GMB AND THE GDA |
is like the story of all great men who changed the face of time in history. It
is the story of men who changed bad times to good times, worst moments to
excellent moments and manageable moments to durable moments.
I will
particularly link his story to that of Prime
Minister Joseph son of Jacob in the Biblical times. He was sold into
slavery by his own brothers (Buhari was taken out of power in 1985 by his
military brothers and trusted aides).
Joseph found favor in the house of Potiphar an officer of Pharaoh and
captain of the king’s guard, because of his diligence and gift of leadership
coupled with his transparent character,
Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his entire household (General Abacha put
Buhari in charge of Petroleum Trust Fund) and these brought Potiphar’s wife’s
love and affection for Joseph. She seduced him for sex but he declined and she
decided to malign him by lying against him, claiming he wanted to rape her
(Gen. 39), Potiphar believed his wife
and disbelieved Joseph and Joseph was sent to jail just like a section of the
Nigerian society lied against General Muhammad Buhari calling him
a religious fanatic and tarnishing his image with the label of a religious
bigot and majority Nigerians believed and sentenced him to the dungeon of the
darkest part of their hearts.
Joseph’s dungeon he was again elected a leader because of the mark of
leadership imprinted on him. There he met King Pharaoh’s baker and butler. He
was in charge of their cell well being until the two had dreams that needed
interpretation and Joseph was graced to
interpret their individual dreams for them (Gen.40) while the
interpretation of the Chief Butler’s dream went nice, that of the chief baker
went bad. One was set free on the third day and restored to his post while the
other was hanged. But Joseph had told the chief butler before his dream came
true “Remember me when it is well with
you and show kindness to me. Make
mention of me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house (Dungeon)” but like
every man and his short memory for gratefulness the butler forgot Joseph once
he was restored to power and convenience. Despite General Muhammad Buhari’s
great gesture with the PTF concept
during the Abacha era, Nigerians forgot him immediately we got full fledge
democracy in 1999. We forgot him and didn’t even make case for him when President
Obasanjo scrapped PTF where
he made great stride. We forgot all the qualities of General Buhari and any
time his antecedents are mentioned, some Nigerians will rise in hot argument,
using both imaginable and unimaginable accusations to throw darts at his person
and demonize him. This is done in most cases, partly, due to ignorance and a
high level of intellectual incompetence.
GMB expressing his political views |
Joseph’s case, a divine opportunity came for him to prove his mettle and show
the stuff of leadership he was made off. Pharaoh, the king Joseph
asked the butler to mention his name to had a terrible dream (Gen 41) and
the dream troubled him that he had to invite all his magicians and wise men to
interpret the dream for him but none of them could do it and because the king
was sad and lost his appetite, the butler remembered Joseph and mentioned his
name for the first time to the king and immediately the king sent for him and
Joseph was brought to the presence of the king after he shaved and changed his
clothing. And what happened? After Joseph interpreted the dream to Pharaoh, the
king and his court found it good to make Joseph the executioner of the dream.
Joseph was set over the entire land of Egypt as the Number One most powerful
man after the king and that was the story of Joseph’s premiership in Egypt; the
story of the Hebrew boy who became a Prime Minister in Egypt.
“The terrible dream of having the first lady of a great nation like Nigeria speaking bad English that can reduce the intellectual strength of our children who might have made a role model of her; the bad dream of having a governor-elect of a state meting out corporal punishment to a judge inside the premises of a court of law, the very terrible dream of a government not being able to account for an alleged lost sum of $20 million dollars allegedly stolen by hawks in the system”
Today, Nigerians are looking for a
dream interpreter to help them interpret the bad dream of having a respected
man of God using his private jet to help Government launder money across the
boarder, the bad dream of having a government that used her armed forces to
harass media houses and establishments. The bad dream of having a crop of
ministers who loot and steal with impunity without doing what they are
appointed to do, the terrible dream of a female minister who used N255 million naira to buy just two anti-bullet cars and also abused
her statutory allocation, overshooting it to fulfill self pleasure and yet
never got punished, the bad dream of having over two hundred female students
kidnapped for six months without government being able to rescue them or
perform any meaningful solution. The terrible dream of having the first lady of
a great nation like Nigeria speaking bad English that can reduce the
intellectual strength of our children who might have made a role model of her,
the bad dream of having a governor-elect of a state meting out corporal
punishment to a judge inside the premises of a court of law, the very terrible
dream of a government not being able to account for an alleged lost sum of $20
million dollars allegedly stolen by hawks in the system, the bad dream of
having a minister of finance and minister of petroleum shunning legislative
invitations and nothing happened; the bad dream of having a first lady given a
double appointment of Permanent secretary of a ministry in her husband’s state of origin
even when she is not physically there serving. The ridiculous dream of having a
police commissioner holding an elected governor to ransom and making the state
ungovernable for him and yet Abuja looks the other way round, a terrible dream
of having an education system robbed with act of cultism, prostitution and
other menaces that has reduced the quality of education to nothingness, bad
dream of epileptic power supply, pot-hole infested roads, high cost of living,
dead naira currency and other sundry nightmares.
Chief (Dr.) Dele Momodu with the G D A in session |
I have decided to bring all these facts
to the open today because those who disagreed with me couple of years ago have
come to agree with me after seeing the light. One of such respected souls is my
role model and mentor, Bashorun Dele Momodu the publisher
of world leading magazine, Ovation International who shocked me
with his article titled In search of the
mathematicians published on his
famous column-Pendulum at the back
of Thisday
Newspaper of Saturday October 18, 2014. The import of that article
which was a sincere endorsement of General Muhammad Buhari for
Nigerian leadership in 2015 is something that confirmed the fact to me once
more that the world will always give a path to the man who knows his way.
2011, during the presidential election which equally had Bashorun Dele Momodu as
the candidate of National Conscience
Party of Nigeria, I was caught in the web between throwing my vote for a
man who has shown me so much secret in the art of celebrity journalism and whom
I have adopted as my role model and mentor and a man I considered a paragon of great
leadership from the north. To a lot of
people who know how I love and adore Chief Dele Momodu, they would have
gone to bed with the belief that I will just throw my vote for Bob
Dee and forget weather he won or lost the election. In as much as I
value Chief Dele Momodu’s bravery and the fact that I
consider him far, far better than even Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, I was
pressed to sacrifice him for General Muhammad Buhari. Why? One, I
figured out that Nigeria at that point in time and up till now, needs a man who
can create an environment of fear. Fear to steal, fear to misbehave and fear to
be corrupt. I didn’t want a man who has the attitude to be grateful to his
conglomerate of friends who in turn will become locust of the corridor of power.
My mind was double sure that General Buhari was that kind of man.
Despite some little assignments I carried out for Chief Dele Momodu and my
strong belief in him, on Election Day, I voted General Muhammad Buhari.
Before then, I also had work environment crises with my former boss at a newspaper
I worked for. He was a Goodluck Jonathan fan and he wanted
all of us (Staff) to follow suit. He even went to the extent of organizing
rallies for Goodluck and writing
discrediting editorials on General Buhari
and during our various editorial meetings where he often uses us to text how
the vote pattern would go, I always turn out the odd man with my passionate
cause for General Buhari. Of course,
we didn’t gel and I eventually sacked him (Resigned from the organization) in
October 2012.
Back to 2011, where I casted my vote in Ogba
area of Lagos (South West Nigeria) it was just 16 of us that voted for CPC (General Buhari’s party) while A.C.N
and PDP net between 67 votes and 82 votes or thereabout. I remember telling
those of us who voted for CPC after the counting that We are indeed the 16 most intelligent Nigerian and three years down
the line we have been proved right beyond reasonable doubt. Our brand, GMB is
now the most sought after in the entire country.
Chief (Dr.) Dele Momodu with the G D A |
And
like someone said, “Excellence sells”, with the series of acts of massive corruption
that rocked the Jonathan presidency in the last three years, there is no how,
an excellent leadership brand like General Buhari will not prop up and that is why
the market is bubbling now with GMB as
the best stock. I won’t be surprised if my former boss who has suddenly turned
an anti-GEJ analyst with series of recent negative editorials on GEJ now starts
to sell brand GMB. I won’t be surprised if this Igbo intellectual sees the
light now.
GMB |
continental reality!
Let me
start by saying for those who claim General
Buhari at 72 is “too old” to
lead Nigeria, this blog simply ask you to ‘please, look for another lie’.
and this blog joins him in re-producing facts that are beyond silly talks.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became President of
Liberia at age 70 in 2006. She was 75 in 2011. She will remain president
till 2016, at age 80 years.
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is 72 years old. He will be president till
2019 at 77 years.
Nelson
Mandela born in 1918 became president of South Africa in 1994 at 76 years. Still President in 1998 when he stepped down
for Thabo Mbeki at age 80 years; if
he had served two terms he would have been 84.
President Peter Mutharika of Malawi was 74 when he was sworn in on 31 May,
2014. He will be president till 2019 at 79
years.
President
Alpha Conde of Guinea is now 76
years old. He was sworn in December 2011 at 72 years. President Jos
Eduardo Santos of Angola is 72 years
today. He will be president till 2020 at 78
years. President Abde Bourtefilka
of Algeria is 77 years old, and will
be in office till 2020 at 83 years
old. President Alasanne Quattara of
Ivory Coast was 72 years in 2012,
and will be president till 2016 at 76
years.
Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has been
president since 1985. He won another seven years term in 2013 at 77 years, and will be president till
2020 at 84.
President Jose Mujiaga of Uruguay was 75 years old when elected. He is now 79 years.
President Tedoro Oblang Nguema
Mbasogo
of Equatorial Guinea was born January 6, 1942. He is 72 years and still going on.
President Michael Sata, Zambia is 77 years old. He became president September
23, 2011 at 74, and will rule till
2016 when he will be 79.
President Paul Biya of Cameroon is 81 years old. He will be in office till
2017 at age 84 years.
President Milos Zeman of Chech Republic is 70 years old and will be in office till
2018 at age 74.
Ronald Reagan, born February 06, 1911 became US
President at 70, and served two
terms before retiring in 1989 at age 78.
Because
Nigerians are a people with different inclination and for the purpose of those
who are detached from history or the youths below the age of 30 or those who
have been fed with historical distortions there is need to put the record
straight for a man whose track record remains a phenomenon in Nigeria, Africa and
the world at large. If honesty and probity is what Nigerians are clamoring for,
we can say 2015 is the time to have it because conscience is an open wound and
only truth can heal it. These are some of the rare things this world phenomenon
General Muhammad Buhari has achieved in political leadership.
Buhari was governor of Borno state under Obasanjo regime and
later minister of petroleum
Buhari birthed and supervised the establishment of the
existing refineries in Nigeria.
Buhari was head of state between 1983 – 1985 ( A period of 20 months)
There was no religious crisis while he was head of state.
He reduced inflation from 23% to 4% by fiscal discipline and
home grown economic policy (Not achieved under any other era)
JJ Rawlings of Ghana took over two
years before him and killed all corrupt leaders, while Buhari only sentenced the corrupt leaders in Nigeria to prison.
Under his watch as PTF Chairman, what he did in road
construction in that short period hasn’t been matched in 12 years of PDP.
Hospitals and universities around the country never witnessed
as much benefit as they got from PTF from any government after or before his
time
He refused to collect allowance while serving as the chairman
of the PTF because he said he was already drawing a pension from government,
his conscience would not allow him to draw another salary from the purse of
same government.
He returned excess money spent to purse of government on his
return from overseas training as military officer.
He is the only former Head of state that does not own a
property or land in Abuja
Buhari personally recommended
late Dora Akunyili to OBJ because of her diligence during the
PTF interaction.
Every attempt to rubbish him through probes in time past
ended up vindicating him! The man who was asked by OBJ to take over PTF before
it was scrapped with the aim of indicting Buhari ended up being prosecuted for
misappropriating $100 million dollars PTF funds!
His personal driver of many years is a Christian from Plateau
state.
He has openly challenged those who accuse him of religious
fundamentalism to come out and show proof. No one has till today taken up the
challenge
He is the only politician in northern Nigeria today who fill
rallies without renting crowd
People who know him (including Pastor Tunde Bakare) have said
of him….”All I need from Buhari is his
word, I can take it to the bank”
Gbenga Dan Asabe has struck the bull in the eyes. What more?…And I remember the Holy Book of the Christians that says.."he who makes mockery of old age shall never live to old.I rest my case..ATTENTION!