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DEAR PRESIDENT BUHARI, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

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President Buhari Approves Salary Increment For Judicial Officers

DEAR PRESIDENT BUHARI, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

By: JESUTEGA ONOKPASA

Mr. President, your hammerhead of horror of a Central Bank Governor has turned our country into a waste land of excruciating illiquidity.

My President, your complete disgrace of an NNPC chief executive officer has turned our nation into a desert of fuel scarcity.

These sawdust-headed monkeys you keep retaining in their positions while adding absolutely no value to your administration have only played a fast one on you, my President.

These people clearly have neither regard nor love for you.

They are not in the least grateful for the opportunity you have given them to serve and clearly hold you in nothing but the greatest contempt, sir.

They are not your friends; they are your very worst enemies.

They are clearly in cahoots with the opposition to undo your legacies.

Those they told you would not be able to change money they “buried in the ground” have already changed their money to the new notes!

They did it with the collaboration of Central Bank of Nigeria officials and bankers across this country.

That is why the new notes are not available, sir.

You have merely been duped, my President.

Dear President Muhammadu Buhari, history repeats itself unless we are agile and eagle-eyed enough to prevent it from doing so.

Trust me, Your Excellency, but what is currently playing it out is 1984 all over again!

My President, are you even aware of what your constituents, are presently passing through regarding currency and fuel?

You would be totally ashamed to see the endless lines in front of banks and ATMs and POS machine operators!

Your citizens have to negotiate with bankers to get out their own cash out of the banks!

READ ALSO: https://newsng.ng/ecowas-engages-stakeholders-on-gbv-tip-protections-in-nigeria/

How can you allow that to happen, sir?

Nigerians are constrained to pay a premium to get a pittance of their own hard earned money, sir!

I’m not talking about privileged people like me – I am talking about the average Nigerian, out there, those that voted for you and made you our President.

Your citizens, your constituents, your responsibilities are passing through pure hell to get fuel, Mr. President!

Whether you realize it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, those you have surrounded yourself with are only trying to ensure you leave office in complete disgrace and thoroughly hated by Nigerians for whom, despite all the challenges, you have actually ended up recording great achievements for.

Is this how you truly want to leave office? 

You want to exit the presidency implacably hated by Nigerians?

Mr. President, this is politics, for God’s sake!

It is a game and you are being completely played out of it when you should be the one dictating the pace!

My President, I believe you are a child of God.

Being a child of God is the highest office in the entire universe, far higher than the office of President of the United States, President of Nigeria or Secretary General of the United Nations.

You cannot be a true child of God if you stab your brother in the back.

It is immaterial whether you stab him in the back, yourself, or watch others do so without intervening.

It is your sacred duty and inescapable obligation to protect your brother.

That is the meaning of being your brother’s keeper.

Bola Tinubu is your brother like no one else has been your brother in this world.

It is not only by birth that we end up having relations.

God works in mysterious ways and His divine method is to throw true brothers and sisters together regardless of their biological origin.

That is how you and Tinubu came together and achieved a never before seen feat in this country.

You, of all people, should have realized that by now, sir.

In any case, we are a political party, Mr. President and politics is what we are playing, Your Excellency.

You have the biggest role to play in that game.

It is your unavoidable duty to deliver Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as your successor and next President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It is your implicit obligation to deliver victory for the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party that brought you to power.

If anyone stands in your way, bulldoze them out of the way, Mr. President!

What are you waiting for, Mr. President?

Just lead us, our President.

Please lead us to victory, my President!

***Onokpasa, a lawyer and member, All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, writes from Abuja.

DEAR PRESIDENT BUHARI, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

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Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

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Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

By: Balami Lazarus

Osama. Does it ring a bell? Yes, it does on the Plateau. The Osama I am writing about is that individual who is known for his good works for humanity on the radio and outside the studio. Osama is a gentleman but is outspoken and has a mind of his own.

My Osama in this context is a personality, a brand, and a trademark. Osama is a broadcaster, radio presenter, and popular comedian on stage and in the entertainment industry in Jos-Plateau and beyond. Since the writing is sailing, I will later reveal the identity of who this young man is and why he is so passionate about good governance.

The fights for human rights, social justice, and good governance have been the cries and topic of discourse of so many Nigerians, especially good governance. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activists are the leaders in these struggles, whereby their roles cannot be overemphasized. The quantum of spoken words, public lectures/enlightenment programs, workshops, seminars, etc., has not brought many changes in our systems because there was little or no action by you and me as Nigerians.

I remembered when I was very active in the struggle for human rights and social justice. As Deputy Secretary General (DSG) of Democratic Alternative (DA), we were much concerned with democratic alternative processes and social justice with a whiff of good governance, and this has been the case for some NGOs, as I know.

I came to understand from my experiences that, as a country, we have good public-oriented programs, but our major challenges are implementation and follow-up that come with too many talks but no individual action or collective responsibility because many Nigerians are fearful, and this has made me a one-man advocate/crusader for human rights and social justice. Like the subject of this work.

Now back to the subject. Osama is a brand package, fearless advocate, and mouthpiece for good governance on the Plateau through Town Hall, a popular radio program aired by JFM 101.9 FM. Jos is widely listened to. He was born as Ehis Akugnonu. But Osama has overtaken his certified name. Therefore, my continued use of Osama is justified in this work because I realized that many times your other name (also known as) tends to dominate and overshadow your real name.

Osama is redefining the fight for good governance by personal efforts through follow-up and speaking on them, putting the government on their feet to improve and do better. ‘I am for good governance, and I will continue to speak on this matter.’ He is purposefully driven by his passion for good quality and better systems to have an enabling environment where the systems are working for progress and development.

Balami, a publisher/columnist 08036779290

Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

By: Balami Lazarus

I saw it coming. As a writer, my works and I have been verbally attacked several times. I raised an eyebrow at how some readers react by using bad language on issues, opinions, and views. Well, that is their way of expression when they are displeased, but I feel it is grotty.

And here is the conclusion of the “controversial piece,” as one caller puts it. For me, there is nothing controversial about this discourse but the truth of the grotesque happenings in married homes. And the way out, as I earlier wrote, is divorce.

Recently there has been an inflation of brutal murders in marriages; those killed are mostly women and children, and fewer men. What justification does one have to continue in a marriage where there are threats, violence, and unhappiness generated by the presence of either the husband or the wife? And unknowingly one becomes prey hunted by an in-house predator.

Sharks areamong the most intelligent aquatic animals. Their sense of smell is very sharp; they can smell and detect blood or any red object in water from a far distance and come for it at near the speed of light. Therefore, women’s body chemistry is like that of sharks; they sense and notice things easily. But what is wrong with many of them in marriage that they are unable to detect landmines or red flags early in their marriages? Where there is a threat to life with the intention to hurt, harm, and/or cause grievous injury or death, that is when they realize they are living in gross bondage if they are lucky to come out of it alive.

As students at Pluto College Sharam in Kanke-Plateau State, we were told and made to understand as boys to treat our girl students with love and care and be there for them when the need arises. That was one of the lessons that came from the late Dr. Sumaila Ndayako (Rector), as he was known and called. As boys, we dared not humiliate, insult, or threaten them in any way; rather, we were to take them as our sisters by extension. This has taught me to respect and care for the opposite sex.

Moreover, my association, membership, and experience with some human rights organizations have enlightened me with rights, liberties, and freedom garnished by respect for individual differences, rights and privileges, consent, and action. With this knowledge put together, I consider marriage never a do-or-die affair but a privilege with consent to be a husband to a woman who also has rights/consent to be a wife and live in matrimony. Why then humiliation, abuses, and domestic violence?

I have observed in my experience as a married man that if you take away some women from their husbands, they will die, and vice versa. Despite the domestic violence and abuses inflicted on either party, he/she is willing and prefers to die in such gothic marriage situations because one among them has a deep spiritual attachment to the marriage. This is common in Christendom, where “till death do us part.” My question here is, what kind of death? Intentional, accidental, or natural? This created injunction clause does not hold water in life-threatening marriages.

Living in a shark-jaws marriage, I always blamed women who had seen the red flags but refused to leave such marriages and the house-husband (husband). I further came to understand that patience and the pretext that all is well have caused damage to both spouses in terms of emotional and traumatic agonies and some to their graves.

Therefore, spouses that are trapped in this valley of death with its quagmire should know that marriage is a thing of choice. Likewise, divorce is permissible as a panacea for both to be alive to breathe freely.

Balami, a publisher/columnist, 0803677929

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

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In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

By: Balami Lazarus

In the quite beautiful town of Zhimbutu, where men held sway, lording over their wives, some with brutality, few with love,

care and romance others in different ways. While some women are also lords over their husbands with impunity. Fear of getting married gripped young ladies seeing the ways their mothers were being treated and relegated to the background in the affairs of their homes as married women.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Kwanchinkwalo Xhosa is full of regrets, anger, and bitterness, where Mrs. Xhosa has been treated as an object in the marriage partnership. The red spots were obviously fermented with bubbles ready for brewing.

Similarly, some good number of marriage homes are full of regrets where love, peace, and understanding

and harmony are strangers rejected and kept in a labyrinth of doom where one of the parties is placed in a perpetual tan of unhappiness surrounded by fear in the thickness of smoke, a forced resident.

Long before, now as a young man, a legitimate product of marriage. I took marriage as a mere secular social contract of partnership bounded in love and understanding where two have agreed to live together as husband and wife in matrimony.

However, I have never taken marriage to be a do-or-die affair, which has been the stock of some persons, even when and if the two—husband and wife—can no longer live together, having exhausted reasonable avenues to no avail. Here I am.

for outright divorce as a panacea for the final dissolution of the marriage.

To this day, I have been asking myself, why did I even get married in the first place? For sex, procreation, companionship, norms, tradition, or obligation? While marriage to a larger extent has deprived me and many others of some air of freedom and liberties to do or not to do at any space of time, I suppose. Moreover, the enterprise called marriage has taken away the ‘who’ in many men and

women and made them something else. It has further forcefully taken the lives of many spouses who ignored the red flags and fear of divorce. And besides, many have taken upon themselves to live or die in an unhappy/venomous venture of marriage that is infested with ‘dysentery’ and ‘cholera,’ where death is lurking because husbands or wives lack the guts, will , ability, and/or capacity to invoke the dead-end solution.

Let me now punctuate the work with some questions: Were you forced into it? Was it under duress? Was it at gunpoint? I believed the answers were all no. What will then prevent an individual from liquidating his unprofitable marital interest in such an intense business called marriage to be free from wahala that may likely result in crime?

In such a situation, I advocate for divorce as the only and final panacea, which has a comfortable place as a clause in my dictionary of marriage. Divorce is rarely used in some quarters, no matter what. While my wife and I have sincerely agreed in the course of our marriage journey that at any point in time, with or without any reason/cause, either party can quietly and peacefully walk out of the marriage to avoid who knows what?

In the history of failed marriages and crime findings, it has been shown that one of the parties is forcing his/herself on the other spouse because one of them has a profound and compounded emotional or spiritual attachment to the marriage. The case of the late Mrs. Osinachi Nwachukwu (2023), the gospel singer, was a classical example. Patience and excessive spiritual attachment led to her being killed by her husband, one Mr. Nwachukwu. The same is also applicable to men who fall victim in the hands of their wives. This situation has created two prime suspected killers living in a marriage cocoon.

Balami, a publisher/columnist. 08036779290

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

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