Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls; Buhari; OBJ; Adebayo, Ogbemudia; CJN, Penalty

    Our Girls; Buhari; OBJ; Adebayo, Ogbemudia; CJN, Penalty

    Our Girls are missing since April 15 2014. Pray.
    We expect MAXIMUM COOPERATION between the Federal Government and all States, irrespective of party differences, after the development problems suffered by the ‘wrong party’ political excesses of the past. The people demand maximum development especially from same party at FG and State. True federalism would solve this problem.
    Herdsmen are still on the rampage. Maybe they should all relocate to Aso Rock.
    BBC: Elon Musk offered to fix Australia’s power problems in 100 days. Nigeria should invite him to fight Nigeria’s ‘Extractive Power Industry’. However thousands of generators and fuel for street lighting instead of solar suggest a very backward power sector unable to enter the 21stCentury. Thus our CINS- Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness keep NIGERIA AS PROBABLY THE DARKEST COUNTRY –and our governments have never expressed SHAME at this failure caused by their selfish DEMAND ‘TO POWER THE POWERFUL AT PUBLIC EXPENSE’ with generators and 365-day free fuel. Have we no shame in our LAST PLACE 4,000 Megawatts in a 1,000,000Mw Terawatt, world?
    Meanwhile President x 2 Obasanjo@80 made 30 $billionaires according to $19billionaire Dangote, a tariff-waivered beneficiary. If only OBJ had made 30,000 $1millionaires or 3,000 $10millionaires.
    Checkpoint bribery and smuggling must be stopped but Customs must be stopped from degrading, intimidating Tokunbo car drivers. Soldiers feel their uniform is superior to Customs uniform. Period!
    Long Live our returned President!  Pray that his health improves to allow him direct the battle against financial corruption and for the naira. He must examine the anti-corruption fight of his family and kitchen cabinet team to ensure their financial purity. His moral authority is vital. The enemy is strategising to delay ‘legally’ until elections.
    The foreign reserves are now $30b and appreciate to $55-60billion by 2019. Government must commit $1.5b/month. This will give the naira the economic protection to recover in keeping with President Buhari’s solo nationalistic campaign to protect the naira to lift citizens out of poverty. Will the naira ever be N1:$1 as it was before monetary misfortune? That will wipe out the naira speculators. Let it be N150:1$ by 2019.
    Nigerians must especially thank the Acting President for his honourable and steady-hand energetic promotion of peace, the policies of the Buhari Government and the implementation and initiation of projects. His unpolitical honesty assuaged troubled minds. Nigerians are appreciative that Professor Osinbajo is ‘a safe pair of hands’. Unbelieved by many, Nigeria is lucky to have Buhari/Osibajo team now. They, their wives and most aides are, hopefully, not stealing, thus saving up to 50% of the budget judging by past leadership antics.
    The country may be saved by house cleaning MDAs and ‘UNIFORM EXTRACTIVE CORRUPTION INDUSTRY. Read the riot act to the ‘Uniforms’ IGP, Customs, FRSC and their Commissioners and actually suspending them if in one week surveys still identify ‘checkpoint’, police station ‘bail’, Port and Border corruption and ‘delayed files’. It is not nuclear physics-just EFFICIENCY AND HONESTY -the BUHARI EFFECT. Of course every situation has its Judases and power corrupts.
    General Adeyinka Adebayo dies at 89; General Samuel Ogbemudia dies at 84. General Adebayo will be remembered for holding the Western Region together against the Biafrans at Ore. General Ogbemudia is the father of the now Lost ‘Golden Age’ of Edo State when Edo boys and girls excelled in education and structured sports. Unfortunately, Edo youth which were effectively emasculated by the introduction of JAMB and ‘Cut Off Points’ for university admissions, effectively eliminating many Edos from university and Edo girls sadly found themselves insalubrious work in Nigeria and Italy.
    Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, our New Chief Justice, must deliver speedy just justice and punish corruption appropriately. INEC officials are being punished, and hopefully dismissed and prosecuted for BBB- BRIBERY, BRINGING THE ELECTION INTO DISREPUTE AND BREACH OF CONTRACT WITH NIGERIA. The sentencing of policemen to death over the ‘EXTRAJUDICIAL’ killing of 2 out of 6 is just that ’2/6’, a police, prosecution and judicial ‘failure to find’ the killers of the other 4. Are they among the accused being freed for ‘lack of evidence or diligent prosecution’?
    These events and the 5-year jailing of a Governor for corruption are signposts to stopping HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES BY AUTHORITIES and success of the ANTI-CORRUPTION DRIVE. I do not agree with the death penalty on humanitarian grounds, though I waver at the callous criminality, especially of uniformed personnel. However, jail sentences for corruption and ‘executive criminality and impunity’ must be increased PROPORTIONAL TO THE ENORMITY OF THE CRIMES and amounts stolen and pre-designed to encourage corrupt persons. This encourages crimes.
    Nigerians must learn that every naira stolen is death, deprivation or under-development of a child or her mother at home or in school. Prison terms must be applied equally to rich and poor. A person stealing a goat must not be sentenced to 7 years while someone who steals N70m gets a tiny fine or a tiny jail term. Using N15,000 minimum wage/month or N180,000/annum, let the judiciary benchmark – CITIZENS DEPRIVATION INDEX- how many citizens were deprived of Minimum Wage by this theft – NAIRA STOLEN DIVIDED BY MINIMUM WAGE PER ANNUM = NUMBER OF YEARS IN JAIL. Corrupt persons must be jailed for one year for every N180, 000. This is 10 years jail for stealing N1.8m.
    NB: Nigeria must expose 25-50-year-old ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for public scrutiny for 2018 primaries.

  • Our Girls; No burning tyres; Nigeria’s Anti-Apartheid History for Nollywood

    Our Girls are missing since April 15 2014. Pray.
    Is it true that the APC leadership has asked APC ‘governors’ for funds to run the party? Have we not ‘change’-d? If the money is to be corruptly EXTRACTED FROM STATE as a percent of BUDGETED FUNDS and CONTRACTS, it is a breach of the SEPARATION OF GOVERNMENT BUDGET FROM PARTY FUNDING – an essential anticorruption step! Nigeria needs a ‘change’ ‘RETREAT ON ETHICAL AND ECONOMIC ELECTIONS : INDIVIDUAL AND POLITICAL PARTY FUNDING, AND CUTTING COSTS OF ELECTIONS IN 2019’ led by INEC, Transparency International, EFCC and ICPC. To get honest elections Nigeria has just 2 years to move ‘away from stealing IN ORDER to fill MULTIBILLION NAIRA WAR CHESTS for ELECTIONS AND PARTY FUNDING. Nigeria cannot survive MORE POLITICAL THEFT FROM THE BUDGET! Politics and elections will only get CHEAPER if STATE MONEY IS NOT AVAILABLE to be DIVERTED.
    THE GLO ADVERT involving a MAN WIELDING A KNIFE against another is disgracefully insensitive, dangerous, mimicking real historic death situations and must be withdrawn. It is no joke! Withdraw it!
    So the N7-8,000,000,000 ‘loving donation funded’ Obasanjo Presidential Library, largest worldwide [?], is here. It is a SUPERSTRUCTURE. Past Presidents and Governments cannot be absolved of paradoxical criminal failure to build INFRASTRUCTURE like SCHOOL LIBRARIES UPDATED BY ANNUAL BOOK PURCHASE GRANTS in Nigeria’s educational desert of library-less 80,000 schools which BEGGED THESE SAME PRESIDENTS DURING OFFICE for just N100,000 each x 80,000 = N8,000,000,000 for 100-200 books/school!
    FG must instruct Customs to ‘change’, and also not burn, the N2bn of seized ‘substandard’ tyres. Are they a ‘failed deal’ like the past Customs boss with 46 exotic cars – a ‘Custom’ for Customs Chiefs?? The toxic smoke choking the environment from vulcanisers and rioters tyre-burning should encourage the FG/NASS to BAN TYRE-BURNING. Challenge universities and polytechnics to RECYCLE with ALTERNATIVE TYRE USES as competitive entrepreneur projects in Arts, Culture Technology, Science -ACTS. Imagine a 100-feet crazy artwork in 40 universities.
    Yes by all means NASS should take away the much abused and multibillion dollar Presidential POWER TO ALLOCATE NIGERIA’S FEW MULTIBILLION NAIRA OIL BLOCKS often allocated after tearful begging without even a 20-25% to the local community. But what right, apart from a proclivity to acquire wealth and hyper-pensions, does NASS claim to undertake leadership in this? Learning from history OIL BLOCKS should be out of bounds to citizens with the Presidency and NASS together allowed to ONLY LEASE FOR 5-10 YEARS TO COMMUNITIES OR ALLOTTEES OR PAYING 10-20-100% TO A SPECIALLY CREATED LOCAL COMMUNITY SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND.
    Moved by the evil of apartheid, found by Mandela to be less evil than Nigeria’s political governments, I wrote a story published by SPECTRUM BOOKS IN 1986ish called DEADLY CARGO -the story of the South African Apartheid Government attempt to blow up Lagos Apapa Port with a bomb in a ship and how the attempt was foiled by Nigerians.
    Now, we protest XENOPHOBIA OF SOUTH AFRICANS. Nigerians have a modified xenophobia at home! But the Federal Government, NASS and the press hardly protest or provide compensation when 20 or 300 farmers are killed and houses are razed!!! Is it ‘okay’ to kill each other but no foreigners must kill us OOOOO?
    But we mistakenly blame the Xenophobia on South Africa’s lack of history. We think they should have learnt of their ‘debt’ to Nigeria and ‘respect Nigerians’ for Nigeria’s multifaceted role as safe-haven for hunted activists, sponsored-by-Nigeria unpaying school and university students, funder of the ANC and an armed, aggressive bastion against apartheid in their anti-apartheid protest at the UN and OAU. Who cares today? It is a new post-apartheid generation of South Africans born in the last 30-35 years – without history.  The new post-apartheid generation of Nigerians struggling for survival abroad because we have forced them to flee Nigeria is equally ignorant of history. Maybe they should visit Obasanjo’s Presidential Library? Foolishly Nigeria has erected no monument or museum for youth to study the Nigerian Anti-Apartheid struggle. So the South Africans are ignorant simply because Nigeria or no-one has gotten media attention about Nigeria’s role.
    Colonial countries were made into nations by doctored historical documentation. Unfortunately, Nigeria buried its history in the Congo, elsewhere and ECOMOG in West Africa where 3,000 to 12,000 Nigerian soldiers died, remembered only by their families. Where is the DOCUMENTARY ‘NIGERIA: FRONTLINE STATE AGAINST APARTHEID’? We watch Nollywood historical films like ‘76’ and ‘93 Days’, the story of Dr Adadevoh, Dr Oheiri and other medical colleagues’ heroism against Ebola in Lagos. Who has funded or produced a Nollywood film or interviewed the aging participants in Nigeria, the UN and South Africa about the diary of events, travel routes, diplomatic manoeuvring, spy tactics, dangers and deaths? Who has accessed the Apartheid South Africa Government’s covert ‘Nigeria counterterrorism’ files? Thandi and then to-be President Mbeki were among South Africans passing through Ibadan meeting Mr Ogie Alakija, Dr R Zard and late Mr ED Alalade–ask them. Interview them. This should be the next Nollywood blockbuster!!
    We must not allow all Nigerians to be mislabelled as criminals but must not criminalise all South Africa which incidentally has 45,000Mw from their evil apartheid Government while we struggle with 2-4,000Mw from our Past RUBBISH CRIMINAL GOVERNMENTS!
    NB: Identify and expose ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for the next election.

  • Our Girls; A. Mohammed; Airports; Africa’s Suicidal Armada

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014.
    The barbaric cutting off of the hand of an INEC official and kidnap of others must lead to political parties members and their parties being punished. Violence and death are not features of civilised elections. Ensuring peace is the sole responsibility of security agents, not INEC, the people’s umpire agency. INEC is innocent!
    Watch James Bond’s 007 ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ to help understand Trump’s need to manipulate the press!
    Congratulations again, Mrs Amina Mohammed@SDGUN. Today UN Deputy Secretary General, tomorrow UNSG?
    The National Council of State should postpone receiving new cars. Most businesses spend enough on fuel to buy a new car annually – the GENERATOR GENERATION. National Assembly (NASS) should ‘change’ the constitution and close one House, the Senate, for two years and introduce part-time 180 days sitting with allowances. NASS should be sacrifice not a gold mine! Nigerian politicians must be paid by home states. Nigerians are sick of what appear like fake constitutional projects and NASS members’ fake ‘petty media-hyped empowerment scams, I mean schemes’. Contrast NASS ‘legal’ personal enrichment with ‘Fellow Nigerian’ poverty – and vomit! How do NASS members sleep?
    President Buhari is in our prayers. Acting President Osinbajo visiting the MM International Airport Lagos promised FRIENDLY AIRPORTS, perhaps recalling pre-VIP Room nightmare traffic and NOT FIT-FOR-PURPOSE DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL RAMPS and the ‘Entrepreneurial’ BLACK-MARKET BUSINESS IN PARKING. In January, I spent 1 ½ hours in stationary traffic within sight of the MMIAirport building. With my luggage, I walked past 1km of traffic jam, the checkpoint and up the departure ramp. Flying should be a pleasure not a nightmare. Just like the expressway, this is an UNACCEPTABLE NATIONAL PASSENGER GRIDLOCK and a FAAN-tolerated lucrative million naira+ ‘Airport parking black-market’ run by uniforms. Our international airports are a NATIONAL NIGERIAN DISGRACE correctable by our ignored but brilliant engineers and architects. The airports testify to our political ineptitude beyond just CORRUPTION. They signify a GOVERNMENT AGENCY CONSPIRACY or PROFESSIONAL AND POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS –Nigeria is an international aviation joke! A Nigerian owns Gatwick. Ask him for advice.
    Must Nigerians come to the airport with N25-50,000 cash in case their vehicles are towed!!! Remember the old car parks in front of the airport and underground? Nigeria requires A NEW INDEPENDENT OMBUDSMAN COMMITTEE OF TRASPORT EXPERTS, ENGINEERS, ARCHITECTS AND FREQUENT FLYERS- THE VICTIMS OF FUNNY FAAN REGULATIONS. Have FAAN insiders fed too fat, like NNPC? Airport officials embarrass Nigeria by EXCESSIVE ‘SEASON’S GREETINGS’ as if expecting a gift. They need ‘Change’ and national pride. There are NEAR-ZERO SEATING for thousands. The MMAI airport is an ‘AIRPORT EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY’ and for early morning arriving passengers ‘just before dawn’-[appreciation to Kole Omotoso] is an insult to paying passengers with no seats. Why do some uniform checkpoints specialise in fleecing passengers. An excursion to Lagos Airport was a children’s treat in the 1960s. Retrogression! As usual in Nigeria we upgrade VIP sections and toilets for political and executive bottoms, ignoring the legitimate needs of Fellow Nigerians who are 50 years overdue for the ‘Nigerian Dream’ development upgrade by a LEADERSHIP THAT LOVES NIGERIA which is blessed by God with weather and resources. Until now Nigeria has lacked the TRUELY THOUGHTFUL AND NIGERIAN ‘ACTION’ LEADERSHIP to propel a Development Agenda into the 21st Century dedicated to KEEPING CORRUPTION BELOW TEN PERCENT –THE MAXIMUM CORRUPTION THRESHOLD FOR ANY COUNTRY TO DEVELOP RAPIDLY. Has ‘our time come’ under this current government.
    A ‘FILL 10MILLION POTHOLES’ OPERATION to ELIMINATE POTHOLES to ease travel woes of 100million travellers by employing 10,000 pothole fillers [like PWD of old], is cheaper than re-building an airport for one million passengers. Of course, a good purposeful leadership will do both together, exemplified we pray, by this government.
    Dead bodies of 87 Africans, the unnamed ‘undead’ to hopeful families, are among 50,000+ dead to the eternal damnation and disgrace of Africa’s leaders, who have THEIR BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS, while corruptly depositing the development future of Africa’s 21st Century generations in cesspools, banks, fridges and even Fortress Europe and in corporations to ‘steal’ perpetually. We often hear placations like – ‘He/she, stole our money but invested it in companies employing our people’. Can corruption ever lead to development? How much of THOSE FAILED AFRICAN LEADERS’ stolen money is in lost ‘fixed’ deposits and forgotten safe houses? MUMU!! Failure to develop their countries has led Africa to witness the GREAT SUICIDAL ARMADA Of AFRICANS SAILING FOR SURVIVAL, and death, ACROSS THE SAHARA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA to breach Fortress Europe. This was an invasion preventable by development. The ARMADA OF DEATH is not in old great ships but in pirate-run little leaky boats UNFIT FOR PURPOSE leading to Africa’s youth drowning just like in ‘good-old’ slavery times, as a reward for a $3,000 suicide boat seat without even a lifejacket made of empty plastic bottles. Development will make Africans stay home. Nobody flees to Africa until perhaps a new Ice Age Cometh and winter freeze Europe and North America.
    NASS should reconsider suspending daily proceedings when one unfortunate member dies. A costly custom considering that NASS scarcely offers ONE MOMENT, NOT UP TO ONE MINUTE, OF SILENCE WHEN Nigeria suffers multiple deaths of non NASS members. Does the crocodile have tears?
    NB: Whistle-blow corruption. Expose to the public ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for coming elections.
    NNB: Nigerian journalists search bbc.com/KomlaDumor by 15/3/2017 for Komla Dumor Award. www.tonymarinho.com

  • Our Girls; IDPs jobs; PMB silence; UBN– Grassroots CSR?

    Our Girls; IDPs jobs; PMB silence; UBN– Grassroots CSR?

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. The terrible figures 100,000+ dead and 3-5million IDPs, many migrated across Nigeria, show the enormous emotional, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, P-TSS and economic cost of Boko Haram and its evil ‘sister’ proxy wars –Fulani herdsman-farmers and Southern Kaduna wars. According to UN, $1,000,000,000+ $1+billion is required for developmental recovery. It must guarantee ‘maximum local human IDP content’ and not use out-of-state contractors. NGOs like Red Cross must recruit local staff. Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp feeding must be monetised for family empowerment to buy from IDP-run shops and IDPs must earn salaries working in camps, for morale, morals and money to grow IDP families and the local economy. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)’s method of dumping/distributing blankets and buckets in an IDP camp turns IDPs into beggars. IDPs must get recovery jobs. Qualified and trainable IDPs must be recruited, trained and employed. This dictum ‘THIS PROJECT MUST EMPOWER, EMPLOY, DIGNIFY IDPs’ must be for IDP unskilled, highly skilled and board room members. Beware of greedy elders and traditional rulers. Capacity building requires an IDP ‘SKILLS/DESIRED JOB AND LOCATION CENSUS’ and ‘What would YOU like to do/train as?’ Projected project job needs must be researched and publicised for IDPs to develop needed skills to avoid recruiting out-of-state ‘Fellow Nigerians’.
    Also an EFCC/ICPC driven ANTICORRUPTION MECHANISM must be set up NOW to prevent and detect over-invoicing, theft and ‘UNFULFILLED FAKE CONTRACTS’ -check NDDC. Note that the plight of IDPs is replicated ‘under every bridge’ nationwide.
    Desmond Nunugwo’s death in EFCC’s custody requires NHRC investigation as no one should die in custody from disease, medical, fear or violence.
    Nigeria’s ‘Presidential Silence’ was ill-advised and has cost Nigeria dear. The emotional cost to 150m citizens bombarded with fake ‘death-wish’ rumours was preventable. Many Nigerians stand with Buhari, though he is slow, and Nigeria’s stolen money is trickling back in billions. The financial cost of forex £5,000-50,000/head for those visiting London as an ‘Emergency Destination’, costing ‘Official Duty’ flight ticket, ESTACODE, hotels and Oxford Street visits was preventable. The cost of media, ‘How is Buhari?’ and ‘1+billion ‘comments’, were preventable. Our Presidential Silence has not been ‘Golden’ but has cost Nigeria ‘gold’, millions. Pray he lives to fight more. Www=‘A Word is Wisdom from the Wise’.
    National Assembly (NASS) should stop insulting Nigerians invited before them. Instruct MDAs on what documents it requires in this budget defence round. Public hearings are vital, but public disgrace is not. NASS’s record gives it no moral right, authority or immunity to castigate officials when its own N125b budget and stupendous SAPP, Salaries and Perks and Pensions are sequestered in deep secrecy and the stench of corrupt lingers and ‘hyper-pensions’ nauseate us. The 20+ senior staff of any MDA report to NASS and with, 100 observers, the meetings cost Nigeria millions. Stop wasting Nigeria’s time and money and agree on the vetting formula and documents. Genuine issues are welcome but civility should prevail and not a rant by NASS-ty committee chairmen. Thank God Pay-Before- Budget-Approval is not possible as all the money is in TSA- HaHa! Valentine was dry this year, abi??? No NASS member should PPP -PRACTICE POLITICAL PROSTITUTION by demanding or receiving a Yakubu-like ‘Unsolicited Valentine Gift’ or a ‘Show Me Your Love’ Valentine card stuffed with money ‘under-the-cap’ ‘currency’ or GMGs, Ghana Must Go bags to guarantee ‘rancour-free budget approval’. NASS committees, treat Nigeria’s children’s parents with the respect, dignity and decorum you demand for your election to NASS by whatever means you and your God and whistle-blowers know. SERVICON says it is a human right not to be insulted in the workplace. As a doctor I can tell you, having dissected and operated on thousands of Fellow Nigerian and foreign bodies, political and pauper, that your body and your brain are no different from the kobo-less beggar and her starving children begging around traffic lights nationwide and in your village regardless of your government bought A5 AAAAA- ATTIRE, APPELLATION, ABODE, ACCOUNTS and ARMOURED/ARMOUR-LESS JEEP and All other Perks. As leaders of ‘NIGERIA’S POLITICAL EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY’, NASS should take the ‘LIKE/INDIFFERENT/HATE TEMPERATURE’ of Nigerians and try to reverse the sickening hurt it inflicts when its members pontificate on their ‘sacrifice’ on NTA, if Nigerians are fortunate enough to have electricity to waste watching NASS in their perpetually dark country. Pray for Buhari, pray and shout for a ‘Changed NASS’.
    Union Bank@100 is good. Nigeria’s Private Sector ‘funders’ of CSR, used to ‘HQ CSR’ should count the 100 year missed opportunity to constructively, systematically and collectively transform Nigeria’s baseline – grassroots schools near their individual customer base, branches, distributorships and kiosks. Imagine the contribution to youth education of 10,000 Union Bank 100 Book School Libraries, 500,000 Zenith Bank Football, 100 MTN Science Centres, one Ecobank Aquarium, 1,000 Unilever Boy Scouts Excursion and a P&G Girl Guides Annual Camp. Need I say more?
    Tayo Aluko’s stage portrayal of first generation lawyer, British Judge Tunji Sowande, was recognised by BBC, Focus on Africa. Use Google to teach your children about Africans in the UK from slaves, Paul Robson, the West African Students Union, Crown Agents, the African clubs and the West African Route ships Elder Dempster Line MV Apapa, Accra, and Aureole.
    NB: Whistle-blow corruption and identify and expose to the public ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for coming elections.
    NNB: Nigerian journalists search bbc.com/KomlaDumor to compete for Komla Dumor Award closing 15/3/2017.blog- www.tonymarinho.com

  • Straighten velvet outfits with this

    Straighten velvet outfits with this

    You had intended to wear a lovely velvet outfit to an event, but it’s rumpled, and ironing can’t get out the wrinkles. What do you do?

    Simply hold the outfit over a pot of boiling water, or leave in your sauna for five minutes, and it will be as good as new. Why? The steam raises the pile of the fabric, making it look as smooth and lustrous as it was when you bought it.

  • Our Girls; Whistle-blowers pls; Hyper-pensioned politicians

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. Pray and work for them.
    Remember how I told you to tell your children and grandchildren to practice, practice and practice mathematics? Did you? How far? No Nigerian child should fail maths or English or any subject just because you did not tell and teach them how to practice, practice, and practice. Nigeria’s poorly developed politics does not immediately matter to the millions of Nigeria’s children ’rotting’ in school who should be led correctly. Happily Oyo State has approved non-political local role model and business BOARDS OF GOVERNORS FOR ALL ITS SCHOOLS. Next step is to initiate OLD STUDENTS ASSOCIATIONS AT PRIMARY SCHOOL level and offer competitive awards for quick action to help revamp the schools just as is being done by you for your secondary school. Nigerians, without you your secondary school would probably be as rubbishy as our primary schools are. But remember that most secondary schools are substandard in spite of Old Students Associations.
    Why do we forget the history of our absent development in our paradoxically boastful ‘rich cultural history’ but dark country? As Nigerians, we endure our suffering in the most costly electricity darkness in the world. Shamefully, every state under every political party had more than enough funds and each LGA had almost N1billion/year for several years which was largely squandered or stolen as the leadership refused to develop citizens by refusing to carry out structured brick on brick, road on road, equipment on equipment upgrade.
    All hail whistle-blowers. They should form an association to ensure they get their 5%, no magomago. The N8b and $151m recovered and the EFCC seizing $9,800,000 only confirms the ‘HUGE NIGERIAN LEADERSHIP CAPACITY FOR CORRUPTION’ and that reality is much worse than the rumours and suspicions. Surely the man involved is doing follow-follow dancing the dance and walking the walk of predecessors and many hundreds of others ‘still at large’ who have polluted the oil and every MAD and industry with their ability to receive ‘solicited- Bribe Me’  or ‘unsolicited- gifts’ just for being Group Managing Director and assigning legal documents. Were his predecessors less accumulating in their avarice or like him?
    Do National Assembly (NASS) and Presidential and judiciary officers also not get such ‘gifts’? Does NAFDAC and, dare we ask, EFCC also get gifts or are they Standards Organisation of Nigeria ‘SON-CERTIFIED 2017’ CORRUPTION FREE?  Obviously there is much more than $9,800,000 to be searched for. Who else ‘Received Stolen Goods’ in his office; who got more than he did? After all he was an employee of government, not minister! Where did the money originate? Is it genuinely ‘Thankful Contractors’ the type of Grateful Contractors who fill the wedding ceremonies of children of governors, presidents, ministers and commissioners. It reminds me of the permanent stench of Nigerian Ports Authority, as yet un-investigated.
    A word about the QUANTUM OF CORRUPTION in Nigeria-a disease! This money, $9,800,000  or averaging N4,000,000,000 i.e. N4 billion, can only have come from multiple episodes of SHORT-CHANGING NIGERIA IN OIL DEALS and would  have saved lives and improved the quality of live for millions. Development needs abound like filling millions of potholes nationwide, giving N100,000 worth of books, laboratory or sports equipment to 40,000 school libraries or N10-50,000 education grants/scholarships to 80,000 to 400,000 students/university undergraduates or allowed  $25,000 one year scholarships to 400 Year abroad students or bought 50-100 cancer treatment units at $100- 200,000 or N40-80,000,000. O, yes for any wealthy thieves out there, $9,800,000 is only 300+ jeeps at $30,000 each, nearly one for each NASS member or 200 buses for a mass transit scheme.
    University social scientists should multiply these losses by the real but as yet uncalculated unknown billions of dollars corruptly removed from the public purse directly or through bribery or undeclared ‘gifts’. Then we will all see why we, as a country, remain a laughing stock of the world ranking third from last in WHO Health Provision and all Life Indices ranking and we remain nowhere compared to our available funds, past and present.  Except of course for the Corruption Index where we are still ‘proudly’ in the top five and climbing.
    The truth is that many Nigerian leaders at all levels of authority behaved little better than foreign invaders or serial sadists, killing, not building on every development idea and leaving underdeveloped component parts of an Nigeria. All policies, no matter how good on paper or in principle, are dissected into corrupt segments. Everyone wants and expects a handout just for occupying the position, doorman to director, gateman to General Manager, at checkpoints.  All this because the majority of Nigerians in positions of government and political leadership are not monitored on the job by EFCC and do not love Nigeria enough to want to get the development that is the right of all Nigerians. NIGERIANS DEMAND DEVELOPMENT after years of THEFT.
    We must all force development as the way forward for the country in public and private sectors. Cattle and crops can grow around the country, not just in certain places.
    And then we turn on the news and find the National Council of State pontificating on our national failures, allocating new cars to themselves, and the buffoonery of HYPER-PENSIONED ex-governors in NASS if you have electric power. NB: Identify and expose to the public ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for the next election.

  • Do they know?

    Do they know?

    If something is adjustable, sooner or later it will need adjusting–Max Frisch

    Along with six friends, I watched television footage of  the crowds that cheered Chief James Ibori as he drove on the streets on his return home last week  after his  prison service in the United Kingdom. There was pronounced silence as we watched young and old struggle to catch a glimpse of the man. Like us, it was obvious that  many in the crowds that followed his sport utility vehicle (SUV) at close quarters did not believe it was indeed Ibori until he, at a point, emerged from the top of his (SUV) to show an apparently well-fed and healthy-looking former  governor. There was a long silence after the spectacle  had we just watched, broken by a question we all thought was rhetorical: “Do these people know what Chief  Ibori was, and what he  did?” What followed was an animated and passionate argument that laid bare many of the skeletons in our nation’s cupboard. Our fundamental values as people are apparently as varied and questionable as we choose to make them. The lady who asked the question was not going to be ignored. She asked again if this is the typically Nigerian rent-a-crowd, or a spontaneous and genuine outpouring of joy among people whose hero had retuned after being jailed in a foreign country for stealing, in all probability, their commonwealth.

    In a few exchanges, arguments that corruption is a Nigerian elite affair, a matter of personal opinion, a  phenomenon determined by a cultural perspective or an effective value redistribution mechanism which anchors political power competed for hearing and dominance. There was no arguing away the reality before all Nigerians: either Chief Ibori is an extraordinarily likable politician who could do no wrong by his people, or the concept of private plunder of public resources is unknown where he came from. It was relatively easy to tick-off familiar arguments and refrain from many parts of the Niger Delta region, such as those that make heroes of locals who ‘liberate’, appropriate’ or ‘personalise’ the communities’ assets in oil and gas, as opposed to ‘strangers’ from the rest of Nigeria and the world who ‘steal’ it under official cover. People form the Niger Delta who will feel insulted by this criminal conclusion were not at the airport and road sides holding up placards saying ‘no to corrupt politicians’. By default, voices that agonised over the bleeding of communities by strongmen in the Niger Delta had submitted to a narrative that the use of public office or violence to divert massive resources was tolerable if it was done by locals. If half of the energy devoted to making the case for larger control of revenues by local communities  had been directed at fighting corruption that stole huge resources from the same communities by politicians, the Delta region will not so viciously offend all standards of just and equitable development.

    Chief Ibori’s return will open up many uncomfortable points in debates regarding the place of official corruption in our lives. There will be those that will insist that the fight against corruption is an elite affair, between those who have not amassed wealth illegally either because they could not, or were deeply predisposed against it, on the one hand, and those who see the acquisition of illegal wealth as a normal and essential element of acquiring power and serving the people. They will point at the verifiable fact that no Nigerian politician has ever acquired power without spending huge resources, most of which will not stand up to close legal scrutiny. That is the investment in an enterprise with the surest guarantee for returns. The distance between stolen wealth and productive activities of the vast majority of citizens make it difficult to raise requisite levels of passion and anger against the pillage of common resources. What is endemic is the pervasive and residual resentment of the rich, fuelled by suspicion that all wealth is stolen. The popular clamour to humiliate the rich   by any means   available is constantly hounded by deep-seated convictions that everyone will be corrupt if they get the opportunities.

    Do Nigerians know the nature of the damage which systemic corruption does to their lives and the nation, or do they think the fight against corruption is largely a ploy by some elite to settle scores? Not to answer the first question in the affirmative will be to insult everything we value: our religious faiths and other key social values, our politicians who daily remind us that our strengths and assets have been bled dry by corruption, and our indignation at the situation we face daily when we have to submit to corruption. It is the second question which our recent experiences and current circumstances has difficult answers. This administration came to power to fight corruption, and we have a long list of suspects on trial or under investigation to prove it. If therefore, a committed supporter of the current campaign against corruption asks if the cheering crowd that welcomed Ibori knew what he was and what they were involved in, he should be prepared to answer some difficult questions as well. Do our leaders know that corruption at lower levels, the type that touches every citizen still thrives without fear or cover. Do they know that commercial drivers routinely and openly hand over money to police and other army of enforcers and regulators on our roads in full view of citizen passengers who duly note that nothing has changed? Do they know that every transaction, every activity that is service  is still substantially fueled by bribes and inducements?

    There is a massive disconnect between the fight President Buhari’s government is waging against corruption and the life of the Nigerian who has long readjusted to living with bribery, inducement, cheating, bending of rules, impunity and a host  of other practices that suggest that only those who steal billions are corrupt. The difficulties imposed by an economy in recession make cheerleading the fight against corruption more difficult. Poor citizens ask if government knows how difficult life has become; why the cost of palm oil, matches, sugar and garri rise literally by the day and no one does anything about it. School fees, diesel, medications, rent, transport and every other essentials are becoming unaffordable. The state is receding at a dangerous rate from many Nigerians, Many among whom now provide their own security, basic infrastructure and other essentials of life. When you do this on a permanent basis, it is difficult to have much sympathy for the case that everyone should live within their means. It does not help the administration’s cause when much mileage is made against suspicion that it is reluctant to look too critically at its own side in a nation where saints and sinners wear the same faces, but can be told apart with a strong will and a commitment to expose corruption.

    Some weeks ago, Vice President Osinbajo appealed to Nigerians to dislike corruption in all its ramifications, or the battle against it is as good as lost. This an important attempt to hit corruption where it hurts most: in those circles where wealth and power bulldoze their ways into our adulating and weak hearts. You have to feel for a President whose singular hallmark has been the fight against corruption, and a Deputy who doubles as a priest, that they stand at a point where they could persuade Nigerians to stay overwhelmingly loyal to the fight against corruption, or one that could register an irretrievable loss. If the Buhari administration will not win the fight against corruption, it is going to be difficult to see who will. If it will win this war, this administration needs to re-strategize and re-focus on value change and an aggressive campaign to stop small scale corruption which citizens live with. If a citizen cannot be saved from paying bribes for just about everything of value, he is unlikely to see any wrong in Chief James Ibori’s life. The battle for 2019 will test the effectiveness of the anti-corruption campaign. If billions or trillion are going to have to be spent by politicians and their backers in business they will have to steal it now.

     

    • I am about to take a break to serve the nation in another capacity. I will hope that there is still room for me in the paper and your attention when I resume. I thank you for reading me and giving me the courage to share my thought with you.

    Good bye

     

  • Our Girls; Poor development since 1970s; Armsgate2

    Our girls are still missing since April 15 2014.Will they return home? Trump’s new customs regulation? Prove you are a ‘lactating woman’. Na wa O!

    The hardship meted out to Nigerians in the name of unachieved poor development since 1970s deserves Political Science research and documentation at this time of protest against Buhari’s governance. Nigerians seem not satisfied with a President and team which largely does not, steal, or give handouts. The government certainly failed Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

    Things are really bad but did Buhari make them bad or worse? They say we should not look back but forward. But Buhari was given an iced national cake with the inside ripped out by massive corruption and political abuses of his predecessors. Now that hollow cake has melted and collapsed in his hands in the hot sun in full view of a starving public with fickle opinion. This is compounded by a world economic slowdown and an oil price collapse that has cut profits in many oil companies by 60%.

    Buhari is holding the ‘dead cake’ and past governments are thanking that their rape of the economy and their political and monetary malfeasance are blamed on Buhari, not them. However all political parties are guilty of the political financial arrogance that is National Assembly, (NASS), state governors, state assemblies and LGAs -‘NIGERIA’S POLITICAL EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY’. Blame goes to our failed past rulers who allocate RETIREMENT CHOP-CHOP and national honours for ‘ZERO RESULT’.

    Becoming a Head of State or governor by coup or corruption, selection or election is not enough. PERFORMANCE MATTERS and the abysmal state of Nigeria’s infrastructure show that we have lacked that driven, visionary and practical leadership PERFORMANCE that could have propelled us into the 21st century. Nigeria always had money but never enough to 1] Steal more than 10% or misappropriate; and 2] Develop at the same time. So leaders and their acolytes’ stopped development instead creating highly developed families with money and shares and stakes in everything and these families are the ‘new development’ and legacies. The negative impact on development is paralytic.

    Governments establishing underfunded universities is not a legacy but a burden on the unfortunate students sent to study therein but forced to spend extra years while strikes strike and cash-strapped teachers sell cement and teach the ‘theory’ with no infrastructure because someone has stolen or misappropriated funds. Criminal consequences of nationalised corruption!
    The smuggling of 661 pump-action weapons, ‘ArmsGate2‘ seized by Customs is a mega-normous covert operation.

    No matter whether it was a nationalistic tip-off or a disgruntled ‘you did not pay me enough bribe’ tip off, please go through the Nollywood blockbuster steps. Start by immersing yourself, family or office colleagues in an ‘Arms Buying Game’. Ask and answer the questions: ‘Let’s arm ourselves or others’, ‘Why?’, ‘Where do we get arms?’, ‘Have we got enough money? Let us squeeze that man, he owes us and his money is in Asia buying Chinese doors. Maybe we can put the guns in the doors.’, ‘Haha, don’t be silly.

    The Chinese manufacturer will not agree’, ’Don’t’ worry, Dora Akunyili is dead, we can have fake doors now!’, ‘Which arms dealer will sell to us after the last Armsgate?’ ‘This is not government business, no probe‘, ‘Who should we use?’, ‘What type of arms should we get, single, double barrel, Uzi, AK47?’ ‘No, ‘Pump Action Rifle’. ’I have a friend…’, ‘How many arms can we bring in?’, ‘Should we bring the arms in singly or in bulk?’, ‘I know one Customs chap’. ‘I know two’, ‘I know ten’ and the especially Niga question ‘why buy new weapons and not Tokunbo- second hand as we normally buy for government and repaint to look like new?’. ‘Oga go kill you O, I no de.’
    The questions Nigerians ask are, ‘Is this the total shipment or the first, middle or last container as part of a larger arms shipment in the same or other containers on the same or other ships?’ ‘Are these all the arms or is this a part of a larger shipment, and where is the rest of the shipment, has it already gone through?’ And remember the guns need ammunition. Is that supplied from Gadhafi-land? Are the weapons being supplied without ammunition? Is the ammunition in other two or 10 container loads of Chinese doors or Indian windows this time? Has the ammunition already gone through? Destination questions arise. Which part of Nigeria? Was the routed destination a decoy for the truck to be high-jacked to the real destination? Has the company ordering the consignment of Chinese doors been interrogated or exonerated and have the destination people been apprehended before the seizure? Were the guns put in at the Chinese door factory or elsewhere?
    There must be thousands of people involved in this Armsgate2 Affair from ‘respectable’ banks paying huge sums around the world, to Customs to labourers and administrators. Let us add to the cost of this project at a landing undercover and blackmail cost of maybe $2,000-3,500 mix the 661=$1.3-2.3m=N520,000,000 to N920,000,000. Including worldwide bribes, =N1billion+ black-market arms trade deal prices. This excludes the price of the metal doors, tens of millions. It suggests maybe N1-2billion. Who paid and why? Where is the paper trail? Look at your metal doors differently. But who can put their finger on the kingpins?
    NB: Identify and expose to the public ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for the next election.

  • Restarting the North again

    Restarting the North again

    If you don’t know when you have been spat on, it does not matter too much what else you think you know – Ruth Shays

    Northern governors last week attempted a feat the region had long jettisoned: bringing together its assets under one roof to count its strengths and weaknesses. The governors and senior officials went beyond the routine and ritual of periodically assembling for a few days in Kaduna, mostly to run away from begging and complaining citizens. This time, they set for themselves the challenging task of putting the region’s security challenges on the table and reaching out to traditional rulers and groups of elders to help examine just where to begin to deal with its multiple manifestations. When you remember that a few years ago, Northern governors were literally forced to stop meetings in Kaduna, or attend any event in the symbolically-important Arewa House by youths who harassed them with such abandon, this particular meeting which had an impressive attendance will be recorded as an achievement for holding at all. It was even more remarkable that governors accepted to tap into the perspectives and experience of traditional rulers, that layer that hovers between uncomfortable submission to elected politicians the age of their offspring or younger brothers, and leveraging on the considerable opportunities that exist outside their narrow formal environments to be heard. They even tacitly accepted that associations of elderly northerners who had played their parts many times over in the affairs of the region and the nation had something of value to say in the search for solution.

    The Governor of Borno State who is the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum spoke with such passion, anger and lamentation over the state of the North. It was obvious that the governors had decided to do something different this time. The anger was substantially directed at the North, the region with the size, the people and the potential to be the richest in the nation, and to feed the entire West Africa. It is not any such thing today. It is, instead, the wretched region, derided and despised for begging for its existence and contributing nothing but trouble by the rest of Nigeria. Its people are angry and terrified by its numerous security challenges. Ten million of its young are beggars, and millions more will not receive any type of education or skills to prepare them for productive adult lives. Thousands of its people have died and are dying from preventable security threats, and millions will be victims of the Boko Haram insurgency for many years to come, or for entire lives. The North is virtually de-industrialised, its basic infrastructure decaying beyond rehabilitation. Desperately poor communities fight each other for every reason except those that improve their economic well-being. The solid show of  political unity demonstrated with the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 is threatening to unravel, as shadowy attackers under the generic identity of Fulani herders threaten ethno-religious harmony in many parts of the North, providing huge opportunities to exploit and regenerate dormant hostilities. The North that protected its turf as one unit with such confidence and competence in the First Republic is a pathetic shadow, with 19 governments, bureaucracies and rulers, spending resources it does not produce on governments, not the people.

    This was the North whose political leaders, all 19 of them, decided to look critically at a region that is regressing at such a rapid rate that it has become a major threat to itself and the rest of the nation, and even Africa. Well, they got an earful from the distinguished assemblage in turbans and robes and grey hairs on heads in their 80s and 90s.The Sultan of Sokoto advised on the values of justice and honesty as foundations of good governance and security. The Shehu of Borno painted a most distressing picture of the devastation being wrecked by the retreating Boko Haram insurgency. Emir of Kano made a strong case for far-reaching social reforms as solution to the deep-seated problems of the North which feed insecurity. Other traditional rulers offered advice on dealing with cultural pluralism, threats and strengthening governance structures. Elders took governors on a journey to a past which held together because leaders put premium on justice, inclusiveness and sacrifices. They reminded governors of imperatives of lowering boundaries, adopting pan-Northern policies and programmes and regenerating the dilapidated assets of the North. They held governors responsible for exerting pressure on the Federal Government to accord priority to adequate investments in agriculture, solid mineral development and basic infrastructure in the North as rights and not as a favour to northerners. They drew attention to energetic efforts of governors from the Southwest to build foundations for regional development and political unity. They pointed to multiple security threats and challenges from many parts of the nation fed by the desire to corner more resources, while the North fights itself and fritters away its bountiful opportunities. They lamented the alarming and widening gaps between the North and the rest of Nigeria in education, wealth creation, security and quality of life.

    Remarkably, there was also substantial yielding of grounds around boundaries and turfs. Governor Nasir el-Rufai submitted to a meeting that had hinted that insecurity in any part of the North is a northern problem through a detailed briefing on challenges and responses of his government on the Shia, cattle rustling and Southern Kaduna. Reactions to his briefing supported the view that northern leaders recognise that developments involving the Shia (or as he insisted, the IMN), and Southern Kaduna represented major threats to the whole North and the nation. Not one voice failed to support the enforcement of the law against people and groups who defy it, whatever religious garb they wear, or their status. A few, however advised on the values of exploring additional avenues and opportunities to manage conflicts. Dealing with overlapping responsibilities on security, law and order between federal and state governments is a major problem, and in both the Shia and Southern Kaduna issues, the need for greater synergy and collaboration was identified as a major issue that northern governors should take up with the Federal Government.

    The outcome of the meeting, the next day when the governors met alone, suggested that they may have decided on a number of steps that were best left unannounced. Some of the observations and  decisions they made public must have raised a few eyebrows, including the categorical statement that the Fulani suspected of involvement in fights with farming communities are from other countries in West Africa. Even making allowances for the possibility that the governors have the evidence to support this, it is a cause of concern that the conclusion could absolve from suspicion, the huge Fulani population which is entirely Nigerian in fights with communities. Fulani herders, Nigerian and foreign, will now be subjected to much closer scrutiny and potential abuse to show evidence of nationality. The onus to secure borders and prevent illegal entry for foreign Fulani has now been shifted to the Federal Government, a move that will neither improve border security nor the security of communities in the near future. Conflict resolution efforts and peace building will have to meander through a position which suggests that Fulani who should be involved are foreigners. Communities which still fear Fulani attacks will not find much comfort in the position that their adversaries are from other countries, and they may suspect that attempts are being made to push responsibilities further away.

    In any case, northern governors have made the commendable efforts to assume primary responsibility for the security of citizens. They have raised hopes that must be met, because the future of the North is severely threatened by unacceptable levels of poverty and crippling insecurity that compounds poverty. The North has never been as politically unified in partisan terms as it is today, with only two states in the hand of the PDP. If APC, with control of the executive and legislature at the federal level as well as 17 of 19 northern states cannot make a radical difference in the lives of northerners in the next one year, it is very likely that it will find it difficult to sell itself in 2019. If northern governors cannot find common grounds and the will to fight religious extremism, ethno-religious conflicts, youth unemployment, banditry, kidnappings, drugs and violence among youths, they would go down in history as the set who lost the North irretrievably. Last week, they showed that they do not want this place in history. They need help to restart the North.

     

  • Our Girls; Maths; ‘Violent Death Calculator’; Love Nigeria

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. Watch Trump for entertainment and ‘reality TV’. Anambra State’s clampdown on thugs collecting illegal levies is ‘photocopy-able’ nationwide. Governors must save citizens from Government 419 and illegal taxation from LGAs staff and Ex-staff ‘419ers’. Lagos State Employment Trust Fund gives loans of N1b for SMEs. Good. Please investigate East Uganda’s $19m solar farm with 32,000 panels across 30 acres providing 10Mw to 40,000 homes and offices. Even SUN Nigerians refuse to utilise!
    Malcom Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’ mentions Alan Shoenfeld, Berkeley Maths Professor who found the more maths you do the better you get. Simple? I remember failing maths in St Gregory’s College. In Form 5 with WASC looming, I fearfully sat Past Question Papers (PQPs) for 2½-3 hours. Self-marked, I got a F9, 33%. During the next six months, by working PQPs 1-2 hours/day, I got better achieving a ‘C‘ in Maths in WASC. Tell Nigeria’s children: ‘MATHS PRACTICE MAKES MATHS SEMI-PERFECT’. Maths requires a Martin Luther King’s ‘I shall Overcome’ Attitude not prayers. Maths practice is ‘Maths Practicals’ and for weak students is DIY, Do It Yourself, at HOME and DAILY AND PRACTICAL MENTAL ARITHMETIC!
    Lest we forget and before we forgive, add up the INCALCULABLE COST on our ‘Nigeria’s Violent Dead (VD) Calculator’ of our dead and injured in this boastful ‘power dark’ country. ‘THE MATHS OF WAR CASUALTIES is simple = DEATH: INJURY: DISPLACEMENT’– 1 DEAD: 10 INJURED: 20-100 DISPLACED from – BOW/ARROWS, BAYONETS/MACHETES, BIKE, BULLETS, BOMB, BIOLOGICAL WARFARE-typhoid, cholera etc. Start with the Civil War 1+million dead. The ‘revelation’ of 10-20,000 dead in Southern Kaduna require ethnic and religious breakdown. Government underestimates by 50-200%, suggesting that 50,000 are dead. Since Deaths: Injuries are 1:10 then the injured, psychological and physical, amount to 500,000 from Southern Kaduna and IDPs in hundreds of thousands, many have fled nationwide. Add the 30,000 dead and 3,000,000 IDPs from Fulani herdsmen: Farmers, also murderous in Southern Kaduna, and the 30,000 dead and 3,000,000 displaced by Boko Haram, including University of Maiduguri mosque murdered and the 10,000+ kidnapped. The ‘Nigeria’s VD Calculator’ has post-slavery dead of 1,100,000 dead and five million IDPs without adding the dead from government incompetence–the pothole and power failure dead- the fuel explosions, generator fumes, remember Jesse’s 1,000 and dead from scooping fuel from punctured or corroded pipelines or crashed tankers, and from military and government extremism exemplified by murdered Ken Saro Wiwa, Uncle Bola Ige, Funsho Williams, Odi’s 100, coup plots -real and imagined-, ECOMOG, et cetera. Add ‘one chance’ victims of public transport kidnapped or ritually murdered for body part concoctions to ‘guarantee success’ in studies, business, politics and love, the victims of student cultism e.g. ‘The Ife 7’ and the murdered lecturers in Ilorin and the police killed in robberies and police killings by ‘accidental [-ly on purpose] discharge’. ‘All present and correct’-ly dead! Add 30,000 ‘Deaths by Politics’. Add 100,000 deaths and 1,000,000 physical and psychological injuries by the political class supporting the Okada Epidemic infecting even your family.
    Even ‘Nigeria’s Violent Dead Calculator’ cannot calculate the death of the 1960 Nigerian Independence Dream to live and love Nigeria ‘In A Great Country Turned Into A Great Nation By Great Leaders’. The Martin Luther King’s I had a Dream and the American Dream may dominate Hollywood but we have had a dream and desire for Nigeria’s greatness from our St Gregory’s days in the early 1960s with Johnny Uku, Tokunbo Marinho. The dream survived coups, conflicts of conscience, and the Nigerian Civil War when my best friends were ‘First In Class’ Pius Idigo and Charles Hammond and the yet-to-be Great Fela was our idol and Sunday Jump our home. It grew into a patriotic raging bull in the University of Ibadan with great medical student friends like Cyril Etomi, Funso Onafowokan, Wale Kabiawo and Wole Ogunseiyinde in the late 1960s- early 1970s. It became a huge badge of pride during NYSC in Jos/Lafia in 1975/6 and in the late 1970s-early 1980s, when the naira was Baba Dollar and the Green Passport was ‘The Passport to Beat’ and UCH was UCH and members of The Group notably Dele Fawole and friends like Tobi Aken’Ova made families into families. Later ethnic and military politics, time and circumstance cut every dream into mere harmattan mist and I have lamented in 1,000+ articles and with friends like Toks Abiose and Banwo Smith the Murder and Death of the Nigerian Dream. I mention these wonderful people as representational of true Nigerians so that you may know that we are many, legion, hands chaffed, clothes bloodstained and hopes dashed at the barricades of moral rectitude and integrity. We are assailed daily by a spiteful greedy ‘POLITICAL EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY’ which charges so highly for services of questionable quality and pays itself outrageously, while failing every leadership test. We witness the looting of treasuries and erection of empires while we work, with bare hands, at nation-building on farms raided by Fulani herdsmen.
    Dream shattered, true Nigerians may not be rich by Nigeria’s outrageous rich-political thieving standards, but we are rich in the spirit dampened by naira, political, fuel and power failures. Nigeria must stop THE UGLY MATHS OF NIGERIA’S SELF-HARM -VIOLENCE AGAINST ITSELF! I dare to modify Wole Soyinka/Tunji Oyelana’s chant for Nigeria@57¼ to ‘I love my country I no go lie, na inside am I don de die’. Find and raise Political Leaders Who LOVE NIGERIA!