CURTAIN CALL It was Pervez Musharraf that once opined that there is nothing wrong with intellectual differences flowing from freedom of thought as long as such differences remain confined to intellectual debates. On this note, we shall today conclude on the above issue discussed two weeks ago. Thereafter, we shall consider why Buhari is not campaigning and Buhari, IGP and African Sit-Tightism. #FACTCHECKED (continue) Who won the VP debate? #2019 debate YemiOsibanjo  40% Peter Obi          60% 189 votes – 23hours 41 minutes The Debate was just like fido dido. The difference is clear..7up. Peter Obi would have made a perfect President in a sane society. I will give Peter Obi the winner of 2019 VP debate – Olorogun Ernest Thanks to YemiOsinbajo for confirming to the world that Buhari pays subsidy. We can now say categorically that Buhari’sgovernment is fraudulent. I watched with pride as @ Peter Obi laid our vision to get Nigeria working again. Can’t wait for the Presidential debate. #2019 Debate – AtikuAbubakar But, the living index of Nigeria was higher then. The average Nigeria was more fed then. The economy was better then. Nigeria will certainly work again, but not under a government that continue to blame yesterday and closing the shops where money to run the home should have come from.- By Ambiodiase. You can’t compare a man who owns a bank, the largest mall in West Africa, a brewery, who has run a state government leaving zero debt with sound economy with someone who heads economic team that shares 5k in the markets Osinbanjo must study Peter Obi to learn! –  By Joe Nwokedi. ON WHETHER PETER OBI’S USE OF ECONOMIC DATA AT THE VP DEBATE WAS MERE FICTION Valentine Obienyem replies: “Economic data is not fixed, such data is based on specific date or period. Though the figures change every second, periodic figures are used for range of time until the data provider publishes updated figures. This explains why Nigeria’s unemployment rate is still quoted at 18.8% despite the fact that the data is more than one year old. Provided no current figure is available, the latest figure remains the most reliable. Having researched the figures quoted by Mr. Peter Obi at the Vice Presidential debate, I wish to present to you the comprehensive source of data that Mr. Obi quoted during the debate. I can understand why some people, desirous of massaging the pains of the “knock-out blow” he gave to the incumbent Vice President during the debate have gathered together to attack him like antibodies gathering to attack an infection. What are they doing? They are questioning the accuracy of the data he used during the debate because he tossed them up and set them on their feet now and then like a jolly juggler tossing objects into the air with admirable candour. Ridiculously, some of them said that “after all the man is not a computer!” The fact is that one can argue about Obi’s parsimony; whether as a trader he would leave his shop chasing criminal or not; but one cannot argue about his affinity with facts and figures which is as strong as the attraction between an antigen and an antibody. I also see people faulting his comparison of Nigeria with countries like China, Turkey, Mexico and South Africa. He uses those countries because in the eighties, Nigeria was at par with them in most economic indicators. In choosing them, typical of his nature, he was just trying to act like a gadfly, provoking Nigerians to seek answers to the reasons those countries left us behind. For those in love with the Cross checking of facts, I will present the sources of the date Obi used during the debate. Let me forewarn readers, as I said earlier, that economic data do not obey the laws of exactitude….”  (https://www.nairaland.com/4908405/peter-obis-aide-backs-up).The End. NOW THIS BUHARI NOT CAMPAIGNING? Wonders shall never end in Nigeria. I just read that former Lagos state Governor and a leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, will take full charge of Mr President Buharis re-election campaign. According to Buhari, this template is designed to make sure that governance does not suffer. Nigerians are screaming blue murder, arguing that it is a tactical way of dodging the rigours of campaign, which his health will not permit. Are the Yorubas prepared for this cul-de-sac, trajectory, with the false promises of a 2023 presidency? Where do the Igbos come in? As by standers, drawers of water and hewers of wood? Well, I wish Tinubu good luck, as I had sarcastically wished him when he was put in charge of reconciliation of contending tendencies in a fractured APC. I had warned him he was up against many centripetal and centrifugal forces. I was proved right, because the reconciliation efforts died in their embryonic stage, even before take-off. So, Tinubu, who was literally ignored and shut out of Aso Villa for the first 3 years of PMB’s government, is suddenly so important that he would now be the alter ego of PMB for campaign purposes? I thought that in a constitutional democracy, it is a candidate that stumps all nooks and crannies of his constituency (the whole nation, for a presidential election), soliciting for votes? The forthcoming “Election Nigeriana” is very interesting. I dey siddon look. Hands clasped; legs akinbo; mouth agape; heart thumping. The End. AND THIS BUHARI, IGP AND AFRICAN SIT-TIGHTISM Africans like to sit tight in power. No matter what. To them, power (even though ephemeral), is an aphrodisiac, an inebriating liquor. Some Nigerians cannot understand why president Buhari insists on keeping IGP Ibrahim Idris even after the expiration of his tenure by effluxion, in accordance with constitutional provisions and Civil Service Rules. But, many others perfectly understand. They believe it is to make him the engine room to perpetrate fraud during the February, 2019 presidential elections. They point to the Edo, Ekiti and Osun states governorship elections, all of which turned out to have been exercised under a fascist Police state. THE FACTS: By January 3, 2019, Idris would have completed his 35 years service as a Public Servant (Police Officer). He is therefore deemed to have retired automatically. By January 15, he would have attained the statutory mandatory retirement age of 60 years. Thus, both by biological age and longevity of service, Idris has come full circle to retirement. THE LAW: By Civil Service Rules, anofficer shall compulsorily retire from service if he has spent 35 years in service, or if he has turned 60 years, “whichever comes first”.3rd of January, 2019, comes first. To wait till January 15 is already unconstitutional because the law says “whichever comes first”, not both. Under section 215(1)(a) of the 1999 constitution, which PMB and Idris swore to defend, an IGP can only be appointed from the Corps of serving Police officers, not from retired ones. The section provides laconically: “There shall be an Inspector-General of Police who, subject to section 216(2) of the Constitution shall be appointed by the president on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving members of the Nigeria Police Force”. This section is too clear to admit of any ambiguity- It says “from among serving members of the Nigeria Police Force”. The said section 216(2)above referred to provides that the NPF shall be under the command of the IGP, whilst Police in states shall be under a Commissioner of Police. From January 3, 2019,Idris by effluxion of time, automatically ceased to be a “serving member of the Nigeria Police Force”. Wearing the uniform of a Police officer from that day is patently unconstitutional, illegal and unlawful. It amounts to impersonation and passing off. This is a serious constitutional and statutory matter. It is not one for sentiments, emotion, political brinkmanship, or lachrymal effusion. Mr. President sir, let IGP Idris go. There are equally other competent Nigerians. Afterall, he was only a Commissioner of Police in Kano State during the 2015 presidential elections in which PMB “won” a landslide, nay, moonslide, of the votes. To pave way for Idris’ emergence as IGP, 21serving officers, ranging from CPs, AIGs, DIGs, to IGP, had to be prematurely retired. In one fell swoop! A whole of seven DIGs included. Nigeria, we hail thee.The End. THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”(Harvey S. Firestone). LAST LINE Nigerians, please continue to engage me in the national conversation, whilst awaiting explosive topics of Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb., Ph.D, LL.D.]]>

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