Bishop Kukah slams Jonathan over National Confab, says N12m Allowance Is Scandalous, Totally Unacceptable

The Bishop of the Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, has described the N12 million allowances for the delegates to the National Conference as scandalous and unacceptable.

He was speaking exclusively to Saharareporters at the Nigeria Summit 2014 in Lagos, where he noted that the National Conference is being held at a time of great anxiety, a time of frustration, a time of great polarity, a time of ideological disorders.

“The writing of a new constitution should not be a decision of gathering 400 or 500 people and if you must gather them there’s absolutely nowhere in the world where you can talk about gathering people that otherwise ought to be ready to make a patriotic commitment and sacrifice and you say you are giving people N12 million,” he said, expressing the hope that the report is not true.

He recalled that when he served as the Secretary of the National Political Reform Conference every member received N20,000 per month.  “I am not talking about whether it was enough or not, that is not the issue, but I know the sacrifices that people had to make because this is about our country.”

He noted that the opposition party says that the decision to take 12 million is a political decision and that people are making political statements and that there was going to be a lot of grandstanding, but at what expense.

He further observed that many people may see the success of the conference as a Jonathan thing and its failure, on the other hand, as a way of weakening the President.

On the security situation, he recalled a report the other day that 130 people have died in his part of the country, and that the numbers continues to rise by the day in other parts of the country.

On the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency, Bishop Kukay said, “The real source of this crisis if you remember it’s that after the killing of Yusuf people went to court and they say the court awarded 100 billion to both families and people who lost their lives and lost thousands.  The government didn’t react to that; what happens is that when you think about what you could amid the debris.”

In that regard, he said, “People who have lost loved ones with no government interventions all you are doing is just recruiting more members for Boko Haram for the future.”

                      Jonathan Must Run On His Record 

By Sam Nda-Isaiah

Last week, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the mass murders across the country were the handiwork of some people who were hell-bent on embarrassing President Jonathan because he “is a minority”. The statement was released by the PDP national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh. This kind of statement should have embarrassed any normal president but Jonathan is far from being a normal president. He did not disown the statement and the PDP national chairman did not disown it, so it is safe to take it as the view of both the president and his party.

If the president was not embarrassed by that statement, I was embarrassed for him. I, in fact, felt scandalised and discomfited that a man who is president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces would think he is a minority. I wonder why somebody who is already the president of 174 million people would still be speaking this language of division. The PDP has even gone further to say that it is the statements of General Muhammadu Buhari, former head of state, and Nasiru el-Rufai, former FCT minister, that were the code words for the criminals to embark on their killing spree. The insinuation is that Buhari and el-Rufai are behind Boko Haram. Well, I think this is a good time for both Buhari and el-Rufai to go to court because this nonsense has persisted for too long. If Buhari, who as head of state crushed the Maitatsine uprising forever, would now become a Boko Haram sponsor, then, I think Olisa Metuh should have his day in court to prove this allegation. The PDP publicity secretary even went further to say that the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu panel indicted General Buhari in the 2011 post-election violence. I remember that the last time the PDP told a lie of this nature about Lemu, the Sheikh came out himself to say it was a lie. He said he never said anything like that and the report of their work, which Jonathan had dumped like every other work aimed at solving the nation’s problems, was still there.

All this talk by the PDP is just a desperate attempt to divert attention from President Jonathan’s unprecedented incompetence. If Buhari, el-Rufai and company were behind the violence all over the country, then, they must also be the ones who organized the kidnapping of the president’s foster father in Bayelsa State. And they must be gifted kidnappers indeed because they forced the president’s household to negotiate a handsome ransom. A whole president? That also means that Buhari, el-Rufai and company also organised the attack on the Enugu Government House, a few weeks ago. I didn’t know that Buhari and el-Rufai are also “biafrans”, because their boys who carried out the criminal attack on the Enugu Government House held a press conference to declare that they were “biafrans” and they attacked the Enugu Government House to send a clear message. Buhari, el-Rufai and company it must be that also organised the MEND bombing of Abuja on October 1, 2010. That must be why Jonathan insisted that the bombers were not MEND operatives even after MEND had claimed responsibility several times. If we are to believe the president and his PDP officials, then, Buhari and el-Rufai must be Boko Haram, MEND, Ombatse, biafran, Fulani, Birom, Tarok militiamen all at the same time.

I think the clowns around the president should stop this tomfoolery and face the reality of their principal’s crass incompetence. I have always said that Jonathan does not have the gift of leadership and the nation should have been spared this horror in the first place. It is very clear that the president is unable to secure this country from terrorists, kidnappers, armed robbers and the ubiquitous gunmen. And I think this fact is already too obvious to the PDP mandarins; that is why they want to distract attention from his incompetence. Is it also the opposition that has been stealing all the public funds on Jonathan’s watch? Or, is it Buhari and el-Rufai that have been massively stealing the crude oil in the Niger Delta and the president has been so similarly incompetent to deal with the situation?

If President Jonathan wants to seek re-election in 2015, he is very free to do so. I am, in fact, one of those that have consistently defended the president’s right to do so. But he must run on his record. Nigerians will evaluate how he has fared as president so far. They must know how he has been able to secure the people – which is the most elementary responsibility of any president. The north-east will want to know how he has been able to secure them from Boko Haram; those in the north-central will like to know how they have been protected from the Ombatse and the Birom, Tarok and Fulani militia who visit at night, while those in the north-west will ask how he has protected them so far from the “unknown gunman”. Those in the south-south, including his own household in Bayelsa, would like to know how he has protected them from the kidnappers and armed robbers. Ditto for those in the south-east. And those in the south-west will want to know why they have been abandoned to armed robbers.

Nigerians will ask to know whether this unprecedented insecurity that has engulfed the entire nation like a plague has something to do with the unprecedented stealing that is currently going on and which has grounded the Nigerian state to the extent that the police and other security agencies as well as state governments do not get their appropriated budgets.

Nigerians will also remind the president of the N2 trillion stolen in the name of fuel subsidy in 2011 which he has done absolutely nothing about. Ditto for the N100 billion stolen from the police pension fund and all the other funny figures of theft we hear every day. We will also ask what he has done about the dilapidated Police College, Ikeja, where the president’s dogs cannot even survive in. Nigerians will also remember that the president’s reaction then was “Who brought the press here?” and not why human beings were living in such sub-human conditions. And this is saying nothing about the missing $20 billion (about N3.3 trillion). There are lots and lots more Nigerians will be asking. This is the record the president must campaign on. We are not going to allow anyone to use his place of birth, creed, tribe, minority or majority status or religion to divide the people.

EARSHOT
Jonathan’s Standard Of Corruption

Again, this time in Namibia, President Jonathan has declared that the talk of corruption in Nigeria is blown out of proportion. I am actually beginning to believe that the president really means it. That is why I think Nigerians should begin to imagine what the real corruption would be if Jonathan ever got a second term.

You can find Sam on social media at these addresses:
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Twitter: @sam4nigeria

How I transformed MAN, Oron into a world class institution- Okpo

Joshua Okpo, is the Rector of the Nation’s oldest government-owned nautical school, Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron,Akwa Ibom in a media chat with some select few journalists in Lagos recently he explained how he was able to transform the premier institution into a world class Marine institution, how unemployment can be solved in the maritime sector and loads of other germane issues in the Academy. BABALOLA YUSUF ABIOLA was there.

Aside funding which has been like a mantra for all the rectors before you came on board, what do you view as most challenging aspect of the job since you came on board as rector?

First of all the basic challenge I encountered running the academy was the challenge of bringing peace to bear on that land  because when there was no peace I was brought in and if there would not be peace then I have to leave. But since it became a big challenge I have to go about for peace to reign so what did I do or what happened? Like I said it is not by my power, it is not by my myth.

As the rector I was instructed to expand the stakeholders’ interests for more sense of belonging. I ensured that the management staff was increased from five to thirty nine ,to give room for everybody from head of units to head of department, directors of school, to have a say collectively on how the academy is run.

How academy money will be spent, how academy policies will be articulated and directed. Everybody in management has been notified. The challenges like I said is the same with the peace process, which is to ensure that the immediate operating environment is at peace with the town so that teaching and learning will be a normal routine.  

When the academic environment became a theatre of war, where bloods were being spilled, when finger nails were cut off, these things will not allow education to thrive. Today the academy is a safe place, the workers are having their ways, construction work is going on, and the casual labourers from various communities are working together, eating together and worshipping together. The peace of the environment is now more appreciated.

After the academy became a weeping child arriving from all kinds of frivolous petitions and false stories.  The academy which is supposed to be given positive coverage to succeed in our national interest suffered some very negative angles to media coverage, which was untrue. We had to encourage the community relations strategy which I put in place so that host community indigenes will benefit a bigger bite of the academy’s coffers legitimately. We give scholarships as part of efforts to assist the community, we provide transformers for electricity, and we try to provide jobs for them by awarding contracts too.

In summary, the challenges was to tackle the problem of inter and intra clash businesses, the clash between the rich and the poor, the clash between the political class and the less privileged ,the clash between the senior staff and the junior staff of the academy, the clash between the privileged and the less privileged, those that has godfather, so to look at all  these things put together, it  therefore means that we need diplomacy  for us to stoop to conquer because arrogance will not solve the problem ,their own initiative quotient will not solve the problem ,but with the diplomacy we tried ,to the extent that we became the strong and the weak,the firm and the infirm and that was how we were able address the challenges. Today by the grace of God the academic stress is reducing, though we cannot satisfy everybody some lament to the press to make a fight but I am giving a general assurance that whatever is available, we put on the table and when you put on the table, it will be done in such a manner that we will save for the rainy days and when we save for the rainy days, whatever will go for the community gets to them. If all requests come at the same time, it is not proper.

Admission of cadets into the institution is done by batches, we believe it is better in batches and that is why last year we had three batches, we have finished with the second batch, third batch payment will commence in June 2013. On the issue of admission, emphasis is on quality, not numbers.  Right now as I speak with you we have evolved a style of admission strictly based on available space. We cannot take more than what we can confidently manage because with the upgrading in place there is no classroom that an instructor in nautical school, for example will be coming to train more than four cadets on the simulator at a time.

 If you are having twenty cadets on one simulator training session, none of the foreign instructor will take the academy seriously. If you take the marine engineers for example, you cannot put more than ten in a class but when National Board for Technical Education(NBTE) says twenty and  you are putting a hundred and twenty in class is very wrong and this is not acceptable and the best thing to do is to stop such acts of low quality crowd now.

As the rector of the academy, how would you rate the response of NIMASA to the 5% remittance for the academy?

On the issue of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) 5% for the academy, I want to use this medium to say that I am very grateful to the present director general of NIMASA, that is Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi. I am very grateful to him because I have never worked with any other D.G. since I was I appointed as rector of the school and from the history of the past, MAN Oron has never had it so good as it is with Patrick Akpobolokemi and I want every journalist to help me to thank the D.G. of NIMASA where ever you see him, tell him I say that he has done us well. We in the academy are very grateful.

I keep on saying that without Akpobolokemi and his management, the story you are hearing today you would not have heard about it and by the grace of God, as he has kept on encouraging us we have been able to address some of the challenges we had. I also want them (NIMASA) to help us by supporting our initiative to get sea time for our cadets through a consultant because they have been awesome all the way and we are very hopeful of the fact that the ship that the agency want to provide for our cadets will help reduce the problem of sea time so once again the press should help me to thank the director general of NIMASA for his support.

How do you hope to address the issue of sea time for the cadets of the academy?

We decided to pursue the problem of the mariners, because in the academy, the core mandate is how to train the mariners that is the nautical science and mariner engineering cadets. We have initiated our move to get employed onboard ships in Europe and South Africa  and what we are doing for now is to engage a consultant Messrs Bramah to enable us get the cadets practically trained, about one hundred mariners from nautical science cadets and one hundred and fifty from  marine engineering departments are to go onboard vessels.

We are going to pay about N8 to N9 million for each of the cadets for a period of 18 months for the sea time. So with that we will handle issue of the sea time challenge for our cadets. Although we have made proposals to the government for their contribution but that has not been met and we are optimistic on the possible take off of the project. However in our own initiative we have decided on our own on the issue of sea time for our cadets.

We are talking with some of the shipping companies we have good relationship with, to help us by granting our cadets sea time because management has decided that we are going to commit some internally generated funds and revenue to start a programme whereby the best and brightest ten or twenty mariners are given the opportunity on board sea going vessels. However I have not mentioned cadets from electrical engineers.

I have been given the concept that since the academy cadets have been regimented that they (ship owners) will prefer them to join on board their ships for them not to suffer any form of piracy and that the place they will love to come and train is maritime academy. Though we have been arguing on the price because they said N9 million and they also said that the money is not meant to pay the ship owners rather the money is meant to sustain the cadets,  their upkeep and their working materials then pay a stipend to the consultant.

The ship owners out of their free will are willing to ensure that they give them stipends to maintain the palliatives. Some of them have to restructure their cabins to accommodate some the cadets and that is why for a ship to give you space or take onboard 150 cadets especially when it is a cargo vessel, you will know the sacrifice that stakeholders have done and if we can train them for 18 months for sea competence then they can now go for their captaincy because the certificate we issue will be axxepted worldwide.

So that the issue of training Nigerian cadets will be a thing of the past, now the quality we are yearning is the one we want government to fund but for government to be convinced we are going to use our little resources maybe N15 million and see how we can start the project, monitor it and ensure that as it is working we can now communicate that we have put things in place.

What is the nature of admission into MAN Oron?

When you want to admit you place advert and by September 2013, we are going to do another to start another program for the upper session because this session is to start on the 23^rd of June. We have five courses that we offer at National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) levels, the maritime transport, nautical science, marine and electrical engineering, boat and ship building technology and we have post graduate program for marine engineering and maritime transport. Now after we  have advertised, we  pay   N5,000 payable to designated Bank then collate all the entries and when that is done we now invite them for common entrance exams.

We have seven centers nationwide. We have Abuja centre, we have Yola centre, Calabar centre, Enugu centre, Port Harcourt centre and then Oron centre, now Enugu centre has been moved to Port Harcourt centre for some issue. like I said about 7,500 persons applied, after that we now invited 4,000 and the 4,000 we invited was to enable and ensure that people have been given issuance notice and be assured for another time or chance to be able to perform because the score, which is just like JAMB score line was very low and the average score line was 47%.

If you want to find out  people that scored  65 and above were not even up to 2,000 to come for it and we don’t have enough people to select so we decided to bring it down to ensure that we have up to 1,000 people to expand more applicants chances of securing admission. Maybe by the time they were writing the exams, their attentions were divided or they were not listening or maybe they were not conscious of what they were doing.

Other examiners were selected from various places like NPA, NIMASA, Shippers Council, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy and other outfits in other to groom them. We place emphasis on the quality of youths we get admitted to ensure that our standards of academic and moral discipline are sustained and that social vices such as taking of hard drugs, hooliganism, and cultism do not find their way into Nigeria’s number one maritime training institution.

What is the academy doing in ensuring that people or cadets would be able to build ships in the country and how can that be achieved?

We are working on a new curriculum- boat building technology, which is a new initiative as naval architecture.  This area requires a lot of skill and collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders and we are ready to partner with them to achieve this.

We need to interface with other jetties, to interface with power and steel sector, we need to interface with the NNPC, with even the ship owners because in our own view some people find it difficult to interface but it takes two to tangle.

For instance when the academy wanted to go to Malmo for affiliation we know that the academy cannot do it alone, so we went to the ministry of transport. The Honourable Minister of Transport insisted that we cannot get the best out of World Maritime University without first reaching the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) therefore whatever they are going to do must carry the blessing of all Nigerian stakeholders and we must follow due process and that anything that will give a boost to manpower development must be done through collective effort. Every agency should work together to achieve a collective goal.

All effort must be put together to develop Nigeria because Nigeria cannot work if we don’t have a synergy and that is the way it should go.

How can the issue of employment be tackled after the cadets might have graduated?

First of all you look at the population of Nigeria as very important to answer that question. What is our population? When you look at our shoreline through the Gulf of Guinea from Senegal to Gabon you will agree with me that there are a lot of economic activities going on there. There are so many things that happens there, the fishing industry alone is such that can create a good market so if one can bring that aspect up and now have about 5000 people that have sea competence or captains that can command vessels I can tell you that one single policy that Nigeria will make by asking NNPC to insist that before any vessel is allowed to carry Nigerian cargo such vessel must provide jobs for our indigenous maritime professionals.

That such vessel has Nigerian seafarers onboard. Then you will see that the stakeholders will be rushing after Nigerians and we will provide the backing. What we are doing is that we have refused to build the capacity to fill the competency requirement that will increase our acceptability.  Let give credit to Chief Isaac Jolapamo for his efforts in this direction. He has stood firmly for the call for a training ship of the academy, he has stood firmly for the graduates of maritime academy and he has been at the forefront of that crusade and I want Nigerians to commend him because he has been a father and a mentor.

The parallel existence between Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme run by NIMASA and the training of cadets in MAN appears conflicting, what is your reaction to that?

This is like asking yourself why there is more than one security outfit in Nigeria, if the remaining of Lagos state senior officers is embarking on the creation of state security nothing stops the Igbo officers or the Calabar senior officers to carry out the same experiment on the issue of high charges or the issue of corruption, we are talking about how they can put energy together to make sure that we train Nigerian cadets adequately. NIMASA seafarers’ development programme is also concerned with how to get cadet, our Nigerian cadets abroad for sea time after formal training.

As we speak NIMASA does not own any ship yet therefore if they expect to send cadets abroad for sea time as way of development, nothing stops a state government in Nigeria from doing same by sending its own people to go abroad for sea time to lessen the burden on NIMASA thus in that regard NIMASA has done well and we are trying to do well too. It is not conflicting or contradictory, it rather compliments. The more the better for our youths and the country.

What is the academy doing to ensure that swimming pool is made available for cadets?

As part of our efforts to improve the quality of training being offered to our cadets, we are poised at ensuring that all our graduates are good swimmers and the pool is an important infrastructure in achieving this goal.

Let me start by saying that contract for the pool, has been awarded since 2012 and the consultant has been mobilized to site and we also like it to be done so that it will function for learning and recreation. The pool is going to have  a pavilion, race course, squash court within same vicinity and we will light up the place so that there will light for 24 hours.

General Buhari: A Damaged Brand

Posted: May 7, 2013 - 02:45
By Bamidele Ademola-Olateju
General Muhammadu Buhari is a damaged brand, he cannot win the Presidential election on any platform unless his brand equity is restored. Any people or group of people who wants to do this will have their work cut out for them, it is a lot of work but it can be done. Buhari has the best brand equity any human being would wish for until religion was used against him. He is upright, disciplined, honest, devout, frugal and patriotic among other superlatives.

Who damaged his brand?
A. The political elite
B. The educated elite

What damaged his brand?
He is disciplined: Those of us who were old enough, knew how we all fell in line under Buhari/Idiagbon's War Against Indiscipline (WAI). The spectacle of civil servants who were publicly humiliated for lateness is still fresh in our memory. When he was in charge, everybody observed decorum at publics spaces by taking their turns. It was unprecedented in a country populated by oversized egos. Little wonder, the "do you know who I am" crowd do not want a return to an orderly Nigeria. They benefit from the chaos and indiscipline.

Buhari is frugal: Buhari instituted counter trade and improved Nigeria's balance of trade by curbing imports. Oil thieves, subsidy thieves, and rogue importers who gets free money from NEXIM will have no where to turn. Generator and transformer importers who pay people to steal cables and vandalize transformers will go out of business. Everyone in this country is an importer of something. How many of those emergency importers dare manufacture when trading is there and yields quick money? If Buhari is elected, how will they launder proceeds from drugs, gun running and conversion of public funds? The elite are neck deep in a culture of waste and loot for too long, they dont wan to be weaned from easy money. They no go gree lailai...tufiakwa!

He is honest: Buhari is as clean as a whistle. How many properties does he own? How much investment has he to his name?

A patriot: Buhari is a dedicated patriot. When he was called to serve on the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) we got results. Today the Anenihs use such funds meant for projects and road construction to cater for themselves and fund their party - the PDP.

He is devout: Buhari is a devout Muslim who obeys the central injunction of compassion in his daily life - his albatross.

Buhari committed sacrilege when he came to power and jailed politicians without due process, executed drug peddlers with a retroactive law and enacted decrees gagging the press. I do not in any way condone the excesses of Buhari's reign but even his detractors will agree he is a saint compared to the treacherous and murderous types we have and have had after him. Buhari knows Nigeria and her issues cold. He is not under any gauzy lens of delusion and he is prepared as always to dive in at the pool's deep end. That for me is the difference. Buhari is the leader that can save Nigeria from the evil of herself, he is the leader we are afraid to have. I know the Jonathans and the anti-Buhari crowd will come after me with their senseless and scattered rhetoric but you are forewarned to arm yourself with facts. Some of us are witnesses to history and are objective with facts.

How was his brand damaged?
Enemies of Nigeria damaged Buhari's brand by using religion against him. Buhari is a good brand because of the qualities I listed earlier, his enemies and enemies of Nigeria knows it. Actually, most Nigerians know it. How did they do it? During his regime, counter trade and restricted imports gave rise to unprecedented inflation. Purchasing power nosedived and Nigerians became despondent. In despondency, they embraced religion than never before. Pentecostalism and its posterity now doctrine gained ascendancy in Christendom and Salafism and Shia Islam gained currency among Muslims. The Universities embraced both with zeal. Money flowed into Christianity from the United States. Saudi Arabia and Iran struggled for the minds of young Muslims on University campuses. The Nigerian religious extremism hitherto unknown by previous generations was born, brewed fresh from the stables of academia and the elite; potently aided by the Iran/Iraq war. Inciting leaflets and literature saturated the campuses and the government as usual took no notice. A Christian America was seeing as aiding the decimation of Iran by Iraq. A symbol of the times, was the controversy of the cross and crescent at the University of Ibadan. A non-issue that dragged on for years.

Buhari's tarnish project began immediately Obasanjo was elected. The schism that began with ascendant pentecostalism and fundamental Islam was carefully exploited to Buhari's detriment. He was labeled an unrepentant and fiery fanatic on religion and nomadic education. We were reminded about purported Islamization of Nigeria and membership of the OIC. The Northern elite fed and funded the misinformation especially those whose only industry is the government. Access to the racket of federal gravy bound them to religious bigots in the South. The truth is lost on southerners that Buhari is an outsider among the power elite in the north. His only bastion of support is among the Talakawas, the Northern elite have nothing but thinly veiled hatred for him.

By the time Buhari declared his intent to run, the extensive ground work for their campaign of calumny has been laid. During Buhari's tenure at the PTF, the South benefited immensely but the message was lost. Unfortunately, in a country beset by bread and butter issues, conscience counts for nothing. The Talakawas alone cannot win anyone an election, the power elite controls the vote. Buhari does not have the resources to run against the establishment and counter their smear campaign. Most importantly, his campaign was enmeshed in hubris based on his anti corruption credentials alone. They were astoundingly shortsighted as they virtually ignored the south during the campaigns and that further cemented Buhari's reputation as a religious zealot in whose eyes the Southern electorate meant nothing.

Since then, Buhari has continued to contest without any reasonable attempt to repair his brand. He cannot win. He cannot win on his record. He should study the failures of Chief Obafemi Awolowo another man whose brand was damaged by the civil war. Whosoever tells him he can win is deceiving him. I was at my ward's polling booth on Lagos Island during the last presidential elections. I was almost lynched for talking about Buhari. Religion does not encourage reason, religion is faith nurtured by unreason. In Nigeria, all you need to win is to kneel in front of a pastor and the subliminal message is sent to millions of faithfuls to vote their faith. The religious divide in Nigeria is very wide and Southerners are now super sensitive to it. The treatment meted out to Jonathan under Yar'adua was the breakpoint, this must not be lost to any northerner interested in presidential politics going forward.

In marketing, good brands can have the damage done to them repaired if the brand equity is persistent, has strength and heritage, if the damage is not central to the brand’s value proposition, If the solution has credibility and if there is any change in prevailing context that can make the damage irrelevant.

Buhari is a good brand with remarkable equity and persistence. unfortunately, his persistence is viewed as zeal for islamization. Lately, his persistence has been interpreted as a call to arms and insurgency against the state. Jonathan has tried many times to link him with Boko Haram, religion exploits human fears.

His brand's strength and heritage is derived from his military background, religion and northern origin. In most quarters in the south, that amounts to triple Jeopardy. The negative publicity of the strength and heritage is too large with respect to its equity.

The seriousness of Buhari's religion and anti-corruption problem with Nigerians is central to his brand’s value proposition and electability.

What is the solution? I will propose that later, but the credibility of the proposed solution will determine if lost brand equity can be restored. Can Buhari convince a confused audience that he has solved his religion problem with so much distrust in the land? I don't know.

Has the Nigerian context changed such that the specifics Buhari's "past" now seem irrelevant? No.

What to do?
If any party must field Buhari as its presidential candidate, they must look hard and be prepared to do a lot of hard work, wining hearts and minds. Buhari is the only leader we have subjected to the exhausting task of being nice all the time. Obasanjo, warts and all does not have to be nice, we even invent excuses or his lack of polish. Buhari and those of us who believe in him have our work cut out for us. If the resources are not there, I suggest the hunt should begin for a fresh mind. Here is my proposed solution:

A. Buhari should take full responsibility for himself and failures of his reign and apologize where necessary
B. He should welcome change and get outside help
C. Leverage his record as Head of State and PTF chair
D. Be honest and transparent on his religious beliefs and his faith in humanity
E. Call Nigeria to action and spell out the dangers we face collectively.

That is all.



Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú

This is an impounded commercial bus by the officials of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) at the Ojuelegba end of the state.

The message here is that Nigerians should, at least, be placed on warning measure before the enforcement of any law, especially stringent traffic laws of the Lagos state.

As shown in this picture, the vehicle was impounded because it developed a mechanical fault at the middle of the road; hence instead of offering a helping hand, the bus was impounded and taken to the nearest LASTMA office where exorbitant fee will be paid to secure the release of the bus.