Buhari and ribadu are ........

Buhari and Ribadu are Fools

09 Dec, 2012

For the singular purpose of objectivity, inasmuch as I stand to be pilloried, readers should not pooh-pooh this vignette as mere agglomeration of sentences, but as a critical step forward to taking informed decisions during and after the 2011 elections. When in 2003 I rose to immerse myself into the financially handicapped but issue-based campaign caucus of the late Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM), I discovered among other things, that a re-generational and trans-generational mental revolution was the only way out to get Nigerians on the right path. In 2003, I didn’t have any other option against the Hedonic Ogun State Mathew, than my own Gani Fawehinmi (Buhari was a lone ranger then). But Nigerians didn’t understand that there was a need for change. I was scorned at every of my campaign outing for SAM without being paid a Kobo. I just wanted Obasanjo out!  Obasanjo, you will recall, never pretended to sophistication. His training neither presupposed it, nor did his wit, which is entirely rustic and sometimes ribald. Inside the ubiquitous Lagos Molue, on the dirty streets of Lagos, at the ever busy newspaper stands in Lagos, jam-packed by the unemployed people, I was out against Aremu while canvassing votes for the then conscience of Nigeria. I was rejected everywhere, not because of anything, but because people didn’t see a need for change. Read people’s lyrics: “Gani can’t win but he is the best man”. This song became a bestseller, fuelled by the Alliance for Democracy’s grievous sin of throwing-in for the progenitor of do-or-die political shindigs in the crippling modern Nigeria.
But as the 2011 election springs on, we have so many ‘change’ mantras, including the frustrated and the pretenders, spreading goebellian propaganda to the easily swayed electorates (once you have the money). No wonder why a friend, out of rage, told me that: “imagine a Jonathan preaching the message of change!” If there is anything good in 2011, it is the singular fact that for the first time since 1999, we have many options to choose from: the Ribadus, the Buharis, the Jonathans, the Adeolas, the Bakares, the Sambos etc. For the first time too, we are having educated people (not necessary) vying for the most exalted office in Nigeria. Come to think of it, all the front runners have their peculiar personality. You think of Ribadu, courage comes to your mind. You think of Bakare, fearlessness comes to your mind. You think Adeola, professionalism comes to your mind. You think of Buhari, integrity comes to your mind. You think of Jonathan, luck comes to your mind. Besides, I am ecstatically well disposed to calling Buhari and Ribadu ‘fools’, given what Jonathan understands as ‘rascality’.
BUHARI
I don’t want to be easily hoodwinked, just like many others, that given the antecedents of Buhari, the tall one (you remember Bakare calling him that? I attend Bakare’s church in Lagos), he is the best that can spearhead the change we need. Of course, he is a better option than Babangida and Atiku (Babantiku).  What sets Buhari and Babantiku apart, and puts Buhari ahead at the moment, is the cumulative and sanitising effect of time, or what some historians and biographers describe as iconoclastic posterity. It is indeed a strange phenomenon that someone so aloof as Buhari, can work a crowd so passionately. Stranger still is the fact that he whips the crowd into frenzy, not by delicately wrought words and uplifting phrases, nor by calculated soapbox theatrics and choreographed dances, as perfected by both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), but by the simple fact of his unfathomably aloof personality. Integrity and honesty best describe this tall one.
Modern Nigeria is a fusion of boisterous and sometimes conflicting competitive ethno-religious groups in need of carefully measured but firm handling. However, if the country is not restructured, the contradictions it is groaning under today will explode in the long run. We need an iconoclast with a sublime understanding of how to situate these futuristic but urgent requirements within a wider framework of a flexible society anchored on disciplined but responsive values. Can Buhari be that man? I think so, only if he can assimilate within a very short time frame, what democratic principles are all about. One of his responses at the NN24 debate confirms my study on him. Asked at the NN24 debate how he has been faring with democratic values, Buhari said: “I spent 50 months challenging the 2007 election results in court; I didn’t go to the streets.” Is going to the streets an undemocratic engagement, especially when you are fighting a just course? Was it not on street protest that Buhari found Bakare, his running mate? I have many more reasons but for space!
Buhari has become the North’s hero, not because they think he can win nor because other parts of the country see him as competent to rule, but because they have simply fallen in love with him. After running for the presidency twice, he has demonstrated that losing twice was not enough to lure him into the sort of depressing compromises rife in Nigeria. As presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party in 2007, he insisted on going to court against his party’s wishes, and denounced the Government of National Unity which his party embraced to its peril. He has proved to be reliable, dependable, honest, self-assured and has shown he has the character to rule Nigeria with a steady, confident pair of hands. He is probably one of the few leaders in the world whose charisma has little to do with his speeches or erudition, or even his antecedents. If the turnout in the April polls is heavy in the North, it will be because of Buhari.
Given the tumultuous crowds that welcome Buhari at every stop in the North and the fairly massive crowds in the South-West, Buhari is capable of springing up surprises, though I won’t be surprised. Nonetheless, in all the talk about Buhari’s acceptability and the growing fanatical support for him, which has put Jonathan on the jittery foot, there has been little or no reference to his programmes, his suitability for high office, or even his political competence. They talk about his character, and he has it plenteous. They talk about his honesty, and he is impeccable. They talk about his courage and fearlessness, and to me, he is unsullied. And then they talk about his experience and discipline, and he is unimpeachable. But remember what they told us about the late insular of Katsina, Umaru Yar’Adua. They told us that he was honest too; they told us that he wasn’t corrupt; they told us that he has integrity. In the real sense, what we got in the long run were contradictions. Yar’Adua and all his travellers in the rickety wagon of Vision 20:2020, including Jonathan, never governed us well. I am quick to point out, with hardihood too, that by not owning a house in Abuja cannot guarantee Buhari’s ability to govern Nigeria in a democratic setting. So also by not owning an oil block as Petroleum Minister, by birthing our refineries, and by not being eloquent (recently adduced), cannot guarantee his optimal performance as civilian president. He needs, among other things, to be garnished with democratic fundamentals that are doable (he currently lacks them).
One of the greatest strengths of Buhari’s manifesto is the strong tie it has with constitutional reform, which is futuristic. This in a way, puts him far ahead of other contenders, were campaigns have been issue-based. Of course the Nigerian constitution, like a speech worked and reworked by many experts, has no soul. And so we have a responsibility to rise to the higher levels of existence and to stand and fight for something much nobler, something extraordinary, something more filling than food and clothing. For Buhari to have been able to think out constitutional reform, even if it is not that comprehensive, which will put Nigeria on the same path that is giving Lagos a face lift, then Buhari should be a ‘fool’, since Fashola is a ‘rascal’ as far as Jonathan is concerned! If Buhari is elected, either through a run-off or an alliance, he will bring to the office of president indomitable self-will, courage, honesty and an unquenchable patriotic spirit to move the country forward, I think so!
RIBADU
Again too, I refuse to be mesmerized with Ribadu’s sing-song of belonging to the age group of world leaders, albeit I commend his wit, candour and uprightness in his anti-corruption crusade. To me, age has never and can never be an instrument to show leadership capability.  Ribadu has the genuine intellectual enablement to gather bright people around himself and not suffer complex. He also has the ability to formulate domestic and foreign policies that are forward-looking, sensible and inclusive. However, my problem with him is that he left the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with conflicting integrity (think untainted integrity, Buhari has it in abundance). While he was fighting the negative status in our corruption lexicon, just because he stood firmly on the abomasums of corruption, he took with himself, a share of the corruption, getting promotions he never qualified for, especially when one considers the undue process his promotions passed through. More importantly to be noted as part of Ribadu’s strength of character in office was the singular fact that public officers soft-pedaled on their bicycle of corruption shenanigans. Unfortunately, he was removed from office unceremoniously, just like the garrulous arch-rigger for the PDP, Maurice Iwu, who hitherto seemed to have remained immovable on the seat he no longer deserves. While the Federal Government coerced  Ribadu out as against the wish of Nigerians and the international community, Nigerians sacked PDP rigging machine, Iwu!
However, Ribadu represents the yearnings of Nigerians. He portrays a brand new posture that Nigeria needs and his acceptance among the young population of Nigeria shows that if votes count, he can get the spread among the different age groups that make up our 140million number. He has unparalleled precision with his evocative message, even with his sullied eloquence, which is peculiar to the Fulanis. By training, by disposition, and by his interactions, Ribadu is cosmopolitan and seems to be more passionate with comprehensive grasp of the root causes of Nigeria’s injuries. With progressive friends ranging from the bohemian to the lengthily liberal, and from the largely divided North to the ecstatic secular Niger Delta, Ribadu will be more given to consensus construction. To me, Ribadu is more exposed, both locally and internationally, well refined, mild and energetic. Notwithstanding his relative inexperience at the highest levels of government, his policies are more likely to benefit from broader consultations, rigorous debates and intellectual, even academic, inputs. We would certainly be treated with daily interesting stories in the papers because to me, his government would be more engaging!
But the fact that Ribadu is also selling himself as the most righteous baffles me. What pains me most is that our supposed leaders don’t see any bad thing about their past. To all the presidential contenders, all of them are saints! None has any sin to confess to Nigerians! To me, this is menacingly untrue! Where then did they get the honesty they are preaching about themselves? The singular act that drew me to Obama during his campaigns was when I heard Obama saying: “My only regret in life was that I took marijuana when I was in school as a student.” He took himself to Americans for cleansing. Just like others, Ribadu lacks the level of honesty needed to govern Nigeria that is practically made up of God-loving people!
My strong point for Ribadu however, is that I see a new Nigeria in him. There is a certain robust effervescence in him that is suggesting that. His “Pathway to a New Nigeria” blueprint shows that he has the depth, instinct, and passion, garnished with resounding foreign policy relations (given his exposure and acceptance in the international community). His manifesto is aggressive (though not promising too much), which is what we need for now. Aggressive policies that can be aggressively implemented are what I can see in Ribadu’s paper, words and deeds. With all these, I deem it fit to call him a ‘fool’, since Fashola, the only template Nigerians are using for governance evaluation is a ‘rascal’ in the lexicon of President Jonathan! With Ribadu in the Villa, more young minds would be involved in governance, restoring hope to the young population that the future indeed belongs to the youth!
JONATHAN
Jonathan’s sudden rose to stardom has succeeded in the development of a new postulate of life. ‘Luck’, not hard-work, can guarantee success, simple! No doubt, Jonathan has formed major prayer points in churches and mosques as people jostle to name their babies Goodluck. With no shred of dubitation too, Jonathan is the most popular candidate running. He has the national spread and his campaign has been largely attended by massive crowds too. It is interesting that the frenzied politicking around Jonathan’s campaign is entirely limited to disproving the zoning formula and juggling supports from the states and the zones. He does not speak to issues with any visionary fervour, and indeed cannot. He does not connect with the electorate emotionally, and indeed, he is too distant, too detached and too plain to even try. And while his assumption of power has done a lot to give everyone a sense of belonging — and I would have loved him to win and continue in office — the presidency is far too serious a business to be reduced to the dynamics of zoning and the permutations of states support rather than the competence of the candidate. Four more years of Jonathan will corrode the national will to compete. I can bet it!
I must state lucidly too, that by not having shoes when he was young, by not having bags for schooling and by going hungry often during his youthful age, are not enough excuse why he should be voted. While his advertorial stories are not inspiring, probably because they may not be true, his personality does not speak volume. But Jonathan is wholly without restraint, as his re-enactment of the politics of the 1960s is showing. As far as he is concerned, the only line to draw is at one extreme end, not in the middle. He is not only intimidating the Southwest and engaging in name-calling, he is apparently willing, without understanding the consequences, to use state apparatus to demolish all obstacles to his electoral success. His indifference to the assault on the constitution by his supporters and friends in Ogun State  and Bauchi cannot be ignored. So, too, his intemperate responses to the opposition’s verbal assault, which is seriously unpresidential!
However, there is a strong reason why Jonathan may be better off than Buhari and Ribadu. He can sacrifice anything in his life to achieve a course. At the expense of many of our ungracious politicians including himself, Jonathan has initiated an electoral reform that may even swallow him, I can foresee it! One may be displeased with the way important sections of Uwais’ Recommendations were treated to rubbles, but the fact still remains clear that Jonathan birthed the long awaited reform. He represents the cries of the minority. He stands as symbol of hope to his people in the Delta, and for the first time too since 1999, the incumbent president has a strong resolve for one man, one vote (Obasanjo never did that!), but then, I find it hard to pitch my tent with his resolve. He never for once, showed to me that he meant it! Jonathan, from my study, is humble in words, not in deeds, probably because he rose to stardom by sheer luck. What set him ahead of other contenders is that he is more prepared this time around to lead Nigeria and he is more experienced in terms of understanding contemporary Nigerian complexities, having risen from being a Deputy Governor, to Governor, to Vice President, to Acting President and to President, all in modern Nigeria, not in the Nigeria under the military junta (here Buhari has a say, don’t even think Ribadu at all).
Jonathan would be better off as our president only if he can fill up his seemingly empty blueprint with intellectually enabled content, buttressed by pragmatic implementation framework. He must show to us that he is widely accepted by Nigerians, not by coercing the electorates to believe this, but by the free will of the Nigerian people. It is unarguable that Jonathan cannot match Fashola in terms of governance understanding. To me, Jonathan is not a ‘fool’ since Fashola is a ‘rascal’.
MY CANDIDATE
I have decided not to vote for any of the candidates above based on their personalities because of my reasons aforementioned, mainly because none of them is honest enough to talk about his bad past. I hate to see people claiming ‘saint’! Flipside, I have decided to vote for either of them based on their manifestos, having followed the spirits and letters of their blueprints. Let me point out that I am swinging towards the manifesto that is both aggressive (because of immediate need) and futuristic (because of long term benefits). Sadly, none of the blueprints has the duo elements combined! Were it possible to vote for two candidates, I would save myself the brainwork. An alliance between Buhari and Ribadu would make my decision less rigorous to take. With the failed alliance talk for the first ballot, with Ribadu making the biggest sacrifice of his life for the national project, which many would not do, just like Buhari, then my logic suggests that my vote should go for Ribadu. We need a leader with a sacrificial heart, not a leader who does not see any thing good in his followers, talkless of trusting them. The alliance talk experiment, followed by tear-dropping of Buhari showed to me that Nigeria is full of deceit. Ribadu has finally won my ONE vote…The POWER OF ONE!
It is me, @Obajeun
First published on my Facebook note on March 23, 2011
Jonah Ayodele Obajeun blogs @www.obajeun.com. Catch him on twitter via @Obajeun

A tale of certificate forgery

A Tale Of Certificate Forgery–By Theophilus Ilevbare

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The resounding victory the Comrade Governor, Adams Oshiomhole recorded over the combined cult of fixers, godfathers and godsons who for ten harrowing years withheld the dividend of democracy from the Edo people for the grand satiation of their ancient greed and rapacious tendencies have left a bitter pill in the mouth of the PDP big wigs as they watched retired Major General Charles Airhiavbere’s high hopes for the July 14, 2012 elections crumble like a pack of cards when he failed to win in his polling unit where he voted, losing by a landslide across the 18 local government areas of the state, to proof that when the electorate are allowed to make the best possible choice on who governs, Nigerians and indeed the Edo people, can make a difference with democracy.
In his first tenure in 2008, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole on assumption of office, after a prolonged court battle to reclaim his stolen mandate from Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor, was in a hurry to perform and demonstrate to Edo people that the change they crave is not impossible as the PDP made it seem. Across the State, schools were refurbished and built, portable water provided for areas without water for 25years due to rocky and low level of water table, roadconstruction and reconstruction, the agricultural sector has been repositioned, internal revenue leapfrogged from a paltry 200million to about 2billion naira monthly.
In the health sector, hospitals were built and renovated. For the first time in almost a decade, Edo was truly working as it became a massive construction site. His unprecedented achievements earned him accolades and awards from within and outside the state. His impressive first term scorecard resulted in a clamour from royal fathers, chiefs, professionals, clerics, civil societies, organisations, groups and the Edo man on the streets to seek a second term in office.
As the elections drew near, the Edo people were not just rooting for him but prepared to defend their votes to ensure that the Comrade Governor, as he is now fondly called, is given an opportunity to consolidate on the giant strides in his first term. The Oba of Benin, Oba Erediauwa, CFR, while receiving ACN leaders to his palace prior to the July 2012 elections summed up the wishes of well-meaning people of Edo state this way: “we are all praying for Oshiomhole to be re-elected in 2012. I and my chiefs are also hoping that he comes back and complete unfinished projects.”
Despite the elections widely considered as free and fair, the PDP went ahead to contest the outcome of the poll at the State Election Petition Tribunal. After consultation with the leadership of the party, within and outside the state, they made a U-turn and withdrew their petition barely three days after it was filed. The state chairman of the party, Chief Dan Orbih in a press statement titled “Let God Be The Judge” remarked: ‘we have resolved not to file election charges at the tribunal in the interest of the state’. However, they still maintained that the results where manipulated to favour the incumbent. Apparently the PDP weighed its options and decided not to proceed with its case, thinking it would turn out to be an exercise in futility.
General Airhiavbere (rtd) would not have any of this as he proceeded to file an application challenging Oshiomhole’s re-election on the basis of certificate forgery and perjury. He alleged that the elementary school Oshiomhole claimed to have attended was not in existence at that time, he also tendered fake certificates on oath to INEC from Blessed Martins Modern Secondary School from which he dropped out, which going by constitutional provision does not qualify him to contest the election. Against this background, General Charles Airhiavbere told the Tribunal that all certificates presented to INEC by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to contest the July 2012 election were mere documents.
A closer look at Governor Oshiomhole’s credentials showed that though he claimed to have attended Iyamoh Primary School, Iyamoh, in the then Midwest state from 1957-1962, his claim is however, contrary to investigation at the Edo State Ministry of Education which revealed that Iyamoh Primary School was founded in 1963, a year after the governor said he graduated from it. His name is said not to be in the Class Register nor among the graduated class of the Blessed Martins Secondary Modern School he claimed to have graduated from in 1965. If he was born in 1953 and graduated from a secondary school in 1965, as declared on oath, could it be correct that he completed secondary school at the age of 12?
Curiously, the name on Oshiomhole’s primary and secondary school certificates simply bore Adams Aliu, and his Ahmadu Bello University Adult Education certificate submitted to INEC, bore Adams O. Aliyu, while subsequent certificates bore his current name Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole. This disconnect in his names were made evident when the comrade governor in a handwritten affidavit he personally deposed to INEC stated that he had no previous names other than Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole. The discrepancy in Oshiomhole’s stated dates, names and schools belie the veracity of his claim and may be considered as perjury on oath. The PDP’s candidate argue that in line with the provisions of the constitution, he was not eligible to stand as a candidate in the election.
.After Oshiomhole’s claim to secondary education, he obtained an adult education certificate from Ahmadu Bello University before proceeding to Ruskin College, Oxford, an educational institution that specializes in providing education opportunities for adults with few or no formal qualifications, where he obtained a diploma in Economics and Industrial Relations. He is an Alumnus of the prestigious National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru.
The 1999 constitution stipulates, “a person shall be qualified for election to the office of Governor of a State if
(a) He is a citizen of Nigeria by birth;
(b) He has attained the age of thirty-five years;
(c) He is a member of a political party and is sponsored by that political party; and
(d) He has been educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent.”
Sub section (d) above is the relevant section Airhiavbere is holding onto, asking the election tribunal to quash Oshiomhole’s election.
Pertinent to note, on Sept. 27, Justice Suleman Ambrusa of the election petition tribunal , struck out several paragraphs of the General Airhiavbere’s petition, on the basis that it was a pre-election issue, which only the regular court had jurisdiction to handle. Consequently, on Arhiavbere’s appeal, the court of appeal ruled in his favour that the tribunal erred in law to have disqualified itself from entertaining the reliefs that bothered on Oshiomhole’s educational qualification to contest the governorship election and therefore restored its pleadings and ordered that the Acting President of the Court of Appeal should re-constitute a new tribunal to revisit the petition filed by the retired Major General.
#Because of his grand performance since been in office, There has been a show of public sympathy towards Governor Oshiomhole’s travails at the tribunal . Many consider Airhiavbere’s petition as a desperate attempt to clinch power at Osadebey Avenue. A more objective angle to the tribunal proceedings can be a simple clarification of the Nigerian constitution as it applies to qualifications when running for public office. It is not unusual in Nigeria to have cases of certificate forgery post election. As it is with other court cases, evidence is key and certificate forgery is a very difficult one to prove.
Senator Yisa Braimoh, had his suit of certificate forgery against Senator Domingo Obende representing Edo North Senatorial district dismissed by a Federal High Court in Abuja. Similarly, Benue State Governor, Mr Gabriel Suswan won a case of educational qualification instituted against him at the Federal High Court Abuja by a Chieftain of the PDP, Mr Terver kakih. On the flipside, Former Speaker of Federal House of Representatives, Alhaji Salisu Buhari was disgraced out of office for awarding himself a fake certificate he claimed to have obtained from the University of Toronto. Today, there abound numerous cases of certificate forgery in the country. Issues of certificate forgery is not uncommon in other political climes. President Barack Obama, during the run-up to his re-election into the White House had to prove his place of birth was Hawaii by publishing his original birth certificate to effectively silence his critics.
What has certificate got to do with performance in Public Office? Past Governors, Lucky Igbinedion and Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor with degrees had nothing to show for the combined ten years they were in office.
We have a President Jonathan who makes a mockery of the Ph.D degree with poor grasp of National issues, his government’s profligacy and lack of will power to fight corruption.
History reminds us of great men, who through no fault of theirs that they had little or no formal education, aspired to become authorities in various fields. The likes of Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Michael Faraday and many others are cases in point. The emphasis placed on certificates and formal education in this part of the world is another reason numerous cases of certificate forgery are periodically unraveled in the country. If charisma, leadership skills, political sagacity and the likes are yardsticks for public office holders, then Governor Oshiomhole is light-years ahead of his contemporaries. Governor Oshiomhole’s remarks about General Airhiavbere sums it up: ‘Ironically, the guy, who is saying that I did not go to school does not know the difference between UN and the World Bank. He does not know the difference between European Union and IMF’.
Undeniably, Governor Oshiomhole has lifted Edo State from the doldrums and inept leadership of the heisty hands of former PDP Governors, putting the state on the path to economic recovery and sustainable development. The election petition tribunal sitting is a distraction. Though Oshiomhole has tried to brave the odds, sources close to the governor say he has been shaken by the discovery of discrepancies in his academic qualification. Earlier, Oshiomhole in his response to the petition filed against him at the tribunal said he considered it frivolous. These allegations have gathered momentum and now seem capable of truncating his giant strides and unwavering commitment to the upliftment of Edo state and its people.
The big question remains; can Governor Adams Oshiomhole show proof of his certificates? Can he weather the storm?
Only time will tell.
God Bless Edo State, God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
theophilus@ilevbare.com
http://ilevbare.com
twitter: @tilevbare

Abati, omokri, maku and okupe

Abati, Omokri, Maku And Okupe Attend End Of Year ‘Owambe’–By Jude Egbas

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The ‘End of Year’ Gala Nite at Aso Villa is primarily put together to massage egos, take stock, catch up on the latest grapevine news making the rounds and fete characters who have spent the entire year belching hot air without fire.
Billions of Naira worth of cutlery is strewn across the tables. The hall is not so expansive by Presidential standards; which is probably why the Presidency is making a case for a new N2.2bn banquet hall.The President and his better half are perched on a higher table, engaging insmall talk with several Ministers and members of Parliament, who stop by to tell the President exactly what he fancies hearing. Reuben Abati, Reno Omokri, Labaran Maku and Doyin Okupe (the self styled ‘Lion’) are hunched on a distant table from the rest of the pack; sipping choice wines, laughing at ribald jokes and, well, strategizing for the New Year. The opulence on display tonight is mind boggling…….
Abati: So, guys, what has been your defining moment of 2012?
Maku: It has to be the Petrol Subsidy crisis in January. I can’t remember ever running my mouth that much.
Abati: Hahahaha. But you run your mouth all the time, Maku! The Fuel Subsidy Crisis also defined the year for me too. I recall stirring the hornets’ nest with the words: “The resolution of the House on thePetrol subsidy crisis is basically their opinion”. Nigerians tore their hearts out. But really, what was I supposed to say? That it was my opinion?
Omokri: Hahahaha. My defining moment has to be using Social Media to drive our message of Transformation and taking on El-Rufai. He always thought he owned the New Media until I arrived the scene.
Everyone laughs haughtily and raucously
Okupe: My defining moment? Seriously, you guys don’t wanna know. Who remembers that I changed my moniker to ‘Lion’ from “Presidential Attack Dog” at about the same time Snoop Dogg was doing same?
General laughter
Abati: Okay, guys. My ribs are cracking already. What were your biggest challenges? Mine was taking on General Buhari and referring to him in that Press Release as a vampire after he made reference to baboons soaking in blood. The counter-attacks almost drove me nuts, but thanks to ‘Odeshi’….
General Laughter
Maku: Let me tell you all about mine. I was in the United States two weeks ago and I thought I could get away with some fabrication. I told my audience comprising of young people that in some parts of Nigeria, citizens experience 24 hours of uninterrupted power supply and that the Nigerian Media is our country’s biggest problem.
Abati: Mogbe!
Reno: Otapiapia!
Okupe: Okitipupa!
Maku: Give me a break, guys. I am not done. Before I could step down from the podium, the Social Media went gaga. I counted myself fortunate because I was talking to a genteel group of young people. Stones will have been hurled at me if the function held in Lagos.
Abati: Lagos? Don’t go there O! I am thinking of relocating after my time at the Villa comes to an end. I can’t stand the bile and the feeling of self importance from that Lagos mob ( spits in disgust). Their only claims to fame are a blackberry and laptop. I once referred to them as the ‘collective children of anger’. And then, they almost tore me to shreds. Rude children, no ni.
Okupe: Lagos folks? You don’t know them as much as I do. I know how to put them in their places. Why do you think I defended the President for palling around with ex-convicts? I did it to shove it up their asses! If the President fires every corrupt Minister, I asked them, how many more will be left in his cabinet? Simple arithmetic. No one has given me an answer yet. And then, they were going to take me up for saying the Ribadu Oil Subsidy Report was too shallow to be acted upon by the Presidency. Well, I gave it to them!
Omokri: hahahaha! The Lion himself!
Okupe: Yelz ke! Hold on. Let me put this in Olumide’s voice: “Are you a learner?!”
Maku: Tuale Baba! Olori Lion!
Okupe: Nobody messes with me. And I mean, NOBODY!!!
Abati: (Pours himself another glass of Champagne) I was relieved that last week, Diezani was the subject of their ire for asking them to bear with the queues at Petrol filling stations since they asked for a sanitization of the Oil sector. She told them the queues were a price they had to pay!
Omokri: Margaret Thatcher! She has a twitter account too, but she seldom tweets. I ‘gbadun’ that woman.
Maku: I love her!
Abati: (Spills drink on his dinner jacket as he chokes from laughter). Maku, did I just hear you say ‘Love her?’ ( Pulls his own right ear) Make I no hear o! e get soup wey dem nor dey share with person O! e—hen!
Maku: Abeg….abeg…abegi. I know what you mean, Ruby. I only meant it platonically.
Abati: It had better be. So, this has been a fairly good year by the accounts from you all. The biggest challenge will be drumming the ‘transformation agenda’ by a few more decibels in the next twelve months.
Omokri: It will be tough, to be honest. If we don’t get the Power Sector right, I may lose face on Twitter. Every day, when I am not ‘subbing’ El-Rufai, I am explaining to a growing army of cynics that this administration will get the Power Sector right. But then, people are Tweeting at me about the zero megawatt supply in their areas of work or residence. Tweeting has never been tougher.
Abati: Just keep at it, Reno. It is the least you can do until you are fired.
Maku: I feel you, Reno. Thank goodness that my work begins just after every Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting. Do you hear me ‘cough’ outside the FEC briefings?
Okupe: Sharp guy. Leave the ‘coughing’ for me. Dem nor born dem well make dem try ‘Lion’!
(General laughter)
Abati : So, here’s a toast to a New Year of more half-truths and to the best Presidential Publicity Team ever cobbled together!
Maku: Cheers!
Okupe: Cheers, Baba!
Omokri: Cheers Dokita!
*Similarities of Characters used in this story to people living or dead is purely coincidental*
@egbas is on Twitter

The audacity of rogue regime.

The Audacity Of A Rogue Regime – By Chinedu Ekeke

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On the highway to infamy, shame and conscience are two bumps you do not expect to see. Actually, there are no bumps at all. It’s usually a smooth ride propelled by impunity and an imperial feeling of invincibility. It was from the centre of that highway that Diezani Allison-Madueke, Nigeria’s petroleum minister, chided citizens, last week, for their lack of understanding. She wondered why it was difficult for people to simply comprehend howcorruption makes service delivery easy and frictionless.
Descending from the chambers of their Federal Executive Council(FEC) – by the way the FEC has since last two years assumed theposition of Nigeria’s highest corruption appropriation and shielding body, only awarding contracts for majorly frivolous projects that hardly ever get completed – meeting on Wednesday, Madueke sauntered into the presidential villa’s press corner and thundered to awaiting journalists; “We cannot eat our cakes and have it [sic]. We cannot keep calling out for transparency and accountability and pointing at corruption if we are not prepared to bear some of the hardship that will obviously come when you are trying to clean up a sector.”
But for my decision to not make this piece a long one, I would have been interested in knowing where Mrs Diezani schooled. I would have loved to know who taught her the rule of concord in English language, so as to understand the elegance of referring to ‘cakes’ as ‘it’. But she already earned my pardon even before the howler. She doesn’t have a PhD. And we know that it is tough for even those with PhDs (even if from the academia) to make coordinated and grammatically correct sentences in this regime. Dullness could be infectious. I’ve heard that from experts.
Back to her admonition. Those words aren’t difficult to understand. She said we ate our cakes the day we dared call for fiscal responsibility and transparency in the management of our oil, and so should not be that stupid to expect to have the same cakes back since they are trying to become fiscally responsible and transparent in the oil sector. Diezani implied that we should have known that lack of corruption and service delivery are mutually exclusive. Two things are mutually exclusive if they cannot happen at the same time. Diezani explained to Nigerians that there cannot be fuel if we do not allow corruption to remain. It is corruption that makes fuel available, and now that we have forced their hands into tightening the noose on oil racketeers, it is irresponsible of us to expect that there’ll be availability of fuel. So, if you want fuel, advocate for corruption. Full stop.
Now that is a minister in Nigeria; actually, a high ranking one. Why was she that bold to spew those lines of insult to a nation that has daily been insulted by her rulers? It is because she appreciates the premium the current administration she serves places on corrupt officers: they are protected like a hen protects its eggs. She understands that she is not supposed to remain a minister by now, in saner climes, that is. She should have long been explaining to the jury how a budgetary provision of N240b for fuel subsidy metamorphosed into trillions of naira under her watch. Since January this year, a consensus had long coalesced on the decency of sacking Diezani and prosecuting her for her role in the fleecing of Nigerians as the petroleum minister. On a daily basis, the call for her sack had intensified. But the man who appointed her, Nigeria’s cheerleader of the corrupt, has feigned ignorance of the need for Diezani’s sack and prosecution. She has remained, and her continuous stay has emboldened her to ridicule us even further.
Consider how she constituted the Nuhu Ribadu-led Task Force and then secretly compromised two leading members of the committee few weeks later with appointments into the board of the NNPC without giving a hoot about what conflict of interest means. As you would expect, the two men punctured the committee’s report, right in front of the president, and declared that the recommendations of the Task Force were plain ‘unimplementable’ simply because the processes that led to the recommendations – not the recommendations themselves – weren’t satisfactory to them. It did not even matter that Mr Steve Orosanye, the leader of the team to rubbish the report, was not attending committee sittings. The melodrama worked out as planned, and a credible report which, by the way, indicted Diezani herself, was pooh-poohed by an administration that believes in the almighty power of corruption in hitch-free service delivery. But even before Ribadu’s report, Diezani and the industry players under her watch had been indicted by every probe panel, or audit firm, that looked at the oil industry books, for sleaze, sharp practices and opaqueness in operations. That she is still a minister today justifies her belief in the wonders of corruption and its ability to get things done – faster – in 2012 Nigeria.
It is therefore understandable why the federal government dismissed the recent rating of Nigeria by Transparency International (TI) as the 35th most corrupt nation as untrue. They discussed and agreed in their FEC meeting – where protection for corruption and the corrupt must be topping their weekly agenda – that the rating by TI was not a ‘true reflection’ of their regime’s ‘efforts’ at fighting corruption.
The conveyor of the message, Labaran Maku, who mistakes the Information ministry he heads for the lying arm of a joke of a government, said the TI rating, as well as a recent poll by Gallup that placed Mr Jonathan’s regime as the world’s second most corrupt, were products of interactions with Nigerians and synopsis of ‘negative media reports’.
It is difficult to understand, as much as the members of FEC do, the pivotal role corruption plays in the prompt availability of goods and services in a society and not frown at whoever condemns it. This present administration has hands-on experience in the goodness of corruption, that’s why they don’t even think it should be demonized as much as detractors and opposition do.
But in a bid to create the impression of a people on the same page with the rest of the world, they have joined in pretending that corruption is equally evil, but not until they argue out how corrupt the world sees them to be. For the FEC, Nigeria should have been declared to be corruption-free, going by the ‘efforts’ they are making in the ‘fight’ against the monster. Remember that the president had openly lied to us during a statewide broadcast that TI had ranked Nigeria immediately after the United States amongst the countries that demonstrate indubitable resolve in the fight against corruption. Such are the kind of stories the regime wants to hear: concocted lies and half-truths. They seek flattering statistics, but daily fertilize corruption which is alien to impressive human development index anywhere in the world.
I never knew that it could be possible for a meeting of over 50 men and women to not have even one soul who still has conscience. Yes, I understand the power of free mega money – the type that comes with just being a Nigerian government official, but I never imagined it could so freeze up people’s humanity to the height of denying every verifiable fact around them.
Here’s a government that budgeted N240b for one year for fuel subsidy (based on prevailing trend of subsidy spending in the previous years), and then expended over a trillion naira on the same item before nine months without blinking an eyelid. When they sensed the inevitability of bankruptcy at such stupid spending rates, they did not bother to probe the subsidy regime or question the relevant agencies. They simply understood what happened, and then chose to push their irresponsibility to the already impoverished masses through fuel tax. Nigerians refused vehemently and showed visible willingness to bring down their rogue regime. It was at that point that the House of Representatives quickly commenced a probe of the subsidy regime. Yet as that was going on, the government used the president’s closest oil dealer, Femi Otedola, to rubbish whatever would be the report of that probe. Otedola set up and bribed Farouk Lawan, the Chairman of the House Committee handling the probe. As we talk, Otedola is seen everywhere around the president. He hasn’t been prosecuted for bribery. He hasn’t been prosecuted for economic sabotage. But Jonathan’s government’s claim to fighting corruption is the prosecution of subsidy fraudsters. So the question is: when did this government begin their prosecution of the subsidy scammers? After we botched their plans to cover up the fraud through fuel tax? Why didn’t they prosecute them before our anti-subsidy removal protests?
And when you hear prosecution, you almost want to believe it is the first time the government is trying to prosecute people. We know their second strategy of growing their pet-monster. My bet is that this government will bungle the fuel subsidy cases to create room for judges to quash them on technicalities. We’ve seen all that before.
It is laughable to hear the government, through Mr Maku, blame the media for the TI ratings. This is a government that has presided over the highest cases of treasury looting since the birth of this country. Punch Newspaper helped us out with a clear summation of how much has been stolen under the watch of Mr Jonathan’s government: N5 trillion naira. That is a whole annual budget! To be clear, I think the Transparency International rating for Nigeria was too fair. I can’t imagine any other country in the world with more criminally-wired public servants. That country must be hell, the abode of Lucifer himself.
But I do perfectly understand why it is possible that a government could be this bad. Their destination, infamy, especially in African rulership, has a reward in excess money that unborn generations cannot exhaust. This reward, like a magnet, sits at the end of the highway, waiting patiently. From there, it pulls their vehicle, already racing at high speed, to that realm where petro-dollars matter more than the millions of Nigerians who die before 50 because no life-sustaining social welfare is in place and functional.
It is such realization, that fame isn’t worth as much as the dollars of infamy, that fuels the arrogance of members this government. And it is that financial reward that we must target if we are serious about putting a halt to the sustained and determined effort by a few men and women of dead conscience to convert Nigeria’s public wealth to private cash.
You can follow @ekekeee on Twitter for more direct engagement.

This God is a Cheat?

This God is a Cheat? – By @Obajeun

02 Dec, 2012

Today marks my return from my writing sabbatical leave, an exile imposed by the spurious existential tit bits of the Nigerian state, a voice suddenly stolen away by the ravaging dynamics of life where you have to make a choice across the river either to burn your boat and perish in the war front or to burn your boat and win the war. It was a classical exile of a soul grilled in the shambling nature of survival, pummeled by systemic failures. It was a sabbatical leave of courage, where I did many trade offs to get my voice back.
There are times when you feel that with all its faults and dangerous fault lines, it is a great honour to be a Nigerian. With its mystique, its mysterious allure, its great personality and combustible mix of macho and masochism, Nigeria is a great country waiting for a great leader. Under existing configurations, we may have to wait till the end of time for that mirage, that is, if somebody does not pull the fatal plug. But there are moments when something happens to remind one of the great possibilities of this nation if we get it right. Biological clocks also tick for nations.
When your president lie to your face, when your president attributes Obama’s re-election to skin colour, when jet-flying pastors damn the heavenly consequence of greed, then it is a case of either to commit dialectical oppression and drag your president and the ‘saint’ in the mud with verbal jives or stay put to your thought and call your calm. Obajeun did the latter with his sabbatical leave but it almost became a suicidal silence when Obajeun called it off.
Except one is a bastard, you cannot just keep quite in this hood where offerings and tithes from the ‘sinning’ poor are what keep jets flying in the sky for the saint. Why then do God accept tithes and offerings from the poor, when even to be poor alone is a sin, according to the jet aged mouthpieces of God? What is the business of God with the poor? Is God after the ‘ riches’ of the poor? Is this a fair play from God? Or is this God a cheat? Before you venture into your crude cause of questioning my audacity of asking these questions, you should understand where i am coming from, which is the outcome of my journey into the underworld of mad men.
What a competitive religious landscape. My discourse on Pentecostal explosion today relates to the response of a new religious movement in Nigeria to the socio-economic and political milieu from which it emerged and grew. This explosion is a post civil war development where everything is wrong with Satan and nothing is wrong with humans. Very often in their prayers, they see Satan and his cohorts of demonic spirits, ‘vampires’ and ‘blood sucking demons’ on the pot-holed and poorly maintained Nigerian roads, which they assail with ‘Holy Ghost Fire’ and the blood of Jesus.
Pastors are not ordinary men to their members. They are ‘men of God’, ‘the anointed’, ‘Papa’, ‘Daddy G.O’ and lately, ‘the Rev. Dr’, or ‘Evangelist Dr’. They are also the holy spirit-soaked demon destroyers who often take joy in worthless honorary degrees conferred by unaccredited foreign institutions. Some of them are chauffeured with bodyguards. They have achieved a kind of celebrity profile through the command of numbers, flamboyant lifestyles and they are superheroes and business executives.
Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have interesting variety. Some have fossilised without any impact, while new ones like RCCG and MFM have achieved social prominence since the 1990s through the aggressive use of the media. In fact it is rather strange to group Williams Kumuyi’s strict holiness ethos with David Oyedepo’s this-worldly concern, or associate Daniel Olukoya’s steeped in the african cosmology of evil with the politically conscious Tunde Bakare.
In the new Pentecostal spirituality, there is popular attention to prosperity. This new emphasis began to gain ground from the early 1980s, when Benson Idahosa asserted that his God drove cars bigger than the Volkswagen Beetle car, which then was a popular car for the uprising middle class. By the end of that decade, the emphasis had been popularized by David Oyedepo, whom Idahosa consecrated and enthroned in August 1988 as the Pentecsotal Bishop of Northern Nigeria.
Let’s dive into the controversy over Bakare’s prophecy on Obasanjo where, if you are not firm with your belief, you might see God as a cheat. Then, religious euphoria blinded many Nigerians including pentecostals from seeing the futility of the hope in Obasanjo or in any elected political or military ruler. In fact there were numerous media attacks against Bakare by the same pentecostal constituency. Indeed, the National Concord of May 15 carried the bold headline on its front page “SPIRITUAL WAR OVER OBASANJO…PASTOR BAKARE IN TROUBLE”
While Obasanjo’s election was seen by millions as a sign of relief and hope, Bakare’s prophecy was seen as an unexpected anti-climax. In a way, this controversy over religion and politics depicts how the saints could become sinners, and sinners become saints within the public sphere devoid of any moral standard, but whose elected or anointed officials assume that they have some moral power left that could be exercised legislatively. At the end of Obasanjo’s eight-year rule, Bakare’s punchers eventually saw the import of his prophecy. See how tides change with time and how men could force a rational mind to call God a cheat.
Kill it if you think that Pentecostal greediness started with jet gifts. Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria was by the late 1990 caught up in the web of materialism and vain glory that it sets to change at the beginning of the Charismatic revival in the early 1970s. The embarrassing crisis of how N87,000,000 provided by the American televangelist, Benny Hinn, for a poorly attended three-day crusade in Lagos in April 2005 was squandered on some frivolities by some leading figures of Pentecostal churches in Lagos depicts again, how the saints could fail on the moral scale of accountability. Today, the perpetrators are still enjoying the largesse, riding in SUV cars and flying in private jets, and becoming richer while their unsuspecting members are becoming poorer. See how men could force a curious mind to call God a cheat.
Proverbially and symbolically, a fish starts rotting from the head. It is when the elite of a nation lose the cerebral capacity for a visionary conception of a better society and the capability for moral imagination that a society begins to nosedive. If we are not at the rock bottom yet, we cannot be that far away. We are being spiritually deceived, and we are happy clapping and making holy noise in appreciation of the deception. The anger of God might be slow to come, but it would come someday and every soul would see that this same true God is not a cheat. He whom the gods will kill, will first acquire worldly riches through greed.
We are fast approaching the final end of an era; the era of SUs. Unfortunately, and as we have seen in the particular case of football, not many new great products are coming off the production line. To put it bluntly, the factory of true human greatness and genuine distinction seems to have shut down in the nation a long time ago. We now have the then SUs now riding in SUVs. To be clear, I am not against riches but I am against any questionable and crude means through which riches are acquired.
It is a dark, dismal and depressing scenario for we are now in the age of jet competition among pastors. But there is hope based on a dispassionate reading of history. It is precisely when a society reaches the end of the road when something miraculous happens. Neither in rectification or retribution will Nigeria be an exception. Obajeun is back!
It is me, @Obajeun
Jonah Ayodele Obajeun blogs  @www.obajeun.com. Catch him twitter via @Obajeun

Do State govt in nigeria need commissioners?

Opinion: Do state governments in Nigeria need commissioners?

by Tonnie Iredia

Commissioners are neither appointed nor retained in Nigeria to do any meaningful work. Instead, they are essentially mere disposable elements at the whims and caprices of the ‘Almighty Governor’.

Section 147(1) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides for the appointment of Federal Ministers while Section 192(1) does same for the appointment of state commissioners.  The objective is to enable the head of the executive branch of government to appoint some citizens to assist him in the onerous task of governance.

Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State appropriately underscored the logic in July 2011 when he charged his commissioners at their inauguration “to generate ideas that would propel the speedy growth and ignite fire of confidence in their ability to deliver the dividends of democracy to the citizenry”.

However, unlike the case of ministers, the way and manner a commissioner is appointed and disengaged seems to substantially derogate from the importance of the office. To start with, a commissioner gets appointed on the basis of political expediency only. Whether or not the appointee has a track record of achievements or indeed any cognate service experience does not seem to matter. Everyone gets engaged simply to attract or reward the support of his sponsor otherwise known as godfather.

As soon as a governor stabilizes in office, he drops all the ‘misfits’ instalmentally.  Even those who show much promise in the discharge of their duties are similarly dropped as soon as their sponsors no longer enjoy the governor’s attention.  It would thus be simplistic for Anambra people to assume that in his last cabinet changes, Governor Peter Obi retained Prof. Chinyere Okunna as commissioner for economic planning on the basis of her unquestionable expertise in budgetary matters or that he dropped the commissioners in charge of justice and health because of public criticisms of their handling of strike actions in their sectors.

Far from that. Commissioners are neither appointed nor retained in Nigeria to do any meaningful work. Instead, they are essentially mere disposable elements at the whims and caprices of the ‘Almighty Governor’. Fortunately, many of them are conscious of this.

In August this year for instance, two self acclaimed powerful interest groups called for the removal of two state commissioners. While one of them – the Benue House of Assembly demanded the dismissal of Conrad Wergba, the state commissioner for information, the other – the Delta branch of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) – called for the sacking of the state commissioner for basic and secondary education, Professor Patrick Muoboghare.

Interestingly, the ultimatum given for the removal of the two commissioners did not perturb any of them. Muoboghare, himself a veteran unionist, told the media that “when the governor appointed me, he consulted only God. That same God will also tell him when to remove me”.

Obviously, it is only the ‘oracle’ that seems to have an idea of when and how a commissioner leaves office in Nigeria.  Accordingly, it is wasteful to seek to rationalize the subject. When Governor Ajimobi of Oyo State dropped Bosun Oladele as his commissioner for information and orientation, Bosun’s constituency- the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) – shouted foul, naively believing that to be retained in office as a commissioner in the state has anything to do with professional excellence.

It is not so. A novice can in reality be in office throughout the tenure of a particular governor. In Imo State for instance, Commissioner Alex Ogwazuo was redeployed to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism because of alleged lack of experience in handling his previous Ministry of Environment.

The question whether his alleged inexperience would not also adversely affect his new Ministry was answered by Governor Rochas Okorocha when he sacked Alex along with five other commissioners in a cabinet reshuffle. The governor reportedly told journalists during his maiden breakfast meeting with them in Government House, Owerri, that he appointed a commissioner ‘who knew neither his left nor his right’.

In other words, the Governor gambled. In any case, is there any commissioner in Nigeria who knows the real difference between the left and the right of his governor? This is a question that three commissioners in Ebonyi State would have to ponder over for the next three months.

The commissioners – Dr. Ben Igwenyi (Justice and Attorney General); Hon. Chukwuma Nwandugo (Works and Transport) and Chief Hyacinth Ikpor (Culture and Tourism) were suspended from office for three months, a few days ago, for alleged improper dressing to a state function.

Governor Martins Elechi was reported to have insisted that for the attitudinal change policy of his government to be imbibed by everyone, the state would “not tolerate any form of indecent dressing from its officials”.  While it is safe to assume that the commissioners especially the one in charge of culture have an idea of what the governor has in mind, it would be curious to know what the attorney general with a rich ‘law dress code’ wore to the said function.

Never the less, whereas little things sometimes matter a lot, it would have been salutary if the commissioners were sanctioned for dereliction of duty. Oh yes, it is unfortunate that the public is being made to remember how Nwandugo, the works and transport commissioner dresses instead of his professional insistence on the use of 200 millimeter of stone-base for building the Abakaliki Ring Road for durability.

As usual, the official statement on the suspension was sparse as it disclosed neither what the commissioners wore nor any evidence of previous warnings against their dressing styles. Indeed, what is the dress code of Ebonyi State? From the episode in issue, it obviously cannot be as liberal as that of my State – Edo.

Even then, Edo dress code is not known to many. People can only infer from the recent television appearance of the deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu, at the Palace of the Otaru of Auchi that the ‘comrade dress-code’ can be helpful to those who wish to hold public posts in the state.

Painfully, to adhere to such cosmetics rather than the substance of good performance can trivialize public office in Nigeria. Hence Ebonyi can do without three commissioners for three months! In reality, can the state not do without any commissioner for all times?

Women who regularly take ibuprofen or paracetamol

Women who regularly take ibuprofen or paracetamol are ‘more likely to lose their hearing’

Women who regularly take ibuprofen and paracetamol are more likely to go deaf, say researchers.
The non-prescription painkillers are widely available at supermarkets and are taken by millions every day to ease headaches and inflammation.
But a study of more than 62,000 women found taking the drugs just twice a week increases the risk of hearing loss by up to 13 per cent.
Using ibuprofen six times a week makes women up to 24 per cent more likely to develop some degree of hearing problem compared with those who do not use the medication. Those using paracetamol up to five times a week increase the risk of hearing loss by 21 per cent.
The same effect was not seen for women who regularly take aspirin.
Researchers who carried out the US study say they do not yet know why there is a link, or whether the damage caused is permanent.
The same team carried out similar research two years ago and found that men were also at risk of hearing loss from taking the drugs.
In the latest study, data was taken from the Nurses’ Health Study in the US, a national survey of 116,430 female registered nurses conducted over 14 years from 1995 to 2009.
The women were asked how often they took paracetamol, ibuprofen or aspirin. In 2009, they were also asked if they had hearing problems and when those problems began.
The final results were adjusted to take into account other factors such as health problems, weight, vitamin deficiency and alcohol intake. The study identified more than 10,000 reported cases of hearing loss.
The author of the study, Dr Sharon Curhan, of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said: ‘This prospective study showed that use of  ibuprofen or paracetamol two or  more days a week is associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in women and that the magnitude of  the risk tends to be greater with increasing frequency of use.’
The British Medical Association estimates that the average adult takes 373 painkilling tablets every year – equivalent to more than one a day.
The industry in the UK is worth about £500 million a year.
Most people taking the pills are women – two-thirds of women admit  to taking painkillers, compared with  31 per cent of men.
Sheila Kelly, chief executive of the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, which represents manufacturers of over-the-counter medicines, said:
‘Over-the-counter pain relief products are for short-term use and the findings should not concern women who are taking painkillers occasionally to treat problems such as headaches, colds and flu or period pain.
‘Hearing loss is common in elderly people, and while the study found an association with frequent use of painkillers, it cannot be isolated as the cause.’
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) watchdog, which records side effects linked to drugs, has collected data on paracetamol and ibuprofen since 1963.
As of July 2012 there were 62 ear-related suspected adverse effects linked to ibuprofen – ten relating to hearing loss and 24 to tinnitus.
Just 15 suspected adverse effects linked to paracetamol were ear-related, but only three referred to hearing loss.
The MHRA said: ‘Ibuprofen and paracetamol have been thoroughly tested for safety and effectiveness. We continue to review available safety data.’
- Daily Mail