NigerianNews

Editorial Comment

NigerianNews

NigerianNews
Editorial

An Editor's Burden and Dilemma

An Open season of trivialization

The President and the Spare

This Greek Gift

No Kidding!

Amazing Citizen and Surveyor of the Republic of Benin!

Conscience and Moral absolutism versus Minimalism

Of Resource Control and Hypocrisy

Illegal Structures

Deep Thought

Michael Jackson NOT GUILTY - a case with cultural divides or is it?

Back at this show of shame again!

An Editor's Burden and Dilemma
NigerianNews Editorial

It is no secret that you are always out protecting Mr. Obasanjo on any issue concerning bad governance. As a resident of US well versed with what amount to corruption and bad governance do you think in the clime you are The President would have lasted 6 years in office? Judge it yourself and remain the comfort of US!

Signed
Samuel Ben.
email address withheld

The above is the complete unedited letter from one of our readers and this editorial is devoted to answering the rage expressed by him and those who have written to us to register their views in the past few days. Since we do not put most of these letters online, we have decided to answer all recent concerns today in this editorial. In so doing, we have selected Mr. Samuel Ben's letter as a representative sample. We only hope Mr. Ben's real name is the one above. We have reason to believe the writer is not using his real name, though we know it and the location from where he wrote. - the reference to London below is to acknowledge a letter Mr. SAM ELUKA sent from London and for convenience. If after reading this editorial and you would like to talk some more, please meet us in our chat room, but send us an email to let us know when you will be there.

In your letter above, you have been very categorical about the open "secret" that we always protect the President, however, from our vantage point here, we know that is not the way the President and his men see it. For example, in the current case of Olumuyiwa Obasanjo and his real estate acquisition in Brooklyn, New York, we can assure you we have craftily highlighted this developing story even when the SUN in our opinion was timid about exposing the deal at the beginning. We have used the Sun's pungent words placed in an obscure inside caption by highlighting it where everybody can see it. In yesterday's issue, we have done no less, it was again the top of our TOP NEWS. Ask the president and his family how they feel about that.

Having said the above, we believe the children of our elected officials have rights to independent pursuit of happiness outside of the shadows of their parents. Although we have a lot of information about this case, it is our believe that we must trace the source of the money for the acquisition of this home first before we make the young man supposed part of an elaborate fraud perpetuated by his parents. It is that simple. The damage done to this young man to date has been caused by his uncle Dr. Abebe in our opinion. In his eagerness to show that Mr. Olumuyiwa Obasanjo purchased the house in question legitimately, he has opened another front which we are currently pursuing.

In our opinion since we do not select our parents, we should not assume the burden of their sins. Is the property in question too much for a young Mr. Obasanjo to own? With our knowledge of America, of course not. People of "lesser" birth and at the same point in life as Muyiwa are known to own the type of property in question in the US. Does that mean that the money spent in buying this home is legitimate? We had no opinion until Dr. Abebe started talking, and even now speaking for the NigerianNews, we still do not have a clue, although Dr. Abebe has opened the door to the direction to look. It is now clear that it is a gaffe to engage us in tomfoolery that this house was financed by the bank. It seems to us the bank angle is out of the question. We know however that if we do allow these people to talk some more, the next thing we are going to hear from them is that Mr. Andrew Young gave the young man the loan. But if we keep talking without evidence, we open ourselves to charges of libel, also our hands are then open for Obasanjo and the Abebe families to maneuver through. At this point, our insinuation as a respectable organization is to be cautious about unsubstantiated information, and keep digging. However, Mr. Ben, can you in good conscience at this time conclude that the possibility does not exist that this house might have been bought legitimately? Our record, just like the record of the Sun does not support any bank transaction on this house. But can that lead to an affirmative confirmation by a rational person to conclude that a loan was not involved? What if Mr. Andrew Young had got the loan in his own name? Or in all the years of the two families in business they were able to arrange a private loan? Should we not wait until we know where else they are going or coming from? If they tell us Andrew Young got the loan, would it not be foolish for them to think that we are not going to pursue it? If they know we would pursue it, will Mr. Andrew Young be willing to expose himself to perjury because of an African President? All records in the US are open to the public, including the CRFN fillings in New York. We try to hold on to the information we have until they are incontrovertible.

All the information we currently have can be obtained by any one who calls at the CRFN or at their website, however, we do not believe we should go to town and publish what can be blown away by a non-panicky member of a skillful Obasanjo/Abebe family. The money involved is not outside of what the President or the Abebe family can provide as a gift or loan to this young man, however, that angle has now been destroyed by a family member in panic. The fact is that we are closer to the solution of this case than you think.

In case part of your accusation has to do with what we wrote about the Vice President, to us, it is just a matter of principle. Some of the people who know us realize that we sometimes take a position which is bitter even for us to swallow. You may not believe this, we like the all-Nigerian outlook of the Vice President, with wives across ethnic divides, after all we consider ourselves Unbridled and Unafraid. In an ideal time, he would be an ideal President. We do not believe for ones that this man will make a decision based on ethnic prejudice if he were to become a president, because his family covers the whole of Nigeria. However, our editorial was not about those resounding and commendable attributes. We still want him to run for president, but he will help himself even for posterity, if he resigns on principle and prepare himself for 2007.

We have a constant yardstick for measuring public events. A wavering yardstick shifts your ground on every pronouncement. However, if your yardstick is rooted in a solid rock, you will never lose your focus even when you judge yourself very harshly. Our measure at the NigerianNews is anchored in a solid Rock. While it is painful for us to ask Mr. Atiku to either resign or be fired, that is the best call we can make in an unworkable marriage. Mr. Atiku had mentioned for example that all elections in Nigeria were never honest, yet he was party and candidates to two of these dishonest elections. This man did nothing when he was in a position to do something in making sure these elections were not rigged. We know that most of the PDP victories in the South West and some other places like Anambra were products of these riggings. Where was Mr. Atiku then? The fact is that our Vice President was in, on all the riggings in the two elections. We know of many of our friends who applauded him when he made this later-day confession, but we cannot applaud him here at the NigerianNews. If you are correct in your assertion that the president is corrupt, would you not say if Atiku had confronted those riggings, we would not have a president Obasanjo?

We also believe that it is immoral to remain a Vice President when you have substantial disagreement with the President. Does this mean we support the President, of course not. We are mainly prodding the Vice President to do the honorable thing by separating himself from the "riggers" There will be no better compliment to a righteous man than to separate himself from the "crooks" once you have discovered these crowds are made up of crooks. It is also our opinion that the president, who won the primary election that resulted in Mr. Atiku's being selected as Vice Presidential candidate in the presidential election, is the most pre-eminent of the two in electoral term. Presidential candidate gives his party and the nation some set of ideas of what he would do if adopted by his party. Were Atiku's ideas not the same as Obasanjo, the presidential candidate? If their ideas were not the same, why did he accept the invitation to be Mr. Obasanjo's running mate? If you agree that he was selected because he did not express disagreement, should he not be honorable enough to quit when he no longer can agree? Is holding to an empty power at that point dignifying? The constitution gives some miniscule advisory role to the Vice President, but what is the advice not accepted worth? If Obasanjo is suspicious of Atiku, will he then give Atiku any meaningful power for the duration of their term? Even if Atiku is called to sit in a meeting mandated by the constitution, does the constitution constrain Obasanjo from holding another meeting where Atiku is not invited? Our friend, think about all these implications. We believe Atiku will serve himself better if he quits, and if he decides to stay (for reasons we don't know at this point), if we were to be Obasanjo, as we said before, we would ask him to resign, failure to do so, knowing how it will be impossible for him to be impeached in the Senate, we would marginalize him as much as we can under the constitution. We will achieve this by accepting his constitutional advice but never act on it. And also, we would isolate him in any constitutional way we can. Now, Mr. Ben, is that dignifying for a man who can spend the remainder of this term organizing his way to the presidency in the election of 2007. Mr. Atiku gains NOTHING in hanging on to power and much to lose. Mr. Ben, you will agree with us that the only reason why he would remain in office at this point is just because he loves power more than the unlimited opportunity his exit from government, for the remainder of this term, will provide him.

How can we finish this editorial without touching the Ngige affair? We are familiar with the vigor with which Mr. Ngige is pursuing the affairs of the State of Anambra. However, we did not pass judgment on that. As we mentioned before, we are not anchored in the quick sand of moral laxity. With all due respect to Robin Hood, his intention was good, but the methods for achieving the intentions were less than honorable. If the people of Anambra voted for one candidate, and Mr. Ngige rose up to become the governor from the smoke filled confines of Okija as we eventually learnt, you expect people whose morals are anchored on the solid rock to say to Ngige "Good Governor, you have done well and the way you got there no longer counts?" Mr. Ben, the Nigeria of the future we fight to see is where our private and public behaviors converge and are found not wanting. I hope the people who insist Ngige should stay will see that although Ngige is a "good" governor, that does not sanitize and remove his stinky path to the throne. We hope these people would realize that there are moral people in Anambra who can also accomplish the same feat Ngige is credited with right now. In addition to being a good governor, the position also requires a man of good moral standing, and we hope that is what we will find in Mr. Peter Obi.

Another point that could make you label us as supporter of Obasanjo is in the removal of petrol subsidy. In agreeing with him, we have applied the law of conservation of mass (remember the masses are suffering?) in making the following conclusions

Money not used for subsidy goes to address other areas to alleviate the suffering of the masses. Right now, the cry we hear is that the masses are suffering, and we have also heard that these masses, 50% of who consume the daily petrol supply are in Lagos. The next consumer being in Abuja and other big cities. Nigeria is a country of a population estimated at 130 million people depending on who you talked to. Out of this, Lagos is 12 million. And let us assume that Abuja and some other big cities consume a combined total of 40%. This still leaves majority of the real masses employing firewood in preparing their food, and foot-wagons as a vehicle for getting about their daily life routine. Who are these real masses who are suffering and where do they live? The vocal masses, how many cars do they need the petrol for? And what have they done for the voiceless and deceived real masses lately? The masses are definitely suffering, however, Mr. Obasanjo has done a bad job in affirming and identifying the masses who really need help. It was once proffered that the elite masses send money to their families in their villages, will a visit to the village not debunk this crass in the way the real masses live compared to the city elite masses? Or the elite does not believe in the social and political emancipation of the real poor masses because they are created by a lesser god?

The money ideally taken from the subsidy could be used in developing the mass transit. We know a lot of the members of Parliament in the UK who take the mass transit to and from the White Hall. And the elite from Nigeria do the same thing when they visit the UK. In the United States, the bulk of the people you will meet on the train in the morning are CEO of some important companies. Our vocal suffering masses have advanced the fact that the government could have used the dwindling pool of fund (Dwindling because of subsidy) to build more refineries. However, these people also (some of them) are also apostle of privatization. Should the government then sell its current refineries and then go ahead to build some more thereby obviating deregulation? Will that be considered deregulation?

Law of Conservation of mass also implies that the oil you take out of the ground are quickly transformed to mechanical and other forms of energy, but once they are taken out as crude, it is never regenerated. America is a country of about 280 million people, but they consume 18% of the world crude. Do you know that USA has more reserves than Nigeria ? How come they are not rushing to open up the Alaska reserves and more oil prospecting in the Gulf of Mexico? Again, they are forward looking, in about 30 years, we may be importing oil from them if there will be enough to meet their own domestic needs. What Nigeria pays now will be child play considering how much we would pay then. It is possible, considering the attitude of our today's greedy officials that there may not even be a country called Nigeria then (We hope the CIA is wrong). Can you imagine the emptiness of the Niger Delta laid barren in 30 years? If we were to be a Niger Deltan, we would not have any sympathy for the not-well-thought-of strikes. We would insist that the government attend to the true suffering masses and do something for them, and in addition, we would ask that the resources which come from our area be conserved, otherwise all these hypocritical calls for resource control will be useless in 30 years because they would have given away our birth rights for a pot of porridge.

This may not have direct connection to the conservation of mass, however, it is a very relevant point. The vocal 7- cars privileged Nigerians have a right to maintain their 7 cars, but the best they can do for Nigeria is to help liberate those who still use fire woods and live in open sewers and abject poverty to emerge to 21st century. They are people too. If we were Obasanjo, we would go over the heads of the elites in the cities to the downtrodden masses in the villages where the bulk of the 130 million Nigerians live. If anybody should be subsidized at all, it is subsidy for these masses. First, subsidize farmers in the rural areas to reach production self-sufficiency thereby warding off the threat of hunger, and then build an efficient mass transportation system that will force the elite to ride with the real masses who are suffering. Mr. Eluka, in London, how many times have the petrol price gone up in the past weeks? If London situation is comparable to the American one, the answer will be several times. Did Mr. Bush decree these increases? Of course not. However, because of Hurricane Katrina, Bush has decided to release some petroleum in National strategic reserve to help alleviate the suffering of the masses, rich and poor alike, that is the extent a free economy can go in dabbling with a deregulated economy. We have to make up our minds whether we want to develop like the Western World or want to remain an anthropological throw back to the stone age. Obasanjo is like his friend Babangida, he takes one good step forward, and two more bad steps backward to erase the only one good step. In our opinion, once you deregulate, there should not be any need for a petrol regulating agency. That should be left to the market forces. And the way that works is; I have seven cars which I used to fill up cheaply, but now the market demands more money for the 7 cars, then I tell the market that I will only now fill one car up. Though this imposes an inconvenience of several days, but since the marketers do not plan to drink their petrol and they also need to feed their families, they will have to come down in a way that does not result in forcing them out of business whereby they become another "suffering masses". The market forces of our dream guarantees no waste of resources. Since every family has to do his own budget, everyone buys only what he needs. We have been told if we advance this position along Lagos street we will be lynched or stoned to death, now to our friend who said that, you know yourself, but sorry, we are sticking to our original position. However, note that our hearts are pure and compassionate, and we and our families or friends also suffer the consequences of what we advocate. What is your religion worth if you have become a master of crafting serious problems in deceitful ways in which you are mostly the beneficiary? We urge Mr. Obasanjo to find the real masses and address their suffering today, for they are indeed suffering. The rising price of Petrol is out of our control. The refineries are abroad, and those who have money and are marketers benefit more if the oil is imported. The refineries that are available are constantly sabotaged. So, whether we like it or not, high prices of petrol is here to stay even if government subsidizes the industry. There will come a time that all other aspects of life for which the money is needed will no longer exist because they have been robbed of what they need for sustenance or for growth. Even the 7 cars will then become useless for lack of passable roads. How can that happen you ask? Because we are not willing to do what we need to do to liberate this important cradle of black people and civilization - Nigeria. You only own the crude, you do not own the chemicals, the refineries and all other things needed to get the petrol to you. We agree with those who said government should subsidize, but we do not agree that the subsidy should be a product that burns off after use, the only exception being the use of subsidy in the process of production that benefit all. The subsidy should be in agriculture and products we may need during emergencies without having to beg other donor countries during the time of need or force ourselves to sing "We are the World" in search of world sympathies.

Finally, to answer your question on whether Obasanjo would have lasted 6 years in the United States presidency, our answer is a resounding yes! We say yes, because the only weapon Americans use in removing an unpopular president is through elections, and it happens every four years. In the US, impeachment is a sparingly used instrument, used only under very adverse situations. However, if Obasanjo were to be found guilty of graft in the US, he would be removed in a minute constitutionally, and this will also be our recommendation in Nigeria if any president is guilty of proven impeachable offence. Honorable people in the Congress of the United States prosecute and impeach the President in a patriotic manner and over proven but not emotional allegations of wrong doing, we are not so sure there are many such honorable people in our National Assembly. You will have to sift through many bags of Ghana-Must-Go before you can find one! You cannot impeach a president because you do not like his policy or his face. In an ethnically divided country, the outcome of impeachment not based on proven allegations of wrong doing that the constitution prescribes can spell dooms. Passing of budget padded with perks when you know the country cannot afford it may seem to you impeachable, but that looks like trying to set up grounds for impeachment, and a multi-ethnic society like ours cannot survive that kind of impeachment.

The question is; does Mr. Obasanjo's beliefs accurately match our own? Of course not. However, NigerianNews is not in the business of retributive justice or in permanent unhealthy friendship with any politician. Look at our records, you will see a lot of fireworks we had exchanged with Mr. Obasanjo in the past. We know a respected Nigerian commentator in Washington, DC. who used to say we never saw anything good in Obasanjo. We believe this man will be wondering now if we have sold out to the president. Those who know us also know that NO money can buy us.

A reader asked us the other time, how come you admire Prof. Soyinka so much but you seem to disagree with him on Zimbabwe? Our answer is, from our vantage point, we do not see things the way politicians and activists see things, we are mere patriot and pan-Africanist although we sometimes ask ourselves, patriot of what country? Prof Soyinka perhaps has an advantage over us on that question and the answers to it. One thing we know, he is not a hypocrite like some activists, and Nigeria needs thinking, non-mentally barren and non-hypocritical activists. All of these enunciated virtues endear us to Prof. Soyinka.

The above arguments are the burden and dilemma of this editor, so bear with us!!

"In case part of your accusation has to do with what we wrote about the Vice President, to us, it is just a matter of principle. Some of the people who know us realize that we sometimes take a position which is bitter even for us to swallow. You may not believe this, we like the all-Nigerian outlook of the Vice President, with wives across ethnic divides. Under another condition, he would be an ideal President. We do not believe for ones that this man will make a decision based on ethnic prejudice if he were to become a president, because his family covers the whole of Nigeria. However, our editorial was not about those resounding and commendable attributes. We still want him to run for president, but he will help himself even for posterity, if he resigns on principle and prepare himself for 2007."