POLSCOPE
By Eddy Odivwri; eddy.odivwri@thisdaylive.com 08053069356
Dear Lord, on behalf of millions of Nigerians who are genuinely disturbed over the health of our dear president, Muhammadu Buhari, I offer this prayer.
Father, it is your injunction in the Holy Book that we should pray for our leaders, because your book says all leaders are ordained of God. That means that you approved of President Buhari becoming our president about twenty months ago. It is on that strength that we call your attention to his health. We are reverting to you Lord, not only because he is your son, but more because you are Jehovah Almighty; the Jehovah Rapha… the one that healeth us!
Heavenly Lord, our president had gone on a supposed 10-day vacation in England, and merely dropped off adjunct information that he would dash into a medical facility to just do a quick health check and would be back at his desk, February 6. Sir, but just when we were getting ready to welcome him, he sent an urgent letter, on a Sunday, announcing that he would extend his vacation because he still has a “circle of medical tests” to run. No date was given for his return. Hmmmm, it is rather perplexing, except that we know that you are with him. Lord God, we became as confused and apprehensive as we could be. On one hand, the acting President, Pastor Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of Law, as well as many of the president’s men are claiming that “ Mr President is hale and hearty”, yet he cannot come home because his doctors will not allow him step out. Why won’t a hale and hearty man bounce back to his seat and resume work? They could not answer Lord. We became apprehensive because it is no more a mere holiday trip. It is now a medical detention. Our fears even got heightened with the tons of bad-belle rumours and messages alleging that our president has passed on. Many of us said, God forbid; declaring that, that affliction shall not arise the second time!
Dear Lord, we want you to not only disappoint the wish of the few nay-sayers in the land and heal our president perfectly, but more importantly, that you will transform our president to a new creature. Lord, in your infinite powers, reload our president with hitherto unpossessed virtues.
My Father, my Father, they have not told us what type of tests our president is running. But whatever it is, we declare that you own him: from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet… do your transformative works on him. Father, focus maximally on his ears and his heart. Those parts have caused a big disconnect between him and Nigerians. Yes Lord, perfect his auditory canal. You had effected your healing on one of the ears last year. Lord, rework the two with perfect finishing this time. Give him the ears of a baby… so he can hear, very clearly, the loud groaning in the land. And when he has heard, may you remove the Adamic heart and give him the heart of flesh, so he can be merciful and grant Nigerians a remarkable relief from the economic purgatory they have been thrown into since he mounted the throne. Father, rejig his patriotic belief so he will remember that Nigeria does not begin and end with the north alone. Lord, Nigerians are urgently in need of redemption from Thralldom and helotry.
Merciful Father, as the tests get underway and treatment commences, may the heavenly spirit enter into those British doctors so they make no mistake whatsoever on our President.
Jehovah Rapha, transform our president by renewing every old and waxed part with fresh and functional system. We stand on your promise Lord. Do it for us!
Lord, there is nothing beyond you. Your word says in Proverbs 29:2 that “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn”. Lord, we know that our president is not wicked… it’s just that the people are hungry and angry, and he does not seem to care or listen or even know what to do. That is why he needs news ears and a new heart. A heart that will listen and accept superior counsel. A heart that will admit his limitation in modern economics and global commerce.
Lord, you are the Great physician. President Buhari is in your hands. Before he returns Lord, plant in him a discerning spirit. Such a spirit that will enable him see beyond the veil of lip-deep Ranka de-de loyalty, so he can flush away many of those surrounding him, who do not mean well for this country. Lord give him the courage to take tough decisions of dealing with the National Grass cutters in the land and those who unduly pad and subvert our budgets and even greater courage to be as hard with the killer squad called Fulani herdsmen the same way he is hard with the IPOB campaigners. . Father, give him a clear head that no politician can spin his brain with metaphysical powers or effects.
As his aides have severally claimed, Lord, make our President to really be as fit as a fiddle, so madam, in the “other room”, can also bear witness and douse national tension.
Eternal Rock of Ages, I do not intend to overload you with our petitions this early morning. But you know what is best for us as a people. Those of us who clamoured for Buhari and his party, save us from mockery, shame and disgrace…. Let not our critics laugh over us.
Nigeria is your country Lord; as you did it for Zion, do it for Nigeria. Turn again the captivity of Nigeria, so we will be like them that dreamed…. The dream of fair fortunes, the dream of good leaders, the dream of fair and just society.
No doubt, we shall be careful Lord, to bring you thanks and adoration when our President returns soon with manifest signs of your divine touch.
Gov Wike and the Police Findings
The December 10, 2016, legislative rerun election in Rivers State, like many recent others in the state, was characterised by violence, thuggery and killings. Sadly, that has been the odious pattern of the elections in the state. It originates from the running rivalry between the immediate-past governor of the state, Rotimi Amaechi and the sitting governor, Mr Nyesom Wike. Until the duo parted ways politically, elections in Rivers never used to be this bloody.
The desperation, especially by the Wike team to prove that they are in higher control of the political crowd in the state has always led to the bloody overdrive in elections.
The 2015 governorship and presidential elections were notoriously terrible. The entire state was literally reduced to a killing field. Worse still, political opponents were savagely killed and beheaded, sometimes in the presence of immediate family members. Such savagery was unprecedented.
That was why two previous attempts to conclude the legislative elections in the state failed. Arms and ammunition were literally floating on the streets.
Aside the acute violence that rocks Rivers elections, the organised compromise of election officials is another running malaise. The state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) during the 2015 election, Mrs Gesila Khan, has been accused of compromise and manipulation of the election results to favour the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). She was also accused of receiving huge sums of money (found in her bank account) from the former Petroleum minister, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, for the ignoble role she played in manipulating the outcome of the Rivers elections.
Last Tuesday, the police investigation team into the December 10 legislative rerun, headed by Mr Damian Okoro, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, turned in its report with a damning verdict on Governor Wike. The report noted that the sum of N111million was recovered from 23 INEC officials who participated in the conduct of the controversial election. The staggering wads of cash, in bundles and bails were photo-displayed at the submission of the report.
The INEC officials were said to have confessed, after initial denial, that they were bribed by the Rivers State government with the sum of N15 million each, with each of the three senatorial heads landing N5 million extra. Many of them returned what they hadn’t spent, which amounted collectively to the N111 million tendered by the investigating team.
This is aside the fact that a senior police officer, DSP Muhammed Alkali was beheaded during the said election while a few other policemen and civilians were also killed.
Expectedly, the Rivers State government led by its Goebbels, the Information Commissioner, Dr Austin Tam-George has discredited the report claiming it was pre-determined.
It is remarkable that the Rivers State government bluntly refused to cooperate with the investigating team comprising the Police and the DSS. It is therefore to be expected that the state government will rubbish the outcome of such a panel.
But beyond the easy and cheap claim of blackmail and such political shenanigans, the question must be answered: how did lowly civil servants like the Rivers INEC officials suddenly become millionaires? Whose money did the investigating team display? Or were they fake Naira notes? Pray, what will Wike and his Tam-George say about the confessional statements of the INEC officials? The wrappers on each bunch can be traced to the bank from where the money came? Does Wike not know this? Were the INEC officials also coerced to make implicating statements on how they were bribed? We have not forgotten that this same Wike had borrowed N30 Billion within his first 30 days in office. It is not enough to ride roughshod over salient matters or blurt out voluptuous rounds of shallow denials or accuse state institutions of partisanship, the contentious issues must be addressed one by one.
This is the same Wike whose alleged telephone conversation on how to pay INEC officials for helping to rig the election, and his threat to kill some unco-operating Election officer was tracked, recorded and released by Sahara Reporters, last December 15, five days after the election itself. Wike had also denied, claiming that there was an app used in making the voice decibel to sound like his (Wike). Did this same Wike not once threaten INEC officials coming to the state to manipulate election results to prepare their will before coming? Pray, how many things will Wike deny?
The other question is: why is Wike desperate? Must elections be bloody? Must an election be manipulated to achieve a given end? How comfortable are they when they wade through rivers of blood and march over dead bodies to go sit on those chairs of perforated power? Dia is God!
PENCOM: What’s Going on with Chidi Duru?
For over six years running, there has been a back-and-forth muscle-flexing between the Nigerian Pension Commission (PENCOM) and one of the earliest operators in the industry, Nze Chidi Duru, former member of the House of Representatives (1999-2003). He had set up First Guaranty Pensions Ltd (FGPL) which was doing well in the market, as evidenced from the returns for shareholders. But perhaps responding to some shareholders’ complaints, Nigerian Pension Commission took over the firm (FGPL) and imposed an interim Board of Directors on the company, although the Duru-led board believes the takeover process was breached and warped.
So Duru and other Directors went to court, challenging the takeover of their company. They got an ex parte order directing a reversal of PENCOM action. But till date, that order, plus many other instructions from the Attorney General of the Federation have remained disobeyed by PENCOM. The legal adviser to PENCOM, Mr Emeka Elendu insists that while the 2012 court order has been appealed and will be heard next April, the said AGF instructions were frivolous and based on misinformation from Duru.
Duru believes the PENCOM DG, Mrs Chinelo Anohu-Amazu is engaging in abuse of office as she is serving as both an operator and a regulator at the same time, pointing out that she is fighting a dirty personal war so as to protect and project another PFA (Premium Pensions Ltd) where the DG’s mother, Dame Virgy Anohu, has substantial interest. But Elendu dismissed the allegation saying that the shareholding of the DG’s mother, now transferred to her son, Victor Emeka Anohu, in Premium Pensions is the 48th in ranking order with just 1.06 per cent and “that cannot ever amount to any form of dominating shareholding”, he said.
But industry watchers are disturbed that six years running, the FGPL has neither held any AGM or EGM and thus has not filed any report to CAC as is required by Companies and Allied Matters Act, nor has it thus remitted any tax to the Federal Government, even as Elendu declared that the FGPL has “been doing very well ever since the Duru board was sacked”. So why has there been no tax remittance?
But determined to regain his company, Duru has insisted that the court orders and the legal opinion from the AGF ordering a reversal to status quo ante be kept, despite the fact that he had formally resigned from the Directorship of the FGPL.
What seems objectionable is PENCOM’s deployment of institutional power (EFCC and the police) to intimidate, harass and oppress Duru with many arrests, detentions and arraignments. It is even laughable that after the EFCC voluntarily withdrew a charge of stealing a laptop in FGPL office against Duru in Lagos, in a magistrate court last month, Duru was last Saturday arrested, detained and charged to court again on the same count in Abuja, in what smells like abuse of court process. PENCOM, it seems, is determined to send him to prison by all means, even undeservedly. But for the right intervention of the presiding judge, who granted Duru bail on self-recognition, last Tuesday, Duru would have been remanded in Kuje prison.Just what is at stake?
All said, the law should be allowed to take its course unhindered and unmanipulated. State institutions cannot be used to suppress others, after all, power and influence are transient, especially as such powers are by the grace of superior whims.
