HELP!!! they have looted my LOOT!!!!!

culled from thisday newspaper, sunday october 7, 2007.

Dear President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua: with a very proud and humble heart, i write this petition to you. My name is Chief Joshua Chibi Dariye, former governor of plateau state- although, to be modest i need no introduction, either locally or internationally. I am well known in the UK. The metropolitan police know me very well like their uniforms. The real estate and property companies know me. The banks are my customers or, rather i'm their customer. The judges are very familiar with me. The immigration officials are my pals. The journalists treat me like a movie star.
But that is not why i am writing you this petition Mr President. I write to inform you that i have been robbed. One of the things you promised to address as president is crime. You want to bring the security situation under control in order to attract foreign investment. Yet, under your very nose, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, better known in the streets as EFCC has conspired with the London police to loot my hard-earned loot. This is very painful and humiliating and against the rule of law and due process which is the sing along melody of this administration.
To start with, is it an easy thing to loot? that is one issue many Nigerians are deliberately avoiding. To loot you need a good brains, extremely wonderful accountants and bankers. To move the loot abroad, you need diplomatic immunity. To purchase property abroad, you go through the extremely arduous task of flipping through brochures and internet websites. Then after i had laboured so hard to loot my state treasury and add value to the looting, i got embarassed, arressted and charged to court in a foreign land. And when i mistakenly jumped bail i was declared a wanted man. This is unfair
Now i will go straight to the point. Recall Mr President, that recently, british authorities returned N29.3 million to the coffers of the federal government, claiming that was what i looted. Its a lie! I looted more than that or should i say, the loot they seized was more than that. The seized more than N770 million loot and they have only returned N29 million. This is dishonesty. I hate dishonesty. It is the major reason why Nigeria is not making progress. We are complaining that Nigeria is under developed. How can Nigeria develop when we don't have simple honesty among government officials?
This is my suspicion which i want you to treat as an allegation. EFCC the met police have conspired to keep a large chink of the loot to feather their own nests at the expense of the national treasury. This is absolutely unacceptable. This is an attempt to rob Nigeria blind in the name of anti-corruption. This act of injustice shall not stand, Mr. President. There is certainly a difference between N770 million and N29.3 million. Don't forget, Dear President, that i am an accountant by profession and should kno the what i am talking about when we are discussion naira and kobo, or pound and penny.

President Umaru Musa Yar'adua

When former Nigerian president olusegun obasanjo (GCFR) announced that his chosen successor was then Governor of Katsina state; Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, many people complained. Many people shouted just because he(Yar'Adua) was chosen by Obasanjo. Many underestimated Yar'Adua's capabilities. Many felt it was more or less going to be a puppet government with the strings in Ota pulled by no one other than itu-baba himself; Obasanjo.
Yar'dua's first test came much too quickly. On the eve of the handover, Obasanjo through presidential directive ordered that the price of PMF otherwise known as petrol to be increased to 75 nairas per litre and Value added tax increased to 10%. Over night, the country was staged with an mpending economic crisis. The sudden and unexpected increase in prices and tax lead to stagflation. although it did not really hit stagflation, given more time it would have hit.
Labour immediately swung into action and requested that the directive be reversed by the new administration. Ofcourse Yar'Adua who had not expected this crisis on his hand had two options, 1- he reveresed the presidential directive given by Obasanjo and gain the trust of Nigerians while looking like a weak leader or 2- go ahead and leave the directive in price which would later result into stagflation. Yar'dua not only chose none of the obvious choices but showed his self a true leader and diplomat with a listening ear. He called labour to the negotiation table to address the issues and offered to reduce the price of PMF from 75 nairas per litre to 70 nairas per litre and revert the VAT back to its former place which was 5%. Whoever said you cant eat your cake and have it was wrong because Yar'dua ate his cake and had it. Although labour did not initially agree, they finally came around and saw reason with our dear Leader. Yar'Adua not only proved to Nigerians that he was the right man for the job but that he was ready to listen to anybody.
President Umaru Yar'Adua took another vital step in the direction of democracy and showing himself a unique leader by making his asset declaration public. No public officer either civil servant or president in Nigerian history had ever made his assets public. Yar'Adua showed the people he was truly the servant leader who was going to lead by example and not "do as i say not as i do"...Yar'Adua's public asset declaration won him another medal in the eyes of so many Nigerians.
His next step was his attack on the major issues surrounding the nation. Undoubtedly, Nigeria's biggest problem and embarrassment is its epileptic power supply. The decaying power sector has made the little manufacturing industry in Nigeria pack up which lead to unemployment and the other vices that come with unemployment. His approach to the power sectors problem was first selecting a minister of power and he felt no one could do the job better than he so he made himself minister of power. I can tell u today for the first time since i was born which was about 18-19 (give or take) years ago, we had three weeks of nearly uninterrupted power supply. Even when there is interruption, power is restored in less than 5 minutes.
Many were opposed to Obasanjo's selection as many have seen him as another wicked dictator no different than Abacha. The only difference is Obasanjo wore more expensive clothing which are his traditional clothes as opposed to the traditional khaki worn by our military "atingos". Obasanjo said one thing, that Nigerians will eventually thank him when history vindicates him! well, although i never thought i will have said this this soon but here goes nothing, thank you Mr. Obasanjo a.k.a. baba iyabo! You might have known what you were doing when you chose Yar'Adua and you might not have known but you gave us the answer to our years of prayer, you put in a man who has the fear of God in him, a man who respects other peoples views, a diplomat, a leader, you presented to us; The New face of Nigeria- President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua!

stay blessed my fellow NIgerians

after d storm...what next

dere is nothing ny1 can do about it now, Yar dua is d president elect of nigeria....nations have sent dignitaries to congratulate him...but the question is how long will he be loyal to baba? dt is if he even lives long enough....Goodluck jonattahn will definetly thank his parents for naming him dt name as luck has def bin on his side, from a common deputy governor to governor to vice president...wot so many more prominent nigerians wont even dream about....im sick of this rubbish

Election or selection??

My dear readers, we have come to another benchmark in the history of our country and once again Nigerians have done what they do best; circumvent justice. The 2007 elections have come and gone but is till far from over. These elections are what i will term an oscillation. The peoples democratic party {if dey r for d people or even democratic at all) have shown what they are made off. What has happened in Nigeria just last week was an open rape and murder of democracy. In fact a true display of what i call demo-crazy. Where in this world does a party without a candidate win an election??? This happened in more dan one location in Nigeria. The funniest thing is Nigerians are seeing these things and are not doing anything about it. Everybody feels it is not their problem and so the are going on their own.....My dear reader, experts predicted that the country would break-up but it is their own country dt is breaking up now dnt u think?? i dnt mean to be violent or anything but our last resort might have to be a bloody revolution. I am sure the SSS and DMI will open a file for me when i post this, probably have sm1 watching n ready to take me out of the game nytime but if this madness continues then we must snatch our country back by force. ALl these selfish old hags dt call dem selves politicians, most of them with nothing more than a high school diploma n m sure cannot even create a presentation using common powerpoint....dis is our problem readers.....we have to fight PDP...we have to fight this impostion...this is not Zimbabwe nor Egypt...it seems like a common thing for many African leaders to want to rule for life, mayb if we helped them end their lives earlier, we will all get our wishes.....my dear reader....this blog is what i feel, straight from my heart at thin point in time...it is about 1.02am in Nigeria now and im just ere thinking of how these people want to finally drive my country into the earth....i will not allow it...n u will not allow it....we shhould stand and fight...cos "not to stand and be counted when an act of injustice is being done is an act of cowardice"

Nepa?? PHCN?? whatever

I have always wondered why there is no stable power in Nigeria. Is it that when God said "let there be light" it didn't apply to Nigeria? The situation in my beloved country has gone from worse to unimaginable. But really what is the problem with this nation? cant anything be right? We supply almost every country on the Niger river with stable electricity but how come we do not have? this is a perfect situation of monkey they chop baboon they chop because we are the ones generating the electricity.
There have been allegations that there is a cartel that has been sabotaging our power plants and frustrating the governments efforts to stabilize power. Any real Nigerian would know there are alot of cartels like the fuel importers, truckers and probably the generator cartel. Nigeria is one of the biggest markets for generators in the world and without the power holding company withholding power, there will be plenty power and so no use for generators. Is it possible that both importers and manufacturers are the selfish bastards sabotaging our electricity supply?
Frankly i think enough is enough. The government has privatized Nepa but instead of increase in power supply we had decrease in power supply and increase in bills. What i keep asking my self is that do they think we are stupid? or that everybody has had a piece of the national cake?
Most of this year, i have been in school were we have power 24 hours a day. I went home for 4 days and we only had 30 minutes of public power supply. My family had been running on the generator for 4 months straight and even had to procure a new one because of the stress on the other one. This of course opened my eye to one fact, only two people are gaining from this problem and they are the generator importers and producers and diesel suppliers.
But is it that people in the government are too stupid to realize this fact and try and arrest the situation? The amount of generators in Nigeria if coupled together will provide stable power supply for the country with only company's like globacom using about 500,000 generators. And one fact is true, this power shortage is one of the sources of our economic problems. because of unstable power supply many investors shy from Nigeria. Even Michelin tires that had been operating in Nigeria for a while now shut down their factory sometime this year because of poor electricity supply throwing thousands into the labor market. There are also other company's that need stable power supply to operate

Nigeria; democracy or demo-CRAZY??

Nigeria the heartbeat of Africa, the giant of Africa and the strong house of Africa is where? After 47 years of independence, one would think that Nigeria would have gone so far but problem after problem have enveloped this country and every body has decided to blame the incorruptible "corruption". The most populous country in Africa which has been ruled by mostly dictators and power drunk individuals who think power is their birth right and this nation is their oyster.
47 years ago when Nigeria gained her independence, everything looked like it was going to be alright until Aguyi Ironsi came in with his irrational coup d'etat. This angered the Northerns who staged a counter coup placing Ironsi's chief of staff as President. This undoubtedly was right because there was no cause for the first coup d'etat in the first place but what these men did not know was that they were staging the platform for Nigeria's infamous drive down "the road not taken".This reminds me of a story from the book '48 laws of power'. Any body who has rally read that book {and not browsing in the unfruitful search for power} will remember this story. There was a point in China in which the government was ruled after one dictator or the other, one bloody coup or the other leaving the "interim" dictator wondering when his nemesis was coming to snatch power from him. Back to our Nigerian issue. Anyone also familiar with Nigerian history will also know what comes next; the civil war. a war that was totally senseless and served no purpose but dividing the already culturally strained country. Several military governments came and went until gen Olusegun Obasanjo handed over to civilians again. He handed power to Sheu Shagari whose government quickly squandered the resources and left the economy in a head first dive. He was quickly ousted by General Buhari who was in turn removed by his friend, Gen Babaginda {refer to the Chinese in the 48 laws...}. Babaginda promised to return power to civilians. every thing was all good and going according to plan in fact this very famous and infamous man was said to have conducted the freest and fairest election in Africa which late MKO Abiola won. He unfortunately changed his mind and annulled the election on the election that evening and appointed an interim government. {we can see here how the fate of this country was, is and will be decided by one man}. IBB as Babaginda is fondly called quickly left office and appointed an interim government which was quickly removed by Gen Sanni Abacha. General Abacha would come to be the yet the nation's worst nightmare. He tool Nigeria on a roller coaster ride suppressing all kind of opposition. He also took time to convert the Central bank to his personal bank, he nation's foreign reserves to his own domiciled dollar account. Fortunately for us, God decided enough was enough and decided to send Abacha home {which undoubtedly smells of burning sulfur}. He died under questionable circumstances {rumor has it in the hands of prostitutes just like so many other men} to the great joy of Nigerians.
This merry go round of military and civillian rulers came to an end when Gen Abdusallam finally handed over back to former general turned civillian politician Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo's was said to have been loved by God as he had been ear marked for execution by Abacha and was even under arrest when Abacha died. A perfect example of from grass to grace. Who would have thought a former political convict will come back to power, not even Obasanjo himself could have dreamt that in his widest dreams which of course is another evidence that there is a God. OBJ as he is fondly called ascended into power fighting to pull the economy out of its depression while fighting corruption. He undertook so many economic reforms and finally the country showed signs of healing, OBJ had managed to pull the country out of its dive, out of immediate danger. He addressed the economic and security situation in Nigeria and "traveled round the world in 40 days to look for investment. Once again corruption was brought back to light. Corruption had already been a way of life in Nigeria by then. To get something done, you either had a gun, a brown envelope or for more efficient results a "Ghana-Must-Go" bag. Baba was not very happy with this new culture and he tried to change it. but what baba didn't know is that culture does not just form in a day neither can it be removed in a day.The years of military rule had left not only its mark but a deep scar. Ofcourse by the time baba realized this he had already formed a watchdog agency called EFCC. The incorruptible Baba decided to start somewhere, he descended heavily on 419 scammers popularly known as yahoo bois and some selected politicians. There were allegations that the Agency, although successful was highly selective. Baba has always been known to be a ruthless disciplinarian and he descended heavily on naughty boys (politicians). People said his policy was if you flaunt, you will get caught. Of course people undermined the efforts of EFCC by accusing the agency of being selective and the agency unfortunately lived up to that accusation's. Baba was reelected into office in 2003 and he continued his economic reforms. Aware that time wasn't on his side and time was what he needed he tried to get the constitution amended to suit his whims. Under the presidential system of government, the president has a fixed tenure of four years and can be re-elected into office once making it a total of eight years for any wannabe president. He tried to get the constitution amended so he could run for a third term but did not succeed. The national assembly had sat up and threw the bill into the bin were it belonged. Seeing that this did not work, baba knew he had to put his man in office to ensure that his policies continued. By now his embattled deputy had declared his presidential ambition. The genesis of the beef between Obj and Atiku is no exactly known but Obj made no moves to hide the fact that he did not want Atiku succeding him. He instead chose Yar'dua who is the present governor of Katsina state. Yar'dua was alledged to be seriosly ill suffering from kidney problems and therefore unfit to sit in Aso Rock. Other prominent politicians also made their intentions known e.g. IBB, Buhari, Pat Utomi, Ojukwu and so many other people who have made this country the way it is today.
Obj known to be very cunning started hitting his deputy hard. Their face off would go down in history as one of the most embarrassing cases in the Nigerian history. The ever smart and cunning Obj tried several tricks including declaring Atiku's seat vacant for decamping to another party and alleged disqualification by INEC. Atiku who is also a strong headed and focused Nigerian took the case to court. He won every single case that was thrown to him until......the PTDF scandal. The PTDF was probably OBJ's lifeline in removing Atiku, apparently the everly cunning and smart man had been out manuvered, perhaps his old age was catching up with him (:D). Atiku was accused of squandering $20 million USD of the PTDF fund. Atiku claims that the president verbally ordered him to spend the alleged money. As for me, i belive Atiku has a point there as such a large amount of money can never leave an Egba man's coffers without his knowledge but the fact is both OBJ and Atiku have disgraced this nation. They have decided not only to wash their dirty linen in the public but to also degrade themselves to the level of children. If this was truly a democracy, why would the president do all in his power even if it means his own destruction to stop someone else from running. It is not for one man to decide who the president of this nation will be, it is for God to decide, it is God who will empower the masses to vote for the right person. On the other hand we have to take out eyes off these politicians and analyze the best candidates. As far as i am concerned, Pat Utomi is still the best so far. I always thought he had nothing to offer until he gave a lecture in my school where he analyzed Nigeria's problems. I was so impressed that although he failed to outline possible solutions, the saying that a problem is half solved when identified made us give him a standing ovation. Unfortunately this man as far as i am concerned is in the wrong party with the wrong running mate. Probably if he ran with Donald Duke who is another innovative man, then we would know for sure that Nigeria is in good hands.

One thing is for sure this time around, every vote counts. So please get your self out of your bed to the polling booth, put your finger print on the ballot paper and vote as your heart leads you, vote for who you think is right, vote for tomorrow thinking about your children and family members....let us all come out and vote...what Zimbabweans are wishing for we should not take for granted. God in his infinite mercy will have mercy upon us.

Peace be unto you!