Michael Botu's Blog

The story is told of a young man who went to a successful man to learn the secret of success. The successful man asked the young man to meet him by the Beach the next morning. Ready to learn the Lessons of Success the Young man came the next morning dressed in suit and equipped with pen and jotter. He was however surprised to meet the successful man dressed only in a swimming trunk. The Rich Man asked the Young man; are you ready for the lesson? The young man replied, Yes Sir. The Successful man took some steps towards the water and asked the young man to follow him into the River. Puzzled but determined to learn the young man went with him into the River, they both went in until the young man had his head almost under the water. The successful man with the benefit of his height held the young man under the water for a while until the young man begin to kick and struggle for survival, he pulled him up and the following dialogue ensured: Successful man : When you were u...

Back in 1993 during the Electioneering Campaigns between the Social Democratic Party (SDP)’s Candidate Chief M. K. O. Abiola and the National Republican Convention (NRC)’s Alhaji Bashir Tofa, one of the most catchy phrases I heard then was “Times are Tough now, but Times with Tofa will be tougher” it’s a phrase that apt describes the times we are in now. Times with PDP were tough, but the Times under APC are Tougher. Members of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) insist, if the PDP was in power, the hardship we face now would have been tougher. That of course is an argument that is neither here nor there. The reality today is that Times are Tough and even the Tough are buckling under the circumstances and to add insult to injury, the future remains hazy as the Government keeps assuring us the Hardship will soon be over when there no plans as far as the public can see, perceive or as we had been exhorted to do read from their body language. With the ever rising pric...

The Niger Delta Question has never lost its footing anytime in the several years of the struggle by way of changing its course of agitation for equal rights and justice. Each agitator, in his own turn, endeavoured to sustain this primordial question with great verve and gusto. The variegated shades of activist voices, in the past, have all gone in the direction of a consensual drift to attain economic, political and social freedom from an existent internal imperialism. In the same spirit, the stream of demands, recorded from the time of Major Jasper Adaka Boro to the present regime of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), rises to high tide with the legitimate agitation for a right to exist with dignity. In fact, records of the fact that the principal object of the Niger Delta people is subsumed under the two alternatives of either to remain in the Nigerian state as an autonomous region - Niger Delta Region -with full control of all resources of the land within its domain with...

  This happened before any bombing or attack on Oil Installations in the Niger Delta “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man” ~ Mahatma Gandhi A struggle takes on a life of its own and it’s only a matter of time before another person or group picks up the gauntlet. With the death of Isaac Adaka Boro, it was the hope of those who conspired to take his life that it will bring to an end the struggle he stood and died for, but they were wrong. A new era emerged - the era of intellectual pursuit, seeking redress for the same things Isaac Boro carried arms for, but the conspirators went to work and advised murder as the antidote to the intellectual struggle. Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni 9 unfortunately paid the supreme price. It was only a matter of time - the Kaima Declaration was born and the conflagration that followed, the rest as they say is History. For ...

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" ~ Martin Luther King Jr. 27th June, 2016 the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Engr. Babachir David Lawal, Reduced the 2014 National Conference to a " JOB FOR THE BOYS "  am yet to read any reaction from any quarter. Not from participants or proponents for it's implementation. The Conference is supposed to have been attended by Eminent Nigerians and to reduce that to a mere "Job for the boys" is an insult on anyone who attended that Conference. But of course Nigerians will not see anything wrong with PMB or his Boys! This same man had shunned an invitation from the National Assembly and all we get is the usual mum. There is this glaring Northernisation and Islamization of the seat of Power by the current Administration. But Nigerians are not raising a voice of dissent, it's President Buhari, we don't care if everyone in hi...

There are several excuses that the Ruling All Progressive Congress APC and President Mohammadu or Mohamed (from the published but not verified school certificate Result) Buhari and his dyed-in-the-wool supporters ‎had continued to bandy around even after one year in office. But like Scott Spencer noted “The trouble with excuses, however, is that they become inevitably difficult to believe after they’ve been used a couple of times.” The excuses are not only unbelievable, they are simply lame! Let’s look at some of the popular excuses EXCUSE No. 1: WHAT THE PDP DESTROYED IN SIXTEEN YEARS CANNOT BE REPAIRED IN ONE YEAR! The proponents of this line of argument posit that the Peoples Democratic Party PDP that held power at the center since 1999 when reigns of leadership was returned to Civilians from the Military (we forgot that so soon) only destroyed the Country. Going by this line of argument the PDP did not only lose the elections of 2015, they are also very bad at dest...

There are those who believe that our Nation is gradually sliding to a Dictatorship, there are also those who believe that in President Buhari we have a Dictator in Aso Rock be that as it may the current trend of events in the Country calls for all people of goodwill from across the Nation to begin to speak and advice our President. it was Albert Einstein who was quoted to have said "The World is a dangerous place to live in not because of those who do evil, but because of those who watch and let it happen" The advocates of dictatorship points to the President’s rubbishing of the quota system or Federal Character in his choice for those he appoints into strategic Government Positions as almost all key positions of his Government are in the hands of people from his region under the control of the Hausa/Fulani and exclusively Muslims. They also point at the President’s open disregard for the Judiciary and his continues disobedience of Court Orders. They stress that t...