November 28, 2020 #abujacityjournal By Lukman Abdulah
Lukman Abdulah write on how four governors are plotting to take over the ruling party and build it in their own image.
Three are governors . One an Attorney General.They are from the northern part of the country.
The governors are serving their last terms as governors.
The Attorney General want to be a governor.
They want to make the party their own.
They want to choose the next President .
They are members of the APC.
Together they are manipulating the system, pitching one ethnic group against the other, deceiving the President, playing on the intelligence of fellow party members blinded by ambition and plotting to rubbish those who came together to form a pan Nigeria party where people from different ethnic groups and religious backgrounds will feel at home.
Governors Abubakar Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State, Mohammed Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa and Mai Mala Buni of Yobe and the Minister for Justice and Attorney General Abubakar Mallami, are the four gods holding the ruling party APC in the jugular and threatens to strangulate it.
One of the governors thinks if they can carry out their coup successfully and plot the retention of power in the north President Muhammadu Buhari will install him in power.
One has the ambition of becoming chairman of the party after he has by default been made caretaker chairman following the ousting of the former Chairman Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
The Attorney General after office in 2023 want to use his stupendous wealth and closeness to the ruling governor and the Buni, the Chairman to be to corner the office of the governor in Kebbi State.
In their bids they are running across the country looking for straw men to use to achieve their goals.
In Ekiti , they found an ambitious man in Gov Kayode Fayemi who is willing to sell his race and betray his leader.
From there they moved to Ebonyi and tapped on a naive Gov David Umahi and dangled the Presidency in his face and got him out of his party.
To the South South they have gone to befriend a feckless Jonathan Goodluck , an ex president much abused and defamed who suddenly was held up as the best thing that has happened to Nigeria.
In Adamawa they got the ‘sex toy Senator’ and they have since been swooning in celebration.
The three governors have abandoned their states while governance suffers. The attorney general is throwing his influence around in the courts and the presidency, tapping on judges to give favorable orders and judgments while misadvising and deceiving the President.
While they play their game to the bemusement of majority of party members and leaders everyone has been wondering what fate will befall the party .
A friend last week liken what is happening now in the party to a pregnancy. He says the party is pregnant. For every pregnancy, a number of things can either happen.
One , there could be a miscarriage, two there could be a still birth, three the pregnancy could be carried through and result in the birth of a monster.
It could also result in a multiple birth with the mothers of the baby dead while the children are thrown in garbage dump .
The Gang of Four and their permutations are already receiving reactions .
Last week Chief Bisi Akande led some influential leaders of the party from the South West to meet with President Buhari.
Those close to the august visitors hinted that their visit may not be unconnected to the plot by the gang to hijack the party for their purpose.
A few days after Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola sounded an alarm and reminded the party of the gentleman agreement of power rotation.
Fashola is not known to blab , particularly on political matters. He must have seen something hence his outcry.
Fayemi, the one that El Rufai said the North wanted and was canonized as the adopted son of Ahmadu Bello has unusually taken a step back .
He is not seen to gallivant with the Gang of Four as he used to. He was absent at the conspiratorial meeting at Mallami’s house penultimate weekend.
Was not seen at Umahi’s welcome party into APC and the toasting event for Jonathan Goodluck. He appears to now stay more at home in Ekiti as opposed to governing his state from Abuja.
What has happened to Fayemi? Some are claiming that the line by Kaduna governor Nasir El Rufai that The North shall soon reveal the use to which they will put was deliberately uttered to damage him among his people.
If this is real , his supporters in Ekiti were not sophisticated enough to see through this . They went celebrating like slaves who have just been shown the back door entrance to the master’s mansion.
The quiet from FAYEMI’s end in the last three weeks continues to be intriguing. Has the ambition for President crashed so soon?
Is it a case of stepping back for strategic reasons? Is he angry at his betrayal by the gang? Has some SW elders called him to order? Whatever it is , he appears to be keeping a distance from his brothers of his Ahmadu Bello’s lineage .
The conspiracy however continues. Non NEC members of the NWC came visiting last week. They were plied with some N200,000 each so that they could keep their mouth shut when the NEC is called in December to dissolve the party’s structure from the Ward to the State level; the Gang is able to do its membership registration; elect its favored executive across the country;?de-register those members considered antagonistic to their agenda; organise a sham convention and seize the party while waiting to nominate its candidate for President in 2023.
As The Gang put its plot in place, and delight at going to show a party newsletter to President Buhari as its big achievement , the old warriors are waiting and watching.
Senator Aliero in Kebbi, Wammako in Sokoto, Tinubu in Lagos, Shettima in Borno, Aminu Bello Masari in Katsina, Ganduje in Kano, Oshiomhole in Edo , Hope Uzodinma in Imo and several old and experienced warriors are lying low and watching the upstarts play their game while waiting for the auspicious moment to pounce and devour them.
The multitude of members at the base of the Party’s pyramid who have been neglected over the years while the governors butcher their bulls and eat it alone are also watching with keen interest.
(1) They could have floated a Niger Delta Petroleum Company to bid for oil blocks
(2) They could have built a massive refinery as Aliko Dangote has just done
(3) They could have created a regional company like Odua Investment Industries which could have bought stakes in oil companies like Shell, Total, Agip, Mobil, etc
(4) They could have opened a network of petrol stations across the country
(5) They could have built the world’s largest petrochemical company
(6) They could have purchased a network of tankers that would give them control of petrol distribution across the country
(7) They could have offered to purchase the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries
(8) They could have build three or four gas-fired power plants to generate electricity
(9) They could have gradually bought the oil blocks which the likes of TY Danjuma own in the Niger Delta
(10) They could have floated a Petroleum Bank to provide capital for local investors wishing to enter into the oil industry
Our lack of imagination as a people really irks me sometimes. We keep waiting for Abuja to do everything for us and when that fails, everything grinds to a full stop.
“Then answered I them and said unto them, “The God of heaven, He will prosper us. Therefore we His servants will arise and build; but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem.” Nehemiah 2:20
Just like plans to move the Israeli Capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Nigeria joined the rank of nations that relocated their capitals when she moved her capital city from Lagos to Abuja. The move initiated in 1975 was announced by the Nigerian Head of State on February 3 1976 at a time when he coincidentally was in a running battle with the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa of Church of God Mission International (CGMI). The newly built CGMI Faith Miracle Centre auditorium opposite the airport in Benin was to be bulldozed after a Federal Military Government Decree declared it ‘illegally situated’ and Idahosa had declared that the building will not go down. A few days afterwards, the Head of State was felled by coupists. The CGMI Auditorium remained standing (till date) while the plans to move to Abuja continued. Subsequent governments contributed their quota to the relocation and on December 12 1991, the seat of Power finally moved and there began a massive exodus to the ‘New Jerusalem’.
As the populace moved to Abuja, the Gospel of Christ also made its way there and facilities like Nicon Noga Hilton Hotel, Agura Hotel, Sheraton Hotel and Towers and the Abuja Township Stadium among several others were on hand to meet the needs of various Christian groups, Fellowships and Churches at a cost. The competition for the use of, as well as the cost of rented facilities soon brought the need for these establishments to own facilities especially in the Area 1 (Old Federal Secretariat) section mapped out for use by Churches. The Lutheran Church, The Apostolic Church, Anglican Church and COCIN (Church of Christ in Nations) were allotted spaces. Also, CGMI, The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Living Faith Church (LFC) and Dunamis International Gospel Centre (DIGC) were among the first Pentecostal ministries to be allotted spaces. Most of the ‘mainline’ churches had gotten allocations in the central part of the City and the Pentecostals seemed bound to play on the fringes.
The sight of the Ecumenical Church under construction since 1989 became an embarrassment by the late 90s to Christendom in Nigeria. Here was the Capital City developing faster than any other city on the African continent yet hotels were regularly filled with worshippers while this Temple remained desolate. Strong in my memory with much nostalgia are several spiritually charged events attended at the Sheraton Conference Hall while few metres away at Papillon, Luigi and Mirabelle restaurant entrances, women of easy virtue laid in wait. In the meantime however, Idahosa had taken up the gauntlet and by 1996, he had not only grown a bishopric of his ministry but in addition built a Word of Faith (Secondary) School whose foundation was laid on 5th December 1996 with the Minister of the FCT present. The School is collocated with the Church at Area 1, Abuja. Bishop Oyedepo followed suit in the steps of his mentor and a few metres across the road from CGMI, LFC built a 2000 capacity auditorium at about the same time. Archbishop John Praise of the Dominion Chapel International Churches located their headquarters a short distance from LFC. Having built a large structure down the road (Now Provincial Headquarters, FCT Province 4), the RCCG in her characteristic manner had begun to sprinkle hundreds of parishes around the nooks and crannies of the Capital including many of the upper-class hotels and event centres. This was sequel to the Lekki ’98 event that announced the then 46 year old Church to the global stage.
Dunamis International Gospel Centre (DIGC) did not appear suddenly. In May 1996, Dr. Paul Enenche, a young medical doctor along with his ‘nursing mother’ wife, Dr. Becky had set time apart to seek the face of God concerning the next step of their lives and this has been discussed in our ‘Joshua Generation’ series. Eventually, they both put away their medical certificates against strong advice from Dr. Becky’s father who at that time was already a Professor of Medicine and their lecturer as students of the University of Jos. By November of 1996, they relocated to Abuja and their first service was held at the Abuja Centre for Arts and Culture. They moved shortly after to Sheraton Hotel and Towers up till mid 1997 before proceeding to their present site which is exactly opposite CGMI and just before the Lutheran Church (at the time just a stone throw from LFC). My first encounter with Pastor Enenche and DIGC was in 1998 at the launch of his first two books. Bishop Oyedepo was present to dedicate the books and a year later at the dedication of Faith Tabernacle by Oyedepo; the 50,000 capacity world’s largest Church auditorium, Pastor Enenche was also present.
By 1999, LFC then pastored by Dele Bamgboye had moved away from the Old Secretariat to her new Church site on the other side of Durumi and just after the Catholic Secretariat. In a period of 6 months, LFC had then constructed a 5,000 capacity auditorium which was soon filled many times over despite the addition of overflow facilities. It is worthy of note that before the advent of Churches into Area 1, it was largely a dumpsite, a mechanic village, a haven for men of the underworld and a hideout for hoodlums, thieves, prostitutes, and drug peddlers. The presence of Churches soon took care of that malaise and the area soon earned the sobriquet ‘Church Hill’ because of the many churches scattered all over the area. Church Hill got the name because of the hilly terrain. Dunamis stands tall, the first Church on the street on approach from The Old Secretariat.
Darkness abhors Light. The displacement of agents of darkness from Church Hill did not come easy. One day, an Usher in Dunamis was stabbed on his way to a church service and Pastor Enenche stepped out with a few ministers and cursed the perpetrators of the dastardly act. In a matter of days, a fight ensued among the hoodlums causing them to kill themselves. They were soon rounded up by the Police and their dominance of the area ended. To aid the Police in securing the area, Dunamis gifted a patrol vehicle to them and when that became rickety, they gave a second one. During one of her services, a bird fell from the sky and landed in one of the Dunamis Overflow Sections. Shockingly and in the presence of worshippers, the bird transformed into a human being -a lady. The lady was ministered to, brought to the fore of the Church and led to Christ. She was asked to come the following day and according to eye witnesses, she looked a lot better than she did the previous day. The news soon spread by witnesses at the scene and this in turn led to a massive influx of multitudes to Dunamis and consequently, the growth of the Church. The Federal Government had tarred the roads from the Expressway to the Old Federal Secretariat and stopped just before the “Church Hill”. Dunamis took on the responsibility and tarred the Church Hill road, installed streetlights and donated at least 5 transformers to the community.’
‘In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not’. John 1:4-5
In May 1999, President Obasanjo held his inauguration thanksgiving at the First Baptist Church, Garki, which was still under construction. Obasanjo’s presidency brought a seeming urgency to the establishment and construction of Churches all over the capital. Pastors Ina and Sarah Omakwu both of ECWA origin who had returned to Nigeria from the USA in 1993 found the Family Worship Centre with 47 members and soon began to construct one of the most beautiful churches in the Nigerian capital. This was completed and dedicated by Pastor Ina in Wuye in the year 2003, shortly before he passed on. By 2002, Foursquare Gospel Church Asokoro was established and also deemed it fit to build a beautiful edifice for The Lord which was soon completed. At this point, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) organised to ensure the speedy completion of the Ecumenical Church now known as the National Church of Nigeria: the primary christian place of worship in Nigeria. In just over a year, the Church was completed and the dedication service on October 2, 2005 was presided over by the Most Reverend Peter Jasper Akinola, the then Anglican Primate of Nigeria. The Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM) also put up a 4,000 capacity auditorium at Utako. By 2004, Dayo Olutayo left the LFC at Durumi and established the Good Tidings Bible Church International which also soon moved to Utako. The architecturally crafted and cosy 4,000 capacity Utako Church project started in 2007 and by 2012, it was dedicated by then CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. The Dayo Olutayo led ministry plays a big role in feeding the poor and helping the less privileged irrespective of religion in a scheme called “Lifegate Care Centres” established in several places around the Capital with the aim of feeding of the poor. The ministry also hosts a quarterly reach-out event tagged “Kingdom Welfare Day”. This day is typically set apart for the provision of clothing and other necessary materials for the poor in the city. The Church has also established a Primary and Secondary School. House on the Rock moved into Abuja in 1999 and in her characteristic manner, she set up in hotels to ensure ambience for her worshippers. In June 2007, she commenced her ‘Citadel and Towers’, a beautiful structure at the City Gate, Abuja. The building christened ‘The Transformation Centre’ is described as a Capital City Community Development Centre where several initiatives to benefit the City will proceed from. Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) is one of the most popular Churches in The FCT. Established in Ilorin in 1999 from very humble beginnings as ‘Divine Delights’, the Church made her advent into the Nigerian Capital in 2008, led by Pastors Biodun and Modele Fatoyinbo. COZA in Abuja went off with a bang and by 2011, the church had moved to the This Day Dome in the City Centre where a fortune was spent to host her weekly services. In December 2014, COZA relocated to her world-class 3,500 capacity auditorium on Guzape Hills where the ‘Takeover Generation’ throng regularly and which on a regular hosts world class speakers and gospel musicians more than any other Church in the country. The beautiful COZA Auditorium stretches across 2,450 sq metres with a further 700 sq metres designated as foyer area. The conveniences are located beneath the structure while the sound system is about the best one can find in the country. Joseph Iginla’s Champions City of Wonders located at Chikakore, Kubwa is also worthy of mention. Though on the outskirts, the project which began in 2013 stands out as one of the largest auditoria in Abuja. A visit in January 2017 led yours truly to count the chairs in the massive 14,000 capacity structure.
As a ministry known for large structures, LFC soon felt the need to ease up the Durumi traffic. After constructing the ‘Winners’ Highway’ at Durumi and running 4 services on Sundays, she began a new building in a massive compound at Jahi. Jahi however did not meet the vision of the leaders of the Church. Eventually after establishing other branches in Lokogoma, Sunnyvale, Gwarinpa and Life Camp among many others, she proceeded to the suburbs of the City in 2010 to build the 15,000 capacity LFC Goshen together with a Youth Church, Primary and Secondary Schools, a Guest House, a 45 unit Housing Estate and Bishop Courts for the President and First Vice Presidents of the Commission. All these were completed in 15 months. It should be noted that though the 700 acre Goshen is not located in the FCT, just like the Headquarters in Ota, most worshippers take the 40km trip every Sunday from Abuja.
Dunamis which is the focal point of this writ soon started running 3 Sunday services in their Headquarter Church in Area 1.The Church also opened Harvest Centres in the FCT, and State Branches around the Country. Currently, there are over 50 Harvest Centres in the FCT and at least 47 branches around the country. The crowd began to surge and the church moved to running five services of 90 minutes duration each. In 2015, necessity was laid on the church to create room for the sixth service, and although service times was reduced to 80 minutes each, congregants are sure to encounter the “feelable”, tangible presence of God,and get a word in season within the new time frame. Today, widows from the community where the Church is situated are being financially empowered in their numbers by the church, while hundreds of orphans from the community are on scholarship by the same Church. A lady who was identified as the daughter of a one time head of that community once testified in the Church that upon the death of her polygamist father, she was withdrawn from secondary school. The church took up her education and sponsored her through higher institution. As at the time of her testimony, she was a certified pilot.
Dr. Enenche had received Divine instructions in a night revelation concerning the relocation of Dunamis Headquarters to a place along the airport road in the FCT with specific landmarks. He sent out surveyors to locate these landmarks all to no avail. He eventually gave up searching for a season and began to make maximum use of the present facility. His wife however was certain that the said piece of land was still available. The conviction was stronger with every journey on that route to the Airport. En route the airport one day, Dr. Becky nudged her husband in a reminder about this ‘land’. Not wanting to get into such a closed conversation, he asserted that there was no such available land on the Airport Road. He however grew restless in his spirit one day as he sent again for a surveyor, laid hands on him and sent him out again to look for that place that had been so clearly described to him by The Lord. The surveyor returned this time with good news about seeing the exact landmark which The Lord had shown Dr. Enenche. As God would have it, The land owners were willing to sell as much as the Church was willing to buy. Upon inspection of the land, the exact landmark that was shown to him in that revelation was present on that land. This set the stage for the establishment of The Lord’s Garden.
In August 2014, Bishop Oyedepo was invited to dedicate the landed property in a Ground Breaking Service held on the bare ground which had been secured at a cost of over $15 million, debt free.The initial projection at the Lord’s Garden was a 75,000 capacity auditorium. The plans soon changed and is now a 100,000 capacity Church auditorium and consequently the largest Church auditorium in the world as well as largest covered roof hall in Africa as at today.
The new auditorium is built like a stadium and the roof of the project alone according to expatriates who were involved, cost about $5 million. Like his mentor Oyedepo’s projects, the building has no visible internal pillar while the angular pillars swallowed trailer loads of cement. The Destiny Academy (an Elementary and High School) and the Pastoral Quarters stand tall with a lovely recreation park in the Lord’s Garden with plans for a Shopping Mall, Two Office Towers of 7 floors each, a 7-Floor 5 star hotel. There will also be a Medical Centre, a 5000-seater Youth Facility, 200 units of guest chalets and 2 Gas Stations eventually. The building of the auditorium was completed without a single dime taken as loan from any Bank or any other Institution.
To the Glory of God alone and for the benefit of humanity, The Lord’s Garden was dedicated and opened for use on 24th November 2018. It was an epoch making day in the Body of Christ in Nigeria and worldwide as a large number of fathers in Christendom such as Pastor Adeboye, Bishop Oyedepo, Pastor Ashimolowo, Apostle Kure, Pastor Ibiyeomie as well as many others attended the event hosted by Dr. Pastors Paul and Becky Enenche who have become bridge-builders between the fathers and the sons in the Body of Christ. With this and many more in the offing, Abuja becomes a foremost city on the global map for the propagation of the Gospel of Christ.
“Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.” Zechariah 1:17
The only bird that dares to peck an eagle is the raven. It sits on the eagle’s back and bites its neck.
However, the eagle doesn’t respond or fight with the raven. It does not spend time or energy with the raven. It just opens its wings and begins to fly higher in the sky.
The higher the flight, the harder it is for the raven to breathe and the raven eventually falls due to lack of oxygen.
Not all battles you need to respond to. Not all arguments or critics you need to respond to or answer back. Just raise the standard, and they’ll fall off!
Stop wasting time with the ‘ravens’. Just take them to your height and they’ll fade away. The enemy may sit on your back and bite your neck…
But remember, “The race is not for the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor the bread to the wise, nor riches to men of skill, but time and chances happen to them all”
May The LORD take you to a height where it’ll be difficult for the enemies to peck on you in Jesus name!
Nigeria has officially slid into its worst economic recession in over three decades, TheCable can report.
According to gross domestic product numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, the nation recorded a contraction of 3.62 percent in the third quarter of 2020.
This is the second consecutive quarterly GDP decline since the recession of 2016. The cumulative GDP for the first nine months of 2020, therefore, stood at -2.48 percent.
The last time Nigeria recorded such cummulative GDP was in 1987, when GDP declined by 10.8 percent.
According to World Bank and NBS figures monitored by TheCable, this is also the second recession under President Muhamadu Buhari’s democratic reign — and his fourth as head of state.
BUT HERE ARE THE MAJOR REASONS AS CAPTURED BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER.
We shouldn’t be surprised.
We were far more productive in 1980 than we are today
In 1980 the key reasons for economic growth were are as follows:
1) We were a net exporter of refined petroleum products. Today we import all our refined petroleum products.
2) We rode in locally assembled cars, buses and trucks. Peugeot cars in Kaduna and Volkswagen cars in Lagos.
Leyland in Ibadan and ANAMCO in Enugu produced our buses and trucks.
Steyr at Bauchi producing our Agricultural tractors.
And it was not just Assembly, we were producing many of the components.
Vono products in Lagos producing the seats.
Exide in Ibadan producing the batteries, not just for Nigeria but for the entire West Africa.
Isoglass and TSG in Ibadan producing the windshields.
Ferodo in Ibadan producing the brake pads and discs
Tyres produced by Dunlop in Lagos and Mitchelin in Portharcourt.
And I mean tyres produced from rubber plantations located in Rivers State.
3) We were listening to Radio and watching television sets assembled in Ibadan by Sanyo.
4) We were using refrigerators, freezers and Airconditioners produced by Thermocool.
5) We were putting on clothes produced from the UNTL textile mills in Kaduna and Chellarams in Lagos.
Not from imported cotton but from cotton grown in Nigeria.
6) Our water was running through pipes produced by Kwalipipe in Kano.
7) Our toilets were fitted with WC produced at Kano and Abeokuta.
😎 We were cooking with LPG gas stored inside gas cylinders produced at the NGC factory in Ibadan.
9) Our electricity was flowing through cables produced by the Nigerian wire and Cable, Ibadan and Kablemetal in Lagos and Portharcourt.
10) We had Bata and Lennards producing the shoes we were putting on Not from imported leather but from locally tanned leather at Kaduna.
11) We were mainly flying our airways, the Nigeria Airways, to most places in the world. The Airways was about the biggest in Africa at that time.
12) Most of the food we ate were being grown or produced in Nigeria.
We were producing all of the above and more in 1980
Today, we import almost everything.
There lies the source of the terrible exchange rate we are experiencing today and everybody reading this has a critical role to play in reversing this very UGLY trend.
It is not enough for us to complain about the exchange rate or point out what others are not doing or are failing to do, the key question is what are we producing or what are we planning to produce?
Going forward, it’s time to ponder and think of the way forward progressivesly before it’s TOO LATE.
Credit goes to the Unknown writer for this beautiful reminder.
We have been talking about these problems and more for ages…
The stubborn, pigheaded, and religion-inspired support for Donald Trump by large swathes of Nigerian Christians (who also happen to be virulent critics of Muhammadu Buhari) is the clearest evidence that their criticisms of Buhari isn’t informed by Buhari’s tragic missteps in governance but by the mere fact of his being a Muslim.
Buhari and Trump have a lot of things in common. They both live in alternate realities. They both lack empathy. They are both bigots who exploit the primordial loyalties of their natal constituents to divide their countries. They both supervise the most corrupt regimes in their countries’ histories. And they both deploy state-sanctioned violence to squelch dissent that rattles them.
But Nigerian Trump supporters criticize in Buhari what they praise in Trump. For instance, when Trump ordered the military to crack down on peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters, Nigerian Trumptards praised it. They are even ferocious opponents of Black Lives Matter and repeat racist rightwing propaganda against it. They say it’s a coordinated stratagem to dislodge Trump from power, not to protest and seek systemic redress against police brutality.
Interestingly, Nigerian Trumptards are enthusiasts of the #EndSARS revolt against police brutality who resent Buhari’s brutal military action against protesters. They resist the government’s narrative that #EndSARS is a well-planned civil insurrection to unseat the Buhari regime.
Nigerian Trumptards defend Trump’s white supremacist bigotry. They see no wrong in Trump characterizing African countries as “shitholes”; in limiting visa issuance to Africans; in halting immigration from African countries; in preferring only immigrants “from countries like Norway”; in appointing only white judges; in having the whitest, least diverse cabinet in recent American history; and in defending negrophobic, white supremacist, domestic terrorist groups such as the Proud Boys (whom he told to “stand back and stand by”).
They also see no big deal in Trump’s habitual preferential treatment to “red” Republican states that voted for him and his antagonism to “blue” Democratic states that voted against him.
But they impotently rail against Buhari’s Arewacentric appointments, his inveterate defense of his Fulani kinfolk, his mollycoddling of Boko Haram terrorists, and his systematic exclusion of states that he said gave him only “5 percent” of their votes.
Nigerian Trumptards also defend Trump’s unprecedented nepotism and exploitation of the presidency for personal gains—in contravention of the U.S. Constitution. Trump’s employment of his daughter and her husband as his senior advisers with undeserved national security clearance has no precedent in recent American history. As I showed in a recent column, several watchdog groups have found Trump guilty of corrupt enrichment. Nigerian Trumptards said it was small potatoes.
When Buhari lost previous elections and perpetually complained that he was “rigged out” even though he never even campaigned outside the Muslim North and therefore couldn’t possibly have won a national mandate, he was dismissed as a sore loser by the same Nigerian Trumptards who are now defending Trump’s infantile, mendacious claims that he lost because he was cheated.
Buhari lost his second term election in 2019 but used the power of incumbency to steal it. He was roundly condemned by the same Nigerian Trumptards who are excited that Trump is refusing to concede an election he has clearly lost.
In 1985, Buhari was accused of betraying Nigeria by supporting a Hausa-speaking diplomat from Niger Republic to become Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity at the expense of a Nigerian by the name of Peter Onu.
Well, largely because of his racial animus toward Black people, Trump has also voted against Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to become Director General of the World Trade Organization even though Okonjo-Iweala became a US citizen in 2019.
Nigerian Trumptards’ defense is that Barack Obama also denied Okonjo-Iweala the headship of the World Bank in 2012. Well, at the time she vied for the headship of the World Bank, Okonjo-Iweala wasn’t a U.S. citizen.
As I pointed out in my April 27, 2012 column titled, “Nigeria’s Failed World Bank Presidency Bid,” “Historically, Europeans lead the IMF and Americans lead the World Bank. That’s how it has been from the beginning. While it makes sense to demand that this undemocratic practice be stopped, it is unreasonable to let Europe lead the IMF but insist that America give up its own hold on the World Bank.”
The similarities between Trump and Buhari are almost endless. But it’s amazing what kind of self-indulgent cognitive bias causes people to condemn a vice in one person but praise it as a virtue in another.
This isn’t altogether surprising, though. Nigerian Trumptards also tend to be knee-jerk Goodluck Jonathan partisans who defended Jonathan for exactly what they criticize Buhari for. For instance, they attacked Bring Back Our Girls activists who demanded that the government rescue schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in April 2014. They even said the abduction never happened—or that it was staged to bring down Jonathan’s government.
But they are the most strident in condemning Buhari for Boko Haram’s February 19, 2018 abduction of more than 100 schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State on Buhari’s watch.
When Jonathan signed a draconian anti-social media law before he left power in 2015, which is now being used to muzzle and try activists like Omoyele Sowore, Jonathanian-Trumptards-turned-Buhari-critics praised it as a necessity to guarantee “national security.” Now they are up in arms against the series of duplicative anti-social media bills the Buhari regime is planning on unleashing shortly.
(Jonathan’s Cybercrime Act, which he signed into law in 2015, prescribes a three-year jail term or a fine of 7 million naira or both for anyone convicted of “causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another.”)
The Jonathanians-turned-Nigerian-Trumptards also opposed the #OccupyNigeria protest, saw it as a coup against Jonathan, and had not the feeblest compunction that the Jonathan government murdered at least 12 #OccupyNigeria protesters. Now they criticize Buhari’s strong-arm tactics against protesters and even gaslight Nigerians by falsely claiming that Jonathan gave Nigerians “total freedom” and never murdered anyone for protesting.
What has become apparent is that Trump-supporting Buhari critics don’t criticize Buhari because of his disastrous policies; they do so because of his religious, ethnic, and regional identity. They aren’t animated by the imperatives of critical democratic citizenship; they are simply two-bit religious and ethnic bigots who hate Buhari for who he is and not for what he does or doesn’t do.
They support Trump because, in their twisted, infantile, and impoverished minds, he is the Christian messiah who has come to establish a Talibangelical theocracy in America and the rest of the world. Never mind that Trump isn’t a Christian and has deep-seated contempt for believing Christians.
In other words, Trump-loving Nigerians are Christofascists. Like Islamofascists, their only goal in life is to impose their religious beliefs on others, to merge religion and everyday life, and to close off secular spaces.
In the last few years, because of my consistently searing critiques of the Buhari regime’s frightful ineptitude, I’ve become popular with Nigerian Trumptards. But I block them on social media now because I share nothing in common with them. I criticize Buhari, as I criticized his predecessors, out of a civic obligation to hold the government accountable.
If I were as bigoted as they are, I would either ignore or vigorously defend Buhari because he and I share the same religious and regional identity. Plus, I had related personally with Buhari in the past and have personal relationships with many people who serve at the highest levels of his government.
I can’t stand Nigerian Trumptards the same way I can’t stand Buharists. They are two sides of the same sordid, bigoted coin. Buharists also criticize Trump for the same things they defend in Buhari—just like they gave Jonathan hell for the exact same things they are defending Buhari for. I was also their hero when Jonathan was in power, but they can’t stand me now.
The redemption of our world from ruin will come not from bigoted, self-interested, and situational critics of leaders but from people who transcend cheap emotions and show willingness for dispassionate examination of the ills that ail us.
There are Nigerian Christians who are prepared to put up with Donald Trump’s undisguisedly vile anti-black racism because they think he shares a common Christian identity with them. I’ve even read some Nigerians call him “God’s Chosen one”! I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but Trump is decidedly NOT a Christian. In fact, he has stone-cold contempt for Christians, but he conceals this because he needs the votes of white evangelical Christians. I list only 7 proofs that he isn’t a Christian.
1. On July 18, 2015, Trump told a gathering of socially conservative Christians in Ames, Iowa, that he doesn’t ask God for forgiveness. “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t,” he said. As a Christian theologian by the name of Michael Austin said in response to Trump’s comment, “Asking God for forgiveness is a central aspect of Christianity across… many traditions. This is not relevant to his political views, but it is curious that many Christians support Trump and believe his claims about his Christian faith.” 2. During a speech at the conservative Christian Liberty University on January 18, 2016 Trump betrayed his lack of basic familiarity with the Bible when he quoted “Two Corinthians 3:17” instead of the “Second Corinthians” that observant Christians call it. 3. On August 26, 2015, Bloomberg reporters Mark Halperin and John Heilemann asked Trump to mention his one or two favorite Bible verses after he called the Bible his “favorite book.” He stammered and said, “Well, I wouldn’t want to get into it because to me that’s very personal.” He was mocked. 4. In order to compensate for this embarrassment, about a month later, he tried to prove that he did, in fact, have some familiarity with the Bible. So, during an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Sept. 16, 2015, he said his favorite verse in the Bible was, “Proverbs, the chapter ‘never bend to envy.'” Problem is, Christians say no such verse exists anywhere in the Bible. 5. Again, on April 14, 2016 New York radio host Bob Lonsberry asked Trump to name his favorite Bible verse. After hemming and hawing and prevaricating, he finally said “an eye for an eye” was his favorite Bible verse. Even a non-Christian like me knows that Jesus repudiated that verse in the New Testament. Many American Christians pointed out that in Matthew (5:38-42) Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Washington Times’ headline was, “Donald Trump’s favorite Bible verse is one Jesus specifically repudiated”! 6. Trump doesn’t even go to church. During a campaign stop in South Carolina in 2015, Trump said he was a “Presbyterian Protestant” who goes to the “Marble Collegiate Church” in New York. The very next day, the church issued a statement saying although Trump’s late parents were “active members” of the church, Trump “is not an active member of Marble,” a polite way to say he lied about being a member of the church. 7. Trump has never gone to church since he has been president, and when he appears in official church functions, he’s always visibly uncomfortable and apathetic. On Friday, he pandered to evangelical Christians (for their votes only) by saying churches are essential services that should be open. But on Sunday, he went to play golf instead of going to church. If there’s really such a thing as an “Anti-Christ,” it is Trump. Two Trump biographers sum up his attitude to Christianity and God nicely. Timothy O’Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald, wrote: “Donald has never been a spiritually or religiously serious person.” And Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President, wrote: “He’s a transactional guy with humans, and it’s no different with God — it’s all about whatever is to his advantage with regard to his supporters, and referencing God is exactly and only that.”
Whether you take Friday 13th superstitions at face value or think they are nothing more than urban legends, here are 13 unlucky – and sometimes tragic – events that have occurred on Friday the 13th.
The ‘Friday the 13th virus’ infected hundreds of IBM computers across the UK on 13 January, 1989. It wiped out program files and caused considerable anxiety at a time when large-scale computer viruses were a relatively new threat.
Well known rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead on Friday, 13 September, 1996.
On Friday, 13 November, 1829, American stuntman Sam Patch scheduled his largest ever jump – a 125-foot jump into the Genesee River, USA. Known as ‘The Yankee Leaper’ Patch became the first famous American daredevil after he successfully jumped from a raised platform into the Niagara River. The Genesee River jump killed him.
On 13 September, 1940, five German bombs hit Buckingham Palace and destroyed the Palace Chapel, as part of Hitler’s strategic ‘Blitz’ bombing campaign.
A chartered plane carrying 45 rugby team members and their friends and families crashed in the Andes Mountains on Friday 13 October, 1972. Sixteen of the group survived for 72 days while the world thought they were dead, in what would become headline-making acts of cannibalism. Their ordeal was made famous by a 1974 book called ‘Alive!’ by Piers Paul Read and was later made into a film named ‘I am Alive’.
On Friday, 13 November, 1970, a massive storm killed approximately 300,000 people in Chittagong, Bangladesh, and created floods that killed as many as one million in the Ganges Delta.
A Swedish military DC-3 plane carrying a crew of eight disappeared over the Baltic Sea On 13 June, 1952. After one of two Catalina rescue planes sent to search for the plane was attacked by Soviet forces the incident became known as the ‘Catalina affair’. In 1991, the Soviet air force conceded it had also shot down the DC-3.
On 13 June, 1997, 59 people were killed and 103 seriously injured in a stampede during the premiere screening of ‘Border’, a patriotic Hindi movie. Known as the Uphaar Cinema fire, it is one of the worst fire tragedies in recent Indian history.
On 13 October, 1989, the Dow Jones experienced the second largest drop in history at that time. This event was later nicknamed the ‘Friday the 13th mini crash’.
The asteroid ‘99942 Apophis’ will reportedly make a very close encounter with Earth – closer than the orbits of communication satellites – on Friday, 13 April, 2029.
On Friday, 13 August, 2010, a runaway London Underground engineering train travelled four miles through five stations without a driver. The train in front was forced to skip several stations and was diverted to another branch of the network.
Hurricane Charley caused destruction in south Florida on Friday, 13 August, 2004. The strong Category 4 hurricane lasted six days altogether and hit Florida at maximum strength, making it the strongest hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Damage in the state totaled approximately £8billion.
On Friday, 13 October, 2006, the ‘Friday the 13th Storm’ struck Buffalo, New York. The unusual early-season snow storm … It is also known as the ‘Arborgeddon Storm’, ‘Columbus Day Massacre’ and the ‘Octoblizzard’. An estimated 400,000 people were without power on Friday the 13th.
Earlier, you acknowledged stable academic calendar this year, as there has been no strike. But one is brewing already with the FG/ASUU face off over the Integrated Payment and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). As somebody who has vast experience in the university administration, in what way are you advising the government to handle this matter? Frankly speaking, my response to this question is not as JAMB Registrar, it is as a Professor from a university and as somebody who had managed the university and who has also been President of Association of African Universities and has a fair view of what goes on in the university all over the world. This is because I served on the governing boards of the Association of Commonwealth Universities as well as International Association of Universities. Besides, I am widely travelled when it comes to university administration. I will caution the Federal Government about IPPIS. The government should be cautious because IPPIS might do more damage to the University system than good. My own position is that we are swinging between one extreme to the other. Prior to 2005, no university got direct allocation from the government; we used to defend our budget with the National Universities Commission (NUC). It is the NUC that regulates, controls, supervises and monitors everything. Now, because our colleagues felt that NUC was too overbearing, they decided to have direct interface with the National Assembly and the national purse. This is one of the consequences of such complaints about NUC being accused of being overbearing. I believe that if you look at the analysis of government expenditure on universities, prior to 2005 and after 2005, go and compare, there has been lawlessness since 2005 because what you get into the university is no longer a product of what you need, but a product of lobbying and so many dirty things that go along with lobbying. It is no longer regulated. When NUC was regulating, we had parameters, size of the university, age of the university, Science-Arts parameter and the growth rate. Then, there was the University System Annual Review Meeting (USARM) where every Vice-Chancellor accounted for every kobo given to his school to the NUC. The NUC would harvest this review to serve as basis for its recommendation for budget allocation for all the federal universities. Now, we have dismantled that structure and every university now handles matter individually independent of NUC, which is not even cost effective. If you analyse how much every Vice-Chancellor spends in coming to and from Abuja on the issue of contacting National Assembly or contacting IPPIS, they are not only spending money, they are learning new tricks about corruption. This is because, yes, many people may say universities are corrupt, yet no sane person will assert that the universities are more corrupt than the public service. Civil service is stinking about corruption and the universities are still sane. But by the time we allow the undue and unregulated intermingling, you are going to transfer this poisonous dose into the university system and they are going to be the worse for it as they (universities) have the intellectual capacity to package the corruption. It is something that we need to look into! Many people raised the issue that some Vice-Chancellors were prosecuted. What was the outcome of the prosecutions? I did not find any one of them that was not set free. The court said that by the rules of the University, they have not done anything wrong. All the noise in the media is when they are being tried. But when the court sets them free, nobody hears about it. There was the case of somebody who was serving President of the AAU (and Vice-Chancellor); you know the impact of the trial of such a person on the nation. We were really shocked and after the man went through all the horror, only for the court to say nothing was found against him after the name of the country and the University was almost permanently damaged.
So, what we are saying is that ther e are in-built mechanisms for addressing the issue of corruption in the university system. Let us activate those mechanisms, let us make sure that NUC is made to play both supervisory and regulatory role on federal universities. They have regulatory roles over all universities but they have both supervisory and regulatory roles on Federal Universities and that is what we are saying they should activate.
drbiggie 