As we all settle down to enjoy the Yuletide season, I bring you some of my blogs from other sites to sit down with while nursing a cup of tea, coffee, wine or whatever goes best with reading-for- pleasure, for you. Cheers, TOLA. Las Vegas, NV., December 21, 2011.
Loss of communication between Nigeria & Swiss justice system?
(On Swiss court to retry Abacha’s son)
Submitted by tola adenle on September 21, 2011 – 18:37, Sahara Reporters
Abacha, Jr. is NOT guilty in Nigeria. All he had to do was NEGOTIATE how much to return and presto, he was clean enough to run for head of state. The last we heard, the guy was on the ticket of “Africa’s largest” and most corrupt political party for a chance to rule one of Nigeria’s largest states. His type of case is hardly strange to Nigeria: what happened to Bankole’s case? Or should he not prove he was wrongly accused? What happened to Tafa Balogun’s looted funds that were “recovered” and later reported missing? What happened to … what happened to … in a “crime syndicate masquerading as a nation”? Ibori built a court to exonerate him in Nigeria but now sleeps he in a cell not large enough to hold his cash in Nigeria. May be the Swiss would HELP us try Abacha, Jr.. emotanafricana.com
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“A crime syndicate masquerading as a nation”
(On much-ballyhooed former governor, Gbenga Daniel’s EFCC queries)
Submitted by tola adenle on September 26, 2011 – 18:48, Sahara Reporters
Nothing is going to happen. Where is Saburi Bankole’s case headed? What happened to “recovered” initially “looted” funds? Why was or could NOT Dieziani Madueke investigated and cleared be4 reappointment? The president promised “fresh air” over Nigeria and if all the goings-on fall within his idea of “fresh air”, then what is stench? Relax, everybody. This guy, Gbenga Daniel was the president’s manager of campaign or whatever. It’s the masses that will continue to suffer in Nigeria. emotanafricana.com
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THIS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN A YORUBA “NATIONAL” CONFERENCE
Submitted by tola adenle on October 8, 2011 – 07:22, Sahara Reporters
Yoruba come in various political stripes but describing a gathering of PDP members as a Yoruba “National” Conference even when held at the home of our reverred leader, AWO with his “jewel” presiding is incorrect. A “National” conference that omits key Yoruba leaders like the Alaafin is a joke. PDP chieftains should stop using Mama Awolowo as a masquerade.// The home of the late sage is not and cannot be “Yoruba Secretariat” as political mis-adventurists are using it for their end game. The admonition of the sermonist at The Oni’s 80th birthday celebration Church Service is worth recalling: that this traditional ruler is 80, and shd “what more are you looking for”? He shd forget the divisiveness of the past to forge a true Yoruba “nation” emotanafricana.com
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Tola Adenle on the raid on NATION’S office
… Mr. Alamu, the jury is already back in re retired General Obasanjo’s presidency although Dr. Jonathan seems to be running his ill-fated “Third Term”. General Obasanjo IS the major problem with Nigeria … my mind, as often, went to Murtala and I wondered why Obasanjo did not just take The Nation to court. Nigeria continues to choose from the old primitive template and the result can therefore not be expected to differ except worse. emotanafricana.com
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Posted by TOLA ADENLE on Oct 03 2011, 234NEXT
“Disregard criticism, Oshiomhole charges Jonathan” –
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5744176-146/disregard_criticism_oshiomhole_charges_jonathan_.csp
“Nigeria is far safer than some other countries in the world” is not good enough for the majority of Nigerians, Mr. Former Labor Leader. A very sad selfish opinion, considering who’s talking. Re-election outreach from a “progressive”? emotanafricanacom
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TOLA ADENLE
December 1, 2011 – 3:47 am, The Nation
This is wrong, dangerous and negates whatever Jonathan may claim as “president” of Nigeria. The Southwest has been systematically shunned by the Jonathan administration since he became president. During the Ibadan floods, it would take him a week or so before he set foot in Ibadan, and that is over-stating what he actually did. He arrived Ibadan and helicoptered to an unfinished project of the last Oyo State governor, I read. Now, it’s pay-back time – as far as we can see – for Aregbesola for not bowing before him at a public function in the capital recently.
A president who stands by as his ministers/party top officials flout court orders is NOT the president that Nigeria needs. There is time for change, President E.G. Jonathan. emotanafricana.com
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BEYOND SOVEREIGNTY tatalo in The Nation on Sunday, 12/11/2011
Tola Adenle
To those of us who have held Dr. Iweala suspect as representing NOT Nigeria or Nigerians’ interest in spite of Jonathan’s apparent capitulation over the economy to her, our loss of sovereignty when it becomes formal, will not come as any surprise. One of the salvos was fired recently when the U.S. ambassador let out who’s in charge around “here” by announcing his – and Obama’s support for “subsidy removal” at Nigeria’s Minister of Labor’s office. Many other pointers abound. Thanks.emotanafricana.com
HOW BELGORE & MARK CAME UP WITH DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY
(From Segun Adeniyi’s book on his “adventure in power”; not book’s real title.)
The Nation, December 13, 2011
Tola Adenle
This book is deceitful and it is only in Nigeria where there are paid everything – including bloggers – that attention would be pd to this kind of crying-after-the-fact. Did Adeniyi not deceive Nigerians with tales of the wild like: Yar Adua knew of his trip to watch the Eagles in E. Africa and would be watching; when Yar Adua had purportedly “returned” after the lesser Hajj, did this guy not feed lies to the country and her citizens? Did he not encourage the idea of making one newsman at Leadership or somewhere in the North get slapped with “treason” be4 backing off, etcetera?
I believe in a saner clime, this guy shoud be the one to get slapped with ‘treason’, as in betraying his country. He shd have resigned but now he stands to rake in dubious accolades and tons of money. It’s a travesty that can only happen in the long-suffering Nigerias of this world. Go read “Borrowed robes and NigComSat” are inseparable in The Nation of one of the Sundays of December 2008 and see how this guy worked hard to cooperate with those who subverted the people’s will and hid material facts about Late President Yar Adua. Nigerians are no fools and no matter how this guy try to launder his image, it’s destroyed for a long time. He could have kept quiet for a decade before spinning those tales. emotanafricana.com
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Budget
(On news stories of deployment of detachments of army, police to the National Assembly complex for the president’s delivery of 2012 budget)
Submitted by tola adenle on December 13, 2011 – 19:04.
The president should just have couriered the budget doc to the NA OR have his media aide hand out the papers to journalists. Best of all, though, in this information age would be for the president’s P.A. to email it to editors who would have downloaded it in a Budget Special Edition carrying only the Budget, no ads. Of course govt would have to pay newspapers for loss of ad revenues. Would have been another First in the World just as a budget presented while detachments of armed-to-the-teeth men rough-handle workers must be first of its kind. emotanafricana.com
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Highlights of a recent story that led to the v. brief blog on Business Day of December 13 is necessary here:
Airports authority spends N.74bn on staff training
Authorities of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) have spent N741,218,771.08 ($4.63million) on staff training between January and September 30, this year, an amount industry analysts are querying.
A document seen by BusinessDay detailing “FAAN Internally Generated Revenue Budget as at September 30th 2011” indicated that N542, 164,845.49 and N199, 053,925.08 were spent on foreign and local training respectively.
FAAN budgeted N700, 000,000 and N218, 000,000 for foreign and local training, including meetings, conferences and airport exchange programmes for 2011…
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Olukunle explained that the staff went in five groups and were trained on recent developments in the aviation industry. He said this was besides other trainings conducted for other staff, in specific areas of need, such as airport operations, business development, fire fighting and airport security.
Olukunle further said that about 200 other staff underwent training, both at home and abroad in the same time span, adding that the amounts so spent, were duly approved by the appropriate authorities.
Similarly, the sum of N324, 521,742.73 was spent to clean an unspecified number of airports in the country within nine months, while the sums of N111,518,371.20 and N197,624,484.01 were spent on stationaries/printing/mailing and local travels and transport, according to the document seen by BusinessDay.
1 Tuesday, 13 December 2011 12:45 Business Day
TOLA ADENLE
I’m no “industry analyst” but would this money include – pardon the, perhaps, irrelevance – “training” those airport cleaners to hold on to bathroom toilet paper until travellers can beg for them?
Iweala: fuel subsidy still intact Nation, Dec. 15
Dr. Iweala, “the president is consulting widely” contradicts his words – and yours – that “removal of subsidy is inevitable”. What is he consulting about? Or, does “consulting” now mean the same as “lobby” the Nigerian way? Jonathan may not want it because he knows Nigerians do not want it but the West does (U.S. Ambassador said so); donor agencies represented by The World Bank does and you definitely do if your words mean anything and you are a Company Woman. For posterity, you should just resign because your unquestionable qualification and expertise are not yielding Nigerians any appreciable result.
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Segun Adeniyi’s review of his book’s public presentation which included listing & thanking powerful attendees & benefactors. HisThis Day, Column of Dec. 15, 2010
The number and “quality” of attendees at the book presentation matters little and cannot obliterate the fact that the book is an attempt at image rehab to most Nigerians as these things follow a uniquely-Nigerian pattern: paying “debts” – tangible and intangible and agenda-setting/agenda meeting … emotanafricana.com
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A video on police not-new practice of extortion on Nigeria’s highways from Sahara Reporters recently led to the following blog
.It’s nice to know you are always careful, young man.
Submitted by tola adenle on December 17, 2011 – 13:12. Sahara Reporters
Thanks for taking these sordid scenes to the outside world but it’s often worse even on that road U travelled to Akure. Some years bk, a newly-married couple, their Little Bride & MANY passengers in other vehicles were burnt to death when police stopped to extort bribe at the old toll gate at Ile-Ife. Multiple crashes occurred & the police bolted away after causing several deaths. They used to just halt motorists but now they arrange huge logs of wood in such manner that motorists have to snake around them. U must have seen them. Around Igbara-Oke/Ilara the same month you were in Nig., a Bribery Post caused a trailer to crash. Too many to count. Police hierarchy pretend it does not happen but it is said deliveries are done up the chain. You are right in your concluding description or as a blogger once put it beautifully on this site, “a crime syndicate masquerading as a nation.” emotanafricana.com
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Two blogs; UNKNOWN DATES & SUBJECTS in the recent past, but I think they are both dated. The Nation on Sunday
Tola Adenle
Thanks, as always, Mr. Palladium. I know it’s no use repeating this but if the president had not insisted on running during the last election, may be the pool of presidential contenders might have thrown up others one of whom would have been better able to tackle Nigeria’s present worsening problems. His post-presidency would not only have given him more joy because his appearance of being in way over his head, pardon me for no other expression readily comes to mind, would not have been known to people who should look to him for leadership. He would – at the least, be in a situation that would have somehow led him to the kind of destination that would enable him “seek refuge in books written by great leaders”. Most great rulers in history, including military ones who left their marks on their countries/kingdoms were thinkers/philosophers …
And even within the short interregnum, he could have strengthened other institutions beyond the electoral body if he was not fighting the forces that stood on his way to Aso Rock for a Term of His Own. At under 60 years old, he would then return to a country that might have become a nation. A deeper and more independent-minded Jonathan with his natural tendencies could have landed in better political company and could still have ruled a better-structured Nigeria which would owe a lot to him.
Mercifully, I do not watch television but I do read quite some of the speeches flowing from Abuja and they all fall short of a president who wants to go down in history as a “transformational leader” but the one you mentioned baffled, even if impromptu. When added to the lashing out – that’s what he did – to his “critics” during the same period, it made me feel as a star student asked to play Mark Antony would feel in secondary school when it was his turn at Caesar’s funeral and all he could keep repeating was idiotic nonsense that he, himself could not fathom where it came from: “Brutus is not a bad man, fellow Romans …”.
Worse, he’s stuck on this mad quest for a 7-year presidency which he has told Nigerians he’s not doing for himself. What’s wrong with the 4-year he and Nigeria’s expensive legislators have been given, and what exactly has he achieved with his – and they with theirs? emotanafricana.com
Tola Adenle
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First, Mr. Agbako: why don’t you let us know who you really are? Even in disguise using various shadowy names, writing style is like fingerprinting, Sir.
Mr. Palladium, I do not have the finesse in writing that you abundantly possess and cannot, therefore, refer to anybody deserving the shame of the disgraceful outcome this may have brought Jonathan’s government as “the villa”, “top villa officials”, etcetera. Dr. Jonathan’s presidency is an extension of retd. General Obasanjo’s. Those who “voted for Jonathan not the PDP” can now see.
By the way, isn’t it a sad commentary on the immaturity of those in power to always see writers as being sponsored? Retd. General Oyinlola as Osun despoiler and his Ogun counterpart, Gbenga Daniel at different times took vilification of my contributions to public discourse to new lows by taking newspaper ads and Nigeria’s public relations organization about my being paid by the Nation’s management. People who cannot think for themselves apparently must find it conceivable that ALL newspaper writers answer to their newspaper management. In about 9 years of contributing to THE COMET and THE NATION, I attended a single editorial meeting at the invitation of my editor: to say farewell and meet my editor face to face!emotanafricana.com