The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls; SDGs & Plastic

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 contravening UN-SDGs Sustainable Development Goals 4,5,16. Work for their release.

    Why did most dirty politicians, civil servants and collaborators in the private sector never have allegiance to the nation? Rather than serve, contravening all SDGs, they have reneged on the principles of nation-building- Justice, Equity and Honesty- and broken their Oath of Allegiance to the poor sick children of Nigeria, SDG 1,2,5,4, 5 and abandoned the struggle between ‘what is right or wrong, proper or equitable, moral or immoral’ against SDG 16. They have engineered a slothful, manipulated police investigatory and justice system, with no supervision.

    They got away with 10% of contracts in the 60s, millions in the 70s, billions in the 80s and now multiple billions in the 21st Century rubbishing SDGs 1-17. For these evil people it is okay to steal billions, destroying the future of 50m youth, SDGs 4 and 5, partly used for committing mayhem, murder and vote manipulation to seize power at ‘Fake Elections’ –Civilian Coup Plotting against all SDGs.

    These ‘criminals in power’ have only one fear – ‘Going To Jail’, SDG 16. But even jail may metamorphose into a hospital private room exit strategy of falling politically sick. So ‘Getting Caught’ does not bother them because they have mastered the dark art of silky-mouthed SAN lawyers and ‘admiration’ from the media and are happy to perform in soap operas before power- struck reporters for the 9 O’clock news during a deliberately delayed British Justice System and its ‘Innocent Until Proven Guilty’ injunction-SDG 16. We need the French System of ‘Guilty until Proven Innocent’. Adjournments will disappear. Returning some funds in ‘Plea Bargains’ leaves the evil ones amused, ‘clean’ and wrongly still rich with our stolen money and with no physical restrictions or punishment. So they wear the cloak of invincibility and taunt honest Nigerians with the insult ‘catch us if you can, stupid’. It adds to the outrageous corruption of ‘legalised illegality’ of obscene Salaries And Perks, SAP, of office SAPping Nigeria dry.

    Indeed these ‘leaders’ appear in the eyes of unpaid pensions as ‘multiple pension thieves’ and ‘common highway robbers’ having succeeded in actually and figuratively ‘stealing the highway’. I hereby give Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, my support and that of Educare Trust, and you should too, as it leads the fight in court against multiple salaries and/or pensions by politicians-SDG 16.  Highway stealing is an old corruption game played by mobilized contractors and their political masters on every road ever built in Nigeria rendering roads not-fit-for-purpose, death-traps, after a short time or never finished, SDG 16. General Gowon told us that the third lane on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway ‘disappeared’ between the approval in the early 70s and construction-240km of single lane road. This highway robbery is marked by the brazen diversion, in spite of national outrage, of N20b from the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, a project of mega-economic significance. Hurray for the Sukuk-funding of N100b to rescue it and many other roads from apparent vultures nit-picking at the budget’s corpse.

    The millions of hours lost annually at the Lagos port shows Nigerian politics is past its sell-by date and developmental nation-building politics is in crippled infancy, SDGs 8, 9,11,and 16. A nation’s leadership which plays corruption politics with everything will eat the nation’s hands and feet crippling it beyond recovery. Thousands of containers abandoned to the notoriously corrupt Customs’ consistently sabotaged national development plans. Every electricity advance was doomed as component containers were refused clearance due to incompetent coordination and corruption. We have had a political and civil servant class that could not keep the nation’s port[s] in competition and efficiency tandem with even Ghana’s Takoradi or Accra, let alone Southampton we used but did not learn from in the 50s and 60s. Dangote Corporation is to do the Port Road. We pray!

    Is Nigeria oblivious of the recent Sustainable Development Goals Goalkeepers Meeting held in New York? Please spread the word about the 17 SDGs. Google them, learn about them, print them out, teach them to all children, youth and adults at home, school, lecture room, office. SDGs need everyone to play a part in saving the world through ABC-Action, Broadcast and Change. Is Nigeria also oblivious to the ‘Our Oceans Conference’ on SDG 14, Life Under Water, held in Malta aimed at preserving clean water flows and fish stocks by reducing the tons of plastic polluting water worldwide turning it into gigantic sewers choking sea-life and beaches? ‘Ghost nets’ which are old fishing gear snagged on reefs, entrap and kill fish forever. Our world misuses 320m tons of plastic annually with 5% recycled. Most of the rest are in oceans.

    Use of Single-Use Plastic bottles and packaging has been condemned, with a serious attempt to phase out plastics altogether because they are non-biodegradable, block waste channels, worsen floods and enter the food chain when swallowed by fish and wildlife. SDGs 6, 7, 8,9,11, 12, 14, 15. Credit to Sky News for their campaign to eliminate ‘single use plastics’. Whales have been killed by plastic accumulating in their stomachs.

    In Nigeria, plastic bottles and bags pollute the environment, drown us and worsen flooding, SDGs 11, 12.  Yet we see no serious government advice and parents, teachers and communities do nothing to protect their families and communities or teach ‘anti-plastic’ next generation.

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

  • Our Girls ; DNA Lab; science failure

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

    We often miss the point and will prefer to discuss political trivia than scientific upgrades illustrated by candidates whose pathetic antics will create further doom for Nigeria’s political growth instead of elevating genuine life changing strides. Who can forget the tape recordings and military protests about being used to ‘advantage the candidate’? Shamefully there are few or no school science and other educational posters budgeted and purchased by governments and politicians for the 1+m classrooms to help 40+m children learn easily. But every four years we are victims of one billion political posters, and now we vomit at the ‘early-bird’ campaign of a tsunami of political posters, showing politicians’ faces and confirming that politicians know the value of posters but refuse to use them for education. What shameless people. Nigeria should tear down any single political poster and refuse to allow them in the 2019 campaign.

    The disgracefully oppressive and controlling NGO/CSO Bill can be read another way. Is it also corruption fighting back?

    As a professional in medicine, one of the most important recent developments is the Lagos State Forensic DNA Laboratory opened by Governor Ambode. Such labs are commonplace in South Africa, our so-called African financial rival. We have the kobo, SA has the sense!! Do we have any excuse not to have labs like SA labs? They have corruption too!!  In the past we complained of the ineffectiveness of the Police annual budget for a forensic lab in excess of N50m. Corruption? Today the Police Forensic Lab is a shadow of a real police lab. Labs must be funded and upgraded with cutting edge ‘serious science’ equipment like spectrophotometers etc. Corruption? Probably the best funded and best run forensic laboratory in Nigeria is probably the WHO-funded reference lab hosted by Redeemer’s University under Professor Christian Happi. In his lab, the Ebola and recent viral epidemic samples were handled. Wonderfully also, the laboratory allows tours and visits by young science students and undergraduates to interact with the scientists and learn about isolation strategies and the super science equipment for cutting edge work qualifying for publication in the top medical and science journals. It is time the so-called education, science and technology, health, police and other relevant ministries and National Assembly committees understood and championed ‘Serious Science Support’ for Nigeria to become a modern science and technology-based society. Every state in Nigeria is larger than some countries and should install similar DNA lab institutions.

    All such labs can expand beyond DNA and should grow into a Certified Forensic Training Programme or Affiliation to LASU’s College of Medicine or Sciences a short and long course training ground in medicine and for medical and laboratory scientists in this huge untapped area – creating jobs for the brave and brilliant. It requires very serious security protection of evidence, processing and results which are as relevant to paternity disputes as to crime solving and unidentified body identification after floods. Can Nigerians do this or will funds be signed off officially but go to politicians? If well-funded, not prohibitively expensive to run and with reasonably quick results and linked to a frequently checking foreign laboratory for ‘Quality Control Studies and ‘Monitoring and Evaluation’, it could work. It should have grown naturally within the pathology laboratory opposite the prison on Broad Street, Lagos and run in the 60s by late Dr Justin Uku before he left for the USA becoming the Chief Coroner of Buffalo County. I almost wept at the houses of Chief ‘Uncle’ Bola Ige and my late cousin Funso Williams as police failed to ‘secure the crime scenes’ and took fingerprints even though we were all avid watchers of CSI, NCIS and other films representing brilliant counter-criminal minds at work. This will reduce awaiting trial prisoners, increase CID crime-solving rate and professionalism, increase gloves and masks and reels of yellow and black tape sales for police cordons- ‘Do Not Cross this Line Crime Scene’.

    One lab cannot scientifically serve 180m of whom 0.1-1% are serious criminals or requiring paternal confirmation. There would be much less money to steal by politicians if they developed their states, created jobs in science areas and spent the budget correctly. But Nigeria’s leadership, federal and state, preferred fat foreign accounts and mansions, mistresses and ‘misters’ in the case of female politicians. There are over 1000 similar and other science-based areas needing development to employ our scientists, technologists and specialists who ‘sell cement’ instead.

    Annually Nigeria produces thousands of bright, hopeful but repeatedly unemployed laboratory scientists, physiologists, chemists, geologists, engineers and biologists, mostly also unemployable because they have studied the theory of science and done too few practical sessions to compare favourably with their counterparts abroad. The stumbling block that the backward unitary system of government has caused by limiting practical education in favour of slow states is immoral. Ask who introduced the Backward Education Plan, included cancelling ‘Practical classes’ and shamelessly substituting ‘The Theory of’ ….. sport, science, physics, chemistry and biology in Nigeria’s curricula rubbishing standards, knowledge and practical ability? They should be given a ‘Disservice to Nigeria’s Science Education’ medal for cutting budgets and allowing money for practicals to be stolen or diverted, thus robbing students of a firm science foundation.

    NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.

  • Our Girls; Oct 1

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

    As we move towards another October again, we need for the 57th time to reflect on where we are and where we were supposed to be from the multiple gifts from God, namely Sun, Soil and Oil. We fail to use the Sun, are slowly using the Soil and may run out of Oil. All these were and sometimes still are stolen in multiple billions or maliciously manipulated and mismanaged by Fellow Nigerians. Ask what greed and actual madness possesses anyone to steal in the billions causing Nigeria to totter wildly as it approaches another birthday Oct 1.

    Nigeria is unfortunately not tottering from the weight of nationalistically motivated political and societal wisdom and achievement that comes with a mature age of intensive nation-building and personal and collective sacrifice. Nigeria totters with signs of dementia and split personality-progressive and regressive conservative, restructuring and status quo.  We have wiped from our memory not only the horrors on both sides and the collateral damage and friendly fire of the buildup to and the actual civil war and its 1+million dead but also its discriminatory aftermath during which justice evaporated as we were bound together by the war cry ‘Unity at all costs’.

    Today ‘Unity’ is just another political dirty word used and abused by powerful political voices as a clarion war cry to cower and keep enslaved and shackled the population in order to ensure subservience of the frustrated majority. However ‘Unity’ can only be guaranteed if it is used as recommended in the national anthem with the qualification word ‘Justice’. It is only then that ‘Peace’ will kick in, not by force of arms but naturally like a river. Only this will guarantee avenues for development.

    Any politician who harps exclusively on ‘Unity’ without admitting there were glaring ‘Injustice’ government policy faults like lopsided state and LGA creation, lopsided VAT and revenue formula anomalies and a glaringly false federalism, is insincere and breaking the morality laws. The ‘Unity’ call without making immediate supporting reference to justice, is dishonest, manipulative, irresponsible and part of the problem with Nigeria’s political leadership. The True Federalism or True Democracy Einsteinian Equation for Political Equilibrium is ‘Unity = Justice + Peace’.

    The real cost of the national stain of corruption and our inability to stop it at the N10m or N1bs mark by audit alarms, is multipronged. We here of mega-purchases but even seizing the buildings will not recover anything near the equivalent paid for the properties if they are auctioned tomorrow. The buildings were overpriced, there is not enough money to resell them for the money initially paid and everyone is hiding their money now and pretending to be clean mouthed.

    What is the cost of JAMB corruption to the youth of Nigeria? The JAMB money returned through TSA is supposed to eventually amount to N8b vs N3m paid by the previous JAMB administration during the same period. Within our estate in Bodija and against our protests, there is a new nightclub being built on a property where the house was knocked down. In addition, a conversion from residential to commercial fee of N10m was said to have been paid for. The building is a stone’s throw from ICPC or EFCC in the same estate in Bodija. ICPC/EFCC would do well to exclude corruption or even diverted JAMB funds as part of the financial plan for the nightclub.

    The mega-bribes however fuel a craving for high-end and totally unnecessary luxury goods which Nigerians would never have spent their money on even if they did not have to bribe. Multiple high end homes, mansions and cars at home and broad, diamonds, and other jewelry drain from the country’s foreign reserves. When recovered by EFCC and ICPC, their resale value is usually a fraction of the exorbitant purchase price usually 30-40% -take it or leave it. Even big projects built at home with bribes are a drain because they stop the country building for the masses and providing transport. High end mansions and flats house only a few people while N400b spent on mass housing would have made a huge difference to low cost housing.

    Emotion is closely allied to perception. What is the emotional toll of corruption on the psyche of Nigerians? Depression, disbelief, denial, submission, participation, beneficiary, fightback or flee the country? Perception is an important yardstick arising from one’s emotional response to corruption. What is your perception of a visit to a police station, a ministry, the LGA, even a hospital? What is the common and indigenous international perception of doing business or visiting Nigeria? What is the perception of anyone in any ‘uniform’?  What is the perception of a politician? For all of these it is ‘disgust at the expected corruption’ unless the person is from the same village as you. Only the occupiers of the posts can change that perception, not the public or the professional corruption observer.

    President Buhari in his October 1 speech should consider addressing government efforts to increase foreign reserves to $50b by next year, reduce interest rates to single digits across all loans by reducing or withdrawing the 14% CBN Monetary Policy Rate, make loans available to pay for cars etc.

    NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’

    KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.

  • Our Girls; Foreign reserves; Potholes

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

    Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) calls off strike. Was it necessary? Could it have been avoided by wide and earlier dialogue? Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is still on strike and other health workers are planning to join.

    Hurray, Nigeria’s foreign reserves are over $33b. This government must realise that it cannot hope to overcome the very fresh stigma and ill-informed bitterness caused by the post-Jonathan economic collapse at the next election without major appreciation of the naira against the dollar.  This can be achieved only if the government does not stop increasing our funds until we have $50b to foreign reserves, just $1b/month to really back up the naira. It will be aided by a fully functional refinery sector for 100% local content, to bring to zero the imported petroleum products and associated foreign exchange drain. No one talks of the profits accruing to Nigeria from the sale abroad of all the plastic and petrochemical by-products of petroleum refining –amounting to a huge multi-billion dollar scam over the years against Nigeria. We have had better power supply this last week reducing our expenditure and consumption on petrol and diesel. Potholes require to be filled nationwide by federal, state and LGAs to quickly ease the travel plight of Nigerians as a pre-election strategy and give an impression of caring for the masses.

    Again, 50 traders drown in River Niger. How much does a life-jacket made from the normal life-jacket or from empty plastic bottles cost?

    Another examination result out for governments to assess their services as teachers to the youth. Youth failure is unfortunately caused more by teacher failure than student failure i.e. bad teaching. Matters are not helped by the misperception and often the actual practice of recruiting poor quality material to teacher training colleges as exemplified by the cut-off of 100 for teacher training colleges. This is to be contrasted with Nordic countries where PhD graduates teach the youngsters of those nations and teachers are paid well and promptly and highly motivated. Those countries know that the youth are the most powerful weapon in the development arsenal of any nation. In our country, youth is seen as a drain on resources which the leadership prefers to appropriate for itself by scams and schemes leaving the youth to fend for itself.

    All Nigerians are paying dearly for bribery at political party and personal politician level – a consequence of corruption far beyond the N400b National Bureau of Statistics corruption price tag. Bribes are got by forcing bleeding families, individuals, businesses and organisations to divert needed chunks of their funds which should have been spent on self-development and productive ventures. Stopping corruption reduces the cost of living and business. To achieve this Nigeria and Nigerians have to say ‘No to Bribery, Financial Crimes and Morally Corrupt Decision-making’. They must embrace efficiency, transparency and a high level of personal, public, corporate, professional and uniform morality. The call for restructuring is a strident call to reverse corrupt morally reprehensible unjust decisions of past governments so that a ‘Just True Federal System’ can emerge ASAP.

    One day, even in Nigeria, children will not hold their hands out in the classic ‘Demand for a Bribe’ when asked in their classroom to imitate a politician, policeman or FRSC official. Children are not only traumatized by the child abuse of being forced to be victims of child trafficking, to be child soldiers or petty thieves in the market. Witnessing bribery and corruption are also part of nationwide child abuse inflicted so openly by Nigerian society daily on children in public and private transport or walking on their way to school or market. Just as every child has witnessed an okada crash, so every child has witnessed ‘Uniform Bribery and Corruption’. They say ‘Where there is a uniform, corruption is not far behind’ or worse. Imagine the huge child psychology problem this has created in young minds. Meanwhile in class you want them to learn morals and social studies. From whom and from where?

    N400b would have built 80-100,000 homes at N4-5m each. In contrast it would have bought only 800 houses at the high end N500m each. In other words, the use of money is important and money spent by you and I on bribes would be better spent by you and me on our perceived needs and not spent by someone who happens to occupy a post he uses to extort bribes.

    Have you heard the argument that ‘Granted it is a bribe but the money given to a deliberately difficult gateman, the nasty obstructing secretary in Oga-at-the-top’s office, a trigger-happy checkpoint police man, a rude JAMB office clerk, a naughty dismissive nurse, or a ‘nearly not on seat’ file-signing civil servant to help you get your rights may trickle to family, friend and community’? The bribe money may therefore help the ‘needy’ remain in circulation and substitute for salaries and pensions. In short though such bribes actually increase the cost of doing business, the money still reaches the common pool – the local money market. But is that ‘social service’ the job of the money in your pocket? Are you their NGO to provide for their needs and greed when you have your own rights to your money and commitments? No!

    NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.

  • Our Girls; ‘Corruption aka stealing’

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

    Smug politicians point to the USA and its perpetual Democratic vs Republican wrangling and Presidential Vs Congress face-offs as excuses for today’s National Assembly (NASS) antics. Practiced since 1766, the USA has a formidable country and proud citizenry. Some faceless Nigerian officials, unilaterally manipulated that USA Presidential system for the worse and the system imposed on Nigeria by the imposed ‘1999 Constitution’ has achieved little development advances even since ‘democracy’ in 1999- a need for change -restructuring!

    Since 1999, even a visionary Presidential and Ministerial leadership set against a reactionary cantankerous NASS weighed down with mostly selfish interests have achieved zero or even negative development. Do some politicians have a ‘Secret First Amendment to the Oath of Office – the decision to abuse their oath by demanding ‘money for votes’ in most Houses of Assembly – allegedly in the past some politicians’ favourite toy for self-enrichment? Are politicians deprived of this corruption in this government? Is this why the budget took forever to pass?

    What is the ‘Development Score Card’ for the federal government since the 80s using an apolitical yardstick? The federal government system as practiced since 1980s has failed every single United Nations (UN) and all other international development indices – an abysmal failure resulting in the renewed demand for ‘restructuring’  i.e. true federalism, fiscal federalism, removal of many items on the exclusive List, a proper US government system or better a UK parliamentary system, unicameral parliament with dissolution of the senate or joining of the two and halving the total number, sitting allowances only for politicians and which are paid by their states to keep them focused; Value Added Tax (VAT) spent where it is made, land use changes, re-nationalization of all past oil-blocks with new negotiated limited leases e.g. 5-10 years with much more going to LGA and nation.

    In addition, if the judiciary is [an ass], corrupted, unresponsive, unreliable, slow [justice delayed is justice denied], and indecisive [the last hope of the common man], there will be negative development i.e. minus development and a loss of ‘Happiness’ and even the perpetual ‘Hope’ – all key ingredients of ‘Gross National Happiness Index’, a UN measure of development. We await a generation of politicians who love Nigeria more than themselves and will put their vision of Nigeria above themselves and their pockets.

    Corruption, aka stealing, in the 60s used to be at 10%. How do we explain or exist financially in 90-100% corruption today? Corruption, aka stealing thrives on secrecy. Is corruption a drug that the corrupt, aka thieves, must be weaned off slowly?  No. From the child stealing food in the kitchen to the minister taking cuts from inflated contracts, corruption, aka stealing, can be stopped immediately.

    Everyone: Corruption can stop today. A personal decision – ‘Today – To be or not to be- A corrupt person, a thief? That is the question’! Buhari cannot answer for you. Is Buhari to stop corruption as if ‘CORRUPTION, aka STEALING, IS A LEGITIMATE RIGHT OF TRUSTED OFFICIALS TO MANIPULATE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FUNDS AND CONTRACTS WITHIN THEIR CARE’? He does however need a well led and widely deployed army of ‘honest’ proactive CID, EFCC, ICPC and tax people, under close scrutiny themselves, to intimidate you into stopping corruption on fearful, if not moral grounds. When the corrupt get caught, we rise to their defence. They entangle the country in reality TV court drama, smiling at every ‘adjournment’ opportunity and becoming ‘corruption, aka thieving celebrities’. And now we plea-bargain for the return of part of our stolen money. Imagine what the huge funds returned so far would have done for Nigeria if properly spent  on salaries as and when due, services and infrastructure. Perhaps these ASUU, NARD and the subsequent strikes would never have been necessary and the pain to workers avoided? This is the huge ‘Lack of Development Cost of Corruption’ affecting every Nigerian. Corruption, stealing, is an iceberg destroying and sinking Nigeria’s Titanic development. We see only 5-10% of any iceberg with the 90-95% still hidden behind the ‘smiles and lies’ of the corrupt, aka thieves! In this country the wheels of government are held back by the corrupt and greased for movement only after a greasy bribe -corruption.

    Just as INEC cannot stop you from ruining elections, Buhari is back but cannot stop you from being corrupt, a thief. Only you can stop that. However Buhari has responsibility to install ’Zero Corruption Strategies’ and act on the ‘N400b Corruption National Bureau of Statistics report’ and  institute ‘Weekly Corruption Perception Reports’ among all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) especially the ones dealing with roads, ports, drugs. After two years in office it is unacceptable that ‘2017 New Corruption’ still exists on our streets! These MDAs must be cleaned up or government will lose the next election. President Buhari will not police corruption at every customs border, Police or FRSC checkpoint or NAFDAC license application or raid. However he must challenge, query, suspend and sack heads of MDAs if they fail to halt corruption for ‘Zero Corruption on My Watch Target’ in public perception. If Buhari questions his MDA heads, the heads will question their subordinates who will repeat the process down to the checkpoint, border and drug raid. All this can be achieved in one month.

    NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.

  • Restructuring and its frenemies

    Restructuring and its frenemies

    Back in the Athenian garden where the tradition of public debate was first documented in antiquity, the danger had long been recognized. Logicians call it red herring.

    Those in the habit of artfully diverting an argument in order to obfuscate the question prefer this kind of fallacy.

    Such, it would seem, is the clear and present threat now encroaching the national gallery over the issue of restructuring. Depending on where you stand on the divide today, the word is applied loosely in a manner likely to confound even those who originally conceive the word, “perestroika” (restructuring), in the last years of the old Soviet Union.

    Unable – well maybe unwilling – to keep the old empire together under the force of arms, often meditative Mikhail Gorbachev did not stop at “perestroika” beginning from 1986, he added “glasnot” (openness) in a steely resolve to reform the old union, but ended up as the last president of the empire cobbled together by the Bolsheviks several decades earlier.

    To the political establishment in Abuja and a faction of the ruling party today, the word is perhaps no more than the new synonym for the shriek wailing of the politically displaced, if not treasonable dismemberment of the nation. To the opposition, it is undoubtedly an invocation to hold the ruling party to certain high standards to which they themselves were however also unable to rise yesterday when in power.

    Further afield, the understandably querulous actors of the civil society are no less divided today in defining restructuring in the Nigerian context. So, in the ensuing philosophical melee, we now find ourselves having to separate the truth from lies the same way we distinguish our friend from the enemy.

    Or, is it the darker creature the English dictionary newly classified as frenemies – enemies disguising as friends?

    Only a few, in in my view, have brought a clarity to the issue like Bashorun Seinde Arogbofa does in his new book, Nigeria – The Path We Refused To Take. He identifies the challenge as twin: systemic and human. To resolve the malaise, the first step is to “plant a good system and simultaneously… grow the right people to implement the system.”

    His prognosis is that a return to regionalism will revitalize the polity and free the latent energies across the land that will, in turn, catapult the nation to greatness. He argues that the quality of leaders a country parades is only a reflection of the integrity of the system in place.  It needs be clarified, however, that the problem with Nigeria’s federalism from the outset was more human than systemic. By obliging regions to retain 50 percent of the fruits of their labour and remit 30 percent to the government at the centre and the remaining 20 percent in the general pool to be re-distributed according to collective needs, that post-Independence federalism recognized the nation’s cultural diversities, abundant resources and, therefore, sought to incentivize industry rather than the entitlement mentality.

    It is a measure of the synergy of such symbiotic arrangement that the groundnut pyramid spiraled in the north, cocoa boomed in the west and palm oil flowed abundantly in the east, to the prosperity of the nation at large.

    But poor actors soon tainted the politics with nepotism, intolerance and “ten percent”, eventuating in the collapse of the First Republic and the military incursion on January 15, 1966.

    Since the military is unitarist in philosophy and operation, the next casualty was the federalist character beginning with the Aguiyi-Ironsi’s unification decree. The nation then morphed into one huge garrison synchronized to a central command. Long years of military rule helped deepen this aberration.

    Sadly, successive constitutions fashioned by soldiers for the nation only sought to normalize this anomaly, which gradually shifted emphasis from real production to the carnality of monthly sharing of oil receipts in Abuja. Hence, the intensification of the struggle to control political power as the master key to easy money and the weaponization of the electioneering process as do-or-die.

    This, let it be said, has been the bane of Nigeria’s development in negation of the evidence of phenomenal growth.

    Meanwhile, symptoms of the old gangrene, which metastasizes by the day, are quite visible to all. State governors have to daily fund a Federal police they don’t control. Someone sits in Abuja and aspires to build homes for residents in faraway communities they don’t know. Niger Delta generates wealth that does not reflect its material condition. Lagos generates roughly 60 percent of VAT, gets back only a fraction of the amount, but have to endure the environmental pain arising from the economic activities that make that possible…

    Paradoxically, the average Nigerian politician usually shares this perspective until they gain power. Suddenly, the erstwhile clear-headed, fire-spitting visionary turns into an agent of reaction, feverishly seeking to preserve the sitting arrangement at the national buffet and the crooked sharing formula.

    It explains why PDP hierarchs had pooh-poohed the idea of restructuring while in power but today are quite vociferous in its advocacy. The same reason the APC barons who canvassed the idea most vigorously yesterday now seem to either feign memory loss or are busy scratching their heads in false ignorance, having secured power.

    Therefore, the perennial tragedy of the Nigerian situation is the assumption – usually promoted by whoever is in power and their friends – that tends to conflate the promise of “good leadership” with the imperative of restructuring. They are far from related. The former is the product of the exceptionality of man.

    Conversely, durable institutions don’t happen by accident; they are erected on solid foundation resulting from clear architectural vision. If any lesson is to be learnt from history, it is that institutions are far more durable than mortals. So, whereas the exertions of the “good leader” may secure today, only institutions guarantee social security expected to endure much longer.

    No country readily illustrates this today better than the United States. If the world’s super power has not yet collapsed under Donald Trump’s foul eccentricities and abominable imprecations, it is because America’s socio-political institutions are durable and kicking. The system ensures that even when the avuncular Republican bully would rather have fellow citizens who don’t see the world through his narrow prism be either punched in the face or thrown overboard and those wishing to enter “God’s own country” henceforth be screened based more on the faith professed or colour of their skin rather than the content of their character, there remains a good number of conscientious judges across America committed to interpreting the law in a manner that defends and promotes social liberty.

    For Nigeria, the enduring challenge of statesmanship, as powerfully put by Bashorun Arogbofa in his book, is not to settle for what is convenient for the day but muster the political courage to institute a new reward regime that instead frees the Nigerian from a fixation on only what they stand to gain rather than what they can contribute in a new shared commitment to true nation-building.

     

    Re: Changing sitting order in stuck Titanic?

    Your article with the title, Buhari’s Speech: Changing sitting order in stuck Titanic?, of August 23 refers. I must you commend for the objectivity of your writings. But I challenge objective columnists like you to also find courage to speak up on the big moral question of Rivers State today. A curious Appeal Court judgement was entered last week over River East senatorial seat in favour of All Progressives Congress (APC) at the expense of Peoples Democratic Party. Suddenly, all is quiet on the media front despite many glaring inconsistencies.

    To arrive at this strange judgement, the court relied on “results” supplied by police, and not INEC. When did police become electoral agency? Why is the media quiet?

    So incompetent, they easily let the cat out of the bag with their poor oversight. The serial number of the result sheet brought by the police was exactly the same as that of INEC which the court ignored. Same serial number, different entries! Who is fooling whom?

    I observe that whenever PDP won cases in the past, APC was always quick to say judges took bribes. Recall the midnight raids on judges’ residence by security agents in search of “dollars” believed to have changed hands.

    But how come no one is saying anything this time when one of the presiding judges in the latest judgement happens to be a spouse to one of the APC leaders. Now, the chorus seems to be “fantastic judgement”.

    Really? The objective facts do not support that. Historically, Rivers State, like others in South-South except Edo, has always belonged to PDP. So, “court-allocated” victories can’t change that. It explains why Onyesom Wike won the governorship landslide in 2015. It is debatable if the ruling party at the centre has really done anything tangible in the last two years to win the people over. I dare say that, given many things APC has not done well since, PDP will win Rivers again if elections are held today. My only puzzle is why the court that ought to be the last hope of the underdog should become collaborator of political desperadoes bent on subverting the will of Rivers people.

    Please, truthful columnists like you should not keep quiet on this matter. This impunity has to stop.

     

    • Belema Henneiken,

    Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. 

  • Our Girls; ‘Restructuring Minds’?

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

    Obasanjo may have the right idea of ‘restructuring’ –‘We Must Restructure The Mind’ because ‘Minds’ lead to ‘Thoughts’, Ideas’, ‘Attitude Change’ and ‘Actions’ to Restructure Nigeria. However he did not say whose ‘Minds-to-Actions Need Restructuring’.

    There is ‘Internal Restructuring’ within the borders of Nigeria and ‘External Restructuring’ altering the borders of Nigeria. ‘Internal Restructuring’ involves tinkering with the strangely sacrosanct federal exclusive list, which we did not participate in making, and at every political and administrative level and in every Ministry, Agency and Department (MDA) empowering the states within which resources like land, water, railways and roads lie.

    Is ‘Internal Restructuring’ therefore not a simple request of a people feeling the effects of ‘federal cheating’ and should those perceived as cheating others not rise to the occasion and admit their guilt and offer equity as well as unity in order to preserve that ‘unity’?  Instead, using cries of ‘The Unity of Nigeria is not negotiable’, the ‘Anti-Restructurists’ in an effort to preserve for themselves the many advantages of ‘False Federalism’ and ‘Federal Cheating’ use proxies and the few calls for ‘External Restructuring’ as the threat of anarchy, doom and terrorism and make it into a stick to beat down every attempt to discuss even simple ‘Internal Restructuring’.

    Most Nigerians are in the silent majority but love their Nigeria even more than the politicians with noisy media access and have stashes of government cash and Nigerian budget houses worldwide. Most Nigerians are totally against ‘External Restructuring’ and also totally against ‘Federal Cheating’ which with corruption has crippled development. ‘External Restructuring’ it is only mentioned as a distant possibility if serious attempts are not made on ‘Internal Restructuring’ and if no ‘Internal Restructuring’ is achieved. ‘Internal Restructurists’ are not terrorists, but pragmatic realists who have unnecessarily suffered and seen their country suffer underdevelopment under the existing ‘Federal Cheating’ structure. Nigerians must have a right to ask questions and get answers to the knotty questions stunting our growth. If ‘Anti-Restructurists’ say the current structure is not ‘Federal Cheating’ then they must come to the table, referendum, conference or constitutional, and explain to the country the mathematics and morality behind the 50 or so apparently sectional discriminatory decisions that were made in the past and why those decisions should remain unchanged if there is a refusal to change them to a more ‘Equitable True Federalism’.

    Let us interrogate the Obasanjo suggestion about the ‘Restructuring of the Mind’…. Is it the ‘mind of the market masses’, belt tightening mama market, Nigeria’s youth- sweating, selling or riding a politically introduced murderous okada, an unheard of business in developing countries killing and maiming more than Boko Haram? Is it the ‘Mind of the Masses’ of ‘Unpaid Civil/Private Sector Employees’ working ‘tirelessly’ for kobo-kobo wages, without salaries for months, watching irresponsible politicians swallowing ‘government N200+ multibillions’ and more nationwide?

    Is it the ‘Mind of The Masses’ of ‘Pension-less Pensioners’ in repeated Re-Verification queues after ‘Gallant Service’ and even ‘Dying-In-Queue’ as the N6.1billion jeeps of NASS and governors, ‘siren blaring‘, drive recklessly by, wrecking the traffic, on their way to buy the next election with stolen budget money while ‘illegally legally’ paying themselves 1,2,3 and even 4 pensions?

    Is it the ‘Mind of the Masses’ of ‘Dedicated Professionals of All Description’ working to keep a broken Nigerian wheel of progress in motion across a broken Nigeria? Rats in Buhari’s office are simply the sign of ‘Nigeria’s Incompetence In ‘Simple Maintenance’, i.e., cleaning and servicing failures? Rats grow in quiet undisturbed surroundings. Period!! Who locked the Presidential door? I have seen rats in every hospital I have worked in.

    The above snapshots of the ‘Mind of the Masses’ ask ‘Why are we a development cripple with all God has given us. The ‘Mind of the Masses’ know it did not steal or mismanage God’s gifts of soil, sun, oil, and ask ‘So why are we so crippled developmentally now?’, ‘Are we happy to be here?’ ‘What governance mechanism, which politicians are responsible for our failure to develop speedily? The masses reject the traditional ‘Followership is too docile’ blame. Nigerian leaders take ‘Serious Oaths’ and break every word! They wield enormous powers to build, cripple, destroy or stagnate any project, projections, plans or policies of their institution, business, LGA, State or Nation! As Obasanjo infamously said very correctly ‘I have adviserrs but I do not have to take their advice, abi!!!’ Yet Nigeria expends a stupendous budget on armies of Senior Special, Special and Other Advisers triplicated at state and even LGAs!!! Even with bad eggs among the ‘Masses’, the majority are good and cannot be in need of Obasanjo-style ‘Restructuring of the Mind’. Nigerian suffering has already ‘Restructured the Masses’.

    So we must look beyond the ‘Masses’ to answer ‘Whose Mind Needs Restructuring’? The leadership must accept therefore that it is 99% of today’s problem with Nigeria and it must ‘Restructure Its Mind’- at Obasanjo’s’ Command!!! The current governance structure, as mal-practiced by politicians has plunged us into under-development, an unhappy situation. The masses react periodically and predictably. Every time they are answered with ‘Non-negotiable ‘Unity’! But unity was not in doubt except in one or two extreme cases! Can two non-friends, standing side by side be in ‘Unity’?

    NB: Nigerians, discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’

    Knowledgeable candidates for 2019.

  • Our Girls; ASUU, N400B+;

    Our Girls; ASUU, N400B+;

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray and work.

    We will discuss three great events: Government  apology to ASUU and by extension to youths; the N400b corruption price tag quantified by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Buhari’s back.

    Time is something this government does not have on its side. Time is running out for this government to point to landmarks before the 2019 election. Incomprehensibly, National Assembly (NASS) has succeeded in scuttling the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway completion date even though the project financiers are both major government parties -PDP and APC – and hurts and hinders millions of lives daily and is of huge economic importance even to no road users.

    ‘The road is a major business entity’ to Nigerians whether they use the road or just receive goods and services from those actually on it!  Government should finance the entire road surface and then leave the cement medians to another year. In addition, government must get $40-50b in CBN foreign reserves before 2019 to ensure success of the Buhari-driven effort to return the naira to pre 2015 level of at least N150:$1 to empower Nigerians and rubbish political speculators still with dollars to sell at N360:$1 to use, abuse, tarnish and terrorise the 2019 electorate. Of course NASS, states and LGAs with squabble with the federal government over ownership of the whistle-blown recovered funds but these determinations must be made quickly so the funds do not stagnate like Abacha loot some still perhaps ‘Missing In Action’.

    Two kudos and Gbosas for the federal government. The ‘Apology to ASUU’ and ‘The NBS N400b/annum Corruption Report’ from the NBS are historical landmark human-face achievements of this government. Past governments hid their heads in the sand-sand denying obvious ugly truths.

    ‘We have failed ASUU’ is probably the greatest statement coming from a serving government ever. Hurray!! Nigeria has actually failed ASUU for the last 35 years. By extension, serial governments starting with the debacle of the anti-education Babangida’s murder of education ‘presumably ‘ on IMFs advice collapsed the performance of university products –the much abused youth of Nigeria during the same time frame!

    ASUU has been fighting student cults and civil servants and politicians for improved conditions and quality of undergraduate students, the lecture room, laboratory, library, ‘character and learning’, and a better recognition of the university teacher in the financial calculations of the salary structure as compared to selfish NASS and the Civil Service for 30+ years. If, with ASUU’s mostly painful session-losing strikes and struggles, our tertiary system is still so poor compared on International University Ranking in Africa and Worldwide, imagine if ASUU had ‘hands off’ the strategy forcing improvements on a greedy political system so greedy that it still despises sharing the nation’s finances with even the needy in health and education. Without ASUU, it is unlikely that any university would today be any better than a glorified secondary school which themselves are saved by Old Students Associations. Politicians are ignorant of the needs for education. Do they still feel that an ignorant youth can be better manipulated by petty cash ‘stomach infrastructure’ election handouts than an educated youth population motivated by patriotism. Politics has spawned an army of angry youth, educated or ignorant.

    There is so much for politician and civil service to steal only because they steal from budgeted funds aimed at needy youth, patients and other citizens. Government is a megacorporation prepaid to deliver goods to fulfil and facilitate the aspirations and needs of customers, but which diverts the goods, abandoning the customers.  The acceptance of failure has a huge effect on the psyche of the Nigerian youth- the true victim of failure to meet ASUU’s legitimate demands.

    Governments have a chronic history of failure but cared less about admitting their guilt. Look at the abysmal education, health, roads, the railways, the power sector. “We have failed the nation’ is a statement we expect from most past presidents on the Council of State. They should resign in shame!

    So we all can quote that Nigeria’s businesses and families lose N400b to corruption annually without the added cost of compensation for corruption – buying, fueling and servicing millions of generators and okada for example. Where does NASS appear in the list even though during the period under study it had already been denied more traditional sources of graft. We only need to remember the stories from SEC, the oil baron’s money under the hat scandal, the stories of Ghana-Must-Go for third term ticket and other sickening sagas to get a morality that was NASS. According to experts at the ground breaking NBS, with UN and Presidential nod, Corruption adds N400b to cost of living and working of Nigerians and residents. Many years ago I calculated that police checkpoints mopped up from circulation, families and businesses N24-30b nationwide annually. This analysis did not include the activities of VIO, FRSC and state traffic militias or the other checkpoints by areas boys, ‘LGA’ staff to ‘legally illegally’ terrorise and rob travellers.

    And President Buhari is back in the saddle. Welcome!!! Hurray and thanks to VP Osinbajo for holding fort. We wish him well. Will he hit the ground running on national issues like saving the naira, restructuring, restructuring, restructuring, Fulani herdsmen’s terrorism, hate speech? We watch.

    NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’

    KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.

     

  • Our Girls; anti-restructurists

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray and work.

    ALERT: We will also discuss potholes, sports failures and wasteful Lagos-Ibadan expressway cement medians.

    The demand for restructuring, to release most Nigerians from the imposed yoke of false federalism is no joke. It is the reaction to the pain inflicted by a listless leadership depending on the crutches of a false federalism to crush and rob by all means necessary many other citizens of their right to the decent 21st Century life. Obasanjo compounded matters by saying he masterminded a cohort of previous coup plotters into high political office as a successful preventive measure to save Nigeria from coups from 1999 to date. Did he consider their competence to lead Nigeria into the 21st Century which they ‘uniformly’ failed to do? The current system has repeatedly failed Nigeria which occupies an abysmal position in development-ranked UN development indices. All ‘restructurist’ citizens of Nigeria feel cheated of rightful dues wrongly going to others –the ‘anti-restructurists’ who must be forced towards true federalism’. A cheat is a cheat –‘federal cheat’ or football.

    The pothole is the daily reminder and visible cancerous ulcer trumpeting the worst incompetent governance imaginable and disfiguring the beautiful Nigerian skin. Happily Lagos State has, belatedly, directed state-wide pothole filling -an overdue cancer treatment. For governors, this will help re-election campaigns! Better a pothole filled late than never. Unfortunately most potholes are not seen as diseases but curiosities. Potholes are doomed to live forever in Nigeria where they grow, killing more people than Boko Haram does. Potholes are court admissible evidence of disgraceful government failure to take the road network seriously. In Nigeria, it is nuclear physics to eliminate potholes nationwide, though they can all be filled in a week giving jobs to thousands. Filling potholes is highly visible, positive vibe, immediate benefit, ‘complete political common sense’ to keep the citizens happy pre-elections by easing the preventable pain of citizens suffering ‘pothole grief, financial loss, delays, damage and death’ nationwide?

    The Lagos-Ibadan expressway should in any 21st century country have had all its potholes filled certainly while waiting for the N20billion maliciously removed by an ill-motivated National Assembly (NASS) so we can endure the road now before the election and not in 2025!! Why do Nigerian governments act as if Nigerians have ‘Rights to Potholes’? Of course the other leg of the Lagos State order is that the job is for ‘now in the rainy season’, a major policy shift, and not for the dry season –the usual excuse of government to endlessly postpone work. Let all governments nationwide ‘fill potholes with immediate effect’ and see the real smile of the face of the citizenry who just want to be left alone. Government is not just about taxes. Governments have failed over the years with the stupendous amounts in multiple billions to develop even one state to 21 century level. Calculate the total billions income by each state since 1980 or even 1999 ‘And It Will Surprise How little The Governors Have Done’. So will giving states more responsibility and billions under a ‘restructured true and fair federalism’ system not just enrich governors even more? Already teachers remind us that LGAs and governors cheated them in the past.

    So Usain Bolt, legend, lost his final professional competitive 100m race to a convicted drug cheat, ‘reformed’ they say, merely because he caught and forced to do his time. But if he was never caught, would he ever have admitted cheating? No. And, medically speaking, the cheating ‘winner’ has what we call ‘Residual Muscle Mass Development’ from deliberate abuse with steroids and other drugs. Drug cheats in athletics should be banned ‘for life’ and not for a ‘2-4’ years.  This is because the abuse produces unnatural muscle development and increased endurance which will not disappear during the ‘Ban’ period. Cheating athletes take the risk and punishment for a future result like beating a clean legend like Bolt. Drug cheating in sport is not like cheating in examinations where the next exam will exclude cheating by brain which drains between exams while muscle once grown remains to run another day. Though Bolt painfully lost the 4x100m to a ‘muscle pull’, his achievements, like those of Mo Farah who lost to the next generation, are far in excess of his losses.

    Each of the non-Nigerian athletes at the London Games 2017 has 10-25 years of ‘sport security’. These are mostly alien to Nigeria causing our spectacularly poor showing at competitions. Where are our sports pyramids, ladders, talent scouts, coaches, places to practice, allowances, functioning toilets, running water and secure lockers for athletes’ possessions? Do we pay them for transport and spend time to encourage them? Nigeria should do better across a wider sports range than football. Sport is recognized as a youth motivator and income earner. Nigeria’s typical fire brigade approach is failing the nation’s youth. When last did talent scouts make enquires or contact by phone, email or visit any schools and universities for Sports Generation Next?

    The waste in the Lagos-Ibadan expressway double concrete median is compounded by the thousands of cement girders demarcating construction.  The federal government must urgently re-strategise to build roads in phases. Phase 1: tarmac road. Phase 2: single concrete median. An uncompleted road surface is a waste.

    NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’

    KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.

     

  • Our Girls; Saturday Burials; Restructuring

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray and work.

    Today: Move Friday funerals to Saturdays pls; Restructuring the Lagos-Ibadan road budget; Restructuring for true federalism.

    Burials on Fridays in cities should be changed to Saturdays by Christians. The national financial loss is huge from ‘Loss of Work Hours’. While local mourners can attend a ‘Thursday Wake Keeping’, many others take two days off with all Thursday required to travel to ‘Make the Wake’. Friday is a ‘Full Funeral Day’ in four or five parts- Lying In State, Funeral Service, Interment, ‘After Party’ aka ‘Celebration of Life’ aka ‘What A waste of Money honey’ aka ‘Siddon Look Dazed, Deaf, Hoarse and Speechless by Monster Music X 6 Hours’ and finally the Sunday outing for the clergy-led ‘Family Squeeze’ for the ‘growth’ of church organ or orphanage!  Sunday, you count the profitable losses, planning the next weekend event, not your work week!

    ‘Move burials to Saturday, keeping a 5-day work week and attend the wake on Friday evening, or take a half day on Friday- normal for many workers. Keep funerals for Saturday as in the towns. The Bishops Conferences should direct this change: ‘Saturday for funerals and weddings’.

    Restructuring ONE- Road Restructuring: Once again differing political agendas and questionable ethical morality decisions by the majority of NASS politicians, with apparent Machiavellian maliciousness, conspire to further deny the rights of Nigeria’s millions who daily are deprived of fast modern pothole-free road/rail transport-a right in 130 countries. In this case, on the Lagos-Ibadan axis but also on East-West, Ore-Benin, Ibadan-Ife roads and the shameless political prostitution around the ‘Most Aborted abiku Second Niger Bridge’ to choose from sick roads nationwide shown on Channels daily! Nothing new, no lessons learnt but predictable destruction of simple dreams of a UN-approved Basic Right To ‘Normal’ Life. Are we not human, like those in the Diaspora after all!! The citizens’ lives are inconsequential politically, merely a bargaining chip in ’The great games politicians play without a care while the citizens Pay, Cry and Die In Despair’. To road and bridge users, construction is quality of joy vs sadness, pain vs pleasure, life vs death, economic survival vs ruin if one is stuck for hours on a ‘one hour road’ because NASS chooses to cannibalise road budget funds to, in my opinion, ‘misapply’ them to finance morally indefensible Constituency Projects which NASS members should instead face ‘Home Constituency’ LGA chairmen to carve out of the N1,000,000,000/annum/ LGAs.

    Curiously, no governor has spoken against the ‘Nasty ‘NASS Action’ and yet all ‘states and the FCT’ have human and cargo traffic suffering on that axis! Shame on the Governors’ Forum for not defending citizens’ right to ‘priority execution of that road project which is a joint political PDP/APC flagship project to correct the abandonment of the road by successive governments since 1989. May those NASS members have ‘Priority Exit’ in the next election to join our go-slow without sirens and police escort, Amen. Affected citizens get ready to vote in 2019!!!

    Both the federal government and NASS got that contract wrong. Financial challenges demand a ‘Contact Restructuring’  to ‘Immediately Complete The Asphalt Surface’ stopping the expensive 240km of cement double central median for when there is money, if ever – Phase 2!

    Restructuring TWO- Country: So after a failed ‘Restructuring Vote’, the ‘Restructuring Agenda’ can be revisited only because of ‘People Pressure’, not because of ‘Political Conscience’ or it is ‘Right and Proper’ to correct gigantic government wrongdoing, an ‘amoral legalised illegality’ and perverting the course of a Just Society. Fighting for change, even in your employee NASS members’ attitude, can work even without money under the tall cap, envelopes and Ghana Must Go bags. Who has been surveyed or telephoned for an opinion by any politician? You mean not one of the 400+ NASS members needs your input? Splitting the exclusive list into nine is long overdue and is a success of the citizens’ Tsunami of protest! Those who have constantly benefitted in power and financially ‘at our expense’, since 1966 by refusing to relinquish ‘Unitary’ government must see their failure, the near zero development, even in their own home region. Feudal federalism must die! Lagos State is ‘feeding the nation through VAT’. Logic demands that freedom, an ‘Alternative Political Theory’, ‘Decentralisation of Funding and Political Power’ and ‘True Federalism’ should benefit Nigerians better than the failed sectional ‘Unitary’ and ‘False Federalism’. Apart for politicians’ bloated ‘Salaries and Perks’ ‘SAPiing’ gains of a Unitary Government, the citizens suffer and only Abuja stands, almost a Gomorrah or Pompeii, where money has been  ‘mis-spent’ on decadent infrastructure and perks for politicians.

    How much free fuel and phone cards/ day for politicians while the country goes road-less and bridgeless? Restructuring is a major ‘anticorruption’ part of ‘The Change Agenda’. It is therefore a deconstructive betrayal seeing APC NASS members dumping the party manifesto while the APC leaders charged with interrogating the ‘Restructuring Agenda and Process’ are questioning the morals and motives of those, like myself, seeking ‘Restructuring’ labelling us ‘Opportunists’ and ‘Job Seekers’. Rather ‘My’ opportunities are truncated by false federalism. Which job I apply for?  If restructuring requires a ‘Constituency Conference and a Referendum’, then ‘So Be It’. Will NASS members recant or will they have to be pushed out????

    NB: Nigerians- Expose a new generation of ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.