Why we protested

Last night I had a dream.

I was back on the streets of Lagos as a reporter. My story for the day was to ask young Nigerians, who for almost a fortnight protested peacefully and demanded change in the affairs of their country, how they felt after the government deployed soldiers to disperse them. One of the young men I was interviewing said something (I can’t remember what exactly it was anymore) so heartrending that after he walked away, I sauntered towards an abandoned van, squatted and wept profusely.

When I woke, my pillow was drenched in tears.

I don’t give in to tears easily. For the tears to transcend the world of dreams into the physical realm, whatever it was that my visionary friend told me must have touched the core of my existence.

Let me tell you a short story. During the last days of my late father, he had asked mom to allow us, his youngest children, visit him at the hospital (I guess he already knew he wasn’t going to make it). My other siblings, seeing how sickly dad looked, started crying. I was as shocked as they were (dad had left for the hospital barely a week ago ill but healthy looking). But instead of getting all teary, I just stood, dry-eyed, in a corner of the ward transfixed like a derelict mannequin.  Dad looked at me and said: “Why aren’t you crying?”  But Mom quickly interjected and wondered why I had to cry. She rebuked him for wishing death upon himself. I guess my old man knew better – he died a few days later. I was barely fifteen years old then.

“Why aren’t you crying”, were the last words my father said to me. Little did I know that those words were prophetic. Mom, a petty trader, went through hell trying to raise us. How she managed to pull that off still astonishes me. But that is not the crux of this piece. I will keep it for my memoir, if I ever grow old enough to write one. Remember as a Nigerian I’m expected to die by the time I’m 45.

This piece is about the fate of the Nigerian youth and why we took to the streets last week. Well, I can’t say for every country. But I doubt if the youth of any other country is treated with such disdain as the Nigerian youth. The problems deliberately imposed on us by our corrupt government are so endemic and entrenched that one may as well ask us the same morbid question dad asked some fifteen years ago: “Why aren’t you crying.”

Let’s take a look at education. If you can bring yourself to describe it as education in the first place, what is taught in Nigerian schools and universities is at best basic. I stand to be corrected. There is hardly a semester that lectures don’t go on strike for at least two months.  As I write, Lectures are on strike over the implementation of an agreement signed with the government since 2009. There is no single University (except the insanely expensive private ones, may be) with integrated Internet for students and staff. Books from the 1960s and 1970s, populate libraries. Some professors still teach with lecture notes they wrote in the 1980s.

The last time I visited Mom in the town where I grew up, I was shocked at the state of the secondary school I attended. It was an eyesore. Students are still being taught in the same classroom block I used as a fresher in the early 1990s. The difference now being most of the classrooms have no walls around them and their corrugated iron sheets roofs have been replaced with palm fronds.  Weeds have overtaken the entire compound. And this is the only public secondary school accessible to more than nine towns and villages. On my way back I couldn’t bear to look in its direction. My face was fixed on the other side of the road like a person with an acute case of lockjaw.

Last year the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido estimated that Nigerians spend N155 billion ($1.03 billion) yearly on school fees in Ghana. Please don’t ask me how much is spent paying school fees in Europe and the US. I’m sure even our incredibly brazen government is too ashamed to make the figures public. With the derelict state of our education, sometimes it beats me how Nigerian students still manage to compete with the best in institutions around the world.

During the strike last week, our minister of finance and former vice president at the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was heard on Aljazeera saying, “poor people don’t get it”, as she tries, unsuccessfully, to rationalise the hugely unpopular removal of the “phantom” subsidy of petrol. She was right.  Yeah poor people don’t get how a former vice president at the World Bank could write a budget that earmarked N1 billion ($6.6 million) for food for the Vice President and the president in a country where people lived on less than $2 a day. We don’t get how the President would want to spend N140 million ($933,333) to maintain the lawn at the State House while Bayelsa State (his home state) has the highest rate of infant and maternal mortality in Nigeria (mind you, Nigeria has the fourth highest infant mortality in the world - for every 1000 births in Nigeria 103.2 dies before their fifth birthday. The 2010 maternal mortality rate per 100,000 births for Nigeria is 840).

The biggest disservice done to the Nigerian youth is the death of hope. Our politicians are like termites: they are not just contented with devouring the corn; they destroy the barn as well.  The system that is froth by their greed is like a vampire - it survives on the blood of the youth.

One of the beauties of being young is the ability to plan your life and project what you would be doing in say 5 to 10 years time and be almost sure you will attain your dreams. If you dare do that as a Nigerian youth the realities around you will promptly slap you back to consciousness. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying there aren’t successful young Nigerians. But let’s face it; most of them are either into entertainment and or the arts. I’m not being judgmental here (I’m from an art background myself). Truth be told, the 2faces of this world are not interested in becoming astronauts, the D’Banjes of our world would probably make woeful administrators. The Chimamanda’s of this world would rather write lovely novels about memories of the Nigerian Civil War than design state-of-the-art fighter jets and submarines. The Verissimos’ of our world rather compose a dirge on the lives lost to scourge of sickle-cell than a think-up a cure for an ailment that affects more than 150,000 children born every year in Nigeria. While we sing and dance the rest of the world is forging ahead.

These politicians have not only decided not to be role models they have also effectively make it difficult for us to produce role models among ourselves. The quality of life for the Nigerian youth is zero. A friend told me last week: “We are not living; we are just existing.”

Last week we said enough is enough to the downward spiral of our country into a banana state.

Why aren’t we crying? We are not crying anymore because we now know tears are not the elixir that will heal our dying country. The generation of our parents have failed us because their only reaction to these anomalies was to cry and pray. And that, my friends, have buried us deeper into the cesspool we are now trying to swim out of.

Therefore, for those who thought last week’s protests were about the removal of subsidy from fuels, I say you have terribly miscalculated. The removal of fuel subsidy was only a catalyst.

Nigerian youths protested to express the pent-up frustration imposed on us by corrupt and insensitive politicians. We protested because our futures have never been bleaker. We took to the streets last week because we are tired of being collectively described as criminals and Internet scammers. We protested because we want to be accorded the same level of respect like youth from other parts of the world. We gathered in Falomo, Surulere, Kano and Ojota because we can’t stand government ineptitude anymore. We protested in South Africa, New York and London because we are ashamed of people feeling the back pocket of their pants to check if their credit cards were still safe while they shake us with the other hand. We demonstrated because we are sick of working as maids and janitors in foreign lands. We gathered in Ibadan and Kaduna because we are weary of journeying through the Sahara in search of better lives only to be raped and use for shooting practice in Libya.

A call to Occupy the streets!!!!!

Greetings Friends,
What really is going on in Nigeria? And how long can we shake our
heads while murmuring, “That is Nigeria for you…” How can the
government of Nigeria think that its even slightly acceptable to
almost triple the subsidy on fuel overnight? How can a country that
produces so much oil, and embarrassingly cannot refine it, think that
the solution is adding more hardship to its citizens by increasing the
price of fuel?

I am saddened by this, but more so outraged! Am I missing something
here? If so, please educate me, especially those of you that are in
Nigeria. When will the government of Nigeria at least pretend to be a
democracy instead of the disgusting oligarchy that it is? I’m deeply
disappointed in President Goodluck…seems like he was just another
empty promise bearer for Nigerians to rest their dwindling hope on.
What is a realistic solution to this problem? What can we do today,
to unite and say no to the further oppression of the everyday
Nigerian?

I am ashamed to admit that I have been a Nigerian waiting for the
invisible hand of change to come and hoping that I would not have to
get involved so directly. But there are too many Nigerian-Americans,
Nigerian-Brits, and Nigerian -(fill in the country) that are like
this. If you have been like me, then we must take the responsibility
of contributing to the ruination of Nigeria by being silent. Our
silence outside of Nigeria is as dangerous as the docility inside
Nigeria. Lets increase our knowledge and engagement in this country
that we all claim we want our children to know.

My friend Nicholas Ibekwe is helping to open my eyes to what is going
on in our country. I’ve shared his blog with most of you. Nicholas
is calling for the UK Nigerians to occupy the high commission. Right
now we are waiting for a response from the community. What are your
thoughts? What do you think that we (all of us) should and can do?

I really want to hear from you

Ngozi

ARREST AND PROSECUTE BISHOP OYEDEPO NOW

Bishop David Oyedepo

 There must be a different set of laws for the clergy in Nigeria.

 If this is not the case, then somewhere in the country’s law book, I believe, it is written in small prints: “Religious leaders are exempted from these laws.”

That the founder of Living Faith Ministry aka Winners Chapel, David Oyedepo, has not been invited for questioning by the police after a video shows him slapping a young woman across the face during a “deliverance session” purportedly to exorcise her of witchcraft is a confirmation that these obscenely wealthy preachers that are littered all over a country where about 80 per cent of their congregation wallow in near abject poverty, are above the law.

Isn’t it bad enough that Bishop Oyedepo, a multi-millionaire,  is exempted from paying taxes? Now, he must assault a woman, make a show of it and subsequently brags about it.

In case most Nigerians, inured after seeing all kind of abuses go unpunished, are wondering what’s the big deal in an “almighty preacher” slapping a “witch”. Well, for me it’s a huge deal. Let me explain.

The implications are as dire as they are far-reaching.

First, an assault is a crime and this, in no way, should be overlooked because it is done only once with thousands of people cheering along.

I must confess. With millions of followers spread over the world; the owner of, until recently, the world’s largest church auditorium; the owner of two private universities; the owner of at least two private jets; just to mention but a few of his earthly possessions, Bishop Oyedepo is no ordinary person and thus this show of sheer irresponsibility should be treated with a seriousness proportionate with his persona.

The assault in question occurred during Winners Chapel yearly headline event named Shiloh. This programme is stupendously popular with hundred of thousands of people heading to the church’s spiritual mecca in Ota near Lagos and some million others viewing it live via satellite from around the world. If the millionaire preacher is not called to book on this, it will further splash muck on the already blackened image of Nigeria.

At a time when we are still trying to rid ourselves the despicable treatment of so called “child witches” in the hands of the likes of  Evangelist Helen Ukpabio the least we expect is for another preacher to slap us back into that infamy (all pun intended).

Another implication of this shameful behavior is its multiplier effect. In Nigeria many pastors are desperately seeking to break into the Ivy-league of millionaire preachers. They are the ones who will sheepishly replicate anything any mega preacher does without stopping for a while to put their brains to use.

They talk like their idols, dress like them and will perm their hair if their god figures do.  These monkey-see-monkey-do fanatics will continue this unashamed irresponsibility of their superior in their local parishes.

“If Papa Oyedepo did it, then it must be right”.

They wouldn’t stop at just slapping. They would kick, punch, flog, abduct and even sexually abuse their subjects in the name of spiritual exorcism. History has shown that adherents of religious groups have displayed far deadlier fanaticism than the originators of such movements.

And poor Nigerians too scared of eternal damnation that they have been told will be their lots if they challenge their preachers will cow into their homes and do nothing but sulk. Many of these excesses end up unreported and even when they are, the police do nothing about them and the victims end up being ostracized in their neighbourhoods for having the guts to demand justice.

Again, if this is done in the public with such glee, God, save us from what these men do in your name when we are not looking.

For me, the reaction of the congregation was even more offensive than the assault on the young woman. Isn’t it worrisome that many of those in the auditorium will readily lynch a homosexual if they knew one but here they are seen cheering the abusive behavior by their spiritual Godfather?

Nigerians are interesting people. You will be amazed at how intellectual we can be in almost any discourse outside religion. Try to get many Nigerians to be logical on issue about their pastors, priests or imams and you will be shocked how they will immediately denigrate into the worst form of stupidity. They will drool such incredibly childish excuses in defence of their religious leaders you would think you are back in kindergarten all over again.

For the benefit of doubt, let’s assume that Bishop Oyedepo really wanted to exorcise the young lady of witchcraft, whatever happens to the laying of hands and the power of the Word?

I can’t remember a place in the Bible that reads: “And Jesus slapped the demons out of her”.

A second look at the video will show that the violence inflicted on the young lady has absolutely nothing to do with exorcism. The point in issue is that the bishop “gentleman”, so used to people cowing and scampering to his orders, felt insulted when the brave girl insisted that she wasn’t a witch. All I see here is a man with a slighted ego. This is made even clearer when he asked the young girl if she knew who he was?

If you loathe Rev. King of the Christian Praying Assembly, who awaits the hangman for dousing seven girls (who double as his sex slaves) from his congregation with petrol and throwing a lit match at them killing one of them in 2006 for indulging in “sexual immorality”, then you should denounce Bishop Oyedepo for assaulting the young girl.

Don’t be alarmed.

You will agree with me that Rev. King didn’t wake up one morning, tired of his orgy with the girls, and decided to set them ablaze. No. There is always a history. It may have started with a slap or a punch that went unreported because the girls were probably scared of being condemned to Hades if they brought charges against him. Convinced he is a demigod, Rev. King grew into a monster that killed a woman and maimed six others.

Impunity fosters lawlessness.

No matter how big one is, no one should be above the law. Bishop Oyedepo should be made to face the full course of the law.

Here is a link to the videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XfvOUUYf-8

Occupy Westminister Bridge

 

The 600 page Health and Social Care Bill has been described as the biggest reform of the NHS since its inception.

Writing for guardian. co.uk , Randeep Ramesh says “the bill sets out the biggest shift of power and accountability in six decades and will, whatever else the health secretary says, leave healthcare in this country resembling a national insurance system, with care being provided by competing state, private and charity providers”.

Dr. John Ashton answering questions during the protest

Speaking at the Occupy Westminister Bridge Protest named after the Occupy Wall Street protest today, Dr. John Ashton, Director of Public Health/Country Medical Officer Tynefield Drive, expresses his frustration at the government who he suggests had made up its mind to go ahead with the reform despite input by other stakeholders.

“We are concerned from a professional and academic point of view about what’s going to happen to the health service if this bill is passed. Many of us have worked very hard over the last 18 months to take out the poisonous parts of this Bill but that has not happened.”

He also expresses fear that if the bill is passed in the way and manner it is presently being pushed it will provide a fertile ground for those he describes as “cowboys”.

“The European procurement framework means that if this bill is passed, we’re going to see a lot of private companies coming in and taking off the top, creaming the profitable parts of the health service. Things like hip replacements, which they can make money out of.”

Cat Phillips, who was at the protest with her daughter, says claim by the government that the NHS Reform Bill will make the NHS more efficient cannot be true. According to her the difference between the NHS as it is and the version the government is working to introduce is like grocery shopping  at a local shop and grocery shopping huge general merchandise retailers.

“It is much less stressful to shop at my local shop and I can have a concession while I’m there, it is not anonymous, if I went with my child people are looking after her while I’m looking at vegetable”.

Cat Phillips and Daughter

Another protester, Ruth Taylor a volunteer at the University College Hospital in the Accident and Emergence Department says the fact that the proposed bill will allow people to choose between different provided makes it discriminatory.

“People who are able to choose most easily are those who are articulate, who are educated. Those who are less able to negotiate their way around the system and make choices are those who are less educated, less articulate, poorer, disabled and don’t have English as their first language”.

According to her, if this reform succeeds, the NHS will lose it accessibility and neutrality.

Ruth Taylor

 

 

Nigerians lose millions in search of diplomas

News 05-23-10 NXS_3

By Nicholas Ibekwe May 23, 2010

The desperation of many Nigerians to obtain foreign degrees following the derelict state of tertiary institutions in our country, has rendered them susceptible to fraudsters operating under the guise of running foreign registered and accredited institutions in the country, a Next investigation has revealed.

One of such spurious institutions which have defrauded unsuspecting Nigerians of money running into millions of dollars, is known by the names, British School of Project Management or Project Management College, UK.

The institution(s) runs programmes leading to the award of Executive Masters Certificates and Advance Diploma degree in Project Accounting and Project Management. Project Management College UK prides itself as the “Nigeria’s first project management training institute”.

Established in 2003, it has centres in Abuja, Abeokuta, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Lagos, and also has opened shop in two West African countries – Ghana and Sierra Leone.

The institution charges fees that range from N150, 000 to about half a million naira, for a two-weekend to six months course.

It claims to have trained over 8,000 students with 80 per cent of this number trained in the United Kingdom. Oddly, though, the institution does not have a traceable address in the UK.

“The whole thing is so organised that you will never suspect that you are being defrauded,” said a former student of the institution, who asked to remain anonymous. “What beats me is their courageous manner (with which) they are conducting business, as if what they are doing is legal.”

Scamming the first ladies

In November 2008, the Project Management College, UK, organised a two-day project management training for the former first lady of the country, Turai Yar’Adua, and first ladies of the 36 states of the federation in Abuja, bankrolled by Unity Bank.

Present at the event with the first ladies were wives of top government dignitaries and senior government officials, including the Minister for Information, Dora Akunyili.

“It is appalling how Nigerians don’t do background checks before they swallow any tale, hook, line and sinker,” said a former employee of PMC-UK who said a simple Google search would have uncovered this sham.

Lamis Dikko, Group Executive Directive of Unity Bank, who had also paid the PMC-UK for a project management course for Katsina State-based non-governmental organisations, admitted that his bank “had no reasons to doubt them because they were running programmes all over the country”. He also says that he was not aware that the institution is fake and unaccredited.

However, a source told NEXT that this might not be exactly so.

According to our source, who was a former employee of PMC-UK, after the first ladies programme, Unity was about signing a multi-million contract with the Management of PMC-UK to train its staff when they got wind of the fraud and subsequently cancelled the deal.

Fraudulent institutions

Most of the claims by the management of the institution about its being registered and accredited in the UK, are bogus.

While referring to itself as Project Management College UK, the institution still maintains its other name, British School of Project Management, and has banners in its Lagos centres at Eleganza Plaza in Lekki and Western House on Broad Street, displaying both names.

Curiously, though, both institutions have similar but different logos and the institution management operates different websites for the same institution.

The institution’s UK addresses as shown on its websites are Electric Avenue, Enfield, EN3 7XU and PO Box 51259 Crampton Street London, SE11 6WS. However, according to an official address search conducted by the Royal Mail and an unofficial search done on Google Earth, neither address exists. On the institution’s websites, hand bills and newspaper adverts, the management of the school flaunts its accreditation by two of Britain’s project management institutes-the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) and the Association of Project Management (APM). However, our investigation revealed that this claim is also a hoax. “Project Management College is a corporate education network member of APM, but does not have a course or module accredited by APM, as could be implied by their website”, said Nick Hayes, the Membership Development Manager of APM, in a correspondence with NEXT. According to Mr Hayes, “It is important to clarify that corporate education network membership of APM is a “fill in the form and pay” exercise, giving staff and students of the education network member institutions access to the resources of the association, whereas APM academic accreditation is a formal process of assessment of courses or modules which include a significant element of project management. The assessment is of the content and delivery in relation to the APM advocacy of project management professionalism.

“Having done a limited amount of research as a result of your message, the websites of the two organisations certainly do appear very similar and in fact they do publish a common telephone number (0800 027 0873). I would further comment that limited initial investigation of their respective addresses indicate them to be spurious. We are obviously concerned that both organisations are representing themselves as “APM Accredited” by implication on their respective websites, which neither are!”

The ILM, while promising to look into the details regarding the accreditation of Project Management College, UK, declined to comment on our enquiries, stating that it does not reveal details of centres and candidates to third parties. However, in response to the enquiries of a former student of the institution, the Customer Services Co-ordinator of the ILM, Kristy Burbage, on May 17, tacitly renounced its link with Project Management College, UK.

“I can confirm at this time that Project Management College are listed on our systems, but at this time are not delivering ILM qualifications.”

She further provided an attachment of a list of ILM accredited international centres. The only international ILM accredited centres are Loughborough College, Loughborough, Leicestershire; and International Correspondence School, Glasgow, Scotland.

NEXT also contacted the Universities Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), a UK organisation responsible for managing admission into universities and colleges, and their response corroborated that of the ILM and the APM.

According to Lisa Davies, Corporate Communications Officer of the UCAS, “British School of Project Management does not appear to be on the UK Border Agency (UKBA)’s Register of Sponsors under either of the names you gave us.”

Ms Davies also expressed shock at the claim on the institution’s websites that it is registered by the defunct Department for Education and Skills (DfES), a UK government department that was responsible for the educational system and children services in England between 2001 and 2007.

“What is strange is that they say they are registered with the DfES. The DfES has not existed for some time,” she said.

In addition, neither the British School of Project Management nor Project Management College is on the British Council list of accredited institutions in the UK.

A former student of this institution who had her application for a student visa to the UK turned down at the British High Commission, recounts the embarrassment she suffered.

“I couldn’t believe it when I was told at the High Commission that my application for a visa is being rejected because no such institution exists in the UK,” she said.

Charleston University?

Apart from Project Management College, UK, and British School of Project Management, the management also runs a fake university named Charleston University and runs a Bachelors degree as well as an MSc and MBA programme in Project Management. The fake university charges N675,000 for an MBA programme. The university’s address is given as 3 Bethesda Metro Center, Suite 700, Bethesda Maryland 20814 United States, on its website. But a NEXT investigation revealed the above address to be fake and nonexistent. There is no university in Maryland that goes by that name.

The genuine University of Charleston is situated in Charleston, West Virginia. According to Alan Liebrecht, the Vice President for Enrollment, University of Charleston, “We do not have any connections with the British School of Project Management.”

A phantom owner

On the publicity materials for the First Lady and Governors’ Wives training, the advertised instructor of the event is the woman at the heart of this scam: Sarah-Elizabeth Goldsmith, also known as Adekemi Ojuolape Ogunnusi nee Abiola. The hand bills and posters identified her as the Africa Project Director of PMC-UK. She is actually the grand mastermind behind this scam.

According to another student who asked not to be named, “Elizabeth Sarah is all-and-all of the institution. Everything passes through her.”

Described as amiable, Ms Goldsmith is said to be a classy woman who lived at Victoria Garden City but who had to relocate to a remote village on the outskirts of Lekki, to avoid the constant embarrassment she gets from aggrieved students asking for a refund of their fees.

“If you see her, you will never ascribe such fraud to her. She is a very likeable person,” said a former employee.

A Google search of her name will yield nothing. “How can the owner of such a school have nothing on her on the Internet?” ponders another former student. “There is virtually nothing on her. She is just a phantom,” concludes the student.

Faith Mbengo, the Abuja Co-Ordinator of PMC-UK, a Zimbabwean national, has been identified as Ms Goldsmith’s collaborator. A source said that when accosted by a former employee on why she continues to work for Ms Goldsmith despite knowing that the PMC-UK is a fraud, Ms Mbengo had replied that the economy of her native Zimbabwe has collapsed and, as long as PMC-UK pays her bills, she will continue to work for the institution.

When NEXT contacted her, an obviously panicky Ms Mbengo refused to answer the questions put across to her. She abruptly terminated the call and refused to receive subsequent calls to her number.

Paul Kupoluyi, who described himself as the Africa Continent Controller of the PMC-UK, declined to give direct answers to our questions about the authenticity of the institution. He, however, described the PMC-UK as “a specialist educational institute offering various courses in project management”.

According to him, “All certificates are awarded by the college which are then administered to the candidates at the learning centres in Nigeria.”

He, however, questioned NEXT’s professionalism on wanting to do this story, and put forward a subtle threat of taking legal action against us

Of David, Goliath and Goodluck Jonathan

Growing up in the slums of Maroko (now demolished), like most communities in Nigeria, we had no parks. The closest I ever got to a see-saw or a swing was through my uncle Nwosu’s car-battery run black-and-white television set! Dad, though he worked for the Nigerian Television Authority for thirty-two years, out of principle (he claimed), refused to buy one for the house. Ironic? Well, that is another story.

For me and other kids on my street, park was a cleared out refuse dump in the corner of our street. On this dump was this broken motorbike. It was our favourite plaything. Often boys would wrestle themselves in the dirt in a battle to claim occupancy of this derelict bike. We would mount it and stretch until our backs ache to get our dirty hands on its handles. We would pretend that it was in motion; with all the guts we could muster we would scream Vrooooooommmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!! We felt good. We loved the delusion and sometimes will even skip lunch for it. We would only grudgingly leave at dusk when our mothers came chasing with brooms.

President Goodluck Jonathan’s speech/sermon at the Inter-denominational service to mark Nigeria’s 51st Independence Anniversary, at the National Christian Centre Abuja, last Sunday got me reminiscing about my childhood.

In case you are yet to read this particular speech and you are thinking it must be such a great piece to invoke memories of my childhood. This is a caveat: it is not in the least awe-inspiring. Honestly, since the widely acclaimed wordsmith, Reuben Abati was made the President’s chief publicist; I’m yet to see any marked difference in Mr. Jonathan’s speeches both in style and tact from the days of largely confused Ima Niboro the former holder of the office.

However, a particular statement in the speech struck me. According to Mr. President he was asked whether Nigeria was on auto pilot and the president’s response was “Nigeria is being piloted by God himself”. Before I continue I have a confession to make. I believe I sometimes allowed my emotions to get the best of me when talking about the unfair bargain Nigerians are getting from Mr. Jonathan’s “ungovernance”. It is difficult not to let your emotions run amok when someone’s ineptitude hangs the lives of a vast majority of the over 140 million Nigerians in the balance. So I will try as much as possible to keep my emotions in check in this piece and do an unimpassioned analysis of the issue at hand.

During the speech, Mr. Jonathan also explained that to be on auto pilot means “a plane without a pilot”. Good. Mr. Jonathan just confirmed what we already knew- he has never being in charge of this country.  But our problem is worse than a plane on auto pilot. Mr. President, as of today Nigeria is like that decrepit bike castoff in the corner of the refuse dump on Aina koku Street, Maroko. One more thing, Mr. President you are like me and my dirty cohorts twenty something years ago “vroooommmming” away in self-deceit (Oh! My emotions again)!

During the campaign leading to the last election the president’s sing song was “I had no shoes”. So what? Many Nigerian kids still go to school without shoes! Listen Mr. President, if I drew up a list of some of the basic things I lacked when growing up, the kids in “Slumdog Millionaires” would feel like Children of Emperor Shah Jahan the builder of the Taj Mahal!

Nigerians were hoodwinked. They thought, “At last this is president is one of us”. Now most people have realised that they were hoaxed.  But as soon as the charm of that phrase begins to wane, you quickly resort to another soft spot: religion. Pray for me that; God is that and this.

During the speech, Mr. Jonathan described himself as the David, the biblical slayer of Goliath the giant. But what he forgets is that David as described in the Bible was courageous; he decided to confront superman Goliath. He picked a fine rock put it in his sling and actually aimed at the giant’s forehead. But Mr. Jonathan is just sitting and expecting God to help him defeat his Goliaths. Work some weight off Mr. President and get cracking. Tell, what has Mr. Jonathan done since he succeeded the lethargic Yar’Adua.  What effort has he made to better the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Nigerians tell me has your lives changed positively in any way?

I know it’s hard believe that a man who has been in power is February 2010 has not done anything meaningful other reeling out promises and forming committee’s to review the veracity of those promises but that is the truth with the Jonathan’s administration. There is no better prove to how deep in shit we are than the President of the most populous black nation in the world citing approval from the president of tiny Gabon as a sign that all is well with us!

In case you are wondering, my anger with Jonathan is simple. Never before had a government enjoyed better popular support and goodwill in the history of the country and decided to fluff it like Mr. Jonathan and his cohort in the PDP have done. Nigerians wake up this Jonathan is not different from other past leaders who had messed your lives up. In fact I’m convinced he is even more dangerous. With others we knew what we were in for. But Mr. Jonathan pretends to be our friend but indeed he is our worst nightmare.

 

 

 

The mercenaries take over

Nicholas Ibekwe 22 February, 2009

Militants in the Niger Delta: can foreign private security firm stop them.

These paramilitary organisations, which used to be known as mercinaries or soldiers of fortune, operate in such violent outposts as Iraq, Congo, Somalia and Afghanistan. They provide, in the Niger Delta as elsewhere, counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism services, personnel security, and anti-piracy operations. The Niger Delta in particular has become notorious for piracy, kidnapings, and sabotage of oil installations.

Our laws forbid foreigners from operating armed security companies or paramilitary organisations of any kind and, strictly speaking, these hired guns are forbidden from freelancing here.

But almost all of them have sought to get around the law by forming vague partnerships with local companies and by claiming to provide mainly advisory services, which contradict their stated objectives and services on their parent websites and their known activities in other countries.