FROM AN AMERICAN TO NIGERIANS: MY TAKES ON YOUR 2007 TRANSITION

By: Al Clinton, USA

I am an American – Caucasian, suburban, center-left, and ‘Afro-philian’. The last one means simply that I love Africans (and Nigerians) to the point that I married one from central Nigeria. We are a happy couple with three wonderful kids that I like to adorn in rich Nigerian fabrics, take to Nigerian balls, feed Nigerian dishes (no pepper, though) and I have taken them to Nigeria four times in a row. My children bear American as well as Nigerian names and I would like them to be accepted as Nigerians of full blood and given as much opportunity as everyone else, including the opportunity to be president someday – which, by the way, is a desire burning deep inside the innocent soul of my first son, who fancies himself being the first Obama of Nigeria. So, with this kind of attachment to the country of my wife’s birth, I am naturally a sucker for everything Nigerian – the food, the music, the laughter, the oil windfalls, and of course, the needless running battle Nigerians are having with each other over matters coming out of their 2007 elections (which I like to see more as an historic transition). That means that I have read it all or almost all – the Blogs and hardcopies, but certainly enough to form some strong opinions to the point of feeling pretty confident to share same with my in-laws on the national scale. Trust me, I don’t mean to hurt anybody; I write from the heart - no malice, no fear, no favor, no bull –well, now that you get it, below is the rest of the story.

Regarding whether Nigerians held an election or not, I am convinced that they did. If they did not hold an election, then they held a peaceful transition, which is somewhat enough for majority of Americans, especially our black folks who are sick and tired of hearing about failed elections and violent transitions in the mother continent. For Americans - with hindsight, the Nigerian elections did not produce ethnic bloodletting like in Kenya where the umpire could not defend the result he declared; nor did it produce suspense like in Zimbabwe where the umpire did not have the guts to declare the result. Whether the election met or even surpassed acceptable standards for emerging democracies, you bet it did. Whether it met the highest standards set by European monitors, no it didn’t and couldn’t have – because, even in the US, the presidential election between Al Gore and Bush did not meet the lofty absolutes set by the Europeans. What this means is that EU, except for former Soviet Union, embodies the highest standards for elections, higher than we Americans, but still, we are not ashamed of our elections, rather we strive to do better with the next election. Nigeria is no different, and so, although elections in Nigeria may still be contentious for a while for reasons related to how free and fair they are, the people of Nigeria need to get real about it. And just how do you get real about your elections and their outcome? You get real by using pre-election/exit polls or other unique Nigerian methods that can predict the outcome of elections. For Americans, polls and informed predictions work some to reduce post-election tensions because we figured that if you knew you had no chances of winning, then you shouldn’t be complaining afterwards just because the election board failed to comply with one technical rule or the other. That means that Nigerian politicians (and some tribunals) may be taking the right of petition too far, including the one that might undo everything you have achieved – the presidential election.

Take Florida and California – two states with very large native Hispanic populations. There, it is commonplace to see unqualified foreign Hispanics who just as much crossed the border the days earlier voting in elections that determine who gets to rule America, a democracy much more advanced in matters of elections than Nigeria. Some get caught before they vote but vast majorities just go on to beat the system anyway and vote, mostly, well – for Democrats. In America, you can’t vote unless you are a citizen, and these guys are not even legal residents; they are what we call: illegal aliens or undocumented immigrants. So, if you are one of those unauthorized aliens and you vote, you have broken the law, but no result is gonna be nullified for anybody just because of that; and the umpire that oversaw the election doesn’t get harassed for a whole year-long as if he went across the border to procure illegal voters on behalf of Democrats. There are many other violations of America’s electoral regulations; but we know from commonsense that electoral umpires are not to blame because they are not the ones that rig elections. If we lay blames at all, we stop the buck with the political parties. The only thing an electoral umpire can do to affect election outcome is to cook the numbers or make mistakes. I don’t believe that Nigeria’s umpires cooked any numbers, but they may have made a few mistakes. In the US, the usual reaction of the law to irregularities (or mistakes) is two-fold: the guys that voted when they are not supposed are prosecuted and sent to jail and then deported if they have no legal claim to live in America; and umpires get down to the business of correcting their mistakes so that the occurrence of similar violations is reduced, not necessarily eliminated. Nigeria should be no different.

The only election irregularity in recent memory that merited a petition that moved for a re-count (not even nullification) was that of Gore versus Bush. And you know what? The only reason that the Courts in Florida and the Supreme Court of the United agreed to consider the petition was because, according to polls and predictions, Al Gore had equal chances of winning as much as Bush had. That means that the election was close, and the judges and justices of the United States, being citizens first and judicial men second, knew that already; so they applied their common human discretion, not arguments of slick lawyers that danced around technical violations that had nothing to do with who should have won or lost. Even then, getting the Supreme Court to agree to a re-count was real hard, which was why Gore had to quickly concede victory and get on with his life and his passion for global warning and the ozone layer. And by winning the Nobel, Gore has proved that doing good deeds and forgetting his electoral nightmare was the most important decision he has taken in his life. In other words, the US presidency is not the most important pursuit in life, after all. That means that Atiku and Buhari should just move on just like Orji did, if only to prove that they have other things to offer except being fixated on being president of Nigeria at the cost of defaming the country. If you think that’s hard to do, just consider that a Hillary Clinton who has plotted from her college days to be president is now under pressure to quit for Obama (a half-African like my son) who was still in high school when Hillary was already in play and looking to be anointed. The didactic lesson from this is that it is bad politics to insist on being president when everyone else knows that the other guy has better chances than you do. That means that if you don’t quit when you should, you begin to lose respect and appear desperate, sour and selfish. Americans don’t like it one bit and I don’t think any humans should, including Nigerians.

Back to Nigeria’s 07 transition, I looked everywhere for any possible clue that Atiku, Orji or Buhari could have won the presidency. I found none. The plain truth is that the PDP which Atiku helped to build into a strong party possessed all the characteristics that must be present before a party can win national elections; the others did not even come close. Think the Libertarian Party or the Reform Party holding America’s presidency hostage to technical violations of the electoral statute when everyone else knows that they had no chance to win anything, not to talk of the presidency. Their petitions will surely be laughed out of court. Atiku and Orji knew that it was the PDP only that possessed the requisite electoral strength and that’s why they fought real hard to remain in the party; but Atiku stayed on too long even when all decency demanded that he should have left the party from the moment he lost the trust of his president. In my reckoning, I knew right off from the very beginning that Atiku and his party had no fighting chance – not because he was disqualified – but because his party was new and held no recognizable national spread, if not the many troubles he had with the law in Nigeria and right here in the US. So, for Atiku to continue to claim that he lost because he was excluded, and then included (and then frustrated by Maurice) makes no sense. If he was popular with the electorate, he remains popular throughout, excluded or frustrated. And his popularity was bound to soar on account of the perception from the voter that he was being persecuted. That happened in America with Martin Luther King who became more and more popular with Americans – white and black alike, simply on account of the perception that Jim Crow South was persecuting him and what he stood for. That was the single factor that led to his meteoric success as a civil rights leader. British persecution of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa was responsible for catapulting him into international celebrity that the British could not subdue when the Mahatma took his struggles to his native India. Nigeria’s Azikiwe is another internationally known leader who soared on the same account.

Coming to the other two major parties – the PPA and ANPP, it appears the young politician - Orji Kalu ran for respect. He kind of knew that his time was yet to come but he wanted to prove the real man he is by telling PDP off and founding his own party. To his eternal credit, Orji is not contesting the presidency in court. Americans respect him for that and considers his generous concession of victory a statesmanlike and sportsmanly conduct that advantaged Nigeria within the comity of nations. Buhari of ANPP ran on a spartan and fundamentalist agenda that paled against a Yar’Adua who ran on the huge coattails of Obasanjo and what looked like a better national appeal for his party, if not the establishment appeal that remains vital in determining who rules Nigeria. As naïve as people may think we are, Americans were in the know of all these calculations and that’s why there was a groundswell of pride in the fact that Africa's largest democracy was able to overcome the bogey of failed elections in Africa. I believe that Nigeria has much to celebrate over her historic 2007 transition; and for good measure, Nigeria's national election board should serve as a reference point for other African countries still struggling with elections that can stick. I have noticed these unfair attacks at Nigeria’s INEC, especially its chairman, Prof Maurice Iwu. That should cease forthwith. I think the man has taken enough and he seems to be paying the price for a victory that the PDP was poised to win anyway. And for the PDP to remain silent while Nigeria is taking a beating from opposition partisans smacks of some kind of cowardice that should not arise with a party in government. In the US, liberal Democrats have learnt the hard way not to suffer the Republican far- right critics lightly after a rampaging neocon Republican Party gained control of Congress for the first time in forty years following a bewildering Democratic timidity in the face of Newt Gingrich’s low-ball contract with America. Nigeria’s PDP is just about coming to the same pass. There is a huge political price that comes from playing dead or wimp when your opponent wishes to take no prisoners. Therefore, the best defense for Nigeria must include one in which her ruling party is at the frontlines of defending the electoral process that brought it to power. There is no other way. Trust me.
Al Clinton, Germantown, USA al.clinton@yahoo.com

YOU CAN’T LOVE YAR’ADUA FOR BEING PRESIDENT AND HATE AN IWU THAT MADE THE TRANSITION POSSIBLE

Dr. Tamuno Jonathan

It is funny to read how some people out there are still laboring very hard to peddle this bizarre notion that it’s okay to crucify Professor Iwu/INEC for declaring Yar’Adua president while at the same time appear to ingratiate towards Yar’Adua. The notion is so bizarre that you can’t help but begin to wonder and search for possible motives for the vile Iwu-hating that continues to consume these folks to this day.

There is a Sam Nda-Isaiah of Leadership newspaper who loves to call Iwu an ‘evil man’ and all sorts of epithets for declaring Yar’Adua winner; yet he invited the same Yar’Adua to his pet ‘De-Industrialization of Northern Nigeria …. ’ conference held in Abuja back in March this year. Mr. Sam also saw nothing wrong in inviting and extolling all the 19 Northern Governors to his conference – the same governors enjoying an election and transition Iwu’s INEC saw through. So, to this Sam, it is okay to romance and grovel to Yar’Adua and these governors (and solicit favors from them indirectly) while at the same time calling for the head of an Iwu that made their election (or the transition) possible. If you follow his many write-ups in the Leadership, you will see a guy that is at war with himself. On the eve of the tribunal verdict in favor of Yar’Adua, Sam - the self-conflicted and logically-challenged, wrote and I quote “The only germane point is that the election had been rigged beyond what could be called a democracy and should therefore be annulled”. That was vintage Sam on February 25, and then on March 4 (just eight days later) he invited and extolled Yar’Adua (an Iwu-declared president) to his pet conference. Then you might want to ask: what is Sam’s motivation for all these self-contradictions? Well, you don’t need to look far if you have been following his many rambling essays in his column called ‘Last Word’ in the Leadership. One sure piece that should provide a window to what this Sam is all about is the one he did in celebration of Danjuma’s 70th birthday. It was in that piece that our ethnic-baiting, Iwu-hating Sam revealed himself in his best and worst elements by waxing nostalgic about the second (anti-Igbo) coup of 1966. He not only celebrated the blood-letting that was unleashed on the Igbos but he also had a great time rehashing and applauding the gory details of how Danjuma murdered Ironsi and mutilated his body. He wasn’t done until he let it be known that he is in full support of what happened and sounded as if he is looking forward to it happening again. Reading that piece directed against the Igbos specifically and keeping in mind that Maurice Iwu is also an Igbo and gutsy to boot, makes it easier to see why a Sam Nda-Isaiah has been driven raving mad. They wanted to see Iwu fail to transit as a sequel for an excuse for another blood-letting that he seems to see as long overdue.

Then you have an Okey Ndibe - a guy who seems embittered by being caught up in America with too many bills to pay while Dr. Andy Uba he feels is inferior to him came back to Nigeria and made good in record time. Here again, you need to go back in time to determine why this Ndibe guy has never seen anything good in Iwu. It all began with Obasanjo’s hiring of Andy as his domestic advisor and Andy’s meteoric rise to prominence in Obasanjo’s kitchen cabinet. I wager that Ndibe is one of those Diasporans who expected to benefit instantly from people like Andy who someone found their way out of unhappy long sojourns in America to prominent government positions in Nigeria. Going by his gaunt looks and the terminal bitterness of his column, Okey Ndibe appears trapped, overworked and over-billed in America and he doesn’t like it one bit, and someone gotta pay. Somehow, he blames Andy and any Diasporan that made good through Andy, and Maurice Iwu is the poster boy for Ndibe’s many frustrations because he continues to believe that Iwu became INEC Chair on Andy’s recommendations. Ndibe too wanted to become INEC Chair or something as equal in stature to enable him extricate himself from what has become a failed quest to make it as a fringe journalist in America. This was how it all began to the point of no-return for Ndibe who now sees Maurice Iwu as an alter ego for Andy Uba and all the rejection he feels he received from Andy, Obasanjo and motherland Nigeria. That is part of the reason why Ndibe continues to indulge in all kinds of self-contradictions that include a hero-worship of a Chris Ngige who stole Peter Obi’s mandate and then after his fall, escaped to America where he partied hard with Ndibe. All at once, Ndibe is now caught up with rooting for Peter Obi for prevailing against Andy Uba in court; and he is now poised to accept Yar’Adua as his president but would rather lynch Maurice Iwu for making that possible. He even added Justice Ogebe to his ‘enemy list’ just because he seems to have some bones to pick with Ogebe’s controversial son who lives in America with him.

Then take Atiku, and you begin to see a troubling pattern of misplaced aggression. Anybody who read the odd 27 interrogatories propounded by Atiku to Maurice Iwu will surely come to the conclusion that Atiku’s petition against Yar’Adua’s victory has never been about the irregularities that he is supposed to prove but has to do with something of a personal war he is determined to levy on the person and office of Maurice Iwu. And this is symbolic of vintage Atiku who seems to always pick the wrong targets for his political battles while the very people who are intent on visiting him with untold political harm are left unchallenged. Take his many troubles with the system. It is on record, as others have also said, that El-Rufai, Ribadu, and other young Turks of the Fulani Mafia in Obasanjo administration were the ones that first began to insist that Atiku will never succeed Obasanjo. Add a Professor Jibril Aminu that had always wanted Atiku’s job as vice-president and had seized every opportune moment to haunt Atiku on that account. Instead of finding ways to checkmate El-Rufai and Ribadu, Atiku instead decided to pick on OBJ and a PDP leadership that he proved no match for. Consider these also: It was not Iwu but Ribadu that indicted Atiku for corruption; it was not Iwu but the National Assembly that reprimanded Atiku for corruption; it was not Iwu but the PDP that went to court with a petition that Atiku had seized to be vice president after his defection (real motive was to strip Atiku of his immunity so Ribadu can cuff him and take him prisoner); it was not Iwu but El-Rufai that bought or sold Atiku’s house and rained insults on him for good measure; it was not Iwu but OBJ that did scorched-earth third term battles with Atiku and questioned his patriotism in the public; it was not Iwu but Yar’Adua that used ‘blood is thicker than water’ tactics to finally deal Atiku the death blow by succeeding to the remnants of Shehu Yar’Adua’s PDM; and it was not Iwu but Yar’Adua that persuaded elements of AC stalwarts to abandon Atiku and join his government of national unity. If I may ask: Did Atiku expect Maurice Iwu to turn to something of an almighty - able to surmount all these system obstacles to make him president or deliver Adamawa to him? And for good measure, Atiku is still behind scenes trying so hard to broker deals with Yar’Adua and the PDP while at same time fighting Iwu tooth and nail. Haba.

The saving grace though is that the putrid comments emanating from these guys have made it a lot easier to see why some folks are ready to cozy up to Yar’Adua (just for being president) while simultaneously pillorying an Iwu that made the transition possible. Therefore, it will not surprise many Nigerians if they now turn their combined gunsights to the direction of Justice Ogebe (as Ndibe already did in his SUN column of March 4, 2008) and find the guile to still love Yar’Adua. But before uttering the next defamation against Iwu, they should dust up their dictionaries and check out the definition of ‘vindication’. That is where they will see that the person most truly vindicated by the tribunal verdict is Iwu because the judgment confirmed his long-held position that the election passed muster and therefore should stand. They cannot take it away from Iwu because vindication is complete and self-evident once a contest is resolved in favor of one of two opposite propositions. In this instance, the proposition that carried the day at the tribunal is the one long advanced by Maurice Iwu that the presidential election was in substantial compliance with statutory mandates. One last word: If these anti-Iwu people fall over themselves to hail every verdict of nullification (against PDP), reasonable people will not allow them the double-standard of defaming the Nigerian judiciary (and Iwu) each time a tribunal refuses to invalidate an election challenged by Atiku/AC. I mention PDP and AC only because the people that hate Professor Iwu most and continue to harass the man have two things in common. One, they are all ‘madly in love’ with Atiku; two, they don’t care a hoot about petitions involving Kalu’s PPA and Buhari’s ANPP.

Dr. Jonathan wrote from USA tamunojonathan@yahoo.com

HERE IN AMERICA, PEOPLE DON’T BELIEVE ATIKU ANYMORE

By: Attorney Aloy Ejimakor

Every democracy has its own fair share of failed politicians who are in the habit of complaining and blaming the wrong people to the point that brings pundits to dismissively dub them serial-complainers. They come in different hues – from spoilt money-bags to fringe mavericks that contribute nothing to the process except some theatrics and comic drama. Here in the United States, we have seen the McCarthys – who saw platoons of communists in nooks and crannies of America while everyone else saw nothing; and then the Lyndon LaRouches – who always claimed to have been robbed of the presidency by a grand conspiracy of Republicans and Democrats.

In the US, the presidential system is mature to the point that it can tolerate or accommodate all manners of upstarts and trailer park self-glorifiers who attempt to stress the system to no end with their little politics of distraction, complains, petitions and what not. Nigeria is a different story, what with her democracy so young and not yet fully tested, except for the historic moment of the successful transition eked out of the onerous 2007 general election solely on the resilience of Iwu/INEC and the Nigerian common man. So, the question is: how does a country like Nigeria, where President Yar’Adua’s commitment to rule of law (already being abused by some fellas), deal with nasty politicians like Atiku, who has become a serial complainer and detractor of everything good about Nigeria’s emerging democracy? Recall his ongoing petition in court to disenfranchise millions of Nigerian Diaspora for daring to acquire the citizenship of other countries, not minding that he might also succeed in denaturalizing some of his kids borne here in America and even one of his wives who is well-known to be a naturalized US citizen. But no matter because for Atiku, foul is fair when it comes to doing anything to get at Professor Iwu and INEC. But for Yar’Adua’s aptitude for political rope-a-dope, Atiku would have also sought to harangue the man to no end.

Just the week before, I was at a meeting in downtown Washington DC where the Nigerian Diaspora gathered to rub minds on Nigeria and her issues. Discussed amongst House probes and energy policy was Atiku’s clear and open endorsement of INEC’s preparation for the governorship re-run in Adamawa State – before the results were declared. Such was reported both in the Nigerian and international media and were detailed enough on Atiku gushing on INEC, Maurice Iwu and law enforcement for the professional and competent manner they prepared for the Adamawa re-run. The Nigerian Diaspora was happy that perhaps this development was the beginning of rapprochement of sorts between the AC and INEC or that Atiku has suddenly found superior counsel to cease and desist from always blaming Professor Maurice Iwu for every political loss the system dishes out to him. But it was not to be, which came to the fore when just few days later Atiku and his spokesmen turned around to complain that the Adamawa re-run was stolen from them. What was confusing though is that they could not clearly state who stole the election from them. Was it a credible President Yar’Adua, who was away in Germany tending to his health; or Nyako, whose mien and carriage portrayed a man that cared less whether he lost or not, or was it INEC or an upstanding Maurice Iwu Atiku had praised to high heavens just days earlier. Or maybe, it was Ogbulafor who purveyed the harmless puffery that PDP will rule Nigeria for a millennium. The point really is that Atiku’s antics and entrenched hostility towards Iwu will never cut it for him and he damages what remains of is credibility when he waxes so mean to a man that had no hand in what happened to him. What he needs to do is to re-examine himself and his environment in order to re-discover the true reasons and culprits for his many political troubles.

But, assuming he still doesn’t get it, everyone knows that his troubles began from when OBJ accused him of disloyalty on prime-time television and instead of doing the sensible thing all vice-presidents do (play dead), Atiku unwisely decided to fight with an executive president that possessed a reputation for taking no prisoners. Then enter Ribadu, El-Rufai, Bayo Ojo, the Jefferson scandal back in the United States and finally, PDP’s ‘non-elective’ convention that saw to the total annihilation of Atiku and his loyalists (if any at all). The rest, including his hasty-patchy exit to an embryonic AC is now history. These and many more skirmishes here and there were what brought the drag that finally nailed Atiku, not INEC or Maurice Iwu that were just doing their job within the framework of extant law and all kinds of political fracas. Atiku blames losing the presidential election on non-serialized ballots and he also blames Iwu alone for not serializing the ballots. But pray: what better leverage would serializing the ballots give him that PDP, OBJ, Ribadu, El-Rufai, and the Jefferson scandal did not already take away from him? In America, they have a saying that technical challenges are the forte of bad sportsmen. Lesson: if you are so good at the game, bad umpiring can hardly prevent you from winning – either as a heavyweight boxer –who can pack a knockout punch or a political gladiator – who can get out the votes.

Now Atiku is at again - blaming Iwu for the latest loss suffered by his party in Adamawa without pointing to any concrete evidence compelling enough for him to change suddenly from an INEC/Iwu ‘praiser’ a few days before to the basher and complainer he seems very good at. So, you might ask: what about the other factor comprised of Jibril Aminu and Marwa? Surely, with this mighty duo, you don’t need a very cautious Iwu to influence anything in Adamawa because those other two (Aminu and Marwa) can pack enough electoral punch to subdue Atiku any day, anywhere. Then add Yar’Adua’s aggressive campaign stump in Adamawa, an Ogbulafor that waxes very partisan and a heterogeneous ethnic scenario and you have forces that don’t need Iwu’s vaunted capabilities to be at all places at the same time stuffing ballot boxes against Atiku.

I don’t know if Atiku knows this but the Jefferson scandal back in the States is a flashpoint for the Nigerian Diaspora. All with the American aversion to public corruption that has found ardent disciples amongst us, serious doubts persist as to Atiku’s integrity and patriotism; and now, with his puzzling tendency to always attack INEC, much question is also raised about his presidential character and temperament. The stuff about patriotism arises because when McCarthy launched his mean-spirited pursuit of those shadowy communists he claimed to be lurking in the alleyways of America, an innocent America hailed him and he was much loved and romanced as a bleeding heart patriot. And then the bubble burst. America woke up one day to discover that McCarthy had lied and cheated and branded innocents that were not supposed to be so branded. He destroyed reputations and America would have none of that. He was then brought down and shown to be anything but patriotic. Maybe, no one believes any more than the next regular guy that INEC and Iwu were the ones that subdued Atiku on behalf of PDP and Yar’Adua back in April 2007 and then lately, in the Adamawa re-run – as if anyone believed such fairytales in the first place.

The same is true of Lyndon LaRouche, who pretended to hold much love for the liberals of America and aspired to their leadership, but in the end was convicted of multiple tax frauds and related aggravated felonies. In America, you are not patriotic if you didn’t pay your taxes or conspired with foreigners to hurt America’s economic interests. So, the way the Nigerian Diaspora figured it is this: if it is true that Atiku was mired in some influence peddling in tow with Congressman Jefferson to corner some Nigerian deals they shouldn’t, then that’s lack of patriotism for sure because it could have hurt Nigeria’s economic interests; and were he to have become president, such sordid past would have made him a national security risk. And if he did the many bad things Ribadu said he did with the PTDF, that’s even worse. And now this: what do you call it when someone is hell-bent on rubbishing the integrity of his nation’s elections without any hint of circumspection? Well, it is called lack of patriotism – simply because it stokes the impression of a persisting instability that frightens foreign investors away from Nigeria’s shores. That’s the way the Nigerian Diaspora saw it and that’s the way our hosts here saw it as well. So, tongues are beginning to wag amongst policy levels here in the US that Atiku may have sold a dummy to Americans when he pretended to be a democrat for fighting Third Term when he was amongst those that sought from behind the scenes to frustrate Iwu from holding the polls. More contradictions abound.

And the questions being asked are legion. The ones that stand out are: what is it about gaining the presidency that has driven Atiku to such level? And with regard to Adamawa, is it that he must win for the nation and her electoral umpires to know peace? And does he really understand he was arrayed against titans like Nyako, Jibril Aminu, Marwa, and others right there on his own turf? Why is he always trying to defame some poor guy of a professor from Imo State who left the comfort of a prestigious research position to chair Nigeria’s first attempt at transiting from one civilian administration to another and goddamn well succeeded? Folks, there are just too many questions but the kernel of them all is that Atiku and AC are not conducting themselves the way a serious opposition party should. With Bugaje (who is now probably half-caged by lack of standing as a ‘non-secretary’ of AC) and Lai Mohammed (who has proven very inept at building an election-winning party), AC is surely on a quick route out of the game. So, it makes sense to call on the likes of Tinubu and all the crew from the reasonable and realist side of the party to step in and arrest this drift. Atiku is not synonymous with AC and vice versa, and they are not Siamese twins either. Nigeria needs a responsible opposition, and a sensible AC will do well as part thereof and not this other AC that is allowing itself to be destroyed piecemeal by Atiku, Lai Mohammed and Bugaje.

If Atiku needs to borrow a leaf, then hear this: Orji Kalu’s responsible tactics are the stuff a serious opposition leader is made of. Dr. Kalu adores Nigeria, respects the President and Nigeria’s public institutions but still finds his voice to hammer his opposite point of view whenever necessary. And a patriotic Orji knows when to wax bipartisan for the sake of Nigeria – like agreeing to the GNU. Atiku does none of these things, he is rather obsessed with demonizing and denaturalizing Professor Iwu and blaming the man for things no human can be capable of. That makes the Nigerian Diaspora as mad as hell because they love Nigeria, respect and trust Iwu (for his 2007 accomplishments), and wish that the President could be left alone by Atiku and his tag team so he can concentrate on his job. That is why here in America no one (Nigerian Diaspora and Americans alike) believes Atiku anymore. It can never get any worse than that.

Ejimakor wrote in from Washington DC, alloylaw@yahoo.com