Biafra: Okupe Questions The Silence Of Obj, IBB, Others

A former aide to the immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has urged Nigerians to pray for the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo because he needs “wisdom from God” to handle the agitation for Biafra. 

The former aide questioned why past leaders have refused to talk about the agitation in order to address some of the grievances raised. Those he blamed for remaining silent are Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim 

 Babangida, Abdulsam Abubakar and TY Danjuma.

He made the remark while reacting to a video in which Igbo youths in their thousands besieged the compound of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, chanting “give us Biafra, give us Biafra.”

In a statement he signed, the former Presidential aide berated the federal government for not taking the issue of Biafra seriously.

He accused the government of pushing the Igbo people to the wall by not treating them fairly in the scheme of things in Nigeria.

Okupe also faulted the Presidency for not inviting Kanu during the recent consultation with leaders of thoughts from the South-East region.

He accused the federal government of making bad judgment when it comes to the situation of the Igbo people.

The statement reads, “There is indeed a “god” in Abuja. He is a very prideful and powerful god and his head office is in the Villa, the seat of power.

“Unlike Jehovah God, it does not give liberty to his subjects to exercise their will. He is captivating, imposing and compelling, forcing his will at random on his subjects and their subordinates.

“During President Obasanjo’s tenure, a very senior minister and a distinguished gentleman, during a period of national crisis, got up and with all his weight slammed the Presidents table and retorted vociferously ” Mr President, after God in this country, it is you,your word is law.!” When I heard that statement I knew it was god of Abuja that was speaking through the Hon. minister.

“Abuja itself is a Jerusalem of some sort. For as mountains souround Jerusalem, so they also souround Abuja, Also making it a naturally fortified city and giving a sense of comfort and safety to its Inhabitants . ( I pray my brother Femi fanikayode does not read this piece. if he does he will call me definitely to correct me about the comparison between the Holy city of Jerusalem and Abuja!!)

“The Abuja god and the water tight security of Abuja often times make the custodians of power make inadvertent misjudgements about the situations elsewhere in the country. And I should know haven been a victim and witness to such misjudgements several times while around the corridors of power.

“This morning I could not withhold the tears from my eyes when I saw the video of thousands of ibos, mostly youths, waving Biafran Flags and chanting in Nnamdi Kanu’s compound “all we are saying is give us Biafra”

“I cried because I empathised with them and I wondered how we managed to push a people to such a position of hopelessness and despair. I also fearfully wondered if by any act of commission or omission I have played any role in this ignoble act (s).

“Last week I wrote an open letter to the acting President . one of my recommendations was that the federal government meets with IPOB leadership and southeast stakeholders. “Unfortunately the God of Abuja speaking through the Ag. President said” the IPOB leaders are not members of the leaders if thought in the southeast.

“Yet in a country with a sitting government, the IPOB Leadership gives a sit at home order and it is obeyed in totality by the entire Igbo Nation.

“It has come to a sad point today that the IGBO and the actions or inaction of Prof Yemi Osinbajo will define the future of Nigeria.

“Yet I believe that there are still living legends of our time in this country who can move in to stop this dangerous insidious slipping into darkness.

“Why is obasanjo quiet? why is there no sound from IBB? What happened to soldier turned diplomat, Gen Abdusalam? Not a word from Gen Danjuma, Gen Gowon, Adamu Ciroma “Alex Ekweme, Chief Akinjide, Alani Akinriade and others?????

“If all the above elders and leaders who know the ropes stand aloof, why can’t the Ag. President take counsel from them privately and individually and deliver himself from the god of Abuja who always misleads his subjects until they are removed one way or the other.

“This is no longer an Igbo affair. It is a total NIGERIAN PROBLEM. Lets all put hands and heads together and find a solution, any peaceful solution before this impending National disaster overtakes our nation.

“In the meantime let the rest of the nation go on our knees and pray for Prof Osinbajo that the God of creation, who is greater than all other gods and who has saddled him, as Ag. President with the responsibility to lead the country at this time to give him the divine wisdom courage and genuine helpers to see our nation through these difficult times.”

By Seun Opejobi

"Class Of 1966" Are Still Running Nigeria With Buhari - Utomi

Professor Pat Utomi has stated that the “class of 1966 and their cronies” are still the ones running Nigeria with President Muhammadu Buhari.

He said this in reaction to how the Nigerian economy has been managed by successive governments.

Utomi lamented that there was too much of politics in Nigeria, adding that the country needed to get rid of more politicians and get more statesmen, people who can think outside party politics.

“The central thing driving us should be Nigeria, the future, the children, productivity and growth. These are realities and should happen, but they are not happening.

“What happened in Nigeria is that the culture of the class of 1966 was primarily anti-intellectual. Maybe, they did not think through it as a policy, but they forced Nigeria’s brightest minds to live the town”, the professor of political economy and management expert told Guardian.

“Buhari is part of the class of 1966. Is Obasanjo still around? Yes. What about TY Danjuma, Ibrahim Babangida? They are still around? Nigeria is still in their hands, and the worst part is that they have created cronies.

“What is required is a full understanding of what went wrong with Nigeria so that we can begin to correct it. Ignorance was a critical part of the problem. That is why we have the duty to educate.

“The mistakes with the savings of excess crude earnings alone are so glaring that I think people everywhere should understand our problem. But we just chose not to understand that more than anything, we should educate the Nigerian people about why leaderships is an intellectual activity. We need to think.

“This class also managed to demonize thinking so much that when you are thoughtful in Nigeria, people will say it is theory. Nigerians should have gone beyond this to believe that thinking is something that doesn’t work.

“Everywhere in the world, when leaders gather, they are looking for thinkers to be around them. But in Nigeria, we chase them away. As in popular culture, people in the street say, grammar. That is one of the cultural damages”, he said.

On claims by government that Nigeria is coming out of recession, Utomi replied: “See, this obsession with certain statistical numbers over incomplete understanding of people’s serious situation, I believe, is part of our problem. What is recession?

“Decline in growth, quarter over the quarter and so we are in this technical thing called a recession. If you manage to begin to grow the economy, say you have one quarter of positive growth and another quarter of positive growth, how much has that really changed the life of the average citizen out there?

“That is why for me, one of the best ways to look at history is the way offered by one of the great sociologists of the 20th century, Wright Mills.

“He argues in his famous ‘the sociological imagination’ that you do not understand history until you get to that intersection point of statistics where some people died in the pursuit of personal troubles and until you understand a family that has managed to borrow, cheat, steal to put six children through university and all of them are unemployed.

“Until you can understand their circumstance, you don’t understand history and it means you don’t understand whether recession is over in terms of statistical numbers or not. So, playing this game in terms of recession is totally meaningless to me.

“I really don’t care whether we are in recession or we are not in recession, what I care about is the quality of life of Abubakar, Rasheed, Chukwuemeka, that is what really matters and it has not escaped mystery yet. Was it not Goodluck Jonathan who said that Nigeria was thriving? After all, it was the fastest growing Jet market in the world? That is a layman’s language in describing the thriving growth of an economy.

“The measure of distribution of income in our country is a disaster, the country where many people cannot eat one good meal a day and a number of people are buying private jet, which is ill gotten wealth.

 “If they worked for it, you will see the jobs created by their enterprise, but they have private Jets in reverse and don’t have people in their employ. These are the kinds people that need invitation to come and explain themselves”.

By Wale Odunsi