Political Rallies Should Begin

In view of the announcement by INEC that campaigns would start from December 2006, we do advise our numerous political parties to embark on:

a) Membership Drive
b) Candidates Recruitment and Screening
c) Diaspora Mobilization
d) Alliance and Merger Deals
e) Voter Education and Motivation

All thes should be entrenched and conveyed in immediate and extensive POLITICAL RALLIES nationwide.

Let the land buzz and rhyme. 2007 be real!

INEC: Cash At Last!

Better late than never. Now that about 35 billion naira has been released to the electoral commission, let the real ACTION commence! INEC must work doubly hard to shame its critics. Okay, to reassure them...and us all.

For the voters, let's be patient with the system, without being complacent. No doubt, agitations from all quarters, including INEC's critics, brought this funds' release. We must watch out for any and all other booby-traps. We shall give no inch! We shall take no dime! We will claim our due!!

And, yes, the VIGIL continues!!!

Time For Political Code Summit

No kidding. No beating about the bush. No dilly-dally. It's time to ACT.

If you follow the political developments in the land, you cannot be neutral in thoughts or words. If you be a politician, you're entitled to be concerned, troubled and... scared. And you better be prepared, and prayerful. Times are testy. The terrain is tortuous. The tests be treacherous.

All are at risk. All.

As our elders did before, when the jungle jolts, you hunt in teams: safe bands that breathe you confidence, and bring you home as one. Let the call go out tonight that all politicians seek home as one, and may no-one breach the song of hope and honour again. A political summit to set the CODE of practice for all political players must now hold at dawn. The dawn, this time, is the bold rigorous firmament in all our stars which holds us as ONE, and folds us for ALL. The dawn that must hide not the wolf, a dawn that must tear all the shades of the monstrous past. A new and enchanting dawn! Breachers must be sanctioned, and breaches repaired. Firmly. Promptly.

All be at risk. All.

Politicians are not magicians. They are political engineers, technicians and opticians. If they be crippled by selves, God help us! If they be muffled at dawn, God help them! Be they blind...all be truly doomed! They must blink not, tonight.

We pray, as we must, for the wisdom of yore. May this tribe know their rights, and what be so trite. May one right be all right, and no right be more right than the rights of all. All souls.

So, the SUMMIT be due! All change.

Who's Running, Who Is Not?

We must ask every player to put their voice to their face in this serious business of our nation's "Governance from 2007". No more masquerading, please.

Save for a properly-constituted and official Campaign Office, no one else should speak for any of the candidates/contestants. Enough of all the speculations, insinuations and innuendoes, please. If anyone wants to contest, let them speak for themselves!

This August must be for qualitative and august players - important thinkers who want to serve and, thus, seek office to actualise their dream. Let them come out boldly and assuredly. Let them be the ones asking for help. We 've had enough of those hungry canvassers and fortune flies, buzzing around money-bags and dis-interested politicians. It is not their business at all. Why mourn more than the bereaved...or be more catholic than the pope!!

I have no problem with strategic recruitment and even the so-called drafting of good materials for elective and appointive office. But it should be decent and pragmatic. It should not be for a show or for privilege. All the media circus hitherto should end. Who is interested should run and who be not self-motivating need no begging!

Politics, as the business of invading our national vaults, is over. If the jokers and rent-seekers know not, let the targetted souls tell them. Besides, we've had enough of "reluctant leaders"!!

From now on, people, we need only the measured and meaningful voices of ACTUAL PLAYERS. The political parties need to ensure and enforce compliance with political best practices. We do need order and urgent sanity in the arena. Drive the polluters and all their odium out of town! NOW.

As I have always believed, the MEDIA should help us by screening out the noise-makers and charlatans. From this Month of August, enough is finally enough.

Make August Da Month!

An APPEAL. My plea to all: Make this Month of AUGUST the Month! Make haste slowly but so surely the weak will pick strength, the strong will pile grit. Make hate all lonely and slate CHANGE for all... as cake of life. Towards 2007, Make August da MONTH!

The blast-off for true political contests and people-centred electioneering held in May - after the famed demise of Third Term. The pace must now gain speed and be given speed. The tempo and tenor must rise. The place and space must widen and be widened. We await the gladiators.

But the debate, this time, must be just about a two-in-one point: NIGERIA & Nigerians. Full stop. Anyone having a problem with such basic single-mindedness should please do us a small favour: Stay home!

For true citizens, proud nationals and real patriots, the time be NOW, the month be AUGUST, the reason be JUSTICE. Just as simple as dat!

And to finally silence both the worried voices and all dem derailers, let's cut the noise by biting the proverbial politicl bullet. Let it be now, and from this First Day of August, 2006.

Come on, people, let's Make AUGUST da Month of CHANGE!

Mind Not The Taste

Politics everywhere is unpalatable. It has its splices and spices. It thrives on hush, hurt and howls. Pray why, it has its many ups and several downs. In the end, dear player, it stays, it says and it pays. Have always been.

So, when I hear the usual refrain about how dirty politics is, and why decent people should give it a wide berth, I smile. Pray, are we giving governance to "dirty" or "indecent" people, then? I'm sure we aren't. Pray, when will it become decent, then? Only when or as soon as we field the needed critical mass of "non-dirty", as well as decidedly-decent and consciously-clean players.

The total number of "KEY" elective and appointive offices in the land is less than 100,000. To find and instal them is not nuclear science, it is commonsense. Just community in humanity.

Hey, in a country of 150 million we sure can pull that through, can't we?

INTERIM....what?

Let all those who are behind the baseless JOKE please stop it o! As President Obasanjo would say, this nonsense is going too far!! But, knowing our politicians, you can hardly put anything past them!!! Many are simply spineless....as the Third Term misadventure fully advertised.

What is the basis or rationale for anyone contemplating an inconclusive and/or botched 2007 Elections? Who says? Shouldn't our energies and prayers be positively primed for its success?

Anyone proposing an "interim national government" (INC) must be a dreamer. May they wake up, or be woken up. No such dream will come to pass. Never!

Those who are interested in NIGERIA and her glory should kindly help cure these "creeping cynics" (or are they candidates for sedition trial?!) of their anti-elections malaria. They need to be purged of all neo-third-term viruses, and promptly innoculated with potent pro-democracy vaccines. Let their village people "talk" to them o!

Whatever happens, the PDP (especially the Ali faction) must pronounce now that it is not in the thick of this treasonable voyage. Let Chairman Ali whip them with his legendary BBC-interview kind of "description"! We wait.

Failing which the president should take charge and quell the quissling thought right away.

All 40 (so far!) registered political parties should issue joint and separate condemnation of the idea, and declare full support for/embrace of sustainable democracy through regular, timely and on-time elections. They should specifically uphold/protect the non-negotiable status of the 2007 Elections. No going back. Whosoever cannot bear the democratic heat should get out of the political kitchen!

And, oh yes, we do wait.

Day-Dreamers!

There are still some politicians and die-hard hangers-on who can't strike out on their own. They revel in rent-seeking and name-dropping. This has of course buttered their proverbial, metaphorical and physical bread before now. Not anymore!

Latest gist? They angle to be "anointed" by President Obasanjo! As tricky and tacky as that is, there is even more odium: They ignore the other political parties, the other factions (what a story!) of the ruling PDP, and.......WE - The People! Some dreamers!!

Hello o, with our VOTES, we'll pay them their dues by 2007.

Let The Media Damn Them

It's time we stopped the charade and class deceit going on in the political domain right away. The political class, especially the older hands, is perpetuating crass contempt for the electorate and all that our country demands. How on earth can the present pre-occupation with zoning benefit the electoral and electioneering process/endeavour? Is our problem ZONING? Whether north or south, east or west, where are the candidates? Let's have the menu, then leave us to choose!

The case is so bad it now permeates all levels of the bid for office. Instead of telling us about both themselves and their offerings, so we can compare and contrast, they are busy wasting our time with zoning inanities. Let it be known that we are fully sensitive to the sentiments and sensibilities of that matter, just that it should come in after the question of competence. It must not and need not be used to obfuscate the crucial debates about good governance, which should be raging right now.

A nauseating aspect of the present miasma is that even those who are not contesting, or clearly ineligible to contest, are the cheerleaders of the distractive chorus. They clog up the public space and pollute our ear-drums, why? Many of those who got us where we are today are mounting the soap-box, heating up the polity, with provocative and primitive posturing - fanning embers of primordial hate and stoking fires of religious bigotry. Why? Enough of these circus shows.

Now to my quarrel and plea: Why is the media succumbing to the blackmail? Can't we fill pages or airtime without these voices? Is there a grand design to not x-ray our state of affairs, to not scrutinize the contenders, to muddy the waters so any "catch" will do? And thus lead us to the worst choices? We must dread. The Nigerian Press has never failed us, they should now NOT do so. Let the MEDIA stop them, NOW!

My suggestion: No headlines for the zonal debates, anymore. Put a cap on them, even for total coverage - 10% of all news. Take a lead on the real issues - subject by subject, sector by sector, area by area, party by party. We must analyze the state of the nation, the state of the states, the state of the local government areas. Set them side by side the annual and cummulative budgets, and ask the QUESTIONS. Then assess the contestants based on their own road-map for either CHANGE or IMPROVEMENT.

All Nigerians must ignore these cheap gimmicks and time-wasters. Enough of the charade!

Where Are The Women?

While the political terrain is hazy and unfolding, it bears some historical traits. Many people are loafing around, looking for some Iroko to latch on to or hide under. Many more are idling away, hoping that they would or may or can find a berthing in whatever political party shows/has the proverbial bandwagon trawl. How they misread our new horizon!

As for the women, they are yet to learn. In the past, they were contented with being hustlersin the "Women's Wing" of political parties. And they lost out. Now, as before, they seem to be relying on government - through the women's ministries - to organize and strategize. It didn't serve well before, it won't work today. They must get out there, join the fray, and work the field.
No short-cuts, no free ride, no leeching! All must pay the cost of business to reap in this steely business.... or beg for appointment, when all posts be won!

In this tough and rough terrain, only the determined will arrive the Podium of Victory. The real ones, quality and qualitative, period. So sisters, where are the gazelles...and the amazons?

Candidates and Self-Censorship

Strong Message: If you are not truly qualified for elective office, don't run in 2007. If you are nominated, decline. If you are sponsored, withdraw. If you be stampeded, withstand. It should not matter if others like it, agree or not. It should sure matter that you be true to conscience and country.

Strong Advice: Unless you are scrupulously qualified for quality performance, don't lobby, seek or gun for appointive office. No matter what, accept not to serve. Be true to man and mission.

Tough? You bet! Will be more than hell if you be weak enough to trounce this code. Pure hell.

These Politicians!

They have refused to address us on ISSUES! They are busy scheming "factionalisations" and a million plots! They are more interested in "owning" or "controlling" their political party and its coercive purports! Getting quite corrosive. These politicians, when will they learn?

Let them know that it shall be not business-as-usual, again. It shall be merit-before-message, and proof-before-passage. Let them tow the line of honour and succour....and bring both to the long, very long-suffering voters of Nigeria. We, the people....who must be served.

While we love our humour and rib-cracking jokes, it is stretching things for them to serve us the ridiculous macabre dance of political clowning straining our national robe. And at the horrendous cost of 2007? May our Mighty God promptly, please, FORBID!

Governors Should Start Winding Down

It is time for Nigerian governors to start winding down their activities. They should take a cue from the president. Drop all droppables. Right now, nothing grandiose need be embarked upon. They need to start load-shedding, even as they personally intensify projects-implementation and value-maximisation.

It is unacceptable to pile on any unnecessary liabilities, or try to mop up by raiding the treasury. Walls have ears!

Let's Confront The "Generational Change" Question

Africans have no quarrels with age. We revere, venerate and celebrate our elders. So may it be, so shall it be, for aye. All elders are accorded this high honour, until they disprove and disown the status!

One sure station at which elders easily unravel and discredit themselves is politics. It is the open marketplace in which nothing is hidden anymore. And for them elders, we mourn. Very bad sore all over the land! Yes, we must mourn.

At first we permitted the so-called learning process, teething period. But after several decades of the same shenanigans, no more! How come they know how to manipulate, break all laws with impunity, steal the thunder out of the electoral process, loot the daylight out of tight national treasuries, find and locate, and then stash obscene sums in off-shore safe havens, plus luxurious properties in the poshest neighbourhoods abroad? How come they are experts in selling our collective patrimony to themselves, using the most devious means to cleverly appropriate our commonwealth? Yet, they cannot run our affairs in consonance with their oath of office? Damn, we must now ask our elders, and be pointedly tasking about it.

Do they see what "elders" and "seniors" do elsewhere? Especially in those developed economies where they so frequent, and even made alternative home(s)? Why have our elders blocked our progress this long, this bad, this shamelessly? Answers, please...No more hedging or hiding.

Now, let's be clear and fair. There are millions of honourable and wonderful elders in the land. Indeed, we are so blessed with the stock. And that is the problem. How did the wrong ones get to take-over??? And why did they last so long on the wrong path??? Now, we be all smeared. Why and how did the multitude follow the few to sin??? Now, we be all damned.

The Chinua Achebe Foundation's interview series and other media reminiscences with senior citizens, as well as memoirs of retired persons, have been eye-openers! Lamentations galore!!!
No matter. Point now is, what next? Where is salvation, come Election 2007?

I think political parties need to take this matter on board. We must ask the pointed questions. They sh

Cost of Elections (1)

We thank the president for advising all political parties to reduce the cost of seeking electoral office in Nigeria, from Election 2007. Thank you, sir!

Following the sensible limits placed on electoral spendings by parliament in the new Electoral Act, it should be clear to the parties how much we need to clean things up. I will not chastise the ruling party for the very bad example it has set in fixing such high application fees - N5m for presidential, N3m for governorship, etc - since their leader has openly opposed same in his public advice. I call for compliance. Let it be said, too, that the party wisely and commendably exempted women from all fees. Bravo!

Without putting a fine point on it, N5million will create between ten and twenty SMEs/cottage industries in any local government area of Nigeria. If such funds are extracted from candidates, even before their parties' primaries, we are already sowing the seeds of desperation, thuggery, and cut-throat contestation instead of healthy competition. Unacceptable.

May we tell our politicians that political office, whether by election or selection, is not a bazaar - not for sale. We have no room for the "highest bidder" syndrome of the ignoble past anymore. It is one reason Nigerians are clamouring for Independent Candidacy. And we will have it come the next parliament. Before then, let the parties do right: create a level playing field for all.

What do I think? All fees should be reduced to the minimum wage level, if possible; but in any case, not higher than N10,000 for presidential bids. Let the parties find better ways to screen and weed, as well as fundraise at election time.

Politics of money-bags, and godfatherism, belong to the dustbin of our dirty past! Over.

Let's Warn Abuja

The president has, predictedly, disowned the Third Termites! Chief Olusegun Obasanjo told the 'Associated Press' that he was never interested in, and thus not intended on, the failed tenure elongation bid!! Yet, he allowed the monster to tendentiously over-heat the polity, and badly damage his presidency!!! We must shudder.

Right now, therefore, let's warn Abuja. The dark forces within the ruling party and the corridors of power are at it again. They are using security agencies to settle political scores, mounting weird vendettas, and harassing the media. They must be stopped. And removed.

If the president does not rein them in, let the National Assembly do so. Fast.

Abuja, beware! No more evil, please.

Our Budgets...In Percentages

Despite our signing up to the UN Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, we have yet to assign the right percentages of our National and States Budgets to these targets. For example, education has never gotten its UNESCO-stipulated 26%. Agriculture has been wallowing in low rates, while health has haemorrhaged consistently. The mismatch has been intriguing!

Despite a National Book Development Policy/Project, on which we have obtained foreign loans, aids and grants, the Obasanjo Administration raised import duty on printing paper from 5% to 20% in 2006! The minister of education has admitted that it was an embarrassing mistake that is being corrected. Some observers believe it was meant to stifle both the press and the vocal academic unions. No matter. But it speaks volumes of this out-going administration, in which both the president and vice president are education proprietors!

Is parliament free of blame? Not by a long shot! They appropriate funds. It is clearly a matter for regret that the so-called people's representatives could be so complicit. Yes, there are many standing charges of non/half-hearted-implementation of budgets by the executive, but nothing concrete was done to assert compliance. Afterall, the budgets were encased in laws! The ruling party was simply lawless, period. And this was a recurrent charge during the hot "Third Term" debates in the National Assembly. Belated acrimony...but welcomed.

As we head to 2007, let this issue be a cardinal debate and deliberate subject of contestation. We need to sensitize and conscientize all Nigerians to its sacred, salient and strategic status. Let us hold firm to this core ingredient of democracy and good governance. We should be short-changed no more! No.

Never again!

Point of Order (1)

The political class has started again o!

For goodness sake, when are we going to learn??? Why don't we concentrate on issues, policies, ideologies, stakes and timeline, now....Then, worry about zoning, quota, gender, etc. later???

Those who ruined the past are now busy dictating and derailing the pace, the platforms and polluting the polity. Nigerians are being deliberately confused. We must stop them.

Right now, let only candidates speak. Supporters and godfathers should hold their peace. If you are contesting, tell us what you have in stock, and contend with your competitors. Let the political parties hit the recruitment trail, with their full manifestoes. All others should be lining up behind their favourite parties or candidates, and let's have robust debates by those who seek office and votes. 2007 is not just about the presidency. It should be more about the states and local governments. Time for accountability of both office-holders and their present parties.

If we don't debate the STATES, how can we determine which governors (or LG chairmen) are good materials for higher office - say, senate or presidency? How then do we pressure the ICPC, EFCC and Code of Conduct Bureau/Tribunal to act on all 1999 & 2003 frauds/infringements?

May we also realise that this unproductive approach to politicking may be another arrow in the quiver of the ruling party to achieve 'Third Term' by other means. A ploy to derail the proper or due process of electioneering! Have we so easily forgotten the bribe-for-vote saga? And the boasts of its proponents that all is not yet over??? Better not o!

Finally, the MEDIA must save us from the unfocussed political class. They should help set the agenda. Ignore the self-serving headline-seekers. Play down this whole noise about zoning or no zoning. Since it is not yet in the consttution, it needs to be negotiated. When that time comes, the quality of all candidates on parade will matter. Manifestoes will matter. Parties will matter.
In other words, these be the conditions-precedent for successful bargaining. Let's go for THEM! Right now, thank you. Dump the joke.

As For The 1999 Constitution....

Political parties must now conduct their own survey of how best to rejig the present constitution for true federalism, and a greater, better Nigeria. After this inhouse chore, they should go hold strategic consultations with like-minded competitors with a view to forming grand coalitions for power-gaining and manifesto-cum-mandate delivery.

All political parties must tell Nigerians how they intend to enrich and enhance our constitution, including subjecting the final outcome to a national referendum. No short-cuts. No ambush.

One thing we the electorate owe them is our vote. If they get it, they have the first hurdle out of the way. When they propose the amendments, the parliaments will robustly debate and decide. Then the people will vote on a clause-by-clause referendum basis. What passes is passed, what doesn't is dropped. Maybe for another term.

The great benefit in this is that the people will become hugely conversant with, and more able to defend, their constitution. Great for political education, grassroots motivation, and democracy.

And the clincher is: We've got FOUR years to FIX it!!!

May The Campaigns Commence!

President Obasanjo and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) made the right decision today by accepting defeat on the Third Term Agenda. The president has ordered his members to proceed with campaigns towards the 2007 Elections. Long overdue, but better late than never.

We've stated here before, as now, that 2007 is REAL. And it will determine a million things in our great country. Note it. Huge surprises are afoot. Weeks away.

With the new-found freedom extracted from the jaws of the still-born Tenure Elongation crusade, now declaimed, denounced or disowned by the president, Nigerians will certainly be reluctant to over-invest political dominance in one party in the immediate future. Unless it is a grand coalition to, for example, punish the ruling party for this unwarranted fiasco. Thus, let all who feel confident of serving this country set forth on the campaign train. Niche players should be emboldened. Bright prospects.

Prediction: Real multi-party democracy is on its way in Nigeria. No question.