FEATURE ARTICLE

Temple Chima UbochiThursday, October 1, 2015
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TOO MUCH NOISE AND NO ACTION:
NOT THE BEST WAY TO FIGHT CORRUPTTION (5)

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Continued from Part 4

Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions (William James)

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it; Begin it now (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor (Albert Camus)

uhari's visit to New York, to address the UN General Assembly, was a disgrace. The President ended up disgracing himself and the country. Tell me why the whole world would be discussing an issue concerning Nigeria, and our president or any Nigerian representative would be absent? What does that say about us? Definitely, as unserious people! While the United Nations held an event, on Friday, September 25, appealing for help for millions of people in the Lake Chad Basin region, who were forced to flee the violence of Boko Haram, and were hit with repeated droughts and floods, that have brought malnutrition and disease, Nigeria was absent. Reuters wrote that "But while the radical Islamist militants operate out of Nigeria and U.N. aid chief Stephen O'Brien said that is where most people have been displaced by their attacks, Nigeria did not send anyone to the United Nations event. U.S. and European Union diplomats said they were disappointed that Nigeria did not attend the event chaired by O'Brien on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly". Can anybody tell me why the delegation to the United Nations missed the meeting to discuss and proffer solution to the problems of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria? That was the height of irresponsibility, and no matter what the presidency does or how it tries to justify this blunder, nobody will buy it. The presidency is telling us that the delegation didn't have the capacity to participate in all the meetings that simultaneously happened in and around the General Assembly in New York, and, that the said meeting, on IDPs, was not one of the official events of the United Nations for which President Muhammadu Buhari and his delegation were in New York for. What a lame excuse! The president left with about 22 persons; even if he couldn't make it to all the meetings, why didn't he delegate a member of the delegation to represent Nigeria, rather than being absent and portraying Nigeria as a not serious country? Even if Buhari justifies his absence during a very important event on Boko Haram and internally displaced persons (IDPs), what will he tell us as the reason he was also prevented from meeting with Pope Francis, because he was late and used the wrong gate? We learnt that the Pope delivered a speech at the general assembly on Friday, September 25 at 10am. Not only was Buhari made to come in late to the meeting because of untidy arrangements, he also took a wrong gate rather than the one reserved for presidents and heads of state. He was subsequently prevented from seeing the Pope by security operatives, because of his late arrival. Buhari came in while other presidents and heads of government had already lined up to shake hands with the Pope, and he was prevented by security operatives from joining in. What a shame! Do you see that "one can't eat his cake and still have it"; all these blunders happened because there's no foreign affairs minister yet, otherwise, he would have delegated responsibilities, and somebody would have taken care of the president's itinerary in New York. Buhari is reaping what he sowed; he thinks he can be the sole administrator of Nigeria (ruling alone). I think those who called Nigeria a zoo republic are right; maybe we need the veterinary doctors to take over the control of that country. IBBG wrote that this government is not serious at all. How will the international community ever respect or take us serious. Just when we think we have seen it all with the last administration in terms of ineptitude and cluelessness. This administration even takes it further raising the bar of cluelessness even higher. Embarrassment seems to trail every international engagement the presidency has with advance countries.

Now, we are reading that members of President Buhari's delegation to the United Nations General Assembly have accused Prof. Joy Ogwu, Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the UN, of sabotaging President Muhammadu Buhari's participation, citing glaring missteps that have embarrassed the delegation and undermined Nigeria's work. Now, the saboteurs are accusing another person of having sabotaged them. Saharareporters reports that the accusation follows curious circumstances in which Nigeria missed two key events, putting its leadership on the spot. The first was a Boko Haram response event chaired by a UN Under-Secretary Mike O'Brien, which Buhari missed completely. The Nigeria leader also missed a meeting with the Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis, because of his late arrival to the meeting, the bizarre circumstances of which are only just being understood. We learnt that the delegation also missed at least two other events and has had a difficult time securing full participation in the very important 70th Assembly. These are the un-necessary, flimsy and laughable excuses put up by the presidency: Saharareporters reports that "In the case of the Boko Haram event, the sources told our reporter that it was never put on President Buhari's calendar by the Nigerian mission. Regarding the event with the Pope, Buhari missed it because when he came down from his hotel suite, there was no car to take him to the meeting. When he decided to walk to the event with his entourage, he was taken by Nigerian mission officials to the wrong gate, where they were denied entry by security agents. Buhari then walked back to his hotel where, when he got on the elevator, the mission finally brought a car to take him to see the Pope. Sources say when he made that second trip in the Mission's car, he was again driven to yet another wrong gate and the delegation was turned back". Do you see how a president of a country was walking about without any sense of direction in this modern era? Ms. Joy Ogwu might have been denied access to Buhari by his close knitted aides; may be, she didn't get the chance to meet the president to explain things to him, as the president and his aides "know it all"; may be, there was nothing Prof. Ogwu could have done differently.

There were even more blunders in New York than were first reported:

On September 27: an attempt by the delegation to attend a side meeting where Nigeria was to have declared its support for the "Commitment to Gender Equality" initiative almost failed, as it was alleged that the Nigerian Mission failed to provide any secondary party to facilitate the Nigerian delegation's participation. It took the intervention of the Chinese mission to help former member of house of reps Abike Dabiri and other delegates to get into the event.

On September 28: members of the Nigerian delegation, led by the governor of Niger State, again were denied access to another important event, "EveryWoman, EveryChild," because of poor organization.

Also on September 29: As Buhari prepared to speak at the UN, the delegation also hit a major hitch, as the Mission did not process tickets for all members of the delegation to get into the event. Only President Buhari and a few members of his protocol team were accredited to get in the venue. Saharareporters alleges that it was when Buhari finally got upset about it that Prof. Ogwu went out and processed acoustic tickets to enable a larger number of delegates to attend the event. Even, there were empty seats everywhere in the UN Hall when Buhari was addressing the body.

Apart from the fiasco with accreditation and general conference management, the members of the delegation were also not provided food in their hotel rooms as is the tradition. Instead, they were made to eat at a buffet at the Mission. According to his aides, President Buhari refused to go to the buffet. According to the report by Saharareporters, "A UN observer said it all and to the point, when he "blamed President Buhari for the mess. He berated the president for his delay in appointing ministers, saying it is the major reason his UN trip is "failing miserably". And, one retired Nigerian diplomat told Saharareporters "he hopes President Buhari has seen the folly in relying on unsupervised civil servants, since he came to power, to run the affairs of state".

Meanwhile, On September 26, at the Millennium Plaza Hotel, New York, President Muhammadu Buhari held a secret meeting with former president Olusegun Obasanjo, bordering on Saraki matter. Why is Obasanjo following Buhari up and down? When Buhari went for the AU summit, Obasanjo and Abdulsalami surfaced there; now that Buhari was in New York, Obasanjo trailed him to that place. What did they discuss in New York that can't be discussed at home?

Buhari and his delegation are just looking for somebody to blame for their blunders. Buhari is not the first president to attend a UN function in New York with Ms. Joy Ogwu as Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the UN, and such blunders never occurred. Ms. Joy Ogwu has been at the UN for Nigeria since the tenure of Yar'Adua. Yar'Adua was at the UN more than once; and Goodluck Jonathan was also at the UN more than once, and Ms. Joy Ogwu was at the UN for Nigeria all these times, and none of the two presidents accused her of sabotage or dereliction of duty. Why Buhari now? That's the point; somebody who doesn't take advice or heed of warnings, always makes mistakes. Buhari thinks that he's clever, but, he's not. He thinks he can rule alone. There's a reason why the constitution stipulates that ministers should be appointed to help a president discharge his duty, but, Buhari thinks he is wiser than the drafters of the constitution. If a foreign minister is in place, these blunders could have been avoided. There's a limit to what Ms. Ogwu, as a diplomat, can do; she can't usurp the duties or powers of the foreign minister, who was supposed to be her boss. She did her best within the confines of her duties and responsibilities; nobody should expect her to cross the Rubicon in terms of what her duties should be. When nobody's incharge, what does one expects? It serves Buhari right; I hope he will learn from now on! The point is that somebody wants Ms. Joy Ogwu's job, and it has been alleged that Abike Dabiri, the former member of the House of Representatives, has been penciled down as the next Nigerian Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

https://www.thetrentonline.com/how-buharis-foreign-trip-fumbles-may-be-hurting-nigerias-economy-read/

On Sunday, September 27, in New York, President Buhari also met with President Xi Jinping of China on the sidelines of the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations, where he reiterated his determination to prosecute oil thieves soon, and to fully sanitize Nigeria's oil industry and make it free of corruption and shady deals. On his part, Jinping told Buhari that China, which is already involved in Nigeria in diverse areas like railway, airports, agriculture, and in the Mambilla Hydro-power project, among others, will increase its investment in the country's agricultural sector to support the achievement of domestic food security. It's unfortunately that Nigeria lost its food self sufficiency of the 1960s and 70s due to the over-reliance on easy wealth from oil. Nigeria earned the whole oil money and achieved nothing with it, and that's why we are only a consuming economy and importers of everything. We produce rice and the Chinese would buy it up, send it to their country, process it, and bring it back to us as finished product, and we pay heavily for that; we produce cassava, the Chinese would buy it up, send it to China, process it into biscuits or noodles, and bring them back to us, and we pay high prices for them; we produced palm oil, cocoa, groundnuts etc, and other countries bought them, from us, at take away prices, take them to their countries, process them into finished products, and send them to us, and we pay high prices for them. Even when these our produce are processed in Nigeria by the multi-national companies, these companies repatriate their profits to their home countries, using Nigeria, its resources, and its cheap work force for the economic development of their home countries, making Nigeria the figurative hen that lays the golden eggs it never enjoys. China is now the new colonial master; the construction, oil and gas, rail sectors are being dominated now by the Chinese. The point is that the defeat of corruption is not the only thing that can bring development in Nigeria, but, self sufficiency and economic independence. Read the attached to the end to get the points (don't get weary in the middle of it; get to the end to get the points):

https://247ureports.com/much-ado-about-corruption-by-nneoma-obiageli-igwegbe/

The latest is that the list of ministers compiled by President Buhari has been submitted to the Senate. President Buhari, who is currently attending the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly, is said to have given the list of 36 Ministers to Senator Ita Enang in New York and directed him to forward it to the Senate. We will be watching and waiting!

To be continued!

TIT BITS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCw1k0p-FDM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE4WokN5Z6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOo2nor4Lbc

THE THANX IS ALL YOURS!!!

Continued from Part 4

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