Obj's CRIBs

Today's post comes courtesy of Grandiose Parlor (Imnakoya). There's an interesting post on the blog called 'A Presidential Servant' about Dare Obasanjo's (one of Obj's many many pikins) trip to naija for his dad's 70th birthday last month.
Dare is a techie and has kindly uploaded all the pics of the bash to flickr http://flickr.com/photos/carnage4life/sets/72157600155828724/55828724/

Imnakoya's post is about the pic below which Dare captions with the following statement “One of the servants sitting down on the bed of his one room apartment. You can see the entire apartment in this shot.”















http://flickr.com/photos/carnage4life/476780953/in/set-72157600155828724/

methinks Dare may soon remove some of the pics so i've downloaded it for una.

We should thank Dare (AKA Carnage4Life) for giving us mere mortals (or is it "servants") a glimpse of Aso rock, like i didn't know the place had a zoo, the zoo self get lion (quite handy as the presido can always throw any of his pesky opponents to the lions).










Kai even the giraffe looks better fed than most naijas lol







Anyway here are some of the other pics i found 'interesting'...









According to Dare, this is 'The presidential car. This car only carries the president of Nigeria.'

http://flickr.com/photos/carnage4life/476780981/in/set-72157600155828724/









And here's the famous presidential chopper, the one Obj uses to avoid using the horrible deathtrap that passes for roads in Nigeria

















According to Dare 'Members of my dad's security detail hanging out taking turns playing checkers'





surely this must be a security breach LOL, not only has Dare shown us the presidential 'copter (NAF 541), the presidential benz (which we now know ONLY carries the presido), he has even shown us his dad's security details (they're not really playing checkers they're practising security strategies)

Return from the bay of the sheikh

Sharm el sheikh means bay of the sheikh

I'm back from Sharm, had a nice time even though i had to attend a conference as well lol.

The Egyptians are a very nice and friendly people (especially the ones trying to flog some dodgy statute of Ramses with a big 'instrument')
Unfortunately i didn't have enough time to visit the pyramids and the Sphinx, as they are hundreds of miles away from Sharm el sheikh (that’s for another trip)

One thing i was slightly surprised about and i don't know if this is just in sharm, was the subservient attitude of the locals to European tourists. I was quite disappointed, come on, you guys were building pyramids, temples and monuments before the rest of the world even had a clue about anything.

Another slightly annoying thing is the lack of respect by European tourists for local customs. Egypt is a Muslim country and it clearly states in most travel brochures/guides that women should wear appropriate clothing. So imagine my surprise when i saw a woman walking around topless at Nabq bay (I admit it was a great sight LOL) but seriously, i thought it was extremely disrespectful and it really makes me wonder what price Egypt is paying for tourism.

Another interesting thing i also discovered was that there are hardly any Egyptian women in sharm and all the people who work in the tourist industry are men, who travel from other parts of Egypt to live in Sharm during the tourist season.


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A Post sElection Analysis 1

I suppose if the elections had gone well, many of us in blogosphere will have spent this week looking at the new set of political office holders and what to expect from them when they assume power next month..

So assuming nothing major happens before may 29 ; ) I'll be looking at some of the characters the 2007 "elections" has thrown up, starting with my favourite state (at least thats what it used to be before Tinubu became governor) - Lagos State

The "new governor" is Babatunde Raji Fashola. Anyone expecting anything radical from him for Lagos has probably not seen his website, http://www.tundefashola2007.com/

clicking on the link to find out 'His vision for Lagos state' all you get is 'This page will soon be updated please check back' . You get the same thing when you click on 'Accomplishments' (none of the pages has been updated since the site launched last year)

Well i guess that sums it up really, it just goes to show you how unimportant 'vision' and 'accomplishments' are in the Nigerian political scene, all you really need is a political godfather (which explains why the site is full of pictures of Fashola with Tinubu)

What to expect:
He is Tinubu's boy so i expect it's going to be 'business as usual'

What NOT to expect:
Any meaningful program like the utilisation of Lagos's waterways for mass transportation or a probe of Lagos state's finances since 1999

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Victims of our own Circumstances

Could Nigeria go Orange?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6587161.stm

There's an interesting point in the above article from Richard Dowden (executive director of the Royal African Society) as to why Nigerians should not expect much assistance from the international community.

[snip]Mr Dowden also doubts there will be any sanctions, simply because it is difficult to hurt Nigeria. "It is not Malawi," he says.
"You can't take their aid away because there isn't any. It's such a huge, powerful country that there is very little leverage that either the Commonwealth or Britain could deploy against Nigeria, and Nigeria is too powerful for other Africans to criticise.

"Nor do I think the Americans will make too much fuss about this because of the oil and Nigeria's strategic significance."[snip]

views from sharm

Nabq bay
















Naama bay















Across the road from the resort is the sinai desert

the bangladeshi option

In light of last weekend’s embarrassing fiasco, sorry "elections", I've resigned myself to the fact that Obj has intentionally sabotaged the fourth republic and it looks like we're heading for another 'june 12' like scenario.

It was not surprising that the organisation of last week's presidential elections was equally as bad as the previous elections on April 14 despite Obj and INEC's pathetic excuses and promises. Infact it was a classic case of 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic', things were further compounded by the late arrival of the ballot papers from South Africa (the whole fiasco has to be the most humiliating thing that has ever happened to our country and in any decent society heads should roll starting with Obj's)

But enough of the grammar and the adjectives, We know our history very well, when politicians turn elections into a 'rofo-rofo' (i.e dirty) fight then its time to call in the naija politician's kryptonite - the Nigerian army to sort out the mess they've created.

Don’t get me wrong, i'm not calling for a coup in the traditional sense where some idiot takes over power and then promises to handover in "a few years time", but a simple army takeover of government to conduct an election (a sort of interim military government). The army steps in for an extremely short period (not more than 6 months) organises new elections, handsover to the winner and returns to the barracks.

The army seems to be the only organisation in Nigeria that is able to organise 'credible' elections. They did it in 1979, 1993 (although annulled by IBB, its still considered the most credible election held in the country) and in 1999. Compare these elections with the elections of 1965, 1983, 2003 and 2007.

And now to the Bangladeshi option
Bangladesh: No going back
The army exiles the country's leading politicians

I've used Bangladesh as an example here because of what the army has done to the country's leading politicians. It has asked them to go into exile so the political environment is free of any sort of influence from the old brigade.
It's an option that definitely makes sense in Nigeria, we've been ruled by the same set of people in different guises since 1960.
Imagine what will happen to the political environment in Nigeria if all our leading politicians are stripped of their assets and kicked out of the country.

They've fucked up Nigeria for so long, won't it be great if Nigeria told them to fuck off somewhere else too..

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And The Man Spoke..

Soyinka urges new Nigeria polls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6600945.stm

Couldn't disagree with Wole Soyinka when he said "I wish he [Mr Yar'Adua] would carry his decency even further by publicly renouncing this poisoned chalice to say: 'I'm not a receiver of stolen goods',"

if ijebuman was Yar'adua i'll be watching my back or in his case his dialysis machine.

And if the calls for the elections to be cancelled is not bad enough
its been almost a week since Yar'adua was declared winner and the response from the international community has not exactly been warm.
South Africa is the only country i'm aware of (at the moment) that has congratulated Yar'adua.
No surprise there, it's definitely in SA's interest to continue to deal with a Nigeria that never rises to its full potential, or where else will they get such lucrative last minute contracts like last week's ballot paper print job..

from Ghana with Love

Article below is from ghanaweb

Letter From The President: 419 elections
By: J. A. Fukuor/Daily Dispatch, (2007-04-27)
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=123107

Countrymen and women, loyalists and opponents,
I suppose you have all been following with keen interest the recent happenings in Naija. If you haven't, you should. Naija is our "big brother", it is Africa's most populous country, we get a lot of oil from them and, of course, they've promised to give us some electricity. We've recently seen a lot of Naija-owned businesses opening in Sikaman - providing employment for many.
Historically, we've been friends with Naija and as I heard someone say recently, 'when Naija sneezes, Sikaman catches a cold.' So we all need to follow what's happening there with keen interest, give praise where it is due, speak out against any injustice and do all we can to help them get through these trying times they seem to have brought upon themselves.

I have kept my ears and eyes wide open, following every bit of the unfolding drama in Africa's most populous country and in doing so, I have been bombarded with a flurry of emotions ranging from anger, amusement and shame to disappointment and regret.

I am angry because I believe both the legislative and presidential elections were rigged and everything was done to make sure that Olu's government continued to stay in power - from the ludicrous decision by the Electoral Commission to overstep its bounds and ban one of the candidates from contesting to the ill-conceived plan to print the ballot papers in South Africa and have them delivered less than 24 hours before the day of the presidential polls.
I am ashamed at the sheer scale of disorganisation which characterised the whole process. It appears very little thinking and planning (if there was any) went into the exercise. Instead of concentrating on the logistics of organising an election, the Electoral Commission decided to do the ruling party's dirty job by banning one of the presidential candidates from contesting. The ensuing legal battle, I believe, made them forget that there were more serious and challenging issues to deal with.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not kowtow to the government and ruled that the EC had no power to ban any candidate. This ruling was issued just a few days to d-day and under normal circumstances, one would have thought that the elections would have been postponed because for a country of 60 million voters, it is virtually impossible to reprint new ballots with re-instated candidate's name. But the EC claimed that they had a ˜Plan B". That plan meant that the new ballots would be printed in far away South Africa. And I am quite angry with this decision as well. In the spirit of sub-regional co-operation, I think our brothers and sisters in Naija could have printed their ballots here in Sikaman; we would have delivered the ballots much earlier than the South Africans did. As things turned out, the ballot papers were delivered less than 24 hours before the polls and if you consider that the EC had no contingency plans (say aircraft and helicopters) for distributing the papers within such a short space of time, you would very easily laugh at their folly and ask yourself: 'what do they have in their skulls: brains or grains?.'

The massive organisation failures meant that for so many polling stations, the ballot papers were delivered several hours after the time the polls were supposed to have ended. In other areas, voting materials were in very short supply. I have never seen such disorganisation in my life and that's why I am disappointed. I am disappointed that Africa's most populous country and one of its richest (in fact, Naija is considered a continental super power) was not able to organise a smooth election devoid of logistical hiccups.

Most annoyingly, amidst the chaos of disorganisation and the unanimous verdict of several election observer missions (including that of the African Union) that the polls were a charade, the chairman of the Naija EC was urging his compatriots to 'be proud.' Proud of what? That they succeeded in showing the rest of the world how to organise ˜shambolic" elections?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the organisational failures were all part of a grand plan to rig the election in favour of Olu's party. But why rig an election in such a blatant fashion, with all the major international news networks watching? Couldn't they have done it in a more intelligent fashion? I believe there are more subtle ways of rigging elections not that I am an expert, but I have seen it before.

In 1992 and 1996, Jerry Boom and his people used cunning and various other machinations to win the elections, forcing us to write the ˜Stolen Verdict". Remember? Olu and his cohorts should have consulted with Jerry's people and I believe they would have saved us all the embarrassment of being associated with them. I am now even reconsidering the folly that made us name a street in Accra after Olu.

I thought he was a sensible, forward-looking African president who would graciously step aside when his term ran out. But, alas, I was wrong. He doesn't want to go. He wants to rule by proxy and so he has gone to every length to make sure that his anointed one succeeds him. I am very appalled, to say the least, about his conduct. Apart from making his friends (like my excellent self) look stupid and power-drunk 'show me your friend and I'd show you your character' he's made Jerry Boom look like a hero. I mean, if upon all his excesses, Jerry Boom left power graciously without blatantly trying to subvert the will of the people, why would someone like Olu 'who claims to be a champion of the African renaissance ' go to such foolish and undemocratic lengths to perpetuate his rule, albeit through a chosen successor?

Olu might be thinking that he has won. Maybe he has. But his country (and the rest of Africa) has lost. The rest of the world know that we in Sikaman have organised better elections (not the best, just better than Naija's). But from now on, they are only going to associate our continent with late arrival of voting materials, polling stations remaining opened 18 hours after they were supposed to have closed and thugs snatching ballot boxes and running away with them.
What became of Olu's dream of an African renaissance? I want to say that if he really holds the interest of our continent and its people at heart, he should do as many have suggested: order a re-run of the polls. And instead of pulling every string to make his man win, he should just let the people decide. If what I know about him is anything to go by, I think Olu will not listen to anyone and he'll just allow things to be as they are. He won't order a re-run because I believe he's already started preparing his hand-over notes. And that concerns me. As I write this letter, the opposition parties are calling for daily street protests to compel the government to overturn the results of the ˜shambolic" polls. In a country like Naija, daily street protests could spell disaster. Many would die, several would be maimed, thousands would be displaced and lives would be destroyed.

Things are not looking good, and I'd urge you all to spare a moment of prayer for Naija. Let's pray that things do not get out of hand and that Olu's successor (even if he came in through a rigged election) will be accepted by all and he'd be a father to all the citizens of Naija. Most importantly, I hope that Olu's successor will be a friend of Sikaman and he'd give us oil and electricity.

Excellently yours,
J. A. Fukuor
(fukuor@gmail.com)

sharm el sheikh

I'm in Egypt, in the desert holiday resort of sharm el sheikh. I'm here for the rest of the week but before you think i'm on holiday, this is a work related trip ; - )

Just saw our "president elect" Umaru Yar'adua on CNN earlier today and i just can't convince myself that this guy is our next president, he just seemed so scared like a rabbit caught in the glare of the headlights of a car thats about to run it over...

Having a bit of a chuckle

I've always found it difficult to take the situation in Nigeria too seriously, certain things happen and you think it definitely has to be a joke, like yesterday's news story about the late arrival of the ballot papers from South Africa (that’s on my upcoming list of reasons why Naija is now the laughing stock of Africa), which Iwu accidentally revealed while responding to reports of soldiers intercepting a trailer full of ballot boxes stuffed with thumb-printed ballot papers.
But i digress; i had a bit of a chuckle at this morning's report of an attempted attack on INEC's Hq in Abuja

An overnight attack on election HQ in Abuja failed when a petrol tanker laden with detonators failed to explode.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6578499.stm
http://africa.reuters.com/nigeriaelection/top/news/usnL2116214.html

here's a top ten list of the reasons why it failed to explode;

1. The tanker was filled with water instead of petrol (as there was fuel scarcity)
2. The tanker was actually empty as someone had stolen the petrol and sold it on the black market.
3. The detonators were fake.
4. Someone got 'settled' and sabotaged the plan.
5. Its "Gods" will...
6. Someone had a vision, then fasted and prayed to prevent it from happening
7. The detonators were not set up properly but they decided "make we manage am like that"
8. The tanker was full of adulterated petrol as real petrol is too expensive
9. Actually it wasn't an attack, the tanker's brake failed and the driver lost control..

10. This is Naija nothing works

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Ben TV now broadcasting online

I'm not exactly a big fan of BEN TV but kudos to them for making their broadcasts available online (including election coverage from NTA)
http://www.bentelevision.com/2007/home/homepage.php

You can now enjoy Bisi Olatilo's vomit inducing show and more online ; - )

Another exciting episode of..

It's bigger than any Nollywood blockbuster, it has Action, Violence, Intrigue, Drama, Magic and Betrayal. Its tomorrow's exciting episode of Nigeria PDP decides

Will the election be 'free and fair', what does that mean? (I know no book o)
Will there be widespread rigging, yes ke
Will Iwu talk trash and describe it as the best elections ever, definitely
Will the hoodlums, hired thugs and area boys 'keep it real', fo' shizzle
Will there be a lot of violence, gba o
Will it be another 'election landslide' for PDP, of course
Will the opposition try to outrig the ruling party in their strongholds, you bet
Will the ballot papers arrive in time (from South Africa) for the elections ?, if its "God's will"
Will observers describe the elections as 'flawed', no doubt
Will the international community do anything about it, forget dat one
Will Nigerians do anything about it, who wan die?


This won't be showing at your nearest multiplex, it'll be happening in real life...
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saving face
a week they say is a long time in politics, it seems Obj has already begun to implement the face saving measures i hinted about early this week (see previous post)

Nigeria's president has admitted there were flaws in last week's state polls and urged election officials to prevent rigging in the presidential vote.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6574869.stm

After presiding over one of the worst elections in the history of Nigeria, all Obj could say was ''no election could be regarded as perfect, but said progress had been made in Nigeria since elections in 1959''

I'm assuming the progress Mr President was referring to, was election rigging 'Cause if he meant anything else then he must be using the same mind-altering substances Maurice Iwu has been on since last year.

Idols WA

fela incarnate on idols west africa

I've just been sent some hilarious clips from idols west africa (Nigeria/West Africa's version of Pop Idol)

check out the best of the worst:

There are loads of clips from the show on youtube

OBJ, A True National Leader

Obj playing the African nationalist, while his own House is on fire

So the question is, how will all this play out. Obj has put himself in a tight spot, with violence erupting in various states as a result of the elections, an emboldened opposition demanding the election is postponed and the previous election cancelled, the islamic threat in the far north, the usual wahala in the delta and the US urging him to ensure the next elections are "free and fair and conducted in an atmosphere free of violence".

For someone who wanted history to remember him as the man who "saved Nigeria", i doubt he ever thought things could turn out this way. His options now are quite limited and all he can do is to try and 'save face' so he can at least retire and spend his 'loot' in peace.

Obj has always wanted to be remembered as a "national" leader, well he is now, as in almost everyone in the country now hates him. That's not an easy achievement in multi ethnic, multi religious, multi everything Nigeria. Even in his backyard - Abeokuta, praise for him is muted. Abacha, horrible as he was, still had support in his hometown...

PDP Decides (2)

a smashed windscreen, is this a metaphor of what will happen to Nigeria following PDP's "Landslide"

PDP Decides

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable...."

Nigeria PDP Decides

While NTA has called its election coverage Nigeria Decides, the reality on the ground is that the ruling party -PDP has already decided who won the "elections".

The results of the state elections has started trickling in and our worst fears have been confirmed. There has been widespread rigging on an unprecedented scale. INEC as usual was completely unprepared, which was not exactly surprising. (see top ten signs)
Maurice Iwu (INEC Chairman) was on NTA (i would have used this opportunity to say thanks to BEN TV for hooking up to the NTA network yesterday but as usual they messed up by cutting to another programme halfway through Iwu's verbal vomit) claiming INEC has "done well in this election, and nobody should take our success away from us, the process so far has been wonderful"

whatever drugs this guy is on i want some of it. LOL

If yesterday's election is an indicator of what will happen in the presidential election next week then its safe to say that any administration sworn in after Obj gets his old ass out of Aso rock will not finish its term. If there's a constant factor in Nigeria's embarrassing history, a fraudulently elected government never lasts long.

somewhere out there like a hurricane forming out in the sea, a violent revolution is brewing....

Robbed by a small minority

The Oprah Winfrey show did a feature on scams and ehem (clearing throat..) a certain west African country is featured.

Cunning Cons
http://www2.oprah.com/money/credit/200704/money_20070413_284_101.jhtml

Oprah obviously expecting protests from the Nigerian community added at the end of the segment
"I know we're going to get a letter from somebody saying that Nigeria has a lot of wonderful people. You don't have to send the letter, We already know that. We're just talking about this particular scam that's going on. We're not talking about the entire country and everybody in the country."
----
Forgot to post this one from last week

419ers take Kent minister for £12k
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/05/textbook_419/

I think it was Shakespeare’s Othello who said it
"He that filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed. "

In the end we're all scammed and made poorer by the antics of a small minority who have ruined our reputation

Let the sElections begin..

obj countdown

And so the elections begin, no doubt the elections will be ‘flawed’ but lets face it a ‘free and fair election’ in our part of the world would be nothing short of a miracle with our level of political development. Our politicians don’t understand the concept of ‘living to fight another day’ so when they lose they start throwing their toys out of the pram.

It’s hard to be optimistic about the end result of this election. How can a corrupt system produce anything but a corrupt leader ? But we don’t really have an alternative; all we can hope for is that the election is credible enough for us to live with.

Personally I’m quite interested in the outcome of the “elections” in Lagos and Oyo states. It’ll be quite interesting to see whether the good people of Lagos will allow that idiot called Tinubu to impose his candidate on them.
And in Oyo state, if the people will allow that old scarecrow Adedibu to hold them to ransom by imposing Akala as governor or if they will finally free themselves from his oppressive power.

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The real meaning of PDP

NL has a funny thread about the various meanings of PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) Nigeria's ruling party
Here's a list of the best ones so far:

People Distributing Poverty
Poverty Distribution Party
People Destroying People
People Disappoint People
People's Destruction Party
Papa'sanjo's Deceitful Party
Pigs Demanding Power
Power Drunk politicians
Politically Desperate Parasites
Pain Distribution Party
People Depraved Party
People's Demonic Party
Politicians Deceiving Populace

Times are changing...

There used to be a time when the only crime committed by Nigerians in the UK was fraud but it seems things are changing...

From the Evening Standard:
Jailed for raping and imprisoning young women

Four men who imprisoned and brutally raped two young women in a Clapham flat were jailed today.
Idris Adeokun, 22, from Crownstone Road, Brixton, Emmanuel Garrick, 24, of Tessa Sanderson Place, Clapham, were both found guilt of imprisoning and raping two young women at Garrick's home on February 21 and 23 last year.

They were both sentenced to an indeterminate sentence of a minimum of seven years for the attacks.
James Olanrewaju, 20, of Sultan Road, Brixton, was found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of false imprisonment relating to February 21 last year. He was given an indeterminate sentence and will not be eligible for parole for six years.

full story
Jailed for raping and imprisoning young women

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100 million iPods

So the iPod has hit the 100 million sales mark, apparently last year's report about abuses at several of Apple's chinese factories has not dented sales of the ipod.

I don't have an iPod as i refuse to be seduced by Apple's marketing gimmick. As far as i'm concerned it's just another 'glorified MP3 player' and don't get me started on the price which i think is outrageous, but Apple (especially its marketing dept) must be doing something right if people are prepared to pay that amount of money just to get one.

Characteristics of a naija politician

sElection 2007 (4 days(state)/11 days(federal) to go)
a blog entry on the Nigerian elections in April 2007.

























Politicus Naijarius

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
- Nikita Khrushchev

Creepy, crawly, slimy, lying, thieving bastard are just a few of the words used by many to describe this creature.

Character: chameleon like in nature, this creature is well known for its ability to quickly change sides, political party or affiliation to suit any dispensation. Highly skilled in the art of deception, this creature can not be trusted.

Diet and habits: Usually unfit with a thick neck and pot belly, this creature enjoys the high life. Can become extremely volatile during elections and will resort to a tactic called rigging to ensure its survival.

Habitat and Range: Can be found in large abundance in the political entity called Nigeria. Large numbers can be found in the capital city called Abuja.

Senses: Deaf, Dumb and Blind to everything except its own bullshit

Intelligence: The mental capacity of the naija politician is still being explored, but going by anecdotal evidence the average naija politician has the IQ of a ten year old child.

Personality: This creature is title hungry and loves to be addressed as "Chief", "Alhaji", "Dr", "Prof", "Engnr", "Pastor" etc

Adaptation: Has adapted extremely well to the Nigerian political environment

Reproduction: Extremely fertile with many partners and offspring.

Impact: Extremely bad for its environment as it consumes all economic resources available. This creature sees public office as a means for amassing wealth.

Status: Sadly this creature is not an endangered species...