Just sitting in a quiet room at the end of the day- everyone else has left the office and I'm just finishing off when I am drawn to open this blog up and again drop a few lines....
Yesterday is being reported in the media as Tony Blair's black day, what with his Deputy (the linguistically challenged John Prescott) admitting to an affair with one of his secretaries.....just goes to show New Labour is just as capable of sleaze as the Tories....to Charles Clarke the Home Secretary being asked to resign because about a thousand foreign criminals have been released from prison over the last year without being deported as they ought to have.....to Patricia Hewitt....she of the hectoring, deluded "This is the NHS' best year ever" being booed and slow hand clapped out of the Nurses' conference in Bournemouth....
With the local elections coming up next week, it's not a good time for Blair or New Labour....Nor is it for his warmongering ally Dubya whose opinion poll ratings seem to have gone into free fall...perhaps there is some justice after all.....
Just finished The Next Gulf- a book about Oil, London, Washington and Nigeria, which makes pretty scary reading (if you're Nigerian). It could have been better written but the questions it raises about the US' strategic interests in Nigerian (and West African) oil merely suggests that all our agitation as Nigerians over third term is besides the point- the real script is being written elsewhere....
And we know that for the US, and the UK ...as long as the oil keeps flowing, they will shut their eyes to everything else....
I've never forgotten the Abacha days when even the "sainted" Bill Clinton announced in South Africa that the US would recognize any Nigerian leader who had emerged through a democratic process, even if they shed their military uniform to do so...I remember how depressed I was that day.....
There is much these days in Nigerian happenings to remind me of the Abacha days- amazing how human beings can literally repeat the mistakes of history step by slow, mind numbing step..... Segun Adeniyi's article today in Thisday and Chief Awoniyi's letter to Obasanjo remind me of the final last minute warnings to Abacha....
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3 comments:
"I've never forgotten the Abacha days when even the "sainted" Bill Clinton announced in South Africa that the US would recognize any Nigerian leader who had emerged through a democratic process, even if they shed their military uniform to do so...I remember how depressed I was that day....."
They must've gotten the message in Nigeria. After all, the last election was between former military leader Obasanjo and former military leader Buhari. The next election may well be between former military leader Obasanjo and former military leader Babangida.
I imagine Abdusalami Abubakar is making plans for 2011.
in my opinion, the political system in nigeria is still a militarised form. The kind that will defy any explanation that may be given by Thomas Jefferson and his mates about what democracy should be like.
Or how do you explain the situation in Oyo state when a governor is impeached by a civilian garrison commander, or that of Anambra, where another governor was abducted.
To me, the elections are just coups masqueraded through the ballot box.
The boys behind all the coups in nigeria are still the ones playing the games...........only now in a fashion that will please the big brothers....a la United States and United Kingdom.
Clarke is going to go soon, mark my words. As for US and Nigeria, the interest is oil. Shift away from Saudi oil and concentrate on African oil.
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