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Your Excellency, congratulations as you clock three score and seven today. Though most people especially your associates (the food –is-ready-kind) from other parts of the country even some from your own village, for political expediency may not be able to openly express their love and convictions of your proven genuineness, you need not worry about that as the stone that was rejected by builders has always and will surely continue to be the cornerstone of the foundation because the Holy Bible cannot lie.
In your long –spanning political career you’ve convincingly proven that you stand tall among your peers in the nation’s political space as you’ve always shown that you are neither an ethnic/sectional warlord nor a religious bigot as some of the folks clustering out political space. Your politics has been national in attributes and this may be because you are more broad –minded than most people who have taken politics as their only means of livelihood.
Sir, sure it’s not out of place to use the opportunity of your birthday to acquaint you with some of the interesting happenings in the build-up to the 2015 presidential election.
You remember your ‘oga-at-the-top’ then, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo? The man has been dancing between the old and new PDP without clear-cut indication of where he actually stands though his body language may be an indication of a deal with President Goodluck Jonathan and his war-canoe house. Though nobody is sure whether the same applies in the Owu’s badly -strained relationship with his age -mate, Chief Edwin Clark. Your Excellency, do you know that Obasanjo’s order to the G-7 governors to go back and reconcile with the President and the old PDP has already fractured the group and demoralized the uprising as some of the governors from their body language may have decided to drop out of the entire scheme.
Turaki, it is worrying that most politicians have very short memories. They talk as if Nigerians are so forgetful. It should still be fresh in your active memory what your friends- Bola Tinubu and Bisi Akande said in the recent past that they won’t ever in their lives touch Gen. Ibrahim Babangida with a barge pole! But recently they paid a courtesy visit to Babangida seeking his goodwill and blessing in their political mission to capture power from Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in 2015. How do you reconcile these hypocrisies and contradictions?
These folks you remember sir, were the same gang that struck a mouth-watering “deal” with Jonathan to deliver their region (you know where I mean) to the opposition PDP against their own candidate- the neophyte Nuhu Ribadu who was merely dangled as a bait for “negotiation” in the 2011 presidential election. This was just yesterday. And today, the same people want the entire country to join them in their chant that this same Jonathan is the most “unqualified, incompetent and clueless” President Nigeria ever had. If the self-acclaimed “very intelligent group’ could prefer the most “unqualified, incompetent and clueless” contender out of the bunch of ‘well-qualified serious’ contenders in the 2011 presidential elections, what does that say about the competence of the group of ‘sharps’ themselves? Abeg make dem go sidown!
Even your boy who is now a fast-graying man, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, you remember him- the accidental public servant, he is now a preacher. Everyday his sermons do more to confuse Nigerians about his person rather than point to the way of integrity and principled living. How do you reconcile what he said that: “Buhari cannot reap what he never sowed. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo implanted democracy in 1979 and he reaped democracy in 1999. Buhari uprooted democracy in 1983, and he perpetually became un-electable. Let him contest a thousand times, and Allah never sleeps and will not allow him win.” Now he is in the same southwest-paddled political boat/canoe with Buhari though it’s not clear yet who is campaigning for who. Has Nasir swallowed his vow on Buhari or they are merely pretending to be together just to try if they can wriggle power out from bros Jona’s hand? Time will tell sir!
Nuhu your brother has turned a houseboy to the Asiwaju gburu-gburuh. What of Nuhu’s EFCC report in which he described the then Lagos state governor as one of the most corrupt governors of the dispensation. So what changed between when Nuhu was EFCC chairman and when he was picked to front as the Action Congress presidential candidate? These are the people who want to steer all of us in their direction of chanting that the present government is the most corrupt since the amalgamation of northern and southern protectorate. Aaashaaa!
What is progressive in all these retrogressive moves?
Your Excellency, are you still in touch with my brother, Chibuike Amaechi, the embattled Rivers state governor? Tell him it’s time to change his tactics. Please advise him from your own experience that most of the people he thinks are with him now in the struggle at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) and the group of seven PDP (G7) governors, would sooner than later abandon him that’s if they have not already sacrificed him at the altar of selfish political gains and atonement to the agbara of EFCC.
Did you not observe the unbalanced equation at the Sokoto retreat of the Amaechi-led NGF where G7- 3 = 4 +DG 3 and in the 4, only 1 is a constant the remaining 3 are all variables. Don’t mind the mathematics sir you know I came from that background!
Let’s I forget Your Excellency, when you came up with the idea of creating a separate Federal Ministry to address the development imbalance of the oil producing Niger Delta region, you meant the Ministry of Niger Delta to function with the NDDC as a parastatal to accelerate the development of the region as was done with the development of Abuja. In addition to appointing an oil minister of Niger Delta origin (with the full powers of the office), you set out to accord more emphasis to the principle of derivation in revenue allocation and decentralize derivation policy to community level.
Regrettably sir, the concept as you originally conceived, articulated, packaged and presented in your Policy Document: “From Reform to Prosperity,” has been completely messed up. It is obvious that a stolen concept can never be implemented as it would have been by the owner of the idea. Your vision for the Niger Delta was a very clear one with step-by-step strategy and workable plans on how to massively readdress the development imbalance of the region that produced the resources that fueled the infrastructure development of other regions of the country.
But what do we have today- a muddled –up situation where both the NDDC and the Ministry will be claiming expenditure on the same project located in the same place. And the result is that till today, the East-West Road has remained a reproach to the conscience of not only President Jonathan but to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, the gang in NDDC and everybody from the Niger Delta that has anything to do with the federal government.
Abeg, there are so many things I wanted to tell you sir but let me leave you to enjoy your birthday. Your brother,the Turaki of Anioma, Chief Peter Okocha salute you. Salute Mama, Hajia Titi Abubarka and Hajia Jemila.
Grace and peace be unto you and your household, Amen! Happy Birthday Sir!
(IFEANYI IZEZE is an Abuja-based Consultant and can be reached on:iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)