Loudwhisper With JOSEPH EDGAR

Oby Ezekwesili: Bandits in Government

Our Mummy granted a very touching interview to hoarse-voiced Seun – the Channels TV anchor, but this time on his private podcast. The matter this time was on Baba Tinubu’s new toys.

My people, the hurried acquisitions of these things – yacht, The Beast, the presidential jet and let’s also add the renovation of the vice president’s official apartment continues to rile Nigerians.

Last week, I wrote very bitterly against it and then during the week, I stumbled on this beautiful interview on the matter.

Mummy did not mince words; she was unequivocal about the insensitivity of the matter and said her mind truly and assuredly.

The insensitivity of it all cannot be described in English. Let me try and describe it in Ibibio – mkporo atebe tutu. Please ask the nearest Ibibio man to leave his afang and interpret it for you.

This apart, mummy spoke very eloquently about her stay in government and in response to the queries she always gets regarding her being part of government at some point. She stated that, “…as minister, I did not touch… one money they kept for ministers.” She even went ahead to call her perm sec’s name and asked us to go and ask him if she touched that money for one day.

My sister, as you rightly said, it’s the dawn of the bandits. You have rightly labelled the crop we now are saddled with and only God will save us from these ones.

This na wetin dem dey call – pestilence. Yes, that is what we are facing in Nigeria today as a swarm of locusts have evaded leadership. Sad.

 Amaka Patience: A Loose Cannon in Canada

This one must be on some kind of mind numbing drugs or how else do you explain her tirade? She was alleged to have called for the mass poisoning of Yoruba and Bini people. This concerns me because I have wives from the two tribes. Why she singled out my in-laws to annihilate is riling me up.

People who gladly gave me wives and whose blood my children carry, na him this big faced muppet is saying they should poison.

Thankfully, my great Aunty Abike Dabiri has revealed her identity and I hear that the House of Representatives has demanded her prosecution. In return, she has been reported to have said that nothing will happen to her as a Canadian. You see how delusional she can be? So, Canadians who push for mass killings are immune to prosecution?

The problem is not even on her alone but the people who keep pushing this ethnic hate on social media. When you join some WhatsApp groups, you will see very respectfully educated and enlightened people forwarding ethnic diatribes and when you engage them, they will say “Oh, I did not write it, I just forwarded it.”

The result is that when thin-brained hermaphrodites like this Aunty swallow all those jargons, they get “zombie” and the next thing is bile from their mouths.

Nigeria’s unity cannot be compromised. In our diversity we find our strength and on one Nigeria we must all stand.

The fact that we have been bedevilled by a political class who cannot remove their noses from the collective pot of porridge does not mean that we must divide ourselves on the basis of tribe and ethnicity.

This woman must be made to face the full wrath of the law whether Canadian or not for this is a serious crime against humanity, if it is proven that she actually said those things.

She should please leave my Yoruba and Bini people alone oo. They form part of the very beautiful colours of our diverse ethnic colouration abeg.

Seyi Tinubu: On Wahala He Stands

Bro just likes controversies sha. Last week, the picture of him sitting behind “Gbaja” circulated and raised a few eyebrows.

It was at the swearing-in of Justice Kekere-Ekun as the new Chief Justice of Nigeria that we saw bro sitting at the back and stroking his beards as the proceedings went on. The hue and cry that came out of that image was unimaginable. A few voices were in his support but the majority were like, “Do we have an acting president?”

For me, I really don’t care if he decides to even give us a national broadcast on October 1, or he goes and sits beside his father at the United Nations. My own is the body language.

I don’t like the way he sat, abeg. He sat like say na “him get us.” Like say he was monitoring the whole thing to make sure it went on as he wanted it. The posture was condescending to Nigerians and looked as if any minute now, he would jump up and stop the ceremony because madam did not pronounce one word well.

I think bro should just calm down. This thing no hard as it looks. We have had first sons, first daughters and first children but this one is looking like Absalom kind of first son.

Bro, let’s be a little bit more demure. Let’s not add more stress to daddy’s government. If daddy loves you so much that he cannot tell you some of these things, give me an appointment and let me come and tell you.

The idea is to be seen less, push more humanitarian gestures and silently work from the back. The visibility is too much bro. It’s just too much. No vex, if nobody will tell you, I am telling you. Thanks.

CharterHouse Lagos: Much Ado About Something

The headlines screamed N42million per annum and Nigerians went mad. School fees? Oh my God! These people want to perpetuate this state capture by building educational enclaves that would produce next level oppressors. The attack on social media and in the country was mad and wild. What kind of school is that and what would they be teaching? people asked. How many Nigerians can afford to send their children to that kind of school?

The school had to react very quickly. They issued a statement signed by John Todd, the founding Head of School who said, “Oh, we are not charging that much o, we are charging N26million per annum.”

This calmed the storm a little bit as Nigerians moved on to other more pressing things like the police labelling the NLC president a terrorist.

But this thing did not leave me. I am passionate about quality education. So, I reached out to them, to ask them a very simple question- mbok what exactly you would be teaching and which kind of facility do you have in place that would make you boldly even charge the lesser N26million that you are talking about?

They in turn invited me to the school like they did other such media people and concerned Nigerians and I must say that what I saw on the 70-hectare campus was mind-boggling.

Don’t let me talk much just yet, I am still trying to assimilate the things I saw and when I am through, you guys know me na, I will open up and talk.

But for now, my question is – since they are starting with just primary and with no boarding at that level, how will people who can afford them and who live in the places that we know that they live be able to commute daily from those places to the far-out area the school is located?

Well, people like us who are struggling with transport fare to the free education within metropolitan Lagos are worrying for people who will soon purchase helicopters to ferry their children to and from this wonderful school. Na wa.

Dino Melaye: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Taking a short break from showing us his garage filled with “Tokunbo” luxury cars, eccentric politician, Dino Melaye, took time out to talk very spiritedly.

This his serious engagements are rare, far and in-between, so once he sits to talk, I listen. He has been quoted to have said that his party, the PDP, which is the main opposition party today in our country has been commercialised, privatised and rendered ineffective. He ended it by saying that the party is a “has been”.

The only thing remaining now is for us to now hire undertakers to give it a befitting burial.

I agree totally. The party has been in the doldrums since it lost power after Jonathan, and this cannot be very difficult to ascertain why.

It goes straight into the scandal that is party funding. You see that the party in government leans very heavily on public funds to survive and maintain hegemony and where it loses that hold on power, its funding dries up or at best becomes epileptic.

That is the main problem with PDP. Every other thing is just a close cousin to it and this is why you see the croaky voiced one doing all that he could do then as an oil rich state governor.  He played Emperor and “scattered” the whole place, and why he is still fighting tooth and nail to “puppeteer” the sitting governor so that access to public funds will remain assured.

This shame is not only that of PDP but also that of all parties in this country including the ruling one. Once no access to public funds, no party. Simple.

So, my brother Dino, your assertion is not rocket science but a mere statement of the obvious. PDP is dead. Simple.

Akin Osuntokun: Juju Man Speaks

Some of you will now think that I am calling this bros Juju Man. Noooo, I am drawing the title of this piece from the very powerful article he wrote last Friday as carried on the back page of THISDAY.

The man catalogued all the Juju that is happening inside Aso Rock. He made some revelations that remain eternally scary. He talked about officials losing their children, predicted fire incidents and the scariest, the failed attempt to exchange his own life with the life of another person’s child.

My people, I have been naïve o. I have always believed that most of our politicians used to just go to church and mosque o, not knowing that there is a fetish epidemic inside the circle. I would have just carried my head and enter politics naked. Kai, they would have just killed my manhood, turned me into a “dodoyo” and finally zombified me, buried me in a shallow grave and they would now all come to my funeral and be singing “till we meet again.”

Thank you so much my brother Akin, this your write up has made me rethink very seriously my political ambitions because I doubt if I would be able to drink blood, sleep with a goat, masturbate to a corpse or eat the testicles of a camel to win elections at  Shomolu local government.

Our politicians, I really doff my hat to you guys, and you guys can lie. Kai, every politician I have met from ex-heads of state to the councillor in my ward, I used to ask them- do you do juju, and they will look me square in the eye and say  “hold one thing o.” Me, I hold Jesus or I hold the Almighty Allah.

All of you are just liars but what else would you expect? Do you expect someone who has just been sucking the dried-up breast of a 100 year-old witch in a grove to come out and say so, because Duke has asked him a question?

Kai, I was really really stupid. Brother Akin, God bless you. When you are ready, please come and let me buy you afang. I won’t however eat with you o, you will eat your own separate and far from me, because you don live for that Aso Rock and we no too sure again. Kai.

Tigress: Sad Tale of Olympic Heroes

While looking for what to write, I just stumbled on a post by Abi Olajuwon – our basketball heroines have not been paid their salaries and allowances despite the historic feat of reaching the Olympic quarter finals something no other team in Africa, male or female has achieved.

You see, this post if true just confirms my position that government should stay clear of sports.

I had taken this my position to Aunty Ruth Osime’s TV show penultimate Saturday to shout it.

You see, as long as government keeps funding sports, its devils of red tape, corruption and the rest must come with it and this is why we are borrowing bicycles and our athletes are running the Olympics with no underwears and begging for food to eat at the place.

We should by now be tired of all these shenanigans of unpaid allowances, officials being much more than athletes and all of that.

Let the sporting associations be independently run. Let them source their funding so that accountability and transparency will reign and this will impact on our athletes and sports men.

Meanwhile, while waiting for reforms, can the Minister of Sports, Mr. Eno please send a letter of request to my brother Mr. Theo John Phillips, he has agreed to cover all outstanding. Shame

Oluranti Salami: An Orphan Joins the Race

This young boy wants to be the Chairman of Ikenne local government in Ogun State. He has no real resources, no godfather and no real structure. In fact, with this local government autonomy which would allow local governments fiscal independence, the interest in that tier of government has increased.

So, this young lad jumping into the fray is like throwing a lamb into a hungry lion’s den. Mad abi? As I speak with him, I see raw energy in his eyes, I see the passion of youth and the confidence that comes with the virility of the unexposed

I am supporting him even though I know that this would be an almost impossible task but then again, we cannot just fall down and die.

These are the kinds of things that make for a remarkable story. A story of grit, raw determination and an assiduous push towards victory.

Let’s work really hard and push very hard, this story might just be one of those rare stories of courage and victory. Amen.

General Richard Duru: Still on the Matter

I sha like reminding Nigerians of this matter, especially when it looks like we have all forgotten about it. We have still not heard anything from or about this Nigerian hero since he was kidnapped.

All sorts of conflicting stories from the authorities and now it’s been radio silence. Has he been released, killed, or deported? Nothing o. Radio silence.

The last we heard was that he had been killed but the authorities had come out to refute it, and after that it was siesta.

Please one last time, where is General Richard Duru? Na beg. Thank you.

Segun Ogunsanya: Back to the Beat

A lot of people have not heard of the Nigerian Sovereign Investments Authority (NSIA). Those who have heard really do not care about it or what it was set up to do.

For those who know and are interested, appointments to this very powerful structure are watched with very keen interest

The NSIA under my brother, Uche Orji, has achieved quite remarkably its vision of supporting the government in infrastructural development and also in building liquid and near liquid investment assets for the country.

One of its most remarkable achievements is the world renowned Cancer Centre at LUTH.

Since Orji left, I had lost interest in it for fear that the usual Nigerian ‘thing’ will enter the matter.

What has bedevilled most of such institutions in this our country is the ‘na me, na me’ syndrome where appointments have been made through very dark and smelly processes.

In fact, this present administration has been a poster boy for such smelly appointments.

So you can imagine my shock when I heard that my egbon Segun Ogunsanya has been appointed Chairman of the institution.

Which Segun o? I asked. Is it the same one I saw in my brother Jallo Waziri’s house and who sat down there and was advising me on how to go and beg Chief Afe Babalola who had threatened me with “arrest.”

Is it the same Segun who came for my Play – Gowon with Segun Awolowo and Otunba Bimbo Ashiru and who I took to the green room to go and sit with Chief Anyaoku and Mr. Louis Mbanefo, SAN while waiting to wade through the crowd to their seats?

If it is the same Segun, then I can confidently say that this is one appointment that has hit target as Segun is reputed to be one of the most adroit of professionals we have ever produced.

His work at Airtel is there to attest and I am sure he will be bringing that huge experience of managing such a massive global structure to the NSIA

My only regret is that I allowed him enter on a complimentary ticket. Kai, very painful but I will catch him, not a problem. Congrats sir.