I mean, what do these people really take Nigeria and Nigerians for? A mass of helpless, hapless and passive animals and fools, caged in a very large jungle, for the perennial entertainment of the criminally smart, and the daring? Indeed, the decent sections of the world must be having bellyful laughter at our expense.

So, just because the Obasanjo administration has turned out an unmitigated disaster, every fellow with mouth to talk, excess money to squander, and a band brainless praise singers to unleash on us, can now aspire to become Nigeria’s president? Excuse me! Who said Obasanjo has become the benchmark, and that any person who feels he cannot match his sterling records in gross misrule and mismanagement has automatically qualified to rule Nigeria? How long will Nigerians sit back passively and watch a bunch of conscienceless fellows turn their country into another Troy or Dante’s Inferno?

No doubt, Gana is a brilliant man, and possesses exceptional oratorical skills, but these he has willingly and eagerly put to very wrong and destructive uses since he happened on the public space in 1985. What Nigeria needs now are leaders with conscience and compassion, leaders capable of being touched by the unspeakable sufferings and ungodly impoverishment Nigerians have been plunged into all these years, leaders who are God-fearing and altruistic, and have genuine intentions to deploy Nigeria’s abundant resources to improve  the living condition of Nigerians. Unfortunately, even Gana himself knows full well that these are, sadly, qualities he grossly lacks.  

Some years ago, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr.   Alao Aka-Bashorun (late) said that even if a band of robbers manipulated the process and installed themselves in power in Nigeria, there are several “distinguished” Nigerians out there who would fall over each other to work for them, promote and defend them, with every fibre of their being. Unfortunately, the impression majority of Nigerians have about Prof Jerry Gana is that he has the talent and presence of mind to portray even the heinous and destructive actions of the devil himself as pleasant and wonderful, so long as that devil is his boss, and has made him his Information Minister. What this means, therefore, is that Gana is a raw, dry-as-dust professional, who does his job with mechanical accuracy, precision and soulless dedication, no matter who is ruined and pained in the process. Once, he sets his mind to market or defend any scheme by his boss, he suspends his conscience, suppresses his feelings, and does his job as merrily as he can. Ever wearing a boyish, but profoundly benevolent smile, Gana is so talented in the art of propaganda he could make a man see the path to the gallows as the marble-paved entrance to a rich, well-lit and well-provided dinning hall.  

A man who can  defend and market the ruinous programmes of his bosses with such fervour and unqualified enthusiasm is simply telling everyone who cares to listen that if eventually he becomes the boss tomorrow, he would religiously follow their ways, and do exactly what they had done, or even worse. In other words, if Gana becomes Nigeria’s president tomorrow, what this nation will get is Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo rolled into one! If this does not make you recoil with dread, then, you are qualified to be Gana’s Campaign Manager, a position Matthew Hassan Kukah, Roman Catholic priest, writer, commentator on public issues and exuberant socialite, is already seriously warming up to fill.  

Recently, after reading Mohammed Haruna’s piece entitled, “Father Kukah’s Misrepresentations” (parts1&2), I immediately went to look for Kukah’s essay, “Mohammed Haruna – Limits of Demagoguery” (Daily Trust, July 21, 2006), to see what Hukah had said to provoke such a reaction from his friend, Mohammed Haruna. As I already guessed, Kukah’s piece was a rejoinder to Mohammed’s earlier article entitled, “Why Jerry Gana Will Not Be President” (Daily Trust, July 12, 2006), which I had already read and concluded that it was a patriotic intervention to save the nation from strange characters like Gana who think that Nigeria was created merely for their perennial sport and manipulation.

I have read Mohammed’s piece again, and I still insist that if it was indeed inspired by the fact that Gana parades himself as a “Christian” and so is not qualified to seek to become Nigeria’s president (as Kukah would have us believe), my take is that there is nothing in the whole article (if we read the same essay) that remotely suggests that Mohammed Haruna had that as his motive. The obvious, trite truth the man was emphasizing was that Gana lacks credibility (which no sane person in Nigeria can contest) and therefore would not be able to convince anyone to vote for him. Well, if Mohammed is anti-Christian, he may have betrayed that in his other essays, which I may have missed, since I am not his regular reader, but in this particular essay on Gana, I would be most glad if anyone can show me any portion that remotely suggests that he is against Gana’s presidential ambition because Gana worships the “wrong God” (as Kukah put it).

In fairness to Kukah, I sincerely think that he has been waiting for an opportunity to get back at Mohammed (for some undisclosed reasons), but unfortunately, he chose a very wrong time, and a most inappropriate subject, to vent his anger. Indeed, if Kukah cared a hoot about Christianity, as he would have us believe, he would have allied with Mohammed, at least, in this instance, to denounce a discredited politician, who, after squandering his credibility by indulging in ignoble and unwholesome schemes has now turned around to use religion to blind the people’s eyes in order to ride on their famished backs to power. Although Gana is a featherweight and would still lose out in the presidential race, even if Mohammed did not write any essay about him, the mere fact that he even signified an intention at all represents a grave affront that must be denounced with the fiercest contempt. In fact, it shows his unsparing disdain for public opinion.

In his essay, Kukah asks: “Can he (Mohammed Haruna) produce any evidence to support what disqualifies Gana other than the claim that he worships the wrong God? What is it that we can find in Professor Gana’s records that disqualifies him from public office?” Incredible! I am very certain that Kukah asked these questions absentmindedly or in a fit of rage, or else, how can anyone who has lived in Nigeria since 1985 since Gana happened on the public space ask these very reputation-damaging questions? Please, somebody should walk across to Kukah’s parish in Kaduna and help us find out whether the Vicar General in a white, shining cassock there is still the same Kukah Nigerians used to know and admire!

 Well, there is no doubt that something has really gone wrong, because, it is this same Kukah, who, in an interview with Weekly Trust (March 4, 2006) dismissed Obasanjo’s undisguised and undisguisable Self-Succession bid (a.k.a. Tenure Elongation Agenda) as a myth and creation of Nigeria’s barely literate and irresponsible media! Can you beat that?  Even Gana who Kukah is defending, and who was one of those being accused at that time of helping to smuggle the illegal pro-Third Term “Draft Constitution” into the Constitutional Conference hall, has come out now to affirm that there was indeed such a plot, even though he is claiming that he had warned the president against it. Wonders! And Gana expects us to believe that, too?

Again, Kukah insists that since Obasanjo came into power in 1999, the quality of life for Nigerians has increased tremendously. He declared: “People keep saying to me (that) people are dying and things are getting worse. And I say it is not true … Things are getting better and it could get even better than they are…”

I wonder how many people in Kukah’s parish in Kaduna (assuming he still has time to interact with them) would share his views about Obasanjo’s “achievements”. Indeed, Kukah’s seniors in the Catholic Church must be thoroughly embarrassed by his totally misleading and highly provocative pronouncements and insensitive endorsement of a regime, which has practically left Nigeria to rot away, despite the unprecedented huge earnings that have accrued to the nation from crude oil sales.

Only mid-last year, I interviewed Anthony Cardinal Okogie, the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, on behalf of the Chinua Achebe Foundation, and he lamented the unspeakable suffering in the land as a result of the failure of character and leadership on the part of the current administration. According to the cardinal, Nigeria had nothing to show for six years (as at 2005) of (so-called) democratic rule. A couple of months later, I was in Owerri to interview Archbishop AJV Obinna, too, and, without reading the Cardinal’s earlier interview with me (since it had not been published by then), he echoed the same sentiments. So, where then did Kukah get his information that Nigerians has never had it so good under Obasanjo? Has he read the credible studies that seventy percent of Nigerians live below poverty level (below 1$ a day), even in the midst of the boundless squandermania, profligacy and bazaar that thrive in the corridors of power?

Kukah’s unfortunate defence of  Obasanjo’s abysmal misrule should provide a window for the examination of  his strange, embarrassing support and defence for Gana. His eager, uncritical romance with politics, and friendship with political figures like Obasanjo and Gana, have done untold damage to the sterling ideals he so jealously espoused and guarded in the years of yore. Indeed, if Gana was a member of my Church, he would probably have since been advised to seek an alternative place of worship. Such a man only attracts disrepute to the Church, and should not in way be allowed to use Christianity this time to perpetrate any of his schemes.  He is a bad advertisement to the Christian faith.

That is why Kukah’s intervention on his behalf must remain an embarrassment to all that truly love and sincerely practice the Christian faith. If Gana wants to run for the office of president, he should go out there and face Nigerians, and explain to them how he had used his “sweet tongue” and please-trust-me face to defend and polish   the image of their unrepentant tormentors, and not attempt to attract a smear to “the most holy faith” with his unedifying preoccupations.

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is on the Editorial Board of Independent Newspapers (www.independentngonline.com ) Lagos. He writes a weekly column (SCRUPLES) every Wednesday on the backpage of the paper. EMAIL: scruples2006@yahoo.com 

Robot  Villager

# 1 When I heard that Professor Jerry Gana, the unabashed defender and Chief Propagandist of th...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 11.08.2006 15:45

bennie  Villager

# 2 Interesting article. A couple of years ago, Fr. Kukah described a true Nigerian as the combination of the hardwork of the Ibos, the honesty of the Hausas and the flambuoyance or extravagance of the Yorubas. He did not exclude Priests from his description of a true Nigerian. This caused a huge media outrage between him and baba's godson, Femi Fani-Kayode. Therefore, all I can say is that Fr. Kukah is a true Nigerian! Have a good weekend fellow villagers. Posted by bennie| 11.08.2006 16:31

gwobezentashi  Villager

# 3 What have Kukah and Gana got in common? They are both northern christians you may say. True but more fundamentally, they serve the same master in Aso Rock. When you understand the conundrum of Baba's unquenching thirst for self perpetuation, then the pieces of the jigsaw may start to fall into place. Could it be that Gana is "running" because he is from Niger and his purpose is to do a Marwa. i.e. to draw support from IBB in Niger State in the same way as Marwa serves to draw Adamawa support from Atiku? Would it not be consistent with TTA plan B if they also sought to bring religion into the politics, so that they could polarise the northern vote along muslim/christian lines? When Mallam Haruna made the "mistake" of trying to undermine the candidacy of Gana, it became incumbent on all those wishing to impress their Baba of their unstinting loyalty to fight any opponents to his TTA (an agenda which will not go away). Kukah remains an example of our politicised religiousity. One day he is in Oputa, tommorrow he is in Confab, next day he is in Ogoni. Pray when will he have time for winning souls for his heavenly lord and saviour? He seems to me to be an eloquent preacher who has forgotten his primary calling and is busy dabbling in earthly matters of the flesh. The other one of them is Mbang who can be trusted to dabble at the prompting of he in the villa who must be obeyed.(who is not the christian Allah). The bottom line is that if elections were to hold (and the boundaries are being pushed daily), perhaps because the international community insist, then part of the plan may be that there should be no clear winner. Could that be why INEC will continue to register parties perhaps until there is one party for every 10,000 Nigerians? INEC is now telling us that if you have started campaigning, you are jumping the gun!! Apparently INEC can also tell aspirants when they can start canvassing for votes. In other democracies, INEC would only specify when campaigns must stop not when they can start! Instead of focussing on what is real like updating the voters register, they are busy chasing shadows and engaging in partisan politics calling aspirants "frustrated politicians".The spectre of an ING looms large and every day brings it's fruition closer. Unfortunately for them, more Nigerians are opposed to Baba heading any government, interim or not than were opposed to his TTA. He is going to be amazed to discover that in the face of all his "numerous" achievements, Nigerians do not want him to remain in office for one day longer. Last time there was 80% against, this time he will find 95% against. Another joker yet to be pulled out of the hat is the census results which could be another opportunity to cause tension. This could also be used for maximum effect. Increasingly, one is beginning to wonder if that "mad" Asaba chief who lives in Kaduna is really not a soothsayer afterall. By the day, the pieces of the ING puzzle are falling into place but the chief victim of all these machinations will be the Baba himself. He just doesn't believe it. In a nutshell Ugochukwu, Kukah and Gana are simply dancing to a tune scripted and conducted by the proponents of TTA in Wadata Plaza and the bowels of the villa. They will still be dancing in the streets long after the music has stopped. Is this all implausible? Think again. Wings of the lame duck By Mahmud Jega Speaking at the closing ceremony of the 12th Nigeria Economic Summit in Abuja on June 10 this year, President Obasanjo said, among many other things, that his administration is not a lame duck, meaning it will continue to be powerful until the day its mandate runs out on May 29 next year. Even that is being charitable; the other possible meaning of his claim is that his administration’s time in office will not run out on that day, constitution or no constitution. The phrase “lame duck” was first coined by traders at the London Stock Exchange in the 18th Century to describe a broker who has defaulted on his debts. American politicians borrowed the term in the mid-19th Century, to refer to an elected official whose term of office is coming to an end, either because he ran for re-election and was defeated, or, as in Obasanjo’s case, he is legally barred from running again. The psychology of politics is such that if the end of an administration’s tenure is in sight, it tends to lose focus, lose authority, and possibly even falls apart in recriminations as people try to jump ship or to rewrite the history books to cover their behinds. All of these are already happening to the Obasanjo administration, which is floundering about like a lame duck, striking here, quacking there, flapping its wings here, dredging the mud there, but unable to accomplish anything in the end. How else do you understand the plan, approved by the Federal Executive Council on August 2, to build “the tallest building in Nigeria”, a certain “National Cultural Centre and Millennium Tower”? It is supposed to be located at Abuja’s Central Business District, of 43 storeys, 163 metres high, with offices, shops, parking lots, restaurants and a library with 300,000 books, all at a cost of 53 billion naira. This is precisely the kind of project most likely to be abandoned by a successor regime. It is a pure prestige project, so that Obasanjo will claim in retirement that he built Nigeria’s tallest structure, when the federal government has been telling ASUU for years that it does not have enough money to fund university education. Pray, how can you get into a contest with the likes of Chicago’s Sears Tower, when you did not get the Ahmadu Bello University into a proper quality contest with the University of Chicago? On the same day, August 2, the Federal Cabinet approved a National Building Code for this country, “as part of measures to stem the incessant collapse of buildings around the country”. That’s another floundering-duck idea. Buildings have been collapsing in Nigeria for a very long time; many of them were erected under the very eyes of this regime in the last seven years. One of the most shocking episodes of collapsing buildings happened at Barnawa, Kaduna in 1978, when General Obasanjo was Head of State. This year alone, many buildings have collapsed in Port Harcourt, followed by the recent, horrific collapse of the four-storey building at Ebute-Metta in Lagos. People are right to ask where the lame duck leaders have been all this while. On July 24 this year, the government inaugurated a 10-member Presidential Committee, and charged it to raise 50 billion naira to “revitalise” the textile industry. At the panel’s inauguration, Finance Minister Nenadi Usman said of Nigeria’s 175 textile factories a few years ago, only 24 are still in business, and even those ones have “archaic equipment”. Now, the serial collapse of the textile industry happened right under the noses of the present rulers. As late as 1998 when old man Abacha ruled, the cotton farms were blooming, the cotton silos were full, the ginneries were working full throttle, and the textile factories were running, however problematically. Things got worse after 1999, and at every turn, the textile men were loudly crying, led by their vocal leader, Senator Walid Jibrin, but all to no avail. Until now. Is this programme not a futile flapping of lame duck wings? In these last days, the government also remembered to do something about the railways. At the cabinet meeting on July 19, Transport Minister Abiye Sekibo put forward a proposal to utilise $1 billion out of a $2.5 billion Chinese soft loan to rehabilitate the railways. Cabinet was asked to choose between a single track, a double track, or a single track with civil works rail project, so that Nigerian passenger trains can run at 150 kilometres an hour, while goods trains can chug along at a respectable 80 kilometres an hour. That’s much faster than obtains now, when small children catch up with a goods train and lift oranges from its cargo compartment while it is still “moving”. Only that in the hurry to put forward the proposal, Sekibo forgot to mention the cost of each option, and council asked him to go back and do so. That’s very surprising for a man who trims his beard so carefully. Anyway, two days ago, the President followed it up with a snap nationwide broadcast, unrolling an 8-year programme of rail construction when he has eight months left in office. Pray, why did a government that listed “exiting from the debt trap” as its main achievement, now busy borrowing money afresh from foreign lands? Apart from rail development, another $1 billion Chinese loan is to be sunk into the Mambilla hydro-electric power project, while another $500 million was borrowed from the Chinese, but Obasanjo is yet to decide what to spend it on, according to the briefing at the Council of State meeting. To borrow money first and decide what to do with it later? That is the only thing I ever heard that is worse than borrowing money to do a birthday party. The administration’s much-trumpeted “economic team” has fallen apart with the exit of its leader and most hyped member, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The President has for many years touted his economic team as the governmental equivalent of miracle-healing televangelists of the kind that NBC banned from the airwaves. If they performed so well, why then did he suddenly decapitate them by sending their head over to the Foreign Ministry? The first thing she did there was to uncover a fraudulent payment to the International Seabed Authority, but SGF Ufot Ekaette promptly ridiculed her by saying it was, in effect, a discovery akin to Vasco Da Gama’s “discovery” of the African continent, the original cradle of mankind. Mrs Iweala was told to continue heading the economic team, but just as she sat down with long-nosed London Club creditors, her sack letter arrived in the mail. Only lame ducks transact business that way. Since the death of the third term bill, Nigerians have been all ears to hear what the next tenure elongation trap will be. Then it came, in the garb of “An Act to Control and Regulate Persons Vying for Certain Offices and Ancillary Matters Connected Therewith”. Surreptitiously sponsored into the National Assembly by Senators Timothy Adudu (ANPP, Plateau) and Baba Tella (PDP, Bauchi), the bill seeks to compel any elective office-holder who is gunning for a job other than the one he is occupying to quit no less than three months to the elections. Although the bill’s sponsors deny it, anyone can see that its principal target is Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Since he is gunning for the presidency, he must quit the vice presidency, so that stripped of his legal immunity, EFCC will arrest him, and that will be the end of Obasanjo’s biggest nightmare. Well, only lame ducks would make such absurd calculations, because the 1999 Constitution clearly did not intend that officers must resign before they seek other posts. Even though the motive behind this bill is as transparent as glass, Chief Obasanjo was to say on July 17 to visiting Ogoni chiefs that he won’t disclose his preferred choice for president until after the PDP primaries (which his political agents are making every effort to delay as much as possible, if not to abort). When the Ogoni men urged him to support Dr Peter Odili, Obasanjo said, “I must be careful not to be seen to be biased, not to be seen to be prejudiced. In fact, I have said that I must be so careful that even if you open my mouth with a knife, you will not hear anything. And that remains my decision”. Unfortunately, he has not been as careful as he wished to be, because every Nigerian knows the long list of people that he is trying to prevent from reaching the presidency. By elimination, it is possible to summarise those that he wishes to see in the presidency, chiefly himself! The president also told the Ogoni leaders that his main preoccupation now is to “ensure a level playing field for everybody to participate and feel he has been treated fairly and transparently”. Is that right? Then he has already failed in this task. How can Atiku Abubakar, for example, feel that he has been treated fairly when armed Mobile Policemen invaded a bank against all norms and all rules in order to snatch his bank records? How can General Babangida feel that he has been treated fairly when Obasanjo is dredging up the sordid affair of the 1986 Vatsa execution, even though Obasanjo himself shot the largest number of coup plotters, 37 at a go, followed by another seven, after the 1976 aborted coup? If Vatsa was prominent because he was FCT Minister, Obasanjo shot General Iliya Bisalla, who was the Defence Minister. And how can Yerima Ahmed Sani believe in a level playing field when EFCC carted off seven top Zamfara State government officials, including the SSG, based on a petition, is holding them at a secret location, and has not charged them to court in over a month? Which law permits that? Another American definition of a lame duck is a player who remains in the game even though, by all permutations, he cannot win. By surreptitiously floating and promoting the idea that an Interim National Government, rather than a newly-elected regime, should take over power next year, the Obasanjo regime is still intent on playing a game that it cannot possibly win. They are the true floundering lame ducks, these guys. http://www.dailytrust.com/dailycolumn.htm Aluta! Gwobezentashi Posted by gwobezentashi| 11.08.2006 16:55

demonteufel  Villager

# 4 Indeed, the decent sections of the world must be having bellyful laughter at our expense. in this part of the world where i live, they pity us, for them, we're totally confused children...indeed! thank you for the job well done, ugochukwu... Posted by demonteufel| 11.08.2006 16:58

kiibaati  Villager

# 5 In his essay, Kukah asks: “Can he (Mohammed Haruna) produce any evidence to support what disqualifies Gana other than the claim that he worships the wrong God? The major point that disqualifies Gana is that he is sold off as a unifying factor, a christian from the north.. The North will vote for him because he is their son, the south because he is a christian.:D Hahaha! I think Nigerian christians have gotten too sophisticated to be misled again. Remember OBJ was a born again christian before he started telling Reverends to shut the f##k up! Meanwhile, who is really is Gana? A military apologist. One of those old politicians who behave as if they can't survive without government. He has been around for so long, he might as well be legislated into government. I remember in 1998, Gana was a speaker at a christian convention in Jos, carrying the toga of the possible next christian president. I remember he told a tale of how set up a bank and staffed it with his former students, all christians and they almost ran it aground. And we young guys started adding 2 plus 2 to get 5. How does a former lecturer raise enough funds to start a bank? What has he been doing apart from being a good christian public servant. Enough of Gana. Enuff is enuff.:mad: Posted by kiibaati| 12.08.2006 01:53

Odinaka  Villager

# 6 Thank you Ugochukwu for this beautiful and timely piece. Ever seen a professor who hardly spends time teaching and researching? It will do Fr Kukah good if he resigns from the ministry and join politics full time. Then he could be forgiven easily over some of his actions/sayings. Staying put as a priest and continuing to feed us with such political gabbage make his spiritual message unattractive and suspect. This is not the dark days of the papacy when the words of a man meant everything. Posted by Odinaka| 12.08.2006 04:01

VOR  Villager

# 7 I am not surprised at Kukah's actions, you find people that have sold their souls for money, they no longer represent the masses rather they focus on their pocket - "wetin I go chop". we have them everywhere so why not in the clergy? Jerry Gana too wants to run for president? na wa oo wetin man pickin eye no go see for Nigeria? Ah ah where is Kanu/Kalu of the YEA (Youths yearn earnestly for Abacha - is that not what they called themselves then?) fame now? he too should come and contest - yes, i see it........a Gana/Kanu ticket for 07........PERFECT!! Posted by VOR| 12.08.2006 08:13

IDK

# 8 Gwobe, The article by Mahmud Jega which you posted would have been a most enriching piece but for its ethnic bias. Unfortunately, it lost all its ability to edify, when it narrowed down the conclusion of all the great and lofty points it made to serve the interest of Northern icons like IBB, Atiku, Sani, etc., who you and him, perhaps, believe should be untouchable because they are fron the North...Why would Sani (of all people) agree to bribe a fake EFCC man, if he thought he was clean....Why didn't he call Ribadu like Bafarawa did? In other words, there would have been no need for such a great piece, if nobody was harrassing these Northern icon? THE same can be said of your reaction to the arrest of Babangida's son. Are you happy that Mohammed who has never worked in his life could purchase 24% of Globacom shares? Why not let us deal with the theif in hand today, then, tomorrow, the precedent OBJ set would be used to also do him in, when he has lost power. Remember the Zambia example....Even if OBJ plants Odili or Abudulahi Adamu or Duke or Muazu there, it won't save him....it has happened before ..in Zmabia. Maybe, we are stupid for abusing one of our own, OBJ, every other here! Well, we can't be like you. We'll continue to condemn OBJ for whatever bad he does, despite his ethnic marks. If it does not make you shudder that such large scale looting is going on, then, you may have to tell us, if you are a partaker. OR ELSE, What do you gain by the fact that the looter is Northerner...unless some crumbs falls to you too. Gwobe, condemn corruption wherever you see it, it has no tribal marks! Posted by IDK| 12.08.2006 11:49

Ancient

# 9 Kukah's apparent dream to become Nigeria's equivalent of South Africa's Desmond Tutu has been pitiably aborted, all by himself. He has shown he is incapable of adequately responding to the challenge that history has trust before him. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church has also boxed his career into closed pipe. As Vicar General, he is some kind of Assistant Bishop, but I am yet to hear of any Vicar General who later became bishop. Once, the bishop's office becomes vacant tomorrow, a preist, even a younger one, would be appointed bishop. So, Kukah will probably become a perennial "spare tyre" --acting only when the bishop travels, and his decisions can be upturned once the bishop returns. Perhaps, he is bitter about this developement, that's why he is turning his attention elsewhere, for greater fulfilment. But then, he is fishing in shark-infested waters. Thank you, Bennie for reminding us of the infamous "Kukah's debate" in the early 90s. The only thing I want to point out is that he did not talk about the "honesty" of the Northerners, but about the dignity with which even the ordinary Northerner conducts his affairs; in other words, their exceptional leadership qualities, which mark them out as natural leaders. I remember FANI Kayode's famous rejoinder, "Kukah: Preist Or Politician?" which attracted an incoherent reaction from Kukah. Kukah also was not able to answer FANI's poser on why he prefered talking about the Northerner, alongside Igbos and Yorubas. What is the meaning of the Northerner? Why not a local appellation like the Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw? Or is it a covenient word, always thrown up, when its suits its pedlers! But, perhaps, that was before FANI went to the rehab in Ghana, if you get my drift! Posted by Ancient| 12.08.2006 12:23

ithinkbetter  Villager

# 10 Gwobe, condemn corruption wherever you see it, it has no tribal marks! i'm also worried, gwobe's altitudinal utterances coupled with his certain observed structural weltanschauungs is/are becoming overbearing on this forum, i would recommend, he takes a sabbatical leaves to ponder over his certain 'behavioural-despair-tested-character- structures'....his always long-copied and pasted-texts are exerting much pains and tolls on my poor self..! Posted by ithinkbetter| 13.08.2006 06:25

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