UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Jos, the
Plateau State capital, has just concluded another wild celebration of raw barbarity and extreme savagery. Some barbarous creatures, who have laboured so hard to demonstrate so well that they have no place within the bounds of decent and civilized existence,  had hurriedly grabbed their knives, poisoned arrows and guns  and rushed into the streets to do the only thing they knew how to do so well, and derive immense pleasure and animation from, namely, killing and maiming. And before they could significantly assuage their unquenchable blood-thirst, some hundreds of mostly innocent women, children and men, have been cruelly slaughtered for no other reason than that they were unlucky enough to share the same environment with irredeemable savages.

But I blame it all on our lawless country, where people now believe they can just do anything that excites their warped minds and get away with it. But crime has no other definition known to civilized man and should attract no other treatment except commensurate punishment capable of deterring other potential criminals.  So long as human beings are aware that their nation’s laws are too weak and pitiably toothless, that they can always manage to escape the just rewards for all their misdeeds, no matter the magnitude, the incentive to commit even more heinous crimes would always be abundant.

Since the mass slaughter of human beings occurred in Jos more than a fortnight ago, we have been inundated with so many brands of the usual ‘politically correct’ shibboleths, with which we have always managed to delude ourselves that we are helping to find the ‘right and realistic’ solutions to the problem. Oh, we have this   very acrimonious “indigene/settler” problem in Jos North Local Government, we are told. And while the “indigenes” have vowed that they would never be ruled by “settlers,” the “settlers” on their   part are insisting that there is no way they would continue to be regarded as “settlers” in a land they have been living in for about a hundred years now. No, it was a PDP/ANPP matter, others insist. If one party had not out-rigged the other in the council elections, there would not have been any orgy of violence and wanton killing of human beings. So, to prevent any future mass slaughter of human beings in Jos, there must be dialogue to settle the indigene/settler rift, so they can coexist harmoniously and peacefully.  

Now, assuming one million dialogues and peace conferences do not succeed in bringing about peace between these two irreconcilable parties, what should the   country do? Fold its hands and continue to pray that nothing happens to inflame passions and offend habitual murderers perennially baying for blood and looking for the slightest reason to assuage their bloodlust?  No I don’t think so. In America today, the deep hatred and resentment some incurable racists and rednecks reserve for coloured people around them, including even their present president-elect, is far worse than can ever exist among the indigene/settler combatants in Jos North Local Government. But what makes the American experience different is that no matter the depth of anyone’s hatred for the other, such a one must school himself to appreciate the fact that the strong hands of the law would never spare anyone who dares to give murderous expression to his or her hatred. Once you decide to take another person’s life, you are already very sure of your very severe appointment with the law.

But in Nigeria, when people wake up and start killing their fellow human beings, instead of calling a crime by its real name and visiting it with the exact punishment it merits, we go ahead to dress it up in such self-serving phrases like “ethnic crises,” “religious crises” or even the complex term, “ethno-religious crises.”  And so, when some fellows rose up some  time ago, and   started slaughtering their fellow Nigerians because one obscure cartoonist in far away Denmark had published an illustration they found offensive, we quickly dubbed it “religious crises” and within a few weeks, the bereaved quietly buried their dead where they were able to find the corpses, mourned silently, cleaned tears from their eyes, nursed their pain and anguish, and everybody went about their normal businesses, waiting for the next opportunity for another mass murder to occur.  But if the government had put its foot on the ground, and insisted on having all those who participated in the killings, especially those who instigated them (which I believe they can fish out if they really want to), to taste the full wrath of the law, in future, some other people would think twice before embarking on the next killing expedition. Last Saturday, The Guardian published on its front-page the very revolting picture of many blood-thirsty youths described as “mercenaries” coming to Jos to help their like-minds to terminate more lives of people who may neither be members of the PDP nor ANPP. Now, have far have the security agents gone to establish the owner of the vehicles that were conveying them before they were intercepted? Who hired the vehicles? Who gathered those bands of young, eager killers, addressed them and sent them off to Jos to prosecute more barbarous killings? Were there no security men at all in the state from where they set off? Have their sponsors been identified, and how soon would their prosecution commence?

Already, the very hideous criminal act of mass murder of men, women and children in Jos has already been dubbed “religious/ethnic crises”, and another useless probe has also been set up to buy time, and let the bereaved forget their pain and anguish.  And the children who had been brutally orphaned and women cruelly widowed by the mindless killings would now be abandoned to eat their loaves of sorrow and bitter sufferings all alone. That is the nature of our country. I am not against dialogue. I am not against probes and reconciliation meetings, but we deceive ourselves if we continue to give the impression that dialogue and making people account for their hideous acts are mutually exclusive. Both must be allowed to play their separate roles in the peace and reconciliation process. Most of the people who participated in these killings may not be members of any political party.  In fact, many of them may not have voted in the contentious council elections. And majority of them may not even be able to say the difference between the ANPP and the PDP or the names of the different candidates. All they needed to go into the streets killing people like enraged demons were for somebody to gather them to one corner, give them an overdose of some delicacies, including burukutu, fire them with some hate-speeches against some people they have always been taught to regard as mortal enemies, and unleash them on society to wreak boundless violence. That is why even though we are being told that this was a PDP/ANPP war arising from the outcome of council elections, it soon came to be known as “ethno-religious” crises. If the Commissioner of Police in Jos says he is unable to fish out the people who instigated this mass killing of human beings, including some young corps members whose throats were slashed for no other offence than that they were unlucky enough to perform National Service in a part of the country where heartless killers are carefully bred and kept for wanton murderous acts and most irrational and savage destructions, then he is not qualified to occupy that post. Until this nation arrests and prosecutes the prominent criminals who instigate violence and bloodletting among the citizenry just to make a political point, these killings would remain a regular occurrence. And if we continue to treat this very serious matter with kid gloves, maybe, because it is only the poor and nobodies that usually die, one day, the killers would grow wilder and extend their murderous adventure beyond the high walls of the cosy quarters where the affluent, highly placed bloodsuckers hide to instigate the poor to kill themselves.

————————————————-

scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

“…we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.” —-Isaiah 59:9-10.

Dear, President Umar Musa Yar’Adua. I know that as a human being, you have a heart capable of being touched by a people’s unbearable, indescribable torments. May I inform you, therefore, (since you appear to be unaware) that despite your repeated promises and policy statements, threats to declare a State of Emergency in the Power Sector, and the several committees you have set up on the country’s power situation since you came into office, Nigeria’s dully authorized and unrepentant Agent Of Darkness known as National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), which now prefers to be called Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN — Problem Has Changed Name), has for a long time now descended on us here with all the  fury and malevolence of its total and blinding darkness. I do not know whether you ever attempt to find out how it is with us down here from the comfort of your exquisite castle where limitless  luxury, soothing serenity and ease abound, but I think it would help if I inform you that one of the most heart-rending sights in the world today is the very gloomy picture of sad, pained and traumatized Nigerians cruelly enveloped in NEPA/PHCN’s very thick and suffocating darkness, groping like people trapped in a murky, danger-infested night, and savagely attacked by the deafening noise and fatal fumes of countless generators.

Do you, Mr. President, remember that MTN television advert that used to feature a handsome young man asking a beautiful young girl to step out on her balcony to behold the beauty and delight of golden and brilliant sunshine? Oh, you will agree with me that such an advert, if it was still being aired here, would have looked utterly ridiculous and outlandish in our present circumstance; because, to talk of brightness and the beauty of it in this nation would not only amount to debasing such glowing terms, but would constitute unqualified provocation to the hapless masses of Nigeria trapped in manmade, avoidable darkness. But, Mr. President, like that girl in the advert eventually did, you can today step out of   dark Nigeria into the brilliant ambience of Ghana, Niger, Togo, South Africa, Swaziland, and several tiny countries in Africa where uninterrupted power supply has for countless years now been taken for granted. And then from there, you can look back at the big-for-nothing country you purport to be governing and see the amount of darkness that has engulfed it, and how hapless Nigerians are choking and wasting in the womb of impenetrable and asphyxiating darkness.   Needless to say that when put together, the resources of these countries may eventually not add up to what
Nigeria earns from oil exports alone.   So how were they able to succeed with ease, where you have failed woefully? How do you feel when in the midst of other African leaders, and they mock you by referring to you as the leader of the African Giant? When they talk about how their citizens enjoy uninterrupted power supply, does it embarrass you at all? Or have you lost every capacity to be so affected?

Maybe, we are even very ungrateful. We have been very unappreciative of the long nights you are alleged to have been staying awake on our behalf thinking and planning on how to usher us into a blissful paradise! Pardon us, please, Mr. President. It is just that the increasing decay and dilapidation we see everywhere in our nation daily are just not what anyone expects long hours and nights of planning and strategizing to produce. That’s just the point, Mr. President. Well, we still have something to be grateful to you for. We at least have you to thank for helping us realize that in this nation, Government has become totally irrelevant in our lives; a needless burden too heavy to bear; in fact, it might as well be scraped since all it does each day is to remind us of its parasitic nature, and how better we would even fare if it were not there to perennially rob us. 

As I stand on my balcony each evening, gazing into the atmosphere, and trying to make some meaning out of the very chaotic and dysfunctional city in which I live, all I am greeted with are the sanity-threatening din and clatter of several power generating sets locked in a clearly mad competition to out-roar each other.  Every house contributes generously to this bedlam. Eardrums come under serious threat. Hypertensive cases become more complicated, drawing their victims closer to their graves. Sanity struggles to take leave of several people, as the combined effect of the roaring noise from every house tear into what should have been a quiet evening, with violent rage, piercing fierceness and tormenting loudness. Very lethal, thick, black fumes also ooze into the atmosphere, targeting the hearts and lungs of men, successfully turning the area into one huge fatally saturated gas chamber. But why does everyone decide to set the angry machines roaring every evening, when people require calmness to give their bodies refreshing sleep after a day of hard work to make a living in an impossible country like ours? Why? Because, Government has idled itself into irrelevance. Prof Chinua Achebe’s words are true: “This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen.”

===========================================

Dangerous Begging By Imo Pupils

Last week, I was in Imo State, and was confronted by a very strange phenomenon.  I was visiting a woman, a relative of mine, who had a young, very handsome son who should either be twenty or nineteen. Shortly before I arrived, two female pupils from a near-by secondary school had sauntered into her compound and demanded to see the woman’s son. They wanted him to do ‘Sign-Sign’ for them. Disgusted by the whole thing, the woman sent them away. Now, as it was explained to me by both the woman and a teacher, a particular amount has been set as target for every secondary school pupil in Imo State, to be realized within a specified time.  I understand that a student that fails to meet this target would be in serious soup. They were equally assigned cards where each donor would sign after making his or her donation. So during school hours virtually everyday now, the teachers unleash these hapless teens into the towns and villages to go and do “Sign-Sign”. One teacher said the money was for a “book lunch” by the State Education Ministry. It was also suggested the money was being raised to execute some government projects.  Teachers and headmasters too are under pressure to ensure their pupils raise this money. I am only bothered about the dangers the pupils, especially, the girls are being exposed to by this totally bankrupt policy. Somebody in Owerri should, please, order the pupils back to the classroom, before the inevitable results of the “Sign-Sign” nonsense begin to show through several protruding tummies, STDs and cases of missing of pupils in a couple of months from now.

scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye           

Last Saturday (Nov 22, 2008) I wanted to purchase a copy of Bitter-Sweet: My Life With Obasanjo, by Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo, the woman who is sparing no effort just to underline her belief that no matter what anyone, including even Gen Olusegun Obasanjo himself, thinks is the case, the truth she would want everyone to see and swallow is that among the countless women swarming the Obasanjo harem, she is the only one qualified to be called his wife. Others, she insists, are mere concubines. To buttress this point, she reminds us on page 91 of Bitter-Sweet, that while broadcasting the profiles of leading members of the Obasanjo junta just before he handed over power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979, “the NTA showed me, and my husband, and our five children then, as the officially recognized and properly married wife, the wife of his youth he swore to keep forever.”

When I called the number on the invitation card for the public presentation of the book (which I didn’t attend), an elderly female voice told me to go to
James Robertson Street in Surulere, that I would get the book there. In Surulere last Saturday, especially, on Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, and virtually all the other streets in the area, including Ogunlana Drive, Masha Road, and James Robertson, I encountered one of the worst traffic situations Lagos may have experienced since it began to exist, which served as painful reminder of the abysmal failure of character and leadership that had distinguished the eight-year reign of the subject of the book I was taking all the trouble to purchase. As the traffic situation worsened, I abandoned the car in one of the streets, jumped onto an okada, and in no time, was in James Robertson Street. Since I needed to get an additional copy for someone, I bought two copies – one hard cover (N3, 000) and soft cover (N2, 000), and there went N5, 000 which I now sincerely believe, after reading the book, could have been invested in a more rewarding and edifying venture!

Oluremi at the public presentation of the book

Now, forget the sensational reviews of the book you may have encountered so far since it was presented to the public at a very poorly attended ceremony in Lagos a fortnight ago. The book contains only very insignificant, highly biased items that could be considered new to what the public already knew about Obasanjo; there is hardly any information therein with the capacity to shock or awe; nothing really exciting, enlightening or edifying about the subjects treated in the entire book. The public appears to have more than it offers.  

The book is all about a woman’s attempt to rewrite herself into prominence and reckoning in one man’s life, to demonstrate, albeit incoherently, that no matter who the public saw starring with Obasanjo in all those days he hugged the limelight   as Nigeria’s ruler, it was she, Oluremi, that the man regarded as the central figure in his life, despite the countless battering she got from him; that it was she who turned down the offer to live with him in Ota; that her decision to stay apart left a huge void in his life; that he was always pleading with her not to leave him alone; and that despite his brutal actions   towards her, he loved and respected her and only kept the other women as “ponies.” Although, it is known that the author and her husband were separated at some point in time (and she keeps talking, about “when I  was kicked out”) the strength of the book lies in her ability to leave the reader in total confusion about when exactly this happened, how long it has lasted, or whether it has been intermittent. Instead, greater energy was devoted to show the prominent role she continued to play in Obasanjo’s life, playing down the separation and reducing all the other women to mere fringe elements in Obasanjo’s life. Dripping from the pages of the book is the undying love she retained for her man, and her willingness to receive him back any time he returned from his boundless wandering through countless skirts. The author’s bitterness towards late Stella was so palpable; it could not be assuaged even by her death. And the way she always gleefully announced the misfortune that met the several people that did her hurt speaks volumes about the nature of her heart. And despite all she suffered from Obasanjo (including being detained on Obasanjo’s instructions at the Lafenwa Police Station, “stripped to my underwear”), she, like Carol McCain, still loved him. But she makes a touching confession on page 64: “He is the only man I have known all my life … So when I found out his philandering exploits, I regarded it as the unkindest cut for his breaking   the sacred vow we took at the London Registry.”

Olusegun Obasanjo

Now, I sincerely think that time has come for Obasanjo and his dysfunctional family to excuse Nigerians from their endless problems and the incredibly suffocating stench that always oozes from that obviously desecrated homestead, and school themselves to realize that we are all sick and tired of it all. I can’t remember the last time I heard anything wholesome and edifying from that family. Not too long ago, Gbenga, Obasanjo’s son shocked the nation when he stated in an affidavit that himself, his father and father-in-law, were sharing his wife, and that his father was rewarding his wife with juicy government contracts after sleeping with her. He went further to say that due to this multiple sleeping partners his wife was generously hosting with immense relish, he required a DNA test to establish the paternity of the children born to him by his wife, since he was not sure any more who among the three had fathered them. What a family! My heart surely goes out to those hapless tender children, who never asked to be born into the badly mismanaged Obasanjo family, and who would grow up tomorrow to grapple with the serious debilitating doubt over their paternity, raised by no other person than the man they call their father.  

Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello

Senator Iyabo, on her part, is always in the news for the most horrible reasons. When she is not transacting very controversial and ugly deals with a name other than her own, she is being accused of mismanaging committee funds in the Senate. In fact, a newsmagazine once called her on its cover, “The Queen of Scandals,” a tag her mother on page 123 of the book thinks does not befit her daughter. Rather, Oluremi thinks her children are all unfairly having image problems because of “the name, Obasanjo.” And so, the attempt by the EFCC to get Iyabo to explain her role in the scandal involving the Senate Health Committee fund was all done “in a bid to humiliate her because she is Obasanjo’s daughter.” Iyabo, she maintains, was not appointed Ogun State Health Commissioner because she was Obasanjo’s daughter, but rather she had worked hard to earn it. I suppose she expects anyone to believe that?

My problem with this book is that it is a needless effort to advertise raw bitterness. And it would end up dishonouring the same children she loves and defends. But what sickens me most is her attempt to exonerate her children from matters in which the public is even in possession of superior facts. What it tells me is that if Obasanjo had not kicked her out of his life, she would also have been out there today defending him against Nigerians who dared express   disgust at the unmitigated disaster and organized banditry he effectively supervised for a whole eight years in Nigeria, during which corruption was effectively institutionalized and celebrated,  and  the country ruined.  

For her, so long as a person is in her good books, the person can do no wrong. So, why should I bother myself about such a person and her book?

———————————————————————

scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.blog.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

When the toothy, exuberant young man from Ogun State, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, became the Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives following the shameful fall of his predecessor, Ms. Patricia Etteh, one the earliest things he immediately did to purchase for himself some cheap popularity and meretricious acclaim was to state with uncommon unequivocation  that the amount actually squandered by former president Olusegun Obasanjo on his phantom power projects was $16 billion and not $10 billion as was widely reported in the nation at that time. Nigerians promptly hailed him for his forthrightness, and went ahead to celebrate him (albeit wrongly) as the quintessence of the very paradigm shift the nation was in such dire need of; indeed, as a symbol of the clear departure from the shameless collaborations and vulgar dissembling that distinguished the rotten era of the horribly corrupt and primitive politics and politicians the nation had become too sick and tired of.

 
Protesters demand Etteh’s removal:
 Why are  they suddenly quiet?

Bankole also said or did a couple of other things that gained him one or two commendations here and there; but in the face of the incredibly low descent he has laboured so hard to achieve these past few months, the very few things he appeared to have got right at that initial stage have since disappeared in the chasm of disrepute which now eagerly awaits him and the foul-scented House he happily heads today. His demystification and degeneration commenced and progressed faster than anyone had imagined. The fact that the late Molete politician and “garrison commander,” Lamidi Adedibu, was generous enough to endorse Bankole as a beloved “son” who remembers to pay adequate homage to acclaimed masters of crude, backward and violent politics like himself was early indication the nation needed to prove the eternal truth in the Yoruba proverb that the Butterfly may pretend to be a   Bird, but he is not a Bird. Bankole was just too uncomfortable in the borrowed, ill-fitting robes he was draped in when he assumed office, and could not just wait to cast them off to show the nation the real person behind the mask, the kind of political and leadership paradigms that greatly animate him, and the monumental mistake his emergence as Speaker of the House of Representatives was to a nation eager and desperate to achieve a clean slate after sweeping off Etteh and her horde of likeminds.

But, again, it has turned out to be another era of monumental disappointment. The only memorable statement I can recall ever hearing from Bankole in the recent past is his most unfortunate charge to his equally unprofitable and bankrupt colleagues to never oppose President Umar Musa Yar’Adua no matter what happens, but to give him unreserved loyalty and wholehearted support to realize the his Seven Point Agenda (whatever that means.) For such a statement, dripping with ill-concealed threats and blackmail, to come from the leadership of a House that is meant to serve as an effective check on the executive is simply tragic. The mere fact that no Member stood up to challenge such a sacrilegious assertion shows the depth of moral and vocational bankruptcy into which the House had sunk. What then is Bankole’s House doing in
Abuja if they cannot oppose any action of the president? Shouldn’t they be disbanded to save the nation the resources used in sustaining  such a gaggle of purposeless fellows idling away at our expense in Abuja?  What really does Nigeria stand to lose if we just abolish our current bicameral legislature and grossly reduce the number of people we are paying to just stay in Abuja and make big fools of themselves on our behalf? Indeed, we must be willing to admit that whatever merits or perceived benefits that may have influenced our choice of two Houses of Assembly have been defeated by the ever ubiquitous Nigerian factor. Time to reduce their number in order to also reduce the endless embarrassments, irritations, disgust and pain they continually cause us.

What has Bankole’s House achieved so far except to wallow in one scandal or the other?  The story this time is centred on untidy purchase of fleets of exquisite, bullet-proof cars, inflations of prices, accusations and counter-accusations about sleaze and mindless squandering of billions of naira in a nation where 80% of the citizens live below poverty level. In fact, I am too disgusted to want to start recounting the stinking details on this page. From what I have heard so far, some brand of cars   were allegedly ordered at a particular price (millions of naira for each); but the ones eventually supplied were selling at a price below the ones initially ordered and paid for. The fear now is that somebody must have pocketed the difference.  The explanations by PAN, the suppliers of the cars, sound so incoherent and convoluted that they only fill one with exasperations and frustration. I have no confidence in whatever report that would emerge from the House Ethics Committee, because based on what I have been hearing from the same House probing the same allegations, Bankole and his crowd have already received a clean bill of health.  In fact, we should apologise to Etteh for naively helping those who are not better than her to ease her out!

Well, we are to blame for expecting too much from such a gaggle of light-minded fellows. This should be a straightforward matter if some people are not there to serve their stomachs only. I don’t care about the motive driving Mr. Festus Keyamo’s campaign    for a transparent probe of the whole messy affair. Nor am I moved by the emotional tale making the rounds that a South West governor indicted in the power probe may be instigating the crises in the House to do the Speaker in; as if the power probe      report had not already met with its untimely death and received a hurried, indecent burial in Bankole’s House long before the South West governor started planning to unseat him? A colleague whispered to me on Monday that Bankole’s governor may be behind his travails because of their clash over political interests in Ogun State, so, the young man is just a victim of political persecution. For me, all these are mere undiluted bunkum. No matter who is after Bankole’s head, the question is: were there any sharp practices in the purchase of the obscenely costly vehicles? Are these not the same crap  they also tried to feed us with when the Etteh scandal broke? In fact, I would want to know why our rulers indulge in such mindless profligacy and lead such lavish lifestyles that seem to suggest they are not aware that more than 80% of Nigerians are living below grinding poverty level. Why should a lawmaker in Nigeria be driving a N6million naira car? The cost of maintaining a public servant in Nigeria (most of whom are painfully unuseful to the nation) must be about the highest in the world?  Are we not better of without these fellows?  

Ms. Etteh: Former House Speaker

Nigerians have a responsibility to rise with one voice and insist that these lawmakers are too many, too idle, too unproductive and too expensive to maintain, to be yoked on the nation. It is enough  to have an executive that takes several months of “thinking, strategising and planning” to make up  its mind about the most basic assignments before it; we don’t need this guilt-ridden, servile House that is determined to support the president at any time even if he is leading the nation into a very deep, dark chasm. The Integrity Group (which somebody said during the Etteh saga was inappropriately named) has suddenly lost its voice, because, now it is in   power. And where is the EFCC? Is there any Immunity Clause on its way now? Would they claim to be unaware that there is  widespread demand across the nation for an open and transparent investigation into the matter by an independent body instead of the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges since the House itself has already lost credibility with Nigerians as far this matter is concerned due to the overt partisanship of its members?

Well, I can only pity the ordinary Nigerian who can neither afford a roof over his head nor meal in his stomach. And yet his unproductive rulers use N3.2 billion to buy themselves luxury cars, perhaps to impress their mistresses in town. So sad.

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

scruples2006@yahoo.com

There have been enquiries from people, especially, Nigerians residing abroad, who have been touched by the story of Chioma Aribe, the 19 year old Engineering student waging a gallant battle against complicated liver ailment, and whose urgent need to raise N10 million to enable her proceed to India for proper treatment has compelled the family to solicit financial assistance for help from kind-hearted members of the public. Those enquiries have centred mainly on how Chioma could be reached with their kind donations.  The family is happy and grateful for the responses by those eager to help to save their daughter’s life. According to them, her bankers are of the opinion that the
Western Union facility would be the easiest way to send donations to her now from abroad. Those who are more comfortable with using trusted contacts in Nigeria can still to pay into the “Chioma Aribe Health Account” (No: 0205115000014656) with Intercontinental Bank.

Information about donations through Western Union can be sent to her with: ChiomaHealthFund@gmail.com ; ChiomaAribeHealthFund@live.co.uk

Also the family could be called with this number:  (234) 0703-514-9761.

Please, indicate if you would not mind a public acknowledge of your kind help. Those whose contacts may wish to physically present donations may be humbly requested, for obvious security reasons, to do so at a very formal setting, preferably at the headquarters of the newspaper that published Chioma’s pathetic story.

If a better way of remitting fund to the Chioma Health Account is arranged by the bank, it will be communicated.  

Corporate organizations (in Nigeria) wishing to make their donations in a more formalized setting (there is nothing wrong or immodest about this) can indicate the day they are wishing to make the presentation, so that venue and media coverage can be arranged.

Indeed, we can help save this little girl’s life; it can be anybody tomorrow.

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” – Matthew 5:7

Even the hardest of hearts would be melted by the moving story of Miss Chioma Aribe, the 19-year-old Engineering student of the of the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) currently waging a gallant battle against a life-threatening liver aliment as reported on page A10 of Saturday Independent of November 8, 2008. Since May when she took ill while at school and had to be taken to hospital where doctors discovered her liver had been unduly enlarged, a condition referred to in medical terms as Cirrhosis, Chioma has neither been herself again nor able to return to school to actualize her cherished dream of becoming one of the nation’s seasoned engineers.

Chioma during her matriculation ceremony at YABATECH

Instead, she has been guest to several hospitals in spirited efforts by her distraught parents to seek a solution to the terrible affliction that had suddenly arisen to threaten the life and future of their once vivacious and lovely daughter. According to the Saturday Independent report, “Chioma [is now] a pathetic sight to behold … she has shrunk dangerously and her skin colour and texture have undergone dramatic change. Her voice and appetite have also been affected by the sickness, she could hardly speak audibly and seldom eats.”  Poor girl! She has been on admission at several hospitals including, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Federal Medical Centre, Ebutte Meta,
Lagos, and Reddington Multi-specialist Hospital, Victoria Islands, Lagos. Preliminary medical examinations indicated she contracted the illness through food-poisoning; some harmful chemical substance contained in what she had eaten had attacked her liver and caused its deterioration. The ailment has already gulped millions of naira, stretching the family’s resources beyond its malleable limits (and possibly plunging them into debts), even when solution to the problem is yet to be found.  So, because of the complicated nature of her case, which has since defied efforts by medical experts in the country to successfully contain, her doctors have arranged for her to be urgently flown to a specialist hospital in India where it is believed her matter would receive the adequate medical attention required for her to live her normal life again and return to her studies which have already suffered seriously since these past few months the ailment held her down.

Those who have had anything to do with Reddington Hospital would better appreciate the financial implication of being on admission there for a couple of weeks.  Little wonder then, Chioma’s family had to take her home for a week before returning to Reddington again to enable her undergo a scheduled liver biopsy, which eventually was not even carried out as planned because her blood had failed to coagulate. Chioma’s parents are now being forced by this very excruciating situation to go public with their predicament to request the assistance of kind-hearted Nigerians to raise the about N10 million, reportedly, required to finance her medical trip abroad. According to the report, a “Chioma Aribe Health Account” (No: 0205115000014656) has been opened with Intercontinental Bank Plc to enable kind-hearted Nigerians interested in helping this little girl get well and live her normal life again make their donations.  And she is confident that Nigerians, known for their eagerness to compassionately respond to distress calls like these would not let her down.

Chioma being attended to by a doctor at Reddington Hospital

I am so moved by this little girl’s predicament, have personally gone to see her, been in regular phone contact with the family since then, and  can confirm that Chioma’s case is a most pathetic and serious one requiring urgent attention. It is situations like these that often make me regret not having enough resources to intervene in some matters as my heart always yearns to. Why should such a little girl who had done nothing to attract this kind of affliction be left to just wither away? No doubt, what is happening to her  today can happen to anybody tomorrow, but it is by extending some helping hand to people passing through painful afflictions like these that we sometimes ward off the ones that would have come our way. This is the truth. Imagine the picture of one watching one’s beloved daughter or son in such a very distressful situation and lacking the resources to do anything to arrest the situation! What a scary thought.

I am persuaded that there are kind-hearted Nigerians and non-Nigerians out there who would be moved by Chioma’s anguished cry for help to come to her rescue. Right now, the most consuming desire of her heart is to be alive and well to resume her studies.  This nation needs determined girls like Chioma to live and contribute their own quota to ensure the realisation of our country’s lofty dreams and aspirations.

We usually have cause to celebrate the sterling examples of several distinguished Nigerian women like Dr. (Mrs.) Cecila Ibru, Prof Dora Akunyili, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and many others. Who knows what this girl will grow up to become tomorrow if we all rise to help her live?

My heartfelt appeal goes to philanthropic organisations, corporate bodies, professional bodies, women groups and distinguished Nigerians and friends of Nigeria to help save the life of this girl.  I understand that she was born in Lagos where the family resides, but her father hails from Imo State, while her mother is from Ohafia in Abia State.  I have no doubt that given her heart-melting, passionate appeal for help last Saturday, Govs Tunde Fashola and Ikedi Ohakim and Theodore Orji would also be moved to do something significant to save the life of this girl.  

And unless any donors object, I have made up my mind to duly acknowledge in this column all those good men and women who would respond to this girl’s distress call, and hold up their action of being their neighbour’s keeper as worthy of emulation. As I sign off now, my heart is inevitably drawn to Portia’s moving definition of the quality of mercy in William Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice:  

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

————————————————————————–

scruples20006@yahoo.com  

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

(234) 0802-8833-853

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” – Matthew 5:7

Even the hardest of hearts would be melted by the moving story of Miss Chioma Aribe, the 19-year-old Engineering student of the of the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) currently waging a gallant battle against a life-threatening liver aliment as reported on page A10 of Saturday Independent of November 8, 2008. Since May when she took ill while at school and had to be taken to hospital where doctors discovered her liver had been unduly enlarged, a condition referred to in medical terms as Cirrhosis, Chioma has neither been herself again nor able to return to school to actualize her cherished dream of becoming one of the nation’s seasoned engineers.

Chioma during her matriculation ceremony at YABATECH

Instead, she has been guest to several hospitals in spirited efforts by her distraught parents to seek a solution to the terrible affliction that had suddenly arisen to threaten the life and future of their once vivacious and lovely daughter. According to the Saturday Independent report, “Chioma [is now] a pathetic sight to behold … she has shrunk dangerously and her skin colour and texture have undergone dramatic change. Her voice and appetite have also been affected by the sickness, she could hardly speak audibly and seldom eats.”  Poor girl! She has been on admission at several hospitals including, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Federal Medical Centre, Ebutte Meta,
Lagos, and Reddington Multi-specialist Hospital, Victoria Islands, Lagos. Preliminary medical examinations indicated she contracted the illness through food-poisoning; some harmful chemical substance contained in what she had eaten had attacked her liver and caused its deterioration. The ailment has already gulped millions of naira, stretching the family’s resources beyond its malleable limits (and possibly plunging them into debts), even when solution to the problem is yet to be found.  So, because of the complicated nature of her case, which has since defied efforts by medical experts in the country to successfully contain, her doctors have arranged for her to be urgently flown to a specialist hospital in India where it is believed her matter would receive the adequate medical attention required for her to live her normal life again and return to her studies which have already suffered seriously since these past few months the ailment held her down.

Those who have had anything to do with Reddington Hospital would better appreciate the financial implication of being on admission there for a couple of weeks.  Little wonder then, Chioma’s family had to take her home for a week before returning to Reddington again to enable her undergo a scheduled liver biopsy, which eventually was not even carried out as planned because her blood had failed to coagulate. Chioma’s parents are now being forced by this very excruciating situation to go public with their predicament to request the assistance of kind-hearted Nigerians to raise the about N10 million, reportedly, required to finance her medical trip abroad. According to the report, a “Chioma Aribe Health Account” (No: 0205115000014656) has been opened with Intercontinental Bank Plc to enable kind-hearted Nigerians interested in helping this little girl get well and live her normal life again make their donations.  And she is confident that Nigerians, known for their eagerness to compassionately respond to distress calls like these would not let her down.

Chioma being attended to by a doctor at Reddington Hospital

I am so moved by this little girl’s predicament, have personally gone to see her, been in regular phone contact with the family since then, and  can confirm that Chioma’s case is a most pathetic and serious one requiring urgent attention. It is situations like these that often make me regret not having enough resources to intervene in some matters as my heart always yearns to. Why should such a little girl who had done nothing to attract this kind of affliction be left to just wither away? No doubt, what is happening to her  today can happen to anybody tomorrow, but it is by extending some helping hand to people passing through painful afflictions like these that we sometimes ward off the ones that would have come our way. This is the truth. Imagine the picture of one watching one’s beloved daughter or son in such a very distressful situation and lacking the resources to do anything to arrest the situation! What a scary thought.

I am persuaded that there are kind-hearted Nigerians and non-Nigerians out there who would be moved by Chioma’s anguished cry for help to come to her rescue. Right now, the most consuming desire of her heart is to be alive and well to resume her studies.  This nation needs determined girls like Chioma to live and contribute their own quota to ensure the realisation of our country’s lofty dreams and aspirations.

We usually have cause to celebrate the sterling examples of several distinguished Nigerian women like Dr. (Mrs.) Cecila Ibru, Prof Dora Akunyili, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and many others. Who knows what this girl will grow up to become tomorrow if we all rise to help her live?

My heartfelt appeal goes to philanthropic organisations, corporate bodies, professional bodies, women groups and distinguished Nigerians and friends of Nigeria to help save the life of this girl.  I understand that she was born in Lagos where the family resides, but her father hails from Imo State, while her mother is from Ohafia in Abia State.  I have no doubt that given her heart-melting, passionate appeal for help last Saturday, Govs Tunde Fashola and Ikedi Ohakim and Theodore Orji would also be moved to do something significant to save the life of this girl.  

And unless any donors object, I have made up my mind to duly acknowledge in this column all those good men and women who would respond to this girl’s distress call, and hold up their action of being their neighbour’s keeper as worthy of emulation. As I sign off now, my heart is inevitably drawn to Portia’s moving definition of the quality of mercy in William Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice:  

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

————————————————————————–

scruples20006@yahoo.com  

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

(234) 0802-8833-853

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Please, could somebody be nice to this hapless nation and walk across to President Umar Musa Yar’Adua’s cosy castle in Aso Villa, where not a few believe he is still in bed enjoying a very refreshing midmorning sleep, wake him with a very gentle tap on his shoulder, and ask him what his reaction would likely be if he was suddenly roused from deep slumber with the tragic news that the Niger Bridge had collapsed, and with it many Nigerians and several vehicles, all plunged into the dark belly of the deep waters of the River Niger, thus spreading sorrow, pain and anguish everywhere? Would he just sigh, murmur barely audible things about being always disturbed with “these people’s endless troubles,” put his head back on his soft pillows, have Lady Turai tuck him up more comfortably in his made-in-Germany or Saudi Arabia blanket, and go back to sleep? 

And then, perhaps, after  a couple  of hours, he would wake up again, better refreshed and fairly alert, and ask to be reminded what was told him the other time (or was he even dreaming it?).

“No, Your Excellency, you were not dreaming. You were informed, Your Excellency, before you went back to sleep,    that the nation had been plunged into deep mourning, because the disaster long foretold which most people thought your regime had done nothing to avert (but we know that you were busy night and day drawing up elaborate plans for a lasting solution to it, instead of resorting to “quick-fix” options like your predecessors) has eventually exploded on the nation. Don’t mind the foolish bridge, Sir. It could not wait for another two years for Your Excellency’s well-crafted action-plan to be unfolded to give it the attention it deserved before deciding to embarrass this well-focused Administration with its stupid fall. Well, don’t allow that to bother you, Your Excellency. The only problem now is that   because no word had come from you since the past couple of hours when the tragedy struck, presidential spokespersons have been at a loss as to what to tell the nation, and mischief makers are already taking advantage of the situation to spread wicked rumours, which, as Your Excellency knows, we can’t be party to, because we are happily bound by Your Excellency’s dreaded Oath of Secrecy.”

“Tell the nation what? What do they want to hear from me, am I the one that pulled down the bridge? Please, where is Turai, I need my lunch. Eh-hhe-erm, gentlemen, you can please, excuse me.”

“One more thing, Your Excellency, Sir. Reports have just reached us that the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has just addressed a crowded world press conference at the foot of the collapsed bridge  and stated clearly that while they deeply regretted and mourned the loss of human lives in the monumental tragedy (which had occurred as a result of  Federal Government’s criminal neglect, nonchalance and utter callousness despite repeated clear warnings that the dilapidated bridge was caving in), they were, on the other hand, glad that the collapse of the bridge had at last, naturally, and without any sweat, carefully carved out for them the Federal Republic of Biafra they had long yearned for, as the vital link between their country and  Nigeria has now collapsed.” 

“Ehee? Did they really say that? Were the BBC and CNN at their press conference? Kai, these people! In fact, I had thought the collapse of the bridge  would effectively keep those restless Igbos at home and at least  solve Fashola’s population headache once and for all … but I never thought of this other angle… Now, as you can see, we now have a real emergency on our hands! Now you run! I say, run, go and gather State House correspondents immediately! Call in all foreign correspondents that you are able to reach immediately!  Tell them I am so heartbroken and in deep mourning because of the tragedy. You can even inform them that I fainted when I heard the news. No, no, don’t add that line. The Action Congress will capitalize on that now to revive the nonsense story about the state of my health. Just tell them I am deeply shocked and pained by the incident.  In fact, tell them that due to the effect of the tragic incident on me, I may have to travel to a Saudi or even German hospital to observe a three week intensive prayers on behalf of the nation, to get the inspiration to solve the present disaster and avert future ones in this country. Did I just say ‘hospital’? Ah, no! I mean mosque! And you, while I am away, remember you’re under a dreaded Oath of Secrecy, and if any funny rumours dare go out about me, you know the consequences… Finally, don’t forget to tell them that I would have personally addressed the nation immediately on the matter, but I am presently on phone with many world leaders calling in to commiserate with us on the tragedy. You never can’t tell, one or two of them may elect to donate some dollars to us to enable us manage the disaster.” 

“Your Excellency, any message to the bereaved families?”

“Oh, yes – the familiar line, I expect you to know that! Tell them I am with them, sharing this their moment of sorrow with all of them… Now, that’s okay, you may go now. Ah! My lunch is almost cold. No more questions, please. Let someone ask Goodluck to see me. He must to fly to
Onitsha immediately to inspect the extent of damage, commiserate with the families of the bereaved, and announce my decision to set up a Commission of Enquiry to probe the immediate and remote causes of the collapse. He has to go immediately before this MASSOB propaganda gains ground and spoils the day for everyone….Ehee, yes, Ojo, you are already here? You will have to cancel or readjust (whichever) your scheduled trip to Paris and go to Onitsha with Goodluck; there may be need for you  to deploy your ever confusing grammar to great advantage among the traders there….”

…. Well, thank God, the Niger Bridge, though now a death trap, is still standing there like a well-beaten warrior, still faithfully shouldering heavy vehicular and human traffic between Asaba and Onitsha. But experts are warning us that if nothing is urgently done, that bridge would soon cave in, and crash down before Christmas – the time many Easterners would pass through it to return to their villages to spend the season with their kit and kin at home.  What this means is that we have just less than two months to fix that bridge and save the nation the trauma of another tragedy. But from what we are seeing, the Federal Government is not behaving as if it is aware that a devastating tragedy is lurking at the corner, waiting to strike. Many people from virtually everywhere in the country use this bridge daily. Many more will use it this December and the New Year.

 Only few may have heard the chilling alarm raised over the state of the bridge. Some others may have heard, but what alternative do they have except the same death-trap, especially those whose daily pursuit for sources of livelihood must make them shuttle between the South-West, South-South, Onitsha and even the North? The Federal Government must do something immediately.

Repairs on the bridge would require total or partial closure. If that extends into the December/New Year period, the torment people would experience there would certainly cast this government in the mould of a heartless devil. In fact, not even the most dreaded Oath of Secrecy would save it from the fiercest contempt and grave alienation of many Nigerians who would just regard it as one huge calamity unleashed on Nigeria at these most perilous times to severely punish it. No doubt, the fund to rehabilitate the bridge is there, but does the willingness exist, Mr. President?

———————————————————————

scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

No matter who is announced winner of the American presidential election after November 4, what would never remain in doubt is that this is one election that would be far-reaching in redefining the political and social scene of the
United States. As the campaigns rage and voters package their decisions, virtually nothing would be spared the raging fire of large-scale transformations sweeping through the US, as cherished and pampered myths are exploded, resilient pretensions and hypocrisies unmasked, and obstinate, enduring obsessions and habits badly scalded and shredded.

 For instance, a distinguished statesman like former president Bill Clinton whose non-racial credentials had been so well-acknowledged that renowned African-American novelist, Toni Morrison, had to describe him as the “First Black President” is still in his Harlem office hurting because of the serious bruises on his well-cultivated image as a result of the racial remarks he had let out during the primary contest between his wife, Hillary, and Senator Barack Obama.

A recent report suggests he is still nursing his wounds and hoping that Obama would publicly defend, clear and help him brush off the racist dent now prominent on his image,   as a compensation for the rousing endorsement he gave Obama at the Denver Democratic Convention. Senator John McCain has so badly dishonoured himself by the kind of crude and ugly campaign he has conducted so far that  people are wondering whether this was the same man who began to lay enormous emphasis on character and decent politics after recovering from the “Keatings Five” scandal which nearly sank his career.

John McCain

I am glad I am only an observer, and not a registered voter, else, I would have found myself in a very big dilemma.  Obama may be young, intelligent and charismatic, but I am not a big fan of his. In fact, if I am a registered voter, I will not cast my vote for him. But if he eventually manages to get my vote, it would be a vote against McCain (who is unredeemable in virtually every respect), and not for Obama. Obama’s views on abortion are ones I cannot in all good conscience overlook. The almost callous, emotionless manner he declares in the paper he authored as President of the Harvard Law Review in 1990 that government has more important things to do than “ensuring that any particular fetus is born” makes me very sick indeed.

 Not too long ago, Obama was also quoted as saying that he would not allow any of his daughters “to be punished with a child” just because “she had made a mistake.” And so, to protect his daughter from the responsibilities that go with her action, another innocent, tender, helpless child (though yet unborn) should be cruelly, heartlessly and gruesomely sacrificed?

But the Republicans have not helped my dilemma by choosing McCain as their   flag-bearer. The way McCain has conducted himself so far in this election shows he is not ashamed to embody all that can be wrong about politics and politicians.  His crude methods, fired by raw desperation, carried beyond the fringes of decency, have been most revolting to many people, even in his own party. His campaign brazenly lies and distorts facts with ease, and all his claims about character and decent politics are now proving to be overly fraudulent. 

McCain enjoys being addressed as a “maverick” and “Straight-talk” politician, and his running mate, Sarah Palin made heavy weather of his maverick tag when she answered almost every question posed to her during her debate with Senator Joe Biden, her Democratic Party opponent, by restating that McCain was a maverick. In fact, at one point, she called him a “consummate maverick.”

One person thoroughly sickened and offended by this unending false characterisation of John McCain is Ms. Terrellita Maverick, the 82 year old San Antonio lady, who, according to New York Times columnist, John Schwartz, “proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.”

John McCain

Ms. Maverick, member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas could not just understand how McCain would claim that he is a maverick among the Republicans.  “It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again,’ ” she said.

To better understand the phenomenon that is John McCain, let’s recall the story of Carol, his first wife.  McCain, then a 28 year old navy pilot had in 1965 married Carol, who reports say was “a successful model,” and after their daughter, Sidney, was born, he left for Vietnam at the end of 1966.

But his plane was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam. He remained a Prisoner of War (PoW) in the dreaded Hoa Loa Prison for five years.  During the Christmas holiday of 1969, Carol was involved in a terrible accident that put her through multiples surgeries as a result of the severe injuries she had sustained. She eventually learnt to walk again, but had to limp because one of the legs had become shorter. She equally gained some weight in the process, thus losing the willowy figure that gave her a stunning look.

Carol McCain: The Wife McCain Dumped

In March 1973, when McCain was released, and received in the US as a war hero, he scored a fast one on the American public by telling reporters how much he still loved Carol despite the effects of the accident on her.

Having lost his chance of becoming an admiral (his father and grandfather were admirals), McCain turned his eyes on politics and equally rekindled his wild taste for strange women. In fact, he has admitted he was unfaithful to Carol as he had girlfriends at this time. But when he met Cindy Hensley in Hawaii, he devoted the next six months in extramarital affairs with her for one principal reason: Cindy, a former rodeo model, was daughter of Jim Hensley, the highly connected and extremely wealthy Arizona beer distributor. 

Thus, while Carol waited at home for the husband she trusted and loved so passionately, McCain and Cindy played Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton all over the country. He eventually dumped Carol to the shock and dismay of many people, and married Cindy, the beautiful blond and heiress of the brewing giant, and moved to Arizona, where his new father-in-law offered him a job, and gave him the necessary connections that put him on the fast lane to political ascendancy.

 Commenting on the character of John McCain, Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam, told UK’s The Mail On Sunday: “I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit. When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better. This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.”

Some old acquaintances of McCain’s interviewed by The Mail On Sunday portrayed him “as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field,’ just the same way it is now feared that he,  as   US President, could also abandon the pursuit of national causes if they do not advance his personal and selfish interests! The other day, he refused to answer a question at a town hall meeting if he had ever cheated on Cindy. Instead of answering the question which was asked him repeatedly, he began to talk about his son serving in Iraq.

As an old political warhorse who always finds ways of securing understanding and accommodation  from the American people and wriggling out of career-sinking troubles, and whose Vietnam heroic stories have sometimes been questioned here and there, the only thing still rekindling some hope on the McCain candidacy is, perhaps, the white skin covering his body.

John and Cindy Mcain

With his rather poor choice of Alaska Governor, Ms. Sarah Palin (who is now proving to be a huge liability and raising serious questions on his capacity for quality judgment) as running mate, and even some of the other impulsive decisions he had made of late like suspending his campaigns to join the bailout talks (where he eventually contributed little or nothing), suddenly conceding defeat and pulling out his campaign from Michigan when he saw he was not making any headway — a decision that baffled even Republicans who feared it could make it easy for Obama to secure the 270 electoral votes he requires to win, and his uncritical adoption of “Joe The Plumber” as a symbol for lampooning Obama’s tax policy, mentioning him about two dozen times during the last presidential debate only to realize later that the man he had raised to celebrity status was not even a registered plumber and also owed arrears of taxes.

Sarah Palin

His attempt to turn Obama into a scary figure is backfiring, lowering his esteem before many people instead, and attracting more sympathies and  support for Obama. Indeed, because of the consistent false claim by Ms. Palin that Obama is  “palling around together with terrorists,” people now shout “terrorist!!” once Obama is mentioned during McCain campaigns, and McCain is having serious troubling stopping that.

 How would McCain repair his damaged honour even if he wins this election? How would he explain that just to win an election in a do-or-die fashion, his campaign had to stoop so low to falsely label his opponent a terrorist just because Obama had served on a number of education boards in Chicago with Bill Ayers, a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, who many years ago, when Obama was only 8, had set bombs targeted mainly at properties to protest American military campaign in Vietnam.  

Well, it is clear that McCain would surely lose this election, but he needs not to worry. A more fulfilling job would is waiting for him in Nigeria in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where his unedifying talents and crude strategies would be better appreciated.

Barck and Michelle Obama

————————————————————————–

scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Nigeria is terribly sick, and some say nigh unto death, but that, as everyone can see, is the least of the worries of Mr. Umar Musa Yar’Adua, the President Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo imposed on Nigerians for self-serving reasons. For now, what appears to be uppermost, in fact, the consuming desire of his heart, is how to effectively turn the Presidency into a dreadful secret cult, enveloped in very thick darkness and fear, where men and women walking with extreme trepidation are bound by a very scary oath, so that even if Government now is on perpetual recess or life-support, none of them would dare whisper it even to the hearing of their spouses.

Now, most people are familiar with the kind of fate that usually befalls anyone that intentionally or even mistakenly violates an oath. The consequences, I am told, are usually better imagined. And so it would be with those working with Yar’Adua. Now, with a taciturn ruler encumbering the ground up there, and habitual liars as his spokespersons, Nigerians, in their view, would be finally and completely shut off from the affairs of the Abuja regime, so that Mr. President can sleep easy in his secret, comfortable chambers, and put the problems of Nigeria very far from his mind, while his false prophets remain out there attempting to make us believe he is having sleepless nights drawing up marvellous plans for the nation’s revival. Poor souls.

By the way, what does Umar Yar’Adua have to hide in this age of greater openness and transparency in government business except his insufferable visionlessness, perennial groping for direction, double standards on the issue of corruption and rule of law, and, of course, his health situation which has consistently defied all his great labours and attempts to conceal it from Nigerians? But these are already well known to most Nigerians, so what is the use of all the efforts?

Maybe, it is possible that Mr. Yar’Adua is not even fully aware that in this InfoTech age, if a president, for instance, sneaks into a Saudi elite hospital to fix his failing health (since like all humans, he is not above falling sick) but chooses to tell his nation that he is in Mecca performing some religious devotions and occasionally playing squash during his spare time, for nearly three weeks, that it would not even require some squealing government official for the media to state exactly where he is and what he exactly he is doing there.

But should we really be wasting precious time on this clear trivia when there are innumerable ever worsening problems crying for urgent attention in this nation? Ours is a country where only tales of woes, failures and abject lack in the midst of plenty have become perpetual components   of public and private lives, so much so, that these are often narrated with what appears like utter relish to the disgust of decent human beings. For goodness sake, this is a richly endowed country which earns in a year what some of the countries our rulers are rushing to now to buy homes and relocate their children for quality education can never dream of earning in more than five years! My people have a proverb about the man in the middle of a very big and clean river, but who had to wash his hands with his own saliva. 

When you demand to know, for instance, why our so-called ‘international’ airport in Lagos is in such a horrible state, you would almost throw up watching our officials lamenting how they lack the resources to clear the overgrown grasses near the runway or fix the airconditioners to save foreign visitors and  Nigerians returning home from the forbidding heat that starts tormenting them from the very moment they step out of the aircraft into the tunnel that leads to the immigration and baggage collection points. The indecency of the whole place and the whole process can only induce nausea. Is this nation cursed or something? Things that would require very little effort to fix in Nigeria are just left like that and   watching full-grown men and women wringing their hands and explaining with irritatingly convoluted stories why those things are never fixed fills one with revulsion. Well, sometimes I don’t even blame them? From whom would they derive the requisite  inspiration? Certainly, not from the uninspiring characters behind the perennial clowning that passes for leadership in Abuja and the state capitals.

Like I said last week, it costs very little to lead a decent existence; it is only an issue of the mindset. Nigerian leaders just have zero taste for self esteem! I doubt if there is still any of them that would lose any sleep if those he is ruling encounter him one day and call him Common Thief and Wretched Failure to his face! So long as it does not pose any real threat to his re-election bid or efforts to further bloat his bank accounts, it’s okay. Hardly any of them is interested in the place history would allocate to him or her tomorrow so long as his determination to criminally enrich himself was suffering no obstructions. One only needs to observe at close quarters the mostly light-minded and totally characterless fellows that rule this nation to realize that indeed, this is a finished place. And the decay has become so deep and widespread that even some of those who would have attempted to do anything have become clearly overwhelmed and simply given up on the possibility of ever reclaiming this nation to respectability, decency and enduring prosperity. Many have gladly become part of the problem.

For a nation as terribly sick as Nigeria is, when exactly would its healing and reclamation commence? When would men with vision, mission, skill and verve come on board to commence the really arduous of work of reviving this nation? When will the rescue operation that would free this nation from the jaws of unyielding parasites and insatiable leeches with iron determination to suck it to death actually commence? Is anyone actually thinking about it? Can we say in all sincerity that the perennial groping for direction going on in Abuja in the name of governance is what a nation as sick as Nigeria urgently deserves now? In America today, despite the abundant good life and near-faultless infrastructure everywhere, passionate concerns about the economy have become quite deafening because their eyes are all on the future. But here today, just because some people are able to feed on the decaying body of this clearly dying nation, they feel unperturbed when concerns about the nation is raised. How blind can a people be?

No doubt, Mr. Yar’Adua and his cousin Goodluck Jonathan have since clearly demonstrated that they are incapable of performing even below average. As I look them each day groping around the seat of power, I weep for this nation, which seems always content to settle for its Tenth Eleven despite an array of stars God has blessed it with. Now, look at the duo today, and see if you would not readily agree with me that they present a perfect picture of two terribly flustered, overwhelmed and perspiring school boys stuck at a crossroads, unsure of the next step to take?  Neither of them can inspire any confidence. I am sure that deep down their hearts, they are quite aware that they lack the vision and energy to pull  this nation out of the woods. How long then can a sick and dying nation wait for these clearly overwhelmed and evidently blank duo?

The other the day, the SSS said they are investigating some reports that some “disgruntled persons” were  influencing a section of the media “to mount campaigns of calumny against the First Family and some top government functionaries with a view  to causing disaffection in the country.” Now one hopes that serious desperation and paranoia have not begun to creep into the psyche of this clearly overwhelmed regime? Is this an attempt by a regime at a crossroads to vent its profound frustrations on a hapless populace? Unfortunately, such ominous threats cannot stop Nigerians from demanding solid evidence of purpose-driven leadership from this regime. Where, for instance, is Yar’Adua’s action plan? What are his goals and targets?  What is the timeframe for each target? Is he still in his closet planning as his aides keep telling us? We have heard too much talk-talk and voluminous promises, when would he at least redeem just ONE promise? Indeed, this pitiably sick country urgently needs a healthy physician to save it but I am yet to see any in today’s Aso Rock.

————————————————————-

 
scruples2006@yahoo.com
ww.ugochukwu.wordpress.com