ACN feedback

By Donu Kogbara
LAST week, I angrily accused the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, of treachery, inconsistency, religious insensitivity and political parochialism.

This tirade was largely motivated by the fact that various Rivers people, including my cousin Kenneth Kobani (the ACN’s former National Treasurer), have told me that they joined the ACN in good faith before the 2011 election but eventually resigned because they felt disrespected.

[caption id="attachment_380079" align="alignnone" width="412"] From left: Aremo Osoba, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) Chief Akande, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Malla Nuhu Ribadu, Senator Lawal Shuaibu and others ACN, members at the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) National Convention held at Onikan Stadium, Lagos Island. on 18/04/2013. Photo: Bunmi Azeez[/caption]

Most of the Vanguard readers who reacted to my comments shared my view that the ACN can be amorally pragmatic and has not invested much energy in winning support outside Yorubaland. Much to my surprise, a couple of senior ACN members contacted me to say that they felt that I had been truthful.

Only two people, including Kayode Fayemi, the Governor of Ekiti State, objected to my criticisms. And Fayemi is so articulate and well-intentioned that I’ve concluded, on reflection, that I should be more balanced and say that the ACN is, despite its shortcomings, a credible organisation that contains quite a few impressive individuals who intelligently challenge the status quo and quite rightly highlight the multiple failures of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

This desire to be fair also compels me to praise the ACN Governors who visited Rivers State last week - for sensibly advising their embattled colleague, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, to reach out to President Jonathan in a bid to actively seek a lasting solution to the crisis that has engulfed our state in recent months.

Even PDP stalwarts such as Dr Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant (Public Affairs) to Mr President, have commended Fayemi, Fashola, et al, for being laudably statesmanlike on that occasion.

Having said all this, I cannot resist the temptation of making a naughty little observation concerning Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the famously overbearing and nepotistic ACN leader, who recently inspired grumbles from bona fide traders when he appointed his daughter, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, to replace his late mother as Head of the Lagos Market Women’s Association.

I laughed heartily when I heard this story because I strongly suspect that the only marketing experiences with which Mrs Tinubu-Ojo is truly familiar revolve around fancy foreign retail outlets like Harrods (an exclusive London department store that is frequented by folks who are way too rich to worry about boring stuff like the price of a tomato or yam!).

What A Guy!

THE Minister of State for Health, Dr. Muhammed Pate, has just resigned from the Cabinet to take up a Professorship in the United States. He will work for Duke University’s Global Health Institute and also serve as a Senior Adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is based in Washington DC.

I salute this fine gentleman for being so different from the average Nigerian. While others are scrambling to drop perfectly adequate foreign jobs, so they can come home to enjoy the ridiculously numerous perks that are lavished on Nigerian government officials, Pate is going in the opposite direction.

In America, he will not be treated like a demi-god. Nor will he have access to billions of dollars worth of ill-gotten gains or be allowed to get away with performing lousily. He will have to cope with a finite salary and will be addressed like a normal human being and will be expected to achieve good results.

I wish this paragon of integrity maximum success in his new job.

Stop child molesters!

AHMAD Sani Yerima, a serving Senator, sharia law advocate and former Governor of Zamfara State, has gone all out to prevent his National Assembly colleagues from setting a minimum age for marriage (from a female perspective).

According to Yerima, it is  “un-Islamic” for the Nigerian Government to tell Muslim males and females what they can and cannot do on the marital front..

I’ve read many passionate condemnations of Yerima’s perverted views in the past few days; and the best article I’ve seen so far was written by the former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, in this newspaper (check it out via Google).

In the meantime, I just want to firmly assure anyone who is willing to listen that any grown man who wants to have sex with innocent little girls has a sick, twisted mind and urgently needs psychiatric treatment and a jail term.

Yerima married his driver’s early adolescent daughter and is determined to force the rest of us to regard this abomination as “normal “ and “acceptable”.

Even in diehard Islamic societies, there are men who are not remotely interested in sleeping with minors and parents who share my view that it is our sacred duty as adults to protect youngsters from salivating paedophiles.

God will punish this unrepentant destroyer of innocence…and the fellow legislators who do not have the guts to tell him to go to Hell...! A Vanguard reader made the following comment:

“Please give the female Nigerian child a pen not a penis. Concentrate on her books, not her boobs. Pay her school fees, not bride price. She needs education, not ejaculation….”

I couldn’t agree more!

 

Attack on Govs: Hold Jonathan responsible ... - ACN

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has asked Nigerians to hold President Goodluck Jonathan responsible if the country slides into anarchy as a result of the worsening crisis in Rivers state.

Reacting to the reported attack on the four Governors who visited Gov. Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, the party said in a statement issued on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Oro, Kwara State, that the attack that took place under President Jonathan's watch is unprecedented in the country's history.

''We will not accept the usual sophistry that President Jonathan is not in any way involved in the Rivers crisis. It is also not an excuse to argue that the President did not know that the visiting Governors will be

[caption id="attachment_241538" align="alignnone" width="412"] President Jonathan[/caption]

attacked, because as the country's Chief Security Officer, he has his ears and eyes all over the country in the persons of security agents. Therefore, if the argument is that he did not know of the attack, then he is not on top of his game,'' it said.

ACN wondered when it became a sin for any Nigerian, including elected officials, to visit any part of the country as the Governors did, saying there can be no justification other than organized political rascality for a group of paid hoodlums to invade a secure environment like the airport and pelt the convoy bearing the Governors with all sorts of objects.

The party wondered why the Police could not provide adequate security for the visiting state chief executives and restrained the hired scallywags from their audacious action.

''Would the police have allowed tramps to attack the Governors if they were visiting the President? Would the police in Rivers have allowed vagrants to act freely if those visiting Port Harcourt had come in solidarity with the five renegade members of the State House of Assembly? The unprofessional behaviour of the police in Rivers is the reason that Nigerians have accused the state police command of bias and called for the re-deployment of its 'political' Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu.

''The visiting Governors were right to have visited their Rivers' counterpart, in the face of the siege on him by renegades being teleguided from higher quarters. They are right to have expressed solidarity with Gov. Amaechi, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum. We salute the Governors as true patriots and the real sustainers of our Constitution, and we demand appropriate sanctions for those whose dereliction of duty put the Governors' lives in danger,'' it said.

ACN repeated its earlier warning against any contrived crisis in any part of the country as a way of pushing the country into a perpetual state of chaos, thus ensuring there will be no elections in 2015.

''The politics of 2015 cannot be removed from what is happening in Rivers. We have had cause to warn Nigerians to be vigilant against those who will foment trouble where there is none, just to put in abeyance the
2015 elections, especially where the emerging signals point to the fact that they will be rejected by voters. Those who are afraid of free and fair elections in 2015 will do anything to prevent one. Therefore, we are repeating our call on all Nigerians to be vigilant, because eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'' the party said.
editor