In making a distinction between a journalist and a diplomat, an author described the diplomat an official sent abroad to lie on behalf of his/her nation.
This being the case, why would Nigeria diplomats try to cover up or lie outrightly to the home crowd?
As I write, I have it on concrete authority that Nigeria’s Consul General in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Mr. Ahmed Umar is a bright and promising diplomat serving his country at many sensitive locations across the world. When he spoke to Daily Trust on Friday on the issue of the alleged ill-treatment of Nigerians in the recent Saudi crackdown on illegal migrants, he sounded more like a Saudi embassy official sent to mislead Nigerians.
This clampdown was itself ordered by the Kingdom following the expiry of a seven months amnesty aimed at allowing illegal migrant workers the chance to correct their visa status without a penalty or without being asked to leave the country. The real reason however is that, foreign workers make up about a-third of that country’s 27 million population. What the clampdown aimed to achieve was to reduce the black market in cheap labour so as to create more jobs for the Saudis.
Nigerians, along with Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Egyptians and Ethiopians form the bulk of the targets of the policy.
Many of the victimized Nigerians routinely interviewed by the BBC said those of them who presented themselves for visa renewal were seized and clamped into detention along with the illegals. Nearly all those given the chance to come before the microphone complained of one form of harsh treatment or the other by the Saudi officials. The detention centres, they told the BBC, were extremely cold without any warm coverings given and the food ration was too low for survival. The more than 120,000 Ethiopian citizens flown home by their country, after they were removed from the same centres, were given medical assistance by the International Organization of Migrants. They got psychological first aid, meals, water and high energy biscuits upon arrival, underscoring the general abuse to which migrants were subjected to.
Mr. Umar, in his Trust interview, said impliedly that Nigerian victims of similar abuse lied, as no Nigerians were maltreated in that country.
“Nigerians who are either permanently residing in Saudi Arabia or on Hajj are not maltreated in Saudi Arabia… Nigerians are doing very well.” This must have clearly put many Nigerians and their government in a quandary. Are Nigerians lying against their hosts? Or is the diplomat living up to the norm in diplomatic service, the difference being that this is against his country, not for it?
In countries all over the world, foreign relations are based on the policy of reprocity. “You do me, I do you,” as we say in the Nigerian parlance. That is why a country like India can overnight, turn smiles into snarls against the world’s only super-power, the United States of America–a country with the reputation of a bully in the global scene– following the humiliating treatment meted out to a female diplomat who was stripped and searched.
When the Saudis introduced a discriminatory visa policy against a set of countries, including Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt, by which policy advance payment for local transport and accommodation are paid to a Saudi agent as a condition for the issuance of “free” visa, the other countries vehemently protested and in the case of Egypt, I know that this outrageous requirement has been dropped since. An Egyptian pilgrim on Umrah trip is required to provide 0evidence of no more than a return ticket and that he/she is going in a group. The implication of the policy is that a Nigerian going on Umrah to the Kingdom must give money (about $1,000) to an agent for these services even as it happens, they are not likely to use them. For instance, there are many of those Umrah pilgrims who charter their own vehicles to take them around because they can afford it. Similarly, evidence that one has hotel booking with Hilton, Intercontinental or Hyatt does not exempt the pilgrim from the payment to the Saudi agent, even if it is obvious that the crowded rooms on offer are not the type of accommodation he/she would use. Refunds are not allowed either, which is painful because such discriminatory fees are not required of South Africans, Europeans and Americans.
In his interview with the Trust, Mr. Umar was emphatically saying that “Nigerians are given equal treatment in the best manner.” Really?
I think the reason why Nigerians ask whether their country has a foreign policy is when they see and experience these discriminatory practices and our diplomats and their foreign counterparts are slapping each other on their back, exchanging mutual congratulations on their blossoming romance.
As foreign minister under this same government, the political party technician called Ojo Maduekwe once proclaimed “citizen diplomacy” as the new thrust of Nigeria’s international relations. Explaining what this meant, the man masquerading as the “philosopher” of the PDP said, it meant that the citizen was at the centre of country’s international dealings. When are they going to start implementing it?
Those who know the Middle-Eastern countries in their policies say the nonchalance of our officials to Nigerian citizens receiving unfair treatment abroad should surprise no one. Those Middle-East countries among others, are known for providing freebees to key government officials and their families. Their national carriers give free flight tickets and authorities over there give them free boarding and lodging. It is very difficult for officials to eat and talk at the same time.
Who then would speak up for the ordinary citizen when his rights are trampled upon in foreign territories?

On many of these days, the outgoing Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, reminds you of many of the life lessons taught by the famous Hausa author, Dr. Abubakar Imam.
In his classic series “Magana Jari ce” (speech is an asset or golden) Imam, in one of the stories wrote the parable of the Stork (Gauraka) and the tortoise. The Stork is a large wading bird with very long legs and long stout pointed beak with a black and white plumage. The Storks are migratory. They follow the season and tend to live in drier habitats. They fly high, covering long distances in search of their pasture, which is made up of mostly fish, frogs, worms and small birds. In the course of one of their stops, they developed strong acquaintance with a tortoise with which they shared a common habitat. When it was time to move on, tortoise said it couldn’t bear to miss the stork and so it would rather go with them. The storks said “we feel the same way about you but you see, we fly, and you are terrestrial. You can’t do the same. In addition, you have no such hands or claws to help clasp at just anything”.
Upon the relentless persistence of the tortoise, two of the storks said to it, “here is how we can take you with us: we will hold a stick at both ends to our feet. You hold on to it with your teeth. Whatever you see or hear, don’t talk. Once your mouth releases the stick, you will obviously crash from the flight.”
The journey went on smoothly until an incident happened as they flew over a crowded market. Traders there had abandoned their wares looking up at the amazing sight of a tortoise hanging on to a stick by its teeth, flown on a stick held on both ends by storks. Traders were saying to one another “come, come and see the unimaginable!” Tortoise decided to join the conversation at this stage, telling the crowd to stop being silly and mind their business. As the tortoise opened its mouth to talk, it lost its hold on the stick, hurtling to the ground. The fall was so hard that it broke into pieces upon impact.
Dr. Imam’s lesson in this parable and its well-chosen title was: “learn to rule the world with your mouth before learning to do so with both hands.”
Governor Lamido Sanusi will not have a hard fall and by God’s mercy, his story will have a happy ending. It will have a happy ending because the latest quarrels he has picked against the increasingly unpopular administration are the peoples’ battles.
In a country like Nigeria where politics is inseparable with religion and religion not too different from politics, citizens of all backgrounds are praying that providence forgives Sanusi for his minor sins, and save him to finish this last fight in one piece. A larcenous character in a popular movie remarked that he liked to commit crime and God liked to forgive so the universe is very well arranged.
As we all clap him out of the stage and praise his courage in taking our common battle to an unscrupulous national oil corporation and a government, which opposition leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu creatively and constructively criticized for turning the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into their own “ATM,” Sanusi would need to learn to govern with his mouth well managed, if he will be a successful Emir or whatever it is that will be his next destination.
Experts in the field of communications talk about a peculiar affliction called over-speaking. Whenever I read Sanusi in his often controversial outbursts, I lamented within myself if he was not a victim of this bug. I once wrote here that the Governor of Central Bank of England was rarely heard or seen. The world’s entire financial system, not only that of the U.K, braced up for him whenever there’s the hint that he would open up, which he rarely did.
In the case of our out-going Governor, the suggestion I have is that communications scholars will do a service to the industry by ascertaining who, between Sanusi and the Chairman of Nigeria’s Governors Forum, has most incidences of front-page appearances in our daily newspapers?
When I saw him stand before the Senate Committee of defending his nomination for the position of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, he launched an unprecedented attack on the strategic objectives of the government that put him forward for the job. Do you remember him saying that the Seven-point agenda of the Yar’Adua government were too many and needed to be cut to two or three? Many, like me, must have reasoned that Sanusi was lucky to have had a calm, tolerant boss as the late President. Obasanjo would have asked the Senate to stop the screening at that stage and ask for time to present a fresh nominee.
But like a heaven-sent boon, Sanusi’s tenure at the CBN may turn out to be that blessing we yearned for to end the stealing of crude oil and derivable revenues, which has now reached an all-time high.

Former governor of Kano state, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau is, obviously, one of the few Nigerian politicians that, before now, presented himself as a cool-headed, principled and ideological driven politicians, especially, from the Northern part of the country.
As a matter of fact, Shekarau earned the respect of many Nigerians across different ethnic and regional divides after the Presidential television debate which held as a prelude to the 2011 Presidential election. During the debate, he maintained a clear-head as to what he would do differently from the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Goodluck Jonathan, to bring rapid development to Nigeria.
In deed, more than 70 percent of Nigerians who listened to the debate, in which General Muhammadu Buhari and Malam Nuhu Ribadu were part of, agreed that Shekarau was more confident with clear vision than the other two by the words of mouth.
He contested that election on the platform of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), which now fused into All Progressives Congress (APC). He was seen as almost the near equivalence of General Muhammadu Buhari if not in anything, at least, in the tenacity of purpose: in holding on to his beliefs even if it was only him that was standing.
Many of his admirers, including yours sincerely, were surprised to see the same Shekarau genoflecting before the power-that-be in PDP, a party whose Presidential candidate he lampooned for lack of performance in 2011, simply for a pot of porridge.
His defection from the opposition to the PDP came not merely as a blow to what appeared to be his original posture of stickler to refine political principles, but it also foreclosed the hope of many Nigerians trusting politicians of whatever denomination.
What has come out clearly to the political watchers, from his present hobnobbing with the same Presidency he took to the cleaners in the 2011 presidential debate is that, his purse had now gone leaner and he needs to refilled it, and to him, the politics of ideology, the politics of clear-headedness, the politics of sticking to one’s guns and be identified within the confines of certain idea and ideals can go to blazes.
Of course, there are always excuses which human being, like Shekarau, would give to cover up things that are obviously out of reality; things that fail to mark the person out differently from the crowd, which Shekarau has actually jumped into. I mean, the fact cannot be missed, of the man who initially built a false image of a populist (in the mould of late Malam Aminu Kano) that now happily joined the group of mad crowd of hungry, gluttonous and executive plate-in-hand politicians.
From the way things are now, to Shekarau, who now dine and wine with Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo and by extension, President Jonathan and the PDP, the minimum amount of decency, not even the truth, has lost the steam.

It is not today that Governors have started jockeying to replace a sitting vice president in Nigeria.
When he was in office as Vice President in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, Atiku Abubakar faced the same challenge. It was not a hidden secret the supporters of two governors, talking about Governors Makarfi of Kaduna State and late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (May God bless his soul) or directly by themselves, had come before President Obasanjo as potential substitutes to the vice president in the 2003 elections. The reader will recall that when President Obasanjo came to the International Conference Centre, Abuja to make a formal declaration for second term, he spoke in “I” terms only and made no reference to the person who would run with him. Instructively, the program of the event distributed on the occasion had the President’s picture only and no vice presidential candidate was indicated. It must have been very clear to Atiku at that time that he wasn’t going to be on that ticket. How and why he fought to be back on is a story told and retold by journalists and contemporary historians.
That Namadi Sambo faces a similar threat today should not surprise anyone. If Nigerian politicians are proficient in one thing, it is the so-called PHD – Pull Him Down Syndrome. When the Presidency of the Nigerian Senate was zoned to the South-East geo-political region, politicians in that region turned it into a revolving door. Some called it a Warrant Chieftaincy. To make sure that every state had a ‘taste’ of the ‘juicy’ office, the South-East Senators by themselves moved and effected the removal through impeachment of each one of them put in that office, to the point that this country was almost having a Senate President each year.
What is happening with Vice President Sambo, that may become the game-changer is that while in the past, the executioners of these plots played hide and seek games and concocted their treacherous plans inside dark rooms in hidden locations only to storm the public space when they are sure they had a done deal, these ones are brazenly open in all that they do. While those in the past fought one another with civility and decorum, these ones fight dirty. They are proving themselves as masters at washing their dirty linens in the public. What shocked many in Katsina was the treatment given to Vice President Namadi Sambo who went to the state to witness the conferment of the traditional title of Sarkin Fulani on the Governor, Ibrahim Shehu Shema. It is not a hidden fact that the Governor and a handful of other Northern Governors still remaining in the PDP have been scheming to do one of two things: One, to unseat the President at the primaries, given his low level of performance, thereby denying him a shot at a second term or where this fails, which is the second option, to negotiate their support for the President’s reelection by positioning themselves as the choice for the Vice President’s slot by evicting the incumbent Sambo.
As reported by the Vanguard Newspaper two Saturdays back, Governor Shema revealed himself more fully when his supporters treated Vice President very rudely and contemptuously by interrupting his speech with shouts of “sai Shema,” “Nigeria sai Shema.” Many people at that gathering were disappointed by this because you don’t treat your guest, a leader who has come to honour you with attacks through an orchestrated “alawada.” This was not only morally wrong but enough to be described as the most brazen attack on Northern political culture. Traditionally, the North is always impressed by the one who turns his back to power or retreats from it as did Atiku in 2003 when the PDP Governors pushed him into unseating President Obasanjo but he declined.
In India for example, your classic example of “power of not seeking power” to borrow from Bajpai is in Mahatma Ghandi and lately Sonia Ghandi who led the Congress Party to election victory but declined to take the office of Prime Minister. In Nigeria, the late Sardauna declined to proceed to take power at the centre after leading the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) into election victory. He, instead, chose to send his deputy, the late Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. This set of governors who are relentlessly, ruthlessly and deliciously seeking power should learn a thing from these historical figures. The rejection of power has a way of generating power. Rejection has a way of drawing a politician, particularly in the North, to the people. That is when they will beckon upon you and say “you, go forward”.
This incident has become instructive to two events that happened in quick succession in the previous week, one, the formation of a brand new ‘Northern Elders’ Council owned and controlled by Vice President Sambo under the veteran politician, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai. Yakasai will supposedly now use his bountiful energy, oratory and skills to intervene for Sambo in these situations. The second of course, is the solidarity visit to the Vice President by Bayelsa State’s political leaders who came to praise Sambo for his support to the President.
To have a sitting Vice President visiting a state and officiating at an event is a big thing. To have the supporters of a governor shout him down as being unfit for the job and that their man is the better one for it does not accord with, not only Northern political culture but the good taste of Fulani traditions encapsulated in the PULAKU (restraint, shyness) habits, a basic tenet that any man aspiring to take the title of “Sarkin (Chief) Fulani” should imbibe.
But the Ibrahim Shema I know, will by now have tendered an unreserved apology to Vice President Sambo for the embarrassment caused him, and the over-zealous supporters cautioned to avoid a future incident.

If I sit in a jury to decide who among the three in President Goodluck Jonathan’s circle is doing the most damage to “enemy” Northern leaders (Edwin Clark, Asari Dokubo and the minister of Information, Labaran Maku) I will not hesitate to choose Maku and I will tell you why.
Maku is not only adept at linguistic pedagogy and propaganda, but he also has the courage to take the fight to enemy’s territory just as he did in Kaduna recently.
At the rate he is going, especially with the recent addition of the defence portfolio to his cap, Maku may run the
Ijaw leaders out of business and succeed in having all to himself, the heart of the President. That prospect alone should worry those who love the minister.
Beyond occasional insults hurled at men and women, past and present in power in the North, Maku’s edge over the two others is that he speaks
Hausa to the
BBC and the
Voice of America, which gives him direct connections to the hearts and minds of the Northern masses. Talking about his courage, who but Maku could go to Kaduna, the so-called home of the “Kaduna Mafia”–famous for running and ruining Nigeria (?)–to tell the Northerners that they should forget the Presidency in 2015 because “power can never return to the North” (Nigeria Observer), and that “Northern leaders lack the moral reasons to lead the country come 2015?”
Maku alone can look at the Northern political elite in the eyes and tell them that they are tied to ethnic politics and religious bigotry.
In Kaduna, at the self-styled “townhall meeting,” he pronounced that the emancipation of the North would not come from a Northerner (which curiously includes himself). “Every day, we keep advising people that politics is not madness, it is not about religious bigotry, it is like market… All the Propaganda and fight for political power are only retarding the North’s development.” In his view, the people should jettison ethnic politics and support the President, meaning that the democratic right to differ belongs to only the President and those on his side, and all others who disagree with them are tribalists. Short of saying that Northern Nigeria is at war with the rest of the country, using the
Boko Haram, Maku has used every given opportunity to give the impression that the political leaders in the North are those who are responsible or that are behind the senseless insurgency going on. On this occasion of the Kaduna homily, it was surprising to many that he skipped the equally senseless killings going on between Fulani herdsmen and the other tribesmen in the Middle-belt. Not a word from him on the
Ombatse violence that saw the killing of nearly 100 policemen and secret service personnel by a cult, formed by his own
Eggon tribe and about which nothing of any serious consequence has been done to punish the perpetrators.
In America, the Mecca and Jerusalem of our political and mental compass, a certain Michael Dukakis lost steam and momentum in a presidential nomination race he was about to win by talking lightly of the killing by an outlaw, of a single policeman. In a report that he vigorously objected to,
The Sunday Tribune linked the
Ombatse cult murder of the security men to the existing political disagreement over 2015 between Minister Maku and Governor Al-Makura.
This denial notwithstanding, the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC went on to denounce his promotion as Supervising Minister of Defence and not few pages of advertorial were published in opposition by some other Nasarawa State communities.
The pressure of these lingering accusations notwithstanding, Maku continues to make important contributions to the Jonathan administration through the demonization of Northern leaders, past and present, whenever the opportunity presents itself. When he spoke in Kaduna, he rubbed pepper into their eyes when he said “clearly, clearly, clearly (three times), the North had not had it better under any President than we have it under Jonathan.”
At this point, you asked yourself, which North is the Minister talking about? Is it the same North in which Muslims and Christians are both feeling unsafe because the government has failed in its constitutional duty of protecting their lives and property?
You don’t have to be a Christian to feel the agony they feel when, as Goza in Borno State, you have 80 Churches now reduced to only eight and no week passes without one more being torched and worshipers shelled with bullets by extremists. Nor are the Muslims safe from the madness, given the fact that more of them have actually been killed with bombs and guns as illustrated by reports the Human Rights Watch has published. Both groups need a government that would protect them.
As if Maku had forgotten that the primary duty of government is the protection of life and property, he went on “Radio Link,” a talk show by the
Federal Radio Corporation,
FRCN, run by him and launched what was described as a “frontal attack on Northern leaders.” In the programme, he blamed them for every wrong of the country, past and present and exonerated the President who gave him two cabinet jobs to run at once as a man deserving of accolades.
Would anyone be right to remain quiet, or abandon the quest for public office through democratic election in a country as we have, where a snapshot by
Daily Trust showed that Niger Delta, one of the six geo-political zones got 86% of total projects approved by the Federal Executive Council between March and August 2011?
That this sub-region alone got projects, in terms of budget implementation in that period worth N760billion out of N883billion they had paid?
At another occasion, Maku thundered that “the fiction in the North that President Jonathan and Vice President Sambo are not developing the North, is the fiction whipped up by politicians who see nothing other than their blind ambitions. When they want to do it (leadership), they continue to talk about the North. When they come to power, you don’t see anything. In terms of development, what we are witnessing is momentous, not only in Northern Nigeria but Nigeria as a whole.”
I asked a former friend of the minister if they thought the time had come for some senior people to address Mr. Maku on his continuing attacks on a victim people and he said to me “perish the thought.”
He said there are ministers in this government who don’t feel embarrassed by claims coming from some of the most respected and admired clerics and other leaders that their calls are not being picked.
A man who calls himself the “Angry Blogger,” Twitter @aderinola, and worried that the Minister is busy chasing shadows and attacking victims said that “there are serious allegations of missing trillions of Naira against his government… Your Boss cannot deal with … corrupt men and women in the executives (sic)” and Maku has given all his energy attacking perceived political enemies of the President in the North. What is this but shadow boxing?

Broadcasting is a natural talent, and those who have it easily become household names. For anyone who listens to radio or watches television, there is tendency he would develop professional affection to certain broadcasters, because they can give delicious taste to a boring story.
For, anyone who work in the broadcasting business would tell you that no matter how good a story is, and no matter the editorial effort invested in producing the story, if you don’t have an excellent and talented presenter to sell it, that story will be dead.
One person who possesses such natural talent and ability to sell a story to complex audiences is our former colleague at the BBC
World Service, Komla Dumour.
Komla Dumour joined the BBC World Service a year before me, and while I was working at the BBC Hausa Service, we normally cross ways in or out of Bush House, the then headquarters of the World Service, but we were neither close nor working in the same hub.
Early in 2010, I was briefly transferred from the BBC Hausa Service for an attachment at the now rested flagship programme, the World Today, which has been fused with BBC Network Africa, where Komla was a presenter, to what is now called  Newsday.
Komla was one of the leading presenters in the World Today, and one of the most appreciated by his colleagues, because he is reliable, will come to duty on time, and has the ability to grill interviewees, when there is need to do so, and can be as humorous as you would expect a lively presenter to be.
On a number of occasions, I was assigned as one of the producers of the interviews he would conduct, and that was how I began to understand this gentleman who died of cardiac arrest on 18 January, 2014, according reports on various news outlets.  It was then I knew that Komla Dumour actually grew up in Kano, my home town, and his father was a lecturer at the Bayero University, Kano, the institution I graduated from.
At the time the British general election was approaching, the World Today decided to commission a special programme that will focus on British identity and how that will affect voting behavior. At the time, and I believe up to now, there was a serious debate about immigration, and what it means to be English/British, looking at how people from different cultures have settled and made Britain their home. A development that many voters were not happy with, and all the main parties were trying to exploit this feeling to gain electoral advantage.
Beyond that, Peter Horrocks, the Director of the BBC World Service wants a different brand of journalism, one that maintains the traditional form of reporting, and at the same time integrating the changes in technology, social media, and diverse nature of audiences. In fact, Peter was interested in integrating the various services at the BBC to work as a team  benefiting from the strength of each other. So the  World Today assembled a team to pursue this task, and one key person who could deliver on these expectations was the Ghanaian among us, Komla Dumour. Under the leadership of Simon Peeks as the editor of the programme, Leo Honark, and my humble self, we embarked on a one week long journey along M1 which is arguably the longest highway in England, reporting from Luton, Peterborough, Leicester, Sheffield and Leeds.
During the journey, the liveliness of Komla, his jokes and sense of friendship made the trip more interesting. But the strength of Komla is when it comes to work. Komla was not only reporting and presenting for World Today, which was a radio programme transmitting at night, he was also reporting for BBC World TV, writing for the  BBC News website on the same trip, and at the same time engaging with listeners on Facebook about our experiences in the trip. I could still visualise Komla presenting live at 4am, at the heart of a freezing winter from the empty Luton stadium.
So it was not surprising to me when I saw the kind of meteoric rise in his broadcasting career which culminates in becoming one of the main faces of  BBC
World TV. One thing which many people do not know was that at least, two former presidents of Ghana had offered Komla a ministerial appointment, and on both occasions, he politely declined, and instead decided to focus on his journalism.
Komla Dumour has a strong fan base in Ghana due to his popularity while he was working for Joy FM, and later the BBC World Service, and many youths in Ghana see him as a potential future president. He once showed me the Facebook page promoting his presidential campaign established by his fans, and I teased him by saying that I looked forward to the time he would be sworn in as the president of his country. Certainly, Komla Dumour is the president Ghana would never have, but in his journalism career he had a presidential control of the television screen. Ghana had lost a son, and journalism has missed an icon.
I join his family, the people of Ghana, former colleagues at the BBC World Service and his entire admirers in extending my condolences over the death of this natural broadcaster who has inspired many youths in Africa and beyond.

It is not at all controversial to say that Nigeria’s ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) is imperiled today. By the weekend, party leaders and the Presidency were congratulating one another following the forced resignation of party chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. Will this change in the leadership cause any difference to its perils?

Many who are still inside the party say it’s broken from inside and irretrievably doomed. “Dis party don scatter finish” were the words coming out of the mouth of a “loyal” PDP Governor on a barber’s set as he watched television reports of his party’s never-ending crisis. Many say this leadership change is coming too late to save the party.

Tukur’s exit was itself a thing of joy to his native Adamawa State. There were jubilations on the streets of Yola. Throughout his term, he did not give a single thought of uplifting his own Adamawa community. But the real reason for joy at his exit was the fact of the general belief that he caused the state of emergency imposed by the Federal Government on the state to spite Governor Murtala Nyako whom he fought from the beginning to the end of his term. Although in truth Adamawa has a number of security challenges, especially in its areas of control next to Southern Borno, the continuing quasi-military rule over them is an over-kill. With Tukur out of power, his kinspeople assume that emergency rule will be removed.

Even at the centre, it is doubtful if anyone is expecting a serious change to occur. The problem of the party isn’t a Tukur problem. The party’s problem is mainly its own ideology, which is the subversion of democracy. PDP is all about the authority of the high command and consensus as a way of arriving at choices and decisions. If they change the chairman a hundred times over, the party will continue to dwindle so long as they are beholden to this undemocratic ideology; and are led by President Jonathan’s conspiracy rhetoric.

Although Nigerians have always been divided on the basis of region, religion and tribe, the President is the main reason behind the growing differences between Christians and Muslims; between the North and South; between minorities and the majorities and between his “Ijaw nation” and the Nigerian nation, all arising from his divide and conquer strategy.

Such parochial strategies, apart from being distasteful, have also lost voter appeal leading to the loss of faith in the party. The policy of the appeasement of minorities and the marginalization of the majorities, which is yet another problem, is PDP’s version of democracy.

To do well, the PDP needs a leader that would focus on championing the cause of the country’s poor; its workers, women, its youth and students among other segments of the society. It needs a President who comes across as a political leader with acumen, not a tribal leader with political acumen.

By taking the laws into their hands, asking the police to do as they want, arresting who they want, the PDP has been sowing the seeds of instability in the country. In Rivers and Kano, they have been sowing the virus of impunity and anarchy.

It is clear to even those in authority that the current system has become, not only corrupt but un-responsive; it has become old and out-dated. To borrow the expression of a blogger, the system is unable to solve the day-to-day problems of the common people and grows silent when it is most urgently needed.

“If Nigeria is a computer and the PDP is its default program, the least that can be said is that the program needs an urgent upgrade.” Some, like the spokesman of the opposition, Lai Mohammed would even say dump that program, it is corrupted to the core and upgrading will not solve any problem. Just dump it if the computer is to be saved.

Fortunately for the country, there is a growing list of budding opposition parties pushing to provide an alternative.

As for the former Chairman, the bitter and intricate bouts to oust him notwithstanding, Tukur will likely continue to be an important presence at the higher levels of Nigerian politics, for a long time to come.

That said, there is no denying that Tukur’s departure is coming with an expiry date, too little, too late to change anything. It is certainly most unlikely to change the dismal forecast for the party’s future.

The dept of American hypocrisy and shallowness, hiding under the over-beaten democracy, has never been so pronounced until now when Nigeria makes it public that it abhors the idea and practice of same-sex marriage and all other forms of homosexuality.
It is really sickening to hear America and its allies bemoaning a bill prescribing penalties for homosexuals and their promoters, which over 400 members of the two chambers of the National Assembly passed and was recently signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan.
As a matter of fact, there is no absurd names and attribution the American government and its agents and or its allies have not made on the new law, crafted by Nigerians for Nigerians. They have not only called it ‘draconian’ but went ahead to say that it would bring about increase in the cases of HIV/AIDS. O yeh?
In this senseless war against the law proscribing homosexuality in Nigeria; homosexuality that is equivalent to sodomy, the American authorities and their cohorts have been threatening fire, including the fact that they would stop all kinds of aides to Nigeria.
The most absurd part of the American reasoning is that the law is against fundamental human rights and democracy. Which human rights? Which democracy?
This America posture has now clearly exposed it as a society that is against God and all that are decent in the sight of God and the right thinking peoples.
Indeed, if the American idea of democracy and human rights is bereft of basic morality and decency, then, democracy and human rights, from the point of view of America, are better not practiced in Nigeria and of course, other decent clime.
What the America, Britain, Canada and their likes are saying is that for Nigeria to enjoy their support and acceptance, it should join some ungodly countries in encouraging man-to-man or woman-to-woman marriages and other sexuality! Evil thought this is.
Where, in all these noise and dictation to Nigeria on what it should do, is the principle of none interference in the internal affairs of other countries? If America and its supporters in the new generation of ungodliness; if it would be breathing down the neck of Nigeria over what it feels is right for the moral standard of its citizenry, what happened to Nigeria’s independence and sovereignty as a nation?
When has homosexuality, described in religious Holy Books as the most heinous sin against God, become part of human rights that must be respected and protected at the global level? Where and how has the homosexuality connected to human rights and democracy, to the extent that the absence of one would have an adverse effect on the other?
Has America and its blind allies realized that God had once perished a generation, according to narration, simply because a single soul was involved in homosexuality only for once? And America now wants it to be venerated, made part of human rights and democracy, and universalised?
Where has the sense of reasoning of America gone to? To hell fire?

Unlike Zimbabwe or South Africa, Nigeria didn’t fight a war of liberation to achieve national independence. The Nationalist Press, rightly or wrongly, laid claim to having secured this for this country without a shot being fired. This is a realistic claim, considering that the nationalist who-is-who is largely made up of journalists, including Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Awolowo, Sa’adu Zungur, Abubakar Imam, Aminu Kano and the rest of them.
Reading the press sometimes makes you wonder if this galaxy of nationalist writers had not been a toothless tiger to the people of Nigeria.
I do not share the view that the glaring omissions on the part of the mainstream media is made up for by the courageous work against sloth, inefficiency and routine corruption by the new media.
Mainstream media need to do more than just breaking the story. It is simply unacceptable that they limit themselves to merely reporting incidents and events in an isolated sense. There has to be contextualizing, interpretation and follow-up. Without these; without the media clearing the way, this country will run into a stampede.
One way of correcting this glaring omission is for the media to make our rulers to think of duty before perks. Even when the media have to pursue commercial interests to survive in the business, today’s media must not blindside human dimensions to events they report.
Many have accused this country’s press of dwelling mostly on mundane issues of appetite as tragedies creep in day after day; that commercial interests are at times placed above public good. When you critically examine many of them, you come to dislike the short shrift they give to life-consuming incidents arising from the continuing failure to force public officials to come to account for their misdeeds.
Week after week, this country grapples with major tragedies, the one for this week over-writing the one before and the one in the week ahead almost certainly to surpass the one witnessed this week. In large measure, the media are culpable because they restrict themselves to merely breaking the story. Without a follow-up and the needed follow through, the media help to keep culprits, including judges, administrators and politicians well out of the reach of justice.
Take these three tidbits for a taste. The media did the duty of breaking the Boxing Day mishap that killed 50, mostly young men and women in a boat mishap in River Buruku, a tributary of River Benue in Buruku Local Government Area of Benue State. The tragedy happened owing to engine failure. “The villagers,” as reported by the
Guardian, “say that such incidents were common place because life jackets were both alien to operatives and passengers even as government has not taken steps to enforce its necessity so as to avoid incessant deaths.”
This “killer River” as it has come to be known, separates Buruku with Logo Local Government, Governor Gabriel Suswan’s native area. According to the
Guardian, “the federal government had, in the past, awarded a contract for a bridge “but that money had disappeared or “eaten up” according to common parlance. The state transport company, Benue Links, which provided a more reliable ferry, had had its services “grounded by corruption.”
Since reporting this incident, you ask the question, which are the media that followed up to establish the culpability or lack of it on the part of officials or government agencies?
Who has deemed it necessary to take government to task to ensure this did not occur again? What are the immediate, long-term and restorative measures anyone has taken to avert these kinds of deaths?
In October 2013 in Niger State, two similar incidents occurred. At a point near Malali on the River Niger, a boat built to carry 80 passengers sank with 150 on board. Forty-two of the passengers, mostly women and children died. One hundred were declared missing. From this point, the media lost interest in the story and moved to other things.
The actual losses remain therefore matter of conjecture. Within six days of this incident, another one occurred at Kokoli, a walking distance from Malali. This boat was meant for 30. It sank with 80 passengers with their goods. Eighteen of them died.
In December 2013 in Bayelsa State, 12 persons died in another boat mishap and in Lagos, four days later, four of the 80 passengers died in yet another boat mishap.
Worried about these endless chain of boat mishaps, the
Sun in October last year wrote an editorial in which it warned that “the time has come for federal, state, local governments and their agencies to beam their searchlights on transportation along our inland waterways, with a view to arresting the hazards and improving safety… we should begin to put value on some of the lives of our fellow citizens who have no other option than to use boats and the inland waterways.”
To me honestly, journalism can avert most of these, but it is not editorials that will do it. This is something they can help the nation do by holding officials and government agencies to account, with regard to the discharge of their responsibilities in these incidents. The
Guild of Editors, the human rights community and lawyers may also form a formidable coalition to help victims of these acts of negligence to get their rights and compensation in cases of loss of life and property.