ISSUES Archives - BigPen Online

May162018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

POLITICAL DIRTY CONGRESS ACTS; THE JOKE IS ON OGBORU, OMO-AGEGE AND DODODO, NOT OYEGUN, By Mudiaga Okorefe

Alhaji Sani Dododo was appointed by NWC headed by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as Chairman. And whoever can appoint can also sack. The NWC has not at any point disown Chief Oyegun's powers to act on behalf of the NWC. Ogboru and his co-travellers are yet to display a formal letter of appointment, if any, ever issued to Alh Dododo, if indeed any exist. Alh Dododo could not keep his job long enough to be issued any appointment letter. If he has one we challenge him to display it. Alh Dododo was quickly procured by Ogboru/Agege and Prophet Jones Erue even before he arrived Asaba. He quickly declared 100 packets of results sheets missing in preparation for Ogboru/Agege using them to return fake results back to him. Out of his 6 man committee team, 5 members including the Secretary soo...

May102018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

BETWEEN NAYSAYERS AND BAYELSA PUBLIC SERVICE REFORMS

ISSUES

By Daniel Alabrah Timi is about 27 years and hails from a rustic community in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. He is not a lazy Nigerian youth (if you catch my drift). Since he left secondary school, he has fended for himself, having lost his parents early in life. He is a decent young man, who abhors cultism, drug abuse or some of the anti-societal idiosyncrasies found among youths in Yenagoa, the capital city. Currently, he is a part-time student at the Niger Delta University (NDU) and engages in menial jobs to be able to acquire university education. But his story would have been different. A few months ago, he shockingly discovered that his name was on the payroll of the Bayelsa State Civil Service. Unknown to him, his uncle, a civil servan...

Apr222018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

BUHARI’S 2019 BID AND MATTERS ARISING, BY GARBA SHEHU

ISSUES

The country is gearing itself up for the General Elections in February next year and with President Muhammadu Buhari announcing that he will bid for the governing Party, APC’s ticket to run fo a second term, all hell has been let loose by the chaotic, ill-prepared opposition camp. A joke on WhatsApp last week was about the abuse and insults heaped on Muhammadu Buhari, attacking him for everything wrong with the country but failing to answer an important question: who do you have that is better? In democracies around the globe, second terms by incumbents are usually harder to get simply because, somehow, there is always some kind of anti-incumbency leading to a loss of faith among those supporters. For President Buhari, who won with massive votes in 2015, his major challenge is

Apr182018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

WHY I ACCEPTED TO SERVE, BY FESTUS KEYAMO

ISSUES, POLITICS

Just yesterday, my appointment as the Director, Strategic Communications of President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation was made public. In that capacity, I would be the Official Spokesperson of the President’s campaigns for the 2019 Presidential Election. Let me put it on record that I was indeed consulted before the announcement. Upon the offer, I wholeheartedly and proudly accepted the challenge to do this for the good of my country and for posterity. For in President Buhari I have found an approximation of the lofty values I cherish and have fought for all my life. I know millions of Nigerians have never seen me in the mould of partisan politics. This is because for the past two and half decades, I have been under intense public scrutiny while engaging successive governments

Feb272018 by philzNo Comments

Re: TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL’S NARRATIVE ON NIGERIA – MATTERS ARISING

ISSUES

There has been various comments by Government, Groups and stakeholders on the recent negative narrative on Nigeria's corruption status that it has become necessary to offer a voice with a view to improving our corruption index over time. The Buhari Administration has no doubt held the bull by the horns since coming into office. Never before has so many supposedly corrupt officials been held by the neck to account. Just that corruption has become so ingrained in our psyche as a people for so long. Reducing corruption in Nigeria is the responsibility of government - the executive, legislative, judiciary. Except this group act as a continuum together, the corruption cankerworm cannot be reduced or eliminated. Transparency International has apparently evaluated the Niger...

Feb262018 by philzNo Comments

2019: APC CONSTITUTION SUPPORTS ZONING OF ELECTIVE OFFICES

ISSUES, POLITICS

Since Delta North APC made it known in a communique issued after an emergency meeting at the country home of the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, that Delta North Senatorial District has the right to complete its second term under the banner of the APC, many followers of Chief Great Ogboru have responded fiercely and with a contrary view that zoning, which is seen as an alternate word for power rotation, is unconstitutional in the APC. According to Efe Duku, a political confidant of Chief Great Ogboru, and a believer in Ogboru’s leadership philosophy”, “the APC constitution does not provide for premeditated exclusion of candidates from elections and nobody can do that. Whoever thinks and acts otherwise is on a journey to nowhere.” I had si

Feb262018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

WHY AFRICAN LEADERS DISOBEY POLITICAL PROPHECIES

ISSUES

One of the most exciting teachings I received during my formative years was the lessons on prophecy. It was during my catechism class as a Catholic Christian, and prophecy as a topic posed a huge but thrilling challenge to me. On that day, at that time and in that place, the Catechist (teacher) told the class that ‘prophecy is the certain foretelling of a future event by a person supernaturally informed of it and supernaturally moved to announce it. This, he added, comes in two ways; prophesy of foreknowledge and prophesy of denunciation’. In the same breath, while the prophecy of foreknowledge according to him, deal with what is certain to come, prophesy of denunciation tells what is to come if the present situation is not changed; both acting as information and warnin

Feb262018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

RESTORING DIGNITY TO A LAND OF PLENTY

ISSUES

In the last year I have been home in Ibusa or somewhere in Delta State every other week. One remarkable lesson from meeting our people in the comfort zones of their lives is discovering how a once proud people struggle with the trauma that current circumstance has wrought on their dignity. Sadly, our once proud people who responded to a changing world by embracing Western education have lost much to economic decline and have become beggarly. Olisa Agbakoba teased me about this after the burial of his erstwhile mother-in-law in Delta State. He noted the palpable poverty in the state as seen in the burial as opportunity for a decent meal and to get something off the bereaved. This should force anybody with compassion in their soul to seek ways of helping Deltans restore t...

Feb202018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

A MUST READ! DELTA 2019: OF POLITICS OF DECEIT, ARROGANCE, DESPERATION AND ETHNICITY; A REJOINDER TO EFE DUKU

ISSUES, POLITICS

I am Mudiaga Okorefe - a staunch and long suffering APC faithful who believe that APC must win the governorship of Delta state come 2019. I'm today joining issues with Efe Duku who, in the guise of a constructive intellectual discuss and reasoning initiated a phantom debate on an imagined 'Anioma Agenda' with distorted reasoning that is best described, at the minimum, as grotesque and outrageous! The views here are mine and I take full responsibility for them as a whole. In a rather weird but astonishing tactic designed as a sleight of hand against the unwary reader, Efe Duku first went into invention and fabrication of imaginary and non existing facts cum situation, after which, he developed a most righteous anger that justified him to severely berate the situation and al...

Feb192018 by Bigpenngr, RotterdamNo Comments

DELTA 2019: AS OGBORU’S PAN-DELTA VISION FACES DIVISIVE ETHNIC AGENDA

ISSUES, POLITICS

I am Efe Duku – a principled believer in the Ogboru leadership philosophy, and a respecter of constructive intellectual discussions and reasoning. Today, I am joining the simmering ‘Anioma Agenda’ debate in the Delta APC in the hope that my thoughts would positively impact the debate. The views here are mine and I take responsibility for them in whole. Essentially, the proponents and supporters of the Anioma Agenda believe that on the chief ground of ‘equity’, the Delta State APC (not PDP) should somehow restrict its forthcoming Governorship primary contest to aspirants of Delta North origin. While some of them prefer some form of negotiated or conveniently ‘peaceful’ ban on aspirants from Central and South Senatorial Districts from the governorship race, some by their utt