Turd polishers at Levick fail to put Goodluck in front

It raised a few eyebrows last year when word came out that Nigeria Big Boss Goodluck Jonathan had hired on American PR giant Levick to spruce up his image going into the home stretch before the election.

Apparently the millions lavished on Levick have failed to make a decisive difference. Nor has the six week delay in the election, during which time Goodluck had promised to vanquish Boko Haram.

While there has certainly been no shortage of declarations of victory over Boko Haram, nobody believes them. However, everyone is aware that the armed forces of several neighbouring countries now have a free hand in the north.

That can't be a happy thing for the Big Boss.

And while, under Goodluck's tenure, the one percenters have made out like bandits, millions have joined the ranks of the absolutely impoverished, the poorest of the poor, the two dollar a day crowd (and that's on a good day).

Insofar as the wretched masses will vote, it's hard to imagine them voting for more Goodluck.

Nevertheless, Goodluck will declare victory, the streets will erupt in rage, and after days or weeks or perhaps even months of violence, the military will step in to restore order.

Outtaluck Jonathan's impossible Nigerian quagmire

Nigeria watchers everywhere are wondering what the next six weeks will bring.

That's the timeline Jonathan has established for not only crushing Boko Haram but also holding an election!

I'm not the only one who finds this fanciful beyond belief. Sonala Olumhense has been writing about Nigerian politics for thirty years, and it's very hard to find even a hint of optimism in his most recent ruminations.

The think tank here at Falling Downs is betting military coup.

Democracy on hold as Nigeria heads down shitter

Nigeria has announced the long anticipated delay of the long anticipated Feb. 14 elections. Just for six weeks or so mind you - till that pesky Boko Haram menace is swept under the rug, which won't take long now that Goodluck has invited in the armies of Nigeria's neighbours to do what the Nigerian army has been unable or unwilling to do for the past six years. Maybe they'll even bring back the Chibok girls in the process, and hopefully the oil price will also bounce back in that time, thereby giving the incumbent something to crow about.

What could possibly go wrong?

Does Goodluck come up with this foolishness on his own or is this the handiwork of his US advisers?

From bad to worse for Noluck Jonathan

With less than two weeks to go before the general election, President Goodluck Jonathan's election rallies are being stalked by exploding suicide bombers.

This phenomenon can only assist Mr. "Law and Order" Buhari, not only in the north but in the rest of the country as well.

What many Nigerians readily acknowledge but few Western media outlets will report, is that Nigeria has long been a "failed state" by any conventional definitions of the words "failed" and "state."

Instead, what we in the West get is the happy-time story of the Nigerian economy mysteriously being elevated to the biggest and most robust in all of Africa! You have to wonder if we're just getting that message due to the efficacies of Goodluck's hundred thousand dollar a month retainer at Levick, one of the most influential PR concerns in Washington.

The reason everybody knows it and our media fails to report it is because Goodluck is down with our "War on Terror."

Buhari, on the other hand, is a Muslim.

Goodluck Jonathan's luck running out

If recent polls are accurate, President Goodluck Jonathan's dreams of another term in the big chair are rapidly coming to naught.

As Fisayo Soyombo points out in this story, matters have gone only from bad to worse for the incumbent. The spectacle of a political debate over whether institutionalized corruption is really "corruption," which is really bad, or mere "common thievery," which is apparently not so bad, gives a sense of how out of touch the Jonathan administration has been.

The "Chibok girls" farce went from tragic to even worse last month with the much ballyhooed Boko Haram ceasefire proving to be little more than wishful thinking on the part of certain Jonathan underlings.

The news that Goodluck was paying some extra-smart white folks in Washington millions from the public purse to polish his halo leading up to the election has had rather the opposite effect, revealing him to be a shallow conniver who is concerned more with his image than with getting results for his people.

And if all of that is not enough of a gathering storm, the global petroleum markets are now conspiring against Mr. Goodluck Jonathan. Oil prices may be one thing he can justly claim no influence over, but if prices languish in the $60 range for long, Nigeria is doomed.

Or at least the Westernized elites are doomed. The impoverished masses have seen scant benefits from the oil boom, and will scarcely notice when it's over.

Does anyone believe Kenya killed 100 militants?

Our favourites in the Dark Continent certainly know how to treat themselves well.

Apparently, Mr. Goodluck over there in Nigeria runs a government whose legislators are the best paid in the world!

And our dear buddy in Kenya, that Uhuru Kenyatta fellow who's been busy bobbing and weaving to avoid the long arm of the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, comes in second!

Oddly enough, our two bestest besties in the Dark Continent are facing down "Islamic insurgencies."

Now a cynic might be inclined to suggest that the reason these countries are besieged by "insurgencies" is because they are cesspools of graft and corruption.

But no. We are informed day after day by the media Big Dogs that both Kenya and Nigeria are beset by Islamic radicals, and they must therefore be given a free pass for any minor abuses of civil rights, human rights, etc. that may come up in the course of "fighting terror."

Both the Boko Haram and Shabaab terror outfits just sprung up out of nowhere, and neither have anything to do with the endemic corruption that cripples meaningful development in both Nigeria and Kenya.

Kenya scored a PR coup of sorts with the news that they have killed 100 Shabaab militants since yesterday's Shabaab attack on a bus. That's made headlines throughout the Nations of Virtue.

That's a major win in the PR department.

In the real world, even if some of those killed were in fact "militants," that merely primes the pump for the next round of violence.

The reason that radical groups like BH and the Shabaab get traction in Africa is because the populace is more than fed up with the corrupt West-friendly stooges who have been looting their countries for years.

Nigeria celebrates first national ID card that is also a Mastercard!

Nigeria is a sad place getting sadder by many metrics, but the land of Goodluck is at the cutting edge of the latest bio-metric identity tracking technology.

Yes, Nigeria is the very first sovereign state in the world where your government issue ID also serves as your Mastercard!

Is that cool or what!? Talk about a brave new world of public-private partnership, or P3, as the trendies refer to it.

This could have some unfortunate consequences however. Will your credit score now determine the value of your citizenship?

Will your credit score be impacted by your record of supporting the correct political candidates?

Will being the holder of one of these new ID cards become the ultimate status symbol that separates the somebodies from the nobodies?

How long before the new card becomes the de-facto qualification for being a "citizen"?

Oh, it's a brave new world alright!

At least Goodluck and his corporate sponsors are not requiring citizens to have their biometric ID tattooed onto their foreheads...

Yet.

Post-colonialism; black people are too stupid to manage their own affairs

What else can one conclude from the announcement that France, under a supposed socialist no less, has signed off on a neo-colonial protection agreement with Mali.

And look at Hardluck Jonathan a couple of doors down; he has at last count got American, British, Chinese, Canadian, and Israeli forces on the ground helping to "bring back our girls".

In fairness, the Israelis may have been called home by now because they've got bigger fish to fry, but still, that's an impressive load of help from a lot of really smart white folks, and a few yellow ones, who are even smarter.

Are "our girls" back yet?

No, but that does not mean that their usefulness to the state has diminished. Goodluck came out today with a request to borrow a billion dollars to fight Boko Haram and bring back our girls.

Does anyone imagine that American, British, Chinese, Canadian, and Israeli forces would be giving all this "help" if Nigeria were not the oil capital of Africa?

And how is it that the leader of the oil capital of Africa needs to go cap-in-hand to the IMF to beg another billion to bring back our girls? Bear in mind that this is the same leader squandering $100,000/month on a top Washington PR firm to polish his image ahead of the elections.

The Nations of Virtue have been "helping" Africans for about 400 years now.

Are things getting better?

Malala takes on Boko Haram

Here's a story destined for major traction in Western media; Malala has showed up in Nigeria to advocate for the "bring back our girls" campaign.

Malala was always a theatrical prop used by her Western oriented parents to further their anti-Islamist agenda. When she survived a Taliban assassination attempt it was a dream come true.

Those parents were utterly shameless about using her to further their own agenda, which is what made her a Taliban target to begin with. This is a kid who was exploited by her parents to write anti-Taliban propaganda from the time she was ten years old.

Do ten year olds typically write their own thoughts?

But she eventually, thanks to her parents, caught that Taliban bullet, and the miracle that followed ensured her a place in the pantheon of anti-Taliban activists, which brought about a Nobel nomination and A-list brand recognition in the West.

She is now bringing her celebrity show to Nigeria.

She will succeed where Goodluck has failed.

Or not.

Malala obviously knows nothing about the legacy of institutional incompetence and corruption that has created Boko Haram. Yet she is trotted into Nigeria by her management team to advise the locals on what they should be doing to resolve the Chibok girls crisis.

If Goodluck can't figure out Nigeria, there's no way a 16 year old girl from Afghanistan will.

Goodluck gives up on Boko Haram, goes after Super Eagles instead

Compared to Boko Haram, the Super Eagles were sitting ducks.

The Eagles fell in the round of 16 to France. All in all, not that bad a showing, but Goodluck needs some positives for the front pages and was hoping the national football team would provide it.

Hardluck Jonathan subsequently ordered the arrest of the team president on his return from the World Cup.

That got the attention of global football rulers FIFA, who promptly slapped down Noluck's extra-curricular judicial efforts.

Bear in mind that this is the same President who has retained a top Washington PR firm, to the tune of $100,000 per month, to polish his image going into the next election.

After this fiasco, those smart white folks at Levick are going to up that to $200,000 a month!

Nigerians hate their army as much as they hate Boko Haram

This is something you'd expect to see in a failed state. A soldier dies in a traffic accident and when his comrades find out, they go on a rampage.

Police are nowhere to be found, because for all practical purposes the soldiers are the police. Not only do they enforce the law according to their whims of the moment, but they are above the law.

This happens against a background of rampant rumours about the military conniving with Boko Haram.

It going to take more than a Washington PR firm for Goodluck Jonathan to salvage anything out of this mess.

As 100 million Nigerians struggle in poverty, Goodluck Jonathan spends $100,000/month for image makeover

Now that is some chutzpah!

Beset by scandals on all sides, from hundreds of billions in missing oil revenues to hundreds of missing girls to near-daily terror bombings, you'd think Mr. President would roll up his sleeves and get to work...

But you'd be wrong! Instead, Hardluck Jonathan has contracted with some really smart white folks in Washington DC, for some public image polishing in the lead up to the next elections! This will cost the long-suffering Nigerian tax-payers some $100,000 per month according to The Guardian.

While turd-polishing is a fine art in political circles everywhere, it is widely acknowledged that the masters of the universe operate inside the Beltway, and Goodluck is so far down on his luck that only the best of the best will do. Levick pride themselves on acting urgently today to avoid the uncertainty of tomorrow; whether that will be enough to save Noluck's skin remains to be seen.

Nigerian dictator slaughtering his own people

Sort of a democratically elected dictator like that fellow in Iran.

It's not really democracy if they elect some asshole we don't like.

Big Oil and the USA figured that Goodluck Jonathan stood for business as usual in Nigeria.

But now he is slaughtering his own people. Just like that ophthalmologist in the ME.

That makes for negative publicity.

But all the people he is slaughtering are terrorists...

Goodluck Jonathan; handmaid to big oil

Does any serious person imagine that the bosses at Shell Oil are sweating things out since Jonathan took the big chair?

Didn't think so.

The wholesale rape of Nigeria's petroleum resources continues apace.

Number one beneficiary; Shell and their share-holders.

Second beneficiary; home-grown Nigerian kleptocracy.

But Nigeria is a valuable ally in the war on terror.

So it's all good!

Sharp dressed men; worlds best dressed leaders

Alright, now we know why Muammar had
to go... who the hell wears medals on a T-shirt?

Nigeria Big Boss Goodluck Jonathan rocks the
bowler hat like nobody else!

Afghan Supremo Hamid Karzai wears the coolest cape since
Batman!