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Henry's letter from Nigeria

Ros Atkins Ros Atkins | 15:10 UK time, Thursday, 1 March 2007

Henry sent this to me earlier. If you'd like to give us your view on life in your country, email me and I'll post it on the blog.

Life in Nigeria is a bit rough but well there is no other place I can call home but here so I have to make it what I want it to be. As for the big stories making rounds in Nigeria for now, its all about politics since we are in an election year. The ruling party in Nigeria called the Peoples' Democratic Party is campaigning seriously as well as other political parties.

What baffles me though is the near absence of concrete ideology in the politics of Nigeria. I have had the opportunity of watching some of the campaign trips of some of the parties and all I could see was nothing but mere jamboree. I could only see an arranged crowd singing and dancing while the candidates just stand like dummies saying the same things I have heard for many years; provision of roads, water, electricity, jobs e.t.c.

Since all the parties are promising the same things, I guess it makes common sense if the parties outlined well defined plans to actualize such. I wanted to hear how they planned to create more jobs, reduce poverty to minimum level, add more value our educational system, ensure that roads once constructed has a structured maintenance policy, ensure that there is job security and satisfaction once jobs are secured since most of Nigerians work under very terrible conditions and most importantly, how they intend to solve the lingering problems in the Niger Delta.

So long as they continue to avoid these issues, I am still not convinced that I should cast my vote for any of the parties.

Coming closer to Ibadan, where I live and work, the boiling issue here is the stand off between the self-acclaimed strong man of Ibadan politics, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu and the Governor of the state Rasheed Ladoja. The most disturbing issue here is the seemingly above-the-law impression that Adedibu has carved for himself. He swore that he would remove Ladoja from office and he actually did that through a very nonsensical impeachment process he instigated through his cohorts in the state assembly. For eleven months Ladoja battled with his impeachment in the courts until he was re-instated last December. To make issues more complex the PDP has adopted Adedibu's choice. I have been asking myself this question ever since; what good can this man do Oyo state as Governor? This man that we all know is bereft of ideas. He has no manifesto and has not been doing any campaigning because he knows that Adedibu will deliver votes to him.

Some weeks back four voter registeration machines were found in Adedibu's house and till date nothing has been done by the authorities about this. This is sad and very unfortunate as this lends credence to the fact that elections have already been concluded even before the votes have been cast.

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