BJ is laughing! I am laughing!! Nigerians are all laughing!!! I am laughing because the so called consensus candidate of the North lost even in his own Northern state and did not get up to 50% of the votes of all Northern Nigeria delegates put together! As for OBJ, I think he is laughing - perhaps cackling and bragging now - because of his own animosity towards Atiku Abubakar and their dirty, yet unfinished business. OBJ must be feeling on top of the world when the results of the presidential primary of their dare-devil political party reached him. There is no doubt Atiku is undeserving of ruling Nigeria and I am sure he will never ever rule Nigeria. He is not qualified to and he lacks what it takes to do so. Atiku has no character and he is the worst example of a leader you can have. If Nigeria is moving further and further down the abyss and into a dystopia, then Atiku might be the man for the job of president. My gut feeling tells me Atiku might try to beg for a presidential ticket somewhere else or even set up his own one-man political party so as to contest the presidential election anyway. He has the loot and the attitude to do so. He is a desperate man and we all know oil is still flowing from Nigeria's oil fields, and oil is all it takes for any lowlife to thirst and dream about a presidential ambition. But for Atiku Abubakar this will be a very elusive dream; he will never come close and eventually be brought and forced to render full account for his years as vice president and for the various money transfers to his third wife in the United States during his years as OBJ's vice president.

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The consensus issue is what interests me so much. How is it that a few in the North and from the Northern Oligarchy are able to select one person and make him the North's consensus candidate? Beside the attitude of entitlement and the justification of it, we wonder how the few greedy and powerful, yet self-appointed leaders of the North came by the conclusion that Atiku Abubakar is the man to be pushed forward. Newspapers reported that the men of the Oligarchy selected Mr. Abubakar after "consultation" with all the regions. Mr. Atiku Abubakar was said to have defeated the spent force and former dictator Ibrahim Babangida. The evil one seemed to have accepted his defeat in good faith and quickly returned to Minna and obscurity. The Northern Political Leaders' Forum (NPLF) under the leadership of Mr. Adamu Ciroma, a huge beneficiary of Nigeria's oil wealth, came up with Abubakar after what was described as a "prolonged meeting." You wonder how a "meeting" can turn up a candidate. Abubakar was said to have been chosen by "wise men." It is beginning to look like these self-appointed wise men lacked wisdom. How do you explain the fact that it was a "Consensus Committee" of the Northern Oligarchy's NPLF that came up with the endorsement of Abubakar? Members of the committee were commended by the secretary of the NPLF for "their sacrifice, their patriotism (obviously to a Northern Agenda), their commitment and their integrity." NPLF's Consensus Committee Secretary Mr. Bello Abdulkadir added that members of the Consensus Committee "have made an important contribution to the unity and stability of this country." Selecting a consensus candidate for the North has suddenly become a contribution to the nation of Nigeria? Please don't make me laugh because this is nothing but ridiculous and stupid. There is no unity in Nigeria and Nigeria needs much more than being united today; we probably need to part company as ethnic nationalities forcefully put together by the British. I would have preferred a referendum taking place in Nigeria today like what is taking place in Sudan now. You get the impression that the NPLF felt it was doing the rest of us - the Ibo, Katafs, Uhrobos, Ilajes, Yoruba, Ijaw, etc. - a favour by hand-picking a consensus candidate. But that is the problem with the Oligarchy, the same group of men who have over-eaten, grabbed, looted, and over-benefited from the oil resources of the South, and it makes you wonder if these people are not over-deluded, ignorant or stupid. Or even all of the above. When the chips are down they all know in the NPLF that the North cannot sustain itself without the oil from the South. Most of the top notches in the Oligarchy have no other means of livelihood beside oil or oil related businesses. They are not producing anything, they have no industries and they are liabilities to their communities, essentially cost centres rather than generating resources that will bring in revenue.

What happened at the national convention of the PDP just proved that the "wise men" of the Oligarchy are bereft of wisdom and lacked understanding. The man they selected as the Consensus candidate of the North, Mr. Abubakar lost in his own state! He only recorded 31 out of the 107 votes from Adamawa State, which translated into 33%. 33% is a poor mark for any candidate and it meant the candidate failed woefully despite being a consensus candidate. Kaduna is one of the most important Northern state the Northern Oligarchy considered their base and key city, but even there Abubakar lost. He took only 31 as against 82 for Jonathan, a mere 35%one of the votes of delegates from Kaduna! Where were the Oligarchy and their wisdom? How about Nasarawa, Katsina and Jigawa? Abubakar only got just 8 votes (5%) to Jonathan's 53(95%) in Nasarawa. His total was 11 votes (17%) in Katsina State compared to Jonathan's 147 votes (83%) Abubakar was also routed in Jigawa State where he polled 17 votes representing 20% of the votes cast from that state. Where were the Northern Oligarchy and their noisy leaders like Adamu Ciroma? Those who anointed Atiku Abubakar were either paper-weight leaders or empty barrels. They surely live in the past; they still think and feel like this is the Nigeria of the seventies when they did as they pleased and rode roughshod over the Nigerian nation and held the nation captive for their own financial gains only. But all that is changing and we look forward to that time when the regions of the Nigerian nation will be separated and independent of one another. With the failure to find crude oil in commercial or any reasonable quantity in the North it appears the Oligarchy are reluctantly realizing their future is bleak without the rest of the Nigerian nation, and there is little to look forward to in the coming decades if the nation split into four or more parts.

A consensus candidate handpicked by a few men who are absolutely out of touch with reality and who are after personal gains has shown that not much has changed in the Northern part of Nigeria. It has exposed the region has still very much backward and right under the firm grip of a group of men who assumed some semblance of relevance in the past when the North controlled the nation through the barrel of the gun. The men of the Oligarchy are so used to dictatorship and have become very dictatorial in the way they deal with the rest of us and the nation that having their way, coercion, intimidation and the mentality of sole administrator and "ownership" has remained part of them. All we need to do is imagine the false pride and attitude of favour when the Secretary of the Consensus Committee of the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) Mr. Bello Abdulkadir told the nation that Consensus Committee of his group have rendered invaluable "service to the nation"! The rest of the nation should also be grateful to the Oligarchy and the North for its decision to impose Atiku Abubakar on us, which of course they consider as a huge service towards "the unity and stability of this country"!

The Northern Oligarchy lives in a world of denial. They bark at us all expecting us to jump as usual, but that will never happen again and they must get used to that before it is too late. Rather than maximize the voting strength of the PDP delegates to the advantage of an anointed candidate, it actually did the opposite since many in the North are questioning the authority and the right of the likes of Adamu Ciroma and his co-travelers to impose candidates on them. Where is the freedom and free will to chose and exercise your franchise?

The claim that the North do not want its votes split into bits at the national convention of the PDP did not hold water with most of the people in the Northern Region. Most know the kind of man Atiku Abubakar is and do not want him any where near Aso Rock. They hold the view that Atiku was with OBJ for eight years and made very intangible contribution despite having so much free hand, control and direct responsibility over many federal ministries and agencies. Imposing one man on the rest of the North without going through a fair and democratic process is bound to fail and lead to shame. That shame has come and today it goes to Mr. Adamu Ciroma and his co-travelers who live in the past and who are extremely irrelevant to the Nigeria of today and the Nigeria of the future - if it continue to exist! Something noteworthy and glaring in the voting pattern is the spanking delivered to the consensus candidate by the minorities in the North represented by three Middle Belt states of Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa. Atiku Abubakar won 5 votes (4%) in Plateau, 15 votes (13%) in Benue, and 8 votes (5%) in Nasarawa. Their message was clear: we are our own men and are not subject to the control of the Northern Oligarchy, and such nonsense is in the past we very much want to forget it and move on without the Oligarchy.

For how long will the people fold their arms and watch the Oligarchy do as they please and use the military to subdue everyone and to loot the nation? The days of the Oligarchy and Atiku Abubakar are over in Nigeria. The time has come for the Nigerian people to insist on merit and merit only in the scheme of things; enough of the Quota System and such primitive policies that give undue advantage to the North. It is the very primitive policies like the Quota System that deny the brilliant men and women of Southern origin from securing university admission and jobs that often always go to Northerners who come with poor WAEC results and equally poor and inferior certificates.