HOW MUCH AGAIN DID ABACHA STEAL?

This question is not aimed at reducing in anyway the significance of the financial malfeasance of the goggled one and a whole array of thieves before him and since.

WE have followed innumerable narratives in the foreign media, especially on TEDx talks, about how foreign banks in London, New York and lately Hong Kong have systematically conspired with faceless entities to defraud struggling Third World economies. There seemed to have been a forlorn hope that somehow they could be shamed into changing their behavior. Unfortunately this has not materialized. However when we consider the huge sums pilfered out of Russia through Deutsche Bank and the array of the usual suspects in the west, it all seems so hopeless. Subsequent revelations in the Panama Papers (Part 1 & 2), has not staunched the illicit flow. . And now this. .
The Danish bank DANSKE has been reportedly steeped in illicit transfers to the west to the whopping tune of $150 billion over the past several years, and everybody, including the Danish government, appears hell bent on looking the other way. With this regulatory landscape, more like lack of it, why then do Third World activists and bleeding hearts in the west imagine that somehow salvation lies in the hands of Western authorities with their proven track record of lack of good intentions? This sordid landscape reinforces the need for the developing nations, especially those dependent on an extractive economy, to buckle up to establish home-grown institutions and procedures to save themselves. Neither London nor New York lawyers not to mention the amoral Chinese will do this for Africa.

THE IGBO GENOCIDE NEVER REALLY ENDED WITH THE WAR -

Jimanze Ego-Alowes. Again I have missed the release of this new book by Ego-Alowes. Hear him in this, interview by Sun News, at his unapologetic best. Others may choose to dub him controversial. He seems to wear it well.
Enjoy!

THE SUN NEWS
Jimanze Ego-Alowes is the author of the new book, Nigeria: The Unreported Genocide Against the Igbo, a book detailing the unreported post-civil war genocide against the Igbo by past Nigerian rulers. The book also traces the paterfamilias of the Igbo as Eshi. In this interview with The Sun Literary Review, the author advances evidences to justify his claim that the military leaders committed further genocide against the Igbo after the civil war ended, especially with the introduction of local government reforms and autonomous communities in Igboland. He, therefore, calls for the abolition of kinship in Igboland for being opposed to the republican nature of the people.

You are a prolific writer, producing at least one book a year. What’s the secret of your fecundity?

I consider myself a lay historian. The job of the historian is to bring out that which is hidden into the open and which is already in the open into perspective. And I believe that history is one of the primary sciences. The primary sciences are those sciences that characterise who man and, therefore, the society is. And if you get this right, you are on the part of personal, group and national development. It’s a place I think I have comparative advantage.

Your latest book is entitled The Unreported Genocide against the Igbo. Why is it coming at this point in time?

Any truth, especially new truth, comes in its own season. Truth is never out of season. Immediately there is a new truth, that truth is its own season. If you say it in the morning or night, it is on season; truth is never offseason. So, the duty of a scholar is to see to it that the truth is being neglected and bring it into the open. The only justification is that truth determines the season, and not the season determining the truth. There is no season for the truth.

What informed this book?

The first is that I feel the fact of it has not been attended either by cowardice or Nigerian experience or development for reasons that are not clear to us. So, part of our duty, as I said, is to bring that which has been glossed over into the open for a very long time, from the time the generals [Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo] came to power to the present. Nobody has spoken about it or given attention to it. I feel it is the proper time, because it is new season.

How pained were you when you were researching on the atrocities committed against the Igbo, because I could see your tone is livid with rage?

As a historian, I have no personal pain. If I have a pain at all, it is with the scholars, not with the perpetrators of the genocide –the silence of the scholars up till now. I don’t feel any pain at all. For me, the two generals have done what they have done. What I quarrel with is the silence of the historians and scholars over such earth-quaking event in the life of a major ethnic group in Nigeria: the Igbo. If I have annoyance at all, it is with my tribe of scholars, both from Igbo and non-Igbo. Why the silence? If you go to Imo State, for instance, you have up to a million autonomous communities if we are to exaggerate. Enugu State had to bring a formal edict stopping the creation of autonomous communities. It is a distraction of the society, and people should speak out.

You faulted the introduction of the Chieftaincy Edict in Igboland. At a time when more communities are still clamouring for more autonomous communities, what problem do you have with this?

It is like an addiction. That’s why a lot of the books go to borrow from biology –evolutionary sciences. It is like an addiction. When you have a craving for cigarette or crack, and the doctor tells you to stop, you are still going to crave for it. There is nothing to recommend. The GMOs set us on the path of self-destruction. That’s why we have to halt it. Some of those doing it want to take benefit over the grave of the many people. So, they want to emerge kings of autonomous communities over the grave and destruction of Igboland.

Don’t you think there are some benefits to derive from the creation of these autonomous communities, or does everything point to a disservice?

That’s what we are saying. It is all part of the larger things we have always said. In the introduction to this book, it is noted that there are so many things that can afflict a society or a human that will be asymptomatic. People are not aware of what damage they are causing to themselves and to their larger society, but it is the duty of the scholar or the physician, who uses diagnostic instrument to see and know that you are not as healthy as you look, that it is better for you to have bed rest and not to have jugging in the morning, because, if you do, you will collapse.

Don’t you think the Igbo also contributed to the genocide themselves?

I don’t think we are primed for it, because the two GMOs didn’t seek for the opinion of the Igbo when they injected that edict. They did not seek our opinion. They sat in their all-conquering military council and decided that there was going to be autonomous communities all over the country whether you were republican or not. The implication of these autonomous communities is that it is an embedded logic in what they did: the sociological destruction of a people.

Don’t you think the generals were trying to bring government closer to the people?

First, they don’t have the wisdom; they only have the gun. And that you have guns is not the equivalent of having wisdom. You can’t because, you possess guns, impose your own idea of development on other people who perhaps do not have the guns. There was no basis for their thinking that they wanted to bring government closer to Igboland without consulting the Igbo people themselves. So, it is absolutely wrong.

So, is that a deliberate ploy to pull down existing socio-cultural infrastructure In Igboland, or you think it was a trial and error kind of thing when they set that edict in motion?

It is no longer a trial and error thing. It was a deliberate policy. There are two edicts imposed in Igboland. The first is that they took away Igbo lands that they thought had oil and gifted to Rivers State and Akwa Ibom State and brought this chieftaincy disaster about the same time. And, if you remember that Murtala Mohammed government does not last a year before he died –you know it was a preplanned thing –so, the idea has been vitiated that they introduced two things, one that was definitely able, which was taking away our oil producing lands and gifting to other people in Rivers and Akwa Ibom. So, it couldn’t have been trial and error. It was a deliberate official policy. Additionally, as Obasanjo confirmed in a recent interview, they were aware of the United Nation’s edicts and protocols on running post-victory government, and it was clearly stated that you don’t oppose an alien culture on the people; you must allow their native structures to run. But they went against these stated laws, which Obasanjo confirmed in the aforesaid interview, they knew of when they were fighting.

In the book, you revisited the concept of Igbo enwe eze (the Igbo don’t have kings). Using the Arrow of God as an example, where Nwaka berated Ezeulu for trying to arrogate to himself the position of chief priest and non-existing ezeship stool, on one hand; and the era of having traditional rulersin Igboland, how tenable is Igbo enwe eze?

First, a lot of saying that Igbo enwe eze today is a mild interpretation of that saying. Igbo enwe eze is actually a proud assertion that the Igbo are free and republican people. So, what this book calls for, and it is proper to state so, is that chieftaincy order should be abolished in Igboland, because we are free and republican people. We don’t want it. We are not saying that the Ogboni system of government or Arewa system of government is bad, but let them keep their goodness to themselves; let them not infest us with their goodness. We want to return to the structures our father left for us: republicanism. We want to free, proud and independent people. The Igwes and Ezes have to go, because Igboland has to develop.

In what way are they contributing to the underdevelopment of the Igboland?

First, there is a guy called Peter Drucker, the father of management. He says culture is its strategy for breakfast. Any time any strategy is against the culture of a people, it won’t work. So, the mere presence of Ndi Eze, which is antithetical to Igbo republicanism, to our sense of human freedom, will vitiate any strategy you bring to Igboland, and that is why the Igbo are crying they are not united. How can you unite under chiefs or structures that are not amenable to such? It is against our own people’s sociology, and the earlier we erase it, the better for us. The Igwes, the Ndi Ezes have to go. We don’t need them and they don’t need themselves as well.

Don’t you think that times have changed and the modern society presents a different reality, and needs this kind of leadership roles at the local level?

As I stated in the book, where you have monarchies in Europe, which a wrong ignorant examples people give here, it is a vestigial. So, the idea of having tiers in government is why economists explain the rise of Germany and the fall of Britain after the 2nd World War. Germany emerged without too many centres of government like kings, barons and dukes, which we didn’t have until the two GMOs imposed kingship on the Igbo, and that came with transaction cost on Igboland. So, to develop as Igbo, we pay more cost than we should; we pay more cost than the Arewa-driven northern attitude or the Ogboni-driven Yoruba attitude or the Egbesu-driven Ijaw attitude. Their systems are different from ours. In place of having monarchies in Igboland, the presidents of town unions should handle the affairs of towns. Monarchies don’t preserve cultures. This idea of monarchies and cultures is a scam. Culture comes from several places. By writing this book, I am contributing to culture. Culture is not celebrating New Yam festival, which they use to deceive the people. These Ezes send their children to America, and they don’t eat new yam in America.

Related to your call for the abolishing of kingship in Igboland is your denunciation of having Eze Ndigbos all over the countries in the book….

I don’t disagree with any man crowning himself Eze Ndigbo as a joke or maybe he is doing 419. Good luck to him, but let it not be that he is representing Igbo through a monarchical system. It is antithetical to the sociology of which we have. Any fool, doctor, professor or businessman can declare himself Eze Ndigbo of Hell or Eze Ndigbo of Heaven. But let it not be a point of aggregating the Igbo. No! We must remain free, republican, independent people, because our republicanism is superior to monarchism.

A vital logic you pursued vigorously is attempting to establish the origin the paterfamilias of the Igbo…

Yes, this book established the progenitor of the Igbo logically as Eshi. So, it will take life from here. Before there was no such life. But, now, there is life upon the fact that we now know the father of the Igbo.

How do you support this?

The Igbo society is structured basically according to Heartland Igbo (Mbaise and Mbano) and Outer Igbo (Umuleri and Aguleri). Oguta is also in that group, though they are in Imo State, because they are riverine people. I purposely chose Aguleri, Umuleri, Oraeri (in Anambra) and I also chose Oguta, Nkwerre and Umueshi (in Imo State). In addition, I also chose Mbaise and Mbano, also in Imo, because they call it (Eshi) Ehi. It is the same thing, but dialectically different. It is like Okoro and Okolo, which means the same thing in Igboland. While Anambra and Enugu have Okolo. Imo and Abia call it Okoro. If you look at the spread from Agulurei and Umuleri to Nkwerrre, Ehime Mbano to Mbaise, which is the largest sub clan in Igboland with the exception of Ngwa; and you have Oguta people who are Igbo mmiri (riverine Igbo), and you have a significant momentum of Igbo population in these areas; it then means that they came from one person or a significant population of these people came from one paterfamilias.

So, where does this leave the Nri narrative about the origin of the Igbo people?

Anybody can circulate any myth and legend –good for them! People have asked me whether the Igbo were related to the Jew, and I told them I wasn’t aware. I only conclude on things my logic and facts can carry. What Nri people are saying about the origin of the Igbo is myth. They have not been able to match it with logic. Somebody from Nkweshi in Imo State told me that the name of the community was originally Nkwo-Eshi. So, you can see that the Eshi origin is broad and tenable.

So, you want us to believe that Eshi is actually the father of the Igbo?

It has to be. That is what the logic and language available says. What we are saying is that Eshi has been metaphorised as Time, that’s why in Igboland, we hear “ka mgbe eshi” (right from the beginning) and “eri (ehi) mgbe n’ile” (from time immemorial). So, the Igbo equivalent of “Before Abraham I was” is “ka mgbe eshi”.

In the book, too, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Emmanuel Udom, is lionised….

Yes, I have two add-up articles in the book. One is on the BRACE Factor and another on Emmanuel Udom. Part of the book is to bring that which is new. Udom is a banker who has done great, who has brought entrepreneurial sense into the running of the state. Together with Udo, this gives a fresh handle on the kind of advice Confucius gave that a scholar has to report from the reality. We should not be citing Singapore when we have an equivalent of that in Nigeria. It is our duty to point the specific and which is new. That’s what Udom represents. These [Brace Factor and Udom] are new lights in our present shadows, and we have to celebrate them.

THE BBC AND NDIGBO - NO LOVE LOST

Don't let the prominent use (abuse?) of the pictures of Nnamdi Kanu fool you. The antipathy between the British colonial overlords and the stubborn Igbo race has outlived most of the major players in the fight for Nigerian paper independence. This is why modern day British diplomats and the business class like Paul Arkwright, who were not born when it all started, take a stark anti-Igbo stance that seems ingrained in their DNA.

If the current struggle for #Restructuring of the Nigerian polity is restricted to the demand for #TrueFederalism, the attitude of Whitehall would be exactly the same, as it has been over the past 50years of the London sponsored Gowonian legacy. That is why Ndigbo elite who loudly proclaim a lack of interest in the breakup of Nigeria are not getting any support whatsoever from the British establishment. THE UK WANTS NIGERIA TO REMAIND THE WAY IT IS IN THE INTEREST OF QUEEN AND EMPIRE. Many southern Nigerians feigning sophistication, with a British passport or visa to boot, get carried away with the deceptive reportage of BBC which refuses to provide the necessary gravitas for dealing with Nigeria's many dysfunctions.

Take the following report for example. Was it an editorial or a narrative of a young journalist sent on an all expenses paid safari to check out Biafra land or whatever name they call Igboland out of earshot. Could it have been for the silly purpose of providing an unnecessary update on disabled Biafran war veterans, a story that is of absolutely no interest to the members of Parliament or the young operators in London Financial Sector? He couldn't even include his/her name.

The BBC falsely claims to take no side in any revolution. Of course the current turmoil in Nigeria does not measure up to that billing. Or does it? Worse that there is an agitation emanating from Igboland of all places. Such insufferable upstarts!

I have never regarded the peoples of India as submissive. However I just wonder what would have happened if Brittannia had to cope with a colony the size of India populated by Ndigbo. I just wonder. The Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya would perhaps have appeared like a picnic in comparison. Oh, how the British loved and still love the north of Nigeria in contrast, in spite of the depressing human development indices in a place comparable only with post Siad Barre Somalia.

The unrelenting negative attitude of the government, institutions and media of the UK towards Ndigbo is simply payback. Nnamdi Kanu, the poster child and enfant terrible, and of course this current agitation for Biafra, have got nothing to do with it. The British perhaps hate Ndigbo more than the Hausa-Fulani. Yes, that's a strong allegation. I am old enough to make it.

'Nigeria treats us like slaves' - but is Biafra the answer? - BBC News - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40506251

TELEVISION COVERAGE OF THE MILITARY INVASION OF THE SOUTH-EAST

I need help here. 

For over a decade, my television station of choice has been ChannelsTV. This is not unique to me otherwise they would not consistently win the Station Of The Year Award over and over again. I watch ChannelsTV especially when I need to put certain conflicting reports to rest. One cannot count on NTA for factual reportage.

Now some people have recently been accusing ALL major television networks, including ChannelsTV and of course TVC, of colluding with and being on the payroll of the Federal Government. This is a weighty accusation which I would want to dig into over time before I can take a definitive position.

However, apart from any editorial position and posturing on these happenings in Aba, Afara-Ukwu in Abia State and other parts of the South-East, has our favourite ChannelsTV been providing viewers with footage out of the South-East, hence allowing them draw their own conclusions? The surfeit of self produced videos by interested parties has been a source of serious concern. People weep over them. Others condemn them as untrue or true but sensational, and since they affect our sensibilities need to be suppressed. Meanwhile ChannelsTV and others REFUSE to give viewers authentic coverage.

If indeed the IPOBians are as bad and violent as reported, we need to see the pictures, together with records of the "justified" reactions of the military supposedly "just passing by or minding their own business." Without these, I sense a serious cover-up. Those who have been shouting themselves hoarse that a pogrom, (if genocide is too harsh a word for you), is in the offing, see in these developments the evidence they have been looking for.

ChannelsTV is fully on the ground in Awka, Enugu and the rest of the South-East. It provides blanket coverage for the activities of Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State. I have the sneaky feeling that the monsters at the Abuja military high command and 82 Division Enugu instructed them to stay away from their areas of operation. Otherwise all military exercises are newsworthy and are thus given comprehensive coverage. That was how I got to know the popular NTA military correspondent Muhammadu. In the heat of the Fulani campaign in Agatuland, ChannelsTV's Charles Erukaa kept us updated on the happenings there despite the obvious risk to his life. Why then are all the stories about the carnage emanating from Operation Python Dance in the South-East coming only from the "enemy" side?
This is sinister.

Who will tell Rivers elders that I too am not Biafran!

BIAFRA? TO BE OR NOT TO BE. 
THAT'S THE QUESTION 
I can hardly believe that I wrote these lines 2+ years ago. 
.........................................

We suddenly have a new industry in town. I am referring to the stampede to disown the still non-violent agitation of probably misguided but clearly disillusioned 40-something-year-old Igbo youths for the rebirth of Biafra. Apparently nobody wants to be left out. At least not this writer. I hereby stand up to be counted.

I condemn and oppose (not violently) the renewed agitation for the moribund republic which for three years was sustained by the blood, sweat and tears of my age mates. Those of us favoured to still be alive are now between 64 and 73 years of age, proud grandparents. We are grateful to God, but not necessarily to Nigeria in which we have had varied and traumatic experiences these past 45 years. We are not complaining. We have mellowed, with reduced expectations.

But the youth are complaining, seriously. They never saw what we saw, the hide and seek in Lagos, the gauntlet at the Makurdi bridge, the surge of arrivals at the Enugu Railway Station (one without a head, need I remind anyone?), and at the various motor parks at Onitsha, Aba, Owerri, Port Harcourt. Since that generation is rightly or wrongly accused of being far less cerebral than its predecessor, it will be safe to assume that its teeming members most likely never dug into the vast post-war writings of Igbo intellectuals in the mould of Fourth Dimension publications. I can boldly ascribe to the Emir of Kano the clear articulation of the realisation that these young scions of Ndigbo learnt the sad aspects of walking the streets of Nigeria “while Igbo”, where else, in the streets of Lagos, Kano, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

When the Rivers Elders and Leaders Council (RELEC) distanced itself from the struggle for the realisation of Republic of Biafra, they are not saying anything new. Most governments and citizens of the Southeast geopolitical zone have said as much. I hereby publicly ask them to count me in.

However, that does not in any way indicate my agreement on the proper response from the government and the security agencies. I have earlier written and actually commended the Rivers State Police Command on this. They should keep up their restraint. Those who think otherwise are the real warmongers, looking for blood when none is called for.

Albert Horsfall and his chiefs have faulted organisers of the pro-Biafra protest, IPOB, described it as uncalled for, adding that Rivers people were not Biafrans. That’s correct. Neither indeed am I.

As for the yet-to-be-proven allegations over the transport of Igbo youths in trailers and buses from the five states in the Southeast zone to protest in Port Harcourt, I wonder when millions of Igbo youths resident in Rivers State got discounted. One cannot be counted absent in one’s presence. This could and should have been an MKO proverb.

Which reminds me, what on earth are the Chibok women and their supporters doing in the heart of Abuja? Don’t they know where Chibok is? Or Gwarzo for that matter? I recall that Ogoni activists boarded aircrafts and descended on Shell and UN offices in The Hague, London and New York. We hailed them for their brave, unrelenting and forthright social and political activism. The Dutch, British and Americans tolerated them or at worst ignored them. But in the case of IPOB or MASSOB, we conveniently forget long-established and accepted norms. This unwavering knee-jerk reaction to matters Igbo will never get Nigeria anywhere. Quote me.

SO, LAWYER WITHDRAWS CERTIFICATE CASE AGAINST BUHARI? WHAT NEXT?

We may never know what motivated the plaintiff to sue Buhari over this certificate issue. Now the reason for withdrawing the suit may even be much more obscure. As someone who voted for Buhari, albeit with misgivings, I would want to be convinced that my predident is less unsound than I or even his most trenchant critics would imagine. Did he or did he not obtain the equivalent of this barest minimum of a West African School Certificate? I too would want to know. If Buhari does not voluntarily clear the air over this matter, it is possible that this controversy may follow him to the grave. I don't like that. I blame his inner kitchen cabinet as Candidate Buhari for deciding that the certificate issue does not matter. I have always wondered if a president of northern extraction was synonymous with Buhari. With a all the PhDs strutting all over Kaduna, Abuja. Kano, Maiduguri, and Sokoto, the fixation on Buhari truly confounded me. We have so much work undone that we can do without this distraction. The APC is to blame for all this. The party owes Nigerian voters a sincere apology.

REUBEN ABATI CANNOT DECRY THE EXCESSES OF THE FULANI HERDSMEN WITHOUT INSULTING NDIGBO

dailypostng article by ruben abati

Reuben Abati wrote:

"Ethnic hate, serving as sub-text to the January 1966 and July 1966 coups, for example, set the stage for the civil war of 1967 -70. The root of Igbo-Hausa/Fulani acrimony can be traced back to that season when Igbos were slaughtered in the North, and (wait for this) . .

1)THE HAUSA/FULANI WERE SLAUGHTERED IN THE EAST  . .

Really? Please Reuben tell me about it! 

This is a rather strange way of providing balance in a narrative by throwing in a few chunks of falsehood as ganishing? Reuben Abati had earlier been confronted and rubbished by better organised professionals like Chuks Iloegbunam, but obviously he has refused to learn any lessons.

2) He continued, "Ethnic hate also led to the Tiv riots, crisis in the Middle Belt since then, . "

"Since then. ?" Since when?

Reuben has messed up the order of events in history. The Tiv riots against the Hausa - Fulani hegemony in the north spanned a period from before Nigeria's paper independence in 1960 to just before the military coup of 1966. Hence that agitation for Tiv freedom led valiantly by Joseph Tarka of blessed memory could by no stretch have been a  diirect result of whatever "sins" Ndigbo committed (later) in January 1966 as Reuben Abati would have us believe. It is on record that Ndigbo have been hunted as game every so often since the 1950s. Just check the historical records.

Instead of sticking to profering solutions to the menace of Fulani herdsmen (and other criminals elements who have found that appellation a good cover for their illegal activities), Reuben could not resist taking another poke at Ndigbo. I find it rather strange that some people who "write for a living" would suddenly rouse themselves from their self-induced stupour to address issue that ordinary folks like me had taken on a year ago. Thank God that Mr Abati now has time on his hands.

3) Reuben dutifully  warned that if the situation is not urgently addressed, "A resort to self-help SUCH AS OCCURRED IN 1966, could have serious national security implications. . " . Here we go again.
Self-help? It is most amazing that a government organised, approved and tolerated genocide of Ndigbo in 1966/67 could be presented by an otherwise educated Nigerian, who had the priveledge of serving (himself?) in the highest levels of government, to have been as result of self-help by the aggrieved. Even General Gowon cannot say this. He would rather keep mum or accuse the Ikemba of another infraction long fogotten. This is probably part of the reasons Gowon has adamantly refused to write his memoirs.  At this rate, Nigeria has absolutely no hope going forward.

Meanwhile I will concede that Mr Abati's excessively long opinion piece is not completely bereft of redeeming features. Shorn of the Igbophobic overindulgence,  it should serve as another wake-up call to Nigerians and the sleepwalking government at Abuja. His belated commentary was an inelegant rehash of earlier writers.

Buhari to sack five ministers? Where does that lead us?

Writings in Naij.com, correspondent Clement Ejiofor reported that five ministers in President Buhari's cabinet may have been pencilled down for sacking. He elaborated. I have wondered if this is news or a figment of the imagination of the writer as in wishful thinking. Are we happy with their performance to date? Definitely not. However floating the kite of a cabinet reshuffle now is definitely unhelpful. Let those who got the jobs settle down and do it.

Dr Kayode Fayemi "was reported to have said that he would need time to learn in his ministry."

This is correct. It applies to almost everyone of the ministers even potential high fliers like Babatunde Raji Fashola. The size, scope and the entrenched interests in just one of the ministries under Fashola, say Power or Works, is capable of styming the most brilliant of us all. When a president or minister says that he/she will hit the ground running, nobody seems to factor in the fact that he/she will have to run the gauntlet set up by the necessary evil called the Civil Service. The 2016 Budget fiasco is a case in point.

Dr Ibe Emmanuel Kachikwu of Petroleum and NNPC was not mentioned in this regard. However I am dragging his name and position into this discussion because in the coming year or so we shall definitely encounter several developments that we, the masses, will be extremely unhappy about. Take the current fuel and electricity scarcity for example. We had it coming due to years of timidity, spineless administration and non-regulation. The government seems incapable (or is it unwilling?) to explain, sell or push through with the new electricity tariff. Everybody prefers to discuss metres. I do not envy Kachikwu. Yes, he sells gas to the power companies, and has no fuel for the masses.

As regards the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, when is he ever going to

Letter to Olusegun Adeniyi of Thisday RE: BUHARI AND THE OLD WOMAN IN KATSINA

RE: BUHARI AND THE OLD WOMAN IN KATSINA - Olusegun Adeniyi, Thisday

Dear Segun,

As usual you covered so much ground in your recent article. Please allow me to dwell only on the issue of fuel subsidy.

How do I get the impression that the people in President Buhari's inner circle are leaking their reasoning for delaying the removal of fuel subsidy through you because they believe that you will do a better job of selling it to the rapidly growing band of critics, which now includes you? Kind of Explainer-in-Chief. For goodness sake, you have done your own bit. Let this regime carry its own burden.

In my opinion piece titled "Gas-to-Power Conundrum" (Sept 2014), I boldly staked a position for the immediate removal of natural gas, fuel (as in petrol) and electricity subsidies. I knew that this was a very unpopular position, but I have never engaged in a popularity contest with the ever posturing Nigerian public figure and pseudo-analyst. For sure, I am not one of them. I actually directly blamed the elite who against their better judgement joined the largely uninformed masses at Gani Fawehinmi Park to torpedo the then planned removal of fuel subsidy. I regret to inform you that I have to date not seen a proper analytical response to my original thesis. Talk of being roundly ignored. Over the course of several interventions, (none of which was published by Thisday), I have also asked for the price of kerosene, indistinguishable from aviation fuel, to be freed from government control. None of the intended benefits ever trickled down to the masses. Meanwhile the market became grossly distorted as a result. The unresolved issue of the continuing abuse of the fuel subsidy scheme is a different kettle of fish. Today Friday, December 4, 2015, I purchased 30litres of petrol from a filling station in Oshodi, Lagos. You should have seen the relief on my face as I most gladly paid N120 per litre. How desperate I was.

I have therefore become quite frustrated when, with the predictable but ignored collapse of government finances, the same activists who graced the rally at Ojota (I don't have to name them) started falling over each other to have their names in print, and on radio/television with the new message, "Yes, it is now the right policy to eliminate fuel subsidy." They say and/or write this viewpoint with a straight face, and without offering any new facts to buttress the change of position. Probably they are counting on the short memory of most Nigerians.

You also wrote, "Nigerians want to know, and indeed deserve to know, what Buhari is doing about the economy and they want to hear it from him." Why then are you allowing President Buhari's handlers to offer us snippets through your column? Is it a matter of plausible deniability? The Buhari presidency should man up and talk directly to us citizens. If we don't like or don't make sense of what we hear or see, we will roundly criticise the government. That's their lot. The team asked for the job. We gave it to them.

I can easily deduce that you wish this new administration well. So do I, without any reservations. It must learn and fast too that all the carry over problems from the Jonathan presidency plus any new ones now belong to President Muhamadu Buhari. His team should please, please get on with the job.