy filled with empty promises that won’t be kept. And then, life continues as normal with no sign of the monumental tragedy being addressed. No matter the number of the dead, our government goes ahead with whatever jamboree it has already planned.
The latest PR disaster comes with the President offering condolences to the French Government following the Charlie Hebdo tragedy which led to the death of 17 French citizens whilst almost 2000 people were killed in Baga at about the same time without attracting even the slightest whimper from our dear President.  Even the “Super” Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealla succumbed to this fawning tribute of the ‘whiteman’ forgetting the massacre at home.  The Government was #JesuisCharlie, when it should have been. #AllforBaga! I urge Nigerians to let this Government know that Nigerians are also important even if we empathise with others.
Our President has never been able to mobilise and galvanise the people into coming together to fight a common enemy. The fact that every occurrence is suspected as an act of political opponents has made it difficult and almost impossible to rise up to some of the debilitating challenges we face today.
There are not many people in the world who don’t feel terribly sad about our condition. The Western media has virtually written us off as a nation of violent vandals and vampires. So many reporters visiting Nigeria openly wonder if we actually have blood flowing through our veins. Many have concluded that we are just incapable of caring for those in need. The abduction of over 200 Chibok girls is what has exposed the type of leadership we are forced to live with. Our next door neighbour, Cameroon, has shown a greater capacity to fight terrorism than us. Their military has been motivated in a way that they’ve carried out kamikaze raids on dangerous hideouts. They have been able to rescue their people from captivity while we have suffered too many setbacks and casualties.
Since the disappearance of the Chibok girls all we’ve been told is the Government is working very hard. Worse still, more people have since disappeared or been murdered yet the news about them at home is usually scanty. We rely on foreign organisations for any useful information. Even the foreign media is endlessly frustrated by the trouble of getting government sources to open up and give clear answers to questions.
But politics appears to be more important to our leaders. Our civilians and military are being slaughtered like Salah rams and we don’t seemed bothered. Nothing is likely to beat the type of disgrace we’ve suffered in the past one week. It is no longer news that the map of Nigeria has been boldly redesigned by daredevil terrorists; the dastardly attack on Baga and Doron Baga last week was the height of it.  There are vivid reports indicating that about 2,000 or more died from the indiscriminate shooting by assailants believed to be Boko Haram. Satellite images revealed that over 3,700 structures were damaged.
As usual, our government said the story was exaggerated and that the number of those killed could not have been more than 150. Even if true, how a country remains so calm and unperturbed by such degree of wanton destruction of lives and properties remains a mystery to me. Again, we all carried on as normal until BBC, Sky and CNN opened fire on our country. I could not bring myself to watch some of the reports to the very end out of a sense of collective guilt and shame. Once again, we were in the news for the wrong reasons.
Suddenly things began to happen in Abuja. Our President’s handlers must have sensed danger with elections a month away. Nobody could afford this type of scandal at this auspicious time. The President who could not find time or the courage to visit the war ravaged parts in the recent past, especially Chibok, now found the time to go to Maiduguri but not Baga. It is a however too little and too late. It confirmed the people’s impression that the President would do almost anything to remain in power. It is such a poor image of who we are. A little effort from our leaders would probably have reduced this tension.
There is nothing more disheartening than watching our soldiers, reduced to emotional wrecks while speaking to foreign journalists. Some are claiming how miserable life has become for those expected to safeguard us. They are ill-equipped, ill-motivated, and ill-protected.  One of them said he had to pay to obtain his uniform. I’m sorry, I just can’t get it. It all sounds like tales by moonlight. What happened to all the fat allocations in our defence budgets? I remember the President asking and getting the Senate to approve N1billion loan to buy ammunition to fight Boko Haram.
I’m tempted to suspect that there are people who are deliberately deceiving and misleading our President. The confession that he gets conflicting and contradictory advice should demonstrate clearly why we are in this mess. I can see how this has now put so much pressure on the President. The tempo of his campaign has become racy because of the realisation that this election will not be a walkover.
But I doubt if those mistakes can be corrected in just one month leading to the election. The President has been sold too many lies because he chose to be a psychedelic leader than a man of the people politician who would personally supervise some of the work his aides claimed they have done. He would have been shocked to see the quality of what he’s promoting as uncommon Transformation Agenda. Most of those achievements would have been seen as fake, poor, and abandoned projects.
The Murtala Muhammed International Airport remains one of the worst in the world despite the cosmetic renovation that took place at God knows how much. If in doubt, I can give a quick rundown: very terrible air-conditioning, archaic elevators, leaking roofs, lack of car parks next to the airport, cumbersome immigration process (the only country with double screening, Immigration and DSS), too many uniformed agents dipping hands into your luggage at this time and age, poor roads welcoming visitors going out of the airport, the list is endless.
So much has been said about roads. Nigeria still has some of the most useless roads in Africa. Most of those under rehabilitation have nowhere near completion. The Benin-Shagamu road is a veritable example. What is the purpose of rehabilitating only a part of it? That road remains a nightmare as does the Lagos-Ibadan which remains not only a nuisance to everyone but a death trap. It is strange how a government can make so much fuss over many uncompleted projects nationwide. Much has been said about the East-West road but like others, it has remained a work in progress. The second Niger Bridge has become a butt of jokes. I love the idea of trains but the government should have invested in modern coaches and certainly more than a single gauge line even if it has to find private investors. This would have complemented the good job done so far.
I have read so much about Agriculture and would love to applaud the dream of the Minister but I reserve that for another day as I don’t know where and how he assembled his 10-14 million farmers and how it has impacted on our food production and distribution. This government has not justified the huge resources made available to it. Those days are gone when people would have glossed over some of the excesses. The social media has changed the world for good or for bad. Nigerians are not asking for too much. They are not even looking for saints as their leaders but they want men and women who are less greedy and more caring. Unfortunately, they’ve searched in vain for too long and it seems there is no end to this misery.
This is why in frustration they have turned to a man who left power 30 years ago, General Muhammadu Buhari. No one should blame us. It is in the character of human beings to run to the elders of the house in the days of tribulations. Everywhere you turn today what you hear is the cry of change. A wife rejected has suddenly become the beautiful bride in retrospect. Let no one envy Buhari because it is not his fault if those handed power on a platter of gold trampled on it.
From what I see and feel, Buhari’s time has come and he looks unstoppable. People are simply tired of being lied to and they want to use someone as scape-goat. Sadly, President Jonathan is the one they see in front of them and it is a cross he has to carry like a man. Those who misled him are just waiting for their flights to a safe haven leaving him alone and forlorn.  Such is life. [myad]