Re–Buhari and his Ejigbadero tactics

Festus Adedayo, in his writings, has never hidden his disdain for President Muhammadu Buhari. But this article of his entitled Buhari’s Ejigbadero’s tactics is a sad manifestation of his hatred for the man; that he would even fabricate a lie to advance his agenda. To claim, as he did, that “While he was a military despot, he hated the guts of human rights activists. Fawehinmi and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti were slammed in prison at the flick of his lean fingers…” is turning facts on its head. It is very dishonest and grossly irresponsible. Buhari NEVER JAILED FAWEHINMI!

If you have respect for facts and not working to tarnish Buhari’s record, a simple internet search would have helped you. Unfortunately, you were writing to a pre-determined conclusion and could not care for sacredness of facts. What a lazy writer. I would expect that you correct this blatant and malicious lie in your next column if you are worth your name as a writer.

Debo Akinola.

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I have clinically read through your article and read it over and over again. I was actually praying that God should sack you while you were Special Assistant or so on Communication to (Abiola) Ajimobi. You have no business in that enclave of lies. I was not really happy that you accepted the offer then, though a friend told me that the governor himself appealed to you to take up the job.

Well, coming back to your article, let me just inform you that the Yoruba are like kids in a kindergarten school who are yet to learn anything about life. I really don’t understand this unnecessary euphoria on this June 12 honour granted to Abiola, Fawehinmi and Kingibe. Do you think Gani would have accepted this unholy award with the incessant killing of defenseless Nigerians by Buhari’s Fulani herdsmen? Why did the Yoruba leaders reject the renaming of UNILAG after Abiola? Is it not clear to everybody that everything about this June 12 is just political because of next year’s election? Why did Buhari not consider Fela Anikulapo and Beko Ransom-Kuti? Will this honour granted to Abiola stop the killings by his Fulani brothers? Are we just going to forget the treatment he unleashed on the press like Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson during his first ‘missionary journey’ as Head of State? And how he killed Bartholomew Owoh by backdating a decree? Or how Papa Ajasin, Lateef Jakande, Bola Ige, Ambrose Alli, Bisi Onabanjo were jailed even when the military tribunals could not find anything against them? Are we to easily forget how Fela too was charged for armed robbery offence? And how he used a judge, (who later apologised to Fela), to jail him for non-disclosure of foreign currency in his possession? Ah! Nigerians are not students of history. Are we now to say that Tinubu and the people that brought Buhari out again were not alive when he was rehearsing his recklessness then on Nigerians? Have we forgotten his PTF era when most of the projects were executed in the northern zone, to the detriment of the southern axis?

All what l know is that Buhari will cease to be our president after next year election because he can never win again. No amount of intimidation, harassment or what have you from his Gestapo inspector general of police and rigging from his cohorts will make him to win the election. But then I blame the likes of Tinubu and other Yoruba leaders that worked for him.

Ralph Akintan, Esq,  ralphakintan8@gmail.com

I’m a young boy in my early 20s and I’ve been reading Tribune for as long as I can remember. With all sense of modesty, I have read several columnists on the pages of the newspaper. Tony Afejuku and his dealings with the esoteric; late Nosa Osaigbovo’s deft use of language; Garba Shehu’s short and uneventful stint. Up till today, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju’s writings have always whet my appetite till today when my dad bought a copy of the Sunday Tribune, not minding the extra N50 (the extra N50 had hitherto made him stop buying Sunday Tribune, though he still buys the Nigerian Tribune and Saturday Tribune). Your piece on Buhari’s pronouncement of June 12 as democracy day was so on point that I am quite sad about how many more of these beautiful pieces I’ve missed. For me, you’re up there with Dr. Olagunju now. May the ink in your pen never get dry.

Jallo Waziri, jallowaziri@gmail.com, Osogbo

I think Festus totally misses the point here and his Ejigbadero simile is way off point. One enduring lesson I learnt in my logic class is to subject any proposition to an objective test without necessarily bothering about the motive of the proponent of the proposition. The crucial question to ask is: is it proper for a historic wrong visited on the MKO family to be righted by this or any other government? Once I answered yes to that question, all other considerations become wholly irrelevant. Politics is often a game of opportunism anyway and no one put guns on the heads of Abdulsalami, Obasanjo, UMYA and Jonathan not to honour Abiola. It was their respective decisions not to do the needful. Buhari of course is no June 12ver. He worked for Abacha and never raised a voice in support of Abiola at the time. I know that. However those are immaterial. What matters is, Buhari saw a window of opportunity/opportunism to do the right thing and he did it. That doing the right thing also has the added value of endearing him to the Yoruba is just a bonus.

Rahmon Adebayo Kareem, Head of Legal and Human Rights office, African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)

Haba Festus, you can’t continue to dance in the middle. You must take a position. You have demonstrated in this piece what our people call, “se eku, se eye.”

Good enough, electoral corruption preceded Buhari as remarked by you; it was not a new thing, albeit a political element inherent in our political system. You went further to differentiate between the two political parties; you arrived at a conclusion of no difference. Would it not be a political suicide for one of the two parties to play the holy one, while the other is playing the hero?

I look at it from a different perspective, since you have alleged that the money given is a product of corruption, should the electorate not receive what is our common wealth and then go ahead to vote his or her choice?

I see this ‘gift’ as a Nigerian political element like banners, stickers, posters that are shared during campaign. Money has become part and parcel of our electioneering process different from what is obtainable in the developed world. Every nation has its own peculiarities just as the American president is still being accused till this moment for bringing in Russia to influence his victory in the last election.

It makes it worse in our clime because of the very high percentage of potential voters who cannot feed their families.

Democracy cannot thrive in a poor country, because a poor man is not a free man.

On the Executive Order signed by Mr. President, having criticised him for turning the other cheek to the corruption-infested political system, I would have thought that at least you would give him kudos for deciding to take back what belongs to all that was hitherto shared among some opportunistic few because of their advantageous position. No government can fight corruption alone; this must be done by all.

I must, however, state that this can only be done by government addressing fundamental issues of existence e.g., providing basic means of livelihood; food, house, clothing; paying living wage to workers; providing infrastructure to make small scale industry to thrive etc, etc

You will agree with me that this is a tall order that Buhari alone can shoulder.

My dear Festus, as a nation, we are caught in the middle of a spiral motion. How do we get out? I don’t know.

Thought-provoking piece indeed, but you condemned corruption justifiably in one breadth in the first segment of the article, yet berated Buhari’s measures to curb it in the second part. I believe what Buhari seeks to achieve by the order is to stem corruption by seizing unexplained assets. And rightly too. It is time we began to ask questions from people who live above their apparent means.

Mr. Dele Bello, Ibadan

• Saraki will be impeached — Oshiomhole

   

Sad and pathetic…The ominous silence of neighbouring countries and the majority of the West simply tells us that the garment of Nigeria is held together only by the thinnest and barest shred of wool ready at the tiniest tug to disintegrate into pieces..What bugs me is that majority of the masses will certainly bear the brunt of whatever evil befalls this nation. The major actors are igi da, eiye fo set of people. May God help us…

Funmilayo Olowookere, Badagry, Lagos State

Re – A paradise for maggots 

Thanks for constantly reminding us, your avid readers, of the “one chance “ vehicle we have boarded albeit unintentionally. I hope you are chronicling all your write ups? l have initiated my kids into the reading of this beautiful assemblage of articles. They need to know history because at a point in the future when the actions and inactions of present leaders begin to take their toll on certain aspects of the society, these children deserve to know the ugly events that culminated to the mess. May your wealth of knowledge never run dry.

Folake Ipadeola, Akure, Ondo State

Re – Buhari and the marriage of Anansewa

You appear to have become a committed critic of President Buhari of recent and I wonder if it is not more than meets the eyes. Yes, Buhari has not met all our expectations but the context of criticism has to be well situated. Why are the Benue killings and the burials being dramatised? Who is concealing the Taraba killings? In whose time did the snake swallow N36m? Why was it just being discovered? When did Maina steal pension fund and why has he not been prosecuted before now?

Festus, you criticised the Jonathan regime as not only being corrupt but also lacking focus. Do we in all honesty expect a miracle a la ‘lesekese’ (immediately) for the ills of the nation to be over only under three years? Are we hoping for a Messiah in another person come 2019? Or we just wish to groove in perpetual experimentation?

I am of the view that it does us more good to assist the President to navigate our complex and diverse natures rather than being bent on smoking him out of the cockpit with the attendant ethnic, regional and religious consequences. May God bless Nigeria.

Alade Bello

aladeewi@gmail.com

Re – Jonathan, Buhari as prisoners of history

I salute you for your reported contribution at the last colloquium of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP). Though it was based on the information contained in Segun Adeniyi’s book, it correctly and beautifully captures the issues at hand, in its entirety; as l believe it reflects the minds of well-meaning Nigerians. What l consider the heart of your submission is in this statement: “They are both united by gross incompetence, lack of depth and a strand of a bunch of unprepared leaders whom history has always foisted on Nigeria”. Permit me to add that the worst aspect of the issue is that the “strand” is particularly ROUGH AND WORSTED, which makes it to even disfigure the “bunch”! As you concluded, history DARE NOT forget or refuse to complete its ugly cycle of repetitions on the affairs of hapless Nigeria this time around! Yes it dare not!! It dare not!!! God dey.

Olaitan Makanju, olaitanmakanju@gmail.com

Re – Why is Ladoja running from pillar to post?

There is no doubt that Senator Rasheed Ladoja has his eyes on the Oyo State Government House at Agodi and is looking for an easy platform to achieve this. He does not trust the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). That is why he is running from pillar to post. To be candid, Oyo is a monolithic society but the fabric binding the state together has been ruptured in the last eight years. The amendment cannot be made by some parvenus parading themselves as aspirants through erecting billboards and posters with zero experience in governance. Besides, Oyo has not prepared successors for the post-Abiola Ajimobi era. Neither Ladoja, Alao-Akala nor Ajimobi – the three musketeers in Oyo power struggle – has done so. Ajimobi, who is in good stead to produce one, has failed in this wise. It appears he is looking towards Lagos for a successor, which Oyo will never accept. Oyo guber election next year will be a replica of 2011 and 2015 contests without Ajimobi but will be decided by Ajimobi. Ladoja helped Ajimobi in 2007 and 2011; Akala did the same for Ajimobi in 2015. It is now the prerogative of Ajimobi to support either of the two to win the race. Mrs. Kemi Alao-Akala understood the chemistry well when she said in an interview in an edition of the Sunday Tribune a few weeks ago that God can use Ajimobi to return her husband to Agodi in 2019. All things being equal, Ajimobi will be succeeded by Alao-Akala or Ladoja. It is a straight battle between the two. Others should wait for their time.

Adewuyi Adegbite, Ogbomoso, Oyo State.