BUHARI AND THE COLLAR

Many Buharists cannot stand President Goodluck Jonathan worshipping in Churches and were particularly irked by his visit to Winners' Chapel, Canaan Land, Otta, for a Sunday Service, and the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God for its last Holy Ghost Night. Yet it matters not to them that Pastor Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has been actively gathering some Christian clergymen in various cities around the country campaigning that Christians vote for Mr. Muhammadu Buhari. He has held such meetings with some Pastors in Kaduna, Makurdi and Warri.

The latest gathering happened on Thursday, 12th February, 2015, in Abuja. Mr. Buhari and Pastor Prof. Osinbajo met with a previously unknown group of "Northern Eagles Christian Elders" or something like that. The group endorsed Mr. Buhari and even gave him a gift....a Bible. Yes, a Bible. The Sword of the Spirit! smile emoticon

Mr. Buhari made a rather awkward, tongue-in-cheek, speech about how/why religion should not be brought into politics. LOL! Mr. Buhari had met with Catholic Bishops the previous day.

Interesting.

The New Mr. Buhari must now genuinely love Christians. So has Mr. Buhari recanted? Has he renounced his call for Muslims to vote for only a Muslim who would protect the interest of Islam? Is he no longer committed to ensuring that Sharia Law is implemented in the entire country?

I don't expect Gov. Rotimi Amaechi to reveal how much these Pastors might have been paid by the All Progressives Congress (APC). Or maybe these Buharist Pastors must have been thoroughly screened to ensure that they are more righteous than their N6Billion-collecting Pro-Jonathan peers. Surely, Mr. Buhari, the Corruption-killing Changer, must not be seen in the unholy company of non-Halal Pastors!

* Sigh *

I almost cannot wait for Sunday, 29th March, 2015; the day after the Presidential Election. Hopefully, all the irritating, nauseating, and hypocritical drama of the All Progressives Congress would have been over by then.

NIGERIA DI FURE!

DISSIMULATION

"1 Meal A Day for children in public primary schools. That is real Change".

The above statement is one of the many promises that Mr. Muhammadu Buhari has made in his bid to be our President, the fourth time around.

I had not noticed the bill-board carrying that promise till a few minutes ago in the Gbagada area of Lagos. I was actually on the watch for it this time because a friend called me last night to draw my attention to it. This is what he said about it:

"It is either that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress have not done their home-work or they are sure most Nigerians do not critically analyse electoral promises. At a meager N100 (One hundred Naira only) per meal for each child and at the current School Enrolment Level nationwide, an APC-led Federal Government would require at least N700,000,000,000 (Seven hundred billion Naira only) per annum to fund the One Meal A Day Promise. And we know that no Nigerian government would award a contract of N100 per meal".

Anyone who is familiar with public finances in Nigeria can immediately see that the One Meal Per Day Promise is not worth the billboards that carry it! With a Federal Budget that now averages N5Trillion per annum, it is clearly impossible to commit about 14% of the total budget just to feed primary school pupils once a day. And no child can be fed at N100 per meal even if it is Soaked Gari and Sugar that the APC plans to give the children!

The APC knows it will not keep this promise. It is just about sloganeering. It's pretty much like its promise that it would "not tolerate corruption" when public funds are being used blatantly to finance Mr. Buhari's electoral campaigns.

So why does the APC make such irrational promises? Simple: DECEPTION. The party's strategy to take power is to deceive the people. The David Axlerod strategists have told the APC that all it need do to win over most Nigerians (and especially the young, educated, patriotic, middle-class types) is to speak about "change". After all, who does not want some change? Who does not aspire for something better? Life is about aiming higher, achieving more faster, better and more efficiently. Every product or service provider knows the power of offering more, faster and better. You can't fail with your customers with such hype.

And the APC has adopted that strategy. But it is not offering anything better. It is merely about packaging or, more accurately, REPACKAGING. So Mr. Muhammadu Buhari has been repackaged into a suave, sharp-dressing, urbane, metrosexual, alpha-male....much like something air-brushed and which you would ordinarily see in a magazine like Gentleman's Quarterly, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Men's Health or Ebony. His history is revised. His past is forgotten. His hideous sins are forgiven. The APC would have Nigerians believe that old things have passed away and all things about Mr. Buhari have become new. He is now "born-again"! A New, Improved Buhari. LOL!

So they ensure Mr. Buhari does not speak much. They know if he opens his mouth too much and too long as he used to do, the packaging will fall apart. He will speak from the abundance of his heart and it will be evident that he has not changed and so cannot offer change. This is why he speaks for no longer than two (2) minutes even at campaign rallies in the north where he can speak in his native tongue (Hausa) and not make the Queen squirm at his spoken English. And this is why he cannot be part of any Presidential Debate. He would have to speak for more than two (2) minutes and the facade of repackaging would fall apart for the entire world to see the Real Buhari.

Deception is a powerful thing. Lucifer uses it to great effect. He is the Father of Lies and he knows how to deploy lies effectively. It worked with even God's Angels. A third of them followed his rebellion against God! It worked with Eve. It worked with Cain. It even worked with Abraham, God's Friend and the Father of Faith. Abraham almost lost his beautiful wife, Sarah, to Pharaoh and King Abimelech because he was deceived into thinking he needed to lie about their relationship so as not to lose her. The age-long contention between the Jews and the Arabs is also a consequence of Abraham succumbing to the sincere but deceitful counsel of his wife when tarrying for God's Promised Child didn't seem to make any more sense to her.

There is a panacea for deception. There is an irrefutable answer for lies. TRUTH.

Nigerians must insist on truth from the APC. And from the PDP too. We must no longer countenance deceit in our politics. Do not make promises you have no plans to keep. Of course, because men are imperfect and only know in part at any given time, men can be sincere and make promises which they may eventually become unable to fulfil due to extraneous factors outside their control. With the best of intentions, men still fail. That is understandable. Only God is infallible. Only God's Promises are Yea and Amen. God cannot lie. He is not a man.

But we are talking about political promises which are bare-faced lies ab initio. Promises conceived from wicked hearts which were never meant to be kept. We must shine the Light of Truth on such lies and such liars.

Nigerians, Beware of Lies!

NIGERIA DI FURE!

NIGERIA AND PERCEPTIONS

Last night (Thursday, 5th February, 2015), I watched "Quest Means Business" on CNN. Richard Quest spoke with Dr. Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, our Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, and a Senior Fellow in a Washington-based Institute which seeks to "defend democracy". 

As always, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala did us proud as she answered every question intelligently, eloquently, articulately and convincingly. I wish she were also our Minister of Defence, Minister of Information, Minister of Foreign Affairs....all at the same time! LOL!

But it is worrisome how the international community has been misled, misinformed and disinformed about Nigeria and the performance of  President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Ph.D., GCFR, regarding the war against Boko Haram's jihadist Islamist terrorism. The American chap who was interviewed by Richard Quest said that he is told by those he speaks with in Nigeria that things are "very dark" or something to that effect. His impression from these folks is that things are very gloomy. Even while acknowledging the failure of the international community to take the threat of Boko Haram as seriously as that of ISIS, he still blamed President Jonathan for nor containing Boko Haram. Any wonder who he speaks to in Nigeria? Are we living in the same Nigeria with those folks? If I were resident elsewhere, I probably will also believe that Nigeria is actually what Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nasir El Rufai and  Sahara "Reporters" and their ilk say it is.

The damage that the All Progressives Congress has done to Nigeria through its massive propaganda machinery is unspeakable. 

But one cannot sow the wind and expect not to reap the whirlwind. 
Selah!

NIGERIA DI FURE!

GOV. ROTIMI AMAECHI'S SMOKING GUN

I can't remember who now, but someone wrote in an article sometime ago that many Nigerians have lost their sense of "shockability". Many things happen and many things are said these days that Nigerians take for granted. However novel, absurd, incredulous, obscene, vain, ridiculous, ludicrous, rude, awkward, superfluous, fallacious, untrue....etc. a matter is, there are some Nigerians that would not bat an eyelid or even question its veracity. Truth has become endangered. 

Nowhere else is this the case as in our politics. And in this Elections Season, there are lies aplenty. If it is in the media, especially social media, it most be true. A popular refrain these days is "focus on the message and not the messenger". I don't know how this became Received Wisdom. I grew up knowing that the credibility of a message depends on who the messenger is. Why would anyone believe what a known liar says?! And why do journalists refer to "usually credible sources" to give credence to a tale they know many would need more than a pinch of salt to believe?

It was the Facebook post of a Buharist that I first read the claim that the Federal Government had given N6,000,000,000 (Six billion Naira only) to some Nigerian Pastors to campaign against Mr. Muhammadu Buhari and project him as an Islamic fundamentalist who is out to Islamise Nigeria if he becomes the President. I even shared the post on my Facebook Timeline and said it was the latest fabrication from the propaganda machinery of the All Progressives Party (APC) which is unlikely to gain traction since it was not first published by Sahara "Reporters". That was the night of Tuesday, 3rd February, 2015. I was wrong.

The following morning, all the major newspapers carried it as a major news item: "FG BRIBED PASTORS WITH N6BILLION~ GOV. ROTIMI AMAECHI"!! Oh! So it is official then? The Governor of Rivers State and the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress' Presidential Campaign Committee, the Right Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi made the disclosure(?) at an APC Campaign Rally last Tuesday in Rivers State.

The Governor equally revealed(?) that the Pastors were mandated by the Federal Government to distribute some literature about Buhari's Islamisation Plan to Christians. The Governor, as a devout Catholic, exonerated Roman Catholic Priests from the conspiracy and made it clear that it was the Commercial, Mammon-loving Clergymen  (and Clergywomen?) outside of his Church who were guilty of this un-Christ-like conduct. He dutifully appealed to the sinning Pastors (apparently of the Protestant fold) to repent and return our money to the National Treasury.

Hmmmm.....

Very impressive. Ehmm....but is this not a crime which His Excellency just uncovered? Should there be no consequences for this blatant case of stealing....and corruption? Since Gov. Amaechi is so highly placed, his uncovering of this illegality should not be sneered at. Surely, as a two-term Governor, he has the contacts and requisite connections to get at the root of the matter. He couldn't be saying this openly at a Campaign Rally if he didn't have his facts and figures.

I hope I am not being preemptive here; the Governor most certainly must have compiled the names of those wicked Pastors and obtained the details of how the monies were surreptitiously paid to them. It has never been easier to trace payments as it is today. N6Billion is unlikely to have been disbursed by cash. Or was it? Anyway, the Governor knows.

He probably already has his legal folks working on a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission  (EFCC). This kind of whistle-blowing is easier for a Governor: he has immunity from prosecution by anyone who would attempt to detract Nigerians from the issue by filing a libel suit and he needs no Whistle-blower Protection, thanks to his new Governor-friendly State Police Commissioner.

I have no doubt that Gov.  Rotimi Amaechi knows that he has a civic duty to assist our anti-corruption agencies with all relevant information to deal with this crime. Moreover, as the Campaigner-in-Chief of Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, the Corruption Burster, nothing less can be expected.

This Pastor-bribing episode now makes me suspicious of those Pastors who recently met with Pastor Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in Kaduna and Makurdi when the APC Presidential Campaign Team was in those cities. How much might they have also collected from the APC to campaign for Mr. Buhari? Since Mr. Buhari's Islamic fundamentalism is well known because of utterances he made himself about his commitment to entrenching Sharia nationwide and his urging Muslims to vote only for Muslims so as to protect the interest of Islam, it would appear more plausible that his Campaign Team may be more motivated to recruit and induce Pastors to sell his candidacy to Christians in Nigeria.

It would seem that Muslim clerics do not love money. Unlike their Protestant Christian peers, many Imams are happily and zealously promoting Mr. Buhari in their Mosques up north as Allah's Candidate gratuitously. But if that be not the case no one has a smoking gun such as Gov. Rotimi Amaechi has on the conniving Pastors.

Finally, here is our chance to make an example of all those thieving Pastors. Gov. Rotimi Amaechi, we are counting on you. Don't let us down, sir.

NIGERIA DI FURE!