Ok that's it, my Obama moment has been bought back to reality, i thought it was a joke but then i saw the article, "Obama's election and the needed change, by Obasanjo"
Aaagh!!! do our leaders have no shame, it's bad enough that the president of Kenya declared a holiday for Obama for winning a free and fair election in America, an election which he could never have won as a Luo man in Kenya. It's not yet a year since Kibaki plunged his country into ethnic violence for refusing to step down after "losing" an election to another Luo man. The selective amnesia (or is it denial) of African leaders boggles the mind. No wonder the whole continent is trapped in a vortex of endless political violence and ethnic strife.
But i digress, According to Obasanjo,
"Obama represents an ability to move from realms of dream to reality. He represents Hope for the global minorities who are being or feel oppressed by the majority." {SNIP}
"Part of his hopes and dreams is to facilitate the emergence of a post racial America. I believe embedded in that will be a pointer for divided countries to create the needed golden bridges across traditional divides and gaps of tribal bigotry, ethnic chauvinism, religious allegiance and other primordial considerations. It is a signal to us that we can gradually begin the movement towards an Africa that accepts everyone for what and who he or she is."{SNIP}
"People should be seen, accepted, judged and placed for what they are and what God has endowed them with. Those who preach the sermon of superiority of Intelligence Quotient or simple intellect based on colour, race, tribe or language must start to review and indeed change their sermon."
So Obasanjo likes beta thing (as my peeps will say in pidgin), yet at no time in the many years he ruled Nigeria did he bring about the political renewal that our nation desperately needs. During his 8 year rule, he encouraged and promoted the likes of Adedibu and Chris Uba, people who were prepared to use violence and intimidation to "win" elections. Obama's victory in America could be compared to the June 12 election when Nigerians of different ethnic and religious background voted for MKO Abiola in a free and fair election that has yet to be repeated in Naija. Obj was among the powerful minority that supported the annulment of that election, in the heat of the June 12 crises, he had gone to South Africa to announce that "Abiola is not the messiah we seek". I'm sure many Americans (especially of the redneck variety) will say Obama is not the messiah they seek, but he won the election and thats all that matters. It's a shame that the irony of it all is lost on Obasanjo or whoever he employed to write this piece of garbage. I'm not a religious person, but i surely hope there's a God out there, that will strike the likes of Obasanjo, Kibaki, Mugabe and the other despotic African leaders that have denied their people political freedom and yet want to associate with the historical victory of Obama.Labels: obama, Obasanjo, politics
...A Typical Week in Naija PoliticsThe 'No shit sherlock' quote of the week
"There's a very huge anti-Obasanjo sentiment in the country now" - Iyabo Obasanjo (suddenly realising how everyone in the country has felt about her dad since 2005)
When the tables turn...Nigeria senator 'fears for life'http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7351372.stmThe daughter of Nigeria's ex-leader Olusegun Obasanjo has told the BBC she fears for her life after being charged by the nation's anti-corruption agency. Sen Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello was named in a fraud case that led to the resignation of two health ministers. Her comments come after anti-corruption agents raided her home in an attempt to bring her in for questioning.
"I'm not on the run but I feel as if I'm a victim of harassment... I'm afraid for my life," she said.There's a popular Yoruba proverb, "opa ti a fi na iyaale ni, o mbe l'aja fun iyawo" [translated as 'the whip with which the first wife was beaten is kept inside the ceiling for the new wife']. I find it interesting that once again the things Obj put in place while he was in power are now been used against him. Back in 1995 when he was tried by Abacha's government for "suspicion of concealment of treason", he had promulgated the decree that made this 'crime' an offence when he was in power in the 70s. Now it's the EFCC (which he created and used to terrorise his opponents), that is been used against his family.Karma is a bitch....also see OBJ, A True National LeaderFor someone who wanted history to remember him as the man who "saved Nigeria", i doubt he ever thought things could turn out this way. [SNIP]..Obj has always wanted to be remembered as a "national" leader, well he is now, as in almost everyone in the country now hates him. That's not an easy achievement in 'multi ethnic', 'multi religious', 'multi everything' Nigeria. Even in his backyard - Abeokuta, praise for him is muted. Abacha, horrible as he was, still had support in his hometown...-----------------------------------Another Delusional rant from the INEC BossElection nullification: PDP is paying for its sins - Maurice Iwu http://odili.net/news/source/2008/apr/16/613.htmlAPPARENTLY reacting to the spate of nullification of governorship elections won by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) across the country by the election petition tribunals and appeal courts, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, said the PDP was paying for its sins of imposition of candidates during its primaries. Professor Iwu stated this while delivering a lecture entitled: “The April 2007 Elections in Nigeria: What went right” at the University of Ibadan. What went right???? is this man taking the piss or what ?----------------------Inspector General finally admits what everyone already knows about Nigeria's men in blackThere are madmen in the police – Okirohttp://odili.net/news/source/2008/apr/18/500.htmlInspector General of Police (IGP), Mike Okiro, yesterday admitted before the House of Representatives that there are serving members of the Nigeria Police that are mentally derailed.--------------We also found out this week that the Edo state commissioner for information died from a 'Happy ending'
Edo commissioner died on top of woman - IG http://odili.net/news/source/2008/apr/18/607.htmlAccording to the police boss, the police investigation into the matter revealed that the late commissioner was in the hotel with a female friend, a student of the University of Benin. Both were said to be in the hotel room without any luggage. Labels: comical news stories, Karma, Obasanjo
We returned from the Canaries last week and i'm so not happy to be back. The press is full of all sorts of doom and gloom stories; global recession, credit crunch, house price crash blah blah blah
right now i wish i was back in Lanzarote sipping sangria, without a care in the world..
it's only a game...
Shame in defeat for Nigeria
I know i'm not a football fan so i can't possibly understand the pain of Naija losing to Ghana (as i've been told by fans of the round thing kicked around by 22 'overpaid' adults) but i do understand one thing, just like any other thing in life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
So lets be happy for Ghana, hopefully some other team will beat them at the finals...
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Sacre Bleu
Kenya: Country Learnt Vote Rigging From Nigeria - Human Rights Watch
Washington's failure to condemn the rigging of Nigeria's election a year ago left the impression in Nairobi that vote fraud would be tolerated, a leading human rights group charged on Friday.
"Nigeria's leader came to power in a violent and fraudulent vote, yet he's been accepted on the international stage," Kenneth Roth, director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "It's no wonder Kenya's president felt able to rig his re-election."
Na wah o, it's bad enough that our dear ex president - Obj (''father'' of modern Nigeria and much more - which may or may not include his own "grand children" lol) was not invited to pray and talk some sense to Kibaki and Odinga.
If Kibaki had sought advise from Obj prior to the election, Obj would have given him a few pointers on how to rig the election and avoid the current wahala.
methinks the Kenyan Army too needs a lesson from Naija on what to do when politicians throw their toys out of the pram.
Labels: Human Rights Watch, Kenya, Lanzarote, Obasanjo
Poor Obj, since leaving power, its been one scandal or the other. Even Nollywood couldn't make up the current one doing the rounds. It takes a lot to shock me, but i'm stunned at the 'allegations' made by Obj's son - Gbenga ObasanjoEither Gbenga Obasanjo has completely lost the plot or there is some crazy shit happening in that family..Meanwhile who knew we had 'armchair psychologists' in naija, check out their anaylsis of the whole affairRecommended reading42 years ago (January 15 1966), Nigeria's first attempt at democracy ended with the violent overthrow of the government of Sir Tafawa Balewa. Six months later, there was another coup carried out by mainly Northern soldiers. These two events eventually led to the Nigerian civil warcheck out Nowa Omoigui's excellent article on the events of 1966 Northern Nigerian Military Counter-Rebellion July, 1966 I'm outta here...Out of the UK that is, till the end of the monthwe're off to sunny Lanzarote.. Labels: Obasanjo, Recommended articles, Recommended reading
Letter From The President: 419 elections
By: J. A. Fukuor/Daily Dispatch, (2007-04-27)
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=123107
Countrymen and women, loyalists and opponents,
I suppose you have all been following with keen interest the recent happenings in Naija. If you haven't, you should. Naija is our "big brother", it is Africa's most populous country, we get a lot of oil from them and, of course, they've promised to give us some electricity. We've recently seen a lot of Naija-owned businesses opening in Sikaman - providing employment for many.
Historically, we've been friends with Naija and as I heard someone say recently, 'when Naija sneezes, Sikaman catches a cold.' So we all need to follow what's happening there with keen interest, give praise where it is due, speak out against any injustice and do all we can to help them get through these trying times they seem to have brought upon themselves.
I have kept my ears and eyes wide open, following every bit of the unfolding drama in Africa's most populous country and in doing so, I have been bombarded with a flurry of emotions ranging from anger, amusement and shame to disappointment and regret.
I am angry because I believe both the legislative and presidential elections were rigged and everything was done to make sure that Olu's government continued to stay in power - from the ludicrous decision by the Electoral Commission to overstep its bounds and ban one of the candidates from contesting to the ill-conceived plan to print the ballot papers in South Africa and have them delivered less than 24 hours before the day of the presidential polls.
I am ashamed at the sheer scale of disorganisation which characterised the whole process. It appears very little thinking and planning (if there was any) went into the exercise. Instead of concentrating on the logistics of organising an election, the Electoral Commission decided to do the ruling party's dirty job by banning one of the presidential candidates from contesting. The ensuing legal battle, I believe, made them forget that there were more serious and challenging issues to deal with.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not kowtow to the government and ruled that the EC had no power to ban any candidate. This ruling was issued just a few days to d-day and under normal circumstances, one would have thought that the elections would have been postponed because for a country of 60 million voters, it is virtually impossible to reprint new ballots with re-instated candidate's name. But the EC claimed that they had a ˜Plan B". That plan meant that the new ballots would be printed in far away South Africa. And I am quite angry with this decision as well. In the spirit of sub-regional co-operation, I think our brothers and sisters in Naija could have printed their ballots here in Sikaman; we would have delivered the ballots much earlier than the South Africans did. As things turned out, the ballot papers were delivered less than 24 hours before the polls and if you consider that the EC had no contingency plans (say aircraft and helicopters) for distributing the papers within such a short space of time, you would very easily laugh at their folly and ask yourself: 'what do they have in their skulls: brains or grains?.'
The massive organisation failures meant that for so many polling stations, the ballot papers were delivered several hours after the time the polls were supposed to have ended. In other areas, voting materials were in very short supply. I have never seen such disorganisation in my life and that's why I am disappointed. I am disappointed that Africa's most populous country and one of its richest (in fact, Naija is considered a continental super power) was not able to organise a smooth election devoid of logistical hiccups.
Most annoyingly, amidst the chaos of disorganisation and the unanimous verdict of several election observer missions (including that of the African Union) that the polls were a charade, the chairman of the Naija EC was urging his compatriots to 'be proud.' Proud of what? That they succeeded in showing the rest of the world how to organise ˜shambolic" elections?
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the organisational failures were all part of a grand plan to rig the election in favour of Olu's party. But why rig an election in such a blatant fashion, with all the major international news networks watching? Couldn't they have done it in a more intelligent fashion? I believe there are more subtle ways of rigging elections not that I am an expert, but I have seen it before.
In 1992 and 1996, Jerry Boom and his people used cunning and various other machinations to win the elections, forcing us to write the ˜Stolen Verdict". Remember? Olu and his cohorts should have consulted with Jerry's people and I believe they would have saved us all the embarrassment of being associated with them. I am now even reconsidering the folly that made us name a street in Accra after Olu.
I thought he was a sensible, forward-looking African president who would graciously step aside when his term ran out. But, alas, I was wrong. He doesn't want to go. He wants to rule by proxy and so he has gone to every length to make sure that his anointed one succeeds him. I am very appalled, to say the least, about his conduct. Apart from making his friends (like my excellent self) look stupid and power-drunk 'show me your friend and I'd show you your character' he's made Jerry Boom look like a hero. I mean, if upon all his excesses, Jerry Boom left power graciously without blatantly trying to subvert the will of the people, why would someone like Olu 'who claims to be a champion of the African renaissance ' go to such foolish and undemocratic lengths to perpetuate his rule, albeit through a chosen successor?
Olu might be thinking that he has won. Maybe he has. But his country (and the rest of Africa) has lost. The rest of the world know that we in Sikaman have organised better elections (not the best, just better than Naija's). But from now on, they are only going to associate our continent with late arrival of voting materials, polling stations remaining opened 18 hours after they were supposed to have closed and thugs snatching ballot boxes and running away with them.
What became of Olu's dream of an African renaissance? I want to say that if he really holds the interest of our continent and its people at heart, he should do as many have suggested: order a re-run of the polls. And instead of pulling every string to make his man win, he should just let the people decide. If what I know about him is anything to go by, I think Olu will not listen to anyone and he'll just allow things to be as they are. He won't order a re-run because I believe he's already started preparing his hand-over notes. And that concerns me. As I write this letter, the opposition parties are calling for daily street protests to compel the government to overturn the results of the ˜shambolic" polls. In a country like Naija, daily street protests could spell disaster. Many would die, several would be maimed, thousands would be displaced and lives would be destroyed.
Things are not looking good, and I'd urge you all to spare a moment of prayer for Naija. Let's pray that things do not get out of hand and that Olu's successor (even if he came in through a rigged election) will be accepted by all and he'd be a father to all the citizens of Naija. Most importantly, I hope that Olu's successor will be a friend of Sikaman and he'd give us oil and electricity.
Excellently yours,
J. A. Fukuor
(fukuor@gmail.com)Labels: Nigerian Elections, Obasanjo
It's bigger than any Nollywood blockbuster, it has Action, Violence, Intrigue, Drama, Magic and Betrayal. Its tomorrow's exciting episode of Nigeria PDP decides
Will the election be 'free and fair', what does that mean? (I know no book o)
Will there be widespread rigging, yes ke
Will Iwu talk trash and describe it as the best elections ever, definitely
Will the hoodlums, hired thugs and area boys 'keep it real', fo' shizzle
Will there be a lot of violence, gba o
Will it be another 'election landslide' for PDP, of course
Will the opposition try to outrig the ruling party in their strongholds, you bet
Will the ballot papers arrive in time (from South Africa) for the elections ?, if its "God's will"
Will observers describe the elections as 'flawed', no doubt
Will the international community do anything about it, forget dat one
Will Nigerians do anything about it, who wan die?
This won't be showing at your nearest multiplex, it'll be happening in real life...
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saving face
a week they say is a long time in politics, it seems Obj has already begun to implement the face saving measures i hinted about early this week (see previous post)
Nigeria's president has admitted there were flaws in last week's state polls and urged election officials to prevent rigging in the presidential vote.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6574869.stm
After presiding over one of the worst elections in the history of Nigeria, all Obj could say was ''no election could be regarded as perfect, but said progress had been made in Nigeria since elections in 1959''
I'm assuming the progress Mr President was referring to, was election rigging 'Cause if he meant anything else then he must be using the same mind-altering substances Maurice Iwu has been on since last year.
Labels: Nigerian Elections, Obasanjo
Obj playing the African nationalist, while his own House is on fire
For someone who wanted history to remember him as the man who "saved Nigeria", i doubt he ever thought things could turn out this way. His options now are quite limited and all he can do is to try and 'save face' so he can at least retire and spend his 'loot' in peace.
Obj has always wanted to be remembered as a "national" leader, well he is now, as in almost everyone in the country now hates him. That's not an easy achievement in multi ethnic, multi religious, multi everything Nigeria. Even in his backyard - Abeokuta, praise for him is muted. Abacha, horrible as he was, still had support in his hometown...
Labels: Nigerian Elections, Obasanjo
