Lola Shoneyin's False Testament

[Kennedy Emetulu]

 

..

 

 

Lola Shoneyin’s False Testament

 

I like Lola Shoneyin. I like her for her literary work, but political commentary is way over her head. After reading her piece of kindergarten PR titled: “How my father’s jailer can offer Nigeria a fresh start”, published in the London Guardian of Saturday, 31 January 2015, I sincerely advise her to stick to her day job. Of course, any literary writer can write anything and use the fact that he/she is a writer to launder such in the international media, but when all is said and done, whatever they write will have to walk the plank of intellectual inquiry. Let’s just say Lola failed woefully here.

 

First, the fact that Lola’s father today embraces his erstwhile tormentor is not a new phenomenon. People can do this as a way of showing forgiveness or moving on from the trauma or the experience. But whatever the case, you don’t get many people later embracing their tormentors, which is why you will not get many people that Muhammadu Buhari had tortured celebrating the fact he’s looking to return to govern Nigeria again.

 

However, while we will not question the personal or psychological reasons behind her father’s decision to embrace Buhari, we cannot but question the public reasons proffered here by Lola, because we are talking the same country in which we all have a stake. Lola says she was 10 years at the time Buhari was military head of state, I was 20 and in university and by the time he was overthrown, I was out of university already. So, my account of Buhari’s time as head of state is no fairy-tale; it’s experience. For old enough British readers, let me remind them that the fellow Lola Shoneyin is rooting for here is the same person who as Nigeria’s military head of state on Thursday, 5^th of July, 1984 criminally undermined British extradition laws by attempting the kidnap of Dr Umaru Dikko, a Nigerian exile living at the time in London. If you think such a man should be trusted, then trust Lola Shoneyin’s account!

 

Honestly, Lola needs to review her account of events and admit that there is no logic to her story and the relationship between the account of her family or father’s misfortune under the Buhari regime and the support and supposed credibility she and her father are giving the Buhari presidential run today. If she wants us to believe that she and her father are supporting Buhari today, because he is the only face or one of the few faces of anti-corruption known to Nigerians today, then her story about her father not being guilty of the charges that took him to Buhari’s gulag in 1984 cannot be true. I mean, if her father went to prison on trumped-up charges, then Buhari is not only corrupt to let that happen, he is also a tyrant for putting an innocent man in jail. If Buhari is not corrupt and he’s no tyrant, then her father was a corrupt criminal duly put in jail by Buhari after a fair judicial process had found him guilty upon a consideration of all the evidence. In that context, we can accept that her father’s happy-clappy return from prison and his rededication to Buhari’s cause today is an admission that he was a thief now reformed and now prepared to carry the Buhari anti-corruption message to the rest of Nigeria.

 

If we understand the above distinction, then Lola needs to admit that it cannot be both. It’s either her dad was corrupt, in which case his support for Buhari can be understood, having served time and reformed himself and reconciled himself to the truth that Buhari did him justice or he was and is still not corrupt, in which case we would have expected him to stand firm against a corrupt and tyrannical Buhari who jailed him and turned his life and that of his family upside down, despite him being innocent of the charges.

 

But, while opinion is free, facts are sacred. Lola’s fact-free endorsement of the present Buhari political misadventure is only good enough for her and those gorging up on the new Buhari gravy train. I mean, which opposition governor in Nigeria is being starved of funds or harassed for not doing the bidding of the first lady? Is Lola by any chance talking of Rotimi Amaechi, the governor of the first lady’s home state of Rivers State who chose to insult her and the President? Okay, whatever the political differences between them, was Rotimi Amaechi ever starved of funds? Isn’t this same Amaechi today a byword for corruption in Nigeria? Isn’t he the same man who rather than pay salaries of public workers, fleeced the state of public funds which he poured into the Buhari campaign in his quest to be the vice presidential candidate? Is she talking of the same APC governors that have stolen their people blind? So, where did they get all this money they’re throwing around in their campaign to make Buhari president? Would any person truly serious about fighting corruption be associating with Bola Tinubu, possibly the most corrupt politician in Nigeria?

 

Lola disappointed me greatly when she repeated a lie that has been severally disproved, which is that Buhari wrote to the minister of finance “requesting that he only receive 10% of the allowance that all past presidents receive on a monthly basis”. When and where did this happen? Which finance m inister did he write and where is a copy of that letter? Did Buhari himself state this? Did the Ministry of Finance confirm this and is there a record available today to indicate he receives only 10% of this allowance? Of course, all this is a lie! This is an urban legend planted on the social network by some Buhari supporters without any basis whatsoever, yet Lola finds it convenient to state it as fact!

 

So, what are the facts? Buhari’s anti-corruption toga is borrowed, if not stolen. As Federal Commissioner for Petroleum in a military government in the late seventies, the records show that he presided over the stealing of $3 billion of Nigeria’s money. After a public demand that the issue be probed, Buhari was indicted by the Senate of the Second Republic, but he then returned at the head of a military coup to sack that government and the first thing he did when he took over as the leader of that military junta was to ransack the Senate and destroy all papers and resolutions relating to the stolen money.

 

The above was not the only issue that exposed Buhari’s corruption. For instance, Buhari was one of the henchmen of the murderous General Sani Abacha regime. At the time, he was given charge of a hurriedly-created outfit called Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which had at its disposal vast sums of public money that Buhari and his cohorts syphoned and for which he was indicted by an official inquiry set up by then President Olusegun Obasanjo, despite the attempt by that same Obasanjo to shield him today as part of the military old boys’ conspiracy to oust President Jonathan. So, despite this manic frenzy to airbrush Buhari’s very poor public record with regard to corruption, there is enough information out there for those yet to be informed to look up. I dealt with some of this in an article titled: “Buharists and their Stockholm Syndrome”:

 

http://saharareporters.com/2014/11/02/buharists-and-their-stockholm-syndrome

 

Now, here is the truth that anyone interested in Nigerian politics today should know. Buhari is the candidate of the Islamist fundamentalists and the Hausa-Fulani ethnic jingoists who think power should return to the North (despite the fact that they’ve had it for about 40 years of our 54 years of flag independence and have achieved nothing with it).  More crucially, he is the candidate of the industrial-military complex that had held Nigeria down for 45 years before the election of President Goodluck Jonathan who rightly removed their prebendal hands from the national throat. They have now all ganged up in the APC as a majoritarian oligarchy, using propaganda and false narratives about national development to undermine the great work President Goodluck Jonathan has been doing, including helping to sabotage our war against Islamist terrorism in the North –East with the aim of removing Jonathan as president. But they will fail. They will fail, because Nigeria is God’s project and no amalgam of liars, thieves and murderers will return to lord it over us again now that we have crossed our Red Sea.

 

Discerning Nigerians know that the change we crave is already here and we are experiencing it for real under President Goodluck Jonathan. We know this, because change is not an event. It’s a process and as a process it takes time. But those who have been part of it can attest to it, despite the lies being vigorously put out there by the opposition. Of course, post-1999 Nigerian democracy has been short-circuited by the military types or people with strong relationship with the military, like Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua who had ruled the country since return to civilian rule. But Jonathan is the first president since the end of the First Republic without ties to the industrial-military complex. Thus the change he has brought to Nigerian politics is mainly in temperament.

 

Unlike many African leaders, Jonathan has resisted the urge to use the big stick, even when it is in his personal interest to do so. He has accepted the opposition casting him as clueless and without any serious achievements, even as he quietly changes the political topography and culture while investing heavily in agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructural development, power generation, transport, education and so on. They’ve shouted wolf over the election, accusing him of having rigging intentions, even as he continues to allow Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be strengthened institutionally to the extent that the ruling party losing elections is the norm as the judiciary became less burdened by electoral disputations. It is his quiet internal revolution within the PDP that took power from the predatory members of the industrial-military complex and which led to all the hoopla within the PDP and the flurry of decampments to the ACP by characters who want a new vehicle to retain power or seize power to continue with their impunity.

 

For instance, one of the greatest achievements of the Jonathan government is in agriculture, but it wasn’t easy. For those who do not know, in time past, large-scale farming was a preserve of military generals who use it as a cover to acquire vast lands and create a fertilizer cartel to milk the nation dry. But Jonathan comes and democratized the fertilizer distribution process and freed it of the corruption of the generals with the attendant result being the achievement of great success in our agricultural sector for the first time since we abandoned it almost half a century ago and the generals are not happy. So, when we see the old political generals running to the APC and shouting change, we know the beat they are dancing to. They think with their colleague Buhari in power they will return Nigeria to the days when they used agriculture to fleece the nation without producing anything. They are dead wrong.

 

So, despite Lola’s fairytales, Nigerians know the truth. They know that the leading lights within the APC rabble shouting change today are part of the architecture of the Nigerian problem. They are no less corrupt and no less inept than those they rail against. They can see that what Jonathan has done is to establish the condition for the growth of a viable opposition in order to strengthen our democracy and give Nigerians real alternatives. This is clearly something an Obasanjo or a Yar’Adua would never allow. But Jonathan knows it is imperative for national growth. Yet, that’s all he can do. He cannot people the opposition with the right characters. They also have to fall or stand on their records, antecedents and processes.

 

Today, Nigerians can see that Buhari is all gloss, no substance. His campaign has the best media and campaign advisers from America, Europe and Australia, all oiled by Arab money and money stolen from public coffers by Bola Tinubu and the APC governors backing him, but they still cannot do magic with a candidate that is damaged goods. The hoopla over him lying on oath about his qualifications has exposed his corruption and the fact that he has been a leech on the state. His refusal to take part in a public debate with President Jonathan has confirmed the suspicion of many that he really has nothing to offer. I mean, not that this needs any type of confirmation, as he is clearly a glorified illiterate who knows nothing about modern governance. To think that 72-year old Buhari is the symbol of change that the APC proposes for Nigeria in 2015 is mindboggling. But we know he’s just a stalking horse for their scheme to take the nation back to the hounds.

 

Curiously, Lola says he’s been travelling with the Buhari campaign team for the last three weeks before she penned her piece and that this was because she had a personal need to understand this Buhari man who’s run for office a record three times. Yet, Lola would not tell us in what capacity she was hanging around the campaign. Is she or was she a paid or unpaid adviser to the campaign? Wouldn’t a full disclosure be in order? She says in that time, he’s had several conversations with him and “have come to understand what the mass hysteria is all about and why Nigerians would vote for this soft-spoken but highly principled 72-year-old”. Really? So, what did they talk about and why is Lola not sharing that with the rest of the world? What is it Nigerians and the world don’t know about this man that Nigerians have rejected at the polls for the past 12 years? One would expect that Lola would be eager to share with us the man’s vision of national development, but she’s chosen to keep all that close to her chest while selling us blind messianism.

 

Merely telling us that Buhari “has surrounded himself with a brilliant, savvy team of young Nigerians” and that she much enjoys “the passion with which he talks about his three main priorities: unemployment, insecurity and education” is a fudge. Who are the members of this savvy team of young Nigerians and what have they done in this campaign to exhibit their brilliance. Is it the poor advice he received over the certificate debacle or him doing a runner from the debate? The only passion Buhari has is in his desperation to be president, but he exhibits none when he speaks of unemployment, insecurity and education, because up till now, Nigerians have no idea what he would do about these except his repetitive declaration of fighting this or fighting that without any exposition or expatiation apropos to the issues.

 

The fact that Lola thinks she can pull the wool over our eyes about Buhari’s lack of political and intellectual gravitas is the tragedy of her piece. Worse still is the fraudulent idea of offering us Buhari as the nation’s opportunity of a fresh start. How does an old dictator who still stridently justify all the atrocities he committed as a military Head of State and who arrogantly says he regrets no decision he took or any effect of any such decisions or actions qualify as the harbinger of a fresh start? How does a man who’s threatened to send people to Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison without due process in a democracy represent anything but a dinosaur? Does a 72-years old man who thinks he has the power to singularly stabilize oil price have what it takes to lead Nigeria in 2015? I don’t think so. The joke has gone too far already and we can’t wait for February 14 to come, so we show the world that majority of us Nigerians are not suffering from amnesia or Stockholm syndrome.

 

 

….

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

It’s disgusting. Kennedy Emetulu is absolutely guilty of what he accuses others of:  recycling lies and hoping that with sufficient repetition the atrocious lies will miraculously transform into some truth, like Jesus turning some water into wine

RE- “As Federal Commissioner for Petroleum in a military government in the late seventies, the records show that he presided over the stealing of $3 billion of Nigeria’s money. After a public demand that the issue be probed, Buhari was indicted by the Senate of the Second Republic, but he then returned at the head of a military coup to sack that government and the first thing he did when he took over as the leader of that military junta was to ransack the Senate and destroy all papers and resolutions relating to the stolen money.” (Kennedy Emetulu – again!)

Salimonu Kadiri has already settled that score here - and yet Emetulu brings it up again. I’m still looking forward to the epistle in which he promised to take up the attempted kidnap and bringing home to Justice of the late Umaru Dikko. Patiently waiting. All he can come up with just now is some cheap shots about Great Britain’s extradition laws being contravened as if he is not aware of what happened with President Noriega – or better still as  if he has never heard of Simon Wiesenthal  - not that I’m comparing the late Umaru Dikko to the sort of scum that Simon Wiesenthal was hunting, but I was one of the people waiting patiently in Port Harcourt and very disappointed as to how things turned out at the last moment. The crowd was hoping that Mr. Dikko would “vomit the money” – only that the crowd does not know that to have about £5 billion Sterling  in the Bank of England is a lot of money. It confers great privileges, can even terminate an extradition order – and there are several looters currently enjoying a life of luxury, mansions, Rolls Royces, country estates, hotels in Spain and California and other pieces of property everywhere…

“Discerning Nigerians know that the change we crave is already here and we are experiencing it for real under President Goodluck Jonathan” (Kennedy Emetulu).

I wonder on which planet he is living.

Does this not bother you: As western oil companies loot some $140 Billion a year of Nigeria’s black gold two thirds of the country’s 100 million people live on less than $2 a day

How is this permitted to happen on such a grand scale and who is it that permits it? The Goodluck Jonathan Government? The Niger Delta Militants who say that all the oil that is located in their backyard rightfully belongs to them – and that they should be given a free hand to do what they like with it?

Governor Rotimi Amaechi explained some of these phenomena on BBC Hardtalk – about Nigeria losing $1 billion a month of oil revenues to oil thieves – and mind you, this is happening during the tenure of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. That’s a lot of money. You must agree that $1 billion dollars a month could overhaul the Nigerian educational system, even create some top notch university students, and produce the first Nigerian automobile, the Nobel Prize in Economics or Medicine...

“...what Jonathan has done is to establish the condition for the growth of a viable opposition in order to strengthen our democracy and give Nigerians real alternatives” (Kennedy Emetulu).

Are we to suppose that accounts for people deserting his PDP party in droves and joining the APC?

And please, which/what “industrial-military complex” is Emetulu talking about?

The elections are now only eleven days away!

Over here the Stockholm temperatures are still below zero

Pray for yourselves, pray for Kennedy Emetulu and pray for us too.

We Sweden

...

[Ayo Obe]

I think it is appropriate to cite Soludo's own response to the ad hominem attacks on him for his article about the challenges Nigeria will face after the elections:

"I am not bothered about the personal abuses: I actually expected worse. What name has the government not called President Obasanjo or any person who has dared to disagree with it of late? Anyone who disagrees with the government must either be ‘insane’ or have a ‘character’ deficiency or must be ‘looking for a job’ or ‘without honour’, or a ‘charlatan’. Yesterday, Sanusi alleged that $20 billion was missing and he was accused of gross financial mismanagement, recklessness and poor governance to the point of being the first governor of central bank to be suspended from office. Today, he is the good one; and for daring to award an “F” grade for our economic performance, Soludo has become the ‘worst’ and ‘without character’ or perhaps ‘looking for position’ (Lol!). Some days ago, a former president was called ‘a motor park tout’ and ‘un-statesmanly’ just for disagreeing.  This “how dare you criticise us” mind-set of the government is dangerous for our democracy."

We see this at work in Kennedy Emetulu's article.

While there are some die-hard Buhari supporters and some die-hard Jonathan supporters, you also have voters who have had to weigh both candidates to make a hard decision about who to support.  While Buhari's refusal to debate for what seem to me to be specious reasons weighs against him for me, on the other side I place these kind of attacks on a person just because she expressed her political opinion (which the writer patronisingly sneers that she is not qualified to do!) that have contributed to a stream of invective with a decidedly primordial bent - after which we are supposed to do what?  Pretend that nothing has happened?  Forget all the abuse heaped on one's ethnic group, one's accent, one's religion, one's family?

The Emetulus of this world would do better if they would understand that voters who say #IHaveDecided are (a) aware that Jonathan has achieved some results in some areas of national governance (b) aware that Buhari ruled as a military dictator and took some unacceptable decisions during the 20 months or so that he was in power.  We also know that Buhari is a Muslim and a Fulani, just as we have increasingly had it rammed down our throat that Jonathan is a Christian and an Ijaw.  So what's new?

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

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[Salimonu Kadiri]

Kennedy Emetulu is a brown uniformed Hitler's street fighter and a graduate of Goebel school of propaganda. Much of Emetulu's propaganda are based on fables but he has forgotten that it is only in fables that one makes the tortoise to sing and the snail to run faster than the hare. Emetulu's equation of fables to realities is nothing but aggressive show of intellectual disability. Last time he wrote on Buhari, Emetulu told the world that N2.8 billion was stolen under the watch of Buhari, when he served as Minister of Petroleum between 1976 and 1978. Contrary to the separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislative arms of government, according to the 1979 constitution, Emetulu falsely asserted that President Shehu Shagari set up a Senatorial Commission of Enquiry to probe the alleged stolen N2.8 billion which Emetulu now mischievously approximated to $ 3 billion. Shagari never set up such a probe. At the time in question, a barrel of crude oil cost less than a can of Coca-Cola and to have been able to steal the sum of N2.8 billion out of crude oil earning was impossible. Moreover, crude oil sales were paid for in dollars and not naira, which means that the oil dollars must first have been converted to naira before being transferred to London. That process would have left traces both at NNPC and the Central Bank of Nigeria. In his Buharist and their Stockholm Syndrome, Emetulu falsely asserted that the purported stolen N2.8 billion was traced to a London Midland Bank belonging to Buhari where the money suddenly disappeared after it was traced. Emetulu has not been able to tell his readers, the account number of Buhari in London Midland Bank which indicates that he has no evidence that Buhari ever had any Bank account there. If Senator Olusola Saraki ever succeeded in tracing N2.8 billion to London Midland Bank, he ought to have enjoyed the collaboration of the British government (Authorities) and to turn around and say the money suddenly disappeared would constitute a direct indictment of the British authorities. Britain is not Nigeria!! For the sake of clarity, Buhari was neither the Minister of Finance nor Governor of Central Bank between 1976 and 1978 but Minister of Petroleum. Sales of crude oil were paid in dollars direct into the Central Bank where Buhari had no operational authority. At the time of investigation, Buhari was not in position to influence or interfere with the outcome of the enquiry which was said to have been concluded without any result in 1981.

 

"Buhari is the candidate of the Islamist fundamentalists and the Hausa-Fulani ethnic jingoists who think power should return to the North," Emetulu wrote to Lola. Emetulu's supposed Islamist Fundamentalist, Buhari, ruled Nigeria between 31 December 1983 to 25 August 1985 without introducing Sharia laws or Islamising Nigeria. In fact, it was Ibrahim Babangida who registered Nigeria as a member of Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in 1986, and not Buhari. Ironically, on April 12, 2012, President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe renewed the membership of Nigeria in OIC. And not only that Jonathan personally led a delegation to attend OIC meeting held in Cairo, Egypt, in 2013!! Was Buhari an Hausa-Fulani jingoist when he tried in collaboration with the Israel's MOSAD to repatriate a fellow Hausa-Fulani, Umaru Dikko, from London to face charges of treasury looting? Well Emetulu, I am appealing to you not to use your head only as a hat shelf but to think wisely and logically.  
 

---

Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2015 01:31:38 +0000
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Lola Shoneyin's False Testament

[keme...@googlemail.com]

…

 

Cornelius Hamelberg,

 

I do not think I have ever engaged you in a discussion on this forum, possibly because apart from posting sparingly, I’m hardly here. In fact, I did not see your response on my incoming email feed. It was IBK that posted it on a Facebook group that both of us belong to and which necessitated that I come to the USAAfricaDialogue listserv to read it for myself and make a response.

 

First, I thank you for your view. We are in a political season and the beauty of democracy is that everyone has a voice. Those who refuse to exercise theirs are their own worst enemies. We are lucky.

 

Now, you accuse me of recycling lies and quoted my comment on Buhari and the money stolen under his watch as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum to buttress your point. You then seem to think the comment of someone here had since settled the matter. This fellow you referenced is Salimonu Kadiri, who apparently responded to my article “Buharists and their Stockholm Syndrome”.  Here is how Salimonu Kadiri began his response to me (11/6/14):

 

“Kennedy Emetulu is not a Jonathan-nist but a political mercenary  employed by Jonathan's Subsidy Re-investment Empowerment Program (SURE -P). I will come to what that means later. Kennedy Emetulu would have justified his SURE-P employment if he had supported his long epistle with facts instead of innuendos. If I have to respond in full to his lengthy sermon from SURE-P mountain, it would cover several hundred pages. Therefore, I will just remove three blocks on which Emetulu has built the house of lies on Buhari for the house to crumble”.

 

Now, let’s think of that for a minute. A man I have never met in my life, a man who knows nothing about me comes here in public space and states that my public commentary, which I probably started before he got into diapers is being motivated by a supposed employment with SURE-P or because I’m getting some benefit from them. Then he grants himself the immunity of providing proof for this absurd claim by saying if he had to provide some, “it would cover several hundred pages”. So, who is afraid of hundreds of pages of proof for an allegation you’ve made in public? Shouldn’t that have helped all of us here understand who Kennedy Emetulu is? I mean, I wrote my piece and didn’t mention SURE-P and never revealed upfront for the purposes of full disclosure that I work with them or that I’m a contractor with them or that I benefit from them in any way. So, if someone comes up here and says he knows about my relationship with SURE-P, what prevents the decent people of this listserv from saying: “Hold on a minute, Salimonu, why not provide the proof of the accusation you’ve made against Kennedy Emetulu?” Why did nobody ask him to provide just any form of evidence of his claim?

 

You see, I read a lot of cranks making all sorts of allegations against me, but I’m never bothered and most times I totally ignore them. I’m not bothered, because people who know me know me and I know myself. I don’t know anybody in SURE-P, I have never applied for anything in SURE-P on behalf of myself or anyone else, I do not have any benefit from them directly or indirectly, I’m not a government contractor and have never been, I don’t get paid by anybody directly or indirectly to say what I say. I speak publicly out of belief and I can walk through the gates of hell defending whatever I present as fact, while I accept that people can have a different opinion, even if I don’t agree with them. You do not expect me to come here and respond to a desperate fool, a vermin who would manufacture a lie as bad as this out of thin air in an attempt discredit someone he cannot challenge with truth. I call out Salimonu Kadiri to come out here and provide evidence of his claim. I call on him in the name of all that he truly believes in to come out here and back up his claim or forever remain a caterwauling creepy-crawly that he is! God will judge him for bearing false witness against me.

 

Now, with regard to the issue here, below is the portion of Salimonu Kadiri’s piece that you’re saying settles the matter:

 

“In his mud slinging essay against Buhari, Kennedy Emetulu asked, "Should I start with the scandal of the N2.8 billion NNPC money that got stolen under his watch as Petroleum Minister and head of NNPC in 1978? ... the Shehu Shagari government ...set up a Senate probe which traced the money to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari from where the money again got missing." For the mere fact that Emetulu is telling readers that N2.8 billion NNPC money got stolen under Buhari's watch exempted Buhari from the actual stealing of the said amount of money. Secondly, Shehu Shagari's government could not have set up a Senate probe because, according to the Republican Constitution, there was separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature. While it was true that the Senate set up a committee headed by Senator Olusola Saraki, the committee completed its investigation in 1981 without any public or official report on their findings. If the N2.8 billion NNPC money was traced to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari, then we need to know the number of the account and for the money to disappear from the said bank, it should either be withdrawn or transferred by someone. We are talking about London, England, and not Nigeria where employed ghosts at all levels of government do normally get promoted, sign and cash salaries in the banks undetected. If we are to believe the tale by the moonlight being touted by Emetulu that the motive behind the military coup of December 1983 was to obstruct or destroy documents pertaining to the N2.8 billion NNPC money, why should they wait until two years after the investigation had been completed? There is no sense in the story”.

 

Mr Hamelberg, okay, ask yourself, does the above really look like a proper response to my accusation against Buhari? What has Salimonu Kadiri said in the above excerpt to debunk me? How can a man of such extraordinary ignorance convince you that “Shehu Shagari's government could not have set up a Senate probe because, according to the Republican Constitution, there was separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature”? Is this the type of pedantic argument real adults or reasonably educated people should be having here or elsewhere? Was the Senate of the Second Republic not a part of the Shagari government of the Second Republic? Did I not indicate clearly there the branch of the government that set up the probe? I mean, the funny Mr Kadiri actually admitted that “the Senate set up a committee headed by Senator Olusola Saraki” but that “the committee completed its investigation in 1981 without any public or official report on their findings”. So, where is the argument? Did you yourself read my piece and the things I said? Did Salimonu Kadiri dispute what Dr Saraki told Vera Ifudu? Did he dispute the fact that the NTA under the Buhari regime sacked Vera Ifudu over this affair and that she went to court and got a huge payout just to shut her mouth? Did Buhari not send soldiers on coup day to go ransack the Senate building? Does all that indicate that Buhari is above board in this matter?

 

Now, let me also bring something to your attention: Sometime ago, my good friend and brother, Professor Moses Ochonu had an exchange with me on Facebook and by way of clarifying this issue, he said the following:

 

“In 1977, the military head of state, Lt. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, set up a crude oil sales tribunal to investigate the operations of the Nigerian National Oil Company (NNOC, which metamorphosed into NNPC same year). The tribunal found out that in three years, NNOC had failed to collect its equity share of oil produced by Shell, Mobil and Gulf. As a joint venture partner, NNOC was entitled to 182.95 million barrels of oil production. But NNOC did not find buyers for its own share, thereby losing a potential income of $2.8 billion. But it was instead reported by the media that $2.8 billion was missing.” – (Quoted from Moses Ochonu’s post in the exchange)

 

Here was my response:

 

“Agreed that the Nigerian political space is swarming with historical rumors of all types; but, please, do not declare the N2.8 billion issue a mere rumor and then substitute it with another manufactured rumor without applying due diligence and looking at it logically. I say this, because you are one of the most credible public intellectuals we have from Nigeria and one of the most dependable commentators on national affairs. I say this, because I can bet my bottom dollar that if you had taken the pains to look more closely at the issue, you wouldn’t publicly declare it one of the “enduring rumors and urban legends in Nigerian politics and history…mischievously recycled every now and then to discredit General Buhari, who has been running for president since 2003, because he was the Petroleum minister when the money allegedly went missing”.

 

“First, the thing you’ve stated here as the truth is not backed up by any contemporaneous report, quite apart from the fact that the claim is totally illogical. I mean, from 1974, which was the height of the oil boom, Nigeria could not sell its share for three years? They could not find buyers at a time Nigeria engaged in some of the most grandiose capital intensive projects of the time, that is at a time Gowon was proclaiming that we have too much money and that our problem was how to spend it? So, what money were we spending all that while? Who were the members of this crude oil sales tribunal? Where is this report? Where did they sit and what at the time linked their report, if any, with the N2.8 billion issue? The honest truth is any person who has a basic idea of how the oil market works will not buy such embarrassingly childish explanation! It is obvious that this is a latter-day manufactured explanation to get Buhari out of the pickle!

 

“Secondly, the Irikefe report which claimed no money was lost did not produce this explanation neither did the Saraki Senate report. In fact, Obasanjo had to quickly go to court to obtain an order to stop his appearance before the Irikefe Panel. If he or any member of his government, including Buhari had any logical explanation or even the above explanation you are tendering here, why didn’t they go to the Panel to explain this? What you are quoting here as the truth is actually something plucked from thin air by Simon Kolawole of ThisDay in his June 1 2014 column of the paper. Kolawole is someone who is unapologetically a Buhari acolyte. His claim is not backed up anywhere on record or in public space. It is one of those historical rewrites that a lot of them have today invested in on behalf of Buhari in this whole mission of selling him to unsuspecting and uninformed Nigerians as incorruptible. It will not work!

"True, the N2.8 billion issue is enmeshed in mystery, but you would expect such abracadabra in anything to do with public corruption in Nigeria, especially one of this nature and with the personalities mentioned. We do not expect that they would all come out to us and publicly confess that indeed such money was missing. All we can do is reasonably conjecture with publicly available facts. What is fact is that Dr Olusola Saraki, the Second Republic Senate Leader and head of a Senate Committee established to look into the matter did publicly confirm on NTA that indeed the money was missing and that it had been traced to a London account belonging to Buhari. While anyone can pick issues with that, Buhari’s own reaction told us something about the issue as well and where the truth may lie. I mean, why did he upon taking over as head of state pressurize NTA to sack Vera Ifudu, the journalist who interviewed Saraki and who stood by what she was told? Why did the court, upon review of the evidence, grant the prayers of Ifudu over the matter of wrongful dismissal? Why did NTA quickly pay her a huge sum, including making her to sign a confidentiality agreement? Saraki lived until November 2012 and never at any point recanted on his position and Buhari never publicly challenged him while he was alive or even after, even though he jailed the man for more than a year when he took over on no charges at all whatsoever. Whatever anyone says, Buhari has not discharged the responsibility of explaining what happened. Everything he has said and that has been said on his behalf points to guilt strongly.

 

“My brother, let me say clearly that I get the point you are trying to make about rumors in our public life, but this N2.8 billion affair is not a basis of such a psychological or sociological study of the phenomenon in Nigerian politics to the extent of freeing Buhari. Buhari is part of the corrupt elite and should therefore spare us the hypocrisy of pointing fingers! Yeah, we need change, but not this hollow type preached by him and his fellow travellers! The fact that he has been a beneficiary of Nigeria’s culture of useless probes does not make the N2.8 billion story a mere rumor. There are very good reasons to believe that he himself has always been economical with the truth. For instance, when he was asked about this is an old interview with the Sun Newspapers published on 24 December 2012, all he could offer by way of defence or explanation was that Professor Awojobi, Tai Solarin and Fela went to the Irikefe Panel with newspaper cuttings as proof of the missing money and that Clemet Isong, who was the then Central Bank Governor said such money couldn’t have been missing. Why should we believe Clement Isong who himself was potentially culpable as this happened under his watch and who at the time of the Irikefe Panel was already a career politician as Governor of the old Cross River State? Why did Buhari not make any reference to the Saraki Senate Panel and the claims publicly made by Saraki? Why did he not refer to the Vera Ifudu affair?”

 

The reason I have taken the pains to also post the above exchange with Professor Ochonu is to let you see that every day, people are manufacturing excuses for Buhari from thin air as a way of airbrushing his reputation. It is also to let you see that though the issue has been mired in controversy, one consistent thing is that the powers that be have one way or the other ensured that whatever probe instituted over this matter never ever gets conclusive or where conclusive never sees the light of day officially. This is the hallmark of a consistent attempt to protect someone or a group of people. I have stated my own view on it by way of assessment of all the facts and making reasonable conjectures from them. You are entitled to your view, but don’t tell me some vermin has settled the matter with his lies and ignorance.

 

 

“I’m still looking forward to the epistle in which he promised to take up the attempted kidnap and bringing home to Justice of the late Umaru Dikko. Patiently waiting. All he can come up with just now is some cheap shots about Great Britain’s extradition laws being contravened as if he is not aware of what happened with President Noriega – or better still as  if he has never heard of Simon Wiesenthal  - not that I’m comparing the late Umaru Dikko to the sort of scum that Simon Wiesenthal was hunting, but I was one of the people waiting patiently in Port Harcourt and very disappointed as to how things turned out at the last moment. The crowd was hoping that Mr. Dikko would “vomit the money” – only that the crowd does not know that to have about £5 billion Sterling  in the Bank of England is a lot of money. It confers great privileges, can even terminate an extradition order – and there are several looters currently enjoying a life of luxury, mansions, Rolls Royces, country estates, hotels in Spain and California and other pieces of property everywhere…” – Cornelius Hamelberg

 

Not sure what you are talking about in that bit about justice for Umaru Dikko and so on. I can’t remember making any such promise to you or anybody. If you insist I did, you might want to tell me where and when. I always keep my promise and if I can’t, I’ll let you know why.

 

I’m not sure why you think the example of the US kidnap of Noregia justifies whatever Buhari planned over Umaru Dikko. The world was united in pointing out that the US Operation Nifty Package or Operation Just Cause breached Panamanian and international law in kidnapping Noregia; but for the United States, they were technically at war with Panama, so kidnapping the military leader with whom they were at war was par the course. They were further boosted by the Vatican declaration that Noregia who had taken refuge in the Apostolic Nunciature in Panama City had no asylum. Thereafter what the world wanted to see was a fair trial in a US court and Mr Noregia got that. It’s enough for me that you have admitted that you are not comparing Umaru Dikko to the sort of scum Simon Wiesenthal was hunting, which is precisely why the Dikko kidnap was a bad advertisement for a government supposedly fighting for corruption.

  

I’m not going to join in you to debate Amaechi and his silly claims in that Hardtalk programme you mentioned neither am I going to engage you on the various charges of corruption being bandied about at the moment, because both parties and Nigerians are all guilty of this and until we come together to deal with the matter institutionally, rather than pointing hypocritical fingers, we won’t go anywhere. My hope is that with the implementation of the recommendations of the National Conference and the institution of true federalism (including its fiscal aspects), we will begin to appreciate how we can use institutional measures to cut out corruption in public service through better accountability.

 

At the moment, we are in a political season and my own support for Jonathan is clear. For several months now I have come out to say I support him against anybody the APC produces. In fact, I can say it’s a decision I’ve taken for more than a year now. But my principle is that being a partisan does not give you the licence to lie in an attempt to sell your candidate. True, Jonathan would ordinarily not be my candidate in a presidential election, because I believe he’s just an average leader and in these times, I expect an above average leader to take Nigeria forward. But the system has conspired to produce for us a Hobson’s choice and in the circumstances, I’m supporting Jonathan by default, not because he’s the best thing since Agege bread. Buhari is a no-no, not only because of his antecedents but also because of where I think he’ll taking the nation. He is returning us to the Dark Ages and nothing anyone says can convince me otherwise, because I have reviewed the evidence thoroughly before reaching this conclusion.

 

In any case, having adopted Jonathan, I have to sell him in the best possible way without undermining my own credibility. It’s important to let people know you are a partisan who is only expressing your opinion. Anyone can debate your opinion with you, but let the facts remain sacred. As I have implied, the two viable choices in Jonathan and Buhari are not the best, but Jonathan is infinitely better for now and the future of Nigeria than Buhari. Those behind the Buhari hype know this, but as I said, they are using him as a stalking horse to take us back to the hounds. With all due respect to your position, I will do everything legitimately within my power and capacity to stop Buhari from getting to that seat again. So, yeah, pray for me, ‘cause I need the prayers. More importantly, pray that the Good Lord continue to protect our people and our nation from those who want to destroy it.

 

In conclusion, I think you should be keeping faith with your agreement with Professor Segun Ogungbemi who you quoted as saying “All that has been said negatively against Buhari needs to be investigated.” and that “Secondly, Buhari needs to defend himself at well organized debates.” Buhari has the opportunity to address these issues openly with Nigerians in a presidential debate now, encourage him to take the opportunity, rather than this stonewalling and hiding he’s busy perfecting. The ball is in his court.

 

CHEERS AND STAY BLESSED!

 

…

[keme...@googlemail.com]

..

 

 

Ms Ayo Obe,

 

I am writing this, not to take you on publicly for your comment here about me, but to explain to you why I wouldn’t do so, even as I vehemently disagree with your assessment of my piece, my conduct and the view I have expressed in response to Lola Shoneyin. I will never publicly take you on, because you are an inspiration to me. You may not know it, but you have been my benefactor and supporter in public affairs at a dark time in our nation. People like you are not many in our nation and no matter what I think of what you say about me or any other person publicly, the best I can do is to privately express myself to you. I will never take you on publicly.

 

The reason is this: In 1996, after months of a grueling struggle against the Abacha government, I led leaders of 250 families of Harvey/Moore Road Resettlement Quarters to your office in Surelere. At the time, you had just taken over from Mr Olisa Agbakoba at the CLO and I was leading the community elders to your office to say thank you for the support your organization, amongst others had given us.

 

Let me briefly give a background to this. In early 1996, the Abacha government decided they wanted to take the land housing about 250 families on Harvey/Moore Road Yaba, behind the Atan Cemetery. Abacha’s military boys under the then Minister of Works, Abdulkarim “Bulldozer” Adisa went to work and issued the residents a quit notice to vacate the place in 30 days. I was not a resident there, but I had friends living in the area who were discussing the issue when I paid them a visit.

 

I became interested and decided to go to the community to ask questions and see things for myself. I got there and the place was in total chaos as old and young where in panic. This was a community set up in 1948 to resettle people who were moved from central Lagos when the colonial government took their homes to develop the place as our federal capital. They were dumped on the Harvey/Moore Road grounds at a time the whole place was just a bush with only the fenceless Atan Cemetery as neighbours. The government promised to build a fitting place for them elsewhere, but never did. These families got on with life and lived in this place as best as they could until 1996 when Abacha decided he was rooting them out. The point was that at this time, the land had become choice land. With water taking over the choice lands of Ikoyi, the military boys were looking for something else and this land appealed to them, because it was in Yaba, which is the only place without a slum in Lagos and it had now become a centre of development with University of Lagos, Yaba College of Technology and the Herbert Macaulay Road and so on bordering it. Abacha and Adisa care less about due process and at the time when Adisa was feared all over Nigeria for the destruction he was wrecking on communities through his demolition programme, the Harvey/Moore Road people thought they had no chance. In fact, by the time I got there, many people had fled in fear.

 

To cut a long story short, I took on the battle on their behalf and I involved your organization, CLO, Shelter Rights Initiative under Eze Onyekwere and the Centre for Housing Rights and Eviction, Switzerland. I organized an underground media campaign that had the world and the Nigerian human rights community giving us support. I recall that people like Anselm Odinkalu, young Chido Onumah, Franco Olize and a host of other people in the human rights, media and international community showed support. But it was the CLO that mostly stood by us as the Abacha terror machine took us on.

 

As the arrowhead of the people’s fight, I was specially targeted by the Abacha forces with the aim of suborning me or just taking me out. At the time, I was working as a Special Correspondent and Member of the Saturday Editorial at the Guardian, but Abacha’s security forces laid siege there. I was sleeping in the cemetery at night and coming out in the day to lead the campaign. When they began demolition of the houses where the people had barricaded themselves in defiantly, it was Buhari’s PTF bulldozers they were using. When I was eventually arrested, it was a PTF vehicle they used to ferry me, bound up to Alaka Police Station where I was tied to a chair and tortured. When they then attempted to convince me of the futility of fighting Abacha and I kept telling them I was not NADECO, but part of a community only fighting to have roof over our head, they threatened to blow me up and pour acid on my body. Of course, I was part of the pro-democracy movement as the leader of the Public Awareness Network (PAN) and Lagos Mainland Committee for SDP Awareness, two organizations registered with the Beko-led Campaign for Democracy (CD) and I was also a founding member of the Gani-Fawehinmi-led National Conscience Party (NPC). But revealing such information at that point would have been sure death, so I stuck to the story that all we were asking was a roof over our head and that we were not politicians or pro-democracy. Even though the people knew my pro-democracy activities, they protected me from the security forces when they were questioned.

 

When I did not budge, it gave the community fillip and they stood their ground. Upon my release, I joined them and intensified the campaign. The CLO pursued the case at the Federal High Court on our behalf and it was through their effort we got the first injunction barring the Abacha government from demolishing the homes, which bought us time to intensify the media campaign. By the time they were breaching it and demolishing, we had gained enough public sympathy to ensure they just couldn’t ignore us.

 

In the end, we won. Shortly before I left for England the following year, they entered into negotiation with us and I led the community to those negotiations at the Federal Ministry of Works, while one Dr Oduma and his team of ministry officials represented the Ministry. In the end, they were forced to rebuild the place for the people who refused all attempts to manipulate them. Even those who had ran away in fear returned and those who didn’t return were paid compensation. Today, if you go to Harvey/Moore Road, you will see the medium-sized high-rises that are monuments to that struggle. The people regained a better home without paying a kobo! I am proud of the role I played there. I was not paid. I was not a rich man, but I put my time and resources to the fight, because I believed in it. I was offered a flat free by the Ministry of Works negotiators in recognition of my effort, but I rejected it. I did not do it, because I wanted to get a house. I did it, because I believed in the justness of the cause. It was a struggle you and your organization supported and to which I am eternally grateful.

 

So, I cannot come out in public and disagree with you, no matter what you say about me, because people like you, Olisa Agbakoba, Gani Fawehinmi, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Beko Ransom-Kuti, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Dr Frederick Fasheun, Chima Ubani, Anselm Odinkalu, Eze Onyekwere and a few others like you that stood in the gap for our people during the locust years are my own political gods. If you were the one flying the APC presidential banner today, I would give my life to have you sit in Aso Rock. But a Buhari? Never!

 

 

….

...

[Ayo Obe]

Kennedy,

We have made different political choices.  Some have made them very easily, while others have made them with a great deal of difficulty.

Some hope that these elections will lead to the break up of Nigeria, some fear it.  Many hope that we will come through these elections and - whatever the result - that we will move forward as a nation.  It was partly with my mind on that future, and how we live with each other afterwards, that I wrote.

It's not that you disagreed with Lola Shoneyin, it was that you attacked her personally and went on to impugn her motives - implying that she must be writing because she is being paid to do so (outside any payment from the newspaper that published her article).  Even on this forum I have seen so much intemperate and heated language, appeals to primordial sentiments, with wild abuse from and to people whom I should otherwise have thought to be - if not the best of friends - at least people who could conduct civilised discourse.  Maybe it is the remove at which the internet places us: my law partner's group has endorsed President Jonathan for re-election while he knows that I have decided to vote for Buhari.  It no more makes me a "Buharist" than it makes him a "Jonathonian".  But I wonder what sort of partnership we would have if we exchanged the kind of language that has been flying to and fro about this election?  Well, fortunately we both know that our decisions aren't motivated by money, very much to the contrary.

Although you will know that I am the same mixture of saint and sinner that most of us are (including the candidates in the coming election), I want to thank you for your kind words and for your memories of a dark period.  I would not want to live through such times again, yet I know that we did live through them.  Maybe that's why I feel that even in the unlikely event of Buhari attempting all that you anticipate as the standard-bearer of "Islamic fundamentalists" and "Hausa-Fulani ethnic jingoists" Nigerians can handle him.  What we face in the North-East - with our government's myopic let-them-kill-themselves desultory response - not so much.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

--

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

For what it's worth, and while acknowledging the right of Lola Shoneyin to support whichever candidate she likes for whatever reason, I thought Kennedy's piece may have been intemperate in spots but that it posed an important, legitimate question and highlighted an outright lie in Shoneyin's piece. Shoneyin's ethic is suspect here because she says in the piece that she has been traveling with Mr. Buhari's campaign throughout the country, essentially shadowing the candidate and other APC top officials. I, too, wondered about the capacity in which she embedded herself with the campaign--as a journalist employed by a media house (not sure she is affiliated with any media outfit at the moment; she worked with the defunct Next) or as someone drafted or employed by the campaign to write stories or issue press releases on its behalf? If the latter is the case then Shoneyin's piece should not be taken seriously. Moreover, she would be guilty of not fully disclosing the nature of her relationship to the campaign. It would have been helpful to disclose why and how you were embedded in the campaign. In situations where the line between the observer and the observed is murky as in this case, full disclosure is imperative. 

Kennedy also called Shoneyin out on her endorsing repetition of the story--one among many such election time urban legends--about Buhari rejecting his full pension and asking for 10 percent of it. At best she was sloppy for not verifying the veracity of the story before anchoring one of her key arguments on it. At worst, she was guilty of intentionally peddling falsehood. I was dubious about the story when it first made the rounds on Nigerian cyberspace. It turns out that, like the fictitious quote attributed to Obasanjo about him preferring to be jailed by Buhari instead of allowing Jonathan to destroy Nigeria, this story is a fabrication with no evidence whatsoever. Simon Kolawole, Thisday columnist, debunked it a few weeks ago in his column. Below is the relevant portion.

There is even another social media rumour that Buhari does not collect his full pension. A Blackberry broadcast I got a while ago said while all former heads of state collect N27 million per month as pension, Buhari rejected the "bogus amount" and asked to be paid only 10% of it. The person who originated the rumour said he personally went to the Ministry of Finance to confirm the figure. But, in fact, the total pension package is N2,909,122.75 per quarter — as confirmed to me by a former head of state.  The breakdown: pension, N878,676.20; upkeep, N1,050,000; salaries of personal staff, N845,446.50; telephone, N75,000; and postal services, N60,000. Buhari never rejected any part of it. For goodness sake, it is his legal right. Why would he not collect it?

--

There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.


---Mohandas Gandhi

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

“But, in fact, the total pension package is N2,909,122.75 per quarter — as confirmed to me by a former head of state.  The breakdown: pension, N878,676.20; upkeep, N1,050,000; salaries of personal staff, N845,446.50; telephone, N75,000; and postal services, N60,000. Buhari never rejected any part of it. For goodness sake, it is his legal right. Why would he not collect it?”

 

sk/meo

 

There is legal right. There is moral right. There is proprietary right. There is right for its own sake. There is right for goodness sake. There is also right for exemplary reasons. Good leaders lead by word but more importantly by example.

Would it be imprudent or out of place to expect or challenge a supposedly not corrupt patriotic leader, reported to claim that money is not a matter of great object to him, to reject remuneration that is unquestionably immoral by objective economic and social standards, in a developing country? Is the politician really who he is asserted to be if he collects immoral remuneration for legal reason only?

 

oa

 

oa

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Kennedy Emetulu,
 
Although your letter was addressed to Cornelius Hamelberg, I am obliged to send this rebuttal since you mentioned my name as a result of my previous response to your *Buharists and their Stockholm Syndrome.* My problem with you, Kennedy Emetulu, was your effort to sell toothpaste to me, and wisely enough, I asked you to show me your teeth before I could buy. Alas it turned out that you are toothless, and I refused to buy your toothpaste hence you became angry. A toothless person marketing toothpaste is absurd to me!!
 
As I said in my previous rejoinder, I have no problem with your being employed in Jonathan's Subsidy Re-Investment Empowerment Program (SURE-P) for the purpose of attacking critics of Jonathan's regime provided you keep to facts and not engage in malicious propaganda and mudslinging against the person of Buhari. Let us now deal with the facts. Contrary to the assertion in your maiden article, President Shehu Shagari never set up any Committee, Senate or otherwise, to probe any alleged missing N2.8 billion from NNPC under the tenure of Buhari as Minister of Petroleum between 1976 and 1978. Rather, it was the Senate that set up a committee under the leadership of Dr Olusola Saraki to investigate the alleged missing N2.8 billion NNPC money. To the best of the knowledge of all normal Nigerians, neither Dr Olusola Saraki nor the Senate Committee, that he led, ever published any written report indicting Buhari for pilfering N2.8 billion from NNPC. The best evidence that you, Emetulu, is offering to support your claim that N2.8 billion was stolen *under Buhari's watch* was Senator Olusola Saraki's purported statement, in an NTA interview conducted by one Vera Ifudu, in which he confirmed that N2.8 billion was missing. How can we be sure that the statement credited to Saraki is not just another invented 419 intellectual fable as it had been done to Awolowo, Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, and Wole Soyinka to mention few who were credited with statements they never made. For it is against common sense and logic that a Medical Doctor and a Senator of Federal Republic of Nigeria, like Saraki, would lead a Senate Committee to investigate a theft of N2.8 billion, but, instead of forwarding a written report to the President and the appropriate law enforcing agencies, after discovering the rogues, he arranged for a television interview to confirm that N2.8 billion was missing and traced to London Midland Bank belonging to Buhari. What was the account number? Kennedy Emetulu might have *started his public commentary before I got into diapers* but for Emetulu to base his judgment about stolen N2.8 billion on a casual statement in an NTA interview shows that he has never in his lifetime stopped wearing diapers. Emetulu's aversion for Buhari is so strong that he dismissed Irikefe's written report which concluded that no N2.8 billion was lost after a public enquiry where the Governor of Central Bank at that time, Clement Isong, was a witness. I am not a lawyer, yet common sense tells me that for an accusation of N2.8 billion theft charge to hold on Buhari, there ought to be a written report after an enquiry or investigation. What Emeturu has to offer his readers is, "Saraki lived until November 2012 and never at any point recanted his position..." Yes, it was Saraki's position and not Saraki's official report!! If Saraki *never at any point recanted on his position*, did he ever repeat *his position* on the purported missing N2.8billion anywhere beside the NTA's interview? The President at that time was Shehu Shagari, and he is still alive. Why is it that Shagari has never confirmed that N 2.8 billion was missing from the federation accounts when he took over from Obasanjo's military government in 1979? Emetulu's fable went further to say that Buhari after seizure of power sacked Vera Ifudu from NTA because of the interview she conducted with Senator Olusola Saraki who confirmed that N2.8 billion NNPC money disappeared when Buhari was Minister of Petroleum. If Vera Ifudu went to court for wrongful dismissal and won as Emetulu would like us to believe, we need to know the file number of the case, and the name of the presiding Judge so that we can verify if the case ever had anything to do with the interview conducted by Ifudu with Saraki. The reason why Vera Ifudu was sacked and went to court might not be the same as the one being peddled by Emetulu who is beset with the hormone of a bull, and who sees red in everything Buhari that he instinctively stings with his horns. Kennedy Emetulu has complained that Buhari has never said anything about the alleged missing N2.8 billion oil money and I understand Buhari's silence because when literate oafs are marketing absurdity the best thing for intelligent people is to do nothing.

 

Kennedy Emetulu wrote, "Buhari is the candidate of the Islamist fundamentalists and the Hausa-Fulani ethnic jingoists who think power should return to the North." 

Every sane Nigerian knows that Buhari is the Presidential candidate of a national party called APC and his Vice is Osinbajo. Similarly, when he was Presidential candidate of the APP in 2003, his vice was Chuba Okadigbo and when APP changed to ANPP in 2007 and Buhari was its Presidential candidate, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke was his VP candidate. Finally in 2011, when Buhari was CPC Presidential candidate, Tunde Bakare a pastor was his VP candidate. All the aforementioned VP candidates to Buhari are Southerners and Christians who individually at every election, according to the reasoning of Emetulu, must be candidate of Islamist fundamentalists and the Hausa-Fulani ethnic jingoists who think power should return to the North. Emetulu has forgotten that Buhari and pastor Bakare discovered one another and became friends as a result of their joint protest against the cabals who were attempting to subvert the constitution and prevent Jonathan from becoming Acting President in place of Yar'Adua who was in coma in 2010. When Buhari was Military Head of State, December 31, 1983 - 25 August 1985, he did not Islamise Nigeria. In fact, it was Ibrahim Babangida, now a taproot of PDP, who secretly registered Nigeria as a member of Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). Ironically, not only did President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan renewed Nigeria's membership of OIC on 12 April 2012, he personally led a delegation of Nigerians to the summit of OIC held in Cairo, Egypt, in 2013.

 

Jonathan is neither the President of the Ijaw nor that of Southern Nigeria, but, of the entire Nigeria. In the same vein Buhari is not contesting to be President of the Hausa/Fulani or that of Northern Nigeria but, of the whole Nigeria. Viewed from that angle, I feel awed when intellectual prostitutes hawk ethno-religious politics as a solution to 21st Century Nigeria's socio-economic problems.

 

---

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 04:33:38 -0800
From: keme...@googlemail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Lola Shoneyin's False Testament

[Kennedy Emetulu]

..



Professor Ochonu, thank you for that brilliant contribution. I
couldn’t have put it better. Cheers!



….

[Kennedy Emetulu]

……



“As I said in my previous rejoinder, I have no problem with your being

employed in Jonathan's Subsidy Re-Investment Empowerment Program
(SURE-P) for the purpose of attacking critics of Jonathan's regime
provided you keep to facts and not engage in malicious propaganda and

mudslinging against the person of Buhari”. – Salimonu Kadiri


You don’t get it, do you? I am not interested in having an exchange on
the issues here with you until you prove that yes indeed I am employed
by Jonathan’s Subsidy Re-Investment Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).
Your entire credibility here rests on this. If you cannot prove this,
you are toast. So, my friend, stop pretending you are talking sense.
First prove that you are not a lying scum and then we can have a
reasonable discussion as humans. For now, I regard you as a dangerous
snake that should be avoided by any decent person. I’m still waiting
for your proof.



….

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Hon. Kennedy Emetulu,

I prefer to know my song well before I start singing

As this is a matter of public probity , I can only ask you, do you have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?  And is that truth in your possession? Do you swear on the Holy Bible when you say this?

Sincerely,

Cornelius

We Sweden

On Tuesday, 3 February 2015 13:33:38 UTC+1, keme...@googlemail.com wrote:

…

 

Cornelius Hamelberg,

 

I do not think I have ever engaged you in a discussion on this forum, possibly because apart from posting sparingly, I’m hardly here. In fact, I did not see your response on my incoming email feed. It was IBK that posted it on a Facebook group that both of us belong to and which necessitated that I come to the USAAfricaDialogue listserv to read it for myself and make a response.

 

First, I thank you for your view. We are in a political season and the beauty of democracy is that everyone has a voice. Those who refuse to exercise theirs are their own worst enemies. We are lucky.

 

Now, you accuse me of recycling lies and quoted my comment on Buhari and the money stolen under his watch as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum to buttress your point. You then seem to think the comment of someone here had since settled the matter. This fellow you referenced is Salimonu Kadiri, who apparently responded to my article “Buharists and their Stockholm Syndrome”.  Here is how Salimonu Kadiri began his response to me (11/6/14):

 

“Kennedy Emetulu is not a Jonathan-nist but a political mercenary  employed by Jonathan's Subsidy Re-investment Empowerment Program (SURE -P). I will come to what that means later. Kennedy Emetulu would have justified his SURE-P employment if he had supported his long epistle with facts instead of innuendos. If I have to respond in full to his lengthy sermon from SURE-P mountain, it would cover several hundred pages. Therefore, I will just remove three blocks on which Emetulu has built the house of lies on Buhari for the house to crumble”.

 

Now, let’s think of that for a minute. A man I have never met in my life, a man who knows nothing about me comes here in public space and states that my public commentary, which I probably started before he got into diapers is being motivated by a supposed employment with SURE-P or because I’m getting some benefit from them. Then he grants himself the immunity of providing proof for this absurd claim by saying if he had to provide some, “it would cover several hundred pages”. So, who is afraid of hundreds of pages of proof for an allegation you’ve made in public? Shouldn’t that have helped all of us here understand who Kennedy Emetulu is? I mean, I wrote my piece and didn’t mention SURE-P and never revealed upfront for the purposes of full disclosure that I work with them or that I’m a contractor with them or that I benefit from them in any way. So, if someone comes up here and says he knows about my relationship with SURE-P, what prevents the decent people of this listserv from saying: “Hold on a minute, Salimonu, why not provide the proof of the accusation you’ve made against Kennedy Emetulu?” Why did nobody ask him to provide just any form of evidence of his claim?

 

You see, I read a lot of cranks making all sorts of allegations against me, but I’m never bothered and most times I totally ignore them. I’m not bothered, because people who know me know me and I know myself. I don’t know anybody in SURE-P, I have never applied for anything in SURE-P on behalf of myself or anyone else, I do not have any benefit from them directly or indirectly, I’m not a government contractor and have never been, I don’t get paid by anybody directly or indirectly to say what I say. I speak publicly out of belief and I can walk through the gates of hell defending whatever I present as fact, while I accept that people can have a different opinion, even if I don’t agree with them. You do not expect me to come here and respond to a desperate fool, a vermin who would manufacture a lie as bad as this out of thin air in an attempt discredit someone he cannot challenge with truth. I call out Salimonu Kadiri to come out here and provide evidence of his claim. I call on him in the name of all that he truly believes in to come out here and back up his claim or forever remain a caterwauling creepy-crawly that he is! God will judge him for bearing false witness against me.

 

Now, with regard to the issue here, below is the portion of Salimonu Kadiri’s piece that you’re saying settles the matter:

 

“In his mud slinging essay against Buhari, Kennedy Emetulu asked, "Should I start with the scandal of the N2.8 billion NNPC money that got stolen under his watch as Petroleum Minister and head of NNPC in 1978? ... the Shehu Shagari government ...set up a Senate probe which traced the money to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari from where the money again got missing." For the mere fact that Emetulu is telling readers that N2.8 billion NNPC money got stolen under Buhari's watch exempted Buhari from the actual stealing of the said amount of money. Secondly, Shehu Shagari's government could not have set up a Senate probe because, according to the Republican Constitution, there was separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature. While it was true that the Senate set up a committee headed by Senator Olusola Saraki, the committee completed its investigation in 1981 without any public or official report on their findings. If the N2.8 billion NNPC money was traced to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari, then we need to know the number of the account and for the money to disappear from the said bank, it should either be withdrawn or transferred by someone. We are talking about London, England, and not Nigeria where employed ghosts at all levels of government do normally get promoted, sign and cash salaries in the banks undetected. If we are to believe the tale by the moonlight being touted by Emetulu that the motive behind the military coup of December 1983 was to obstruct or destroy documents pertaining to the N2.8 billion NNPC money, why should they wait until two years after the investigation had been completed? There is no sense in the story”.

 

Mr Hamelberg, okay, ask yourself, does the above really look like a proper response to my accusation against Buhari? What has Salimonu Kadiri said in the above excerpt to debunk me? How can a man of such extraordinary ignorance convince you that “Shehu Shagari's government could not have set up a Senate probe because, according to the Republican Constitution, there was separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature”? Is this the type of pedantic argument real adults or reasonably educated people should be having here or elsewhere? Was the Senate of the Second Republic not a part of the Shagari government of the Second Republic? Did I not indicate clearly there the branch of the government that set up the probe? I mean, the funny Mr Kadiri actually admitted that “the Senate set up a committee headed by Senator Olusola Saraki” but that “the committee completed its investigation in 1981 without any public or official report on their findings”. So, where is the argument? Did you yourself read my piece and the things I said? Did Salimonu Kadiri dispute what Dr Saraki told Vera Ifudu? Did he dispute the fact that the NTA under the Buhari regime sacked Vera Ifudu over this affair and that she went to court and got a huge payout just to shut her mouth? Did Buhari not send soldiers on coup day to go ransack the Senate building? Does all that indicate that Buhari is above board in this matter?

 

Now, let me also bring something to your attention: Sometime ago, my good friend and brother, Professor Moses Ochonu had an exchange with me on Facebook and by way of clarifying this issue, he said the following:

 

“In 1977, the military head of state, Lt. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, set up a crude oil sales tribunal to investigate the operations of the Nigerian National Oil Company (NNOC, which metamorphosed into NNPC same year). The tribunal found out that in three years, NNOC had failed to collect its equity share of oil produced by Shell, Mobil and Gulf. As a joint venture partner, NNOC was entitled to 182.95 million barrels of oil production. But NNOC did not find buyers for its own share, thereby losing a potential income of $2.8 billion. But it was instead reported by the media that $2.8 billion was missing.” – (Quoted from Moses Ochonu’s post in the exchange)

 

Here was my response:

 

“Agreed that the Nigerian political space is swarming with historical rumors of all types; but, please, do not declare the N2.8 billion issue a mere rumor and then substitute it with another manufactured rumor without applying due diligence and looking at it logically. I say this, because you are one of the most credible public intellectuals we have from Nigeria and one of the most dependable commentators on national affairs. I say this, because I can bet my bottom dollar that if you had taken the pains to look more closely at the issue, you wouldn’t publicly declare it one of the “enduring rumors and urban legends in Nigerian politics and history…mischievously recycled every now and then to discredit General Buhari, who has been running for president since 2003, because he was the Petroleum minister when the money allegedly went missing”.

 

“First, the thing you’ve stated here as the truth is not backed up by any contemporaneous report, quite apart from the fact that the claim is totally illogical. I mean, from 1974, which was the height of the oil boom, Nigeria could not sell its share for three years? They could not find buyers at a time Nigeria engaged in some of the most grandiose capital intensive projects of the time, that is at a time Gowon was proclaiming that we have too much money and that our problem was how to spend it? So, what money were we spending all that while? Who were the members of this crude oil sales tribunal? Where is this report? Where did they sit and what at the time linked their report, if any, with the N2.8 billion issue? The honest truth is any person who has a basic idea of how the oil market works will not buy such embarrassingly childish explanation! It is obvious that this is a latter-day manufactured explanation to get Buhari out of the pickle!

 

“Secondly, the Irikefe report which claimed no money was lost did not produce this explanation neither did the Saraki Senate report. In fact, Obasanjo had to quickly go to court to obtain an order to stop his appearance before the Irikefe Panel. If he or any member of his government, including Buhari had any logical explanation or even the above explanation you are tendering here, why didn’t they go to the Panel to explain this? What you are quoting here as the truth is actually something plucked from thin air by Simon Kolawole of ThisDay in his June 1 2014 column of the paper. Kolawole is someone who is unapologetically a Buhari acolyte. His claim is not backed up anywhere on record or in public space. It is one of those historical rewrites that a lot of them have today invested in on behalf of Buhari in this whole mission of selling him to unsuspecting and uninformed Nigerians as incorruptible. It will not work!

...

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

PS.

Hon Kennedy Emetulu

You say , ”Not sure what you are talking about in that bit about justice for Umaru Dikko and so on. I can’t remember making any such promise to you or anybody. If you insist I did, you might want to tell me where and when. I always keep my promise and if I can’t, I’ll let you know why”

 I was referring to your statement here below:

“Then the regime’s secret attempt to smuggle Umaru Dikko (a former Minister of Transport in the ousted Shagari government) back from London in a crate sealed the regime’s fate internationally and embarrassed Nigeria greatly in the comity of nations. This affair, which I shall discuss in more detail later, further exposed the vacuousness and viciousness of the regime. The leadership was thereafter seen as thuggish and tyrannical and not many people were dealing with them outside Africa.”

 Sincerely,

Cornelius

We Sweden

 

On Tuesday, 3 February 2015 13:33:38 UTC+1, keme...@googlemail.com wrote:

…

 

Cornelius Hamelberg,

[Kennedy Emetulu]

…



Mr Cornelius Hamelberg,

I swear on the Holy Bible and every other thing or divinity that you
and Salimonu Kadiri believe in. So, what next? Why are you not asking
Salimonu Kadiri to simply tender evidence of his claim or substantiate
it in any way he deems fit as far as it is to the satisfaction of the
decent people here on this listserv? Or are we to allow a lying
bastard attempt to ruin people's reputation without calling him out?

Now, I’m not sure what you mean when you ask if I have the truth in my
possession. Should I have the truth of an accusation against me that
is a figment of an idiot’s imagination in my possession? In what form
should I present this truth, if I may ask? If I come here and say Mr
Cornelius Hamelberg is an employee of the Rivers State Government who
works very closely with Rotimi Amaechi and that he is saying what he
is saying here in defence of Buhari, because of this relationship,
should we expect Mr Hamelbeg to produce some truth in his possession
to show he is not an employee of Rivers State Government or a friend
or close associate of Amaechi? Wouldn’t the right thing be to expect
me to produce evidence of my claim since the basic rule is that he who
asserts must prove? So, please, let me know whatever truth and in what
form you want me to produce it over this matter. I am the one being
accused by a vermin and he should be the one interrogated about his
claim, not me.

Please, now that you have started your public probing, make sure to
conclude this fairly and justly. I don't know Salimonu Kadiri or
whatever he does or where he lives, but I know he is lying against me
for reasons I don't know. It's now in your hands. I trust you to get
to the bottom of this.





CHEERS AND STAY BLESSED





…

[Kennedy Emetulu]

..



…………..

PS.

Hon Kennedy Emetulu

You say , ”Not sure what you are talking about in that bit about
justice for Umaru Dikko and so on. I can’t remember making any such
promise to you or anybody. If you insist I did, you might want to tell
me where and when. I always keep my promise and if I can’t, I’ll let
you know why”

I was referring to your statement here below:

“Then the regime’s secret attempt to smuggle Umaru Dikko (a former
Minister of Transport in the ousted Shagari government) back from
London in a crate sealed the regime’s fate internationally and
embarrassed Nigeria greatly in the comity of nations. This affair,
which I shall discuss in more detail later, further exposed the
vacuousness and viciousness of the regime. The leadership was
thereafter seen as thuggish and tyrannical and not many people were
dealing with them outside Africa.”

Sincerely,

Cornelius

…………………….



Oh, you obviously misunderstood me, Mr Hamelberg. I was not talking of
writing something separate from the piece you read. I was talking of
discussing the issue in detail later in the same piece. And I did. If
you’ve read the whole piece, you would have come across where I later
discussed the whole Umaru Dikko affair in detail as I promised. It’s
there:



http://saharareporters.com/2014/11/02/buharists-and-their-stockholm-syndrome





…..

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Hon.Kennedy Emetulu,

For me, and this is basic philosophy of the logical positive school:to say that you know something, that thing has to be true. This for example is a fact of a slightly different order from what is attributed to Philip Emeagwali in connection with the internet.

The ad hominem is not the way.

Respect will be responded to with respect. In the name of common decency, I kindly request that you to take the advice given by the Almighty's piece of honesty, the sagacious Samuel Szalanga and cease henceforth with your indecencies aimed at my dear friend and mentor Brother Saliman Kadiri. I have known him for decades and never found him wanting in my esteem.

My approach is entirely legalistic: The onus of proof is on you – you are the one who has made certain statements about Brother Muhammadu Buhari – and you are the one who is standing in the dock to give your testimony and you dare to start accusing Ogbeni Kadiri when under cross examination and asked to produce your proof ?

And by the way, an explanation is not a proof. Whether it's an explanation of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Sanctification of Goodluck Jonathan or some of the holy people that are said to surround him.

Like my songster bard I also do not put my faith in anybody, not even a scientist.

Finally, I'm patiently waiting for the details that you promised when you wrote about, “This affair, which I shall discuss in more detail later”. I'm interested the Mossad angle and some other implications thereof such as the flexibility in the Buhari- Mossad co-operation

As you say, stay blessed - have a blessed weekend.

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Having gorged on the nicely sautéed SURE-P rogue diet, Kennedy Emetulu belched out a stench of ignorant vituperation thus, "Why are you not asking Salimonu Kadiri to simply tender evidence of his claim or substantiate it in any way he deems fit as far as it is to the satisfaction of the descent people here on this list serve? Or are we to allow a lying bastard attempt to ruin people's reputation without calling him out?" Those are the words from the foul-mouthed, ill-mannered and an academic bandit. Kennedy Emetulu claims to be a Christian but his behaviour is inversely proportional to Godliness and diametrically opposed to the teachings in the Holy Bible. At least, he has exhibited his ignorance about the admonition in Leviticus 19: 15 which says, *Do not pervert justice, do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly ...* Kennedy Emeturu is demanding that I should prove that he is a beneficiary of SURE-P as if money received thereof will be marked SURE-P or PDP. It is not a crime to serve PDP or SURE-P in exchange for money especially when his brother contested in the last PDP gubernatorial primary election in Delta State and received only five votes. While I concede the right to Kennedy Emetulu to demand from me evidence of his appointment in SURE-P, he should first produce the following evidence on Buhari's theft of N2.8 billion when he served as Minister of Petroleum between 1976 and 1978. (1) How many barrels of crude oil were exported by Nigeria between 1976 and 1978 and what was the cost per barrel? (2)What was the total annual Revenue of Nigeria between 1976 and 1978? (3) Did Buhari steal the N2.8 billion himself or was it stolen under his watch? (4) What was the account number at London Midland Bank which you said belonged to Buhari and in which the missing NNPC crude oil sales money was discovered? (5) Who paid the N2.8 billion into the account? (6) Since bank account in Britain could not be held in naira but in other convertible currencies, e.g. dollars, pound sterling, how much in dollars or pound sterling was found in the said account? (7) How long did it take for the money to disappear after it was discovered? (8) Beside the purported statement, in an NTA interview, credited to Senator Dr Olusola Saraki, was there any official written report by his Committee that N2.8 billion naira NNPC money was stolen under Buhari's watch? (9) When did Saraki's Senate Committee complete its enquiry and to who was it submitted? (10) Was there any Senate debate and resolution over the alleged Saraki's report on the missing N2.8 billion?  If you answer the ten questions on the weighty allegation that you have levelled against Buhari, I will immediately furnish you with the proof of your employment with Jonathan's SURE-P.
 

> Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 15:29:32 +0100
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Lola Shoneyin's False Testament
> From: keme...@googlemail.com
> To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
>
> …

[blargeo...@gmail.com]

Mr. Kennedy Emetulu,

Quit this unnecessary and unwarranted righteous indignation ‎. You have been served an just dose of your own medicine. 

You maligned Buhari's person and trashed his reputation ‎with some manufactured evidence. You relied conveniently on hearsay attributed to the late Senator Saraki. ‎What do you know about a dead man's perspective any way? You may have employed  ouijah boards and conducted seances‎  with the ghosts of  senators  but that and other esoteric arts still doesn't and wouldn't convince us. You have got to do better than that. 

Should we assume that you have evidence  yet you and your fellow pretend intellectuals have not considered suing Buhari for all he is worth (including midlands bank billions) in Nigerian and British courts. What a shame.

It is all too easy to assume the source of the ink in your pen.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: Cornelius Hamelberg Sent: Friday, 6 February 2015 16:46 To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Reply To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Lola Shoneyin's False Testament

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Your entire credibility rests on if you can prove that Buhari either stole or allowed N 2.8 billion to be stolen under his watch when he was Minister of Petroleum between 1976 and 1978. If you think that your accusation against Buhari is less weighty than my exposing you as Jonathan's SURE-P employed then I am afraid that Microsoft and Apple may soon create a software that tracks common sense deficiency syndrome and name it Kennedy Emetulu!! 
 

> Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 06:57:12 +0100
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Lola Shoneyin's False Testament
> From: keme...@googlemail.com
> To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
>
> ……

[Kennedy Emetulu]

..

 

 

What are you on about, Mr Hamelberg? What nonsense are you spewing here? Are you now going to stand here and support that lying snake, because he’s your friend, mentor and brother? You have no shame? Simply asking your friend, brother and mentor to show evidence of his claim is too much for you, silly fool? I’m not surprised. Show me your friend, brother and mentor and I will tell you who you are! Now, you can take yourself and your stupid liar of a friend, brother and mentor back to whatever cave you crawled out from! Both of you do not deserve to be mixing with decent people! Silly sods!

 

On Buhari and whatever I’ve said about him, since you are going “entirely legalistic”, why not sue me to court or encourage him to do so, pinhead?

 

 

…

[Kennedy Emetulu]

..

 

Salimonu Kadiri,

 

Shut your trap, you idiot! Just shut up and slink away to a corner and hide your lying face! You think you’re dealing with kindergartens here? What has my brother contesting for the PDP gubernatorial ticket got to do with anything? Why are you talking here as though you’ve made some damaging discovery about me when I was the one that publicized my brother’s campaign on my Facebook wall and elsewhere and used his picture as my profile picture? Even as I write this, his picture is still my Facebook cover picture, so what has that got to do with anything?

 

Yes, he was Commissioner for Energy in Delta State, chosen by my people to contest for the governorship in the course of which he and other contestants reached an agreement to collapse their structures and present one main candidate from Delta North in order to win the ticket. They did that and succeeded and here you are talking five votes as if it’s an issue?  Now, how does that concern me? I never visited his office all the while he was Commissioner neither did I or anyone close to me and my family apply for or got a contract at his office. All I did when he was appointed was pray for him as my junior brother and remind him the son of who he is. I told him to go there and not soil my family name and he went there and did everyone proud as an outstanding public servant. He was the first public official cleared by the security services to contest that election and the only one without a blot in his file. I donated to his campaign and helped him as much as I could, because I believe in him, even though I’m not a member of the PDP. So what has all that got to do with me and SURE-P?

 

You really are a hydra-headed idiot. You need to make peace with your God, because you are the Son of the Devil! Oh yes, you said I’m a Christian and you are right. I speak boldly, because I’m a Christian; I speak because I fear no man but God! So, if I call on my Father to justify me before men, He will! If I call on my Father to expose a snake who bears false witness against me, He will surely answer. You are this moment you are reading this facing the judgment of God. Be silent. Be silent before God to receive your due. You still have an opportunity to say the truth. But as far as you continue in your lies, you will be brought low before men and God. May your lies bind you and suffocate you till you blurt out the truth in pain in front of the whole world! Surely as I speak here on earth, it’s already decreed in heaven in Jesus’s Name! Amen!

 

Now, you may return here to dance naked, but this is my last response or communication with you on this issue until you speak the truth that will burn your insides untill you actually speak it publicly.

 

…

[Kennedy Emetulu]

..

 

Mr Abolaji Adekeye,

 

Are you listening to yourself? Are you with your senses at all or someone is frying your brain in a microwave somewhere? Don’t you know the road to a law court? Don’t you have access to Buhari and his campaign organization to advise them to sue me for libel or whatever takes their fancy? You guys are pathetic! Get out of here, eranko jati-jati!

 

…

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Kennedy Emetulu,
You are what the Igbo call *ISI OKPUKPU* which means Bone Head!!  You ISI OKPUKPU, Kennedy Emetulu, reminds me of a masquerade in Igbo festivals called, AGABA-IDU, detested for his reckless attack on peaceful and innocent people. Because of this, he is usually handled by well fed and muscular men through a waist-rein so as to prevent him from inflicting harm on people. You are trapped and now in chains, thus you are no longer harmful.
 
For your information, Kennedy Emetulu, I have no Facebook account and I was not aware of your futile campaign in the Facebook for your brother to be PDP Gubernatorial Candidate in Delta State. My source of information about him, receiving only five votes in the Delta State's PDP Gubernatorial primary election, is beyond your Facebook hogwash. Stupidly trying to cover your nakedness with a fig leaf and hiding behind a needle you, Kennedy Emetulu, wrote about your brother thus, "Yes, he was Commissioner for Energy in Delta State, chosen by my people to contest for the governorship in the course of which he and other contestants reached an agreement to collapse their structures and present one main candidate from Delta North in order to win the ticket." What does Kennedy Emetulu mean by the expression, ..he was ...chosen by my people to contest for the governorship..? Is Kennedy Emetulu personally owning the people who chose his brother to contest for the governorship as slaves since he referred to them as *my people* instead of *OUR PEOPLE?* Did Kennedy Emetulu's brother contest for the PDP governorship primary election in Delta State or not? The answer is yes, because he was personally present and voted for himself among the five votes he won. He never withdrew for any other candidate. If Kennedy Emetulu can deliberately lie that his brother withdrew from contesting a PDP gubernatorial primary election that took place in December 2014, why should any sane human being believe him that Dr Olusola Saraki, in an NTA interview, said in the early 1980s that the sum of N2.8 billion got stolen under Buhari's watch as oil Minister? Now, Kennedy Emetulu, informed us that there was ethnic conspiracy to get the gubernatorial candidate of PDP to Delta North to which he indicated no objection. What is Delta North? It is the Igbo speaking people of the Delta State. In a democratic setting, should it not be the concern of sane people that the best governorship candidate in Delta State should emerge irrespective of ethnic belonging? Kennedy Emetulu consents to his Igbo domination of Delta State while foaming in the mouth about Buhari's ethnic jingoism. Well, it is only a thief that can sniff the foot paths of another thief on the rock!! 
 
Kennedy Emetulu wrote further on the gubernatorial ambition of his brother thus, "HE WAS THE FIRST PUBLIC OFFICIAL CLEARED BY THE SECURITY SERVICES TO CONTEST THAT ELECTION AND THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT A BLOT IN HIS FILE." This speaks a volume about the character of Kennedy Emetulu. Why is Emetulu silent over the winner of the gubernatorial primary in Delta who had a blot in his file whereas his brother had none? Yes, Kennedy Emetulu is a moral derelict, a well-read hustler that has shrunk into a glorified light-weight opportunist and a person who typifies what a buffoon looks like. He is a butterfly fantasising self as a bird and as an intellectual whore, he is combatively living in denial of his engagement in SURE-P, as if he has gone through a personality-altering lobotomy. If you cannot furnish us with the evidence that N2.8 billion oil money was stolen under Buhari's watch, I command you in Igbo language, TOA MECHIE ONU, SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!

I have never said that you are a Christian but that YOU CLAIM TO BE A CHRISTIAN which means that you claim to be something you are not, a hypocrite. To me you are nothing but EKWENSU NA DELTA, SATAN FROM DELTA.

 

---

Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2015 01:37:25 +0100

[Kennedy Emetulu]

Salimonu Kadiri, I think your idiocy is actually a sickness. You need help, I'm sorry.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Looka here emetulu :

I have many friends and mentors !You are not one of them and I'm not about to start rolling in the mud with the likes of you. You are too irrelevant to take to court – nor do I start arguing with all and sundry recently escaped from some mental asylum. The sum total of what you have said so far or will say in the future is of no relevance to me whatsoever - whether it's about Buhari & Mossad to get Umaru Dikko or whoever it is you want to be president of Nigeria is of no importance to me, whatsoever.

Now you can go eat your shit and die for all I care !

And there you have it!

Cornelius

We Sweden

[Salimonu Kadiri]

On Saturday, 7 Feb. 2015, Kennedy Emetulu vomited thus, "Now you (Salimonu Kadiri) may return here to dance naked but this is my last response or communication with you on this issue until you speak the truth...publicly." Amazingly, at 19:19:53 of the same day, Kennedy Emetulu wrote, "Salimonu Kadiri, I think your idiocy is actually a sickness. You need help, I'm sorry." Am I to regard your response as gorging in your own vomit contrary to your avowed resolution not to response or communicate with me on this issue until I speak the truth? Or Am I to believe that you regard my last response to you as the spoken truth you requested for? As for your diagnose on my health, I find consolation in one of Chinua Achebe's literatures where he observed that a naked lunatic dancing in open market always think the clothe wearing marketers spectating at him are mad. At best, you will be qualified for employment in any health care delivery centre as a cleaner which does not qualify you to diagnose any patient for an ailment. I feel contented that I have reduced you to a frog whose mouth is filled with water, and with the consequence that you neither can croak, nor swim, nor eat. You float about unsure of what to do, and battling for your last breath. I pity you, Kennedy Emetulu!!
 

---

Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2015 19:19:53 +0100

[Kennedy Emetulu]

Hahahahaha! Oponu buruku! Go! Your words indict you! Fool!

[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

When a fool is confronted with incontrovertible facts, he resorts to banal insults.  What a shame.

 

Cheers.

_________________________

Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)

(+2348061276622)
ibk...@gmail.com