Mixed reactions have however, trailed the photos, as there are reports that Obi, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Tinubu were forming alliance to float a new Mega Political party ahead of the 2019 Presidential election.
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| John Mikel Obi |
Posted by Okechukwu Nwokafor
After May 29, President Goodluck Jonathan will leave the Aso Villa. SIMON UTEBOR was at the President’s Otuoke, Bayelsa State-country home where he is expected to retire to
The air around the sprawling estate is amazingly cool. Looking around, the answer to this quickly dawns on our correspondent. The estate is opposite a creek, and the rolling breeze keep coming.
It is Otuoke, the home town of President Goodluck Jonathan. Otuoke is a small island community in the Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
And there, the estate sprawls over a large expanse of land contrasting sharply with its rustic surrounding. It is said to belong to President Jonathan.
On the long road to the gates, soldiers and members of other security agencies, apparently on sentry duty, walked on the grounds. The overall air suggested guarded and protected serenity. No one needs the gift of clairvoyance to understand they are approaching a restricted zone.
Behind the gates, shoving their heads above the walls are no fewer than eight different structures apparently for different purposes: recreation, security posts and guard quarters. A visitor to Otuoke will not be penalised for calling the place a fortress.
Activities in this place, a source within said had been at a lull until a couple of weeks ago. And it is largely believed that come May 29, after the expiration of his tenure, President Jonathan would relocate to the place.
As if the President had the premonition that he would not live in Aso Rock beyond 2015, he was reported to have begun acquiring properties adjacent his sprawling country home by late 2013.
The President, SUNDAY PUNCH gathered, acquired properties on an area which runs to about seven acres of Otuoba which were around his mansion that had been there earlier.
The place was thereafter expanded to encase the mansion while new structures were erected round it.
It was also gathered that adequate compensation was paid to the owners of these properties to enable them relocate elsewhere.
It was learnt that Jonathan after acquiring those buildings in 2013, engaged the services of a construction company, Jiito, to expand the estate to accommodate his new acquisition.
Today, Jonathan’s mini – estate, which overlooks a creek that links Otuoke to other coastal communities of Bayelsa, is a cynosure of all eyes.
A visit to Otuoke on Thursday showed that Jonathan’s mansions, which had been undergoing construction and reconstruction in the last 10 years are now ready for habitation. The area they sit on is best described as an island.
It was learnt that before now, each time the President visited Otuoke, he usually slept in his wife’s (Patience) castle which is directly opposite the Federal University, Otuoke.
It was also learnt that the Jonathans own the choicest properties in Otuoke. The President was said to have built a two-storey building each for his mother and father opposite his own.
His wife, Dame Patience, asides a hotel, is also said to have numerous buildings that have been converted into hostels for FUO female students.
On the readiness of the Jonathans to return to Otuoke, one of the military personnel guarding his houses said all the mansions in the estate were ready except one.
The soldier, who declined to give his name, said the contractors were fixing air conditioners and window blinds on the last mansion.
The security operative said, “I can tell you that the houses are ready. Everything is in order. It remains only one building where the contractors are putting window blinds, curtains and air conditioners.
“I overheard some of the workers saying that they had been instructed to finish the last building before the second week of May. I think it is because the President is returning home.
“As of now, no domestic staff or relatives are living here. All his relatives have their homes. It is only military men and policemen that are living in some of the buildings.
“Even at that, many buildings are left unoccupied because the buildings are so massive and it will take a community to occupy them.”
The soldier, who said he had been living at the place for the past four years, claimed some of the President’s domestic staff were in his Kpansia, Yenagoa mansion, which he built while he was Deputy Governor of Bayelsa.
That the President will be returning to Otuoke according to the soldier, is only symbolic, stressing that apart from the mansions at Otuoke, Jonathan and his family members have numerous buildings at Okaka Estate, off Isaac Boro Expressway in Yenagoa.
Many residents of Otuoke are indeed longing to see President Jonathan, one of their illustrious sons, return home.
For them, Jonathan has made Otuoke, once a relatively unknown place, known to people outside it and turning it to a city to be reckoned with.
A resident, Prere Goodthinking, said though President Jonathan lost his re-election bid, he is God-sent, not only to Bayelsa people but to the entire country.
Prere said, “Whether people like it or not, Jonathan can best be described as an icon of Nigeria’s democracy. He is a man of peace, a gentleman and a great statesman.
“He has proved to the whole world that he is not a power-monger. He has shown the world that his ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. We want other leaders to emulate him. We are going to celebrate his return and I hope Nigerians and the world will also celebrate our illustrious son.”
Another resident, who gave his name only as Ebilari, said Jonathan had made Otuoke to be on the world map for good reasons.
She said, “About 12 years ago, Otuoke was a jungle. Most houses there were decrepit. But today, you can see that the place that was once a hamlet has become a wonderful city.
“Buildings are springing up everywhere. Life has become more meaningful for the people. Before you mention three prominent places in Bayelsa, Otuoke must come up. Thus, we are proud of our son Jonathan. We are waiting enthusiastically to receive him after his national assignment on May 29.”
Posted By Okechukwu Nwokafor
THE 1967-70 Nigeria Civil War, for the Igbo was a battle of historic survival against the forces of national darkness that roamed in the form of periodic unrestrained anti-Igbo riots and massacres, and subsequently the chilling pogrom of 1969.
It was not only a battle for survival but for the upholding of the Igbo man’s dignity, which, as previously feared got swallowed up by the events of the civil war. Those who supported Biafra did so not because of the capability of the Igbo to win the war against the World Powers-supported Federal might but for the case of conscience.
The likes of Presidents Houphouet-Boigny of Cote d’Voire, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Papa Doc of Haiti and to some extent Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone, Jomo Kenyata of Kenya, William Tolbert of Liberia, and the French Government of the time did so out of conscience against the forces of darkness that ruled Nigeria at that time. This explains why, even at the final defeat of the Igbo they never abandoned their vanquished friends-turned brothers. Today there are sprawling Igbo populations in these countries with many of them not only becoming full citizens of their host countries, but even playing very important Government roles.
As the Igbo would often say, “no land exists without the presence of the lizard”. So it has become customary to say that no battle takes place without the active roles of saboteurs. The Nigeria civil war, like any such war of its kind no doubt witnessed a number of Igbo citizens playing the Vidkun Quisling role against their own people, sabotaging the survivalist sacrificial efforts of their down-trodden people by supporting the Federal troops, prophesying the doomsday for their people’s struggle for survival.
These people not only celebrated the defeat of their own people but shamelessly rushed to seek Federal Government appointments and contracts while those who sacrificed, endured and survived remained in perpetual penury for decades and for life.
Today, Reverend Ejike Mbaka in the event of General Muhammadu Buhari’s victory presents himself as a champion of God’s prophecy, just because he vaingloriously assumed that his words are the words of God verbatim. But there remain certain clear indices to determine if an event is truly the act of God in the manner a visioner or soothsayer presented it. We know that Ejike Mbaka is from Awgu district in Enugu State and it is not disputable that his people of Enugu State overwhelmingly voted for President Goodluck Jonathan. Secondly, Mbaka should let us know if the massive failure of the Jega’s rigging machine miscalled Card-readers was the act of God. Thirdly, let Father Mbaka tell Nigerians how the God he worships approved the fraudulent permission of under-aged children to vote in the northern part of the country.
For we all know that the God of the Roman Catholic Church of which Reverend Father Mbaka belongs is a just God who hates cheating in whatever form it is presented. Unless Reverend Mbaka is telling us that he has another God other than the one Almighty God we all know and acknowledged.Yes, if the victors said the defeat of Biafra was the act of God, the Igbo could not have denied such a statement, just as the on-going victory of the blood-sucking Islamic State in Syria and the Levante (ISIS/ISIL) and their budding children in Nigeria called Boko Haram could also be attributed to the act of God. Those who truly worship God in truth and spirit through any form or medium truly know that God’s ways are hard to fully predict by mortal man.
For whatever it was worth, the massive Igbo support for President Jonathan was a patriotic call to duty. Yes, President Jonathan might not have met the greater part of our expectations from him as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But for the Igbo, he wiped out the ignominious tears of second-fiddlers in Federal Government affairs. For the first time since the end of the Nigeria civil war, the Igbo occupied in one stroke the positions of Secretary of the Government of the Federation, two Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces at the same time – the Army and Navy.
At least the second Niger Bridge is presently under construction. Beyond these, the massive Igbo support for the President was a cementing force that eventually obliterated the political cancer of rivalry and mutual mistrust between the Igbo and their South-South ethnic brothers that began with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Professor Eyo Ita in the 1950s. Today, the contentious State creation agitation by these neighbours of the Igbo from the defunct Igbo-dominated Eastern Region has been resolved with the existing multiplicity of States.
The civil war has come and gone. But could we say that the reason for which the Igbo took up the arms of defence against the Federal Government no longer exists? The Niger Delta militants took up arms against the Federal Government in defence of their rights and have through that experience chiefly identified who their friends and foes are. Have the Igbo actually identified who their friends and foes are in the matrix of present politics?
The historical experience of any people so oppressed like the Igbo, no matter how checkered it might be, fundamentally calls for reflection and in essence a lesson. The emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria most importantly calls for reflection primarily for the Igbo. It is a matter that evidently put the Igbo on the balance of sustained political principle via-a-vis a taciturn principle of progressive opposition or wobbling edifice of political harlotry.
The present balance of political equation beckons on true Igbo patriots to stand firm and hold the bull of politics by its horn of emerging political challenges. The greatest political disaster the Igbo will attract on themselves is for the crop of her political leaders to aimlessly drift to the soon to emerge ruling APC in the name of being afraid to be in opposition. What is most important for the present political terrain is for both the South East and South-South to further cement the political gains of common solidarity for Jonathan by building a strong force of opposition.
What has become customary in the acquisition of political power in Nigeria today, except for the Igbo, is that ethnic generated conflicts often end in Presidential compensation.
President Olusegun Obasanjo reaped from the blood-watering conflict of June 12 presidential election annulment. President Umar Yar’Adua benefited from the dastard incarceration and eventual death of his senior brother in the hands of General Sani Abacha.
President Goodluck Jonathan invariably reaped from the Niger Delta struggles for economic emancipation. And now, can one deny the fact that General Muhammadu Buhari evidently reaped from the on-going Boko Haram insurgency? What did the Igbo reap from the 30-month long civil war? The Igbo had since the end of the civil war engaged in competitive licking of the political ass of most past Federal Governments except in fact that of President Jonathan. Will this be the case with President Muhammadu Buhari?
Posted by Okechukwu Nwokafor
THE recent verbal threat against Ndigbo in Lagos by the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, has brought to fore, once again, the endangered position of Igbos in Nigeria. It is foolhardy for anyone to pretend about this.
For the Igbos themselves, it is self-deception not to face the reality of this precarious situation. From the North, and now down to the West, hangs the foreboding cloud of hostility against them. It has always loomed, hence they are made scape goats at the slightest displeasure of their fellow Nigerians.
I am not an ethnic jingoist or apologist. I do not believe in ethnicism, as a matter of fact. I am not writing this article because I am an Igbo, not even because I am a Nigerian. I am writing it because I am a civilized human being who understand and believe in the ethos of a civilized society. The records of the victimization of Ndigbo since after the independence of Nigeria is very glaring.
From the holocaust against them in Northern Nigeria preceding the civil war and during the war to the abandoned property saga in Port Harcourt; from the infamous twenty pounds to every bank account holder irrespective of how much was in the account before the war to the post war intermittent riots and ensuing massacre and destruction of properties in the North, the Igbo man has been the sacrificial lamb of Nigeria. Count all that the Igbos have gone through in Nigeria and it will be surprising to many that they are still existing and surviving.
The only thing strange about the appalling utterances of the Oba is that it came in a democratic era and bothers on the inalienable rights of the people to vote according to their conscience. Voters are wooed by every legitimate means to vote for candidates in election but not by threat. A ruler at his level and in a cosmopolitan city like Lagos is expected to be up to date with prevailing social realities.
There is nothing wrong for him to summon Igbo leaders and solicit for their votes for his candidate, but to resort to threat belies all civilized norms. It smacks of primitivism for anyone, no matter how highly placed, to arrogate to himself the power of life and death. It is also shameful when a despot announces to the whole world that he single handedly picked a candidate for a position as big as a state governor. It makes mockery of APC’s internal democracy.
The so-called power brokers, it does not matter in what guise they operate, are the problems of Nigeria. They pretend to be benefactors but they are rather destroyers. What message was the Oba sending across to Nigerians with his unguarded utterances against a section of the country? He thought he was helping his candidate, but he was unknowingly hurting him, creating enemies for him, robbing him of some valuable votes. Some decent Lagosians who would have voted for him might have had a rethink. When a person in authority refuses to recognize the limit of his power, he becomes a nuisance to himself and others.
There are some questions that should beckon on us at this time. What happens to the polity if Sultan of Sokoto, Emir of Kano, Obi of Onitsha, Oba of Benin, Obong of Calabar and all notable traditional rulers in Nigeria issue the same threats to non-indigenes in their domain? War drums will sound everywhere and our democracy will become a charade.
Those who should be guardians to all Nigerians in their domain should not succumb to divisive tendencies to denigrate their offices. Covert partisanship is not known to traditional institutions like obaship.
The conspiracy of silence that has followed the threat of the Oba is quite worrisome. Since the hate speech was made last Sunday, I have been following Nigerian papers to see the reactions of people. Apart from Lagos state chapter of PDP, Femi Fani-Kayode, Ohaneze Youth Council and a section of the Catholic Church, no notable Nigerian or organisation said anything about it.
Newspapers and columnists have not commented on it. Shallow minds may give political or ethnic interpretation to it, but discerning minds will give realistic perspective to it. If Lagosians from other ethnic groups are silent because they are not involved, they are living in a fool’s paradise. It can be their turn tomorrow. If all Nigerians had read, or rather understood, the hand writing on the wall in 1966, the country wouldn’t have been at the crossroads it is today.
The ever loquacious APC media team is quiet because the Oba campaigned for them. Self-delusion, isn’t it? The bane of Nigerian politicians who think about themselves only and not about the country. They are insincere at keeping quiet about evil when it benefits them, forgetting that they may be at the receiving end in future.
This hate speech is not about Ndigbo, it is not about politics; it is about a Nazist, a Hitler endangering the rest of the world because of his obsession for superiority. This is about the tyranny of one man which can compromise our electoral process and the unity of the country. Nigerians should arise to condemn it so that it does not happen again.
I just imagine if this threat had emanated from an emir in the North or an Eze from the East,by now the papers would have been awash with reactions and calls for the arrest of the Emir or Eze. Where are the Lagos based human rights activists and lawyers? Where are the newspapers and their columnists? Where are the commentators on public affairs? Are the Igbos not part of Nigeria?
This conspiracy of silence over this “verbal holocaust” as someone called it, is a grim reminder of how endangered Ndigbo are in Nigeria. Sadly enough, they do not seem to realise this. The Oba feels threatened by a people that have come to own more than half of Lagos. It is only a blind man that stumbles twice over the same stone
9ice is taking all necessary steps with his 2015 campaign for a seat in the Oyo State House of Assembly. 
25. The Tub  Known as the punishment of ‘sitting in the tub,’ the convicted person would be placed in a wooden tub with only their head sticking out. After that, the executioner would paint their faces with milk and honey; and soon, flies would begin to feed on them. The victim was also fed regularly and would end up swimming in their excrement. After a few days, maggots and worms would devour their body as they decayed alive. 24. The Brazen Bull  Also known as the Sicilian Bull, it was designed in ancient Greece. A solid piece of brass was cast with a door on the side that could be opened and latched. The victim would be placed inside the bull and a fire set underneath it until the metal became literally yellow as it was heated. The victim would then be slowly roasted to death all while screaming in agonizing pain. The bull was purposely designed to amplify these screams and make them sound like the bellowing of a bull. 23. Impalement  Given his name, it should come as no surprise that this was the most favored method of execution by Vlad the Impaler. In 15th century Romania; the victim was forced to sit on a sharp and thick pole. When the pole was then raised upright, the victim was left to |
Life inside the densest place on earth: Remembering Kowloon Walled City (CNN) -- Picture a colossal empire of little houses stacked on top of each other. Visualize them connected by staircases snaking under dangling wires, through corridors so dark even police were rumored to be afraid of them. Now picture 33,000 people living there, within the space of one city block. That was Kowloon Walled City, once considered the densest settlement on earth. "A huge monstrosity of buildings" Before it was demolished twenty years ago, |
