Madam Speaker, Are You on the Peel?

Hahaha! I can sense arms and daggers up in my humble direction!! Okay, stupid, I said "peel" NOT "pill"!!! The proverbial "Banana Peel" of the National Assembly. Settled? Hahaha!!!!

But this be no laughing matter, at all. For non-speakers of our unique parliament-speak, this is the metaphorical stepping on the slippery slopes in the leadership musical chairs in the Nigerian Legislature. A few senate presidents and a former house speaker have fallen off their exalted seats in controversial and scandal-fuelled circumstances. The term was actually coined by one of them!

The tortuous and torturing terrain of Nigerian politics should temper anyone in exalted position. In this business, it is intrigues and treachery all the way! Caution and cleanness be da armour of the wise...

Now, it seems our first-ever woman speaker of the federal house of representatives is in more trouble than meets the eye. The now-legendary bug and proverbial "contractgate" seems to have bitten her leadership. Sad part is, there is confusion and commotion everywhere. Facts and figures are being bundled, bandied, unbundled, re-bandied in dizzying bits and pieces! Amazing! There is a remarkable degree of sloppiness, dodginess and incompetence in the whole saga. We are at once amused and bemused. I am mightily mystified!

If this were a campaign season, the case be made. Fully. Now it is a new campaign, a different campaign. And the stakes are at once high, and.... NOT settled! Indeed, things are very very unsettled in the House.

Is Madam Speaker on da Banana Peel, or....

State Legislators: Partners in LOOT?

There is no question that the State Houses of Assembly (parliaments) were an abject failure during the last eight years of democracy. And that was not a swell advert for the majority party in the land, the PDP.

Example: If governors are now being arraigned for alleged looting of state treasuries, pray, where were the legislators? What was their primary function and duty? Who approved the budgets and who abandoned constitutional oversight?

Not that it was any better at the federal level, but the search be already afoot there. No escape, as there is enough clamour for answers and there is solid evidence that action will come.

Our thoughts must be with the hapless citizens in most states and local government areas in the land. They have been so badly served and short-changed that there must be urgent and FULL investigation. Governors and local government chairmen could not have unleashed such mindless looting and primitive gorging alone! Nah...

Let their accomplices be fished out and arraigned too.

For example: We hear an arraigned governor, who is a serving senator of the republic, averred that he actually siphoned several billions from his state's treasury to fund/support the failed Third Term Agenda of an opposition president! Can you beat that! Thereafter, he moved over to the ruling PDP, bundling his entire state cabinet, legislators and party hierarchy and political elite in tow! He was rewarded with a senatorial seat, alas!!

We are not unmindful of the extra immunity he thus enjoyed from the then-president, who gleefully paid a state visit to the rural and impoverished territory to proclaim the governor as a miracle worker, and the land as a place of admirable progress! The media was awash with this presidential endorsement and ruling party heist. The rest, as they say, be now history.

And, hallo-hallo, the history is unraveling...to tell the true story. Yes, for the real history, at last!

So, why will that governor be alone - in arraignment, in humiliation, and in gaol, if convicted??? Where are the technocrats? Where are the bureaucrats? Where are the colluding-contractors? Where, pray conscience, are the party chieftains and the state parliamentarians???

Who audited the state accounts? Did the anti-corruption agencies and other authorities get any hints, petitions and bank withdrawal alerts?

How come it took the new governor, a fellow party stalwart, to blow da whistle - with a media megaphone - before action followed???

May the other governors follow this gallant example! Fast. Double-fast.

We wait.

Official Websites & Freedom of Information Bill

It is very depressing to tour or browse official websites in this country. The quality and content demonstrate the contempt in which citizens, consumers and visitors - -not to mention researchers - are held!

In this era of servant-leadership and the much-trumpeted SERVICOM, things must now change. Fast!

The National Assembly must work on the Freedom of Information Bill right away, and give us the Act. Long overdue!

Once done, I hope before November, we shall be evaluating and commenting - even ranking - all Official Websites nationwide. Unique criteria. Innovative analysis. Dateline December.

Watch out.

For Madam Speaker: Where Are The Women???

Nigerian politics is at once exciting and exacting. It is treasury and treachery. When da trouble begins, it is from grumble to rumble to trample. If you don't reach for ya sledge-hammer in good time, you get slammed - for d fly turns bee, then da matter becomes a beehive. Oh, you will be so badly bruised and battered.....and buried, politically.

If you are clean, don't waste ya clearance ace. Get everyone and everything on ya side. Fast!

So, na wetin be all dis grammar, abeg? Okay, it's about The Right Honourable Mrs Patience Olubunmi Etteh, by the grace of God, Speaker of Nigeria's Federal House of Representatives. She is under siege! She seems to be game for all manner of slam and slamming. Yes!

And, yes also, if you can't stand da heat get out of da kitchen, right? Yes! Public office has its glue and glamour - it could be sleek or sticky, striking or stinking, alas! So, the whole gamut comes with da territory, willy-nilly. I gree.

My humble question is: Unlike the usual practice - almost template - all the traditional forces are not out in full for her defence, solicited or unsolicited! Strange. If na before, haba, there would have been all sorts of solidarity committees, holier-than-thou groups, ethnic jingoists, women activists, etc. firing on all cylinders...in her favour! Wetin dey happen? Answers, please.

Is the EFCC or ICPC a stumbling block? Or, is Madam not "shelling out"?

The PDP South-West seems to be either asleep or enjoying da bashing-show. If she were a man, will she be so abandoned? Or wasn't she their real choice?!

I thought as a "cross-breed and matrimony-bridge-builder" the people of Osun and Akwa Ibom plus Cross River would have come together for Madam Speaker. Shouldn't they?

Okay, where are Nigerian Women? Se una no go tie wrapa and warrior-gele come protect una sister, ba?

Well, we watch.

Did They Loot?

This whole question of loot and looting don't frighten Nigerians, you know. We just get da kick out of da damn thing! Go on the streets and ask. What do you get? My people will ask you back: You mean say dem tief, true-true? Na wa o, for this kontri! Hahaha!!!

And guess what? You are dead wrong if you ever think they don't bother. For, they will then go ahead to list all the neglected, ignored, abandoned, substandard, overrated, under-delivered and demonic projects, policies, issues, contracts, people and places.....!

Finally, they will punch you a parting breeze: God go catch dem, you go see! Plus including dem family...just wait. Hmm, you go see!

Some punch-line!

Is da time here?

Ministerial Screening

There is general disenchantment about the way the senate screened (some say never screened!) the president's nominees for ministerial appointment. Of course, the senator have been doing and saying everything to justify their actions and non-actions.

They agree that the blanket or blind screening done without indicative or specific portfolios was not the best. Then they proceed to aver that there is no constitutional requirement so to do! Very cheap shot.

May the distinguished senator please note that Servant-Leader Umaru Yar'Adua published his asset declaration form "without any constitutional requirement so to do" - and in total disregard of objections/opposition couched and disguised as "Official Advisory" by the bureaucracy!!! Now, many others are following suit - except the SENATORS!

By not requesting for portfolios, the Nigerian Senate short-changed the nation. They were simply crying more than the bereaved.

Poor job.

My Apologies

My absence was caused by problems at our ISP. I regret the inconvenience and blackout visited on all my readers and patrons.

Well, I am back!

I intend to do catch-up work in humble and token compensation.

Kindly bear with me.