The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Bodija explosion; Neighbourhood responsibility or members’ irresponsibility?    

    Bodija explosion; Neighbourhood responsibility or members’ irresponsibility?    

    Hurray for rescue of the Al-Kadriyah victims, sisters of murdered Nabeeha. A callous killing demanding we have a paid informants’ network, IT and anti-terrorism structures.

    The Bodija, Ibadan explosion killed Fellow Nigerian citizens, injured many, destroyed about 20 houses, some uninhabitable and condemned, damaged 50-100 buildings, caused actual heart attack and death and terrified thousands. For me, the huge explosion suggested a kitchen gas explosion as the house shook and some small debris fell onto the roof. I ran downstairs to find my wife in the sitting room equally alarmed. There was no problem in the kitchen. We went outside. All normal. Nothing in the neighbourhood. So, where was it from?

    Then reports flowed like an internet river of disinformation, led by ‘Fake News Experts’ swearing it was gas, petrol tanker and then bomb. It was miners, political, incompetence or neighbourhood watch failure. We await the investigative report.

    If the explosion had been just one kilometre away from ground zero, it would have impacted Mokola, Sango with 500+ bodies due to higher population density. So, should we also be grateful that whatever error, omission or commission, was committed, it did not involve those areas of mass humanity? Yes!

    Our hearts go out to the families of the killed and injured ones, suffering unimaginably. There is and will remain Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD, beyond what anyone can imagine, predict or prevent with present and long-term therapy for the lead-weight, heartfelt, gut-wrenching, stomach-churning grieving on-going in families as you read this. Everyone affected should be encouraged to utilise any mental health support organisation available including, Asido Foundation [pls. Google ], of which I am a Trustee [full disclosure, I am not looking for anyone’s money], and individual psychiatrists and clinical psychologists offering themselves or are identified for this long-term purpose. Beyond fear, terror, despair and real anger at those, as yet ‘unknown’ perpetrators, be they innocent, passively guilty or genuinely guilty, there are other issues.

    There is the very real, immediate and long-term additional cost and consequence of a ground zero explosion crime scene, closed down for samples for international terrorism testing, collapse of the destruction, clearing of the mangled debris, repairs if possible and for many, the construction of completely new structures. Hopefully the exemplary authorities in government buildings controlling property in Bodija, will be encouraged by the governor and instructed to be very sympathetic and not see the disaster as ‘Manna from heaven’ to delay or [God Forbid] extort. Instead, it should be a call to deliver exemplary normal accepted service to innocent and mostly elderly retired poorly pensioned victims, largely depending on their children,  and for authorities to be ‘Faithful, Loyal, Honest and Just’ in their dealing with families of the ‘Ibadan Explosion Victims’ or ‘Bodija Explosion Victims’, whichever it becomes in future history books.

    Neighbourhood authorities are in focus as being associated or complicit by negligence with the explosion. Was it their own failure, or a security failure, which led to the explosion? I can make certain clarifications having been involved in Bodija Neighbourhood Associations since 1981 to date including patrolling at night. Neighbourhood associations depend entirely on the level of dedicated energetic involvement of minds, bodies and money of the dwellers. Sadly, too many dwellers do nothing, may or may not drop money and run away from work or are actually hostile, negative or toxic, poisoning neighbourhood relationships and stunting neighbourhood growth. They see the paid guards, unpaid by the truants throughout the year. The truants are unresponsive to good members who fund the N150-200+k /month or N1.75-2.4m annually to actually pay salaries of gatemen. What callousness.

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    But the Neighbourhood Association executive members cannot force un-responding refusers to pay. They can only appeal/beg for payment with no results. Even school/business/corporate members refuse/delay payments cruelly. So, most Neighbourhood Associations are maintained by a few dedicated realistic Fellow Nigerians probably just 20-30 out of 100 houses/flats/businesses in any neighbourhood while most just ‘siddon-look’!

    So, what stops anyone keeping dangerous things in neighbourhoods? Nothing. Neighbourhood associations have weakest links with too many refusing participation and active membership. But they are happy to use the gatemen, paid by others, to open the gate, even late. The weakest link is in neighbourhood dwellers out-rightly refusing to join the association or joining in name but no action. They are unavailable, their gate locked, permanent absentees at monthly meetings, refusing to pay even cheap dues [N1-4k/month] dues and Christmas/New Year Get-together levies and Project Support [road bumps to stop killing children and residents, pothole filling, gatehouse building and repairs. But they call police and make trouble when the gatemen, paid by few members, fail to open the gate for their visitors in a timely servile manner.

    Know that other bad-minded, serially intentional law-breaking members, can be model members, under the radar,  sometimes paying monthly as-and-when dues and  ‘donations’ and parade as active Neighbourhood Association members and friends of local and state security and may be awarded ‘Exemplary Neighbourhood Association Members’, while also criminally ‘open-secretly’ explosive-stockpiling in an obvious ‘zero-explosive stockpiling’ patrolled residential neighbourhood.

    The neighbourhood associations are hamstrung, with mostly older women and men, un-empowered, have no authority, but are truly worthy of great praise in the fight against robbery and terrorism. Shame on you/your company/school/ business if you do not voluntarily and timely, without being begged, support your Neighbourhood Association with your presence, dues and support.  Blame yourself, not the Neighbourhood Association. Act Responsibly.

  • MM Airport parking; Customs; Give millstones for corruption

    MM Airport parking; Customs; Give millstones for corruption

    We hail the new experience at Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA). The officials generally are more courteous and willing to work as their responsibility, not a favour. Access and unloading remain problematic. We all hailed the four or five lane highway to the MMAirport, Lagos, thinking it would bring succour to the agony previously experienced trying to drop off passengers. Of course, it did, briefly. But why did Nigeria spend billions per kilometre, to meet international standards, only to close all but one lane to traffic by ‘security’ fiat? Wasteful. The Military Command should upgrade the MMAirport Checkpoint to open and monitor all four or five lanes and not a ‘one lane checkpoint’.

    It is not a 2024 airport access strategy to shut three or four lanes ‘for security reasons’. This bottleneck is costing Nigeria dearly in reputation, time and money. It will cost Nigerian nothing, but a larger military detail of 20 men in three or four rotations, to man all 4-5 lanes at once, 24/7 and keep the lanes open. Airport authorities and the federal government should not allow a bottleneck single lane security detail to frustrate their efforts. OPEN, BUT CONTINUE TO SECURE, ALL AIRPORT ACCESS LANES. This is 2024.        

    As we exit the MMAirport from the luggage hall we all face two exits ‘GREEN’ NOTHING TO DECLARE and ‘RED’ SOMETHING TO DECLARE. Surprisingly we witnessed Customs officers herding, like cattle, all passengers towards the ‘RED’ and stopping them from voluntarily going down the GREEN lane. Since two flights had arrived at the same time, imagine the unnecessary human and luggage jam, of 500 passengers that such a unilateral decision caused, against standard Customs Control standards. A Customs official has no right to force arriving passengers TO GO RED when they have nothing to declare and move TO GO GREEN. CCTV review by senior customs and airport staff in the luggage/customs exit will reveal the uniformed Customs officer culprits. Perhaps for them they prefer the old ways of everyone running the gauntlet of Customs greeting ‘wetin you carry’.

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    On exiting the Customs, after search, there is an unusually long journey to where the cars are. The journey included carefully guiding, with dangerous difficulty, heavily laden luggage racks down too steep ramps threatening the lives of passengers walking down the ramps ahead of the racks. Finally on ground level it is not yet Uhuru! Where is the car?

    ‘Car finding’ is a career move at MMAirport for every passenger on arrival back home. Worldwide, millions of passengers arrive and drop off and pickup seamlessly every minute of every day except in Nigeria, where car finding is actually made so hard as to appear to actually be nuclear physics. Why can the MMAirport authority’s transport division not work out a better passenger friendly mode instead of clamping at every opportunity? We do not even have to think. Why do we not follow the lead of Heathrow, Dallas, and Gatwick etc. and separate the pavement with high overhead labels into 10 metre A, B, C, D, E etc. 10 metre segments.  This will make it easy for passengers and drivers to locate each other especially now that all cars look alike. Immediately simply giving passengers more exit access to the apron making it longer. This is essential as the key is to spread the passengers and their mountains of luggage evenly out over a wider area, not confine them to the immediate exit area where no one wants to take second place.         

    The federal government should get the leadership of the country’s MDAs embroiled in massive anti-masses corruption to apologise to Nigerians on their way to prison. Nigeria likes to keep massive theft separate from the health and infrastructural losses caused by the theft of that stolen money. Let us actually equate stolen money to blood loss and life loss.  A pint of blood is N6-8,000. When you steal N8,000,000, the human cost of the mass criminality  is that you deprive Nigeria of 1,000 pints of blood. What is a life worth? Everything and nothing? You name the price please.

    My lifelong work, like for others, revolved around assisting brave women to bring life, truly priceless, into the world and sometimes seeing them lose their own lives and the babies in ‘The Most Dangerous Day In The Life Of A Woman’ and totally needlessly because someone had stolen the money for the blood through administrative theft or there was no electricity- a ‘from Abuja with love’ problem. What is the price of life? We need a price to quantify the human loss from the massive financial criminality in governance. N1m/life? So, someone stealing N100m actually takes 100 lives, N1b=1,000 lives. Corruption is certainly, a life sentence crime.

    In fairness, government sometimes comes up with genuine people-uplifting programmes, but without close forensic and ICPC and EFCC preventive monitoring, they too often are rubbished by the greed of the delivery chain which mutates into a greedy frenzy government food chain with little for the children. For years the school feeding scheme, NSIP, and even the NSITF, National Social Insurance Trust Fund activities, could have been textbook normal, amazing, but were subject to administrative and operational greed, stealing from children, women and workers nationwide. To steal the food and schoolbooks of children is a heinous crime, as it ‘better that a millstone, not a diamond chain, be put around the person’s neck etc. We need a lot of millstones. Think about it.

  • Mo Abudu’s War; Akeredolu & Amotekun – film, cartoon, heroes?  

    Mo Abudu’s War; Akeredolu & Amotekun – film, cartoon, heroes?  

    Please watch Netflix’s Mo Abudu’s ‘War’ for an accurate reflection of the bad happenings in one part of Nigeria today and also including the sad massacre of over 200 normal Fellow Nigerian for the land sitting on minerals now soaked in their God-given blood. It reminds us of Plateau and Kaduna states’ recent terrible history. With a simple change in dialogue, this film can be applied as a template right across every single state and Federal Capital Territory (FCT)  – all facing some serious ‘INTERNALLY GENERATED MAYHEM’, caused usually by ‘greed’ orchestrated to be masqueraded as carefully targeted and funded political, civil service, private sector, ethnic and religious instigations. 

    We witness the sad passing, while in office, of the fiery Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, at 67 who magnificently played the leading role in what led to the foundation of the current security architecture instrument in the defence of the Southwest, Amotekun, against the type of state invasion so accurately portrayed in Mo Abudu’s War.

    It should be only a matter of time before screen writers, if they have not already done so, tackle the research, recording and projection of the complex causes and results of personal, spousal, family, social, political and financial implications for themselves and society of the incumbent national and state politicians dying, denying dying, actually dying, dying but being incapacitated, dead but being on life-support, dead-not-alive, alive-not-dead.

    Nigerians, already experienced in coping with the moral and other aspects of governor and presidential ‘rumour of death’ and ‘actual death’, are taking front-row seats in the already unfolding, real-life drama in Ondo as the new governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who was the immediate former and sometimes embattled deputy governor, has rightfully and legally, taken over and asks questions vis-à-vis the more recent executive activities attributed to the late governor.

    Nigerians are also hoping that the new Ondo State governor will not follow the disgraceful, unproductive and financially ruinous bad example of so many Nigerian governors and even presidents. That bad example is to stop, without any good reason except ‘I-have-the-power’, good ‘people projects’ initiated by Governor Akeredolu. Such actions suspend the lives of the citizens and waste funds.

    Of course, he may metamorphose into a formidable fighter for Ondo State so in need of stability of their ship of state, which was so savagely, so lethally, rocked by illness.

    We pray that Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa will be ‘legacy wise’ enough to continue the good work of further empowering Amotekun as one firm foundation for the curtailment of Southwest terrorism. Amotekun must be entrenched and above any political change, unless that political change is to further empower it. Amotekun must be above politicisation. It must serve the citizens. It will not pay the Ondo State government to disregard, diminish, destroy or denigrate late Governor Akeredolu’s role in the Ondo State Amotekun Legacy. Even dead heroes deserve their space.

    The Ondo State  Amotekun Legacy is a really bright life-saving red beacon of light in the Nigerian forests of murderous local and international terrorists. It is a powerful historic legacy requiring to be immediately included in the curriculum of our schools. Our children need role models like Amotekun even as they are daily bombarded by FBI, CSI and personal, news and social media accounts of death and destruction from terrorist attacks.

    By now the exploits of Amotekun and the armed forces and the police against the terrorists should be in comics and even on the screen in many movies and not just the one or two we find them in. Note that the federal government, the National Orientation Agency and state information agencies have collectively failed to observe one glaring fact in winning the war of motivating hearts and minds. Almost every film nowadays, even African, has the support of several host government, international agency or film foundations except in Nigeria where politics consumes every kobo but can spend billions on campaign mega-billboards!

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    It is obvious that Ondo State, with its scenery, amazing history and being almost the birthplace of Amotekun should have no hesitation in allocating funds in the 2024 budget for investment in writers, film makers and funding of Amotekun-based blockbuster films, comics, cartoons and such to motivate citizenry and recruit the right personnel and elevate Amotekun. Nigeria is still in search of non-political heroes. Nigerians wear the names of other people’s heroes, foreign flags and cities. Even Nollywood actors prefer foreign T-shirts. But fame comes from publicity. It was a huge repetitive churning out of historical programming that brought American heroes to a hero-hungry world. Nigeria must promote Nigerian heroes. TINAPA was touted as  a giant step forward. But the subsequent governor did not share the vision and shut it down costing the citizens millions in stagnant wasted funds. Look at Nollywood great success even without TINAPA. Congrats of Funke Akindele and A Tribe Called Judah grossing N1billion+. Imagine if Nollywood had had TINAPA all along?  

    Schools in enlightened states must seize the right to educate their students about how to negotiate the new threats and traumas the youth and their parents face. Beyond the rush at entrepreneurship, youth deserve to be much more ‘security empowered’ for survival. The danger is no longer just bullying!       

    Government appears serious in its attempt to rake back multiple billions of forex and naira funds disbursed to companies during the last 10 years…fraud, an astute system 10 years ago should have prevented.     

  • Achieving a really Happy New Year 2024

    Achieving a really Happy New Year 2024

    Happy New Year 2024. A Happy New Year does not just happen by greeting or prayer alone. It is product of ‘Greeting, Prayer and Good Decisions’. Good honest decision especially in our lives, work and environment around us. Many did not cross over due to the evil machinations of Fellow Nigerians and some foreigners, who decided to do evil over good.

    The loss of, and injury to over 200 Fellow Nigerians in Plateau State to the evil attacks of land grabbing terrorists or bandits is indeed a horrendous attack on Nigeria’s sovereignty. Any murder or attack is an inexplicable act of callousness. Imagine the impunity, arrogance and hatred involved in the initiating, planning and execution of such an evil plot resulting involving over 200 Fellow Nigerians. Imagine the meetings, coordination, reconnaissance, weaponisation and ‘We-are-going-to-kill-innocent-families’ travel to and from such massacres.

    We all mourn the losses. But mourning will not help the dead or bring a Happy New Year, HNY, to the surviving Fellow Nigerian family members deprived of love, economy and support. What has HNY got to do with the families of those mistakenly killed by bombings three weeks ago? What has HNY got to do with the thousands of Okada victims? What has HNY got to do with the thousands of dead, deprived and socially diminished as a result of the historic multi-year plague of corruption including the currency collapse?

    What has HNY got to do with the miserably lives of the terror traumatised  5million+ Internally Displaced Persons in and out of IDP camps and scattered across Nigeria? What has HNY got to do with the 80% of citizens in poverty – poverty to be laid squarely at the feet of a long selfish political and civil servant and contractor classes?

    What has HNY got to do with victims and the families of the many other Fellow Nigerians caught in road attacks and house robberies, at checkpoints etc. across Nigeria? What has HNY got to do with victims of high maternal mortality? Have you ever witnessed the trauma around a kidnapping with difficult-to-find huge sums from schools, tertiary institutions and the communities across Nigeria?

    We are told that a Happy New Year 2024 awaits us. And we believe! But we cannot expect a different outcome if we do what we did before 2024 or are subjected to the same perpetually historic pre-2024 Corruption, Incompetence, Neglect and Selfishness, CINS.

    We will not ever have a HNY unless the ‘Combined Thieves of Nigeria’ unclasp their stranglehold around the neck of Nigeria for one year, 2024, at least. We seem to think that our own Personal Corruption Corner or Collective Corruption Corner, involving friends or co-workers has no negative impact, while the corruption of others is the cause of the near collapse of Nigeria. Unfortunately, the corruption is pervasive and systemic.

    But corruption is not a building or institution; it is in the individuals in the building.  In fact, a non-corrupt action is seen as so rare as to require celebration as amazing, like the return of money left in a car or doing an assignment for no reward. However millions of honest Fellow Nigerians do these. Congratulations to them and HNY. The requirement is to make individuals change their ‘greed to need’ and ‘attitude to gratitude’ and jointly ‘kill corruption’. A simple human decision ‘I WILL BE HONEST IN 2024. WILL YOU BE HONEST’ for each of us to ensure Nigeria creates a HNY2024 and survives to 2025.

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    It should frighten us that even as we say HNY2024, others are planning and praying for more nefarious activities using intimidation, bullying, bribery, budget padding, contract tampering, outright stealing and robbery – political, authoritarian, judicial, monetary, medical, land, identity, possessions, professional corruption et cetera. 

    A sad example of how we misunderstand ‘need over greed’ is the 2022-2023 Nigerian Railway Corporation NRC Report that 150,000 rail line clips were stolen endangering millions. It is not nuclear physics for the police and NRC to locate the criminal masterminds who must be ironmongers and iron smelters. Who removes rail line pins? What criminally minded person finances and organises the hard noisy physical work of removing rail line pins?  We must find him or them -perhaps an ex-rail line pin pinner employee and a person seeking smelted pins in the background?  What use can un-smelted or smelted pins be used for? Who is buying the end products? NRC cannot put CCTV on its tracks and if the track is removed overnight, a crash would kill passengers the next day. Sabotage!

    Perhaps several N1million rewards for whistle blowers will catch the thieves and masterminds. Urgent effort should be made internally by NRC engineers, university engineering departments and the Society of Engineers to secure the rail line pins better. If not, our railways will kill, we will remain a railway-less country, and never move most container and tanker traffic by rail, saving roads from damage from overweight vehicles and high transport costs. Could the saboteurs be in the haulage business? Remember the saboteurs of the refineries.  

    To have a Happy New Year2024-the good in each Fellow Nigerian must overcome the evil. Can good overcome evil in the Presidency, the Judiciary, National Assembly, at your work, home and in your community? Even the tax man must be honest and not create ‘fictional tax figures’ or problems to demand ‘reduction gratification’.

    PLEASE WORK FOR A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024.   

  • APC 2, CBN: Kill corruption, not Nigerians

    APC 2, CBN: Kill corruption, not Nigerians

    So, Christmas has come, but the Christmas spirit should not be ‘gone’ just because ‘December 25’, is gone. It is obvious this is the first Christmas/New Year with this new version government, aka APC 2, of a 2015-2023 previously in power political party aka APC 1. Many Nigerians cannot understand why APC 1 has not apologised for unleashing several kleptomaniacal scandalous actors in high places, and the immediate past ‘CBN cabal’ on Nigeria. Granted that the APC 1 Buhari government inherited some, but not all, of the failed high office holders from the PDP 3 Johnathan government.

    In the light of the Emefiele CBN investigation revelations, probably leaked to prevent it going missing and before it is laundered into a clean copy, it is clear that, moving forward, the country desperately requires a leadership willing to audit its top and middle level staff to ensure citizenry-beneficial activities.

    Why do governments make it a habit of offering second terms of office to senior office holders of unproven fiscal and moral responsibility, who break simple laws applicable to all business in Nigerian- an AUDITED ANNUAL ACCOUNT? These laws are designed to prevent the thought of fraud and detect fraud early before it crippled the ‘company’, in this case the citizenry and country? 

    Surely when a high office candidate comes up for tenure renewal, there should be a detailed FORENSIC account of stewardship, reviewed by an honest government panel- if available. Government must enforce its sworn obligation and administrative responsibility not to REAPPOINT ANYONE FOR A SECOND TERM WITHOUT A FORENSIC AUDITOR’S REPORT AND A PROGRESS REVIEW. Nigeria should know that, had this review been diligently executed in every case by APC 1 and the previous PDP governments, savings in multiple billions of naira would have been made by reducing the size of ‘ACHIEVABLE FRAUD’ involving ministers, accountants and auditors general and heads of MDAs- ‘MEMBERS OF THE N100+BILLION FRAUD CLUB CABAL’.   

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    There are many new meanings of the acronym CBN following the ‘leaking’ of the devastating CBN Investigation Report. Every Nigerian has incurred major financial, income, business, emotional, social status negative impact with many lives lost to the corrupted cashless policy and precipitous fall on the naira crippling access to food, healthcare and drugs. Historically, The Presidency, NASS, and CBN all have a traditional track record of poor support for the Naira value. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said as much when NASS shot down a Sovereign Wealth Fund start-up. Corrupt Bank of Nigeria or Cancerous Bank of Nigeria are alternative names as the actions of the key personnel have had severe, life-threatening, and life-shortening effects on every Nigerian – direct manifestations of the mismanagement at CBN.

    CBN is probably the most important government institution to Nigerians. Those entrusted with control of such an important national asset as CBN, should realise that it should be immune from or protected from and above the evil proclivities of any group of individuals practicing anti-country activities. We the people employed them by proxy through the presidency and the National Assembly and therefore the Presidency and the National Assembly in APC 1 have culpability and responsibility to us for the fraud at CBN. The CBN’s past excellent reputation was built under the supervision of dedicated Boards of Directors led by great men sadly followed by some not-so-great men who allowed the naira to depreciate under pressure. 

    We know banks worldwide even in 2023, managed by Nigerians who have deservedly achieved fame. We pray the new CBN governor will guide us through the inherited quagmire and lead the naira to rock-based ground. Amen.

    Nigeria must stop appointing high officials and then abandon them to their corruption-driven devices for four or five years – and then renewing their evil appointments. Unchecked, even a saint will be tempted to steal. Such abandonment has led to impunity, arrogance and ‘Mentally Unstable Corruption’ in 100s of millions of naira. Nigerians are tired of spending lifetimes working hard to make Nigeria great only to have our lives, livelihoods and even pensions and potential earnings decimated by the mega-corruption of a few. THE CRASH IN CURRENCY VALUE IS MORE CORRUPTION DRIVEN THAN MARKET FORCES DRIVEN. Now we are approaching N1200:$1 rubbishing the lives of all non-stealing Nigerians.

    We hear of a former minister on trial in a UK court who has accused a former private bank director, now a state governor, of holding on her behalf ‘MENTALLY UNSTABLE MONEY’ -MUM – A new dis-honour in Nigeria. If true, it is one more multibillion naira/dollar scam crippling the naira. Add refinery scams, old and new.

    Nigeria has been pillaged, raped and robbed post-colonially. APC 2 Tinubu must stop corruption in government ranks. The EFCC and ICPC are post-crime investigators and giving away half of the stolen assets in a plea bargain is a crime against the people. A plea bargain is around the type of charges and potential jail sentence time and the not the return of stolen loot which must be 100% total. Presidency must enforce PREVENTIVE CRIME MEASURES- AUDITS, quarterly and annual, FORENSIC AUDITS AND MORE MONITORING CONTROL. OFFER ONE TERM to key appointments to reduce fraud and give more Nigerians the opportunity to save this struggling ship of state. All Nigerians including APC 2 Tinubu & CBN must pre-emptively identify and kill corruption at source, not after four, five or eight years in office.

    HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024. MAY WE BE INVISIBLE TO THE ENEMY.    AMEN

  • Christmas2023. Allow parents participate in education voluntarily

    Christmas2023. Allow parents participate in education voluntarily

    Christmas 2023 will be severe for families across Nigeria and the world at war or under economic hardship.  There has been a worldwide over-commercialisation of Christmas, mostly minimising the fact of the birth of Jesus Christ and replacing that cornerstone joyful event with furious feasting, frivolous festivities, dangerous drinking, fiery fireworks, and receipt of, or exchange of, presents.

    Presents graduated from being discovered in shopping bags and are now camouflaged in expensive, embellished wrapping paper making the present a guessing game, before the wrapping gets torn off with little recycling for next year. Some homes do recycle wrapping paper but most fail.

    GET A RECYCLE PLAN, pls.

    We used to recycle office and birthday envelopes and Christmas and New Year cards with beautiful pictures as inspiration among school children in and around Educare Trust. Recycling is much more popular now as we ‘Save the Planet-COP28’. But more must be done. Others burn the packaging and the wrapping paper which ignores our human joint responsibility to act on the wrathful writing on the world’s wasteful wall. THIS CHRISTMAS, MAKE A PROMISE TO TEACH OTHERS NOT TO BE WASTEFUL: SAVE/RECYCLE YOUR CARDS, ENVELOPES, WRAPPING PAPER AND PACKAGING for something or someone else especially orphanages, normal homes and schools. Inside every envelope and card is an unused page in every card. Make jotters for family graffiti and rough work. Our harsh economy screams for practical household solutions. Presumably, God would be pleased if the human race eventually prolonged the life of God’s earth, by contributing positively to preventing negative climate change especially if all humans participate. Merry and Holy Christmas. Recycle! Recycle!! Recycle!!! Waste not, want not!

    Many Fellow Nigerians will involuntarily skip Christmas Lunch2023 and presents. Remember the N160m allocated for National Assembly, (NASS) cars and the N300m holiday expenses/senator and how much for representatives? Granted, some of the money will actually go to constituents, but only party faithful, abandoning other-party faithful to their hungry-at-Christmas fate. A criminally large percentage of the N300m is believed to be held back for personal NASS member use. So, we should cautiously cost NASS members’  ‘donatitis’. It is our money. 

    Fortunately, many governors and local government chairmen, corporate, community and religious leaders do ‘feed the hungry’ in IDP camps, in slums and orphanages and among the unemployed. Nigeria’s Christmas lunch table sits over 100 million hungry children and adults, all without presents and in need, not of politicians’ collective greed, but of measurable Christmas cheer.

    At Christmas we feed the need of the stomach, the need of the mind for a present and contain the greed lurking in every child and adult. ‘My present is smaller/larger than yours.’ If you trust your pastor, your priest, the nearby orphanage and motherless babies’ home matron and manager, get on your phone, get in touch and SEND A CHRISTMAS LUNCH MONEY ALERT for one , two, 20 of 100 empty stomachs and hungry mouths and needy teary eyes even as you dig into your guiltily wasteful Christmas Day Lunch.

    Imagine your personal pleasure as you picture 100 other mouths sitting, eating and silently thanking you as they are being fed by you, even as you eat with your nuclear family. Your children may ask why you are smiling so sweetly and you will tell them Christmas is a time for sharing God’s gifts to you and giving not getting greedily. And you must tell them who the unseen guests are at their dinner. It is part of parental responsibility to be handed to the children. That is not arrogance but merely to show a solidly good example to your children to be referred to and learnt from when they grow up and will hopefully seek to do as well as you their parents in giving and giving even more. AMEN. But charity, even Christmas charity to ‘those we know not’ seems not to be an easily transmissible gift.

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    Christmas is a time of reflection and increased care for children, those you know and those you do not know. Unfortunately, far too many millions of citizens have ignored the youth needs in their radius, during the year. Many parents will not empower and equip their children for learning. In fact, such parents are happy to hand their offspring over to the ‘government’ to educate them on government’s terms with government’s limited budgetary strength. Government hardly adequately funds even one out of three terms in a year. This suggests government has ceased to live up to role of main ‘Gatekeeper in Education’. Some governments paradoxically actually discourage, and even ban, teachers engaging even willing parents from assessing and voluntarily contributing to enhancing school academic and co-curricular activities and equipment.

    Surely there is no justification for denying voluntary parental support to obviously under-equipped, underfunded, struggling schools, lacking in almost everything from library to laboratory sports and recreational equipment. To reject contributions from parents, community of commercial enterprises in the vicinity is education suicide.

    In modern progressive education, the parents, in and out of PTAs, and Old Students Associations play a huge part in physical funding the schools by direct funding or provision of support material or equipment and prizes. All governments in 2024 must allow EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT by allowing creation of an ANNUAL SCHOOL NEEDS LIST for willing, voluntary, contributory donations, equipment from willing parents, old students and community.  NOW THAT WOULD BE A UNIVERSAL EDUCATION MERRY CHRISTMAS!

  • Intel failure deaths.  Political birthday presents?

    Intel failure deaths.  Political birthday presents?

    We mourn with the estimated over 80 killed in the bombing against ‘terrorists’ which turned out to be a gathering of normal suffering Nigerian citizens celebrating. Later the Nigerian Army successfully got their real terrorists in another attack.  We appreciate the break with deny-deny-deny as the armed forces regretfully immediately claimed responsibility and expressed shock and remorse and is working on funeral costs, funding care of the injured and hopefully the federal government will step in with adequate compensation. We must remember that many injuries require long term medical attention and even restorative operations and prosthetics -artificial limbs. Sadly, Nigeria still lags behind in the provision of modern functional electronic prosthetic limbs and prostheses for other body parts affected by bombs and road crashes, like face and skin areas.

    Nigeria deserves a cutting-edge prosthetic service in a public-private sector to cater for providing the semblance of normal useful life to the millions of victims of road traffic crashes, Okada epidemic attacks, victims of violence in politics and ethnic clashes, Boko Haram and other terrorist actions with the resultant large number of victims.

    Of course, it would have been better for this mistake never to have occurred and every effort must be made to limit the damage by proper long-term care of the victims and adequate moral, monetary, mental support. Beyond that, the question of military intelligence gathering comes up. Obviously, we now know, and the authorities now know, if they did not before, that every gathering in a war ravaged or terrorist invaded area is not automatically hostile. It is the duty of the military to ensure that targets are hostiles or terrorists and not just ‘maybe’. Why was the intel so misleading or was there no intel at all, and just information of a gathering presumed hostile, arrogantly waving a red flag in front of the military.

    Is it possible that Nigeria’s numerous security services, clandestine and visible, had no visible or invisible presence, in this time of terrorism and in a terror attack prone area, and did not have spying eyes, ears and cell phone communication among the teaming crowd? One would have thought that intelligence gathering was a high art form in Nigeria now, especially as hopefully many of the Boko Haram sympathisers in the military have been isolated to prevent counter-spying. A lot must be learnt from this tragedy and the mental, physical and financial stability of the survivors cannot be overemphasised. They require their National Health Insurance Service, NHIS fully paid up by government and loving care if that is possible from a government so used to making ‘Demand’ of its people instead of ‘Requests’.

    The recent bombing ‘demanded’ the lives of over 80 unarmed innocent hopeful Fellow Nigerians. Lives unwillingly given, forced to become instant martyrs for Nigeria and join the sacrifice of thousands of our gallant soldiers who deliberately accept that the offer of their lives daily may be ‘demanded’ or ‘requested’ of them. 

    Read Also: Sanwo-Olu donates 300 vehicles to security agencies

    Even as we mourn our lost brothers, sisters and children in this huge tragedy, which may have been prevented with a higher ‘demand’ of ‘proof of terrorist presence at the scene’, we are faced with news of the uncomfortable financial revelations surrounding the birthday of the senate president, and not a special birthday as such -just 61years. Perhaps it is his first birthday as senate leader and we are to have four or more such meganormous money guzzling celebrations in a country burdened with a 70% poverty rate? How many Nigerians have ever given a wealthy man N1m as a birthday present, let alone a collective trans-senate and perhaps the entire NASS, LGA and MDAs adding their own ‘ten cents’ of the countries fractionated budget? Is the disgusting list of senate donors true and correct for false? This is undignified, unwarranted, unaffordable, undistinguished and unnecessary, if true. Is it true that MDAs and LGAs etc have been asked to donate? On what account heading do they sign off on such money? Is it imprest, emergency, miscellaneous, entertainment, PR or just NASS strategic extortion strategies?

    Perhaps they had no choice making it a compulsory voluntary donation to stay buoyant and thriving in the juicy senate club in NASS? Please tell me how this differed from outright corruption. It will be difficult to imagine that such huge payments are made out of love or altruism and not for some fringe or central benefits by those in search of ‘juicy oversight appointments’. Of course, that thought could be wrong. Perhaps altruism is not dead after all.

    Maybe the birthday man is secretly seeking to collect this huge amount of money in order to demonstrate uncommon citizens love and magnanimously ‘return money to its source-the people’ by dividing it in amounts of N500k-N1m among the over 100 most needy NGOs, orphanages, handicapped homes and schools, youth centres and youth groups like Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, etc. in his senatorial district and beyond to celebrate his birthday with the people. This would be far more politically correct than flying a plane load of politicians to a party of enormous proportions. Politicians must get the fact that ‘acts of service’ are the overriding primary reason for their selection, election and position. Service is therefore the single most important responsibility of politicians and they must demonstrate that service instead of blatant self-service. After taking N300k for Christmas/New Year, a donation of their December salary towards bombed families is too low, but thanks anyway.

  • Governance 2023 norms; Cancel ‘Licence to Kill’ for boats & Okada

    Governance 2023 norms; Cancel ‘Licence to Kill’ for boats & Okada

    Nigeria in 2023 must get governance right and distinguish between governance, economic downturn and misled negligent politics. The hot non-question ‘Cement Vs Asphalt?’ is a Course 1-0-1 university strictly civil engineering/engineering research/professional matter depending on the terrain, rainfall and trailer abuse by high axle weights. It is facing asphalt contractor-driven political pushback.

    Politicians think they belong to some all-knowing, all-powerful ‘Politics Profession’ claiming superiority to all other professionals while denying political prostitution. They outshout professionals but ignore our rubbish roads and under-electrified country and our disillusioned citizens paying the cost in poor healthcare and overloaded trailers and lethal short-lifespan roads infected with a politically driven pothole epidemic, for which no politician offers any apology.

    Nigeria deserves better norms of governance regardless of political party, tribe, sex, age or state. Existing but ignored norms include the Sustainable Development Goals and International Agency Agendas, some UN-based, and the Human Rights Court, Transparency International, and NEITI thought we failed as we are dragged down by a corruption cloud in solid minerals and petroleum.  Now our oil output has been slashed, like a slash across our throat, to 1.7m/day, even though corruption denied us this level for years! Does that 1.7m include future local refinery allocation of 3-600,000bpd?

    Read Also; Makinde, Mbah, Obaseki, Aliyu present Appropriation Bills to Assemblies

    In our cumulative 50+yrs of political negligence to the citizenry, politics has sunk to require international agencies input on ‘OPEN DEFECATION’ while elsewhere, governments compete over heavenly penetration with space rockets and generally beneficial serious scientific research.

    You see why Nigeria suffers in spite of paying the highest undeserved salaries and perks for politicians worldwide? Yet we neglect to employ and utilise our 10,000 BSc, Masters and PhDs in Health Sciences! So why are schools, office and home toilets, really rocket science and nuclear physics in Nigeria! In a class of 50 science graduates, maybe two are in their area of training or teaching. The others are in politics, preaching etc.  

    Also, our governors should stop ‘Named Governor Projects’ which will die when they leave office and instead have a new norm called ‘State Project’ or ‘People Projects’. The media comment ‘Governor donates’ is wrong as it is the ‘state’s money’ being ‘given’, not ‘donated’. The governor should use a new norm ‘The state gives or allocates X’. The people own the money. Governors are ‘state fund managers’. And governments in 2023 should stop writing rude letters to citizens they recently begged for a vote. Use a new norm, a ‘Request Notice’ is better than an emotionally destructive ‘Demand Notice’ and means the same.

    ‘God Forbid, Amen’ a drowning. Yet ‘God did not forbid’ when Nigeria lost more 20 citizens needless to lifejacket-less drowning in Taraba State. Sadly, there have been about five mass-drowning this year. Yet, Nigerian authorities only mourn and mourn again. Who are those responsible for failing to prevent the wiping of families from history? Who is responsible for preventing further drownings? Why are there no social media outcry and no boycott of river transport even before Christmas and new year when millions more passengers will travel by water?

    Is it because we think only poor people travel by canoes and unseaworthy or overloaded boats? Everyone in the speed boats have the usually red or blue life jackets.

    But the ‘Gods are not to blame’ -Ola Rotimi. Sometimes the passengers are bullied by the crew or beg the crew, resulting in overloaded boats. The passengers know the dangers, having heard of drownings or lost relatives. Passengers never give life up voluntarily. Just a few moments before, they were travelling on that water for work, pleasure, ceremony, leave or leisure,  all ‘just a boat-ride away’ but a premature death as certain as if by Boko Haram,  domestic help stabbing or in an auto-crash like the sad case of three Obas in Oyo State. 

    So now we are warned again, because we have ignored the danger, in fact ad nauseum, that even a simple trip ‘just a boat ride away’ can and does kill even those with great water skill, like boat crew. Yes, boat crew also drown. 

    The arrogance of the boat crews, captains, and boat owners, across Nigeria, in not wearing and providing life jackets makes them the primary guilty party in the ‘Boat Drowning Epidemic’ sweeping Nigeria’s waterways. But such arrogance is not new. In the 70s to 90s, seatbelts and crash helmets were not routinely worn. Drivers and passengers were arrogantly ‘resistant to therapy’.  It took Police, FRSC and the NGO, Educare Trust, campaigning and financing jingles and video messages on the air to catalyse change.  Crash helmet use faced even stiffer objection. Crash helmets abuse still leads to needless head injuries though many neurosurgeons face ‘japaitis’.

    Meanwhile the high speed Okada, with apparent ‘Licence To Kill’, defying FRSC, brings misery to millions annually, and is an ignored ‘Okada Epidemic Celebration of Death’.

    Beyond politics, all 2023-27 Nigerian governments must adhere to some norms using existing National Orientation Agency, the electronic media, profession and groups like teachers, students, markets, religious groups and associations to PREVENT DROWNINGS BY WEARING LIFEJACKETS, OKADA KILLINGS BY SPEED REDUCTION, HEAD INJURIES BY STRAPPED CRASH HELMET USE & ROAD ACCIDENTS BY POTHOLE FILLINGS.

    Beyond economic hardship every citizen expects governments to adhere to the norm to withdraw the ‘Licence to Kill’ and truncate these Epidemics of Death plaguing the transport sector. It is merely good governance in which norms must be met even in a harsh economy.

  • N300m present for senators = N1b loss/state 

    N300m present for senators = N1b loss/state 

    Every time you expect the National Assembly, (NASS) to act in a normal, citizen-oriented manner in pursuit of serving the electorate, its members seem to become possessed with self-importance and appear in constant search of irrational excuses to make a legal acquisition of the citizens’ property – the budget. There is such a creation as an ‘illegal legality’ or a ‘legalised illegality’ in which something obviously wrong and self-serving and clearly seen to be to the detriment of others, is maliciously and selfishly made law. Just because predecessors in NASS, similarly allocated to themselves stupendous and immoral large allowances and particularly holiday allowances, does not make that action right or proper especially when 70% of the citizens are groaning in the severe hunger of serious poverty.

    The latest manifestation of this Machiavellian activity is allocating as Christmas/New Year allowance the sum of N300,000,000 each to senators i.e. the minimum wage, N30,000 of 10,000 workers for each senator. This totals N32,700,000,000, N32.7b. This does not include the substantial amount to Representatives for the same purpose.

    There are three senators per state meaning that the politicians across the country will have more than N1,000,000,000 per state. Is the senators’ N300m/senator’s gain come at a N1billion loss per state? Should we the citizens be grateful? Will any of this money reach to citizens? If so, how much of it would actually reach the needy? Is this the best way to get money to the needy citizens, if they – the needy – are actually the true target of such huge funds?

    We are told by the same benefiting political caucus that the money is necessary because of the high demands on all politicians by genuine and political hangers-on. The politicians are never tired of telling us about the widows, orphans, school fees, salaries, and ceremonies like weddings, namings, birthdays, burials, that they support. These claims are not properly documented in sufficient detail to justify the huge sums taken from the budget in the citizens’ name. In fact, this haphazard approach to funding the poor and needy leaves opportunity for politicians to take huge percentages of this money and divert it for their own ends. Since such money appears obviously available, Nigerians demand a proper programme with 100% proper retirement of such funds at the rate of N1b/state.

    How should the money be distributed in a way that it reaches the citizens and is not trapped, reduced, diverted or sequestered into the very large and bottomless pockets of the politicians of NASS and their personal political hangers on and those who can get through the barrier of thugs, security and political cabal around each NASS member, leaving those who do not have such connections and ‘man-know-man-or woman’ with nothing?     

    Every state has orphanages caring for motherless babies and orphans, handicapped homes, homes for the blind and communities of really poor and many physically challenged as well as widows, very sick and needy citizens, well established NGOs and organisations like Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Blue Crescent, Man-O-War etc. The list of well-organised, but uniformly underfunded organisations in each state is endless. But little if any of the N1billion per state will reach them. It is shameful that these organisations are almost never supported, even though they do such good work.

    After several months of reduced robberies on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, robberies and kidnappings are again being reported on the ever busy and newly rebuilt road, the main artery in and out the country from Lagos. We are grateful to the several police and Amotekun and other units which have largely reduced the high rate of kidnapping on that road. To be attacked, robbed and kidnapped are very frightening and sometimes injurious and even lethal and certainly ruinous to the years of hard work and saved income. Sometimes one wonders exactly where the kidnappers expect the huge sums they demand to come from without total ruin of the livelihood. Someone should investigate the aftereffects of kidnappings on families.

    Read Also: INEC, political parties absent as NASS begin process of electoral reform

    Perhaps then much more effort will be put in by government to fund and fuel the vehicles of the police and Amotekun and urge them not to remain as static patrol points but to order them to drive up and down the few kilometres each patrol unit is allocated to patrol. This will take a larger fuel allocation, much better radio linkages, better rations and more frequent supervision by the zonal commanders. I know what it is like to face murderous attack on that expressway as we were attacked at 3.30ish pm at Km 41 on March 17, 2017 when 10 murderous men stopped and surrounded 10 vehicles. Thankfully, we managed to escape, but at least one person died. A week later, the police captured them. They were so close during the attack that I recognised three of the six in the newspaper picture the following week. Prevention of such attacks is far better than the cure in hospital or paying huge money that no one has to spare.

    The Lagos, Ogun and Oyo governors and their respective security and other relevant authorities should take a very active interest in the Daily Security Report from the all roads and particularly the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. They should re-strategise and energise every effort to motivate, empower and increase the security personnel deployed to the new improved one hour 15minute Lagos Ibadan Expressway to achieve zero crime as an example to the country.     

  • Punish 40% IGR deduction initiator. Grants and TSA

    Punish 40% IGR deduction initiator. Grants and TSA

    President Tinubu has suspended as inappropriate timing, the massively condemned ‘40% federal deductions from tertiary institutions’ so-called Internally Generated Revenue’. President Tinubu, please also remove university grants from having to be deposited in the TSA.

    Is the 40% deduction suspended or cancelled? Perhaps it will be cancelled or remain a sword of Damocles against other government organs but especially tertiary institutions at the whim of National Assembly, NASS, the ministries of education and finance, the accountant general’s or auditor general’s offices, which could abuse office and ‘disappear’ the 40%, once seized.

    Yes, this law is an ass, a general law but it was maliciously applied, demonstrating malicious or vengeful intent against the educated class or total ignorance of the funding and financial struggles of tertiary institutions and their primary constituency, students, parents and guardians. The law reduces developmental manpower for the country. It is terrorism, and deserves to be treated as terrorism, because such laws are destructive of academic initiative, paralyse performance and destroy the desire to aim for an excellent impact and stunt national growth.   

    The officer who implemented the law against the education institutions is not to be overly blamed because if he did not try to implement an existing law, he may have been found guilty of negligence of duty or ignorance of the law. However, it is a very fiscally and politically sensitive matter, the implementation of which would certainly cripple the universities struggling to compensate for deliberately poor federal government subventions. It could cripple any compensatory creative approaches the struggling universities initiate to supplement failed federal funding. The officer involved should have suggested to his minister or the decision chain that the matter be decided by the president for ‘political fallout risk assessment’.

    Presidents do not like to reverse policy, even stupid policy, especially when a good ‘Policy Risk Assessment Meeting’ would have killed the problem before announcement.

    So, on the counts of naivety, arrogance and pure insensitivity, that person should be reprimanded, demoted and punished to teach administrators the bitter lesson that decisions do destroy citizens lives.

    Time and time again Nigeria is put at risk, loses billions on bad contracts or is made to look stupid in the public and international eye by the action and inaction of its often high-up officials charged with policy making or implementation. And when they screw it up, the country and its citizens go through agony and suffering. But please note that there is never any apology to the citizens or reparations offered. Unfortunately, they are not even investigated but let off free, without even a query, an inquiry, a judgement, a reprimand or more severe punishment. Nigeria can trace who made that 40% law by going through the minutes of meetings and other records.

    Read Also: NASS legislative aides lament 15 months unpaid salaries

    We must not let this slide or we will continue to have bureaucrats with more immunity than the NASS politicians from the extremely dangerous consequences of their actions. Too often, initiators of poorly thought-through government policies escape in a blaze of retirement glory leaving the citizens to suffer from their incompetence. The person who initiated or suggested the ‘40% deduction should be summoned if retired, stripped of national honours, denied national honours in future and forced to apologise in public for such a stupid law. It is only such an action which will make other civil servants, political appointees and special assistants step back from being overzealous in their actions and destabilising the country. Nigeria deserves and expects and demands much better from its employees, be they civilian and political.

    It was hoped that President Tinubu would also respond to the call reinvigorated just two weeks ago when the issue of the need to extract university grants from being compulsorily included in TSA, Treasury Single Account, was discussed in this column. This step has severely reduced grant inflows because of the difficulty of accessing the funds by recipient researchers as and when required leading to financial and administrative bottlenecks and inefficient execution of research projects resulting in delays in timelines and failure to meet research deadlines thus disgracing the researcher, the department and the institution given the grant. Nigeria’s academic landscape is already being painted for the international research grant donors as one with a high risk of grant outcome failure to deliver research due to the TSA trapped funds stifling research.

    Our youth manage somehow to shine through the quagmire governments offer them as education in sometimes disgraceful settings. Every school and tertiary institutions would be much worse off without such grants, alumni, parents, guardians, scholarships and bursaries. 

    We are hoping for larger education budgets, millions of scholarships and bursaries at state and LGA level, child and teacher friendly classrooms, libraries and clean toilets in schools. But the political class abandoned its primary responsibility to the citizenry and instead selfishly spent N160m/jeep/NASS member (shamefully the minimum wage of 5,333.3 workers x360 NASS members =1,920,000 minimum wage workers salaries) amounting to many billions for NASS and then Presidency, first lady vehicles. Politicians and corruption are mainly responsible for our destructive rubbish naira value. Politicians must ‘calm down’ and temper  greed with political sagacity and should have had the political wisdom to postpone by  6-12 months the multibillion purchase of vehicles, spread the payment over four years, and transfer that budget to education, health, roads and transportation. That decision would have allowed the country slightly recover financially before heavier irresponsible political financial burdens.