By Amaka Abara

Dear Gov. Dave Umahi, I’m waiting to see you condemn your political party decision to go for a Muslim Muslim ticket, or take a stand for your Christian Faith, not just as a Bonafide Member of the Christ Embassy Church but one who enjoys standing on the Altar of God with hands raised High in worship and Prayers as an anointed Deacon in the Christ Embassy Family.

Gov. Umahi, you have in past times expressed your passionate firm believer in APC and its leadership, reason you decamped from PDP to APC without any known provocation registered behind that decision, betraying our collective efforts as a PDP State, and forcing an Anti-peoples party like APC upon the people of Ebonyi State. We cried 😭

Many who tried to criticize your decision, became your worse enemies, became victims of your antagonistic ploys to silence anyone who dares to go against your move. We were told it was for the goodwill of the people, and most especially in the interest of the State as you’re championing for the presidency, we kept mute, swallowed our disappointment and fears, waiting for your move to materialize to what you believe in.

But No, it didn’t.
The same party you’ve prompted as the best threw DUST before your face and denied all their members from South East who fronted to fly the party’s flag as presidential candidate including you my Dearest Governor, and gave to their “turn by turn” member. You felt disappointed, yet remain loyal to the Party, after all you can’t do nothing because you have scattered your chance of returning to your former Party PDP, as you fought the members one after another.

In your attempt to continue to show loyalty to your party APC, you carelessly and unwarrantly issue a threat in public declaring that “Labour Party will not be voted for in Ebonyi state”. Daddy, you stabbed us again directly on our chest, leaving us to bleed from the inside.💔

ENOUGH!
Let enough be enough, you have done your best, change to the reverse gear and come back home. In the politics of this Nation, you are a force to reckon with, you’ve had record breaking achievements that most of your mates wouldn’t counter even with additional tenure. But just one political decision has rendered your good name and unbeatable achievements to zero level. You can’t continue to play politics where you’re not needed, even when it has been clearly stated in action upon action. This action of a Muslim Muslim ticket should be the last strew for every well-meaning Christian member of APC, except for those who are cowardice in nature and lacks the guts to call a spade a spade.

It’s time to go, I challenge you in good will to take a stand that speaks of who you truly are. History is waiting to pen your name down for good, and Heavens will announce you in a bigger way than you could ever imagine. APC left you all since, it’s time you take a stand for yourself and your Faith. Come home now and don’t remain an outcast as they treat you. We wait in anticipation for your willful return.

YOURS TRULY,

Abara Amaka
Obi-diently Yus-ful.

Dear men,

We understand that your perception of yourself is linked to your relationship with the women in your life; at least in patriarchal Societies. Hence you think:
★For you to be a strong man, there’s got to be a weak woman.
★For you to be a smart man, there’s got to be a dumb woman.
★For you to feel powerful, there’s got to be a woman under your control.
★ For you to be a dominant male you’ve got to have a woman under coercion, etc.

Dear 21st century man, we your wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and friends have come to tell you that the patriarchal conception of your relationship to women is erroneous, begin to view your relationship with women differently.

YOU ARE AS STRONG AS YOUR WEAKEST LINK, your are as strong as the women in your life.

★ For you to be strong, you must have a strong woman supporting you.
★For you to be smart, you must have a smart woman in your team backing you up with smart ideas, whose smart genes your kids will inherit, (research has shown that intelligence is mostly inherited from the woman) and who will raise your smart children.
★For you to be powerful, there’s got to be a powerful woman supporting and raising your arm.
★You do not have to be a dominant male the focus is on collaboration not competition, marriage is a partnership not a power tussle between two opponents. Your wife is not an object for your gratification. She is a human being with equal rights, an invaluable resource that yields enormous benefits in mutually beneficial relationships.

Dear men,

If your wife has multiple degrees do not feel threatened, celebrate her, at the worst get yours. Don’t feel intimidated, develop a poor self esteem and begin to berate and hit her to feel powerful and in control.

If your wife gets a higher pay, a promotion, it is your win, you are partners support her at worst strive to increase your earnings. Do not sabotage her or tear her down.

You are as good as the quality of your partner. Respect her and honour her. Remember the two of you are one. If she is respected you are respected.

If you have childhood issues, or self esteem issues, lack confidence, etc. you can work on those with a therapist, do not take it out on your wife.

If you forget everything, do not forget the fact that your wife is your partner, build together.

Your daughters, sisters, mothers, wives, friends and female colleagues are one of the nation’s greatest resources. Do not destroy, or deplete.

On behalf of all women,
Sincerely,
Dr. Blessing Ntamu
With all my love

womenempowerment #women #womenchangemakers #genderequality #womenempoweringwomen #genderbasedviolence #genderequity #heforshe #love #marriagetips #marriagecounseling

“Even the obstacles on my way, I predict them before those that will bring them will start to think about them. I plan for betrayal, I plan for backstabbing, I also plan for reunion & forgiveness long before they happen.I expect nothing, I expect anything, I expect everything”- Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

My dearest Jagaban,
You know very well that I have always liked and respected you. You will also recall that a few years ago I warned you that everything that is being done to you today would eventually be done to you given the choices you made at the time.
I bear you no malice or ill-will but in view of what is happening in your political party and given the fact that your good friend, co-conspirator and collaborator, President Muhammadu Buhari, has finally thrown you under the bus and dumped you, I am constrained to write the following.
The bitter truth is that you predicted NOTHING and you saw NOTHING. The only thing you saw were your own vain delusions and insatiable greed and the only thing you felt and that moved you was your blind ambition.

President Muhammadu Buhari

You sold your body, spirit and soul to the enemy and betrayed your people even though we warned you over and over again that those you were dining with were far smarter and far more astute than you.
Yet even though all the signs were there you dismissed our concerns, vilified us, treated us with contempt, demonized us and sought to destroy us.
Now the chickens have come home to roost and the writing is on the wall. The signs are there for all to see. You betrayed and sold Lagos. You betrayed and sold the South West. You betrayed and sold the South East. You betrayed and sold the South South. You betrayed and sold the Middle Belt. You betrayed and sold the North East. You betrayed and sold the North West. You betrayed and sold the Muslims and you betrayed and sold the Christians.
Simply put you betrayed and sold EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in Nigeria just to feed and satisfy your psychotic obsession and compulsive ambition.

Like Icarus the Greek, you flew too high and too close to the sun with your wax wings, puffed up and fuelled by your hubris and pride and now you shall meet your nemesis. The spiritual wound that has been inflicted on you is irreversible and terminal and there is no going back.
The dark clouds that lie ahead of you are thick, ugly, frightful, violent and impassable: you cannot make it through them safely or survive them. Your enemies have dug a pit for you and you have already fallen into it.
They have finally stripped you naked, grabbed you by your balls and taken everything from you.
You have lost your mystique, honor, glory, self-respect, following, clout, pride, reputation and so much more. You have also lost control of the political party that you conceived, formed, nurtured and built. The APC was your baby and now they have taken it from you and are set to kill it.

Chief Victor Giadom
They fooled you, used you, dumped you and humiliated you and now they are going to expose you, rubbish you, malign you, break you, crucify you, investigate you and utterly crush you.
You dreamed of being Vice President in 2015 and you failed. You are dreaming of being President in 2023 and you will fail.
In all your plans what you failed to appreciate is that God alone rules in the affairs of men. You refused to acknowledge or accept the fact that the Presidency of Nigeria can only be given by God and He gives it to whom He deems fit by prophecy and divine decree.
It is not about money and power and if it were Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, who had neither of the two before being respectively elected as President, would never had made it.

Sen. Abiola Ajimobi
It is about God and God alone. It is for Him alone to give. It is about His purpose, His will, His counsel, His plan and His glory.
He OWNS the Presidency and the minute any man or woman attempts to usurp His role and think that he or she can buy it or manoeuvre his or her way into it by the usage of political intrigues, guile, sagacity, wisdom, power, knowledge, money or anything else, the Lord disqualifies and rejects him.
Such a person will fail woefully and may even end up losing everything he or she values and cherishes in his futile quest.
God will never share His glory with anyone and He will never support a man or woman that is prepared to mislead, betray and sell his own people down the river just to satisfy his vaulting and insatiable ambition of becoming President.

Yet the signs were there but you refused to acknowledge or accept them.
They refused to give you a formal position in the National Executive. They ensured that some of your key loyalists in the South West turned against you and opposed you.
They refused to accept even ONE of your Ministerial nominees both in 2015 and 2019. They humiliated your protegee who you nominated as Vice President and turned him into a pliant and pathetic little errand boy with no testicular fortitude or shame.
They drove your nominee at FIRS out of office unceremoniously and have placed him under criminal investigation.
They have divided the ranks of your loyalists and turned even your hitherto most trusted lieutenants against you.
They insulted, undermined, marginalised you openly and worse of all they made it clear to you privately that they would NEVER give you power.
All this meant nothing to you and you shamelessly continued to support their evil ways and toe their satanic and murderous line.
Yet if you did not care about what they subjected you to you ought to have at least cared about what they did to Nigeria.

For the last five years our nation and people have suffered because of the calamitious choices that you made and the inexplicable and unconciable alliances that you forged.
You propped up and supported a ruthless, heartless, corrupt, bloodthirsty and cruel regime and tyrant and a President that is clearly beside himself and whose mental and physical faculties reside in another realm and in another world.
Consequently our nation has been utterly and completely destroyed, our economy ruined and our people decimated.
They have been slaughtered, butchered, pauperised, emasculated, humiliated, marginalised, insulted and impoverished.
Hundreds of thousands of them have been murdered in cold blood in their homes, towns, villages and farms and millions have been displaced.
Millions more have been ruined and economically destroyed whilst our country remains weak, divided and the butt of cruel jokes all over the world.
Because of your choices Nigerians are being subjected to persecution, physically attacked, enslaved, humiliated, lynched, scorned, maimed, killed, disgraced, evicted and declared persona non grata both at home and in distant foreign lands whilst our foreign Embassies are being demolished by miscreants and local criminals even in supposedly friendly countries.
I sincerely hope that one day you will reflect on all this and consider the damage you have done to your kinsmen and compatriots.
Whether you do or not is left to you but one thing that is clear: for the choices you have made, for all you have done and for the sheer wickedness and greed that resides in your insensitive and dark heart you will pay a heavy price both in this world and in the world to come and the Lord will hand you over to your political enemies.
Permit me to conclude by quoting the instructive words of a tweet that I posted just yesterday after I heard about the latest developments in your party. I wrote,
“First Oshiomole is kicked out by the Court of Appeal. Then his preferred replacement, Ajimobi, falls into a coma. Then his arch rival, Giadom, is recognised by Buhari as National Chairman.
Conclusion: it is over for Tinubu. He has been thrown under the bus and retired from politics!”
I stand by those words. Happy retirement my dearest Jagaban: may you live long to see the glory of our country restored and the damage that you have done to our people repaired. Shalom.

‘When we decided in 2012 to build a political coalition of progressives, we were driven by a deep sense of patriotism to rescue our country and a strong commitment to salvage our democracy.

We believed at the time that the ship of our country was headed for the rocks. Therefore, the significant progressive opposition parties and indeed all men and women of goodwill joined forces, not only to bring it back on course but also to set it on a completely different trajectory that would restore the hopes of our people and make every Nigerian proud of this great country again.

We approached Nigerians with the promise of change that resonated widely across the country. Based on our promise of change, the people voted against the ruling party in a collective political action that was unprecedented in our nation’s history. Never before had our people’s hopes been so raised. It is my fervent prayers that in a few years from now, we do not look back and say never before have a people’s hope been so dashed.

As former National Chairman of the party, I remain proud of the great strides of our government, under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari. However, I am afraid to note that the legacy of a government is defined mostly by its politics rather than its achievements in other areas, no matter how lofty those achievements are. Our recent history bears enough testimony to this reality.

The military government of President Ibrahim Babangida is today remembered mainly for the June 12, 1993 elections and its aftermath. Our own political party, the APC, is fast becoming the single most dangerous threat to the legacy of our government and our President.

In the last few months we have watched how the party has brazenly subverted its own principles of internal democracy and flagrant violation of every rule of decent political engagement in a manner that makes everyone associated with its promise of change liable to be accused of either hypocrisy or apostasy.

We must therefore remember that our victory in the 2015 Presidential elections and the peaceful transfer of power that followed was a major testament of progress in our nation’s journey towards real democracy. This unprecedented democratic achievement has since inspired progressive forces all over Africa and has become a standard by which democracy is measured in the rest of the continent.

Unfortunately, it appears that while other countries around us have marched ahead in the democratic journey, we have largely regressed. Because we were the political party that benefitted from a system that offered the opposition a chance, everyone expected us to show unwavering dedication to broaden the democratic space for everyone; to ensure that equity and justice take precedence over all other considerations and to ensure that our party truly functions as the vehicle for aggregating and managing contending political interests.

Unfortunately, what we have witnessed from our party is the steady erosion of even the very basic tenets of democratic principles in a manner that could turn our watershed victory of 2015 to the waterloo of our hard won democracy.

As a major stakeholder and as a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, I have made various efforts to add my voice to those of several other well-meaning leaders of the party, in ensuring that the ideals and principles that we fought for are not completely thrown overboard.

However, I have come to realise that those who feel more entitled to the party are no longer capable of hearing alternative viewpoints other than those counselled by their ego and their self-serving interests, which they have promoted over all other considerations, including that of common decency. Yet, no political party will survive for long, which is unwilling to accommodate competing ideas and provide the space for healthy debates.

This statement is therefore a clarion call to leaders of the party, particularly the Governors and Mr. President to urgently bring a stop to the disgraceful and humiliating charade occurring within the National Secretariat of our great party.

There is a most urgent need for the party NEC to meet and institute for the party a Caretaker Committee (even if we have to invoke the doctrine of necessity), whose main responsibility will be to arrange for a special National Convention.

The All Progressives Congress was built on the blood and sweat of Nigerians, young and old, too numerous to count, who were willing to give everything in the service of progressive politics. We must not allow their great sacrifices to go in vain.

Today, almost every member of the party feels a deep sense of alienation and dissatisfaction with the state of the party. It hurts deeply to see how hollow it now rings to mention our party and “change” together. The time to act is now, before it is too late.

John E. K. Odigie-Oyegun (CON)
Immediate Past APC National Chairman

Muhammadu Buhari,  
President,
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,
Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Dear Mr President,

Mr President; Please Belong To All Of Us

“One of the swiftest ways of destroying a kingdom is to give preference of one particular tribe over another or show favor to one group of people rather than another. And to draw near those who should be kept away and keep away those who should be drawn near” Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio.

I have been prompted to write you this open letter, Mr President, by the loud sounds of drums, singing and dancing that erupted within many groups in the last few days on the grounds that you attained the fifth year in office as President of Nigeria. It comes as no surprise that enthusiasm for the celebration is not shared equally by segments of the public. While your admirers and supporters believe you have performed well, many others believe the five years you have been in office as our President has not met the yearnings, expectations and change promised Nigerians.

Mr President, you know me well enough and my position on issues to realize that I can be neither a rabid supporter nor a fanatical opponent of yours. I believe being a responsible citizen is enough reason to wish you well and to work for your success. As we have seen all too clearly these past few years, your success is ours as is your failure. We swim or sink with you!

You might wish to recall that after the results of the 23rd of February 2019 presidential elections were announced, giving you victory, I addressed a press conference during which I urged the runner-up, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, to concede defeat. The reason was clear: tensions were running high and little missteps by the leaders might ignite violence, as often happened after major elections. Some supporters of Abubakar Atiku disagreed with me and told me off. As it happened, Alhaji Atiku went ahead to mount a legal challenge to the outcome of the elections up to the Supreme Court. Mercifully, his actions did not result in an outbreak of violence as we feared.

At the same occasion, I counselled the declared winner, your good self, to use the opportunity of your second term to redeem your pledge of being a leader and president of all Nigerians.

On the occasion of the first-year anniversary into your second four-year term, I feel there is an urgent need to revisit this subject matter.

Mr President, you have often expressed the hope that history will be kind to you. It is within your competence to write that history. But you have less than three years in which to do it. You may wish to note that any authentic history must be devoid of myth. It will be a true, factual rendition of the record of your performance.

And truth be told, Mr President, there are quite a lot of things that speak to your remarkable accomplishments, not least of which is that for the first time in our democratic history, a sitting President was defeated. That feat was achieved by Muhammadu Buhari. The reason was the public belief of you as a man of integrity.

The corollary to this is that at the expiration of your eight-year tenure in 2023, your achievements will not be measured solely by the physical infrastructure your administration built. An enduring legacy would be based on those intangible things like how much you uplifted the spirit and moral tone of the nation. How well have you secured the nation from ourselves and from external enemies?

At this time and in the light of all that have happened since you took office, any conversation with you Mr President cannot gloss over the chaos that has overtaken appointments into government offices in your administration. All those who wish you and the country well must mince no words in warning you that Nigeria has become dangerously polarized and risk sliding into crisis on account of your administration’s lopsided appointments which continues to give undue preference to some sections of the country over others.

Nowhere is this more glaring than in the leadership cadre of our security services.

Mr President, I regret that there are no kind or gentle words to tell you that your skewed appointments into the offices of the federal government, favoring some and frustrating others, shall bring ruin and destruction to this nation.

I need not remind you, Mr President, that our political history is replete with great acts of exemplary leadership which, at critical moments, managed to pull this nation back from the precipice and assured its continued existence.

A few examples will demonstrate this:

In February, 1965, the NPC-led Federal Government was faced with a decision to appoint a successor to the outgoing Nigerian Army General Officer Commanding, General Welby Everard, a Briton. Four most senior officers were nominated; namely, Brigadiers Aguiyi Ironsi, Ogundipe, Ademulegun and Maimalari. The first three were senior to Maimalari but he was deemed to be more qualified due to his superior commission. He was the first Sandhurst Regular trained officer in the Nigerian Army. His being a Muslim Northerner like the Minister of Defense, Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu and the Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, granted him added advantage by today’s standards. But to the surprise of even the Igbo, and opposition from some senior NPC members, Minister Ribadu recommended Ironsi, pointing to his seniority. The Prime Minister concurred and Aguiyi Ironsi was confirmed as the first indigenous GOC of the Nigerian Army.

When on 13 February 1976, the Commander-in-Chief, General Murtala Muhammed, was assassinated in a failed Coup de tat, General Olusegun Obasanjo, his deputy and the most senior officer at the time, was sworn in as his successor. The Chief of Army Staff, General T.Y Danjuma, a Northern Christian, was next in line to succeed Obasanjo as the Chief of Staff, SHQ and Deputy Commander in Chief. General Danjuma however waived his right and recommended a much junior officer, Lt. Col. Shehu Musa Yar’adua, for the post. Shehu was promoted two steps up to the rank of Brigadier and appointed Chief of Staff SHQ and Deputy Commander-in-Chief. Lt. Col. Muhammadu Buhari was appointed Minister of Petroleum. This was done to placate Muslim North which was deemed to have lost one of its own, Murtala Muhammed.

Both the chief of staff, Mr. Sunday Awoniyi, and the personal physician Dr Ishaya Audu to the Premier of Northern Nigeria, Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, a direct descendant of Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio, were Christians.

Barely nine years after the civil war in 1979, the NPN Presidential candidate, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, picked an Igbo, Dr Alex Ekwueme, as his running mate. They enjoyed a truly brotherly relationship as President and Vice President. President Shagari’s political advisor, Dr Chuba Okadigbo and National Assembly Liaison, assistant, Dr K.O Mbadiwe, were both Igbos. His economic advisor, Prof. Emmanuel Edozien and his Chief of Personnel Staff Dr Michael Prest, were of Niger Delta extraction. Remarkably, all his military service chiefs were Christians with the exception of his last Chief Army Staff, General Inuwa Wushishi under whose tenure he was removed in a military coup de tat.

Mr. President, as a witness and beneficiary, it is our expectation that you would emulate these great acts of statesmanship. Which is why we have continued to engage with you.

You may wish to recall that I had cause to appeal to you, to confirm Justice Onnoghen as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria a few days before the expiration of his three months tenure of acting appointment to be replaced by a Muslim Northerner. We were saved that embarrassment when his nomination was sent to the senate by the then acting President, Prof Yemi Osibanjo. When he was finally confirmed a few days to the end of his tenure, he was removed after a few months and replaced by Justice Muhammed, a Muslim from the North.

May I also invite the attention of Mr President to the pending matter of appointment of a Chief Judge of the Nigerian Court of Appeal which appears to be generating public interest. As it is, the most senior Judge, Justice Monica Dongban Mensem, a northern Christian, is serving out her second three-month term as acting Chief Judge without firm prospects that she will be confirmed substantive head. I do not know Justice Mensem but those who do attest to her competence, honesty and humility. She appears eminently qualified for appointment as the substantive Chief Judge of the Court of Appeal as she is also said to be highly recommended by the National Judicial Council. If she is not and is bypassed in favor of the next in line who happens to be another northern Muslim, that would be truly odd. In which case, even the largest contingent of PR gurus would struggle to rebut the charges that you, Mr. President, is either unwilling or incapable of acting on your pledge to belong to everyone — and to no one. I hope you would see your way into pausing and reflecting on the very grave consequences of such failure not just to your legacy but to the future of our great country.

Thank you for your time, Mr President.

Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (retd)

Chris Udoh

SIR: In January 2018, the federal government recovered $322 million Abacha loot from Switzerland. And the government told us that they spent the whole money on ‘Social Investment’.

I am unable to understand what this means in real terms. Now, another recovery of $311 is here with us and the government (through Presidential Spokesperson Garba Shehu) tells us that the funds have already been allocated in full to the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna-Kano expressways and the second Niger Bridge.

While I do not contest the president’s constitutional powers, I would rather suggest a fair distribution of these recovered monies.

For the records, it is important for all of us to know the source of the billions of dollars that Abacha stole. For avoidance of doubt, this money did not come from cocoa, it did not come from groundnuts, it was not from cotton, neither was it from tomatoes.

The billions that Abacha stole could have come from nowhere else but from Niger Delta oil and my state, Akwa Ibom, produced the highest portion of this oil money.

Now that the loot is recovered, I believe that the real owners of these monies should form part to benefit from its allocation and distribution

Akwa Ibom people are nice, accommodating, peaceful and quiet people. Let these wonderful traits not suffer us to become net losers in your economy into its perpetuity.

Read Also: Galadima: Why Abacha stashed billions of dollars

It is on record that appointments into critical economic positions have eluded our sons and daughters of Akwa Ibom origin.

I have not seen Akwa Ibom represented in the board of NNPC despite the state being the highest producer of oil in Nigeria.

We are not in the CBN, Sovereign funds, key security departments and other federal government owned institutions. Do not allow us to lose all these and Abacha loot comes and is flown over our heads to somewhere else.

We are for a win-win situation. Mr President, kindly authorize that this latest recovered $311 million to be invested 100% in the completion of the East-West Road.

Secondly, that the $3.4 billion IMF loan to be spent on Ibom Deep Seaport construction project in Akwa Ibom State and on the 2nd Niger Bridge.

I trust that this IMF loan repayment plan will still be attached to the interest of the oil that we produce and the economic enterprises of the East.

We are devastated with pollution and land degradation caused by years of oil exploitation. Akwa Ibom people would need life-after-oil and the time to create Infrastructure that guarantees our future is now.

Chris Udoh, FCA Akwa Ibom State.