Jonathan
tricked Nigerians?
First of all, I won’t agree with you that President Jonathan tricked Nigerians. It is Nigerians that did not know what they wanted because Jonathan was sponsored by a political party known as PDP and that party needed to have programmes for Nigeria, but unfortunately it did not have any. Jonathan did not promise Nigerians anything. The only thing he told Nigerians is his pathetic childhood and how he lacked many things. That is not a vision for the country. So, what we are seeing is a manifestation of a jaundiced nation controlled by a military cabal, those who fought the Nigerian civil war, they are still in power and still in control of policies and programmes of government. So nothing has changed.
I don’t subscribe to Professor Ben Nwabueze’s approach to the Nigerian issue. Nwabueze is about 85 years old and he is talking about Nigeria. He also participated in messing it up. He has been a major player in the military government in this country. He saw nothing wrong when he was minster for education but now wants Jonathan to stop his ambition in order that he can assist to adopt his programme for Nigeria. What a pity?
How can he tell Jonathan that he should not run? I don’t share those views. Nigeria is on a very critical enclave but the latest problem we have is that we don’t have men of ideas any more. The generation that will bring change in this country are the people under 50yrs not those above, because the latter generation has no focus. They don’t even understand the chemistry of existence of Nigeria and the issue that created the civil war. If you don’t understand those fundamental issues you cannot discus Nigeria.
Nigeria on the verge of failed state
Nigeria is at the edge of confusion, there is no direction, the political leadership is so flat and inept. They are so rich that their brain has seized to function. The main issue in the country now is to find new architect that will hijack power because the people are not ready to use the vote to bring change. With the way the country is today, it is difficult to get the type of result you are looking for through the ballot box. The purpose of governance in Nigeria today is a situation where a group of people will sit down, even the police is making laws today in Nigeria. You will see the police PRO telling me about a new system of registration of vehicles that are not under any law made by the National Assembly. That will show how chaotic the situation is, it is pathetically bad.
National conference
That is not our problem. Because the constitution is crude in such a way that nobody can have any dialogue. The military, the northern leaders that crafted the constitution don’t believe in democracy. I challenge Babanginda, I challenge all of them. They don’t believe in democracy. Why do you have to take permission from a man in Sokoto and Ogun state for me to get a state? Who put in the revenue sharing formula that you have to use local government to share revenue. What a backward country!
PDP crisis
There is no crisis in PDP. PDP has never been a political party. PDP was just a gang of people which sees an opportunity to position itself, calling themselves G14, or G34, there is no philosophy. If the basis of coming together in PDP is an agenda for development, an agenda for new Nigeria, agenda for growth, people will key in to it and there will be nothing about zoning and primordial system of allocating positions, because we will be pushing for excellence. They are not pushing for excellence. They are mediocre looking for whom they will zone power to. The condition of the country today requires our best brain, the best mind that will sit down because we claim we are the largest black nation in the world. So PDP has no crisis but a crisis of a generational paradigm shift of power. They use power for aggrandizement, not power to bring change and re-engineering the society, and there is no philosophy.
Assessing Jonathan
Jonathan cannot do well when the architecture or engineering drawing does not exist. You need to give leadership but you cannot give what you don’t have. Jonathan is not the prefect of his class, so he cannot mobilize anybody. There is a difference between having an academic qualification and being intelligent. Nigeria is not looking for a professor to lead Nigerians. Rather, it needs a man of conscience, a man that has great courage and great vision that will mobilize good people to engender a new change in Nigeria. Think about it.
Our university system
University system in Nigeria is the centre of corruption- both intellectual corruption and inept leadership. Who owns the university? If the people have any stake in the university system, why should Abuja be deciding who becomes the Vice Chancellor, pro-chancellor and who becomes anything. We need administrators in the university; we don’t need professors in the university. We need real administrators, people who will sit down and put in place real intellectual development. You don’t need a professor that will say it’s our turn to produce vice chancellor and that is why they think the development of university is building structures. No, it’s beyond that. It is the human intellectual bank you are able to preserve that will ventilate and engender intellectual development. Our university does not necessarily produce the needed manpower for the country, but only issues certificates. You go to countries like India and all these Asian minor countries, you will find out that their philosophy of education is geared towards human development and resolving problem confronting the nation. Nigeria’ greatest problem is psychological. Where is our social scientist? They are not thinking but plagiarizing books and taking professorial chair.
Taraba state impasse
We have a very serious problem in the country. When I was growing up, there was a mathematical book that we called ‘LACOMB’, it gives you a question and gives you an answer. Some of the students that were lazy but very intelligent would start from the answer and start working to the problem. Yes, we have a constitution, if we have a constitution and the constitution gives provision when an executive officer will handover the rein of power to his subordinate, conditions are created. One of the principal issues is what gives rise to the voyage of the governor of Taraba state abroad. He had a plane crash that has to do with his health. If that is the situation, the first thing we should be working on is not the constitution because this is not a constitutional issue. Constitutional issues are issues that cannot be resolved except you take it to a law court, so that the law court will tell you what the framers of the constitution had in mind or their mindset when they were writing it.
We don’t have any constitutional issue in Taraba. It’s just a group of people that has no business in government that captured power in the state. These are issues of leadership, failure of leadership.
Anambra poll and tax payment
It’s not the function of the state government. Every citizen of this country under the provisions of the constitution particularly in section 24 of the constitution, has right to assist government. What I am doing is to fight impunity because I am intellectually endowed and have the courage to come out. So, what I am doing is to show people that it takes one man to go to the mountain top and hoist a national flag for the rest of the people in the valley to go and rejoice. I am only excising a right donated to me by the constitution to ask questions. A man or group of people will come together and call themselves a political party usurping the power to bring out the people that lead you because the constitution says the only way you can participate in selecting your leader is through a political party and gangsters took over these parties and say instead of looking for the best man for the job, they are looking for the man with the biggest box.
They ask those people to come and pay what they call expression of interest, and you pay N2million and then you will come and pay N10 million and people are paying. These are people who want to lead me, people who are criminals because you must ask yourself one question why do I have to pay N10 or N15million to come and lead my people? You will be alarmed at what is going on. For example, PDP in 1999 in Anambra state put a levy of N2.1 million tag on governorship. I paid the money waiting for them. They saw there was a crisis and this man had paid, they ran away and said they had consensus. I took them to court and it took me eight years but at the end, I got a judgement of N7.1million, I garnished their account and got my money. I taught them a lesson in that one. So, this time around, the party has put a bait for these gentlemen and ladies who are so naïve and decided to swallow it. I want to use them as an example to deepen democracy in Nigeria.
I know those people who paid mega money never disclosed that they had such mega fund in their vote as income before they went and procured their clearance. They have dishonestly not disclosed their proper income, so they are criminals. So the law will be tested.
Insecurity
What insecurity do we have, when you have not done the proper thing. Nigerians are looking for just, fair minded leadership. Nigerians are not criminals but the system has induced criminality in Nigeria.
Extra-judiciary killings
Extra-judiciary killing is the failures of our criminal justice system. The attorney generals we have think that their responsibilities are to go and attend Exco meeting in government. So here, people are still looking at the profession of law as a means to an end for you to go and earn a living. Our lawyers – don’t know – particularly Igbo lawyers don’t know about service, they are looking for food. It’s only when you have a case you will go and meet them and they will tell you how much they want you to bring and you will go and sell your land,pay them and they will be comfortable. There is no compassion, the practise of law is still very primitively done in this country particularly the Igbos. The basic thing in life is your right, preservation of your right, your security, and your right to property before you talk about your health. The lawyers have abandoned the people. I am not a lawyer but I am doing much more than any Nigerian lawyer will do. The lawyers have forgotten that there is so much happiness in helping to protect the weak than amassing wealth by perpetuating injustice.
Way out
The way out is people should deemphasize material pursuit and seek ways of saving our dear country. Knowledgeable men should take appropriate positions, scrapping this quota system and federal character and look in for the right people so that we can ventilate the system. The majoritythat are down should be feed and given an opportunity. Everybody will have his own level; everybody doesn’t have to be president. You see Nigeria talking about rotating president, giving a man who had no vision power to come to diminish my own vision because he want to lead that is criminal.
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