Loud Whispers With JOSEPH EDGAR

A Fervent Plea for Nigerian Judiciary

This whole thing is now becoming a huge shameful joke. From Abuja to Kano to Imo, everywhere, the judiciary is on its knees, hobbled by incompetence, corruption and lack of principled leadership. I watched the other day when the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, my brother Olu Akpata, lamented at a session at the International Bar Association. As he spoke, shame was my companion. He said so many shameful things about the judiciary, leaning very heavily on his experience while at the NBA which gave him a front row seat in the tyranny of incompetence that seems to have ensconced the judiciary.

One remarkable thing that he said was that it was a very difficult thing to get a very competent judge because the process is so corrupted and skewed. Competence in that space is a rarity and has now become a thing that now relies on luck – my words.

You see, the demise of this democracy will be the doing of the judiciary. We seem to have lost all hope in its ability to uphold the tenets of democracy. The tenets of fair play and justice now seem very alien to these ones. They carry their big heads and are sending judgments that leave the rest of us scratching our heads in bewilderment.

To say it in the mildest of tones, the judiciary has gone to the dogs. It is no wonder that a candidate in a recent state election said he was not wasting his time going to court because he had lost all confidence.

The judiciary has been captured, it is now a “kobo kobo” judiciary and this is sad. See this Kano own, I just weak – as we say it in Shomolu. I just weak. How do you toy and play clannish games with the lives of over 200 million people?

I don’t know how we can resolve this one o, because it looks like “ebola has really catch our judiciary.” What we have now is not a judicial system but a systemic mockery of it. As it is, it’s better to approach the famed “Icheokwu” court to seek redress than to work into any court in the land.

Yes, this is a deliberate general statement. I challenge the whole Nigerian judiciary from the Supreme Court in Abuja to the Magistrate at the Oyingbo Magistrate court to rise up and prove me wrong. I am waiting.

For General Duru, Joy Comes in the Morning

I walked into his office here in Lagos. He stood up to shake me and offered me a seat. He had called to ask me to “calm down” in my quest to be the first Akwa Ibom President of the alumni of our great school, Command Secondary School Lagos. He was an officer and a great gentleman. He listened very carefully to me and at the end of my long and boring speech, said something: “See, Edgar I have served the Nigerian Army for about 35 years, these are the last few days of my service and I would like to leave in a blaze of glory. Do not let this your campaign affect that because I have received a signal from headquarters asking me what exactly is going on.”

My people, me? Army Headquarters? For the small alumni president I wanted to be? I just stood up and said, “My General, please help me tell them at the headquarters, that I am very sorry to have disturbed their sleep and that I have stepped down…”

He laughed and I said, “General, make we go chop afang, leave the alumni thing, na play.”

This is the same General who wanted to leave in a blaze of glory that has been kidnapped a few months after leaving in a blaze of glory. He was reported to have been kidnapped while having a casual drive in Imo and has not been seen since then, almost two months plus.

Just as I was about to fire and scatter the army authorities for allowing such a strategic and high-ranking retired officer in the den of kidnappers for this long, I got a call: “Edgar, I hear you want to write something, please note that the Army is in close contact with the captors and are doing everything very possible to make sure the General is released.”

I said: “My brother, is he still alive?” and he assured me that he is very much alive and that a two-way communication has been established and is ongoing. This now softened my approach to this write up.

But if it is very clear that a “Raid on Entebbe” kind of thing cannot happen, we can at least offer the kidnappers a “victim swap deal”. I know some people who have been sending prayers to their colleagues’ emails and who have been accused of turning their colleagues to slaves that we can swap General Duru with so that we can rest.

General Duru has served this nation with verve. He has operated in so many theatres of war and joined the Army right from secondary school, meaning that he has known no other life than that of service and it is in this regard, that I state very urgently that the authorities should do whatever is in their capacity and beyond to ensure the very safe return of this great Nigerian hero from the hands of his captors.

Godswill Akpabio Rolling in the Deep

Over the weekend, someone sent me a video clip of this our Senator-in-Chief at a thanksgiving service in Akwa Ibom. If you watch the clip very well and at the end, you will see a place where he was congratulating the governor, Pastor Eno on his recent victory at the Appeal Court. Now shebi there is nothing wrong with that abi?

Well, before you all will now come and say, this Duke of Shomolu has come again and before his media man come and accuse me of being bitter because he scattered my “ekwong” business while he was in Uyo, just pause and take it in that the Appeal Court has not given judgement. So Mr. Akpabio has now turned into a prophet to see into the very near future as to dimension an Appeal Court judgement on a matter that has not been concluded.

My people, this Akpabio is just rolling in the deep. His tenure continues to be an embarrassment, showing the very browning backside of Nigerian politics in its most unattractive manner. Just as we were about to move on from that one, another clip emerged of a senator screaming – are we your slaves?

Mbok, the impunity with which this our Senate President is rolling is unprecedented. This man, if not carefully managed at this point, may end up upturning democracy. I tell you.

Does he even know what it takes to be a Senate President? I am afraid we may have put a skit maker in the third most powerful job in the land.

Funso Doherty as a New Kid on the Block

Shebi they used to say that we should “fear quiet people.” This one looks very quiet but very wicked o or how do you explain what he has just done to Governor Sanwo-Olu. You see that his letter weak me o. Me that I am a very staunch supporter of the governor. This one tire me. I read the letter from different angles and so many times, looking for which angle to attack Mr. Doherty, but my people, I did not see any loophole o.

The man did his homework. He took the department of public procurement to the cleaners, leading them to hurriedly go and “tweaking” the website and making the deputy governor rush out to shout that it is not N2 billion for rechargeable fan o, that it is only N2 million. Kai, N7million for perfume for governor? My people, Doherty do the homework.

I remember meeting him once. It was at the Olu of Warri’s Ikoyi home in Ikoyi. I had gone there to pay my obeisance and walked into him and his very beautiful wife which I later learnt is an Itsekiri woman. I had written a scathing commentary on his ambition which didn’t go down too well with the couple.

As a gentleman, he greeted me with a handshake and a smile, but madam could not hold back, she gave me a slight frown and a nod of her beautiful head like say, you see yourself.

Well, the elections came and Mr. Doherty “carried” almost bottom of class but has now reemerged as the voice for accountability, putting the government on its toes and ensuring that things are done very well.

Kudos to him for his courage which will now begin to put some level of “fear” in public expenditure.

Alex Otti as Hungry Man in Power

This my brother shock me o. Not only me, but millions who have just learnt from reports in the media that in less than three months in government, he has spent close to N900 million on food and welfare.

Although they have come out to clarify that the amount was what was spent in total by agencies, ministries and all others but for the governor’s office they claimed about N300 million.

My people, it’s looking like na food this one come chop for government. You know that he has been out in the cold for a while. After leaving banking, he has been trying for this position severally each time jamming roadblock. Finally, he has emerged and he must eat. Hungry go don catch oga, so he must reenergise and eat.

Well, the only problem is that he is not opening the bazaar for the rest of the state but only for his cronies who will sit down and wickedly eat between N200 to N300 million worth of food and welfare in three months according to their own admission.

This is a new one o, usually we hear of perfumes, rechargeable lamps, prayer mats but just food? This Mr. Otti must have been very, very hungry.

Please can Abia people stand up and ask more questions o, or should we borrow them Mr. Doherty to come and write a letter before this their vertically challenged governor come and eat up all their destiny. It’s not as if they are even eating Afang, shebi it cannot pass Isi Ewu and beer. Na wa Mr. Otti.

Olusegun Obasanjo, I Beg to Disagree

 You know in Nigeria, we like shortcuts. Everything is “wuru wuru” to the answer. So because we cannot reform the judiciary as we are being faced with gangster judgements, we should now go to the fundamentals of democracy which is separation of powers and destroy it?

The judiciary is very key in this equation and it must remain independent and above the fray as it adjudicates the democratic process. So today we now have “amala judiciary” and instead of us querying it, we are asking why only “three men” will take decisions that affect millions.

Mbok, when the electoral process has long gone to blazes, what with the malfeasance that we see daily- did you guys even just see the Kogi fiasco? We will now come and remove the powers of the judiciary to adjudicate? Then it is over.

My Lord, I think what you should be leaving your very heavy weight on right now is how to hold the judiciary accountable. How do we clean the Augean stable that has become our judiciary? How do we weed out the “craw craw” infested operatives who mask as judicial officers and replace them with astute and God-fearing people who will now help us rebuild our country.

It is not to uproot it or seize its role but to reform it and this must be done very quickly. Thank you, sir.

Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo: A Prisoner’s Friend 

Is this not the same minister that cleared the passport backlog? It is now looking like this minister is now the only silver lining in this administration o. Have you heard that he would be reducing the general prisoner population by five per cent, clearing the fines of about N500 million which have kept many people in prison and rehabilitating them?

With this, he would be releasing about 4,000 prisoners and not only that, he would be giving them some stipends and training to rehabilitate them before they are re-integrated into society. The remarkable thing in all of these is the fact that all of these are not costing the government a dime as he had raised the funds through a corporate responsibility initiative.

My people, these are the people that have sense. This man has come to government with a different mindset and has begun to show a very powerful sense of purpose.

Well-done sir and God bless you for this. Can we do this annually and see if we can achieve a 10 per cent year on year reduction if not, with the kind of judiciary we have that your five per cent will be wiped out with no time and for the rest of you Nigerians, this is the best time to go to prison, I tell you. Just try am.

SO&U: Thirty Plus Three Hearty Cheers

Let me quickly send a “thirty-three plus three” hearty congratulations to my brother Udem Ufot and his team at SO&U. The massive agency has survived several coups, economic meltdown, Buhari and is now doing well under Tinubu to the point that it just rolled out the red carpet to celebrate its 33rd year in business.

No wonder, I saw a chat from Mr. Ufot the other day asking for my address. Me that I am thinking they have hacked his account, looked very well at the picture on his DP before I sent the address. You know you have to be very careful in this country. For them to kidnap a whole retired Army General and we have not been able to release him for the last two months, is it me that will have hope?

Anyways, I started seeing things that showed that Mr. Ufot, who is very legendary for his goat meat pepper-soup, was about to send me a gift in celebration.

SO&U is a piler player in that space. They have worked very closely with the biggest and brightest brands in the country. Recreated and headlined the renaissance of an industry that has expanded so many times into fragmented but equally profitable sub sectors which have driven very succinctly market dimensioning all within this same 30 year period.

I hear the agency was set up by three friends, Udeme, Julia and Sagay, three very vision driven young people. I send my hearty cheers and do wish them another thirty years of dutiful engagement with the markets.

Elvina Ibru and Okafor’s Laws

That was how my big sister, Ruth Osime, once again invited me to her very powerful programme ‘Perspectives.’ This time to discuss Okafor’s law and brought my everlasting crush, the very beautiful Elvina Ibru. The topic was very engaging and pulled in a lot of viewers. Okafor’s law has been with us for generations and it simply says – once you have had a woman you will always have her again. As expected, the debate was heated and as the only man in the room with three super beautiful, super gorgeous women, I was defeated. In my heart of hearts, I know that Okafor’s law stands and will stand forever but the bewitching beauty of Elvina, Ruth and Oniru weakened me as I was not up to my usual top-notch performance.

I ask for a rematch.