Category: Wednesday

Our Girls are still missing since Oct 15 2014. We pray constantly for their return.

Enough of pitiable politics! Today it is Personal and Professorial! An ‘80 Not Out’ is indeed a milestone. But no letter from the President! It does not come to all, even when they work and pray or corruptly steal Nigeria into their personal pocket. It is in God’s hands though the devil can destroy the wickets of life, ‘a Golden Duck’. Happily it came to Professor Olajide Ajayi last weekend. Yes, he was Cricket Captain. That landmark witnessed impressive outings of a distinguished and successful family and a formidable array of ‘Ajayi Aficionados’. Professor Ajayi’s rollercoaster Odyssey is in his very readable autobiography Up & On. As one prizes open the super, sad and sinister stories that make a biography or autobiography worth reading, we expect to find life’s familiar footprints, the cruel cousin, the tear trail, the unfortunate uncle, the reasonable relation, the rude relative, the fortunate failure, the dogged determination, the foolish feud, the love and lust and loathing of life, the supreme struggle, the terminal triumph and the enviable ending that make a biography resonate with the reader.

In Up & On, Professor Ajayi traces his relationships, triumphs and trials from birth to 11 years old when he became an orphan, to octogenarian, from an uncomfortably student existence he described as ‘parasitic’ to Professor of Surgery and a distinguished professor at that. In growing up he encountered family love, sibling and parental loss, both the ‘wicked witch’ and the ‘fairy Godmother’ and climbed his first Mount Everest, mathematics excellence. He was a student with shoes but ‘no medical textbooks, no human skeleton’; penniless, who borrowed books and money from individual student friends’ generosity’, to cross the Rubicon of the second MB Examination in Medicine. We learn, still true today, the only way to overcome in mathematics is to practice –to try, try and try again. The only way to overcome ‘medical booklessness’ is to borrow books or to stand and read books in bookshops while pretending to make difficult choices between textbooks to purchase but your brain is really consuming chapters, digesting differential diagnosis of devious diseases to be copied from memory on return home- a corner in someone else’s home. We learn that you can borrow someone else’s skeleton to learn ‘skeleton’.

From witnessing a crocodile’s white underbelly being sliced up, he developed maximum skilfulness with the stainless steel super-sharp surgeon’s scalpel on the soft bellies, breasts and bottoms of patients. He made fruitful forays into the pursuit of clinical excellence, administration, teaching and incorrupt management at Teaching Hospitals and founding and upgrading medical schools nationwide. Abroad he became renowned worldwide and he conceived or nurtured many medical babies to adulthood. The West African College of Surgeons, National Post Graduate Medical College to name two, and thousands of doctors who are the better for the tough lessons taught by a tough teacher, from a tough struggling background, who we all much later learnt had a very soft underbelly. The International Federation of Surgical Colleges received his commitment and leadership. Despite an awesome reputation as an ever available ‘damn-fine’ surgeon, he fulfilled his societal duties. Having set aside his scalpel, which I had the privilege of seeing flashing in theatre lights many times, he grew his philanthropic and church work while not relinquishing medical education advancement. Obtain copies of Up & On as birthday presents and ‘reality adventure stories’ for your 15-24 year old youth at home and in university to make them appreciative of your parenting and become highly motivated with tips to overcome educational and work trials.

At 80 Professor Ajayi remains an honoured guest in many ‘younger’ homes, especially those of The Group, where his presence as a seriously big brother ‘egbon’ figure adds quality, elevates the conversation and dare I say comedy –he is a very jocular Jagunaso – close up. The nation pays this tribute to an honest, straight-talking, humorous, visionary, scalpel-wielding titan in medicine, surgery and society and a relevant role model to role models and my teacher in and out of medical school. When we respectfully say to him ‘You will live long, Sir’, he will reply with a sly twinkle-eyed smile, Have I not lived long enough’ and we re-reply Noooo! and will add You will be 100, in health and wealth, Amen! And he will say I am not sure you wish me well and we protest that he should doubt our motives. I join millions in congratulating Professor Ajayi and D, D, B and K and the larger family on keeping each other going before and since Aunty Beatrice, the ‘genetic polyglot’ left this earth. Teacher wa, E pe fun wa, Sir. PS Professor Ajayi, has a phrase- ‘You Know’ and you answer that you ‘do know’ or nod your head ‘knowingly’ even as you and he know that you do not know what he knows! He also has a unique unmistakable voice. It is a cross between authority, impatience and soothing, unless of course it is the thunder of annoyance!

He climbed many Mount Everests. Siting on this latest Mount Everest of Distinguished Age his character is not ‘to go quietly into the night’. It is the dawn of the Age of the Octogenarian. The timeless tick-tock is digital, silently ticking nanoseconds. What next Sir?

Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. Pray! May you have a prayerful Lent.

What we are missing. South Africa has high speed rail and 45,000Mw. United Kingdom is paying citizens to ‘go solar’. Here the Lagos Ibadan Expressway will be finished by June 2017. What about Nigeria’s power and potholes?

Governors must please prevent the ruin of states by ‘No Parking Terrorism’ by Internally Generated Revenue-driven unsupervised staff. Keeping traffic flowing does not mean that citizens or visiting drivers deserve no respect, caution, ‘No Parking’ signs, or ‘Car Parks’ and ‘Parking Lanes. ‘No Parking’ is valuable on wide roads. LET THE PEOPLE PARK! ‘No parking’ can be ‘economic sabotage’ reducing customer numbers, destroying businesses, driving visitors away and reducing taxes. We need ‘ROAD USERS PROTECTION ASSOCIATIONS’.  Governors: Drivers should not be denied rights to ‘CAR PARKS AND PARKING LANES’ on wide roads especially if they are not causing traffic jams! Most cars are owner-driven so please abolish the mischievous ‘SOMEONE MUST SIT IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT’ law?

Zika Virus, (ZikV) was discovered in Zika Forest Uganda in 1947. It is transmitted by a daytime mosquito, Aedes different from the evening/night-time Anopheles carrying malaria. It spread to South and Central America and now worldwide. It is associated with small-headed babies, microcephalus and with Guillain Barré Disease (GBD) and deaths. GBD and microcephalus babies are seen in Nigeria but Zika links have not been investigated. Nigeria is endemic for malaria, yet we do little. Even hospitals lack mosquito nets for patients. ZikV can spread through sex, like AIDS, but also by kissing. Happily, the mosquito/malaria made the colonialists prefer East and South Africa instead but we must not worship such killers. WHO has declared an emergency. Nigeria failed to do so against malaria/mosquito and typhoid/poor sanitation!

However, Nigeria must make a stand improving on the old vilified DDT spraying and wole-wole sanitation efforts from the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately the sanitation inspector became synonymous with corruption of the uniform –concocted infringements, extortion, greed and power drunkenness = health system failure! Now Nigeria lurches from emergency campaign to campaign. Eventually such campaigns consume billions but deliver less!

Health has been a corruption quagmire in Nigeria. The HIV/AIDS International Fund fell under corruption. The Ebola Campaign also had disappearing funds but happily forced frightened Nigerians into improving sanitation in schools and markets which reduced typhoid. School sanitation has stopped, falling to previous subhuman poor levels. We are in a Lassa War, praying for no diversion of funds or inflated emergency laboratory or health equipment contracts and bribes to feed the greed of political and health officials seeking ‘what is in it for them to steal?’ and feeding on corpses of fellow citizens dying around them. Can Buhari stop medical corruption?

Nigeria has uncoordinatedly and unsuccessfully fought the mosquito to date. The only visible tactic of the war on malaria/mosquito is the sometimes corporate driven distribution of, or ‘for sale’, insecticide treated nets, ITN, which is sporadic, uncoordinated, unsustained, unmonitored and unevaluated. Nigeria’s gutters and markets are among the most unsanitary worldwide, never managed properly or sprayed to kill mosquito larva. Yet every single LGA nationwide has received at least a N750m to N3billion allocation PER YEAR during the last 10 years– mostly all stolen or diverted by governors and chairmen. We have no moral right to seek support from the Global Fund or other foreign AID organizations to do the job abandoned by thieving LGAs.

Nigerians, think ‘out of the box’ against the female ‘missquito’ which bites and causes malaria and the male mistersquito! For example why do night-duty nursing staff stations not have a protective mosquito giant mosquito net tent around them? Why do we fold away or close our nets, wasting a huge bag to capture mosquitoes? When you are not in bed why not let the net do work for you? Open one side of the net to capture the mosquitoes flying around! Before going to bed close it with the captured mosquitoes, crush them and remove them from the net. Google ‘Mosquito Capture Competitions’. Winners have captured four million mosquitoes.

Nigeria should put the Mosquito on in a multi-ministerial Hit List involving Health, Education, Youth, Science and Tech, IT Ministries to initiate, coordinate and monitor Anti-Mosquito Strategies. NUC, ETF, TEFund must direct funds towards students, under/post graduates and lecturers to disseminate and increase research to increase mosquito capture and reduce mosquito birth. The students and Nigerians must physically capture and destroy mosquitoes. HIV/AIDS is not spread by mosquito bites, but ZIKA Virus is! ‘Death to Mosquitoes in Nigeria, West Africa and the world!’ is a war task that ‘must be done’.

The collapse of the Saraki case attempting to prevent ‘False Assets Declaration’ prosecution is a Supreme Court plus with massive anti-corruption nationwide political and civil servant Assets Declaration effects. The Supreme Court Lordships will explain on Dec 12th their election judgement. Supreme Court judgements worldwide combine ‘Legal And Moral’ justice, ‘LAW= Legal and Wise’, expanding the ‘Letter Of The Law’. Supreme = ‘All Knowledge’. Judges presumably must have no allegiances, preferences or prejudices except the highest morality. Late UK’s Lord Denning was judged the ‘People’s Judge’. Hopefully Nigeria has several ‘People’s Judges’? Nigeria should not remain a chronic case of ‘The old order changeth, but the law changeth not’. ‘The Law Is An Ass’ must not apply in Nigeria. ‘In times of Change, should the Supreme Court also change?’

Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 and their families grieve on.

Governor Ajimobi should please to use his good offices with Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi and perhaps Minister Babatunde Fashola to solve any historic State Vs Federal political party quarrel/rivalry which created the failure of one half of the Sango Level Crossing and Sango/UI Road, a jinx that has lasted 40 years. Do people dig it up as they create many potholes every night for traditional practices? The 40-year Sango rail-crossing traffic jam caused by the uneven iron rail line/ road interface is like a plague on the dual carriageway bringing misery to millions. Perhaps the road maintenance workers are awaiting the governor’s directive to fill the potholes by the rail line? SOS!

We must install/empower institutions to curb leaders’ corrupt – politician, civil servant, contractor, citizen and ‘any uniform’ even anti-corruption agencies like the police, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), State Inland Revenue Service (SIRS) etcetera. Why is it that Authority Becomes Corruption (ABC) in Nigeria? Why does ‘Authority = Corruption’ in Nigerian Moral Mathematics.

All Nigeria’s ‘A-Z Gates’ like Armsgate teach that the money was never government’s to ‘give out’. However government has no authority or right to misappropriate the commonwealth! These money theft crimes are mischievously called money-laundering to reduce the crime attracting a petty sentence of two years in prison no matter the ‘the laundry size’! This law needs reform but the lawmakers are mired in the quagmire of ‘questionable budget allocation and [ab-]use’. ‘Laundering’ suggests a cleaning exercise and thus a more palatable crime than stealing or robbery or ‘Financial Terrorism and Murder’, a more accurate description of the crime which kills women and children.

LAUNDERING IS ACTUALLY A THREE PART ECONOMIC CRIME 1) Conspiracy to steal from the Federal/State/ LGA citizens’ – Economic Terrorism. 2) Theft. 3) Diversion or exchange of stolen money, ‘laundering/ ‘WASHING THE MONEY’! CBN money cannot be converted to the property of the party, for political party activities, elections, gratification, inducement, publicity, prayers or parades. Stolen money should be recovered and returned to Nigerian workers as salaries and pensions, school texts for children, hospitals for women in labour wards, to fill the murderous potholes. Beneficiaries are receivers of stolen goods, knowingly or unknowingly. ‘Ignorance is not an excuse before the law’.

Members of 2015-2019 government must learn this new lesson, ‘KEEP PARTY HANDS OFF PUBLIC/PEOPLE’S FUNDS’ a lesson still ignored at state/LGA levels by all parties. Recovery of billions will improve the naira, provide funds towards the budget and reduce the deficit. It is refreshing to have a government fighting for and not denigrating the naira, not done since Buhari was last in office – ‘The Champion of the Naira’. On The Naira We Stand!’ Only Nigerians with dollars seek a toilet-paper dead naira. Bring ALL our stolen money back into the budget. We must frighten financial criminals with multiple ‘forensic accounting’ investigations of every government and private organ with government funds in it. Reduce extravagant imports, localize food and goods consumption to boost local business and reduce import bills. The Treasury Single Account (TSA) thankfully stopped the usual civil service December theft of billions in the traditional ‘End of Year/Christmas Corruption’!

We fight corruption and combat ‘legal extortion’ among draconian democracies at state level bent on ‘raising Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) funds’. There is a high ‘legal’ taxation and fees in some States where to get Governor’s Consent can attract severe fees. The taxes and contract kickbacks were mainly used to illegally fund multi-party electioneering across the country like at Federal level –‘State Armsgate’. The economy shrinks, naira falls but will costs go up or down to compensate? Will taxes go down, relieving citizens and capturing more taxable adults?  A little from a lot is better than a lot from a few.

Nigerians have tightened their belts periodically for 50 years due to the serial greed and ‘failure to lead’ and ‘failure to save’ of a greedy politics and we suffer on. Our budget is a ‘Bulk Budget’ typically African, allowing ‘bulk theft’. Foreign budgets are in ‘line item’ minute detail making for easy identification of missing money. Government theft occurs worldwide, but Nigeria’s causes murder.

OBJ’s letter to NASS and by extension to state assemblies, the ‘Anti-car’ and irresponsible ‘anti-constituency allowance’ message is more important than the messenger who has questions about Third Term bid, Ghana Must Go bags, and election anti-democracy activities. Nigerians complained, NASS ignored us. Now OBJ is speaking, NASS talks back! Beware! THIS TIME OBJ SPEAKS THE MASSES’ MIND! Nigeria’s politicians may/will soon tear off togas, breath in to hide bloated bellies, leave mansions, bury fortunes and try to hide among hungry, angry –‘hangry’ unemployed and devalued masses who will throw their ‘legally illegal’ constituency  empowerment items back in their faces! The masses are tired of waiting for ‘Politicians’ Attitudinal Change’, to follow the ‘Political Change’. The masses will gather at every house of assembly demanding ‘change’.

As government seeks to change the anti-corruption laws, introduce laws which 1) Force the accused to defend wealth or forfeit ‘wrongful wealth’; 2) The accused do not get bail if charged with ‘stealing from the public purse’ – equivalent to ‘murder’ and ‘Economic Terrorism’, 3) The guilty get sentences commensurate in length to funds stolen. As Nigeria squirms under the Supreme/Appeals Court Election Tribunal judgements seeming to support ‘Election Fraud/Violence’, guilty politicians/parties must be banned from re-runs for 1-4 years. Politicians/thugs in violent areas must be tried for murder, GBH- Grievous Bodily Harm or for altering elections.

Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2015 and their families are in despair.

So, the world’s wealthiest one percent own as much as the 99% ‘rest of the world’, Oxfam says and £5trillion are in tax havens. How did they get so rich? Shrewd business? Hyper-priced everything, stocks, goods like computers, shares, land, services like cell-phone companies and materials like cement. No one says that prices, profits and costs of services are exorbitant. The citizen bears the cost to make the rich richer. The world is even sold God’s natural water by profiteers. Solution: The world should reduce the cost of ‘everything’ by 30-50% and four billion more people will afford more products making the rich even richer. Do you ask how our banks and cell-phone companies and ‘big-big’ companies can offer million naira massive free airtime and other prizes? Overpricing services is the answer! And Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) must reduce interest rates to single digit rates by cancelling the Monetary Policy Rate, (MPR) 11%.

Davos and the World Economic Forum, (WEF) and its Fourth Industrial Revolution should include this point! However Africa and Power were on the agenda everywhere but in Africa. Africa ignores electric power at Africa’s development peril. The African Development Bank (AfDB)’s President Akinwumi Adesina wants to lead Africa into the light. Is Africa still reluctant or willing? ‘Light Up Africa’ is willing. The Sun is willing but wasted! Can CBN, AfDB etc produce A $5BILLION SOLAR ENERGY LOAN SCHEME repayable over 5-10 years for Nigerians to get renewable solar at N1-2million for 500,000-1m families and get them off the gridlocked grid?

Nigeria must initiate a STAKEHOLDERS MEETING FOR LEGAL POLITICAL PARTY FUNDING GUIDELINES to find another way of funding politics, elections and reduce the cost of electioneering and thus allowing many to enter politics.

The disgraceful revelations at the $2.1b+ Arms Deal Investigation show a terminally sick politics dying from ‘political greed’ and one tip of many icebergs sinking the Titanic called Nigeria. There is a requirement to examine abuses of ‘Incumbency’. We must redefine the rights, responsibilities and limitations of ‘Incumbency’. What are the acceptable powers of ‘Incumbency’ and the relationship of ‘Incumbency’ to the budget? We must separate ‘budgets’ from ‘party funds’. The public budget cannot be expropriated under the ‘incumbency’ rule or diverted to FUND POLITICAL PARTY NEEDS AND GREED. This has truncated development, dashed dreams and devastated Nigeria, failing the Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs) and killing hundreds of thousands and condemning millions to poverty. Worldwide, people are going into outer space while Nigeria stumbles and quarrels over the number, cost and even the direction of ‘common’ pedestrian bridges, flyovers and Niger Bridge 2, not even 3 or 4. We still quarrel over the census figures -100,150, 180million? Why are we so cursed with accursed politicians?

Nigerians and Nigerian politicians must distinguish between Government Budget Funds and Political Party Funds. Almost all the Dasukigate Funds were diverted for political party activities- illegal under the law and unappropriated by National Assembly (NASS). In regard to the ‘right to bail’ for these mega-billion naira crimes, the Nigerian Human Rights Commission should be aware that the loss of that huge quantity of money has contributed to the injury and death of thousands and amounts to ‘murder’ –an unbailable offence. It is not just money, it is murder!

Following on Dasukigate, we must remember that besides ‘arms’ every budget item is subject to fraud. Remembering the deliberate attempt to entrap former Minister of Health Professor Adenike Grange, government must protect its ministers. She was exonerated but Professor Adewole must beware of a future ‘Lassagate’ and prevent any unscrupulous ‘oversight’ politicians, public servants, Specialist Committees and medical scientists passing him unexamined inflated ‘Emergency’ contracts in order to ‘chop-chop’ from the Lassa Epidemic. ‘Prevention of fraud is better than cure of the culprits’. President Buhari needs to get EFCC and INTERPOL desks in the Ministry of Health and all ministries to scrutinize even emergency funds management to protect his government’s reputation. Nigeria is already disgraced internationally in the medical world over AIDS and other funds mismanagement. Let us not add ‘Lassa Funds Fraud’ to the growing list of corruption.

Armsgate is a call for Nigeria to summon a 2016 conference on 1] Incumbency, and 2] legitimate funding of political parties- transparent and right, within and outside electioneering, elections and running costs. Without ‘Party Funding’ being debated, discussed and legally binding decisions taken ‘this NIGERIAN KLEPTOMANIACAL DEMOCRACY’, so similar to most military governments before it, will continue to disrupt our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Almost every political party is or has been guilty of this ‘budget looting’ whatever ground and budget they control at LGA, State or federal levels. In other states it is the taxes which are ‘looted’ often in the guise of excessive ‘Tax Consultants Finders Fees’ or ‘Excessively High Ground, Land, Signature Assent, Parking and Traffic Offences Fees and Fines’. A glaring incomprehensible example of this ‘legal extortion’ and ‘demented democracy’ is the torture inflicted by unsupervised STATE TRAFFIC TERRORISTS punishing often innocent ‘traffic offenders’ to meet ‘fine targets’, similar to what bank employees face in finding ‘new account deposits’, with fines which are higher than on Oxford Street, UK, where the minimum wage per hour is 3 days wage in Nigeria.

This is an urgent call to criminalise political fiscal excesses, curb ability to divert and digest the budget and incumbency factors and outright stealing with impunity or a glib ‘I Was Only Obeying Orders’ AKA ‘MURDER’!

Our Girls are still missing. Will 2016 bring freedom?

At New Year, Nigerians ask for their own ‘Dasuki Delivery’. Nigeria’s past is littered with uninspiring names of questionable character including almost all GCFR Presidents who were yardsticks of a ‘peculiar mess’ morality that brought Nigeria to its knees by omission if not by corrupt commission. Nigerians must support Buhari because ‘one good term’ may be all we have before the scheming wolves and vultures again seek to gather to violate the slightly revived carcass called Nigeria.

A serious case needing genuine justice and mercy is the soldiers who ‘protested’ but were charged and convicted of ‘mutiny’ with the trauma of death sentences, ‘magnanimously’ commuted to 10 years. Still not low enough, Oby Ezekwesili and Co demand freedom from the ‘Magnanimous Attorney General’. Even the most justified mutiny is seriously threatening discipline. The only mutinies to go unpunished become successful Coups, something Gowon, Buhari, Babangida, Danjuma et cetera can attest to as they are  all ‘beneficiaries’ of ‘successful mutinies’ aka ‘coups’. All these ‘successful mutinies’ failed Nigeria- but no punishment. But our new ‘protest men’ labelled ‘mutiny’ men by military prosecution, merely wanted to stay alive till weapons arrived. The ‘High Moral Ground’ circumstances of the mutiny include convoys being wiped out, poor weaponry, being sent to one’s death and body bags of dead soldiers are known to President Buhari. He could have had a New Year’s Address ‘Change’ Prerogative of Mercy and freed the ‘protesters’. No one signed up to die or go to jail to compensate for failed leadership. THE WRONG SOLDIERS ARE IN JAIL! Nigerians should fight that they be RELEASED, REINSTATED. RESTORED TO RANK AND REPLACED IN JAIL BY THE GUILTY GENERALS. Use Tweeter, Instagram, SMS or the media to reach the Attorney General, Defence Minister and President Buhari. These soldiers have desperately families. Alternatively let every past ‘successful mutiny’ coup beneficiary step aside and face ‘mutiny’ charges and Court Martial first!

I strongly object to the apparent excesses, even if ‘legally allowed’, of the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Court 16 where the magistrate convicted ‘One way violators’ with a N50,000 advertised ‘BRT invasion fine’ [x3 the monthly minimum monthly wage and x2 the cost, £100, of a violation on Oxford Street, London] for vehicles and N5,000-N30,000 for motorcycles or tricycles or six months jail and also seized offending vehicles. This forfeiture deprives the offenders of livelihood and cannot be true justice. Correction, yes but emasculation, no! The Chief Judge Lagos State should reverse this draconian decision and review, regulate and rein in magistrates. The power of justice is in moderation and mercy. Deterrent, yes, draconian, no! CJ and Governor Ambode, please return the vehicles and reduce the fines. A little from a lot is better than a lot from a few.

So, Minister of Health Professor Adewole announces 10,000 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) aiming perhaps at the ideal of ONE PER WARD – the POLITICAL UNIT OF THE COUNTRY-16,400 in number! Hurray! This is the ‘Decentralisation’ to bring citizens quick care for 90% of ailments and reduce travel-sickness diagnosis-treatment intervals, keep citizens near home and reduce the patient load on state General Hospitals, Federal Medical Centres and Teaching Hospitals. But PHCs need good staff morale and quality and services. Pay promptly. Do not abandon them. Have supervisors and a Ministry of Health (MOH PHC Newsletter round weekly or monthly highlighting zonal winners and best practices and individuals. The Etsako East LGA Edo State approach is recommended to all governors for high service delivery. The last Federal Government effort involved state counterpart funding and failed to pay midwives for eight months making nonsense of efforts to lower maternal, infant and child mortality rates. Weekly Disease and Mortality Reports must be collated for Ministerial and National Statistical Monitoring and Evaluation and ‘Instant 2016 Medical Statistics’ Collation – a Medical TSA, Medical Diseases Single Account for 2016 medical vital statistics.

We recommend ‘Decentralisation’ for other areas of Federal Government – electricity, roads, youth, sport, cetera. With 10,000 PHCs helping solve the health problems, Educare Trust recommends to this government to announce ’10,000 Youth Centres coming’ with the goal of 16,400 Youth Centres –one classroom-sized space for each ward dedicated to focus, direct and empower youth at ward level on the right moral and educational path. A major Ministry of Youth and Sport Decentralization Programme at National and state level ‘sold’ to the stock exchange, shareholders and local business in a ‘YOUTH CENTRE CSR PPP STRATEGY’ with all sizes of companies especially those wasting N2-3,000million on ‘T shirt and face cap’ promos, bonanzas and CSR. This would easily fund such a joint venture nationwide over the remaining 3+ years of this regime.

Anyone interested especially Youth organisations, LGAs, Governors and corporate bodies can use the PZ Cussons/Educare Trust Youth Centre built on land partly donated by the Oyo State Government in Ibadan as a strategic template for Decentralised Youth Development. Nigerian business has squandered billions in glamorous media targeted misapplied CSR ignoring opportunities to assist ignorant youth, thirsty for book and life knowledge. Each corporate giant should be quiet until it can boast of 100 or 1000 Youth Centres in places where their money is made from -villages. All ministries, corporate bodies and NGOs could strategically use local youth centres to empower the ward youth and contribute empowerment information to such centres. ‘If we do not strategise for the Youth, the youth will strategise against us!’