The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • GEJ, Abdullahi, Oduah and the missing verses

    GEJ, Abdullahi, Oduah and the missing verses

    Even days ahead of its unveiling, a new book by ace journalist and APC spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, is surely stirring the political waters already. Since teasers began to appear in Simon Kolawole’s TheCable last week, many can hardly wait anymore for tomorrow’s presentation in Abuja to grab copy and see what fresh angles “On A Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria” brings to Segun Adeniyi’s earlier block-buster, “Against The Run of Play”.

    Abdullahi is by no means a casual chronicler of the momentous events that shaped the Jonathan presidency; he was an insider having served as minister.

    Perhaps the juiciest extract featured thus far by TheCable is the sensational claim by Stella Oduah that she lost her Aviation portfolio in the last dispensation due to the machinations of now embattled Diezani Allison-Madueke (then the powerful oil minister) in what seems to illuminate intensely the psycho-sexual tension within the Jonathan presidency. History reminds us that empires had risen and fallen over nothing more than lust or wounded love, and the remains of many great men were found near discarded skirt and camisole.

    According to her, Diezani strongly believed leaks of her incurring a bill of whopping N10b jetting around “privately” emanated from the Aviation ministry. To exact a pound of flesh, Oduah alleges that Diezani funded sustained media spotlight on her own N250m bulletproof BMW cars scandal.

    (A presidential panel headed by then NSA Sambo Dasuki had found the Aviation minister culpable in the shady $1.6m auto deal.)

    “She thought I was the one who leaked the issue of private jet that put her into trouble with the House of Reps,” she says, adding “For her, it was payback time. Diezani was paying people to keep the story alive. At the same time, she was whispering in (the president’s) ears that he had to take action.”

    But the real meat is in her next comment: “I knew all along that Diezani could not deal with having another female around who had the kind of access I had to the president.”

    In what suggests more than official relationship with GEJ, Oduah was quoted by the author to be uninhibited enough to then pointedly demand of the president, “Did Diezani ask you to sack me?”, which he flatly denied.

    Of course, in power circles then, it didn’t require much political intelligence to know there were actually five powerful women around the President. Aside Oduah and Diezani, the three others included First Lady (Mama Peace herself), the president’s ebony-black mom and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the “Coordinating Minister” and thick-set Amazon of the exchequer.

    Romantics are likely to swoon over that and interpret as omen that GEJ was a “ladies’ man”.

    This however makes Jonathan the stark opposite of his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, said to be very, very “shy among women” (apology Information Minister Lai Mohammed). It then perhaps explains why women today enjoy less visibility around PMB’s wooden paternalism.

    Responding to a question posed by a foreign journalist in faraway Germany following First Lady Aisha’s philippic against the presidency last year, Buhari hardly betrayed any emotion in dismissing her sense of political judgement outside what he considered her exclusive jurisdiction: “My wife belongs to the kitchen, the living room and the other room.”

    Now, the puzzle is the definition of the “access” Oduah alludes to. Of course, everyone agrees that, both in and outside office, GEJ remains a perfect gentleman, with amazingly charming smile and killer athletic build capable of making the opposite sex drool, ordinarily.

    So, could Oduah be referring to a “special pin no” from which other top female officials around Jonathan were restricted? The kind that conferred extraordinary privileges like having their proposals or memos approved with dizzying dispatch, without second look, let alone scrutiny.

    The only conclusion that could drawn from Oduah’s revelation is that she and Diezani were both shamelessly locked in a cold war over long-suffering Madam Patience’s fine husband. Now, if a scavenger gets swollen-headed over the possession of a treasure found by accident, what’s expected of the original owner? Between the feuding princesses, every waking moment seemed spent agonizing over which plot the other might be hatching to monopolize the king’s attention.

    In the circumstance, the puzzle then: what time did they really have left for official duties? We can, therefore, only continue to speculate and imagine the titanic battle poor Jonathan must have waged against falling into the sort of temptation Adam found irresistible in the biblical Garden of Aden.

    When similarly charming Bill Clinton found himself in such tight corner as president at the Oval Office in Washington in the 90s, he succumbed to curvaceous Monica Lewinsky. The ghost of that affair with its salacious details would come back to exact a price that almost cost him the presidency. Though he survived narrowly, he would endure the shame for the rest of his life.

    One of Clinton’s predecessors, John F Kennedy, was not that lucky. His hyperactive testosterone is believed to have been largely fueled by the side effect of a medication he took for Addison’s disease. Compulsive philanderer, aside the steady stream of paramours smuggled into the White House through the back door, among his other conquests were government secretaries and one Judith Campbell who incidentally happened to be linked to mafia boss Sam Giancana. This shred of evidence formed the basis of the enduring conspiracy theory that JFK’s assassination in 1963 involved the mob.

    Elsewhere in Zimbabwe about the same time Clinton was being tempted, Robert Mugabe had also come under the bewitching spell of Grace inside the White House in Harare. Sashay after tantalizing sashay up and down the presidential office, the salivating ex-guerrilla apparently began to see his dashing secretary in a totally different light. Incentives then came to work longer hours in the office. The death of the much-beloved Ghanaian-born First Lady would finally open the door for Grace to be formally unveiled to the nation as the new presidential consort.

    Following Mugabe’s ignominious fall from power last week, pundits may still be divided today over the political epitaph to engrave on his political tombstone. But regardless, there is consensus already that Grace’s vain ways contributed in no small measure in stoking public anger against the old comrade.

    Well, the good news is that GEJ left office in 2015 through the electoral door, certainly not through any proven peccadilloes. Maybe, the ghost would have been finally laid to rest had the usually blunt Oduah, presently a senator representing Anambra, taken a step further to stave the ambiguity that incriminates. By either confirming or denying the long-standing rumour in some mischievous quarters that that “access” had, in fact, some amatory taste.

    Or, since she is known to be single and available, did she ever, at any time, have a crush on the Prince Charming from Otuoke?

    With the raft of grave charges still pending at the British court, we wager Diezani would, on her own, wish to be spared this sort of question, at least for now.

  • Our Girls; A Nigerian Equiano @ 220 years event?

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    Also this week: ‘Senate: Budget by 1-1-2018 Pls’ and slavery.

    The hot African sun burning us reminded me that sunless countries are going solar. Will the petroleum cartel release Nigeria from bondage for it to embrace solar?

    Senate President Bukola Saraki, strangely, calls for unity before restructuring. Unity is a tasteless soup made by ingredients of justice! JUSTICE -Justice, Unity, Truth, Trust, Integrity, Character and Equity. The absence of justice components demands restructuring. So why are Nigerians denied them?

    National Assembly (NASS) has five weeks to the people’s deadline for budget passage 1-1-2018. NASS must undertake not to fail this annual ‘Budget by ‘Jan 1st’ Exam’!! Hurray, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and 2nd Niger Bridge are in the budget again. Will ‘DELETE’ or ‘DECIMATION’ be their lot, in favour of ‘constituency dances’ demanding EFCC attention? NB: The Chinese 26-mile world’s longest bridge cost $1.6b. Nigeria has spent the last 40 years thinking of the 2nd Niger Bridge at what price please.

    NASS should have the political sagacity to perform speedy ‘budget passage’ or face 2019 electoral failure. NASS financial bill of N125-150b was never given voluntarily but forcibly taken by NASS.  SERAP should approach the Supreme Court to urgently pronounce on whether this NASS self-allocation is rightful harmless political horse-trading, ransom, kidnapping, extortion or theft as it is taken annually contrary to 150+million moral, monetary and media arguments.

    Why does NASS, made of a mere 469 s-elected persons, dismiss the media-publicised yearnings of over 150m citizens to 1) Peg its budget to N15-20b, 2) To move from bi-cameral to unicameral house by constitutionally cancelling Senate, 3) Change to part-time sitting legislators; 4] Keep their day jobs? No one expects ‘Sensational Mass Senate Suicide’ but many wish for the ‘Suicide of the Senate as an Institution’, not the members, by, for example, an 5) Amendment to the constitution. “We the Senate hereby suspend/eliminate the Senate in the economic national interest’. Even Mugabe went, so why not Senate, perhaps through the 6] People’s weapon ‘A Referendum Option’ introduced into the constitution or by other popular demand e.g. the Presidency. The most revolutionarily suggestion is that it is time that 7] NASS members should actually get paid by their home states and LGAs who s-elect them and not the federal government!!

    Unfortunately, we see a dangerously schizophrenic NASS where members dance disgracefully or practice buffoonery one minute and act deadly serious and sometimes insultingly so the next minute to perceived enemies, even arrogantly banning them for an entire year.

    Misuse of budgets have created a slave trade today where black people fleeing African nations mismanaged by politicians for 50 years are falling into the slavery trap. They are now sold for $400-700 in Libya and elsewhere as revealed by CNN’s ‘Slave Trade’ documentary. This should shame African and particularly Nigeria’s governments whose greed forced people to flee their inhospitable birthplace. Remember every governor and LGA chairman in Nigeria had had enough ‘allocation’ to develop but so far only two or three states can claim to have achieved anything.

    Any African anti-slavery strategy requires massive publicity of the CNN film on local TV networks to dissuade potential slaves. Of greater importance is creating a better environment at home and poverty elimination – Sustainable Development Goals-1. Poverty leads to hardship from political ineptitude and government corruption. This forces new violent vistas, to be opened through desperate deadly travel away from hardship. Arriving penniless, African migrants become trapped by fellow Africans, Black and Arab, in Libya and killed for kidneys, corneas and or sold as slaves. My own personal ancestors were among 4.9 million sold to Brazilian slave owners in the 1700s and we returned in the late 1800s only because slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888. As 2017 marks the 220th anniversary of the death of Olaudah Equiano at 42 years old, Nigeria and Association of Nigerian Authors should set aside an Annual Olaudah Equiano Day on his birthday, October 16, 1745, 272 years ago in Essaka/Isseke in Anambra State or his death day March 31, 1797. Congrats Anambra governor, Willie Obiona on re-election. Save Olaudah Equiano from eternal slavery, Please.

    Disgracefully, Nigerian politicians and probably you the reader do not even know the most inspirational and internationally famous of pre-Nigeria slaves, Olaudah Equiano, friend of Wilberforce and shipmate of Lord Horatio Nelson of Trafalgar Square, traveller to the Arctic and Nigeria’s first recorded Anti-corruptionista!

    Where is Nollywood’s Olaudah Equiano?? African Proverb: A country which ignores ancestors will be ignored by descendants!  Please Google, read and teach your children about ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African’ published in 1789 and abridged as ‘Equiano’s Travels’ by Paul Edwards.. Olaudah Equiano died on March 31, 1797, 220 years ago. Yet Nigeria abandoned its best weapon, made no noise about an already international man. Can the minister for education request all schools nationwide to have an ‘ Annual Anniversary of Olaudah Equiano Slavery-Prevention Event’ with a reading of his book, a play based on his life or today’s slavery/bullying problems, a talk, a debate and recruit the press to publicise such activities for Nigeria and the prevention of slavery domestically and internationally and meet all Sustainable Development Goal from 1-17 as slavery impacts all life?

     

    • NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16  

     

  • Mugabe and Bob Marley’s prophesy 

    Mugabe and Bob Marley’s prophesy 

    As distraught Zimbabweans suffered the misfortune of viewing the political funeral of Robert Mugabe in slow motion in Harare in the past few days, older compatriots must have been haunted by the ghost of his iconic and far more illustrious namesake – Bob (Robert) Marley.

    It was in the same Harare (then Salisbury) that the Raggae immortal  stood in 1980 as a star guest at Mugabe’s inauguration as first leader of independent Zimbabwe and, amid the stirring percussion of guitar, horn and cymbal, rendered a freshly composed number with eponymous title to a deliriously ecstatic crowd and extravagantly expectant nation.

    “Every man has got his right to decide own destiny,” he begins “And in his judgement, there’s no partiality…”

    Alas, thirty-seven years later, Marley would have wept at the sorry sight Zimbabwe had become and the epic betrayal of the promise of 1980.

    Moments after his party ZANU-PF formally disowned him on Sunday and served 24-hour impeachment notice having declared his psychedelic wife persona non grata, Mugabe appeared in a televised national broadcast flanked by the cartel of avenging generals.

    Looking spent but defiant, the old fox from Kutama continued to cling tenaciously onto the presidential stool, even as political vultures circled overhead.

    Meanwhile, the Harare streets were throbbing with placard-bearing citizens marching in solidarity with the military intervention of last Wednesday.

    But in what must have filled the uniformed enforcers surrounding him with amusement, Mugabe ended his rambling speech by taking liberty to announce official itinerary stretching to next month. The dinosaur was seeking to preserve the sitting order in a sunk Titanic.

    With that, it became evident that Mugabe, like all deluded tyrants in history, had completely lost touch with reality. He seemed incapable of realizing that the game was up; that his captors were now directly scripting the power-play pre-determined to completely strip him bare, beginning with his defenestration at ZANU-PF’s emergency caucus.

    Overall, the Mugabe tragedy is yet another reminder of the often limited shelf-life of political heroism in Africa and should renew the old debate about the propriety or otherwise of allowing the blood-tainted hands that liberate to also rule. (The reason why Charles Taylor, who led a bloody rebellion in Liberia against despotic Samuel Doe in the 80s, ended up in 2006 worse than the former Sergeant.)

    We hear the message subliminally in another line in that same song by Marley: “Soon we’ll find out who is real revolutionary. I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenary…”

    Obviously, Mugabe stayed too long in power for his own tragic flaws not to be exposed. Perhaps, on account of his lead role in an atrocious guerrilla war, he was psychologically ill-equipped to administer a post-war nation requiring true reconciliation and exemplary statesmanship.

    In retrospect, what could be termed the only great moments in Zimbabwe were in the first decade of independence. It witnessed the quantum leap in literacy ratio. Its status as the food basket of the Southern African sub-region was consolidated, making it one of the most prosperous countries with enviable GDP.

    Instructively, these great advances happened when the governance template was relatively inclusive.

    Soon, Mugabe forgot another profound line in Marley’s evocative Zimbabwe: “Divide and rule will only tear us apart…”

    Only that would explain the maniacal venom he went about the land reforms, invariably perpetrating on industrial scale the racism he and fellow guerrilla fighters had accused Ian Smith of decades earlier.

    After Smith’s unilateral declaration of the independence of Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was originally called) in 1965, his white minority clan sought to perpetuate the control of more than 70 percent of Zimbabwe’ land in the hands of a white caste accounting for less than one percent of the population.

    While such arrangement was obviously unsustainable and provocative, Mugabe’s abrasive handling of the historically emotive issue worsened things. The country would probably have been better for it had he imbibed even a quarter of Nelson Mandela’s political dexterity and conciliatory spirit that helped minimize racial tension and eruption in the early years of post-Apartheid South Africa.

    Even during the relatively “stable” 80s, he nevertheless had zero tolerance for dissent. Sustained brutal crackdown on political opposition that decade left thousands dead, aided and abetted by compromised leadership of the armed forces.

    So, at the approach of the new millennium in 2000, it was clear the Zimbabwean strongman had run out of fresh ideas to govern. As the asphyxiating effects of economic blockade imposed by western countries kicked in, Mugabe, like the trickster Marley muses about, easily resorted to the bogey of “land reforms” to rally the dominant black population behind him and his party.

    But the big tragedy was that the black provincials who inherited the big farms from the white lords soon discover they lacked the expertise to manage such enterprise, thus doubling Zimbabwe’s economic woes.

    Of course, Gucci Grace or disGrace (as Mugabe’s erstwhile-secretary-turned-wife is contemptuously called) was the temptress. She had sneaked into power through the back door first as Mugabe’s mistress as his much beloved first wife lay terminally ill.

    In the second half of Mugabe’s reign, she acted Shakespeare’s darkly calculating Lady Macbeth and the vain Imelda Marco of 20th century the Philippines rolled into one.

    It is a reflection of her cantankerous nature that diplomatic immunity had to be invoked twice for her to escape trial for criminal charges on foreign soil, the latest being alleged physical assault on her son’s girlfriend in a South African hotel suite.

    At home, it is a measure of the life of debauchery she seduced old Mugabe into that, just last month, she also got embroiled in a litigation involving a $1.3m wedding anniversary ring. The Lebanese she paid the fortune to supply a 100-carat diamond band, as the story goes, attempted to swindle her by supplying a counterfeit worth not more than $30,000. What was meant to be a secret deal eventually exploded in court with the First Lady unashamed to own up to coveting such prohibitive vanity at a time most Zimbabweans are unsure of their next meal.

    In 2014, she considered then lady Vice President a threat. She bad-mouthed her publicly. Soon, her husband granted her desire by booting Mujuri out of office. When Mugabe later sacked Mnangagwa as Vice President a fortnight ago, only a few were left in doubt that the last hurdle had been cleared on Grace’s path to succeeding her nonagenarian hubby as president.

    But hitherto power-hungry Grace has not been sighted since the armoured tanks cordoned off the presidential palace last week.

    Bob Marley must be turning in revulsion in his Kingston grave this moment.

    Okorocha’s commercial monumentalism

     

    The most recognizable symptoms of clinical delusion is usually an obsession with inanities. Bizarre developments in Imo lately should then be enough to so classify Rochas Okorocha. It explains why a man owing workers salary arrears and whose cheques to pensioners bounced and bounced, did not consider it shameful to instead splurge hundreds of millions of naira on the erection of bogus statues.

    What now complicates things is the apparent misreading of the dialectics of history by the Imo governor by the reasons cited for his decision and crass exhibition of a lack of sophistication in seeking to pass off a purely personal commercial transaction at the expense of Imo taxpayers as something done to profit the public.

    Outgoing Liberian president, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the latest foreign leader to have a statue unveiled in her honour in Owerri after a lavish state reception capped with bestowal of a local chieftaincy. Before her was Jacob Zuma, the sleaze-prone president of South Africa.

    Worse still, Okorocha has threatened to unveil more of such gaudy statues in the times ahead.

    Incumbent Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo’s statue is rumoured to be next to be unveiled in Owerri. Presumably, Okorocha is also hoping to spread his business tentacles there. But in terms of historical impact and monumentality, one would have thought Jerry Rawlings towers above the incumbent.

    His acute delusion shows in the fallacious argument that his monuments are to perpetuate the memories of those he considers heroes and heroines..

    All told, it is, however, debatable if Okorocha’s own yardstick can truly stand the rigor of any ethical test administered by those who subscribe to values higher than easy cash and idol-worshipping.

    Without taking anything away from the healing and reconciliatory spirit radiated by Madam Sirleaf as post-civil war leader of Liberia, let it however be recognized that true immortality – the durable type – lies in the immaterial.

    History reminds us that material things are perishable. Only fondness rooted in public memory is eternal. So, in case Okorocha doesn’t know, Sirleaf’s best assurance of immortalization is ultimately how much of her good deeds would get winnowed into folklore to be told from generation to generation. Not by the golden cenotaph in Owerri contracted out presumably at inflated costs.

    Then, the real ethical incongruity. On both occasions, no attempt was made officially to conceal that the visitations by Zuma and Sirleaf had direct linkage with a school foundation run by Okorocha as a private business.

    In the case of the former, the Imo emperor and his courtiers were so shameless enough to even admit publicly that the foundation hopes to move into the door of opportunities already opened by Zuma’s visit. Using public funds to make way for your private business is, in itself, corruption.

    Alas, such sleazy hands are the very ones now seeking to erect in Owerri monuments to virtuous leadership and inspire generations yet unborn.

    As someone recently put it, little wonder then that Imo, once glorious, is now truly calcifying from state to statue..

  • Our Girls; Buhari: ‘Making the naira great again!!’

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    It is six weeks to the people’s deadline for budget passage 1-1-2018! Senate: Perform now. Do not fail this exam and Nigeria!!

    Nigeria shines at last in World Cup qualifiers preparations. Google the amazingly, Seun Adigun, Akuoma and Ngozi Onwumere Omeoga, American born-successful Nigerian athletes by personal struggle have qualified for the Winter Olympics – Pyeongchang 2018. Remember the Jamaican men’s bobsled team 30 years ago? Urgent Nigerian government and private support, please!! Shame!

    Making the naira great again: Buhari’s Unhidden Naira  Agenda. It is easier to destroy the economic lives of Nigerian lives than to build them. Soldiers know this but sometimes they build. President Buhari and VP Osinbajo and their team are re-building the naira. Hurray!!

    NB: Buhari and his economic team know, if you do not, that a stronger naira is the only way to keep fuel prices affordable to Nigerians as the price per barrel goes back up to $62+ even if we refine locally.

    The most glaring example of past political failure is the continuous ruining of the currency keeping the citizens impoverished and beggars reducing the fiscal achievement of every family! The continued fall in naira value from N1:$1.5 is the clearest sign that almost all presidents participated in this destruction even as Nigerians suffer under an interest rate rising from 2% to 25% interest rates and dwindling value of quality of life, investments, pensions and savings.

    The pension and unpaid salaries is a measureable ‘tragedy yardstick’ of presidential and governors’ historic dishonesty and failure to provide worker’s rights and social safety net. The endless disgraceful rounds of pension verification and nonpayment of salaries would quickly end if politicians were paid last and not first in everything –a sure sign of service. A country’s currency is so easy to kill. In an instant the value can be cut by 50% by scheming and irresponsible actions and massive corruption, but the recovery may never come, especially as those responsible for protecting the naira also have ‘priority 1’ personal fortunes in foreign exchange currencies to protect.

    A most successful achievement of this government is the rise in the foreign reserves to over $34b.

    This confirms that President Buhari’s unhidden agenda is to make the naira great again. In this he stands against the advice of many ‘devalue, devalue’ easy way out politicians and civil servants mis-explaining to government leaders that a cheaper naira means more naira per dollar to make it easier to pay salaries in naira with fewer earned dollars from oil. They may also add that a cheaper naira makes any dollars held personally abroad, or stolen, spectacularly more valuable in naira –a win-win situation for currency thieves, speculators and of course politicians seeking to exchange acquired dollars for more cheap naira in a coming election!

    No one noticed citizens committing suicide when the naira fell, but some die. If the naira rises, huge numbers will automatically be lifted above the poverty index. Also some bankers, speculators and politicians will probably commit suicide, like whenever Wall Street crashes. A cheap naira leads to a fall in ‘real wages’, purchasing power from resultant higher prices and demands for higher salaries to pay for the escalating prices of goods and services like rents, transport and bills.

    Buhari has seen through this fiscal fog– a smokescreen scam at the highest political levels aimed directly at defrauding Nigerians of their just inheritance and keeping their human value down, letting only those who have foreign exchange flourish. Every salary earner and 2019 political aspirant should study economist Henry Boyo’s ignored advice. Only Buhari is anywhere near achieving what is possible. For his Presidential Naira Protection, PNP, he stands alone among our rulers. He has said that a nation’s currency is its pride even during his first term. This government means to achieve a very firm fiscal foundation before the elections and wise Nigerians should take heed and not squander the gains by wrong election decisions. Good economics does not yield fruit overnight or in one term. The usual dollar inflow pre-election will be an albatross around the corrupt politicians’ necks because they will be forced to sell dollars for N150 or less by then. Amen!!

    Everyone knows that Nigeria’s rulers and politicians denied us our birthright of having $100-200b in foreign reserves in CBN guaranteeing $1.5:N1 since the naira was born. Why do we fail to add the income of Babangida’s punishing ‘Gift’ to Nigeria- the extra Monetary Policy Rate component, now 14%, added on to every loan to make Nigeria’s bank loans a punishing 25-30%. Surely any social science faculty can calculate the income of CBN since 1999 to know how much is in CBN from that double income of petro dollars and loan-naira.

    Senate: What is the 2018 budget income item from MPR in 2018? The best thing for the naira this for this government is to aim for $50-70b in foreign reserves to create a ‘foreign currency crash’ to N120-150:$1 and better – an effort at achieving Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals –the eradication of poverty. A reversal to N120 ASAP backed up by $50-$100b in reserves by 2023 will create a salary buying power increase.  As the naira fell quickly, so can it resurrect! Sell your dollars now OOO!!!!

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1/1/2018 pls

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014, contravening UN-SDGs Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5 and 16 the yardsticks for development set by the United Nations. Work for their release. Please access #FreedomForGirls film on Youtube by ‘Beyonce and 100 girls’ and show As Many Girls As Possible – AMGAP – and at home, school and work. Please spread the film word to achieve SDG 5-Gender Equality. No girl should not see this Youtube download.

    Belgian judge has 24 hours to determine bail for the Catalan leadership. In Nigeria it can take 24 days for the same bail determination. Is it our judges, courts, counsel or awaiting trial persons obstructing a similarly swift progression of the law in Nigeria?

    Let no politician sitting so arrogantly comfortable in National Assembly (NASS) get more comfortable because their red seats should be on fire with the budget 2018. Let not one of them be in any doubt about the immediate priority for Nigeria and all Nigerians for speedy budget passage by December 31 even if it means postponing their numerous breaks and holidays.

    So far some of them have screwed up the reason for their senator-ship or representation of their people in NASS. The latter is a constitutional necessity and Presidential right – finito! The APC government peppered, many say polluted, with ‘double degree holders’ –‘PDP, APC’ who soon may get another one making them Triple degree holders PDP, APC, PDP. They are now conveniently APC/ ex-PDP mostly ‘on-sabbatical’ in APC or ‘on survival’ for financial reasons in APC. Nigerians are allowed to suspect from what has happened so far that they are ‘on-sabotage’ masquerading as APC, in a malignant mis-marriage of very strange bedfellows doing Nigeria no democratic good. Nigerians are hoping to see a new constructive not destructive seriousness in parliamentary budgetary process in line with an APC desirous of moving this country forward. The parliament needs to set its democracy demons aside and become the first NASS/ Senate to meet the internationally logical democratic deadline of December 31 for budget passage.

    Parliament need to sign up to the APC government and get on board the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ policy , in this case ‘Ease of Doing Budget Passage Business’ in Nigeria – an Oath-Related Responsibility of lawmakers who are supposed to be facilitators with ‘reasonable modifications’ not ‘Spoilers with powers to delay, rewrite and completely redirect the budget’. They are not ‘government’, but lawmakers! This budget could become a landmark, a trail-blazer for future NASS/ senates by laying precedent. The APC/ ex-PDP on sabbatical/on-sabotage should not fall foul of, or be seen to collude with those who would maliciously delay the budget beyond December 31. Why? Probably to spite Fellow Nigerians, this government and Buhari in particular. Perhaps also as punishment for cutting off the gravy train that bill-passing is rumoured to have been in the past by providing for them Ghana Must Go Bullion Bags as ‘Bribes-for –Bills’ while perhaps quibbling over funds for hospitals and schools. In many citizens’ eyes and hearts, the NASS lowered itself to disgrace by vainglorious grandstanding and manipulating the APC’s budget in 2017, by insertion of Constituency Projects, removing funds from the Lagos Ibadan Expressway the central transport artery feeding all Nigerians added to their historically immoral salary structure and mostly nauseating performance on nightly TV. This was indeed a Pyrrhic victory for NASS as whatever it gained in the budget was lost in the court of public opinion. But perhaps NASS does not care much for citizens’ collective opinions. Can it redeem itself with this 2018 budget process? No one expects NASS to be a rubber stamp but it has no right to be a brick wall.

    What a glory for this NASS/Senate if it achieves timely passage by December 31 or earlier – quite an ordinary feat worldwide! In Nigeria we must make mountains out of mole hills and bridges out of flyovers. It would be political suicide of election-losing proportions for any NASS member to stop the wheel of timely passage of the budget, especially for perceived selfish petty political gain like constituency projects. And spoiling the APC record. Nigerians must wait for such failed politicians at the election and fail them too! The 150m odd citizens would happily applaud the NASS/Senate if they complied with common sense and the dictate of accountancy, audit, logic and even democratic norms worldwide, not dividends of democracy. All eyes and ears should be tuned to NASS/ Senate to see if they have the political integrity, intellect and cranial capacity to divert their personal democratic disaster and to understand that budget approval time, the ease of ‘Doing Budget Business’ is not the time to hold Nigeria to ransom by fighting, a stalemate or a standstill. Any delay beyond December 31 will diminish and disgrace the NASS/ Senate in the eyes of the citizens and be an insulting denial of the rights of citizens to rapid development. NASS is sitting an exam during this budget session and we the examiners will follow their progress in the media daily and mark their performance and reward them appropriately at the next election. Contact your NASS members now and warn about this budget issue. NASS is not a deity or divine, just s-elected people in a room with a responsibility they often fail to deliver!

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Of narco caste and Rivers’ political slaves

    Of narco caste and Rivers’ political slaves

    If any doubt had lingered on the certainty of opioid epidemic afflicting Nigeria’s youthful population, it surely was removed last week with the cold statistics reeled out by the University of Lagos.

    For parents who might wish to stand up in arms against its new extra-ordinary policy to administer drug test batteries randomly on students with the aplomb with which road safety marshals subject any suspicious-looking driver to breath-analyzer on the highway, the outgoing vice chancellor, Professor Rahman Bello, painted a rather chilling picture likely to fill older alumni with nostalgia for the age of innocence and the paradise lost.

    Last academic year, he confirmed that no fewer than 100 students tested positive to drug abuse. Of course, psychotropic substances abused range from conventional cocaine, heroine, marijuana to the new ones – Refnol, Tramadol and codeine.

    Then, the UNILAG authorities chose to be supportive by not expelling them outright. Rather, they quietly put them through some rehabilitation lasting two or three semesters, re-admitting them into the classrooms only upon certification that their system had been cleaned out and an undertaking never to go back.

    Now, Bello says: “With the test kit, anyone who is suspected, his or her urine or blood … is collected for test. The thing about drug is that when you take it, it’ll be in your blood for a long time, so you cannot say ‘I did not use it’ once the test kit detects it.”

    The drastic measure, he hopes, will help the institution deal squarely with the menace of drug abuse on campus because ”If the individual is not stopped, he or she will influence so many others.”

    Indeed, UNILAG’s number is even insignificant compared to the raw figures polled elsewhere in more permissive environments. In most urban centers today, drug culture is truly festering. According to Olarenwaju Ipinmisho, immediate past Director General of the NDLEA, “If you take an estimate of 10 boys, particularly in Kano, seven will be on drugs”. It is that critical.

    If nothing at all, this surely confirms Nigeria’s transition from mere producer (of methamphetamine) and  preferred smuggling route to a big-time consumer of the dark ware.

    More troubling is the implication of the women folk. Whereas the indigent male who can’t afford expensive cocaine goes as far as sniffing petrol or fermented human waste known as “Jenkem” with hallucinatory effects, the female prefer to source their own “high” from the overdose of regular codeine syrup.

    By and large, never has drug use been this glamorized and its abuse romanticized. We hear it in hip-hop songs topping the national chart. Musical videos airing on television during evening hours you would consider “family moment” explicitly depict the new cool as lads snorting powdery substance on the glass top. It makes them “get high”.

    Taken together, the deleterious effects of this new epidemic on the larger society – both in immediate and long terms – is better imagined. It is already bad enough that we are presently yoked with an underachieving nation. The dark prospects of being succeeded by a generation of drug addicts should truly terrify all Nigerian patriots today. While one is not advocating a Duterte-kind of brutal crackdown that has left thousands dead in Philippine, now is the hour to break the conspiracy of silence over the cancerous development.

    To begin with, the puzzle is what is keeping the government from formally declaring an emergency and enacting a policy that not only seeks to conscientize the youths against the terminal danger but also rally the socializing agencies (including the media) in the advocacy. It certainly will be more beneficial if emphasis of the counter strategy is also extended to the demand end of the drug chain, not exclusively on the supply as presently constituted.

    At the level of law enforcement, let it be known that the conventional tactic of merely having some hyperactive anti-drug goons lay ambush on the provincial highways for off-road jalopies concealing bags of Indian Hemp or jaded NDLEA officials mounting sentry at the national borders is simply no longer adequate to contain the new monster. Tramadol and the likes come in more convenient micro package and lurk around the street-corners. They circulate discreetly at both big and small night clubs.

    So, the tactics of the sheriff have to change as well. For instance, the new Lagos Commissioner of Police has directed night clubs operating in the metropolis to equip their premises with surveillance cameras. That is quite imaginative. But that alone will not do. Undercover agents should be deployed in addition to apprehend those promoting drug sale and abuse. Offenders deserve to be treated with as much severity as anyone found committing felony as grave as treason against the country.

    At the level of advocacy, I propose that the media take the lead. It will not be out of place if newspaper proprietors and editors jointly resolve to, as a civic duty, deliberately erect a hall of shame where, for instance, musicians whose songs promote drug use/abuse or cross the line of decency are lined up daily for public ridicule.

    Things cannot continue like this.

     

    Soldiers in PH convoy fight

     

    Following media reports of the show of shame in Port Harcourt last Sunday, a reader (on 08057376075) was sufficiently enraged to call yours sincerely and ask that all the policemen involved on both sides – whether Nyesom Wike’s or Rotimi Amaechi’s – be summarily dismissed for “bringing shame to the Nigeria Police” and acting like political slaves.

    But that will not be enough.

    With the Rivers governor and Transport minister hardly seeing eye to eye anymore over political differences, what should ordinarily be a non-issue, had commonsense prevailed, was allowed to degenerate to a fierce power show Saturday along Trans Amadi Road over who had the right of way. ”Mr. Projects” (Wike) was reportedly on routine inspection of ongoing constructions while the “Lion of Ubima” just breezed into town that afternoon.

    Weapons capable of mass killings were cocked and brandished amid the exchange of expletives. Regardless of subsequent finger-pointing by their aides, nothing can absolve both Wike and Amaechi. It takes two to tango. As governor, the burden of leadership was on Wike to rein in his guards, even under extreme provocation. As for Amaechi, it is even more scandalous that he, as an appointed minister, could ever allow himself to be drawn into ever contesting the supremacy of an elected governor within the latter’s own jurisdiction.

    Logically, the power-bike outrider leads the governor’s motorcade. Knocking Wike’s pilot down (as seen in the newspaper photograph and on Channels TV) could only have been driven by a daring that bothers on lunacy. When Amaechi was governor himself, it is doubtful if he would have tolerated that. The bitter truth has to be told.

    Beyond the show of shame, another sordid thing inadvertently exposed is the misuse of our military. One read and re-read the vigorous defense by Amaechi publicists; nowhere did they deny that soldiers were among those escorting the Minister that day. Which tends to lend credence to stories already circulating that soldiers usually chaperon the minister around in Rivers in a blatant abuse of the Nigerian military.

    The Commander-in-Chief could not have approved that.

    It is doubly scandalous that the now controversial head of the F-SARS (Federal Special Anti Robbery), Akin Fakorede, was also implicated in the Saturday infamy. It is perhaps a measure of the corruption of the F-SARS mandate that, rather than chasing ubiquitous criminals, its materials and men are now deployed as bouncers to visiting Abuja big men.

    We know Fakorede’s posting was influenced by the politicians. But must he go that far publicly to demonstrate appreciation?

    The other day, rain-beaten Fakorede was pictured holding umbrella over the MD of NIMASA as the latter stepped off a jet onto the tarmac at Port Harcourt airport. Maybe, F-SARS also now offers meteorological protection.

    The least expected of the high apostles of “change” of the ruling party is to be exemplary in their own public conduct and not continue the iniquities and impunity PDP was accused of yesterday.

     

     

  • Our Girls; Dying at home?

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Work for their release.

    Today we discuss sexual harassment, corruption, bereavement, blood cow meat and budget delays.  The sexual harassment revelations in UK’s parliament, after those in Hollywood, BBC and the church can be replicated in Nigeria with a sympathetic, protective reporting enabling environment. There is ‘Resident Evil’ everywhere needing exposure and a new behavioural standard.

    Nigeria should observe the new Saudi Arabian anti-corruption committee tsunami. The coup of complicity and conspiracy around Maina with an Interior Ministry protective spy cape – babanriga, is administration arrogance and old-boy corruption –Nigeria’s murky senior civil service! If he has abused Nigeria’s pensioners by abusing pension funds, all guilty heads MUST roll for unleashing an economic and political terrorist – civil service terrorism! ‘Follow the minutes’ to detect ‘Maina-laundering’. Investigate Maina’s stupendous assets and the double-speak – ‘did he-didn’t him’ steal pension funds as ‘Taskforce’? The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and others are at last removed. They must face prosecution and jail-time if guilty. Now the State House Medical Centre is investigated. Hurray!!

    I join all sympathisers with the Tinubu family on the painful death of their husband, father and son, Jide, and pray Almighty God will console them and all Nigerians who have lost children. While languages have names like orphan, widow to describe the bereaved, there is no word for a bereaved parent. No word can encompass a tragedy too horrific to comprehend, the despair too deep to describe and the burden too enormous to carry. Sadly many have been forced to tread this path, even since the death of Jide. May he and all the departed Rest in Perfect Peace.

    The 30+year rampage of Fulani herdsmen tearing family members including children violently claiming 100,000+ lives of farmers and their families including babies and children from their loving families, with little preventive intervention by government, should never have been allowed to become the ‘Fulani Herdsmen – Farmers War’ that it is. Think before you eat cow meat carelessly delivered by the death of our children and their parents -murder. Blood meat is like blood diamonds and blood oil. Nigerians should start eating only ‘Ethical Meat’ i.e. without loss of life or livelihood. From today, no Nigerian child should lose life or family to feed a blood-thirsty cow!

    And whatever happened to dying in old age at home surrounded by family? Is it necessary to have a ‘No Entry’ Intensive Care Unit’s array of tubes in every orifice, medicines and machines singing the mechanical life-support song of ‘life at any cost’ and a N1-2million bill for a few days usually still terminating in death. Does it make family or economic sense sending an aged patient or even former Vice President, and family members, to a nearby teaching hospital or an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) 4,000 miles away by multimillion naira air ambulance? Surely, ‘Family Matters’? I am speaking as a doctor with many variably active, inspiring and depressing hours in ICU with patients, family, friends and other people and sometimes being turning off the machines. Re-discover the human right to the ‘dignity of dying at home’ surrounded by family in our own bed, bedroom, with familiar home objects and known people in order to exchange that final glance, smile or hand-squeeze during our personal ‘End-time’? Even film writers reserve dying alone, as a ‘punishment death’. We must not let politics cloud our basic right to give our loved ones and ourselves a quiet peaceful family-around-us death even after service to the nation. Many doctors advise the family to say a polite ‘NO’ to an isolated death in a distant ICU-bed! Even a ward death is a better option if there is more compassionate access to family members. We are African not British, and we must not forget it!

    Hospital life on a respirator tube is hell, believe me! We need to change their ‘Imminent Death’ protocols to move patients to ward corners where family can gather for ‘Near Death Duty’ without disrupting the ward routine. We must offer and accept the ‘Do not Heroically Resuscitate’ clause. There is nothing sadder than the calculated, concerned or even callous enforcement of impersonal Visiting Time laws that deny a visit of anxiety-laden family members to say ‘final parting words’ because the visit is not 4- 6 pm especially if the patient dies alone while the family is outside waiting. Few medical staff know the ICU patient as well as family and will not attend the funeral. So how can they have rights over ICU bedside rights?

    Medicine has little moral right to hinder a sister or son exchanging ‘last words’ at an ‘end of life’ experience even if the patient manages to survive. Enough already! Indeed in many hospitals, the family helps manage the patient due to staff shortages.

    Some misguided National Assembly (NASS) members want to stagnate Nigeria, stalemate our democracy and enforce a ‘slow or no business as usual -’ agenda arrogantly saying the budget cannot be passed by Dec 2017 and ‘booing’ or ‘No-ing’ the President’s letter about the budget presentation to NASS. Some NASS members have missed, messed up or misread their ‘political calling’ to accelerate Nigeria’s development and risking Nigeria becoming ‘Last in Class Africa’ – a dead  democracy with its citizens wallowing in the doldrums as its politicians pollute the polity while partying worldwide. God forbid! Do they really care?

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Our Girls; Ejo Eko- Lagos snake

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Work for their release.

    Today we discuss Loot- mega-corruption Malabu, Abacha, National Library corruption- and the Ejo Eko ‘Lagos Traffic Snake’.

    Malabu is a recurring disgusting decimal, a festering ulcer on Nigeria’s face or a recurrent Sexually Transmitted Disease –our syphilis. Hurray for the recovery of $85m Malabu Loot. How much more of the $810m will be recovered? Will we get it back? We are just about to the recover $350m of another recurring disgusting decimal of corruption –Abacha Loot. Is Abacha loot available only because he is dead and the others sacrificed him in exchange for ‘Presidential Plea Bargain’ with immunity from presidential prosecution? Is Jonathan in the line of fire because he is a touchable southerner and non-military ‘disposable’ as many think other presidents, untouchable northerners or military have gone free after worse damage to the economy.

    Such ‘Recovery’ is good, yes! However Recovery without Revelation and Successful Prosecution and Punishment of ‘Returnees’ will never change society. We must ‘Name and Shame and Jail’. Investigation must be conducted to confirm any perversion of justice in decision-making as a result of corruption. Efforts must reverse corrupt decisions influenced by loot throughout the civil service including the destruction of true federalism. The Malabu case should be exorcised of its demons and cured and deserves closure with jail-time for offenders in and out of National Assembly (NASS).

    With 25 companies signifying interest in revamping our refineries, we recall the $185 infamous TAM-Turn Around Maintenance announcements used to lull us while nothing was done except steal. Refineries are not nuclear physics. Get on with the job and give us results ASAP. Period.

    I do not agree with General Gowon’s anti-restructuring stance. Restructuring is primarily the federal government giving up a lot of its fiscal and political powers. The next battle after that will be governors restructuring.

    The 26-10-2017 Channels Report on the National Library decay is an Anti-Corruption Award Winning Report for depth of research, evidence of medical disease and physical structural decay and also the suffering of the library staff. Those bold enough to appear must be protected and promoted as whistle-blowers. The Report ranks with the iconic report into the Ikeja Police College years ago. A revisit report is required to see if there are improvements for recruits. The current report highlights the inflation of the contract from N8b in 2006 to N78b, demonstrating a massive lack of interest in library services but a huge interest in massive corruption.  Only in Nigeria are engineers ignored and potholes on expressways et cetera allowed to fester and grow cancerously into deadly craters unchecked. Why does government’s neglect the armies of ‘siddon look’ road workers willing to fill millions of potholes screaming out for filling?

    There is an evil, devil-inspired historical government indolence/arrogance culture not to provide decent libraries, not to react to potholes or even erect warning pothole signs. Yes, make straight our never-finished expressways- but please fill the potholes ‘while we wait’ an eternity! Nigerians have a human right to pothole-free roads and will punish failed political parties at election. Nigeria has always had funds to fill potholes. See what is being stolen nationwide and also taken by NASS. In the coming election, we will judge by the ability, desire and urgency with which potholes have been filled.  The local pothole matters. Roads washed away are discovered to have no foundation of stones under a one-inch depth of tar. Was that the design or contractor or corruption modified? Government is getting a World Bank loan for 10 state rural roads nationwide by mid-2018. Hurray. To deal with the problems, this $500+m should be spread among 200 contractors each doing 10 km of road. Competent, honest contract splitting is essential to reduce delivery time.  Years ago the Polytechnic Ibadan invented a quick-drying pothole filler. Their worst enemy was the political contractor seeking a criminal mega-contract. Today in the UK there are roads being repaired using plastic base derived from every day throwaway plastic. It should be explored by our technology and tertiary institutions to reduce our mountains of plastic rubbish!

    Nigeria needs an urgent commitment now from all politicians and civil servants and contractors to obey the oath to be FLH, Faithful Loyal and Honest and the GO, Government Orders. We can save Nigeria from more years of internal slavery and ‘Yes, Mr. Politician’ mentality. The election years 2018/19 are fast approaching. By evil ‘Nigerian tradition’ government activities, epileptic as they are, usually stop for one calendar year pre-election to allow for massive fraud, stealing self-enrichment and party ‘election war chest’ enrichment for election and selfish ends. But this is not destiny; it is deliberate devilish decision-making by those pulling political party and civil service strings. Will change mean we will have governments working throughout their last year or will they still steal for the election?

    Nigeria is sacrificed by its leadership to no standards malignantly manifest by the unbelievable long mechanical Ejo Eko, Lagos Traffic Snake –a manmade giant python, strangling Lagos in the disgraceful 1000+ trailer-tanker-truck line-up transformer-like, from Apapa Port to Ikorodu Road. Unfortunately not one ministry official or politician in NASS will be held responsible or be prosecuted for the decisions or indecision creating this massive disgraceful policy and civil engineering failure! Why?

    NB: Nigerians must uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; Free but contributory education

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014, contravening UN-SDGs Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5 and16, United Nations development yardsticks. Work for their release. Please access #FreedomForGirls film on Youtube and show AMGAP-As Many Girls As Possible at home, school and work. No girl should not see this Youtube download.

    Kudos to Sterling Bank plc for the ‘Save the Environment Campaign’ featuring the star singer Olamide. This fits into SDGs 3 and 13. Beyond advocacy, the bank should support/fund a “Plastic Clean-up or Back to Glass Bottles Campaign across Nigeria.

    Today : Farm Murders; Solar at last???

    The executed citizens during ‘no movement’ curfews in Benue State and fear of ‘where else will they attack next?’ attest to the ancient intelligence deficit, denial, inability or lack of political will to rise to the bloodthirsty war challenge with military dispatch. Disarming the survivors is not the answer as they will be massacred again. Nigerian authorities have failed to stop the violent, apparently ‘politically or ethnically motivated and protected’ perpetrators, mostly Fulani herdsmen demanding ‘might and right of way’ over traditional ‘right of occupancy’ and ‘right to plant and harvest’. There is a supreme arrogance in marching cattle through other citizens’ tenderly nurtured well-demarcated cultivated lands killing children, parents and others to feed cattle ‘for-free, no money’ or seeking territorial gains. The death toll from this Fulani herdsmen-Nigerian farmers war is shamefully high across 23 states and in the 100,000s with millions displaced with many destitute with no compensation outnumbering the victims of the boko haram War. In the 21st Century, cattle should be fed in their state of origin, where the money goes when the cattle is sold, and transported to target states by road, rail and river not by trail or track!

    THE OFFER OF ‘FREE EDUCATION’ is to be embraced by everyone but parents must be told that ‘Free’ is not ‘Total’ and cannot provide all essentials that we take for granted in ‘normal’ schools. Free education is one of the five fingers of the hand of education and requires contribution from other fingers. The first finger is government effort – Free Education, scholarships and bursaries, salaries and monthly grants. Government always overestimates free education but because of misapplied politics, it refuses to ask for contributions to fill any gaps it leaves. The second finger is teachers who must be empowered to ask for contributions to grow education. The third finger is the parents sometimes gathered as the Parents Teachers Association, PTA, often satisfied that the children are in school and who ignorantly refuse to contribute. The fourth finger is Old Students Associations (OSAs) of secondary schools often rescuing them from disaster and wisely harnessed by Ogun State as the Alma Mater Day. OSAs, should be started in all neglected primary schools. The fifth finger is the community as the Board of Governors and neighbourood business and citizens. All make up the hand or fist of education.

    It is in poorly equipped public schools that parents and PTAs must supplement budgetary allocations and infrastructure. Parents of public schools must be reminded that even high fee-paying schools and universities ask parents to contribute material and sometimes money for a complete education. Government schools are of minimum standards when Nigeria deserved and can afford maximum standards as it suffers maximum theft.

    Teachers in private schools happily ask parents to send/donate/loan learning-tools like books, newspapers, scissors, thread, material, cardboard, bottle tops for art et cetera. Government historically muzzles its professionals. Why has the Nigerian public school teacher been ordered not to ask parents to bring these things? Politics is the answer. ‘Free’ does not mean ‘no contribution’ from others. No Nigerian government will give enough library books or footballs but Instant libraries can be created if every family lends a book and a ball. Education is a joint effort a PPPPP – Public Parent Past students Partnership. Governments must desist from talking about ‘free’ as if the parents are to hands-off and abdicate their responsibility. In Oyo State the schools have local Boards of Governors.

    In summary teachers in public schools must have the same rights as private school teachers to ask parents and students to contribute aids to learning. Government should reward contributions.

    At last, the federal government through Minister Fashola advocates alternative energy and in particular ‘Solar Energy’ one of the natural four gifts of God to Nigeria –soil, oil, sun and minerals. We are still searching for the other necessary God’s gift, decisive positive and speedy leadership, to bring them all together in the service of the nation. This government when it came immediately re-invigorated the repeatedly re-invigorated and repeatedly failing soil sector –agriculture. Perhaps it will succeed? It should have initiated a revolutionary Solar Energy $5b Grant from CBN or the pension scheme to get millions off the ‘monkey-poxed’ electricity grid by copying the low-interest rate 5-8 year solar loan schemes abroad. Nigeria is overly dependent on the grid the Achilles’ Heel of Nigeria’s progress. Why is solar not providing more power in ‘strong sun’ countries like Nigeria? The answer is politics. Keeping the people in real slavery and keeping cartels wealthy forces the use of expensive generators and fuel to substitute for a rotten grid without pay-as-you-go meters, run by rotten people in a rotten system doomed to ruin Nigeria. Can Fashola break the jinx?

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; ‘No Pay No Work?’

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 contravening UN-SDGs Sustainable Development Goals 4,5,16 especially at this time of The International Day of the Girl Child. Work for their release. Please access htpps://youtu.be/3BMgV8jj9IU for the #FreedomForGirls film by Beyonce and 100 girls. Please spread the film word to achieve SDG 5- Gender Equality. No girl should not see this Youtube download.

    Life jackets are Nuclear Physics in Nigeria! Still more totally preventable deaths on waterways, even school children. Why? Irresponsibility and no accountability! Remember the battle for the seatbelt? Everyone in a boat must wear a lifejacket. Water is not man’s best friend. Water = lifejacket. Simple! Entrepreneurs: Can Nigerians make and use lifejackets or should we ask an NGO? Life is cheaper than a life jacket in Nigeria! Drowning is real death!

    The government-friendly historic mantra ‘No Pay No Work’ should read the worker-friendly ‘No Pay No Work’! Yes: The billions stolen annually could have paid all workers ‘AAWD’ –As And When Due!! Many feel the worker in Nigeria is too servile and trusting of being paid eventually and are thus abused by politicians. Nigerian workers are unsung saviours and heroes, keeping it going during the war of late pay. Nigerian workers are so unbelievably patriotic, nationalistic, trusting and feel duty-bound to work for an unsigned transferable bond between governments ‘a promise of pay’ even though the legal framework for pay is a calendar month. Meanwhile and inexplicably, Nigerian politicians across the nation are first in line to feed at the trough and are so wealthy that politicians in National Assembly (NASS) manage to appropriate for themselves and greedily eat through N150,000,000,000 of public funds qualifying them legally-illegally as being the highest ‘take home’ for politicians worldwide.

    Governments are worker-friendly or worker-wicked! Good or bad, salary-paying or non-salary paying, pension-paying or non-pension paying. All government is a continuum. Each new government happily uses and often abuses ‘decrees’ of the bad old government. But each new government is reluctant to pay ‘inherited’ arrears owed workers by previous regimes. All Nigerians must know that, except in rare circumstances, the budget can pay workers monthly and thus break the vicious cycle of the preceding regimes stolen wages, a misused or abused treasury denying workers of their financial human rights to a living wage. This government mechanism has repeatedly passed the buck of paying wages and emoluments from one wayward government to the next government. If that is not criminal what is? Add the fact that each government employs its hangers-on into government for ‘perpetual salary or pension, work or no work’. This further overburdens the burgeoning unpaid salary bill to be the first burden on the budget of the next regime. And the old regime will join in the accusation that the new regime has a backlog of salaries to pay- political bastardisation. We have been victim or witness to such serial government’s irresponsible behaviour to its workers. American workers, will shut down government merely by staying at home if their pay check is not delivered. This is why every December there is a US Congress stalemate resolved on the brink, just to keep the workers paid and at work.

    Therefore how and why on earth is it morally, ethically, legally or humanly the workers fault in Nigeria if they strike after being short-changed, underpaid, paid an ‘agreed’ 50% or 80%, or not paid at all for one or nine months and are owed five, or 20 years pensions? A worker without wages is a slave and workers without wages are a slave army even if the army is paid at some indeterminate point in the future of a government or the next. Hunger and need are minutely, hourly, daily occurrences only postponed by the weekly or monthly salary.

    Can every Social Studies or Political Science Faculty or Political Party explain the ‘First Wonder of the Nigerian Worker-the Wizardry of Survival without Wages’ – the economic wizardry of survival of a worker, partner, children and extended family when no wages are paid for two months or 10? Does the worker walk to work, eat nothing, drink nothing, not pay rent or transport, attend social functions including funerals? If these things continue to be done who is paying for them? Is it corruption by the worker or charity from others or family borrowing from extended family and others? All are wrong because they allow the worker to depend on substitutes for failed governance withholding justified earnings. The failed government has failed to meet its legitimate, legal obligation to workers. And yet there is so much stolen daily but workers are told not to resist this rape on pain of ‘No Work No Pay’.

    Traditionally, but regrettably, governments only respond when workers go on strike for their withheld rights. It is unlikely to change as politicians and authoritarian civil servants see themselves as masters and not servants or facilitators of workers’ rights. The profit of a government is efficiency in policy implementation and following the agreed timetable for the delivery of services, salaries and pensions. Anything less is a failed government. Weed out corruption and ghost workers but that is no excuse for short-changing or non-payment of workers. The government workers salary reaches everywhere and is the heartbeat of the nation’s economy. Stopping salaries stops the state and nations’ heartbeat. No Pay No Work!

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.