Nigeria: Imo State Meetings In Los Angeles, A Baby Talk?

The last time I was at any Imo State-related meeting was in 2007 when former governor of the state, Ikedi Ohakim had “just” been elected into office and the Southern California chapter of Nd’Imo, in a quick fix, organized and confirmed Ohakim’s formal visit to Los Angeles. I was in the said meeting and questioned the validity of the governor's visit when he had “just” been sworn into office.



In this modernity, four years would storm by and Ohakim would have no time to stop by and see how the Southern California residents of his state are doing; the ones who threw their support and sent him an invitation for a state visit to Los Angeles. Not surprising to some and stunning to those who expected much from the governor, Ohakim would run Imo State for four years - good or bad - and the Southern California elites would not utter a word until Ohakim’s love-hate relationship with the state would be over.



When Ohakim was chased out of office by the peoples mandate, a sigh of euphoria beclouded Imo indigenes in the Soutland with a new strategy that began to unfold in another attempt at throwing in support to the new governor-elect, Rochas Okorocha. Thus begun the new movement and another round of “never again should we sit idly and allow another maladministration happen in our presence. We must not let this happen again,” which earnestly called for action to rescue Imo State from its nightmare and the long ordeal of bad leadership.



Upon Okorocha’s projected victory, the call was immediately announced on a series of outlets and related groups in cyberspace, and had been made public. The call was not about dissolution of Imo meeting in Los Angeles; it was not about the formation of a new one; it was about finding the ways and means to get involved in Okorocha’s administration and to help the state have a sense of belonging and purpose. It was also not about getting rid of the “old Guards,” but to determine if they’d like to continue or abandon what they started years ago in the quest for a properly, organized Imo State, home and abroad.



Nevertheless, the initiative was well worth it and the attempt a bold one. But here is the hiccup, which is troublesome: It’s been six months since Imo Diaspora of the Los Angeles, California-area residents came out with a new political agenda tailored to be significantly engaging in an upcoming Okorocha’s administration in the Igbo heartland. I was overwhelmed and filled with enthusiasm on the basis that Nd’Imo residing in Southern California had made up their minds to “pull the bull by the horn” and get Imo State moving again all around the globe with its new projected guidelines. With an obvious pumping fist in the air, I engaged some very few among my Imo colleagues here in the Southland, showing my interest by way of applications, recon-structuring journalism as part of the ideals to be drawn and required to effecting change in Imo, and especially to set the standard to improve relations between Diaspora and homeland.



From that perspective, many suggestions were made as to a framework that would help launch a new Southern California/Los Angeles Imo meeting which did begun, announcing its intentions to the Nigerian list serves. The idea was that all the blah, blah, blah, considering Imo’s magnitude and without question, the clear showing of its intellectual powerhouse with nothing to show for it, would be a thing of the past if not immediately arrested. The Imo Diaspora of Southern California meant business, and patently, no more baby talk. I had assumed, learning about the architects of change, it will go well and be smooth.



From my list of proposals suggesting a guideline which would help map out a spectacular blueprint, I listed the following I had thought was important for the creators who had gunned for a new, vitalized Imo, both home and Diaspora:



1). Start Imo Diaspora network by way of a discussion forum which must

be restricted with admissions by referral and verification. Table items to

be discussed and if needs be, moderated for out of character

commentaries.



2). Get our respective districts involved by attending town hall

meetings and voicing our opinions with regards to the ways and means of

the relevance of our stay here coupled with the 'push factor' which had

enabled us to be part of this great society.



3). Establish a thorough and efficient pressure group to monitor the

floors of our federal and state assemblies which would also include the

conduct of the state executive branch.



4). Open up a non-profit organization with a Imo Diaspora bearings to

start building institutions in all of Imo State, say, for instance,

University of Imo State, Amazano Campus, specializing in Agriculture;

University of Imo State, Umuowa Campus, specializing in engineering;

University of Imo State, Umuohiagu campus, specialing in medicine;

University of Imo State, Mbano campus, specializing in all areas of

liberal arts; University of Imo State, Nekede campus, specializing in

teaching credentials; University of Imo State, Arondizuogu campus known

for its business school, and the list goes on and on.



5). Being practical and committed to the cause applying effective

leadership.



6). Start working on the agitation for Imo Diaspora Liaison offices all

around the world and regional branches in the United States of America

for its larger concentration



7). Having direct contact with any sitting governor of the state, the

state assembly members, the federal representatives, local government

councilors for transparency and accountability.



8). Initiate learning institutes here in Diaspora for our kids to learn

a variety of who we are, for instance the kind of food that we eat

(botany) and things like that.



19). Initiate paying stipends to our reporters at home as they monitor

the goings on, on the floors of the state and national assembly,

including that of the executive branch.





What happened from around where this development fertilized was that the three most concerned Imo figures in the South-land involved with the new vision, was that most of us, if not all, had seen an unfolding, committed leadership that needed our moral support. Before the meeting held ground and supposedly no more time for baby talk, but absolutely and positively relative discourse to the well being of Nd’Imo. I, in several occasions, engaged my friend and pointblank, talking-head, radical teacher, Innocent Osunwa, who had been blunt over the years on an idling and do-nothing Imo Diaspora regarding its quest to make Imo a model for the Igbo-related states.



On the trio of intended creators of a new Imo Diaspora and a new Imo in homeland, nothing went through our minds as in suspecting lack of interest to get things done. We did not see the three as enemies of one another, nor seeing them as formidable political personalities who came to play politics with our heads and walk away with something else in their minds. We did not even see them as ambitious, having different visions for the state. We saw the three as having good intentions and same visions of a good society, adapting the American democratic fabric -- which they have since the ‘push factor,’ the conditions that compelled them to seek better lives elsewhere - and that the press lubricates democracy. We also did not see them as engaging in the personal endeavor to struggle for influence in Imo on the interest of their respective personal gains as indicative of previously mismanaged administrations of Achike Udenwa and Ohakim which was a shocking realization.



I had attended the first Imo meeting “call for action” in Los Angeles held at the All Saints Anglican Church conference room. Based on how the announcement circulated online, I had looked forward to a huge turnout from a Los Angeles-area population; and as it was, the turnout wasn’t disappointing. And I had also thought what the previous administrations had left behind - a state that is rich in cash and resources, but socially fragmented and intellectually impoverished - would rise like a phoenix getting the state back on track from what I earlier outlined in this framework. The long reign of past, corrupt regimes during the military juntas’ handling of the affairs of state; the excruciating pains of inept, corrupt administrations during the 2nd, 3rd, 4th Republics respectively, which held in suspense the ordinary struggles that forge historical progress. Imo rebirth expected to be created by the Los Angeles area “progressives” who had thought power should be earned by virtue of dedication, sacrifice and hard work; and what they saw as an opportunistic, financial oligarchic class which erupted a state of empire and anarchy should now be a thing of the past, bringing forth a new era and key figures to speak for the Imo people on accounts of thorough systems typical of organized societies.



The sad reality fact now is the real battle extending the state of empire and anarchy has just begun. Osunwa and I engaged on the subject matter, the probabilities of the “same old song,” old wine in a new bottle kind of stuff, that Okorocha’s backers are of the Old Guards, and if probably not, that Okorocha still have some payback time to his election campaign donors who helped catapult him to Government House, Owerri.



In one of my talking points, bedtime discourse with Osunwa, which took us into the night, and after the first meeting I had attended as path finder, I argued that the region’s modern state of insanity as seen over the years - kidnapping, human parts trafficking, rape (most unreported), police brutality, murder and things like that - that if we have been serious to face the challenges squarely, it must start from Diaspora to set up the pace condemning the all sorts of mayhem occurring in Imo and all the Igbo-related states through a powerful web of activists, writers, journalists to global links meant to influence Igbo leaderships on an array of problems requiring solutions that must be applied consistently.



Osunwa had relied on the creator’s sense of good judgement to shovel out the Los Angeles area Imo Diaspora from the deep mess it has been into over the years by lacking a sense of purpose. He had also endorsed the state of mind the creators had adopted in pursuing its course of getting Imo State out of the nonsense, square peg in a round hole drama that likely was taking the state to hell. It was in this atmosphere of Osunwa’s imagination that I chipped in to talk about journalism and why it should be taken as important as any aspect of the creator’s intent to be romantically involved directly with the goings on at Government House, Owerri, without laying more emphasis on the necessities that provides the tools for change - which by all accounts is the work of the journalist to shape how we think, inform the public and govern which comes along with a sound democratic fabric. And why do journalists think about what they do? The job is calling: the mission is to improve every corner of our enclaves. And how’s this done and achieved effectively? And why would it matter?



On the days approaching the first meeting of the “New Order” to a “New Dawn,” I was able to hold some conversations with many of the new dawns on how to get Imo Diaspora and the administrators of the home state to work in tandem for a better understanding and how working collectively would lead to utopia, coupled with a communication gap over the years that could be bridged by means of openness with journalism’s take. Osunwa, however, acknowledged the fact that journal work “is” more than required in a fledgling democracy like Nigeria to keep the government in check, and also said “independent journalists” must be made available to keep checks and balances orderly and not the kind of scandalous journalists who blackmail government and public figures when they have something on them and then negotiate a price within a range of some cash depending on the gravity which is how most newspapers survive in the country; and which at the same time destroys the reputation of worthy, news reporting.



And, remarkably, now that we have fallen into the age of Internet, everyone from individual citizens to political operatives can gather information, investigate the powerful, reach out to the powerless, mediate between government protocol and provide analysis in its investigative work. But as the case has been, not everyone engages in the need for news gathering. For instance, the Igbo-related discussion groups, staggering by the numbers of its subscribed members, and yet haven’t been established well enough to creating impact on how it could influence decisions to its respective administrations from the local governments, the municipalities, the legislature and its executive arm of government that is not however, done by these discussion, news-related groups. Or, are these discussion, news-related groups working on providing quality news items assuming it has established its own line of items that would have its own independent link to reach governmental institutions, as a stable organization which can facilitate regular reporting? And if so, why haven’t we seen a serious news break to their credit, linking directly with these organizations to governmental institutions including the local outlets other than wired news stories?



What has hindered these discussion groups from engaging itself directly with the governmental institutions - the executive, legislature and judiciary - directly for its Diaspora to be engaged fully and be part of a government their role is needed for a sound, thorough democratic dispensation? What was the purpose of creating these groups, for picnic, social gathering and ego-tripping, bragging on its members’ social economic status and the nouveau riche in its class? Why should these discussion groups still be standing in more than 12 years of its founding and are yet to establish any link connecting it directly with series of its governmental organizations in a strictly business way?



Maybe, not so clear to some. These discussion groups, whatever its foundation, cannot afford to be providing us information on picnic, ballroom dances, a new chief in town and its grand-style coronation, a breakthrough purchasing some new arrival of a ‘powerfully’ made machine by the Germans or the Japanese, negating and leaving aside its lifeline that should be benefiting generations to come by totally engaging in the political and socio-cultural issues affecting its land with a concrete, structurally established system for their off-springs and more, more generations to follow; and by discussing innovations, inventions, new techniques, formats for change, ideas and discoveries, and of course, the ways and means to compete in a challenging global market economy.



What are they leaving for the generations to come as legacy when they are sitting idly watching and applauding their land turned into a state of empire and anarchy? What would their generations to come, think of who they were, looking at how hopeless they left the situation? And why is it taken that these discussion groups of a Diaspora stock assume they have nothing to do with the affairs of state, of its native land? And if that be the case focusing on its adopted land, are they fully involved in the administrative process of its council members, senators and representatives at the state and federal level in its respective districts, where they should be presumably presenting their case for the turmoil in their home land like other communities did? How many town-hall meetings and series of activities that follows have they been to checking on how the folks they elected to office are doing by way of reaching out to its district? Or, would it be they played it off, caught up on a crossroad, not belonging to any side of the road?



There shouldn’t be any quiz here; and if only they had paid attention looking back to a failure , lacking the vision, as a result of their deliberately made mistakes and at a terrible cost, the generations to come, many would have to go through, probably would have done something that should have avoided such a terrible mistake of a lifetime - by using the same mechanisms of their upbringing that “it takes a village to raise a child,” putting the priorities into perspective.



And what would have amounted to such a terrible, costly mistake?



Again, one is weary of pointing out, especially on the logjam cases of a strong Diaspora foundations in building bridges by connecting as in all communities we all bear witness; how in similar, they overcame their predicaments of culture shock, struggled, worked hard as a community and thrived; becoming powerful, influencing decisions in their new found land and their native land. In that regard, they acquired all the accessories to become powerful in all aspects. They established their own banks for their commerce and industry; their own schools to teach their own; their own markets and farms for their own people; their subsidies and other related programs for the underprivileged and for their own elderly; their own learning center to teach their own language and culture; their own elected representatives to speak on their behalf and legislate for their concerns and needs; their own means of employment, employing their own; their own hospitals and women’s clinic to care for their own; their own medical staff and medical benefits for their own; their own vocational institutes teaching variety of trades and crafts for their own; their own mortgage companies attending to housing needs of their own; their own newspapers in their own languages; their own communities and villages where they can be identified; their own quest and determination to make life better for each and everyone of their own; their own socializing courts where the next line of projects are put into perspective; their own orthodox in religion where all their kind worship; their own landscaping company where gardening and things of that nature services the community; their own eateries where its dishes are now universal; their own playhouses where drama, musicals, movies, comedy, life band performances of its own musical genre and dance shows, and things like that, draws a diversified audience, and the list goes on and on and on.



So, too, as the creator’s had planned to use the above outlines beginning from establishing a newspaper due to, without news. “we cannot be in business facing the challenges of building community.” Folks need to know about new development in its community. Folks need to read on the latest update in a news worthy world. Folks need information from its own bulletin boards.



And how could this be arrived?



In terms of Imo State, as the creator’s had visioned, creating funds for local news with money made available from federated accounts or money collected from communication-bent projects, like tele-communication users, television and radio broadcast licensing fees, or internet service providers, and which would be administered in open competition through state local news councils. The same could be applied to Diaspora in the event it becomes too much of a burden for the home states to bear. Diaspora could channel a whole lot of ways in getting the news out: through multi-task revenues from related social events, funds from varieties of not for profit organizations, levies from non-governmental events like the churches, enterprises, and many other outlets where funding could be derived so journalists could focus on serious news at the local and state level; and could get it direct on one-on-one to reach the public, uncensored, unless where need be, like the classifieds.



And, as it goes, the bills of the journalist must be paid to get the quality and news-worthy stories across. Journalism has always been a direct/indirect, private/public backed projects. And from that background, journalists in this order, would then have a good relationship with those who pay their bills, whether advertisers targeting consumers and its business development, or private and public domains working on improving infrastructures, needing the services of citizens.



In one of my conversations with one of the creator’s regarding the infrastructural needs of the state and how the message could be sent across to a governmental awareness, journal work surfaced, citing outside newspapers’ credits that has been the mouthpiece of the people. The Sahara Reporters, an online news outlet, which has been doing well from noted public opinion polls, on its account of how it handles the news. While the creators applauded Sahara Reporters’ line of work in its reporting; analysis; dissected programmed blogs; essays relative to Nigeria’s problems grand and small; and documentaries of the same nature, I had wondered if the source of Sahara Reporters’ energy on news-gathering and analysis came from another planet. I had told them that the forces behind Sahara Reporters funding was not unearthly. That the forces, from its foundation of engineering social and democratic change during the Sani Abacha years remains one of its backbones of its existence. So, why wouldn’t Sahara Reporters be top notch agency news reporting outlet, from how it operated in the past and in disguise, masquerading with many handles to fight for democracy and social change?



The creators, from their point of view, weighing Sahara Reporters to have remarkably done a good job in its thought provoking reports and analysis over the years, applauding its efforts; one thing should be borne in mind: it’s time to get your own news outlet and be sure of what the general audience is getting from your reel. Face the challenges and fund your own newspaper. Organize, make it happen and leave it to the experts to handle.



For instance, it will not take all the heavenly places to piece together the finest Igbo writers, correspondents, investigative journalists, including reporters and researchers in homeland to dig deeply providing Diaspora with authentic and reliable, worthy news stories, which is where the creators should start putting their money where their mouth is; that is, if they honestly want to see change and be part of its outcome. The other question should be, are they willing to face the challenges of walking the talk?



Journalists. reporters, writers and researchers in the likes of Chidi Nkwopara-Uduma Kalu -Tony Edike (Vanguard), Leon Usigbe (Tribune), Ikechukwu Enyiagu (syndicated columnist), Chibuzo Ukaibe (Leadership Nigeria), Emma Mgbeahurike (The Nation), Chiawo Nwankwo (Punch), Nkechi Opurum (Daily Times), Petrus Obi-Chidi Nnadi-Ofole Okafor (Daily Sun), Andy Uneze (This Day), Ike Okonta (Daily Star), with a long list of Igbo journalists and scholars on a variety of discipline at the numerous Igbo-related institutions can be given the task; and by investing on good reporting and writing, a whole lot would gradually change especially in this new era of collaborative and “accountability journalism.”



Nkwopara, Kalu, Edike, et al., without doubt, have been doing some fine work of journalism; researching, reporting and writing to keep us informed on a variety of interesting subjects within our surroundings, in Ala-Igbo and its central government in Abuja, including the several other big cities in the nation where Nd’Igbo transact business on a daily basis providing goods and services that sustains the nation.



And why shouldn’t Diaspora be concerned about the affairs of its own people with the kind of work these folks in our journal world send to us, not even mentioning the scholars on their dissertation process and much, much more they will be having us know in terms of information and upfront knowledge. And how much are these folks paid by a controlling publishers and board directors who bankroll what these fine journalists transmits to us regularly?: On how we live and what’s going on in our communities; who is out there to attack us and who wants us dead or alive; how the government is playing games on a very gullible and vulnerable people; why we missed it all on our political, democratic endeavors; why Nigeria is failing all of us; what the urban hard-money banks, insurance companies and big corporations like Shell - are doing to us; the churches in every nook and cranny of the land and why it has become so; how anti-intellectualism and demonization of writers and critics is destroying free speech, and how we are becoming less and less a news reading media people; the angst of the Islamic Boko Haram terrorists, the series of kidnappings in Ala-Igbo and what should be done; the nasty romances in the governmental houses; and how easy going and down to earth men fell readily available as political tool for use by ugly politicians, hard and brutish men; so, the list goes on and on and on.



There are several reasons why other news outlets are performing much better than any independent, Igbo-related owned newspaper, that is, if there is a credible one. From the list of Igbo journalists I have cited, and taking a closer look at the news outlets they work for, about one or so could be said to be owned by a South-easterner; and taking a closer look, too, who indeed runs the paper? The creators cannot be trashy-talky, reproachy, sloppy and gossipy on inconsequential stuff while they have loads and loads of untouched literary and historical issues confronting them -- paying their journalists and writers to start researching on a wide range of their origin, where all the migration began, who they were, how they got trapped into a fabricated nation through a colonization mandate; their role in that fabrication and its aftermath; the pogrom, the civil war, the post-civil war and an alleged reconstruction that followed; and regarding the pogrom and civil war, the victims’ family, the participants who survived and what they know, leading-edge research and interviews in that perspective; and a whole lot connected to the facts and logic about what happened -- and not doing anything about it, which in its entirety a continuous tragedy.



Also, the creators should should come to realization that the people want an administration that is open to scrutiny, making its financial accounts public, one of the lapses former governor Ohakim was able to elude them.



The creators should be focusing and coming up with projects, since a lame duck government of deceit would not get anything done; on how to influence, shape, establishing their literary culture by building libraries in every of its enclaves where access to all that is important in its history and things like that can be located -- works of traditional and lyric poetry, comedy, cultural festivals, history, tragedy, medical writers, the pagans and all about the myth; Agwuisi na Amadioha; nd’amala and what they may have left behind; the churches and those church fathers who combined Omenala and the Biblical principles to their practice; the Dibies (native doctors), who combined mgborogwu and Western medicine to their profession; the nd’ na agba afa, soothsayers, who combine their craft with Western ideals of logic and philosophy, and the list goes on and on and on.



Remarking on these blows, I remember interviewing Dr. Julius Kpaduwa on August 11, 2002. I had scheduled this interview with Kpaduwa after reaching agreement with my colleagues at BNW Magazine on questions they would want asked. I had also notified my friend and colleague, Austen Oghuma, who promised he’d be there on the day of the said interview at Kpaduwa’s bedroom community, The Country Diamond Bar home.



What happened was, Kpaduwa had declared his candidacy to run for the governorship of Imo State. I was not there at his formal declaration party. I was investigating the Otokoto family criminal mafia, asking questions on who knows what on a trail of mayhem, rape, lynching, body parts trafficking and mob killings connected to the Otokoto family in Owerri and its environs. I would interview the son of the mob, Maxwell Otokoto Duru, here in Los Angeles on that trail of heinous crimes that spooked Owerri township.



While working on the Kpaduwa interview, first of its kind by any Nigerian, U.S.-based news magazine in that order, its content and capacity, which was during Achike Udenwa’s administration in Imo State, I bumped into Dr. Edmund Ugorji, then medical director, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, who had since relocated back to Nigeria and who had questioned if I was still writing my “thought provoking” stuff treading with caution that even though what I write is clearly the way it’s suppose to be, that Nigeria ‘is’ not America, that “my people are not matured yet for your kind of write-ups; we are still learning the process of democracy,” Ugorji would tell me. Ugorji also popped up the question of Kpaduwa, if I heard anything since he’d been shot by his political opponents in Nigeria.



“What actually happened and what are the details, do you know?” Ugorji asked.



“I have been scheduled to interview Kpaduwa at his Diamond Bar home and I have been talking to Kpaduwa since the attempt on his life in Nigeria, and I will be meeting with him soon for the interview,” I told Ugorji.



“Good, tell him that I said be well and be strong,” (emphasis mine) Ugorji said.



In late 2004, Ugorji, Kpaduwa, Jimmy Asiegbu and a host of Igbo Diaspora in Greater Los Angeles would summon its elite class to address the plight of the Igbo Nation and how to arrest the troubling situations in the Igbo-related states, which I will be writing in a different essay.



On August 08, 2002, my colleagues and I - Chinedu Ibe (Chicago, Illinois), Dr. Emeka J. Amanze (College Park, Maryland), Nick N. Nwuda (Inland Empire, California), Odo Akaji (Gloucestershire, England), Dr. Emeka S. Enwere (London, England) and Dr. Chidi Okorie (London, England) - had a teleconference on Kpaduwa’s interview to be published exclusively at BNW Magazine. The questions were all in order as agreed. Kpaduwa, fine with the date of interview, was prepared waiting for my arrival. Upon arrival, I met Oghuma, and some of Kpaduwa’s friends, colleagues and political allies who looked forward to the interview.



And for sure, investigative and compelling, I asked the questions and Kpaduwa answered all that had stuff to do with Igbo-related worthy causes and the people of Imo in general. Just like a country or state without appropriate measures operating a police force without bullets, Kpaduwa laid out his agenda for his ideas and visions if elected governor, when I popped the question on healthcare:



BNW: Let's talk about healthcare. The healthcare system in Imo state today is in shambles. I remember the story of a dying patient who could not be treated because he had no deposit. That, for sure, will not happen in the United States. Here, in America, in a situation like this, all one need to do is dial 911 and the response would be available immediately. If elected, how would your administration address the issue, improving the healthcare system?



Dr. Kpaduwa: You have asked the most important question of the night, though I don't know how many more questions you have. I can tell you that for the past four years, my wife and I (my wife is also a physician), we have been organizing and going on medical missions,, a free medical care to all parts of Imo State. As a matter of fact, we just finished one last Friday and we had a whole lot of cases. I was not able to go, even though I arranged it, and my wife could not go even though she was suppose to be part of the medical team. You just have to talk to people from Mbano, and they will tell can tell you what they experienced in our medical missions last week. Not only in Mbano, there were accounts of people who came from Orlu, Owerri and Mbaise trooping to Mbano Joint Hospital for free medical treatments and needs.



In fact, it was as a result of inadequate medical care I experienced during or very first medical mission that drove me to what I am doing now, running for the governor of Imo State, because I found out I could do very little with a stethoscope. I found out that if there was sound, good public policy as far as healthcare is concerned, the people of Imo State would be better off. That's really what motivated me to seek the office of the governor.



I have a plan that is very well laid out in our Manifesto, so to speak. And that plan, basically will guarantee any division of government owned Imo State hospital, standard of community hospital in the United States, if you know what I mean. That means that the operating room has to be fully equipped and functional. There has to be a functioning emergency department. There has to be adequate amount of drugs. And you will ask me how are we going to finance this. We have been doing this without even being in office, completely free of charge. We happen to be in a country--the United States of America--and God bless America that philanthropy is one of the bedrock of society. There is no where I can go to the hospitals that I practice, and ask them for equipments which are still functional and very good, or do a drive around the United States, I will equip every single hospital, functioning without spending a penny. All I need is the transportation. I will train a personnel, an adequate personnel. We will fully compensate the physicians that work there.



The hospitals, nobody goes to them because there is little or no care. We practiced in those hospitals, they are only hospitals in name and it is a shame. If you do not provide the people with minimum wages, decent jobs that will not guarantee them some form of health insurance or any form of health coverage, I believe that the government has the sole responsibility to take care of its own citizens. I don't care where you get the fund from,you go out there and get it until such a time when you have brought out the economic level of the state to a point whereby people can begin to get health insurances from their various jobs.



Under our own government structure, no single individual will be turned away from government hospital and emergency cases because of the inability to pay. It can be done because we will be able to get resources from outside of the country. For complex cases, no individual, for any operation that is needed will be turned away because he or she did not have money. And that is what's going on now. If you don't have money even on emergency basis, in fact, when I was shot and they took me to Federal Medical Center in Owerri, they refused to let me down until I have a police report. This is a gun shot wound, I was bleeding; I was in pain; nobody took the time to access my condition, I could have died. They told us that I cannot come down. So, we went to the police station to get a police report. Under our administration, such a nonsense will not happen.



When we got the police report and went back to the hospital, they refused to attend to me until we are able to pay certain basic fees. I just was lucky my wife's friend who's a physician works at that hospital and she happened to be there when we walked in. She paid all the fees. It's not that I don't have the money, but we just didn't have it on us. You will need a card, you will need this, you will need that in order to be attended, or they won't attend to you. Under our administration, that comes to a full stop. I don't care whether it's a federal medical center or a state hospital.



So the Imo people are in for a treat, as far as healthcare is concerned. That's where they will have the immediate benefits of our administration, because this is not depending on anybody else effort. It is going to be solely our effort. I belong to the Association of Nigeria Physicians in America; they help me run the medical mission in Mbano. The Imo people really are out for a treat; they want decent health-care and we are going to put a whole lot of money for it.”



Which, as the interview entails years we have been living in different times, if at all, we ever had normal lives, with no sense of an ending, as our daily life and movements have been altered, not knowing where the kidnappers are planning for their next victim; not knowing the next politician to be murdered in the most brutal of circumstances; not knowing when a village encounters police on a shootout on the vagaries of a kidnapped local government chairman; not knowing the next victim to be hanged on a tree; not knowing when a Diaspora is waylaid by hired assassins while visiting his native land; not knowing when a young girl would be raped by a gang of college students; not knowing when police would fatally shoot a U.S.-based resident visiting his homeland, and the list goes on and on and on..



We have not in many instances cared about these practices except when it’s shown in the news or we heard it while socializing in beer parlors, and as it’s not happening directly to us, but others - until, one day, and unfortunately like a man going about his business knowing nothing at all and suddenly hears the story of his or her relative being a victim, of the chaotic nature of the land, and that’s when we’ll be up awake, in shock, moping, “is this happening in our land? Jesus

Christ!”



What is actually disturbing is the recent incident of the rapists Jonah Uche, Zaki, Ifeanyi Justin Ogu and Winston Okoye Chinonso who collaboratively raped a young college student brutally to a point the victim asked to be killed. The irony: the follow-up to the case seems to have quieted down, fizzled out and we are erasing it from our memory with nothing done as time passes by. Has anyone thought of the rape victim being a sister, a sister’s friend, a mother, a family friend’s wife and or a very close relative?



These and a whole lot of problems is what should be expected from Diaspora to address with their influence and a positive result forth coming. And with this framework, and a Diaspora comparing its ideals to other communities, in analogy, as they lay claim on their cumulative life experiences in building community from turmoil to triumph in what did pay off telling of their American story as a community; and telling of American prosperity from their building community; and telling of American triumphalism, who else would doubt and argue when they say: The United States Of America is the greatest nation in the world!



Ede chaa nam!



References: See;



BNW Face 2 Face: Dr. Julius Kpaduwa

http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/aehirim/2002aug16.html



The Otokoto Family Criminal Mafia

A BNW Magazine/The Ambrose Ehirim Files Exclusive With Maxwell Vincent Duru Otokoto

http://tinyurl.com/3lavqrk

http://tinyurl.com/3suq9ph



Rochas Okorocha and the New Dawm

http://ambroseehirim.blogspot.com/2011/06/rochas-okorocha-and-new-dawn.html

Nigeria @ 51: What Changed?

I spent most of the late evening of September 30, 2011 through the wee hours of October 01, 2011, combing Nigeria’s daily newspapers as the nation celebrates its 51 years of independence from British colonial rule. Most of the headlines were saying the same thing – that a reformed Nigeria is simply mirage. I would agree with what the analyst, commentators and a general public had seen as a failed state. The reviews of a collapsing state were fascinating from around which the newspapers all around the country did not stop writing on the subject matter – the nation’s 51st independence anniversary – some say there was nothing worth celebrating.

In Vanguard Newspaper’s October 01, 2011 edition, correspondent Uduma Kalu in Nigeria @ 51: “Nigeria, A Dream Deferred,” writes;

Our founding fathers did not negotiate that at 51, Nigeria would become the 14th failed state in the world. Neither did they agree that it would be among the nations with the least human development index, nor that it would still be crawling five decades after independence. Our founding fathers did not dream that their great grand children would be treated with contempt as a result of mismanagement of its abundant resources.

It is patently clear that Kalu’s comments above is impeccable; it is the simple truth that Nigeria is a failed state after 51-years of experimenting with varieties of running a thorough government. It is also sad to arrive into conclusion that none of the tested experiments have worked effectively and efficiently for the interest of the people in question.

Other headlines in the nation’s dailies were as follows: “Nigeria@51: Sambo Prays For God’s Favor For Nigeria,” by Vincent Ikuomola, The Nation; “Nigeria@51: This Is Not Nigeria Of Our Dream - Labor,” by Soji-Eze Fagbemi, Gbola Subair and Leon Usigbe, Nigerian Tribune; “ Nigeria@51: Nigeria Is A Pathetic Story,” by Clifford Ndujihe, Vanguard Interview; “Nigeria Celebrates Independence Amid Bomb Fears,” by Jon Gambrell, Associated Press; “Nigeria@51 - Birthdays Mark The Time Between The Past & The Future,” by Robin Renee Sanders, former U.S. Ambassador of Nigeria writing for the Huffington Post; “Nigeria@51: Jonathan Worst President Ever - Balarabe Musa,” by Abdulgafar Abalewe, Daily Sun Interview; “Nigeria Celebrates First Of It’s Kind Independence Day Celebration,” by Elizabeth Archibong, Next Group of Newspapers; “Independence Celebration Holds Inside Aso Villa,” by George Agba and Sunday Isuwa, Leadership Newspaper; and the list goes on and on of a “Nigeria@51” subtitles and headline news stories covering a nation at its independence day celebration which was overall low key for fear of the Islamic nihilists and hoodlums – Boko Haram and Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) that had sent an earlier memo threatening to bomb Abuja again.

The papers, interviews, including readers who expressed their views by way of leaving comments and conducted symposiums had the same line of thought concluding Nigeria is a failed state. In the Daily Sun interview with former governor of Kaduna State during the nation’s 2nd Republic, when asked “Nigeria at 51, where are we”? Balarabe Musa said;

Well, we are engaging in a virtually senseless ritual, senseless because it is an annual activity. You are asking me to comment on Nigeria, the state of the nation since October1, 1960. We have been doing this every year to certain extent that you the media make us to continually comment on whether we have anything to say about it, even though there is nothing to write home about Nigeria since 51 years ago except calamity. I mean for 51 years since Nigeria achieved independence from Britain, we have not demonstrated what other nations demonstrate to inspire ourselves and others.

Yes, “except calamity,” Musa, and from day one it has been so and we keep assuming it’s fixable without taking closer look at countries like Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, and as Kalu mentioned, Brazil, and as the list goes on and what these nations have done in its little capacity compared to a nation with abundant natural resources and enormous human capital like a Nigerian state? And all said and done, as the pros and cons are now bent on ironing out the nation’s problems, grand and small, we must take into account the chronology of the nation’s events since its birth and judge and make sound decisions for ourselves. Before I go into that, I would like revisiting Kalu in his analysis, “Nigeria, A Dream Deferred.” Kalu again:


Today, the dreams and visions of that ‘Promised Great Nation’ flutters in the wind like a rag. Industries have collapsed. Some of them have fled to Ghana and other neighboring countries. Our youths have no jobs and no hope of a simple decent life in Nigeria. Some seek greener pastures abroad in droves. The dignity of Nigerians all over the world is spilled in the mud. We are like pests to all nations of the world. Oil, which was meant to comfort us, is now our albatross, our curse. Even in our plenty, we are among the world’s poorest. The UNDP report says we are among the least developed nations with high rate of illiteracy, mortality rate, life expectancy rate, among other ugly decorations that dot our independence celebration today. UNEP says the oil spills in Ogoni are the worst in human history and will require billions of dollars to clean.

In as much as I would grade President Goodluck Jonathan with a confessional passing mark on how he has been handling the affairs of state of the nation, especially since the eruption of Boko Haram, allowing other aspects of the nation’s projects unattended, never minding a security detailed budget in place for nihilists and hoodlums like Boko Haram, the question here is, how has Jonathan shown to the Nigerian people that his administration is doing anything differently? What happened to his new political agenda with regards to the infrastructures he promised the Nigerian people that all would be taken care of in his era? What is holding back Jonathan and his coattails from its blueprint of ‘The New Dawn?’ And the new schools he pledged to build in every nook and cranny of the nation to elevate academia and making it affordable to every Nigerian; what happened, or is it still going through administrative bureaucracy typical of a lame duck presidency? When are his political ideals and projects going into effect? When his term expires and he’s out of office? These are reasons Jonathan is telling the Nigerian people that he’s no different from any Nigerian ruler, and not bound to do things differently by tackling aggressively a myriad of the nation’s problems, an indication when one takes a look at the nation’s chronology of events since independence:

October 01, 1960: Nigeria gains independence from Britain. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of the Northern Peoples Congress emerges as Prime Minister. Nnamdi Azikiwe of the National Council for Nigerian Citizens becomes the first Nigerian Governor-General, and Nigeria's first president when the country becomes a republic in 1963. Obafemi Awolowo of the Action Group becomes leader of the opposition.

January 15, 1966: Prime Minister Balewa is killed in a failed coup led by mostly Igbo army officers. Many other top members of the government are also killed, including the premier of the Northern Region, Ahmadu Bello. The government collapses and the most senior army officer, General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, takes over as head of state.

July 29, 1966: Northern army officers stage a "counter-coup". Ironsi is killed and Colonel Yakubu Gowon emerges new military ruler. Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, governor of the Eastern Region, refuses to accept Gowon's authority. Igbos and other south-easterners are massacred across the north.

May 27, 1967: After several months of political crisis Gowon announces the dissolution of Nigeria's four administrative regions and their replacement by a 12-state structure.

May 30, 1967: Ojukwu declares the former Eastern Region the independent Republic of Biafra. From this point on Nigeria is technically at war.

January 12, 1970: Biafran surrenders. An estimated two million had died in 30 months of civil war. Gowon declares "no victor, no vanquished" and announces a program of reconstruction and rehabilitation.

January 1970 - July 1975: Gowon’s-led regime is plagued with widespread scandals of bribery and corruption; and is toppled by Maj-Gen Murtala Mohammed while attending an Organization of African Unity summit in Kampala, Uganda. He goes into exile in Britain.

February 13, 1976: Gen Mohammed is assassinated in an aborted coup. His next in command, Maj-Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, becomes head of state.

October 01, 1979: Gen. Obasanjo hands over power to President Shehu Aliyu Shagari, who won that year's elections on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria, bringing to an end 13 years of military rule.

December 31, 1983: President Shagari is toppled in a military coup three months after winning a second term at elections marred by violence and allegations of widespread rigging and irregularities. The new military ruler would be Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari.

August 27, 1985: Buhari is overthrown by his army chief, Maj-Gen Ibrahim Babangida, who makes it clear from the outset that he prefers the title of president.

April 22, 1990:Babangida survives a bloody coup attempt by mainly junior army officers. In the courts martial that follow, more than 250 soldiers are sentenced to death and executed.

June 12, 1993: Nigerians vote in presidential elections to end military rule. The candidates are Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party and Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. Early results show Abiola with a runaway lead.

June 15, 1993:The electoral commission announces the suspension of publication of the results, citing a need to obey a pre-election ruling by a court, which had ordered that the election should not be held. The commission had earlier disobeyed the court ruling because a military decree had stripped the courts of their power to accept election-related lawsuits.

June 23, 1993: A statement from Gen Babangida's office declares the election annulled. For the next two months massive demonstrations organized by pro-democracy activists paralyze several Nigerian cities.

August 27, 1993: Babangida steps down as president under intense pressure. He hands over to an interim government headed by Ernest Shonekan, a civilian businessman he handpicked, and mandated to organize fresh elections.

November 17, 1993: The interim government is toppled by the defense minister, Gen. Sani Abacha. He dissolves all civilian institutions, including the national legislature and state governments.

November 10, 1995: Renowned writer and environmental campaigner, Ken Saro-Wiwa, is executed along with eight other Ogoni minority rights activists on murder charges, after a trail generally perceived to be flawed. The execution draws international outrage and the Abacha regime becomes an international pariah and Nigeria suspended from the British Commonwealth of Nations.

June 08, 1998: Abacha dies suddenly of apparent heart failure. He is succeeded by the most senior military officer, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, who pledges rapid reforms to restore democracy.

June 15, 1998: Abubakar frees former military ruler Gen. Obasanjo from jail where he was serving a 15-year term. He had been convicted in 1995 along with several military officers and civilians on what was believed by many Nigerians to be trumped-up charges of plotting Abacha's fall.

July 07, 1998: Abiola, who had been detained by Abacha since 1994 for laying claims to the presidency on the basis of the annulled 1993 vote, dies suddenly in detention of apparent heart failure. His release was being prepared by the Abubakar regime before his sudden death.

February 23, 1999: Nigerians vote in presidential ballot. The candidates are Gen. Obasanjo of the People's Democratic Party and Olu Falae, the joint candidate of the Alliance for Democracy and the All People's Party. Obasanjo emerges victorious, winning nearly 70 percent of the vote.

May 29, 1999: Obasanjo is sworn in and a new civilian government is inaugurated ending more than 15 years of domination of power by unelected military juntas.

And in-between this chronology, a whole lot more, tragically, has taken place. The rolling out of military tanks on university students, on a picket line under the leadership of National Union of Nigerian Students, Akogun Olusegun Okeowo, protesting increase in college tuition by the Obasanjo-led military junta. Students had demanded the democratization of education in the nation’s ongoing dictatorship. The public execution by firing squad of Batholomew Owoh, Bernard Ogedengbe and Lawal Ojuolape for a retroactive drug conviction during the Muhammadu Buhari-Tunde Idiagbon tandem of military dictatorship. The assassination by a letter bomb of Newswatch founding member, Dele Giwa, during the Ibrahim Babangida-led brutal regime. And the chaos after an abrogated 3rd Republic during Sani Abacha’s reign of terror. The civil unrests – Odi Massacre, Sharia Debacle, hired assassins, Choba, OPC mayhem, MEND, MASSOB – in the 4th Republic. And Obasanjo himself when confronted with growing tensions with neigboring Cameroon over the Bakassi Peninsula, long a Nigerian territory, decided to resist the advice of his aides who pushed for military solution, and to turn the dispute over to the World Court. Newspapers and journalists ridiculed Obasanjo. Bakassi, henceforth, would be Cameroon territory. Again, the list goes on and on.

Quite obvious, Nigeria is still a troubled nation on the above outlined framework. And what should be done with the concept of a country that in its nationhood differs significantly? Would that have arisen from a mistake of constitutional conferences mandate? It is, seemingly, pretty much so from all accounts. The problem, however, in my observation rested on the “Founding Fathers” who were either anxious or in a hurry, hence having to do with being left with one of two choices from a colonial mandate —“get the independence under our prescription” or stay right where you are and better not complain again. Somehow, it sounds likely the founding fathers succumbed to the British gimmicks ignoring the fact that an independent national state of different ethnically group would result in total chaos and would leave the fabricated country permanently in a comma.

Nigeria @ 51, what changed? Absolutely nothing!

Nigeria@ 51: Nigeria, A Dream Deferred

BY UDUMA KALU, VANGUARD

Our founding fathers did not negotiate that at 51, Nigeria would become the 14th failed state in the world. Neither did they agree that it would be among the nations with the least human development index, nor that it would still be crawling five decades after independence. Our founding fathers did not dream that their great grand children would be treated with contempt as a result of mismanagement of its abundant resources.

Indeed, they dreamt dreams and had visions for the country at independence. For example, modern Nigeria’s founding father and first president, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, had envisioned Nigeria to be Africa’s super power and hope of the black race. But today, that dream seems to be in the wind. This is what is agitating the minds of Nigerians as they mark the country’s 51st independence anniversary today.

In its unique manner, Saturday Vanguard assembled its team of journalists to examine, through interviews and features stories, the fate and state of the nation at 51.

From the reports gathered from all corners of the country, the verdict, though somewhat mixed, is the same: Nigeria at 51 is still a country, not a nation. This is the view of Chief Richard Akinjide, the former NPN chairman, Evangelist Elliot Ukoh of the Igbo Youth Movement, social critic Abubarkar Umar, Attahiru Bafarawa who was former governor of Sokoto, among others. While some want a radical approach to tackle the infrastructural decay in the country, others want a restructuring of the polity entirely.

But Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the veteran politician, put it more succinctly, “I want a system whereby Jonathan would have been there as of rights. If he leaves that place without ensuring that the constitution of the country is reviewed in a way that we will be living together, he will divide Nigeria.”

Things must have gone too bad for Adebanjo to say this. In fact, more frightening statements came from other eminent Nigerians such as Abubakar Umar and Prof. Oyebode, the two of who believe that colonialism would have been better than the independence we have now.

Saturday Vanguard also looked at the state of our infrastructure since 1898 when the railway system and the electrical plants were established. What we found out is a nation at 51 that cannot manage its development. From a bankrupt railway to epileptic electricity, from dead steel mills to ineffective textile and automobile companies, we discovered a nation whose promise at independence of a super power and hope for the black race has been mortgaged by selfish, greedy and cruel power blocs which staying power is to impoverish and wreak bloodshed on the citizenry. In fact, all the variants of making Nigeria great, which it had more in abundance than Malaysia and Brazil but which have overtaken it, have not been allowed to flourish. This saddens those who dreamt the dream of a great nation, including concerned patriots.

Ironically, Nigeria began well at independence. Its civil service was among the best in the Commonwealth. Agriculture was its main economy. The different regions were doing very well. In fact, the Eastern Nigeria was reported as the fastest growing economy. Graduates had easy access to employment. The industries were working. Then, it was a thing of pride to say you were a Nigerian. No nation could refute, deride, or treat Nigerians with contempt at its borders. Then the military struck, due to political mismanagement, and there was a civil war which tore the soul of the nation apart.

Today, the dreams and visions of that ‘Promised Great Nation’ flutters in the wind like a rag. Industries have collapsed. Some of them have fled to Ghana and other neighbouring countries. Our youths have no jobs and no hope of a simple decent life in Nigeria. Some seek greener pastures abroad in droves. The dignity of Nigerians all over the world is spilled in the mud. We are like pests to all nations of the world.

Oil, which was meant to comfort us, is now our albatross, our curse. Even in our plenty, we are among the world’s poorest. The UNDP report says we are among the least developed nations with high rate of illiteracy, mortality rate, life expectancy rate, among other ugly decorations that dot our independence celebration today. UNEP says the oil spills in Ogoni are the worst in human history and will require billions of dollars to clean.

Nigeria today is at its most intolerant period. Religious bigotry has taken over the land. Value for human life is lost, exemplified by the insurgence of militia groups and religious extremists, killing the weak and the innocent. Our educational system is in a shambles, with mass failure results posted every year.

Yet, this is a country that produced the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Father of Modern Literature Chinua Achebe, Father of Africa’s 20th Century Poetry Christopher Okigbo, Fela Anikulapo, JP Clark, Ben Okri, Chimamanda Adichie, Dick Tiger, Power Mike, Nwankwo Kanu, Philip Emeagwali. Yet, there is still hope that Nigeria can still make it as the IMF and the World Bank tell us but only if it listens to the words of the wise and does the right thing.

Jonathan May Be Ngeria's Last President

A Vanguard Newspaper Interview

Reverend Oladimeji (Ladi)P. Thompson, founder and Senior Pastor of Lagos-based Living Waters Unlimited Church has, for over 20 years, followed the activities of terror groups in the North. He is also the international co-ordinator of Macedonian Initiative, a non-government, non-denominational organization established to provide succour to Christians persecuted because of their belief in Jesus Christ. Immediately after the UN House bombing, our SAM EYOBOKA and UDUMA KALU approached him for his comment and the answer is that Boko Haram may break up Nigeria. Excerpts:

You said since 2000 you have a clear vision…

First of all, my warning was to the church leadership . I moved on to the secular world and I found out that it's going to be difficult, so I did not go there any more. But the truth is that Goodluck Jonathan may be the last president of Nigeria. When I was saying this, they sounded very far fetched to believe.

What is helping Nigeria right now is that the people who sponsor what is supposed to happen in Nigeria have been kept busy themselves for now. People like Muammar Gaddafi who used to come to Kano unannounced and unofficially regularly; there are different axis all over the world who are involved in what is happening in Nigeria. For example, the UN House in Abuja was not the handiwork of Boko Haram.

You may say what do I mean? One, there is nothing like Boko Haram. The word Boko Haram is a word created by the Western Media to explain Yusufua Maiduguri. Yusufua is just one out of 26 radical groups that are operating within Nigeria.

The western press, to make it readable to the western world, created the word, Boko Haram. Haram means forbidden and Boko is corruption of book. They have not burnt any university. They have not killed any professor, nor harassed any institution of higher learning.

What they are out for is very simple. Number one, not to Islamise but an Islamic Nigeria, a Nigeria where there is no plurality of religions, but one religion; a Nigeria in which women will be oppressed always, a Nigeria in which they will eradicate democracy. They have scored success in many nations of the world before our own. You only need to go and do research and you will find out.

Uthman dan Fodio and Shehu of Borno

Nigeria's problem started since 1955 or 1956. It is an ancient problem. The problem with Nigeria's own is that before the global resurgence of terror, Nigeria had an ancient streak that started in 1774 when Uthman dan Fodio entered Maiduguri. He was lecturing in Islam doing very nice and quiet and the Hausa people embraced him and were happy with him because he was teaching their children.

They didn't know that he was radicalizing their children at the same time. While he was radicalizing the people at that time, nobody knew. He even instructed one guy called Yoeofa, the son of the king in Islamic way. When Yoeofa was being taught by Uthman dan Fodio, he said dan Fodio was a good and nice teacher, but dan Fodio noticed that the taxes were high; that they were not purists.

The predominant Islamic force in Nigeria then was the remnant of Kanem Borno Empire. You will find out that the Shehu of Borno, who was actually supposed to be the spiritual leader of Islam in Nigeria, was displaced by dan Fodio because dan Fodio in 1804 declared a Jihad.

It was tough then and they were coming towards South. There were three things that stopped dan Fodio. Number one, El Kanemi, a Borno man who said, `I am a Muslim but I don't understand this religion that involves killing of Muslims as well.' And have you noticed that they have also started throwing bombs in mosques in Nigeria? El Kanemi rose and he was able to put a stop to the advance of Uthman dan Fodio.

Secondly, the arrival of the British and they had what they called Maxim gun, and in 1903 or 1904 Sokoto and Kano fell. There was armed resistance and in 1906 there was an uprising in Mali which arose just like bin Ladin's but it didn't last long. The British decimated it. They were able to kill a few British nationals. All the emirs had waited then, saying if he (the Malian) succeeds we will join him, but when they saw the British crushing him, they went underground.

Thirdly, Ilorin was taken but the Jihadists couldn't advance further because of the forest belt. They have an advantage of cavalry; when they were coming to South, they had an advantage of horses but when they hit the forest belt, their horses couldn't proceed. That is why you find that Ogbomoso, Osogbo, that buffer zone is where the rivers spread and the violence was not heavy.

Jihad under colonial rule

The truth is that during the colonial years, the British made one mistake in which they used indirect rule. Lugard personally promised them that he would not allow the Mauguzawas to be introduced to Christianity. Majority of people in northern Nigeria, when the British came, were not Muslims. They were animists and the Mauguzawas, who automatically, because of indirect rule were recognised as Muslims. It is an ancient creed, a very smart creed—very difficult to detect. War can go on even in peace time.

They shifted to consolidate under the British rule; smiling at the British while consolidating their code for the whole of Northern Nigeria. The moment the British wanted to leave, because they appeared nice to , the British made a miscalculation which is what is destroying them till today. What the British did was to devise a formula and hand over power to Northern Nigeria and create a political formula by which Northern Nigeria ordinarily should forget about one Nigeria.

Jonathan, Yar'Adua and Northern power blocs

This last time, whether by the name of Goodluck and by the pattern of his life that was disrupted, for the first time in Nigeria, we had about four or five presidential candidates from the northern part of Nigeria and they couldn't agree on one.

Had they agreed on one, all these things would not have happened. Olusegun Obasanjo came because of the pacification of the South West and after him, the North could have held on to power for ever, but immediately, it shifted back to the North. You know what happened to Yar'Adua. The late Yar'Adua was the Mutewani Katsina (holder of the Emirate's treasury).

The Emirate and an Ancient Dream

What Nigerians don't know is that there is an existence underneath the Federal Government structure in which an ancient dream is kept alive by a core of radicals who teach their children why they should not see Nigeria as one. And because it is not a formalized education, it's not written down anywhere.

It's difficult to detect but they tell their children that southerners should always come to pay obeisance. `We are their rulers and there is only one religion'. You find that when Yar'Adua was in Katsina state, he was a devout Muslim to the core. There is a radical call from Katsina because it is the centre of learning; they're purists.

When he was to become president, I was alarmed because I knew what his sentiments were, but somehow he did not last long and Goodluck stepped in. Goodluck should not have become president this time around but for the fact that northerners could not agree on a consensus candidate. If they had agreed on the formula left for them by the British colonial heritage, there would have been no argument.

Sheik Gumi, Islamic Banking and Jonathan

In 1955 `or 1956, in the Hajj Camp in Saudi Arabia, the Nigerian flag was burnt because the flag had a Star of David on it. One of the contributors of what you are seeing today was late Sheik Gumi, a clever man who never denied where he was going. If you remember, he was the one who declared that over his dead body would there be a Christian ruler in Nigeria.

That was just a tip of the iceberg. One of his boys who converted from Islam in those days, they put fatwa on him. He had to escape to Kano and the Federal Government used all state apparatuses to hunt for him. They beat him till they felt he was dead, but the Christians later found out that he still had life and he later escaped to Ghana. All these sentiments have been there but we are the ones who close our eyes and pretend as if they were not there. There is a radical cult at the centre.

Islamic banking we are talking about today, Gumi was part of it. So, all the noise that people are making at the last moment is pattern of what they have been doing because there is a pattern in which it will work.

Christians in Northern Nigeria

Ask people like Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola, His Eminence Sunday Mbang and those who had headed CAN, they will tell you how many young girls were kidnapped annually in the North. Your children can't go to schools; it is either you fake their names to a Muslim name or there is no promotion.

Progression of the Ancient Dream

All these things have been there and we pretend as if we don't see them. But they are there, well established in all those states. The movement behind it is a very intelligent; they are slow in their tactics and facts. The progression in Nigeria was that by the time they have swept through the Northern states and consolidated the North…the normal thing is that you push non-Muslims away from the city centres. So most northern cities today that have any sizeable Christian number are divided into two. Why? Because there is a time to come when they will launch an attack unless the Christians agree to live under a status where they become a third class citizen. This issue is not only in Nigeria; it is a global thing.

Islamization of Nigeria

Nigeria has done about 65 per cent, it only has about 35 per cent to go. People are only shouting Plateau State but I pity Plateau State young men because they are falling into a trap till now.

Foreigners on Plateau

Plateau State people think they are doing something but they are wasting their energy by responding with vigilante groups. I have seen a lot of foreigners who are coming into Nigeria with their own silly theory when they don't understand what is going on here. Last week, I was in a place where one of these British consultants was talking on how Plateau indigenes were just killing Muslims. They are only managing information in which the international press is looking at Plateau as blood-thirsty people. And Nigerians know that they are the most peaceful people in Nigeria, ordinarily.

Camps in South South, South East

This same thing has entered Makurdi in Benue State and it is coming down South. Whether you like it or not, there are camps and places where people are being trained in the South South and we now have more Igbo Muslims in Nigeria than we have ever had in this country. Why? They have quietly entered through sponsorships, spending money. There is one school in Afikpo where people are offered scholarships and given free food. As soon as you adopt the Islamic religion, you will be sent out of the country to radicalise you more. In the South South, there are militants milling around in the name of petty traders.

The truth is that they have taken advantage of everything and that is a weakness for us. While we were sleeping, when we didn't know a lot about these people …

Islam in Bauchi

Look at the Bauchi nurses in 2001 who were sacked because they refused to wear hijab. What I am saying is that a medical doctor, S.Y Sabo, who was in charge of Federal Medical Centre, Azare, knew that he was not just a medical doctor but also there to establish something. You can duplicate this in all the places.

Do you remember what happened to Gideon Akaluka on the streets of Kano? Is it normal to parade the head of a fellow human being on the stick and dance round town jubilating? And since all these things happened, has anybody been convicted in Nigeria? You want to know why? It is because Nigerian institutions are riddled with spies and wolves who believe in that future; and the truth is that Nigerian leadership doesn't have the moral courage to face up to the fact that from the police force to intelligence services, to education, to sports, the institutions are filled with people who are fighting the war quietly.

Including the Judiciary?

If you are talking about the judiciary, let me ask? Which rule of law is the uppermost in Nigeria? Nigeria has the British law that we inherited. Then we have the Common Law, the Customary Law and the Sharia Law. Which one is uppermost in Nigeria? If the Nigeria Constitution is uppermost, a former governor in Nigeria married a 13-year- old girl. He paid $100,000 for her, smuggled her into Nigeria from Egypt. According to the laws of Nigeria, is that a crime or not? Will you agree to live in a country where a full grown serving senator can marry a 13-year old girl? We all sat down to watch what would happen when some people came up to say that it was an Islamic affair, a religious affair and not a democratic issue. What happened to the case eventually? So what has been proven now?

Nigeria's mistakes

Now, what are the mistakes we are making? This thing is creeping in and because of the ancient one that started earlier and the emergence of the international one ,they are now woven together. About six or seven years ago, in 2001, a bomb exploded in a church in Lalanto in Jos. Bomb making literature had been coming to Nigeria for more than 10 years. It's just that initially ,it was blowing off their own hands and legs and it was being explained away. But gradually, they have mastered it now. Before, the problem was how they would co-ordinate the activities of 26 Islamic sects with each one having its own leader and different ideas but western countries have solved the problem for them, by creating the name Boko Haram. Unlike before when an individual sect had its own ideology, now Boko Haram has created an umbrella through which they all work. By being stupid and playing into the hands of the western media, they made our case worse. So they are now making more progress and even bolder than they could get before.

The reason why Uthman dan Fodio was able to overthrow Hausa kings was because there was a lot of corruption in the Hausa Kingdoms. There was a lot of oppression and poverty. There was no home for majority of them. There was no hope for the future then.

There is little hope for the future now. A house full of intellectuals, deceive themselves that there is a future. And that is why the average intellectual does not have the reality on what Nigerian life really is. Many Nigerians youths are crossing deserts on foot to escape Nigerian life. That is a pointer for you on what life looks like in the country.

Is the invitation to foreigners to assist us a true way out of the problem?

We have to be very careful. Immediately the UN House was bombed, Nigeria ceded its authority and it was not right for Nigeria to cede its authority. A lot of countries have similar problems and many of them are looking up to Nigeria to see how she would solve the problem to help their own countries. Now, in Nigeria a lot of intelligent strategies have just been just bullshit, they are unwise. At every step, we bring in our soldiers to level (destroy) towns.

Ordinary Boko Haram with 1.6 million members held Nigeria Army and Police Force for almost three weeks. Nigerian youths are impoverished, education is gone, and we are the second highest in the world's infant mortality, maternal maternity, second highest in the world. It is a curse for you to be pregnant in Nigeria, that is what it means. It is better for you to go to Ghana or Cotonou, next door and have your children than to have them in Nigeria.

In all induces by which you measure a state, Nigeria cannot score pass mark in any area. Human life value is very low. A woman was butchered by soldiers in Gombe, till today no compensation. The governor, Danjuma Goje made it impossible for the case to be tried in the state. It was all by collusion. If you like, let's keep deceiving ourselves here that things are well. The infiltration is already noticeable in Calabar, in South East and in these areas we have the problem of tribal divide. No consensus. The youths, almost 75 or 80 per cent of the country, are impoverished, they are disenfranchised, and they have no inheritance. The people who stole their inheritance, their great grand fathers are still alive—all the generals who are arguing against each other. The monies their grandchildren should spend they stole.

Outside Assistance, CAN Chairman

This one has an agenda and a motive. They are schooled somewhere, well funded locally and internationally. Unfortunately for us, the international funders right now are busy but once things are settled in the Middle East, more funding will come back to Nigeria. When the president of CAN called for the arrest of that general, uninformed ignorant people whose children may be slaughtered in future decried the position of the CAN president. As a special adviser to the CAN president, I can tell you that he has more information in his hands than he is allowed to speak to the public.

But whether you like it or not across all the northern states, the number of people killed in order to bring Jonathan Goodluck to power is maximum casualty figure we have never seen in Nigeria before. He rode him on a lot of bloodshed. The pattern of the killing even before the result was announced, the killing had started in the genera's name. When the CAN president called for his arrest, he was not joking. It is just that the government lacked the moral courage to do what is right. They incited people. It was pre-planned, pre-medicated obviously and if you look at the target of the killing, as usual, you cannot say it was political. Even if you bring them out for political reason they will still do what they want to do. Isioma Daniel (who was your colleague) when she made a comment on Miss World, which buildings were burnt? Most of them were churches. What has a journalist's comment on Miss World to do with maiming and killing of people. We are pretending as if this thing is not there but it is mopping up.

UN building bombing and Boko Haram

It was assumed that it is al Qaeda that bombed the UN building. It is more in consonance with al Qaeda. What Nigeria should have done is to first of all examine the explosives used and the methodology of the explosion—because every device has its own signature—and check it maybe it is in consonance with the more primitive ones that they mixed with internet instructions. The truth is that it is not the handiwork of Boko Haram. If we continue to call them Boko Haram, we are uniting 25 to 26 Islamic sects. We are encouraging their unity and helping the foreigners who are funding them to make their work fast. We should break away from calling them Boko Haram and the Nigerian Press must stand up to wage a war against their western counterparts, accusing them of neo-colonialism. If they can create an Islamic battlefront in Nigeria, they will come in from all around the world and Nigeria will fracture and the world will go on, just like Sudan for many years. Their vision is global. There are lots of radical preachers all over the county, they will teach freely for years and nobody ever disturbs them. They are protected by their governors and commissioners of police.

Do you think that it is in the interest of the west to create chaos in Nigeria?

If you are having problem in your country and the people causing problem in your country can move away from your country to another side, would it be in the interest of your own county to encourage the people of that country to learn their mistakes and turn their own land to a fertile ground. They will sell ammunition to both sides. Look at Libya, what is happening is a very interesting scenario. But my fear is the compromise of Nigerian interest. My own insistence is that whatever is going to happen to us, whatever co-operation we are going to have international with anybody; we don't want Nigeria to be represented by bananas who will just throw away the national interest without even knowing what they are doing.

What do you mean?

Look at the UN Building bombing. The place has now been sequestered. Our inadequate facilities, our security systems, obviously, are highly unprepared for this kind of thing and they have yielded it to foreign government. Before you call in foreign assistance, you must think properly and think well. Because of the absence of enough intelligence to handle the problem we are now surrendering, but we should surrender with caution, because one or two moves like this, Nigeria will become the worst of. What makes you think that the nation's security apparatus is not infiltrated? I will like you to go and supply me the list of Nigerian national security advisers from independence. If you can give me that list, let us sit down and scrutinise the lives of every one of them, their utterances in private, not in public; their business interests, their links all over the world. Someone put Nigeria in OIC single handedly. Are there not radicals in Nigeria who have been walking free simply because the orders come from above that nobody should arrest them? Who are the people supporting this no-arrest order? You better let people know what we are up against.

You think President Jonathan is incapable of handling this?

A farmer does not depend on good clock to bring about good harvest and food for us to eat. If a tailor depends on good luck to sew your cloth, when you are looking for a shirt you will end up with a dress. If a farmer does not look for good luck to give us to feed the nation, and a tailor does not depend on good luck to sew cloth, when it comes to certain matters good luck has its limitation. Instead, wise planning and intelligent thinking is what is needed. It's not true that IGP is incompetent as people have been saying. We have a situation where the IG himself is more or less a junior to some of the commissioners of Police serving under him. Remember that some people stayed behind with the intent of helping him, are all of them loyal to him? Do we know where the loyalty of some of them lies? Is it possible for him to have as free hand with the kind of command he's asked to handle? Is he given a free hand? The moment you politicize anything that had to do with security, you have fractured the chain of command. So, whereas, he may be a very competent officer but the structure he was asked to perform with may not help him.

Is that not enough reason to resign as people are calling on him to do?

You will have to interview him on that. Is it easy to resign? If he is your uncle will you ask him to resign?

What is the way forward out of the current logjam?

The leadership must first of all find the moral courage to understand the reason why we are prone to these things more other countries; to face the problem, diagnose it and call it by its real name so it can treat it. If leadership does not do that we are going to slide to the morass faster. That is one. Number two; this new problem, in other countries nobody is relying on old methodologies. In some countries, they call a new kind of war, because there is no text book answer. As I speak right now, all over the world, intelligence experts are just writing the text books to match this menace of terrorism, because it is a resurgence that has not be seen in many centuries. So, coming up with military intelligence to come and answer this problem is a waste of everybody's time; coming up with DIGs to come and answer this, is a waste of everybody's time. What we need is leadership with innovative thinking; people who can think out of the box; who understand the cultural, religious, political and the radical aspects of what we are talking about here; people who know how to recognize the different phases and to handle all the phases with equanimity. I give you an example; one of the things that making this thing spread faster is the lack of a consensus in Nigeria. The Chinese Constitution is about 2,000 words; the American is about 4,400 words but the Nigeria Constitution is in excesses of 74,000 words. Nigeria has never had a real constitution. What we call a constitution is not representative of the Nigerian people. There is no common agreement. The best country that Nigeria to align with right and it is going to be done with utmost wisdom, is USA—the only country that has had the same kind of history and experience and was successful to a point. They were also colonized by the British. Every offer that was given to Nigeria as we transited to independence was also offered the Americans but they rejected all. All the problems in the Nigerian foundation can find solution in the American history. There is something called the American declaration of independence, Nigeria does not have the equivalent of it. What is written there is very simple but very powerful, and you can build the country on it: "…All men are created equal before God and everybody is entitled to the pursuit of happiness…."

That is why you see that nobody jokes with liberty in the US. If you have 10 heads, everybody is equal. Three revolutions were fought by the Americans, all based on the original agreement. In Nigeria, is there any such document that says we are all equal and that everybody is entitled to the basics of life? We do not know the power of such words. America was able to overcome its colonial experience and build their nation properly. Nigeria is yet to that. We must work with America with caution, but there is a lot we can learn from them.