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By Femi Fani-Kayode
Source: PremiumTimesI must commend President Goodluck Jonathan for removing Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as National Chairman of the PDP and finally dumping him. It really is good riddance to bad rubbish because that man was a disaster to his party. PDP itself is bad enough but to have a self-conceited and vainglorious ancient dinosaur who is completely fixed in his ways, who believes that anyone and everyone below the age of 60 is still a ”young” man or woman and who sees the world from the prism and mindset of a 1960′s Viet Nam war veteran that is still suffering from post-war traumatic syndrome was a disaster waiting to happen.
This was a man that drove goodwill away from his party in the same way that shelltox drives away mosquitoes from a bedroom. As long as Tukur was in charge the continued demise of the PDP was guaranteed. He was not only a scourge to the ruling party but he was also a beautiful, eager and willing undertaker to it’s long lost glory and a tremendous source of comfort and joy to those of us in the opposition APC. We shall miss him sorely and I must confess that he did a great job for us whilst he lasted. May he enjoy his forced and long-overdue retirement from public office and partisan politics and may he live long enough to see the PDP defeated and an APC President sworn in in 2015.
I also commend the President for removing and reshuffling a large number of his key commanders in the military a couple of weeks ago and then retiring no less than three of his four Service Chiefs just the other day (16th January 2014) and appointing new ones. This was the right and proper thing to do after the precious lives of no less than 7000 innocent Nigerian citizens were cut short by Boko Haram in the war against terror in the last three years. It was also the expedient and responsible thing to do given the fact that no less than 200 of our gallant soldiers were killed in one battle alone against Boko Haram (and later buried in mass graves) just a few months ago simply because they ran out of bullets and after a whole army barracks was burnt down to the ground and the family members of military personnel were slaughtered, again by Boko Haram, just a few weeks ago. Something had to give and heads had to roll simply because we were not making any headway in the war against terror and instead we were suffering heavy casualties and embarrassing losses.
Yet despite the fact that both moves were commendable they will change nothing because they are both too little and too late. The PDP will continue to sink because it is a political party that has lost it’s bearing and it’s soul and it has mortgaged it’s conscience. It has also lost the source and strength of it’s inspiration and moral authority in the distinguished person of President Olusegun Obasanjo who really was the glue that bound the party together and kept it going against all odds. Though Obasanjo remains in the PDP he has also wisely opted out of participating in its affairs. This is a manifestation of his disgust with the President and the former National Chairman and he has now become the official ”navigator” of the newly emerging power in the field of Nigerian politics which is known as the APC. Frankly speaking the PDP has become a party that is beyond redemption and the removal of Tukur cannot change that. I say this because no sensible person will go back to a stinking carcass simply because the head of the dead animal has been cut off and thrown away. A carcass remains a carcass whether you cut off it’s head, legs or any other part of it’s body or not. Whichever way, it remains as dead as a dodo and it only awaits a formal burial. The truth is that the vultures are already feeding fat on the rotting and decaying cadavar of the PDP and whether anyone likes to hear it or not the truth is that that party can never be whole again. As I said eight months ago it is a party that has been rejected by God and whose leaders are suffering God’s judgement for their unjust, gluttonous, wicked, foul and evil ways.
In the same way I have to say that no matter how commendable and honourable in intention the recent changes in our military High Command may be they will achieve nothing either and, in practical terms, they will serve absolutely no purpose. This is because the morale of the army is very low due to the massive losses that they have recorded in the war against Boko Haram and because they have a Commander in Chief who does not care about their welfare, does not ”give a damn” about their fortunes and does not have the guts to lead and inspire them with strength and courage. Worst still he has refused to arm and equip them properly or give them a free hand to fight and prosecute the war against terror with the ruthless precision and decisive resolve that is required. They say that if an army of sheep is led by a lion it will win every battle. In the same vein they also say that if an army of lions is led by a sheep it cannot win any battle. The latter is the case in Nigeria. In our military we have an army of lions who are well-trained, professional, strong, courageous, ready to go and capable of doing anything that is required of them as long as they are properly led, well-armed, well-equipped, well-motivated, well-supplied, adequately encouraged, thoroughly inspired and well-supported.
However that same army of noble and courageous lions is led by a sheep who, by his own words, has told the world that he is not a lion, he is not a warrior, he is not a fighter and that he is not a king. If anyone has any doubts about that permit me to refer you to my essay titled ”A President Without Balls” and the two updated versions of the same essay titled ”The Gutless Eunuch and Spirit of the Jagaban” and ”The Gutless Eunuch and the Lion King” respectively. They can all be found on my website-www.femifanikayode.org or you can just google them. To have such a man as Commander-in-Chief actually encourages and tempts the enemy to attack us because weakness and a reluctance to lock horns and engage and to be strong, forceful and decisive when provoked or attacked always attracts aggression. As long as such a weak and uninspiring man remains the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces please be ready for more casualties and more losses regardless of how lion-like, courageous or professional our soldiers may be.
However there is hope. If Goodluck Jonathan wants his fortunes and the fortunes of his party to change and if he wants peace to return to our shores he simply has to do twelve things. Firstly he has to resign as President forthwith and undertake to stay out of Nigerian politics for the next ten years and confine himself to fishing in Otuoke. Secondly, if he cannot step down, he must give a public undertaking to the Nigerian people that he will not run for re-election in 2015 and tell them that if he changes his mind and decides to do so at the last minute they should stone him. Thirdly he must go and prostrate flat on the floor with his face touching the ground before seven of the most respected and distinguished men in this country and tell them that he is very sorry for the mess he has created and he must refuse to get up until they swear by the Holy Bible or Holy Koran that they have truly forgiven him for destroying our country. Those men are President Olusegun Obasanjo, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, General TY Danjuma, General Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Atku Abubakar and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Fourthly he must write an open letter of apology to the 36 Governors of the Federation, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House and the Chief Justice of the Federation for his manipulative ways and the gross incompetence and ineptitude that he has displayed whilst running the affairs of this country over the last three years.
Fifthly he must write a letter of condolence and pay a token fee of compensation as restitution to the families of every single one of the 7000 innocent Nigerians that have been killed by Boko Haram in the last three years. Sixthly he must take off the kid gloves, stop interfering and give the military the green light to use all necessary means to prosecute the war against Boko Haram and he must win that war. Seventhly he must dismantle the death squads and the group of deadly snippers that he has allegedly commissioned to create havoc and he must tear up the list of one thousand opposition figures that he has been accused of drawing up for elimination by Obasanjo and others. Eighthly he must remove one Esho Jinadu who is better known as Mr. Buruju Kashamu (a rather strange name that does not have it’s origins in Yorubaland but instead sounds like a low quality brand of Indian tea) as the leader of the PDP in the south-west and honour the demand of the American Courts and the ruling of the Nigerian Federal High Court and Court of Appeal by extraditing him to the United States of America to answer serious charges of drug smuggling in that country forthwith. Ninthly he must direct his Ijaw supremacist kinsmen to desist from threatening the lives of other Nigerians that oppose his government and who keep threatening brimstone and fire and the dismemberment of Nigeria if he is not allowed to come back in 2015,
Tenthly he must undertake to stop serving kai kai at the Presidential Villa and he must dispense with the services of one Mama Brandy, a well-known Ijaw ”prayer warrior” and spiritualist. Eleventhly he must pull down every satanic alter that may have been erected in the Presidency and consecrate and re-dedicate the whole place to the Living God. And twelfthly he must give a public undertaking that the other four Presidents that run this country with him and that act as his ”Co-Presidents” will also step down with him forthwith or, if he insists on staying till 2015, give an undertaking that he will fire them with immediate effect and bar them from playing any role whatsover in the running of the affairs of our country from now on. Those four co-Presidents are, in order of seniority, 1. Dame Patience Jonathan (the First Lady) 2. Allison Dizeani Madueke (the Hon. Minister of Petroleum Resources) 3. Stella Oduah (the not so Hon. Minister of Aviation) and 4. Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala (the Hon. Minister of Finance and the Co-ordinating Minister). President Goodluck Jonathan, even though he is the public face of the small cabal of co-Presidents that presently rules Nigeria and even though he is the one that was given a lawful mandate from the Nigerian people in 2011 to lead our country, comes a distant fifth in the pecking order. He is co-President number 5 and woe betide him if he crosses the line and tries to challenge the position or usurp the duties of any of his four seniors. That is the sordid and degenerate level that our country has been reduced to by this little man from Otuoke.
Yet it is not too late. If our President can find the courage to take these twelve steps, peace will return to Nigeria immediately and our people will once again have hope. The problem that we have in our country today is not an ageing former Party National Chairman called Bamanga Tukur who has lost touch with reality, who never knew how to play the game and who did not know when to call it quits. And neither was it a set of tired and exhausted army commanders and Service Chiefs who did their best but who received no real and tangible support or encouragement from their Commander-in-Chief in the field of battle. The problem that we have is the President himself- a President who prides himself on his own weakness and incompetence and whose love of false prophets and strange women knows no bounds and has no end. A President who is as confused and as clueless as the comic character called Chancey Gardner in the celebrated 1970′s Peter Seller’s Hollywood blockbuster titled ”Being There”.
A President who does not understand the meaning of the word ”class” or ”honesty” and who breaks his own word consistently. A President who has abdicated his responsibilities, destroyed his own political party, divided his own country, alienated his own friends, humiliated his own mentor, abandoned his own people, brought ridicule to his own faith, cowers before his own officials, betrays his own governors, scorns the international community and breaks his solemn oath to protect and defend the Nigerian people. A President who does not even have the nerve or the guts to call to order any of the numerous Jezebels that control him. He is the problem we have in our country today and until he resigns, is impeached or is voted out of power nothing will change and Nigeria will continue to go from bad to worse. That is what you get when you vote for a man who never wore shoes to school.
May God deliver our country.
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