Article published in The Nation Newspaper

10/02/2010

**The masses of frustrated voters unable to vote in the Anambra election has shown our incompetence unable to conduct a simple common honest vote. Why was the voters register not displayed at each area well in advance? Is it a secret document or was something secret done to it? Disgraceful. You see why NASS must urgently pass the Freedom of Information Bill? So where do we voters go from here? We have conducted Free And Fair, FAF, Elections in 1993 electing Abiola so we know how. What we need are people in INEC willing to execute the same plan again. The people of Anambra were ready but some politicians and INEC were not.

**It was twenty years ago,tomorrow, on 11-2-1990, at 71 years of age, when lawyer Mandela, now 90+ years old, was released from 27 years after ‘the dark years’ in which every day could easily have been his last, in prison on Robben Island as major  strides on ‘The Long Walk To Freedom’. We remember where we were at that ‘MANDELA MOMENT’. Mandela had many ‘Solomon Moments’ praying for ‘WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING’ and God granted his wish and longevity as ‘bonus’ to see the ‘promised land’. Today the word ‘Mandela’ means ‘Wisdom and Understanding, Integrity and Service, Honour and Honesty’. There are giants and Lilliputians in every society. Nigeria also has its giants like Madiba, imprisoned, and sometimes killed, but its Lilliputians still grip power for selfish ends. If the Lilliputians do not relinquish power, just as FW de Klerk ‘wisely’ did in South Africa, then Nigeria will continue its decadent descent. For Nigeria to survive, Nigeria’s Mandelas must pray for ‘Mandela Moments’ and be annointed with ‘Wisdom and Understanding’ and also sit on the saddle of state. Nigeria faces an ‘Apartheid vs Mandela’ situation today by another name. That is a Corrupt Electoral System vs A Free And Fair Election. Life or death. The politicians and their violent cohorts are killing the Nigerian chicken that lays the golden egg. If every African politician asked ‘WHAT WOULD MANDELA DO?’ and did it, Nigerians and Africans would need no visa and a complete body scan and rectovaginal exam to visit another country to discover ‘common wonders of the world’ like 24 hour electricity and pothole-free roads. ‘Corruption, Incompetence and Mediocrity’ must give way to ‘MANDELA MOMENTS AND MERIT’. On this note the Lagos State Legisature should first investigate the initiators of the allegations before the allegations themselves and leave Fashola alone to mature into a much-needed MANDELA OF LAGOS STATE. Remember the last potential candidate- Funsho Williams-was killed before he could perform.      

**Customs Service seizes goods only to burn them adding to pollution. Surely we must utilise seized goods for our MDG POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY by donating  them to Jos and Bakassi victims,  remand homes, homeless and poorly paid ‘angel’ aides caring for destitutes instead of being burnt? Customs seized goods must be better used in Nigeria with 60% poverty are poor and refugee camps house thousands and there is deprivation among Prison Service inmates.

Let’s have a law empowering the Customs Service to hand over relevant ‘Customs Seized Items of National  Value’ for redistribution among the nation’s needy –prisons, remand homes, refugee camps, NEMA, orphanages, charities, NGOs. This will help Nigeria, using illegal gains for social good. RECYCLE, NOT DESTROY, CUSTOMS SEIZURES’. TELL CUSTOMS:‘DON’T DESTROY IT, DONATE IT’.

BAD BREAKING NEWS: UBEC says it has N34b unspent funds while schools lack libraries. This is criminal on the part of nonperforming states REFUSING to match grants. This should provide a N200,000 library box/ school- N14b nationwide and a wondeful 50th anniversary present for the 20m students in 70,000 schools.

CountdowNigeria@50 -232 demands individual, family, community, institutional, corporate, state and national development Projects to help CELEBRATE Nigeria@50. GET YOUR SCHOOL, DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY, COMPANY, CORPORATION MOVING ON A PROJECT.

**Bankers bonus and the rest of us. Profit or loss, the banker never loses. He makes money on turnover, COT, and charges on overdraft, he pays a pittance as interest on deposits and charges a fortune on loans. Now he charges a bonus on the profits as his work can be ‘monefied’. And all this after huge salaries. What about the rest of us? The banker deals with money. Easily quantifiable. Citizens deal in lives, property, learning, things for which bonuses are not easily quantifiable or monetised. The rules favour bankers at public expense. There is need for a NEW FINANCIAL BANKING ORDER. BANKERS BONUS FOR ALL! If bankers can have bonuses for working, then so can the rest of us. Not everything is money and money is not everything but everything in the shop can be bought by the big bonus.

**Is Bully CAF animal or human or just an insensitive bulling brute? Men down, all the team shot at, funerals and burials of ‘it could have beeen me in that coffin’, and CAF imposes a$15,000 fine and 2 tournament/4 year ban on Togo for not continuing and for government interferance? Even if they should have flown and not driven, CAF is unsympathetic, irresponsibly insentive to death of humans, not animals and CAF is lucky the team was not USA. All right thinking Africans are ashamed of ‘Bully’ CAF’s ‘unsportsmanly’ punishment for an ‘offence’ that needs no punishment –will it bring back the dead? This decision is worse that the actual shootings. Is football now more important than Fellow Human Beings?