Nigeria, the Land of the Ultimate Freedom

                                       Nigeria, the Land of the Ultimate Freedom

No where in the world are outlaws, crooks, murderers, dictators, embezzlers have greater freedom than in Nigeria. Most people have heard the common phrase that suggests satirically of one landing in prison for stealing a chicken, and another going to congress for stealing the whole wealth of a nation. In Nigeria this is a straight factual statement. In fact the more criminally vicious a public official is the more freedom he or she enjoys in Nigeria provided he or she have enough stolen public fund to arrogate self sovereignty.

For eight years Ibrahim Badamusa Babagida, the popular or the notorious IBB seized power under the barrel of gun and imposed his personal will on the Nigerian people. Under IBB’s dictatorship many senior military officers were executed. Among the executed was IBB’s close comrade Major General Mamman Vasta. These officers were charged for subversion against IBB’s dictatorial regime even though IBB and his cohorts by their participation in the 1983 coup committed subversion against a democratically elected government. These officers executed by IBB led junta were tried and convicted by a military tribunal appointed and supervised by IBB himself. In 1986 or thereabout a renowned journalist Dele Giwa was murdered and IBB’s henchman hit man otherwise called the national intelligence director was implicated. It was reported that this intelligence director spoke to Giwa just before a parcel bomb that killed Giwa was delivered to him. By 1986 except the military and the military leadership which IBB was at the helm no other institution, organization, group, individual has the expertise, or the means to successfully deliver a letter bomb. Even today, without the cover of the government it will be difficult to execute the parcel bomb of 1986. Beside, who else in Nigeria in 1986 had vested interest in seeing the elimination of a Journalist whose editorial columns were critical of the IBB’s military dictatorship and corruptions? It was no surprise that official investigation or report on Giwa’s assassination was never issued by IBB’s military junta. Rumor had it that Giwa had information on one mysterious Gloria Okon whose purported illicit drug trade before 1985 was linked to IBB.

The extra judiciary murder of many senior military officers and the assassination of Dele Giwa were apparent but what are not apparent are the deaths of so many Nigerians who are victims of deprivation and extinguished live ambitions due to the looting of Nigerian treasure by the military junta led by Ibrahim Babagida. In fact IBB’s military junta ushered in the culture of corruption in Nigeria. Before 1985 there was official corruption but during the eight years of IBB dictatorship, corruption became way of life in Nigeria. The culture of corruption planted by IBB led junta is seen today in all aspect of the Nigerian society.

Today IBB is a billionaire in dollars and will outspend most competitors except his likes who also commandeered the national wealth for personal use. There were no evidences that IBB was filthy rich before 1985 and no evidence that he inherited family fortune after his eight years of dictatorship. But in the 90s IBB was reported in Forbes Magazine as one of the world’s billionaires. It is no secret that IBB and his cohorts looted Nigerian treasure. His administration could not account for the extra billions of dollars that Nigeria ought to have received from the sell of crude oil during the 1990 gulf war. So IBB have the wealth to buy whatever he wishes but the question is, how many Nigerians will sell their souls to this wolf who once feast on their blood? For sure IBB have not run out of money hence he is not necessarily vying for presidency to steal more money, but do not quote me on this. Perhaps IBB is having remorse for his sin against the people and want to make things right. Well, any remorse by IBB must start by him apologizing to the Nigerian people and returning to the people the stolen public wealth.

For eight years IBB have the opportunity to make Nigeria better and uphold the creed of the independent fathers who staked their peace and lives for the purpose of securing a free democratic and prosperous Nigeria. But rather IBB’s led military junta chose to usher in a culture of corruption and murderous environment into the country that he seized power to protect. Today IBB have filed papers to contest for the office of the presidency for the 2011 presidential election, this is laughable and heart breaking. It is laughable because IBB seems to believe that Nigerians are suffering from amnesia. But it is heart breaking that an individual who ought to be doing prison time for the atonement of his crime against the people and the country is arrogantly seeking to once more lord himself over the people. It is even more heart breaking that there is that possibility that a well known crook may once more take the leadership of a nation that for its survival needs the guidance of all good angels of the heavens. IBB made this shamelessly bold move because he is in disposition of enough stolen public wealth. In filing papers for the office of the presidency IBB said he was exercising his legal suffrage. But he said nothing of the suffrage he suffocated when he participated in the 1983 coup that deposed democratically elected government nor did he say any thing on suffrage he stifle during his eight years of military dictatorship. Perhaps Babagida thinks in error that Nigerians are stupid. No Nigerian in a right frame of mind will think or belief that IBB have anything good to offer the country. If  IBB could not offer these goodies for eight years that he single handedly dictated the policies and affairs of government without any opposition how could he deliver these goods in the face of strong opposition present in any true democracy? In time of 'peace' only Kings, Emperors, and despots rule nations for more than ten years and  since IBB is neither a King nor an Emperor he is despotic as he truly seeks to lead another eight years of corrupt presidency.    A second IBB’s presidency will measure worse than his failed, eight years of corrupt and murderous presidency not only because he lacks idea, wisdom, vision and knowledge to lead but also because he is primitive in all his dispositions. IBB’s eight years of dictatorship showed not only that he cannot lead but also that he has no understanding of what leadership means. He knows not that to lead is to serve. If Nigerians can for a moment pretend, just pretend that they love the country then IBB will not be filing paper for the office of the presidency but rather he will be filling paper for a presidential pardon for the long prison time he ought to have been serving for crime against his people and country. IBB is bold to seek the office of the presidency because he has not been held accountable for eight years of tyranny, dictatorship, oppression, looting of public treasure and treason. Even if IBB buys his way to the presidency the truth is that he will never be legitimate in the eyes of the world’s true democracies. Around the world he is already known for what he is, an unrepentant dictator who preyed on his people and made life miserable for so many Nigerians. The world will know that he bought the presidency and would neither respect him nor the office he occupies. And a president not respected is nation disrespected. Nigerians, it is time we work on the image of our country and not give the presidency to the same despot whose period of reign of terror marks a dark periods in Nigeria history.

There are many of these cage men who are repackaging selves as the angels of the light, as saviors; the wolves in sheep clothing. We must recognize these angels of darkness and call them by their names. The so called former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is one of these angels of darkness that is trying to fool Nigerians once more. Atiku and Obasanjo have not given account of their eight years of stewardship of the country. The conflict between Atiku and Obasanjo was not a war between the evil and the good rather it was a war caused by ignorance and primitive ambitions. The war between these two was not war due to differing ideology on the best course for Nigeria. Atiku wanted to rich the pinnacle of power, a position that would have guarantee him success in looting public wealth while Obasanjo wanted to perpetuate his grip to power a situation he needed for the consolidation of his loot. In some ways both of these state detractors lost the battle because their motives were treacherous and their means idiotic and barbaric. Though he succeeded in consolidating his loot but Obasanjo lost the fight because his plan to subvert the constitution failed and his hand picked unprepared successor Yaradua though a civilized man was taken by his maker. Yaradua’s presidency was the fruit of the poisoned tree and the tree was the Obasanjo’s rigged presidential election that brought Yaradua to power. But God took Yaradua away, saving him from being tinted by the Obasanjos, the Atikus and the Babagidas.

Though he made away with his loots but Atiku lost the fight because his ill conceived desire for the pinnacle of power was fortunately derailed. But Atiku have not given up his rabid ambition for power. Today Atiku is free and seeks the office that once defiled him while his partner in crime former Louisiana Congressman, William Jefferson is serving 13 years in US prison. Jefferson was charged on thirteen counts of receiving and facilitating the bribing of the Vice President of Nigeria in the tune of three million dollars. The Nigerian Vice President implicated in this bribing scandal was Atiku Abubukar. Today Atiku is free seeking the presidency in part because he took three million dollar bribe and short sold Nigerian wealth and Mr. Jefferson went to prison because he took comparatively chicken change of ninety thousand dollar bribe. The only deciding factor in the fates of these two crooks is nationality, that is, one is a Nigerian, free and seeking the presidency and the other is an American serving thirteen years of prison term. And the lesson learnt is that if one wants to be a free crook one must be a top Nigerian government official. The three million dollar bribe to Atiku was funneled through one of his concubines, then living in US. When the US authorities closed on this woman she abandoned her US mansion paid by stolen Nigerian public wealth. Today this woman is a fugitive and wanted by the US authorities. God forbid but if Atiku buys his way to the presidency he will be required to produce this woman for trial in US. Atiku himself may face his own charges in US assuming he travels there as the President. Nigeria needs no more embarrassments she already have more than her fair share of it from the shameless primitive behaviors of the so called public officials.

It is one thing to think that a people are stupid but it is another thing to look at their faces and called them stupid. Enough is enough; the IBBs, and the Atikus should take their stolen wealth, soaked in the agonies of the victims of their loot and disappear once and for all time. They must stop poking their dirty hands on the face of the country; they must stop calling Nigerians stupid by not raising their ugly, greedy and primitive intellect on the national stage. The North should give us the likes of Abdulsalam Abubakar, the Madakis or the Bararaba Musas. Nigerians for a better future must elect a patriot to the office of the presidency.



By Voci Bawomanh



August 15, 2010

The Serf who will not be King

The “Unthroneable” Prince; Perhaps, a Dethroned Serf Prince

Even God could not make him king. He is so disliked that the mere idea of him called for change in the rule of engagement for his pre-dethronement. He is loved and called by his creator but cursed by his people. His fathers disavowed his prince-hood even before his birth.

Yes, his crime preceded his birth. His crime, he will be shady and his people unmistakably fore knew his shadiness. The congenital nature of his shadiness is not enough to tamper or soften his peoples’ ill feelings toward him.

His arrival is a reproach and an enigma to his kinfolks. His presence becomes a test for the religious and social views of his people. For his shadiness, his people are unperturbed by his exposure of their xenophobia, social and religious hypocrisy. They are willing to accept any criticism, bear any burden, and defile former beliefs in their rejection of a strange congenitally shady Prince.

At least by assumption, the reign of a prince that is foreign and different to his subjects will be strange, and hence intolerable. But assumption is no reality and experience is needed to separate these two. The people of Monako have assumptions based on fear as against facts substantiated by experience. The Prince of Monako did not choose to be different yet he is condemned, disavowed and dethroned for crime of shadiness that he could not have willfully committed. He was without form, speechless, knew no language and speaks no language yet he was convicted. In him they could not prove foul character, for character good or bad did not exist in him. The Prince became guilty of shadiness the moment he became an idea or thought. The Prince’s crime is very obvious because it covers his very being; his crime is in his blood, his very nature is his crime. Simply put, the Prince himself is the crime and the only victim of himself.

In a society with morals, the Prince’s wretched nature would call for empathy, but not crucifixion. The Prince is guilty of no known legal code but yet was convicted by a jury pool of time travelers on over 700 year-old feelings and mind set. Surely, the people of Monako are time travelers. In convicting their Prince the jury employed the subjectively old law written only in the hearts of bias men. The unwritten law the Prince transgressed is the purity code that forbids diversity, uniqueness, and superficial difference. This law is akin to Nazi’s race purity code.

In the old the race purity code was unwritten and subjectively applied across Caucasian lands. In 2002, in Monako the unwritten nature of this law was frantically changed. The policy makers of Monako hypocritically reasoned to pen the law before the arrival of the shady Prince. As newly construed and constructed in 2002 this law aberrantly makes marriage contract superior to the contract and bond between a father and his child. Even at that, if he wants the Crowned Prince can make his son whole and legitimize him by entering into marriage contract with Nicole even for a brief period of time. Common sense shows that unlike the contract or bond between a father and a son, marriage contract arguably is only an official expression of feelings between two people and evidently very annullable at any given time. The superiority of a father-son relationship to husband-wife relationship is not only self-evident, but divine and universal. As evidence God is a bachelor and could not have possibly sent a wife to save the world, but he did send His son. But of course, history has shown that human laws are corrupt, bias, and conceived to fit and serve some narrow interests and purposes.

Even the Crowned Prince Albi, regardless of his silliness, knows that marriage contracts are made by/among men and men by God for special purposes. Permitted therefore, one can advise Prince Alex not be troubled or dismayed by the hypocrisy of his kinfolks. For God put him forth for many purposes among which is to expose the Unquantifiable arrogance, hypocrisy, and perhaps the ignorance of the Grimads and the people that inhabit the tiny municipality of Monako. Regardless of any law that the people of Monako may pass to deny Alex this tiniest of a crown, he should take comfort in the story and life of Christ that the Grimads profess to follow. Christ was and is God; at least the Grimads and Monaks believe in Christ’s Godly essence. Before his Jewish brethren, Christ was shady. He was called a thief, not the king he was and will ever be. He was disavowed, spate upon, mocked with a crown of thorns and killed by his kinfolks. Christ too was convicted on subjective law written only in the heart of a bias Jury. In truth, Christ was a reproach to the Sadducees and pharoses who He labeled hypocrisies, brood of vipers and white sepulchers. Christ was hated because he represented the true mirror through which the Jewish religious hypocrites could measure their true selves. Yes, through Alex the Mirror, the People of Monako and the Grimads can see their true selves.

Alex's fate is very precarious for even this excerpt to expose the hypocrisy of his fathers, his family and the hypocrisy of  municipality of Monako may jeopardize Alex's very existence. Alex's mother perhaps had to choose between being silent and speaking out, and risk exposing her son to danger. She wisely chose the former. And you too Alex may also face the choice of life of silence or proclamation of your heir-ship to the throne of Monako, and risk your own crucifixion. I do not envy your situation; the choice is yours. Regardless of what you choose, the world knows that as the first son of the Crowned Prince, you are rightfully the Prince of Monako and heir to this tinest of a crown. Christ remained the King of Jews irrespective of what Jewish King makers thought of him. People in good heart and conscience, but not perverted understand your innocence. They know that you did not call yourself to be prince, but for the weakness of your father, God called you to be. You are an enigma that brings to light the bigotry and hypocrisy of your people. Alex, you remind people of Solomon please forgive me any time I miscall you Solomon.

Today, only in Monako can a father proudly and innocuously tell the world that a son of his will not have the full right of a son of royalty because he did not sign a marriage contract with the son’s mother; Laughable, strange and medieval it sounds, this is happening today. What does one’s right to be a full son of his father has to do with a contract that one’s father refuses to enter with his mistress who is the son’s mother? If a biological son in Monako can not receive full birthright one wonders what rights if any are accorded adopted sons. With 2002 law, persons adopted into the Grimad’s family will undoubtedly enjoy more family right than biological children whose mothers did not receive marriage contract after all the biological parents of the adopted receive some sort of contracts. Here, reason and common sense succumbs to the politics of the day. It is understandable that errant beings can fault and punish others for self mistake but only a nut or twisted mind from the past would punish his or her child for self shortcomings. Even at that should not the father forgive the son if he asks for forgiveness? The king does no wrong, perhaps Alex should ask his father, the Crowned Prince Albi to forgive him because he Alex did not have Albi’s permission before he Alex started formulating inside Nicole. What an injustice to require this kind of indulgence. Albi told the world that he will fully take care of his children by his mistresses. But this promise is not only uncalled for but is an aberration, absurdity, empty and fallacious because it is impossible to fully care for what one does not fully accept.

Albi, you are the king of Monako, the king is the law, so would you change the law to make Alex a full son or would you keep the 2002 racist law you father enacted when he anticipated the possibility of Alex? It was not by accident that the 2002 racist law was enacted months before Alex arrived. If any one did offend the Crown, is not Alex. Alex only represents the longevity of the Crown.

As per the recent engagement to Charlene may the Good Lord bless and fulfill the Crowned Prince’s good intended heart desires. But had I been fortunate to counsel the Prince I would have recommended at least a very brief marriage to Nicole. A brief marriage to Nicole would not only legitimize Alex which is the right to do, it would prove the Crowned Prince’s fatherly love to Alex, silence cynics and gossipers but above all it would confirm the racist that the Crowned Prince isn’t. For argument sake let us for a moment think that the Prince Albi is a racist and this is a possibility since racism could be interpretational and cultural, yet no one with clear mind would suggest that a father would exhibit racial bigotry towards his son just because the son’s mother is of different race. No one would even speculate that Prince Albi is a racist yet no one could summarily dismiss the racism of his family and or of his subjects. And the question then is, how the racist elements and laws in Monako influence the Crowned Prince’s behavior and decision toward his son, Alex. This is the challenge or question the Crowned Prince faces and will forever face until he fully accept Alex as his son. The Crowned Prince must respond to the innuendoes that his marriage to Charlene Wittstock a South African white woman could generate. Precisely, would the Crowned Prince’s marriage to Ms Wittstock reflect his liberal social views or the Crowned Prince’s endorsement of the apartheid system that a white South African wife may suggest? No matter what anyone thinks are Albi’s racial views what matters most is what the Crowned Prince believe of himself which must measure against his behavior towards Alex. In certain unique circumstances there are those questions that always beg to be asked. Here, such questions are; what does the Crowned Prince ALbi truly think of Alex? Does the Crowned Prince feel superior over his son? Heaven forbids; does the Crowned Prince think like the slave masters who sexually loved and raped their slaves only to disown and discard the children born of their sexual assault? But this kind of dictatorial sexual relationship was then but the Crowned Prince is today. Under Ordinarily circumstance, marriage between any two people does not necessary suggest anything extraordinary but the marriage of a Crowned white Prince with an ‘illegitimate black son’ to a white South Africa woman is not an ordinary occasion. Only the gods can imagine the nature of interaction or relationship among these three.

I speak neither for Alex nor for his mother Nicole for they know me not. But I speak because I believe that the altruistic promise the Crowned Prince made publicly that he is financially responsible for his children born out of wedlock is not just insulting but represents arrogance and ignorance. Never in the history of man have a father punished or disavowed a son and reward self for the sin he the father committed. Irony it seems but this is what this altruism is about. The publicly pronounced altruistic promise begs for the old proverbial but controversial question on who benefits most from altruistic act, the receiver or the giver. The Prince’s altruistic promise though not dubiously intended clearly and arrogantly arrogates his superiority over his son. Father is never superior to his son. If Ms. Coste is not colored the 2002 law would have been unthinkable and unnecessary. Had the 2002 law pre-dated an Alex with a White mother the reverse of the 2002 law would have been the case; this is a stinking naked truth. In 2002 the policy makers in Monako woke up to fear and old mind set forgetting that this is millennium two thousand; “behold {Monako} the old things are past and everything is made new.”

The Crowned Prince is an honorable man and when the time comes will abdicate the throne as protest to the injustice the 2002 law does against his son. I am confident that Crowned Prince Albi will change the 2002 law that is in my opinion racist if he too in his heart believes that the law was enacted to deny his son the privilege and rights he himself enjoys even when he the Crowned Prince was the problem. Regardless of the reasons for the 2002 law and its victims the crowned Prince is the sovereign and hence has the power to change the law. The question then becomes whether he would do it and if not, why not?

By, Voci Bawomanh

The Core-point