IS TRULY BOKO HARAM MORE OF PDP?

My recent resolution to give Nigeria a more 'seeing' than 'talking' is simply borne out of the fact that many hands are playing in and out of the social advocacy and activism expected to be seen as agitation against the status qou; the contraption called NIGERIA!

Though this is not cowardice, but an approach practically to be more strategic. One of my recent observations and convictions is that some machineries are blowing up sentiment against Muhammad Buhari, and employing the Media framing theories against him basically to make him unsaleable, and in the long run continue to deprive Nigeria and Nigerians those set of leaders that are sincere enough and patriotic to fix this long-existing socio-economical and political illness.

For those who have been linking Buhari and El-Rufai to Boko Haram, or alleging them of complicity shld please read this underneath and refute the claims and logical conclusion or remain silent till eternity. These facts preceded the Dog and Baboon allegory!!

Ayo Arannilewa furnished me wth these facts: Alhaji Adamu Ciroma a PDP stalwart said Nigeria 'ill be made ungovernable if the Northerners 're denied the presidency in 2011,

In Dec.2010 Alhaji Atiku Abukakar a presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), warned the Jonathan Government over the 2011 poll, saying “those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable”. In October 1, 2010, there was a bomb blast during the year’s independence anniversary celebrations, with attendant deaths of many Nigerians. MEND (the militant group from Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s ethnic extraction) claimed responsibility but without waiting for any preliminary report from the Security Agencies, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, as President, told a traumatized Nation, “it is not MEND!”

In January 2012, Dr Goodluck Jonathan told a bewildered nation, still smarting from murderous bombings, that his government has been infiltrated by Boko Haram.

In February 2012, a serving PDP senator from Borno South (Mohammed Ali Ndume) was arrested for being a member of Boko Haram.

In March 2012, Ndume deposed to an affidavit before a Federal High Court wherein he stated that Vice-President Namadi Sambo was aware of his activities with Boko Haram.

In April 2012, General Andrew Owoeye Azazi , the National Security Adviser, averred that there was indisputable proof that the activities of PDP gave birth to Boko Haram. As things stand, President Goodluck Jonathan is the national leader of PDP.

In April 2012, Henry Okah (while standing trial on Terrorism charges) deposed to an affidavit before a South African court that President Goodluck Jonathan was the sponsor of the October 1, 2010 bombing at Eagle square. It is on record that as governor of a Niger-Delta state, Dr Goodluck Jonathan (together with his brother governors) had used the MEND to command the attention of the Nigerian state.

WHO PAYS THE GHANAIAN PROF. GEORGE AYITTEY -NAIJA PUNDIT

WHO PAYS THE GHANAIAN PROF. GEORGE AYITTEY -NAIJA PUNDIT

Before yesterday the name Prof. George Ayittey did not ring a bell in West Africa, he was probably only known in his country Ghana, and maybe in some parts of Ethiopia where he has been a regular presenter of papers. He is an economist, not exactly a sophisticated brand like the Okonjo-Iwealas or Soludos, he has managed to sustain his job at The American University in Washington DC as a professor of Economics.

Just a few days ago, he launched his trade into the Nigerian political sphere; lashing out at President Goodluck Jonathan is a manner which he will not dare to council chairman in Ghana. As a right thinking Nigerian, I felt badly insulted, that a Ghanaian will be so bold to disparage the president of Nigeria in such a scathing way. As I write, I am not entirely happy with President Goodluck Jonathan, especially with his surrender to the Boko Haram politicians of Northern Nigeria, and consequential sacking of General Andrew Azazi. However, I felt deeply miffed by the statements of the Ghanaian professor whose online statements appeared suspicious to me.

His use of language was so entirely familiar and the flow seemed too much like a script written by either Mallam Nasir Elrufai or Dr. Aliyu Tilde, both die hard revilers of the president. I immediately sought to know who exactly this ‘renowned economist’ really was. My curiosity was further stirred when I observed speed with which the Ghanaian professor had learnt the constitution of Nigeria in just a few hours, and he was quoting sections of the Nigerian constitution. He also, in his interview kept referring to President Jonathan as ‘GEJ’. GEJ is not the name foreigners call Jonathan; he constantly lashed the president as ‘clueless’ a tag operatives like Mallam Elrufai want on Jonathan’s neck.

According to his faculty profile available online, Prof. Ayittey holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Ghana, Legon, an M.A. from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba. He has taught at Wayne State College and Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

He held a National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution in 1988-89, and then joined The Heritage Foundation as a Bradley Resident Scholar. He founded The Free Africa Foundation in 1993, to serve as a catalyst for reform in Africa

Almost immediately he got the Heritage Foundation as a resident scholar, Babangida was honoured by the Heritage Foundation, a US right wing front whose philosophy is total world domination, economically, politically and militarily.

Nana Apau, a Ghanaian journalist, in his article titled - Ghana oil: seeking national or some personal selfish interests?- described Prof. George Ayittey as a major and well known African lobbyist in Washington DC. Prof. Ayittey was member of the African Oil Policy Initiative Group (AOPIG). It is the AOPIG that formed the US-Africa Energy Association, members of which included a number of serving and former Bush administration and several oil companies such as BP, Chevron, Texaco, Marathon, Shell and Anadarko. AOPIG and the US-Africa Energy Association lobbied the Bush Administration for the creation of AFRICOM. Nana accused Prof. Ayittey of lobbying for oil companies – inn particular Prof. Ayittey was accused of pushing Anadarko, a company that has become a player in the Ghana oil find.

Clearly, the president was right when he said “criticizing Goodluck Jonathan has become a big business in Nigeria”. Who paid this lobbyist to disparage the president?

Washington lobbyists like Prof. George Ayittey work hard for their money, but the nature of their work is to use their position and influence to push the interest their paymasters. This is exactly what Prof. George Ayittey has done – to amplify the mutterings of General Ibrahim Babangida his paymaster and friend. Ayittey’s sponsors belong to the same circle with the sponsors of Boko Haram, and their objective is to adequately embarrass the president internationally, so much so that the United States and our Western allies will see the Jonathan as a weak president. The end game however is the next elections in 2015. The sponsors of Ayittey are fraudulently building up a strong case against the president and his party.

SourceWatch, an international magazine exposed Prof. Ayittey as one the major West African lobbyist in Washington. See:http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=African_Oil_Policy_Initiative_Group Prof. Ayittey has consistently used his status as an African frontline economist to push the interests of his clients.

The Centre for Media and Democracy (CMD) publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative, specialized encyclopaedia of the people, organizations, and issues shaping the public agenda. SourceWatch profiles the activities of front groups, PR spinners, industry-friendly experts, industry-funded organizations, and think tanks trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of corporations or government. SourceWatch also highlights key public policies they are trying to affect and provide ways to get involved.

With his strong conservative leaning, being an associate of the Heritage Foundation, a fundamentally Republican think tank with long standing IBB affiliations, Prof. Ayittey’s comment on Goodluck Jonathan must not be taken lightly by this administration. It is an indicator that if US Republican candidate Mitt Romney wins in the coming US elections, right-wing lobbyists like Ayittey will drop rapid punches for their paymasters. This government must seek to counter this now, or else risk irreparable embarrassment in Washington DC.

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With all sense of my personal objectivity even as a hard liner critic of GEJ and his moribund style of administration, I found the utterances of this Ghanaian Professor insulting on my country, NOT on JONA. How dare can he encroach into our national issues where he holds no citizenship in such a rude and unethical manner?
Crying must not be affecting the vision of the so-called Nigeria activists, especially the social-media enabled generational critics who shamelessly support this ruthless manner of a supposedly University faculty member. Any moral support for this man called Ayittey is a symptom of bad followership. The recklessness of the Govt does not rationalize such interference on our national being, two wrongs CANNOT make a right.
If any one should insult JOLANTERN, he must be a Nigerian! Chikena

NIGERIAN RULING CLASS AND ITS EXHAUSTED POSSIBILITIES - Musa Bashir

NIGERIAN RULING CLASS AND ITS EXHAUSTED POSSIBILITIES

by Musa Bashir 

Musa Bashir

One of the tasks of our colonial masters was creating a united Nigerian colony; this was true during the colonial era and remained true in the post (neo-) colonial era. Because the country is composed of different ethnic groups and nationalities, the question of its unity is inevitability one and the same as the National Question. The imperialist solution to this National Question was a socio-economic system of federalism in the spirit of exploitation that defines capitalism. This federalist system is based on two principles:


1. 1. Concentration of wealth at the center and


2 2. Sharing this wealth among the ruling class according to an ethno-regional formula.


Under this system, a supra-regional center called the federal government became the most lucrative institution and this created the first basis of intra-elite conflict i.e. the struggle to control the center. Another basis of conflict among the ruling class is the specifics of the ethno-regional formula according to which the central wealth is shared.


This imperialist federalism thus possesses both centripetal and centrifugal elements. The former is the lucrative center and the promise of having a decent share of the national cake; this draws members of ruling class close to one another and contributes to the national unity. On the other hand, the struggle over the control of the federal government and disputes over the specifics of the sharing formula push the ruling elites away from one another and threaten national unity. This contradiction of federalism has been a defining feature of ruling class dynamics in the First Republic and the era of military dictatorship (punctuated momentarily by the second republic and Shoneka’s reign) as well as the PDP era. At a micro-level, the contradiction reveals itself as the settler/indigene conflict.


The various manifestations of the federalist contradictions include:


1. 1.The 1953 Kano riots


2. 2.Dispute over results of 1962 and 1963 censuses


3. 3.1962 declaration of state of emergency in the western region and the trial and imprisonment of Awolowo for treason charges


4. 4.The coup and counter-coup that saw the end of the first republic and the assassination of Sardauna, Balewa, Akintola and Ironsi, among others


5. 5.Massacre of Igbos in the North


6. 6.The ethnic civil war


7. 7.Coups and counter-coups of the military era


8. 8.Rise of groups agitating for the rights of nationalities indigenous to Niger Delta region such as The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP)


9. 9.June 12 elections controversy and the pro-democracy movement it triggered


10. 10.The birth of PDP with its zoning and rotation policy


11. 11.Sharia movement in the North and rise of Boko Haram insurgency


12. 12.PDP’s zoning policy controversy, rise of Jonathan to power and 2011 post-election violence,


The above list is not meant to be exhaustive. In addition to these macro-level conflicts, the contradictions of imperialist federalism manifest themselves at micro-level as the numerous indigene/settler conflicts and include:Tafawa Balewa (1991), Zagon Kataf (1992), various clashes between Hausas and Biroms in Jos. Others include: in Delta State between the Urhobo, the Igbo and the Itsekeri; in Osun State between the Ife and Modakeke; in Benue state between the Tiv and Idoma; and in Taraba state between the Jukun and the Kuteb. Only that it is good to note that some of these indigene/settler conflicts go far back to the pre-colonial times and are only made worse by colonialist federal system.


The conflicts created by contradictions of the federalist system have already became too painful for many Nigerians. There is a widespread belief among many citizens that we just cannot continue like that; something drastic needs to happen. The imperialist federalist system has proven to be an inadequate solution to the national question. So let us see if the current ruling class can solve this problem:


First it is helpful in our analysis to realize that federalism lies in a continuum of systems of governance; at one extreme is the unitary state and at the other extreme is a confederation; in between lies federalism. The options of the ruling class are to either move right towards a unitary state or left towards a confederation; this means either a stronger or a weaker center. There is no third option. Let us take these two options in turns and see how the ruling class can handle each.


A stronger center


A stronger center or unitary state means weaker regions and states. But a basis of intra-elite conflict is a lucrative center; growing the national cake will only lead to heightened conflict and competition. It also means tremendous powers for the ethnic group that manages to control the center and this may trigger rebellion. Many believe that was what triggered coup against Ironsi after he announced unprecedented powers for the federal government. The distrust between the ruling elites of various nationalities will prevent a consensual move towards a unitary state; so a move rightwards is ruled out.


A weaker center


The other option is to move in the direction of a confederation weakening the center thereby removing one of the bases of intra-elite conflict and competition. This option sounds nice but a concrete analysis of our political landscape will prove that it is no less impractical than the first option.


A weaker center means shrinking the national cake by allowing individual regions/states to retain resources locally. Such an action will create winners and losers among the ruling class; those from resource-rich regions will have more and those from resource-poor regions will have less (at least in the short term). This will prevent an elite consensus; the future losers will oppose the move vehemently and the future winners support it chauvinistically. Without an elite consensus, this path cannot be taken. Unless if it will be imposed by the future winners. But such enforcement requires a strong center dominated by the future winners. What this enforcement may look like in practice is, for example, a Niger Delta President, like the current one, to enforce local control of resources defying his party and ignoring the House and the Judiciary. We all know he is going to be impeached and if he is backed by a section of the military, there would be civil war.


Thus it is clear from our analysis that the ruling class (bourgeoisie) cannot take the country out of its crisis because it can neither move right towards a unitary state nor left towards a confederation. These are the only options available to national bourgeoisie, options they cannot take; this leaves them in a state of exhausted possibilities. The bourgeoisie class is in a degenerate state and cannot solve the contradictions of its own class let alone solve the problems of other classes. Unable to solve the National Question (which is essentially a bourgeois question), the bourgeoisie class is even less capable of carrying out the democratic task or development of productive forces.