Four months ago I wrote an essay titled "Mr. Trump and Islam". In that contribution I argued that Donald Trump, the American entrepeuner and billionaire presidential candidate, was unstoppable.I said he would win the nomination as flagbearer for the Republucan Party and then, against all odds, go on to win the November presidential election against Hillary Clinton.
The first has happened and, even though many in our country would disagree with me, the second is likely to happen as well. In my view the world needs Donald Trump and consequently I am with him all the way.During the coming election debates he should do the Nigerian people a favour and ask Hillary Clinton one question. That question is as follows.Why did she and President Barack Obama refuse to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation until late 2014?This was after they had slaughtered over 100,000 innocent Nigerians in the space of 4 years.If the victims had been Americans would they have taken so long to designate them as terrorists?Is Nigerian blood not red and do Nigerian lives not matter?Donald Trump would never have made such a mistake or tolerated such evil.If he had been the POTUS for the last seven years and not Barack Obama Boko Haram would have been designated a terrorist organisation five years ago.If he had been the POTUS for the last seven years there would have been no ISIS today and Al Qaeda would have been history long ago.If he had been the POTUS for the last seven years there would be no war in Syria today, Ghadaffi would still be alive and Libya would still have been at peace.If he had been POTUS for the last seven years the American Ambassador and four others in Benghazi would not have been murdered, the Muslim Brotherhood would never have won an election in Egypt and Iraq and Afghanistan would be in better shape today.If he had been POTUS for the last seven years Al Shabab would have been destroyed, Somalia would have been less dangerous, Israel would be safer and Iran would not have been handed a "sweet" nuclear arms deal on a silver plate.Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State of America when all of these things happened or were initiated. She therefore has to bear as much responsibility for them as Barack Obama does.Unlike Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, when it comes to foreign policy, DonaldTrump is incapable of tolerating and accepting evil from those who espouse terrorism and the cold-blooded murder of women and children as a way of life.That is the difference between him and them. He knows what to do to the islamist terrorists and he will support any foreign government that will take a hardline against those that slaughter innocents in the name of their god.He will crush those that wish to establish a new world caliphate in which non-muslims and moderate muslims are slaughtered or turned into slaves.Unlike Barack Obama he will not pamper the terrorists, encourage them in some parts and treat them with kid gloves. Instead he will wage a hard, full-scale, relentless and comprehensive war against them.He will, like Russia's Vladimir Putin, see it as a battle of the forces of light against the citadels of darkness.He will view it as an end-time war between the sons and daughters of God and the emissaries and agents of satan.He will decimate the ranks of the Philistines, the Amalekites, the Midianites and all the other vultures, vampires and blood-thirsty barbarians in our midst.He will not support a Nigerian government that has a clear-cut religious and ethnic agenda, that seeks to shame and dehumanise Christians and that is attempting to restrict the spreading of the gospel of Christ.He will not pamper and encourage a government that goes out of its way to persecute and destroy all those that it perceives as a threat and that it considers to be its enemies.He will not encourage a government that destroys the morale of the people, reduces their standard of living, destroys the economy and squanders its resources.He will not prop up an administration that joins an all-muslim international military coalition even though the majority of the population that it governs are christians.He will not stand by a government whose army murdered one thousand shiite muslims, bulldozed their homes and desecrated their graves simply because they blocked a VIP from using a road.He will not support a President who is incapable of reaching out to those that refused to vote for him even in the name of peace and national unity.He will not encourage a government who wages a selective, vindictive and nonsensical "war against corruption" in which the enemies of state are locked up indefinately and the friends of the President and his ruling party are above the law and untouchable.He will not support a government that wages a so-called "war against corruption" in which only the President's perceived enemies are targetted and which is not based on any cogent evidence of any wrongdoing but rather on coercion, intimidation, extortion, threats, sensational lies, media witchunts, ridiculous and unsubstantiated allegations and heinous disinformation.He will not support a government that refuses to protect its own people from the barbarians and terrorists known as the Fulani herdsmen and which has made no arrests after thousands of non-Fulanis have been murdered and raped by those same terrorists over the last one year.He will not support a government that sat by silently and allowed genocide to take place in Agatu and who encouraged the state-sponsored murder of many young, defenceless and innocent IPOB protesters in the south-east.He will not support a government that calls in Blackwater mercenaries from Saudi Arabia to wage war against his own people and is hell bent on using his army to crush the militants and good people of the Niger Delta area.He will not cheer for a government that violates court orders, breaches the constitutional and human rights of its own citizens and tries to intimidate the Judiciary.He will not stand by a government that tries to humiliate and muzzle the National Assembly by destroying the Senate President and discrediting that hallowed chamber.He will not support a government that locks up its political enemies and, despite court orders and public outrage, throws away the keys.He will not support a government and a political party that is surreptitiously trying to push a National Grazing Reserve Bill through the House of Assembly in an attempt to grab southern and Middle Belt lands.It is for all these reasons and much more that I am an ardent fan and supporter of Donald Trump. America needs him and so does the rest of the world.It is time that we had someone in the White House who is not fettered by political correctness and who has the strength of character and political will to do what has to be done to rid the world of evil.That man is Donald Trump and despite what others may think I believe that he will make a damn good President.Pernit me to end this contrubution with an aside.On 29th July 2016 CNN reported that "the Nigerian government is preparing troops for a crackdown in the Niger Delta if peace talks fail".This is sad and ominous. As United States Senator Ted Cruz once said "the light of truth is stronger than the terror of darkness".It follows that the biggest mistake that the Buhari administtation can possibly make is to attempt to "crack down" on the Niger Delta and kill innocent civilians.If this ever happens, for whatever reason, it will set off a chain of events that will lead to the end of Nigeria as we know it.Nigeria will disintegrate before Buhari's very eyes if any more innocent blood is shed and if the towns, creeks and villages of the oil-producing states are shelled and reduced to rubble.Sadly the slaughter has already started with the reported bombing and killing of over one hundred people by the Nigerian Armed Forces in the creeks of Lagos, Ondo and Ogun states on the fringes of yorubaland all in the name of fighting the Ijaw militants.The question is this: were those that were murdered and whose villages were subjected to what the Nigerian media has described as "massive aeriel bombing" innocent yorubas and Ijaws or were they war-mongering and pipeline-vandalising militants.The answer to that question remains to be seen but whatever it is one thing remains clear: the cries of marginalisation and the cause of the people of the Niger Delta, and indeed that of the Igbo people of the eastern region, is rooted in truth and is manifestly just. Their struggles and aspirations are legitimate and reasonable.Self-detetmination is a right. It is a concept and principle that is universally accepted and that has the backing of international law.You do not threaten to bomb those that seek to exercise that right: you treat them with respect, decency and decorum and you attempt to persuade them to stay.This is a point that is lost on President Buhari and those around him. The bottom line is this, the Niger Delta Avengers are not Boko Haram: taking them on in the field of battle would be a monuemental error.Violence begets nothing but violence and peaceful dialogue is the only way to appease a people that have been maligned, cheated and wounded. A word is enough for the wise.
The Council of State meeting which is chaired by the President is supposed to be attended by all past Presidents and Heads of States, past Chief Justices of the Federation, the 36 states incumbent governors as well as the leadership of the National Assembly.
Obasanjo and President Jonathan may not be in the best of terms as both not too long ago exchanged strong worded open letters.
The meeting which is ongoing at the council chambers of the Presidential Villa , kicked off at 10.45am.
Governors absent at the meeting include: Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Adams Oshiomole (Edo), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (Kano) and Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo).
Those present at the meeting: include former Head of States Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Abdulsalam Abubakar and former Head of the National Interim Government Earnest Shonekan,
Senate President David Mark, Speaker House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal.
Governors present at the meeting are those of Osun, and Kaduna, Lagos, Ebonyi, Enugu, Cross River, Imo, Sokoto, Gombe, Cross River, Niger, Jigawa, Ekiti, Kaduna, Taraba, Jigawa, Ogun, Niger, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Nasarawa, Kano deputy governor, Deputy governor of Borno, among others.
Meanwhile a mild drama occurred shortly before the commencement of the meeting.
The Adamawa state governor was throwing banters at some of his colleagues asking them not to poison him.
Nyako speaking to his Abia state colleague said "I am telling, don't poison me here. I am not comfortable with you here. I anything happens to me here, walahi, my people will take you to court".
Orji replies "For how many years have we been sitting together? Is it this zero hour that I would poison you?"
Nyako relies "Who knows?"
Nyako turns to Elechi "I am just warning himnot to poison me. Is there any law that says we should sit down together?"
The Journalists had waited for over an hour at the Gateway Hall venue of the meeting between the governor, National Assembly members and other stakeholders in the All Progressives Congress were stunned when Amosun told the newsmen that he had drawn the battle line with them over the series of "fabricated stories" they had been writing about his role in the APC crisis.
The meeting was called to discuss the modalities for the registration of APC members in the state.
Governor Amosun, who emerged from the meeting looking rather unhappy, vented his anger on the journalists when they asked for his comments on the event.
Speaking angrily in Yoruba, Amosun also dared the journalists to publish all he was saying to them.
The governor then walked out on the journalists, declining to answer their previous question about what transpired at the meeting with the APC National Assembly members and other stakeholders.
He declared that the journalists in the state were not his friends.
The governor stressed that he had only decided not to move against the journalists because it was not the first time they had written fabricated stories about him.
Amosun said in Yoruba, "Nka ti eri ohun ko ni e nko. Ohun to sele ni yen. Eyin na mo pe gbogbo nkan ti e nko yen, agbelero ni. E ki i se ore mi o! Write it o, that I said you are doing 'agbelero'.
"E ti ko o; emi o kan soro mo ni o. Gbogbo agbelero ti e nko; se b'o ti sele simi ri, mo kan nwo yin ni; e maa lo ko lo! Mo ri pe enko loo, esi ma ko lo!" which can be translated to mean (You journalists have been writing fabricated stories. You only write what you don't see.
You all know that you have been fabricating stories. You are not my friends, go and write it that I said you have been fabricating stories.
I just decided not to take any action. All the fabricated stories, it has happened to me, I'm only looking at you. Go on and keep fabricating stories. I can see you keep fabricating the stories, keep
This is contained in a statement issued by the former vice president in Abuja.
According to the statement, his defection is coming after due consultations with his supporters and political stakeholders.
The statement quoted the former vice president as saying that the PDP cannot be redeemed and the APC is a party that is ready for change.
The statement quoted Atiku, ``In 2006, as a result of my firm stand in defence of our constitution and our democracy, my supporters and I were pushed out of the PDP.
``A party that we worked tirelessly with other compatriots to build as a vehicle to restore democracy to our country.
``We later returned to that party in 2009 when a new leadership of the party and the country promised a new direction.
``A direction of inclusiveness, internal democracy, end to impunity, adherence to the rule of law and respect for the dignity of members and Nigerians.
``Sadly, however, those promises have not been kept. In addition, the PDP continues to be beset with many crises, mostly leadership-induced.
``It has since lost touch with Nigerians and efforts made by many well-meaning members and stakeholders to bring it back to the vision of the founders have been rebuffed."
It stated that Atiku said he joined some other leaders of the PDP to stage a walk-out at the party's last convention to demonstrate the seriousness of the matter.
The grievances that were table before the leadership of the party, Atiku said in the statement, were yet to be addressed.
``As I speak, most of the issues that led to that walk-out are yet to be addressed.
``Many founding members of the PDP, I included, continue to be marginalised and excluded from the affairs of the party.
``For instance, as a former vice president, I am by virtue of the PDP constitution, a member of the party's Board of Trustees and its National Executive Committee.
``However, I am not invited to the meetings of those organs nor consulted on their decisions.
``This was because I dared to exercise my right to contest in the party's primary election for a chance to be its flag-bearer in the 2011 elections.
``We have, therefore, concluded that the PDP cannot be redeemed.
``It is against this background that we should understand the visit by the leaders of the APC and their invitation to me to join hands with them to save the country.
``Consequently, I have been consulting my supporters and associates, my family and friends for the past few weeks.
``My decision may not satisfy some of my friends and associates, but, I have to put the interest of our country first.
``Following this extensive consultative process I have, therefore, decided to cast my lot with the APC, a party of change committed to the improvement of the lives of our people.
``My resignation letter as a member of the PDP will be delivered to the party tomorrow.
``I encourage my political associates and friends to register and join the APC once the registration exercise commences, so that together we can change this country for the better.
``That is what I have decided to do. I will do all within my God-given powers to help the APC win elections all over Nigeria.
``I will also join hands with other true progressives to bring true change to our country and its long-suffering people," the statement quoted the former vice president, as saying.
