I am writing this to thank the unknown officer in the Nigeria Electricity Situation Room (NESI), Abuja who made it possible for me to have pre-paid meter within 24 hours. I am also out to let all and sundry know that NESI, an agency of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), is an efficient, reliable, dependable and quick – acting agency of the type that is unusual in public service in this country,.
I got to know of the two institutions in a newspaper report about five or six months ago when the lock-down caused by the coronavirus – 19 (COVID – 19) began. In the publication, the commission gave three telephone numbers that anyone with electricity supply problem in his or her area anywhere in the country could send a text message to. Two of the numbers began with 090 and the other with 070. But the Situation Room does not answer to phone calls. It operates on text messaging alone.
At the time I saw the news item we had been without electricity for three days in my area. I therefore sent a text message through one of the three numbers. About five minutes later, a woman in NESI office called and asked for my area and address. And told me that if the problem was not caused by a major fault in the system that the electricity in our area would be restored soonest. I could not believe it, less than 30 minutes later we had electricity supply. It was the same on three other occasions when I sent text messages to NESI through any of the three numbers.
Next week: The account of the unbelievable manner in which I was supplied pre-paid meter within 24 hours. The report of the five readers who tested the honey from Gombe and the latest on the herbal medicine for curing diabetes will come up the following week.
2023 poll: Way Out For Igbo Presidency (2)
I am not in a position to know if there is an Igbo cleric Almighty God speaks with one – to – one. Consequently, my advice is that some Igbo pastors, prophets and prophetesses should take up the matter by fasting and praying to the Heavenly Father to make the country’s next president to come from the South – East. They can do this from 6am – 6pm daily for three days (72 hours) or seven days (168 hours) once, twice or thrice until December 31, this year.
They should also let the National Leader of the Ohaneze, Chief Nnia Nwodo, know of their efforts and that he should wait until January next year before setting out to meet traditional rulers and political chieftains in the North and those of the South-West and South – South to make a case for Igbo presidency in 2023.
Or better, Chief Nwodo can take the initiative by reaching out to the bishops and clerics of the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church as well as the General Overseers of major Pentecostal Churches in the South – East: like the Lord’s Chosen, The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and Zoe Life Ministry headed by Archbishop Innocent Ngozi in Imo State.
It is likely that some reading this piece would say why should the Igbo seek God’s help to produce Nigeria’s president. Did the Yoruba and Fulani embark on such before they produced the president? I want such people to know that as I had reported in this column multiple times in the last 10 years, without the 41 – day fasting and prayers carried out by 41 Muslim clerics the Lord raised for the task in Ado – Ekiti, there was no way late Chief Moshood Abiola would have won the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
In other words, the North would have continued to produce the president from then until now. And Fulani leaders would have been saying that they were chosen and destined by God to rule the country. While the Igbo were set aside by the Lord for making inventions and leading in commerce and sports and the Yoruba were ordained as chieftains of the civil service and playing vital role in the nation’s economy.
The importance of fasting and prayers in elections was also underscored by the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as president in 1999. I once drew attention to this with the front page lead story in the Sunday Tribune of April 18, 1999. The headline of the report was: “We sacrificed 76 cows to install Obasanjo – Spiritualist.” The statement was made by Ogbomoso – born Alhaji Adebayo Salaudeen who revealed that he and seven of his men fasted, prayed for some days from December 1998 through February 1999 and sacrificed two cows each in Abuja and 35 state capitals. But four were slaughtered in Obasanjo’s Ogun State and disclosed that N1.5 million was spent in purchasing the cattle.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has had the ambition to be the country’s president since 1992 and contested the SDP primaries in 1993 and the presidential election in 2015 and 2019. The next poll will be the last chance he would have because by then he would be 78. So, he will want to make the final effort in 2023.
Although the All Progressives Congress (APC) has no zoning policy, but it is likely that the party’s presidential candidate in 2023 will be a southerner because the North through General Muhammadu Buhari will by then have had the presidency for eight years. Former Lagos State Governor (1999 – 2007), Senator Bola Tinubu, the National Leader of the party has since 2015 been seen as someone who would seek nomination in 2023. And he looks to be the most formidable in the South for the party.
The major point Igbo leaders have been making in the last five years is that the South – West and the North have each produced the nation’s president since the return to civil rule in 1999. As a result, they believe the presidency should be the turn of the South – East in 2023 because the Igbo are the third largest ethnic group in the country.
But given the burning ambition and the billions of naira Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu have spent in pursuing their dream, Igbo leaders should know that their sentimental statement cannot have meaning with them. Consequently, it is only Almighty God that can make it happen for the Igbo in 2023. Does anybody doubt this if the Igbo earnestly seek the Lord’s help?
To be continued Wednesday, next week.
R.I.P Mrs. Adedipe, Mother Of Successful Children
I thank Almighty God that Mrs. Felicia Ajayi Adedipe, the last of our dad’s eight spouses to go to glory, was in sound health unto the very last day of her 94 years on earth. I am also grateful to the Lord that all her three surviving offspring, after she lost her first – born, a son, in 1970 at 21, are graduates who also succeeded in their professional or chosen callings.
Her eldest child and the only female, Mrs. Adepeju Oluwaranti Aburo (65), born on Monday, September 12, 1955 graduated from the University of Ife in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts (Hon) degree in Education (B.ED). A secondary school teacher, she rose to the position of Vice – Principal, Army Command Day Secondary School, Ikeja and retired as an Inspector of Education at the Institute of Army Education in Lagos.
Although she lost her husband in 2003 at the age of 50, she was able to bring up their four daughters and a son successfully. All of them are graduates with all the girls happily married with children who are also doing well in school.
Next week: The story of Mama Peju’s two sons