The Mandate of MKO Abiola
By Adeleke O. Adeyemi, with the remarks of Reuben Abati
The Mandate: Audio Drama
Suffused with score after score of original, lilting music that resonates with its power and purpose The Mandate, Audio Drama tracks along a ponderous part of Nigeria’s story as it totters on a way forward, past a crossroads onto a path leading past her present – into an impending future. It is here presented for education and entertainment in a way that is gratifying to the soul.
This is Drama to experience – over and over again!
Following in the chequered tradition of the groundbreaking radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds (by American actor and director Orson Welles, written by the British H.G. Wells, a generation earlier) that captured the imagination of a whole nation an eon of a generation ago, another playwright has given us–startling as gripping–another War.
It centres on the calling and career of one whose essence has been aptly captured as: …Truly the first national hero and icon, whose personality and symbolism tied together the deepest aspirations of the [Nigerian] people about their own lives.
~Reuben Abati
Description:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana.
CODENAME JUNE 12: MANDATE AND MAYHEM A Tragedy on the Greatest Threat Ever to Nigeria’s Ruling Mafia. And How it was Checked.
Product Details:
Printed: 59 pages, 6" x 9", jacket-hardcover binding, cream interior paper (50# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink
PDF (408 kb)
Download: 1 documents (PDF), 408 KB
ISBN: 978-9-7837-5294-8
Publisher: Nigerian Times International
Copyright: © 2007 Adeleke O’ Adeyemi Standard Copyright License
Language: English
Country: Nigeria
Edition: First Edition
Hardcover book: $22.20
Hardcover book: £12.23
Download: £2.75
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adeleke O’ Adeyemi attended Government College, Katsina (GCK) where he was Essayist Laureate. This was where he became fascinated with the story of the groundbreaking play for radio The War of the Worlds on the Voice of America, VOA, being a lifelong radio DXer.
He went on to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and was later at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he obtained a Bachelor degree in Science. He’s also an alumnus of Daystar Leadership Academy, Lagos.
He has been Editor of the Timeless newspaper and continues to work as a freelance literary analyst and writer. He maintains avid interests in literary/publishing consulting, songwriting, and copyediting. His passions range from Child Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development, to Audio-visual, Stage Productions and full-length Animation movie-making, and TV Presentation.
He considers his primary objective in life to be: Enriching the social consciousness through literary endeavours for ensuring a sane and progressive polity for communicable personal and corporate development.
This stems from his avowed conviction that: “The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them” (Barry Lopez).
"The Mandate of MKO Abiola" is Distributed Worldwide by Lulu Press/King of Kings Books International.
Chief James Ibori thinking of how to escape from the Metropolitan Police and the EFCC.
Court Restrains EFCC From Arresting Ibori
Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
11 October 2007
Posted to the web 11 October 2007
By Emma Amaize
Warri
A FEDERAL High Court sitting in Benin has granted an injunction, restraining the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Executive Chairman of the Commission, Attorney-General of the Federation and their agents from arresting or detaining the immediate past governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori; his deputy, Chief Benjamin Elue; and other former and current political office holders in the state in respect of the EFFC's current investigations into the financial transactions and contracts in the state between 1999 and May 2007. The order is to subsist until the determination of the motion on notice brought against them before the court.
The Delta State Government had approached the court following receipt of a letter from the EFCC requesting it to turn in all documents on its (Delta government) financial transactions from 1999 to date.
A Government House, Asaba source said it (government) was alarmed by the letter since the commission lacks any such power.
Justice C.C. Okeke who gave the order, Tuesday, also restrained the EFCC and others from freezing the accounts of the Delta State Government consequent upon the said investigations until the motion on notice, adjourned to October 30 for hearing, is determined. Similarly, it ordered the defendants not to compel the plaintiffs to release documents/information to it in respect of its investigations into the accounts of the state.
Plaintiffs in the case are the Attorney-General of Delta State; the state Government; the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa; Auditor-General of the state while the defendants are the EFCC, its chairman and the Attorney-General of the Federation.
Specifically, the plaintiffs sought an interim injunction to restrain the defendants, their agents, privies, servants or any person(s) acting for or through them from taking any step whatsoever to compel the plaintiffs/applicants, including current or erstwhile holders of offices in the Delta State Government to produce or submit the documents or information requested by the first defendant from the first plaintiff/applicant through its letter, 6/06/07 with reference number, CR: 3000/EFCC/ABJ/ASO/TM.3.VOL2/321, entitled: "Investigation Activities: Request for Information," pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.
Plaintiffs also urged the court to restrain the defendants, their servants, agents or privies from arresting and detaining any current or erstwhile public or political office holder in the Delta State Government from May 1999 to June 2007, including but not limited to the following: Chief James Ibori, Chief Benjamin Elue, Mr. Ede Oghoro and Mr. Charles Israye in consequence of the alleged investigations touching on the accounts, contracts, etc of the second plaintiff following the issuance of the first defendant's letter referred to in paragraph one above, pending the determination of the motion on notice.
The third relief sought by the plaintiffs was for an order of interim injunction restraining the EFCC from taking any step to freeze any of the accounts of the state government or any of its offices, ministries or agencies maintained in any bank in Nigeria in consequence of the letter referred to in paragraph (a) above pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.
After reading the affidavit in support of the affidavit of urgency sworn to by Emmanuel Okirhienyefa, Solicitor-General and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Asaba and after hearing Dafe Akpedeye (SAN), Attorney-General of Delta State with Ken Mozia for the plaintiffs/applicants, the court granted the prayers but added that the plaintiffs should undertake to pay damages in case the order ought not to have been made at all.
Allafrica.comChief James "the thief" Ibori can run and hide, but he cannot escape from the long arms of the law and he cannot escape from the long claws of nemesis. Justice shall prevail in the end.
Chief James Ibori and His Gang.
As long as wanted criminals like Chief James "the thief" Ibori and Dr. Peter Odili are still bona fide members of the notorious ruling People's Democractic Party (PDP) of Nigeria, the PDP remains a notorious political party of gangsters. We are going to nail everyone of them, from the least to the greatest, from Chief James "the thief" Ibori to their Chieftain, ex-President Olusegun Obasanajo. The Jerry Rawlings of Nigeria is coming soon.
These unrepentant criminals have left the majority of Nigerians in the lurch as they looted the national treasury and misappropriated our oil revenues in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) popularly called by the derogatory name of Papa Deceive Pikin, in Nigerian pidgin English, is a notorious and monstrous plutocracy of kleptomaniacs, from their local wards to the corridors of Aso Villa, the State House in Abuja. The President, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua is exactly what I call him, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.
As long as the notoriously corrupt ex-governors, Dr. Peter Odili and Chief “the thief’ James Ibori are still enjoying the protective custody and patronage of the PDP led government, I will never support President Umaru Yar’Adua, because anyone protecting criminals is equally a criminal. Therefore, Alhaji Umaru Yar’ Adua is as guilty as the criminal stalwarts of the PDP, because birds of the same feather flock together. And show me your friends and I will tell you who you are. As Jesus Christ said:
By their fruits, you shall know them.
If you are the chairperson at a conference of thieves, then you are the chairperson of the thieves.
Until we sack the PDP from government, Nigeria will never be freed from these criminals in power.
THE LAST WORD: Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, Commander of the United Nations- African Union. Last week Agwai's peacekeeping mission in Darfur suffered a serious setback when unidentified rebel forces overran an AU base. He spoke with Newsweek about the difficulties of his mission and how to be a peacekeeper where peace does not yet exist. "We are here as peacekeepers, and our job would be easier and smoother if there were a peace deal brokered for us. Unfortunately, right now, there is no peace to keep. So it has become another Herculean task to see that people are protected," he says.
Force Dejection
Newsweek International
Oct. 15, 2007 issue - Gen. Martin Luther Agwai might have the toughest job in Africa. As commander of the new joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Darfur, the former head of Nigeria's armed forces will lead the 26,000-strong force that will be deployed to the region next year. His mission suffered a serious setback last Saturday when unidentified rebel forces overran an AU base at Haskanita, leaving 10 of his troops dead. NEWSWEEK's Silvia Spring spoke with Agwai by telephone from Khartoum, where he was attending a ceremony honoring the dead AU forces, about the raid, the difficulties of his mission and how to be a peacekeeper where peace does not yet exist. Excerpts:
SPRING: This week, 10 AU soldiers were killed. How did a small rebel group manage to ambush these soldiers so successfully?
AGWAI: Where did you get this idea that it was a small rebel group? And these troops were not ambushed. They were attacked. Twice. The second time a large number of rebels overwhelmed the camp. Who these rebels were, I don't know.
What are the implications for your UN-AU force?
There are no implications. Right now, I don't have control over the AU troops. When my [AU-UN] troops arrive, then we'll resolve most of these problems. We are committed to staying, and I hope other countries will still allow their troops to come.
What are you most worried about right now?
A lack of troops. We're supposed to have 20,000 troops and 6,000 policemen. As of now, we don't even know the troop contributors. To be able to perform the task that is expected of us, that is what is my biggest challenge now. The resolution itself stated that by the end of August we would know all the troop contributors, and now we are at almost the end of September, and we don't know. So you see the whole program is running behind schedule.
Whom do you blame for the delays?
It would very difficult for me to sit here and apportion blame because I don't know what is happening behind the scenes. I don't know what challenges other people are facing, and I'm only looking at this from my own perspective. I have a job to perform, and there are resources that have to be given to me. I know if the resources are available, they will be given to me. I believe there must be challenges that all the parties are facing. I just hope that we will be able to resolve and find an answer to those challenges and that the troops arrive so we can save lives and property in this part of the world.
You've warned the international community not to set its expectations too high. Why?
The resolution that created this hybrid [peacekeeping] operation is not a secret document, so many people have read that the force is to have 20,000 troops. I have had telephone calls from different organizations and individuals congratulating me that I now have 20,000 troops. Unfortunately, as you and I know now, we don't even know the troop contributors, so how can we talk about what those troops will do? Those people who are calling me will see nothing happening on the ground and feel disappointed. That is why I have already cautioned people not to expect too much because there is not much happening on the ground.
So you're saying things aren't changing fast enough?
Definitely. I am very concerned. I accepted the job because I wanted to give it my best, and I can only give it my best and be judged by the world depending on the resources available to me. And the resources are not forthcoming. They are not giving me 20,000 [troops], not to mention the equipment the troops will use, not to mention the other staff we will need in the mission. Nothing. So I am really, really concerned.
Plus, there's no peace deal yet. How can you be expected to provide security when there's no peace deal?
Lack of peace on the ground is definitely another big challenge because we are here as peacekeepers, and our job would be easier and smoother if there were a peace deal brokered for us. Unfortunately, right now, there is no peace to keep. So it has become another Herculean task to see that people are protected. We hope the talks in Libya [scheduled to start Oct. 27] result in an acceptable, comprehensive peace agreement for us and for every party involved.
So you must be feeling pretty stressed out these days.
If it were my younger days, maybe I would have been very stressed, but I have taken some courses in stress management and read a book called "Stop Stressing and Start Sleeping." Now, instead of crying over spilt milk, I look at tomorrow and what I can achieve.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc
If what Gen. Martin Luther Agwai said is true, then I am disappointed that the UN/AU cannot prove to be capable of ending the civil war in Sudan and save the millions of refugees who are still suffering and dying daily in Darfur and the borders of Chad.
How can the UN/AU continue to blame the ruling government of Sudan for the Darfur crisis when the UN/AU cannot even provide the required troops, equipment and logistics for the joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission?
I blame the UN/AU for the preventable death of the 10 AU peacekeepers that were killed by unidentified rebel forces in a surprise attack on the AU base at Haskanita on Sunday, September 30, 2007.
The fact that, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai admitted that they could not identify the rebel forces opposed to the peacekeeping mission shows that the previous AU Peacekeeping mission failed. The first assignment of any military operation in any hostile territory is reconnaissance. The intelligence observers would have gone ahead of the troops and identify the agents of the conflict, their locations, positions, conditions, supplies and their weaknesses. Then, the intelligence report will be used for the blue prints of the main operations of the peacekeeping mission.
You do not send troops to the hostile territory without knowing your enemies and allies. Gen. Martin Luther Agwai would be more informed if he contacted Mr. Jan Pronk, the former UN Envoy to Sudan, who knew all the warring antagonists in the conflicts in Sudan. Jan Pronk’s intelligence report would be very useful to the commander of the peacekeeping mission.
It is unfortunate that strategic priorities are being misplaced in the joint United Nations-African Union Hybrid Peacekeeping Mission in Sudan.
NEWSWEEK International Editions: Highlights and Exclusives, OCT. 15, 2007 Issue
COVER: Biology Reborn. (All overseas editions). In recent months, a perfect storm of new technology and research has blown apart 20th-century dogma in the fields of biology and genetics, writes Lee Silver, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton. He writes that many scientists now believe that heredity is the result of an incredibly complex interplay among the basic components of the genome, scattered among many different genes and even the vast stretches of "junk DNA" once thought to serve no purpose. The result of this seemingly modest conceptual breakthrough has been a torrent of new discoveries. Scientists around the world have identified alterations in the sequence of DNA that play causative roles in a range of common diseases, including types 1 and 2 diabetes; schizophrenia; bipolar disorder; glaucoma; inflammatory bowel disease; rheumatoid arthritis; hypertension; restless legs syndrome; susceptibility to gallstone formation; lupus; multiple sclerosis; coronary heart disease; colorectal, prostate and breast cancer, and the pace at which HIV infection causes full-blown AIDS. While still far from cures, researchers hope these discoveries will eventually enable physicians to prescribe genome-specific preventions and treatments for diseases.
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Photo: From Newscom
China's New Guard. Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu and Special Correspondent Jonathan Ansfield report on a young new generation of Chinese leaders who could transform China's Communist Party. Next week, more than 2,000 select Chinese Communist Party cadres will gather for a pivotal meeting at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. The No. 1 item on this party congress's agenda is the advancement of China's future leaders, the people that could be China's best hope for political change. Chinese have begun calling them the Sixth Generation. They are also known as the '60s Generation and are seen as worldlier, more traveled and less doctrinaire than any previous Chinese generation. And-though China's state-run media would never admit it-some Gen-Sixers were probably among the students who rallied at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
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'Strong Like Saddam.' Jerusalem Bureau Chief Kevin Peraino, on assignment in Iraq, reports on Iraq's tangled network of tribal leaders and their roles in keeping the peace. Last summer American military commanders spent millions of dollars on "concerned local citizens" programs-essentially paying off tribal sheiks to keep their followers from planting roadside bombs. Critics, however, say that empowering regional strongmen is creating a warlord state in Iraq. At best, the breakdown of Iraq into local fiefdoms is not necessarily consistent with political reconciliation at the center. At worst, power struggles among local leaders could erupt into an all-out civil war.
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Seeking Center Ground. London Bureau Chief Stryker McGuire writes that just because former British prime minister Tony Blair is out of the spotlight does not mean his brand of politics has disappeared. McGuire writes that current Prime Minister Gordon Brown's leadership style is beginning to look very familiar. "He's [Gordon] amassed impressive popular support as the anti-Blair with a serious, nonflashy style that sets him apart from Blair, whose presentational pizzazz came to be deplored as spin by an electorate that turned angry after the invasion of Iraq. And yet, like Blair before him, he's continued to develop hardline policies on such issues as immigration and crime."
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The Longest Shadow. Special Correspondent Sarah Wildman reports that a proposed law in Spain that would officially, morally and financially acknowledge those who died in the Civil War and were persecuted during Francisco Franco's dictatorship has stalled in debate over the benefits of exhuming the past. The political left says the law doesn't go far enough. The political right argues the law is unnecessary and divisive. If the law fails, Spain will remain one of the few democratic nations that have yet to have a reckoning with their past.
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A Stressful Situation. Special Correspondent Karin Rives reports that Sweden's latest plans to limit paid sick leave for people suffering from mental burnout angered many of its citizens who accused the government of trying to kill off its weakest citizens. The conflict mirrors similar debates throughout Europe, where politicians and constituents are gradually realizing that competing against other Western nations, and emerging powerhouses like India and China, will be impossible without more- flexible labor laws and fewer expensive entitlements.
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Rwanda Turns Off. Special Correspondent Silvia Spring reports that President Paul Kagame's increasingly strong-armed policies and extreme restrictions on the media may be threatening Rwanda's economic future. Rwanda is in the midst of a major campaign to develop a high-tech sector to make the country an IT services hub. Although outside donors are helping to achieve this goal, many analysts say that trying to build an information economy while tightening government control over the flow of that information may not be possible.
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WORLD VIEW: Sleepwalking to Sanctions, Again. Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria writes that diplomacy, not sanctions, should be used in resolving conflicts with countries like Burma. The problem with sanctions is, while they do impact a country's economy by shrinking it, the parts of the economy they shrink most are those that aren't under total state control. "If the purpose of sanctions is to bring about a better system for that country, devastating its society is a strange path to the new order," he writes.
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THE LAST WORD: Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, Commander of the United Nations- African Union. Last week Agwai's peacekeeping mission in Darfur suffered a serious setback when unidentified rebel forces overran an AU base. He spoke with Newsweek about the difficulties of his mission and how to be a peacekeeper where peace does not yet exist. "We are here as peacekeepers, and our job would be easier and smoother if there were a peace deal brokered for us. Unfortunately, right now, there is no peace to keep. So it has become another Herculean task to see that people are protected," he says.
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