Opinion

Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has been on the rooftop and won’t come down till long after Saturday. He has been screaming, for all the world to hear, that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) plans to rig this weekend’s governorship election for his arch foe, Kayode Fayemi.

State of the nation: In the last two weeks, over 200 persons in Plateau State were reportedly killed by Fulani herdsmen, 45 villages were ransacked and sacked and those villages we are told have been taken over by Fulanis, and the original owners have had to flee from their homes

In Abuja, it came to light, again, that lawmakers who have been a thorn in the side of the public had, after seven months, passed a budget that would feed their greed by N31 million each, and increase the number of the suicidal and walking dead in multiple folds.

In 2011, a brilliant, fine gentleman from the south-south was elected into the Nigerian senate. He was full of hopes and dreams. At a dinner with journalist friends, he outlined his vision and spoke enthusiastically about pursuing “developmental legislative agenda”.

Joined in goodwill by common purpose and noble endeavour, we assemble this day. The doubters who gave APC no chance of existence or of continued survival have gotten their reply in full. Their envious prayers and complaints have been answered in reverse.

The jobs in view are calculated to come from the commitment to the Regional Gas Pipeline, which will connect Nigeria’s gas resources, those of some West African countries and Morocco, thereby fostering integration and development of countries in the West African region.

It is my pleasure to address you today, on the occasion of our great party’s 2nd National Convention and the first since we rode on its glorious platform to a victorious political outing in 2015. Congratulations again to all who worked or contributed to our success.

As members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) gather for the party’s elective convention in Abuja this weekend, the APC can hardly look in the mirror and recognise itself as the vibrant coalition that swept the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from office three years ago.

There has been nothing in recent memory like the build-up to Nigeria’s first match at the on-going 2018 FIFA World Cup tournament in Russia. Football is Nigeria’s greatest unifier: when it is football, our compatriots drop all ethnic, religious and ideological differences and profess the missing faith and ideology of one Nigeria.

At the parent-teacher session in a school, a mother was told that her son didn’t always pay attention in class. “For example, he’ll do the wrong page in the workbook”, explained the teacher, “he will not submit assignments on due dates and I have even found him sitting in the wrong desk.”

The Super Eagles of Nigeria started their campaign in the ongoing FIFA World Cup in Russia with a 0-2 defeat against the Vatreni of Croatia, which has dampened the expectations of fans who had expected the team to soar.

The Presidential election held in Nigeria on June 12, 1993 was the first in the history of the nation to be formally annulled by the government of the day. It was indeed the very first time the word ‘annul’ was used in connection with our elections. No one expected it.

President Muhammadu Buhari is not a run-of-the mill politician steeped and mired in the wired acrobatics of political gerrymandering. He is certainly not a politician of the Nigerian pigmentation. His exceptional politics is rooted in the military discipline that he has brought to bear in the articulation of his peculiar dispositions.

And Abiola, an unlikely sacrificial lamb for the cause of the people, deserved much more than Nigeria can ever offer him. After all, he lost his life in yet unexplained circumstances and what honour, repatriation or words of men can replace such an exemplary and rare gift to humanity?

The late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola was the acclaimed, legitimate winner of the 1993 Presidential election, which was conducted, purportedly, to usher in a Democratic Administration after Ibrahim Babangida’s eight years in power, as Nigeria’s sole military President till date!

Even at that time, it was pretty obvious that the unjust annulment was a huge elite conspiracy, well beyond the schemes and machinations, for which the then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida had established a formidable reputation.

Following the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to honour my late friend, Alhaji Moshood K. Abiola (may Allah grant him peace) and officially recognise him as the winner of the inconclusive June 12, 1993 presidential election in which I was a candidate, I have been inundated by calls from friends, well-wishers, former political associates and journalists.

Many who lost out in the politics of the 1990s would want Nigerians to believe that Gen. Sani Abacha was the greatest evil to have befallen the country. They are wrong. It took an Abacha to expose the average Nigerian politician as a fraud, a gangster, a selfish moron, and worse.