TINUBU'S INITIATED WINDSTORM EXPOSED POLITICAL FOWLS' ANUS

[Salimonu Kadiri]

There is a Yoruba aphorism that says: ÀSÍRI ADÌE KÒ BÒ LÓJÚ ATÉGÙN. This aphorism is derived from the observation that when it is windy the feathers covering the anus of the fowl will swerve aside and the fowl's anus will be exposed to spectacle. Simply translated it means, the secret (private part) of the fowl is not covered in the presence of the wind. Other Yoruba express the same phenomenon this way: ÌGBÀ TI AFEFÉ FÉ NI A TI RÍ FÙRÒ ADÌE meaning, we see the anus of the fowl when the wind blows. At Abeokuta in Ogun State, on Wednesday, 25 January 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu blew windstorm onto the backside of Nigeria's political fowls and their anus were exposed. He alleged that petrol was being deliberately hoarded by the PDP licensed oil marketers in Nigeria and the redesigned naira notes were being implemented to create conditions that would mobilise electorates to vote against him as APC presidential candidate and other candidates of his party in the forthcoming February 25, 2023, election. As a matter of fact, between May 1999 and May 2015 when PDP ruled Nigeria, it empowered members by granting them fuel import licenses which has not changed during now be eight years rule of APC under President Muhammadu Buhari, thanks to the cabals. Not surprisingly, Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP was the first person to condemn Bola Ahmed Tinubu for shedding crocodile's tears when he alleged the conspiracy against his election success. Concerning redesigned naira and its negative impacts on ordinary Nigerians, an understanding of how it began is necessary.

On Wednesday, 26 October 2022, Godwin Emefiele of the Central Bank of Nigeria announced that naira notes of N200, N500, and N1,000,000 were to be redesigned. On Friday, 28 October 2022, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, was in the Senate to defend the budget of her ministry and her opinion about naira redesign was sought. She said her Ministry did not know anything about the plan to redesign naira and she only got to know about it through the media. While the idea of redesigning naira is good, she said, it is wrongly timed. As if naira redesign were an ethnic affairs, the information director of an Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youths, Nzube Ugochukwu, in the online Nigerian Vanguard of 29 October 2022 asserted that the CBN is not answerable to the Finance Minister.

On Wednesday, November 23, 2022, President Muhammadu Buhari officially launched the redesigned naira notes in Abuja which he said would not be available to the general public through the banks until 15 December 2022 but added that the old naira notes would cease to be in circulation as from 31 January 2023. That meant Nigerians would have barely 43 days (including Saturdays which are half working-days) to change old naira to new ones. Sensing disaster in the making, the Senate and the House of Reps jointly demanded, on 28 December 2022, that the exchange of old naira notes to redesigned ones should be extended to June 30, 2023 from 31 January 2023. Godwin Emefiele's Central Bank of Nigeria adamantly insisted that 31 January 2023 would be the last day for the old naira notes to be in circulation. However, on Sunday, 29 January 2023, Central Bank of Nigeria announced that the date for the exchange of old naira notes for new ones had been extended to 10 February 2023. As if the cabals and the CBN (Emefiele) had secretly informed Atiku Abubakar that extension of date for the exchange of old naira to new one was to be announced, the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, called for slight extension of the date of validity of the old naira on 28 January 2023.

The APC Governors were still not satisfied with the February 10, 2023 extension and thereby requested for emergency meeting with President Buhari who had no time to meet them until February 3, 2023, when he told them to give him seven days to observe how the exchange worked within the extended date. Despite the extension of the date for the exchange of old naira notes to new ones, chaos still persisted and while honest Nigerians were being denied access to their own money by their bankers, currency converters and Point of Sale (POS) are enjoying untrammelled access to the new notes whereby people were being surcharged four-thousand naira for withdrawing N20,000. Sensing that the meeting of the APC governors with Buhari might result in further extension beyond February 10, 2023, the cable online Nigeria of 2 February 2023 reported the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar as having said the previous day as follows, "There should be no further postponement of the new naira regime after the expiration of the February 10 deadline. The vote riggers are seeking to push the CBN  to extend till after the election when they would have achieved their evil plots (of buying votes). The CBN and the Presidency should be steadfast. The merits of the new naira policy far outweigh the little inconvenience we are experiencing." It is noteworthy that Atiku referred to the CBN (that is to say Emefiele) and the Presidency (that is to say the cabals) and not Buhari who approved Emefiele's naira notes recolouring. Atiku called the agony of the masses of Nigeria, who could not access their monies in the bank and could not buy food, the little inconvenience because he and his fellow conspirators in the CBN and presidency have calculated coldly that the masses will take out their frustrations on APC. Four days later, Peter Obi called on Nigerians to bear with CBN and Buhari on some inconveniences pertaining to inaccessibility of recoloured naira notes. https://punchng.com/new-naira-obi-begs-nigerians-to-bear-with-cbn/  Atiku Abubakar talking about others buying votes has forgotten that in preparing for his 2019 presidential election, he told his Lagos audience that he sought and received approval of President Obasanjo to rig out the AD from the six southwest states in 2003 but he, intentionally, did not rig in Lagos because of his long acquaintance with Bola Ahmed Tinubu. https://guardian.ng/politics/what-sparing-tinubu-caused-lagos-atiku-revals/ 

On Thursday, 2 February 2023, the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, alleged in an interview with TVC News that the currency swap introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was meant to incite voters against the APC and was orchestrated by the forces in the presidency who are bent on ensuring that the APC presidential candidate would lose the election.

https://punchng.com/new-naira-seven-notable-quotes-from-el-rufai/ 

The following day, three States - Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara - filed a suit at the Supreme Court to ask for an order for the immediate suspension of the de-monetisation policy of the Federal Government being executed through the CBN under the directive of President Buhari until it complies with relevant provisions of the law. On Wednesday, 8 February 2023, the Supreme Court issued an interim order extending the life span of old naira notes to Wednesday, 15 February 2023, when hearing would begin on the Constitutional infractions the three States' governments had accused Buhari's Federal government of committing, instead of the CBN/FG's date of 10 February 2023. While informing Nigerians that the Federal Government was going to obey the Supreme Court's order, the Attorney General of the Federation and Federal Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said that he had filed objection at the Supreme Court challenging the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to entertain the case. He clarified, "Jurisdiction on the grounds that when you talk of monetary policy, regardless of the characters they take, the Central Bank is an indispensable and a necessary party for that matter. What we have at hand is a situation where the Central Bank as an institution is not joined as a party, the position of the law is clear that the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court cannot be properly invoked." Therefore, Abubakar Malami is asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the suit filed by the three States which has now been joined by more States.

By his objection, Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Federal Minister of Justice in the APC controlled Federal Government is associating with Godwin Emefiele of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party to inflict pains and suffering on ordinary Nigerians with their redesigned naira notes. Poor implementation of the exchange of old naira notes for redesigned notes is a combined display of incompetence and intended sabotage by the cabals to damage the APC before the Nigerian electorates. Thanks to Bola Ahmed Tinubu who, in his Abeokuta campaign of 25 January 2023, alerted Nigerians that petrol was not only being hoarded by the opposition but naira swap being implemented was designed to bring APC into disrepute before Nigerians and to block his chance of winning the Presidential election. The idea is to pin the failures of Buhari's administration as an APC president of Nigeria on Tinubu by the cabal in the presidency in order to favour the opposition parties. Truly, Buhari came to power on the platform of the APC, but in its eight years in power the party has never had any input or influence over government policies. The unelected cabals including Abubakar Malami, hitherto have been ruling Nigeria since 2015 and not the APC which is what Tinubu and el-Rufai have now made Nigerians to understand. Although Abubakar Malami said that the Federal government would obey the order of the Supreme Court extending the validity of the old naira to 15 February 2023, it is reported that banks and commercial entities in Nigeria have been refusing the old notes while the new notes are very scarce to get. The Supreme Court can pronounce judgment but it has neither army nor police to enforce its judgment. The cabals around Buhari to whom he has surrendered his government are incapable of thinking creatively and diagnostically which is why they have succeeded in diminishing him.

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/02/naira-swap-this-is-madness-customers-lament-non-availability-of-notes/ 

 https://leadership.ng/breaking-february-10-deadline-for-naira-swap-stands-emefiele/ 

BREAKING: February 10 Deadline For Naira Swap Stands - Emefiele Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, has said that the February 10, 2023 deadline for the old Naira notes to cease to exist leadership.ng

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

thanks for this overview.

this summation should stand with that of Jibrin and Lukman on this group as among those describing the new naira policy as an act of political sabotage, what Jibrin called ''enemy action.''

i dont want Tinubu to win and i dont know what credence to give to the claims of sabotage against him, although such efforts at sabotage seemed clear to me in the run up to the APC primaries.

i believe in justice, however, and recall how all efforts, to put it mildly, across the nation, and beyond, except in the SE and SS, was moblized to achieve the Buhari Presidency. 

is Tinubu factual in stating he was central to this effort?

why would APC power brokers be against Tinubu?

thanks

toyin

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Stockholm

15th February 2023 

10 days to  the Mother of all Elections, 

The Nigerian Presidential Elections 

Dear Baba Kadiri,

I have checked Nzube Ugochukwu, in the online Nigerian Vanguard of 29 October 2022, Nzube Ugochukwu: Naira redesign: CBN not answerable to Finance Minister and cannot find an explanation there to justify this sentence written by you : 

“ As if naira redesign were an ethnic affairs, the information director of an Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youths, Nzube Ugochukwu, in the online Nigerian Vanguard of 29 October 2022 asserted that the CBN is not answerable to the Finance Minister.”

Could you please demystify us? Surely, as a concerned Nigerian citizen the information director of an Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youths, Nzube Ugochukwu, has a right to express his thought about national matters that affect him and other Nigerians, matters such as the design or redesign of the naira, without you or anybody else thinking that he ( the information director of an Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youths, Nzube Ugochukwu ) thinks that it’s a purely “ethnic” affair  ( or as Messrs Akande and Per Roguey would put it in Big Nigerian English, as another instance of  “ethnic jingoism”

Nigeria: Ethnic 

Nigeria: Jingoism 

Nigeria: Ethnic Jingoism 

Miles Davis: Dingo ( sort of rhymes with Mandingo, Bingo and Django ( Unchained ) as in “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!” ( MARCUS GARVEY 

[ogunlakaiye]

Thank you Mr. Adepoju for declaring that you don't want Tinubu to win. It is your democratic right to vote for whosoever you want but remember that you have only one vote just like any eligible voter in Nigeria. With regards to your question if Tinubu is factual in stating he was central to this effort ( in the formation of APC and making Buhari win the 2015 presidential election), you just need to reflect that the core of the APC when it was formed contained the CPC based in the North and ACN based in the South West. The votes that made Buhari to win the 2015 presidential election were garnered mostly from the North and the ACN governed Southwest states. Why would APC power brokers be against Tinubu, you asked? There are no power brokers  in APC, but APC hijackers as highlighted by Aisha Buhari in 2016. Recently, the Governor of Kaduna State referred to them as cabals in the Presidency who would not be able to win elections in their constituencies. It is against the will (wish) of the cabals who in reality have all the time been PDP members that Tinubu won the presidential primary.

With regards to Menahem Hamelberg's concern about the way I referred to the Information Director of Ohanaeze Youths, Nzube Ugochukwu, it was clear that his intervention on whether the Minister of Finance (a legitimate member of the Federal Executive Council) should be aware of recolouring of naira notes before going public or not was ethnically propelled and motivated. Ohanaeze Youths is a child of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an Igbo socio-cultural group and since Nzube Ugochukwu addressed the public on behalf of his ethnic organisation on the issue of redesigned naira that had nothing to do with Igbo Social and cultural wellbeing, there was no other way for me to point out that he overstepped the boundary of what his organisation was registered for than the way I expressed myself. Of course, he has the right to air his personal opinion on any issue in Nigeria as Nzube Ugochukwu, without involving Ohanaeze Youth.

[Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba]

Alagba Kadiri,

Thanks for this articulation of events to justify the title and content of this article.

The present ruling cabal and their collaborators including fake analysts as you have enunciated think that Nigerians have not learned more lessons through wisdom from poverty and persistent battering by politicians. Even the pepper seller in the market, the mechanic, the tailor, and all the activists in the informal market now understand the wickedness behind this plot. Our suffering shall not be in vain!!! 

The conclusion is that the plot has failed. 

They better all "run for cover"  a la the Rastafarians when "afefe ba fe" (the wind blows).

Babatunde

E. Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhD

Professor of Architecture

Department of Architecture

Faculty of Environmental Design and Management

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

ebj...@oauife.edu.ng; tundej...@yahoo.co.uk; +234 8037880023

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Baba Kadiri,

Many Thanks. Now I see the light. I think that Nzube Ugochukwu should be forgiven, even if he has hurt all mankind, and not just put the reputation of his entire Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youths at risk by boldly stating what his Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youths thinks about these important matters. I should think that by reputation, the Igbo people being of such great entrepreneurial spirit, throughout the country, should mean that they would be most concerned about the naira’s liquidity and the availability of naira in circulation, i.e naira in the hand, without which, short of introducing a new barter system, trade would grind to a standstill, in a country where it’s not everybody that has a bank account.

You know that Emeka Ojukwu once said in an interview, “The Military takes over for one reason only; For Profit.”  Let’s hope that this is not about to happen in these hard, trying times. 

BTW, you know how Nigerians are somehow inseparable from their titles, and the long string of degrees usually appended after their names. You address the Oga leaving out the titles before or after his name and you’ve made yourself a mortal enemy, you have wilfully insulted him ( or her 

You say, “ Of course, he has the right to air his personal opinion on any issue in Nigeria as Nzube Ugochukwu, without involving Ohanaeze Youth.” - as if you don't understand the tendency that even when an Oga  is speaking in the first person singular, exclusively on behalf of himself and he himself only of whom he is the chief executive officer, he would still be inseparable from his chest-beating title of e.g.” Information Director of Ohanaeze Youths' ' and wittingly or unwittingly would be thereby, therefore signing the letter on their behalf - just as when Presidential Brother Buhari speaks he speaks on behalf of all Nigerians….

BTW, Cornelius Ignoramus would also like to know, where is, to my mind the sagacious Sanusi Lamido Sanusi a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and an erstwhile Emir of Kanió, in all this? Is he known to be supporting any of the presidential hopefuls?