Category: Tony Marinho

The most important yardstick of good governance for this 2023-2027 government will be to bring down the murder/attack rate by terrorists and ‘Buhari and the Bandits’. THIS IS WAR! Already over 120 in June and over 1,500 murders since January and roughly 80-100,000 in 10 years.

The Tinubu government must urgently introduce 2023 military tactics including high speed arrival at the battlefield and ‘hot pursuit’ and ‘blocking the exit’ ‘CATCH AND CONTAIN’ not ‘scatter and escape’ strategies.

Politicians realise the value of speed and use jets. The government must also timeline 2-4 weeks to upgrade and deploy elite ‘-5,000 strong maximum force in groups of 100’ quickly with high speed helicopter travel, night goggles, heat-seeking backup equipment to follow motorcycle trails, and buy satellite spy time from other countries for review, research, detection, trailing capture or termination with extreme force. This 2023-27 government must ‘take off the gloves’ and introduce a speedier, warlike, decisive approach or President Tinubu will become just another ‘Condolence President’. No Western Government would tolerate such mayhem. ‘THE TERRORISTS TEST TINUBU’. Only President Tinubu can pass this exam. Five million IDPs in and out of IDP camps want to go home.  

 This 2023-2027 government at local government and state levels could easily have prevented the recent 108 mostly female and children drowned out of approximately 250 by insisting on ‘LIFEJACKETS FOR ALL’.  NIGERIAN WATER USERS: GET A LIFEJACKET! This worldwide need was amplified by the drowning of over 500/750 illegal immigrants, mostly women and children off Greece. The survivors were mostly men. Why? No one needs to drown!

 Several years ago, an American ambassador predicted N500:$1 even though it was N150-200:$1 at the time. His prediction was unusually frank but it took an extra 10 years to achieve. We are achievers in Nigeria!

As usual the announcement was met with emotional resistance. All good Nigerian economists, especially late Henry Boyo, had already offered solutions, as did ministers notably Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala seeking more savings to boost foreign reserves and grow the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

However, there was little positive done. Many politicians are apologising for strategies sabotaging savings negating security and exacerbating unrest and poverty.

All these are included in ‘Economics in Politics Course 101’, a course not taught to politicians. Even if taught, such ‘Financial Legacy Lessons benefiting Future Citizens’ are beyond the intellect of most self-enrichment politicians.  Apologies for failure to grow a ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund and Foreign Reserve growth’ do not save a drowning naira. Action does!

As a result, we face a catastrophic but a wholly preventable N677-750:$1, down from $1:N0.8 when General Gowon first led our economic ‘failure to save’ by stating that we had more money than we knew what to do with. Seriously? In the 60s we bought 10-shilling Postal Orders at Sabo, Yaba Post Offices countrywide. A compulsory Sovereign Wealth Fund then, not nuclear physics, would have $1,000million+ now. A financial paradise deliberately lost! But Nigeria did spawn over 200 dollar multibillionaires. Maybe they could build up our SWF?

But someone would probably have stolen the SWF by now anyway.  

When will we learn dire predictions require drastic action to alter tragic consequences and not just looting the sinking country?

Yes, US gave an accurate naira flop prediction, now surpassed. Congrats.  But we did not prevent the catastrophe. Instead, ignoring economists like late Henry Boyo, they converted Central Bank of Nigeria, a fortification against financial instability, into their dollar ATM serving themselves. Rightful citizens were blocked. Domestic dollars were diverted to cabals which added N300+ to the N412-450 dollar price and sold at N750- N800, ‘FINANCIAL TERRORISM’, ‘Monetary Mass Murder’.

Now again, foreigners, JP Morgan no less, announce that N600 will be the ‘true value’ creating ‘The Nigeria of Our Dreams-turned-nightmares’.

Again, we have a chance at ‘National Fiscal Freedom’ in spite of our debt as we have a new sheriff in town – 2023-2027 Government, but largely old wine in new skins and very expensive recycling since political time began. The 2023-2027 government must clear challenges created by past political figures, Agency Heads,  Civil Servants and the ‘Contractor Class’ filling corridors and behind corridor curtains. Can their brains change to become ‘Nigeria’s Fiscal Future Legacy Oriented’?

Politics is the only profession not requiring relevant subject course material like ‘Politics, Economics and SDGs Course 101’ for winning elections but then it is a neglected  essential for mandate fulfilment. Politicians need education.

President Tinubu can employ anyone. Past presidents have found Nigerian jewels who later served internationally.

‘President Tinubu Legacy’ requires the next generation of Ransome-Kutis, Soyinkas, Okonjo-Iwealas, Akunyilis, Adesinas, Nnajis, Amina Mohammeds swamping his cabinet now, not seasoned politicians. Cabinet, the Federal Executive Council is not a cooking class. It is life and death. Today, two bright ministers cannot save President Tinubu’s reputation. Every executive council member must shine brightly. The 2023-27 FEC will be only as good as the weakest minister.

The NASS has immorally expensive with a poor service delivery record for cost requiring self-inflicted cost-cutting, slashing Salaries-and-Perks-and-Pensions, SAPP, by 75%, sitting allowances only, a single house – Representatives. If not, Nigeria will die, strangled by the noose of a bloated democracy.

Nigeria cannot afford a single weak link in achieving the multi-ministerial SDGs. Every minister and ministry and agency head must face and answer ‘WHAT ARE YOUR SDG STRATEGIES’ weekly, monthly, annually till 2027? We cannot only pray for change. We MUST WORK FOR CHANGE. CHANGE THE PERSONNEL.     

June 12, Democracy Day appears to here to stay. Hurray even as we mourn the needless dead and suffering. The journey has not been a huge success and many in the political class have abandoned the citizens’ plight and instead concentrate on inbreeding and an unsustainable greedy self-service evil financial strategy requiring urgent review downwards -75% reductions in salaries and perks and pensions and one legislative house, preferably House of Representatives over Senate. Politicians must remember their feet are firmly in the blood of our heroes, the martyrs of the democracy struggle – Chief MKO and Mrs Kudirat Abiola, Pa Alfred Rewane and maybe 200-500 estimated dead. Politicians must develop Nigeria before themselves. Continuous massive political greed will get us nowhere in this ongoing democracy struggle.  

The unceremonial exit of CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, nine years in office, through suspension and arrest with handcuffs nearby raised many questions. Too often, such spectacles lead to nothing but still question the moral character, personal wealth and practices in the CBN. Is he alone? No! Time to examine the CBN as it supervised the long-standing naira instability and collapse and the hopeless financial status of 150+m Nigerians.

Can Emefiele say he left the economy better than he found it? Certainly a few will praise him. Is it true that some receive a constant supply of dollars, denying genuine clients, at CBN rates only to punish citizens countrywide needing dollars for education, business or pleasure, all human rights?

The almost permanent extortion by this network, call it black market, cabal or ethnic network strangles Nigerians forced to buy at the black-market rate of 70% higher than the CBN rate.  

Our money is devalued, robbing Nigerians of the value of cash earned by daily struggle. In fact to buy the same dollar we had in 1980 [$1= N 0.8],  2013 [$1=N159] now in 2023 we pay 1$=N750-800 while the CBN’s chosen get it at N400+ and turn round, add N300+/$1 thus impoverishing the citizenry and rubbishing the value of salaries except that of politicians who already extort unspeakable riches as extortionist Salaries And Perks and Pensions SAPPing Nigeria dry.   It is a clear case of one person working and another waiting in the shade to gain hugely from what was supposed to have been available from every bank.

The new acting CBN Governor has a suitable CV, as did his predecessor. He has presumably sat at meetings where Nigeria’s future was determined. He must know the ropes and may find it difficult to claim ignorance of CBN negative actions. Will he spill the beans? Does he want a clean-up?  

Being a Yoruba like the president, will he be changed for federal character reasons – a thing totally ignored by ex-President Buhari probably to prevent another coup against him?

Read Also: Emefiele: Don’t make him a hero

Whatever the security services, the court and the president finally do, we hope that the following financial goals will be met. The elimination of ethnic-based blackmailing black-market rates crippling Nigerians. Make available dollars for genuine citizens and eliminate round-tripping leeches sucking our financial blood. Target foreign reserves as a strategy to strengthen the naira. From earnings over the last 60 years, the foreign reserves account should be approximately $200b. This cannot be achieved overnight except in a dictatorship or a rare case of unity of cross-party political thought towards creating a financially sound ‘Greater Nigeria’ agreed by the ‘President Tinubu Fiscal Stability Team’ with CBN leadership, cross-party cooperation of politicians in NASS, states and LGAs. The aim is to find legitimate ways to increase the percentage of dollars earned from all sources which must be deposited in foreign reserves deliberately and incrementally. A failure to cooperate IN ‘FOREIGN RESERVES GROWTH STRATEGIES 2023-2027’ will lead to a further catastrophic fall in the value of life, work and wages and overvalued dollars with many more millions poverty struck.    

There is one glaring overlooked lesson of the ‘Emefiele Case’ and the ongoing infamous Prof Dibu Ojerinde father/sons JAMB case exposed by the honesty of his successor Prof Is-haq Oloyede. Please make him, Oloyede, minister of education to clean up the Ministry of Education. That glaring lesson is the desirability for ‘experience in office’ versus the huge damage caused by blindly offering second and sometimes third terms without financial and moral audit. There are hundreds of Nigerians qualified for every high-level job. This is why such two-term examples should be quoted in the campaign for ‘ONE TERM ONLY’ in most posts.

Emefiele’s predecessor, CBN Governor  Sanusi’s regime  demonstrated the stupendous power of the governor and CBN by granting N400m to University of Ibadan, N400m to University of Nigeria, Nsukka and N4,000m [yes N4 billion] to Ahmadu Bello University Zaria among other CSR strategies. Talk about crumbs and cake.

One wonders what Emefiele did with such CSR funds in nine years and who benefitted?  Were the funds used to weaponise politics or to empower the youth? Why can registered approved NGOs, like Red Cross and Blue Crescent not receive CBN’S CSR grants? Is the money in the CBN the property of the CBN governor or is he chief minder of our money?

Worldwide central bank governors are somewhat revered and only infrequently addresses the press on the economy especially in times of crisis. We rarely heard from Emefiele who presided over a catastrophic fall in naira value. Limit CBN governors and many others to one term to prevent massive power-driven damage and ‘Oga Forever -At-The-Top Syndrome’    

We mourn  Otunba Subomi Balogun. May he rest in perfect peace and comfort the family as we marvel and celebrate incredible business acumen, exemplary philanthropy, inter-religious tolerance, nationalism and particularly a fountainhead of friendship with his chief mourner and bosom friend of 65+ years, Chief Kola Daisi. 

As some groan and some gloat and many give prayers of supplication or praise to God, May 29 approaches. Many applaud but many are apprehensive. Some are still in court. Some argue that the much-flaunted CV of advances and achievements, the foundation of this new incoming government’s argument for power, were achieved at hugely unfair financial cost extracted at source and also by unjustly high ‘Demand Notices’ embarrassingly stuck to the door or gate of almost every home and office of the citizenry of some states.

Imagine you are one of the millions of Nigerian fathers or mothers arriving home with your impressionable children from school, tired after a 1-2 hour traffic jam battle with okada, only to find such announcements in the most military and insulting language plastered to your gate. The announcement is not merely a BILL billing you but A DEMAND NOTICE DEMANDING that you pay immediately a huge amount of money within a few weeks with a ridiculously short time frame with punishingly escalating costs easily met only by a thief. And your children are made to think less of you for no reason but government’s insultingly arrogant insensitivity. This is 2023.

Government should be ashamed of such citizen-abusing methodology even if it is copied with malicious intent from another country.  Two wrongs do not make a right. The 2023-2027 government at state and federal will blindly continue and expand this vicious behaviour nationwide but it can change the notice to a BILL so as not to disgrace the parents, who have done nothing wrong, in front of their children. A DEMAND Notice is mental torture and harassment. A BILL is a bill which will be accepted and paid in due course. Demand Notices with time frames ‘from the date of this notice’ are notorious for being deliberately delivered weeks after the initial date stamp maliciously reducing the window payment by a month or more.

Will Nigeria now become victim of 100m DEMAND NOTICES, the preoccupation of governance to tax to death to meet the domestic, state and international debt profile and irresponsible political salaries and Perks and Pensions SAPing Nigeria dry? A simple nomenclature change can remove the insult and political arrogance and reduce the citizens’ anger at the political authorities and help heal the wounds inflicted by government recklessness, arrogance and insensitivity. ‘Demand notice’ must change to ‘Bill’ and be less threatening with a LONGER TIME 6 -12 MONTHS TO PAY IN INSTAMENTALS.  We should not be subjects of a vengeful government. OR ARE WE? We did not vote executioners and extortionists, OR DID WE?   The citizens of Nigeria and Nigeria itself are not ATMs or one giant ATM for government employees and agencies to extort from. OR ARE WE? 

Read Also: UNICEF training empowers Adamawa schoolgirls, improves attendance

There are many questions on most skeptical Nigerian minds, and there are many, judging from the mere 30% voter turnout, 30m +Actual Voter: 93mmRegistered Voters ratio vs the wildly exaggerated population estimates of Nigeria? 160+m, not the politically motivated 200+m’. The main question is -In the 2023-27 political cycle— are we to become an even bigger giant ATM machine for politicians, government agents and agencies, contractors and civil servants and the over N10 separate billion scams to be discovered annually by EFCC only after the theft has occurred and with only 10 or 20% returns on tax extracted from the citizenry as seems to have been the usual practice in past times under some governments?

We have seen the world. We are in the world. The world buys our goods and we buy from the world. We are not an appendage, a slave colony, a colonial conquest anymore. We have a right and it makes commonsense and simple political and social science to compare Google the cost a bag of cement, flour, sugar, a kilometre of bridges or dual causeway and wages of paupers and politicians.  We are tired of giving everything at huge cost for so little return. One city in America has more concrete and tarred roads, more water supplies and more electricity than Nigeria has. This cannot go on. Why can’t we get our leaders right?

Is this 2023-2027 leadership going to be any different? We have been promised normalcy so many times that hardly anyone believes normalcy is possible. Pothole-less roads, running taps, switches bringing electric power on demand, good well-equipped hospitals and good child– and teacher friendly schools with toilets and libraries are not nuclear physics, decent regular salaries and pensions for workers and not just human rights. They are the basis of democracy and bedrock of development and to be provided by any government in power. Sadly, we the citizenry discuss high political salaries and pay low citizens wages. We want to be citizens where democracy means dialogue with the citizenry and not destruction of their lives and livelihoods.

Attacks on IDPs in camps towns and villages and especially the Mangu killings believed to be between 150 and 200 real lives, Fellow Nigerian souls have minimised life. All are preventable deaths if there is adequate military and intelligence and drone support.

We are all witness to the horse-trading going on over consensus, zoning, non-zoning representation, rights, rewards and recycling, new nonaligned AND non-APC candidature for four powerful places in the National Assembly, NASS -the leadership and deputy leadership of Senate and House of Representatives.  If only all these political moves would lead to a better NASS and a better politics and subsequently a better Nigeria. Perhaps they will but perhaps they will not especially considering the destructive, rather that constructive, nature of past NASSes vis-à-vis the deliberately, socially reprehensibly insensitive prolonged delay in the funding of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, (LIE), and the resultant unlimited suffering maliciously inflicted on the citizenry.

Remember that these same members of NASS arrogantly cancelled the proposed budget to finish the road three or four years ago and diverted 135billion out of N150billion to mostly questionable Constitutional Projects. More recently in a last gasp effort to drag Nigeria back into the slavery and serfdom, the dying days of the current NASS proudly gave second reading to a bill to force medical doctors to remain deregistered for five years and unable to leave Nigeria. What arrogance. Both are evidence of the misconception and perhaps abuse of the power of NASS. Count the cost of the billions or even trillions of working hours, naira, days, litres of fuel, poisonous exhaust fumes  and breaths wasted, produced and even lost in horrendous torture on that road.

Both are examples of deviant anti-democratic behaviour by the highest political bodies in the country that has rendered the country a shadow of its expected beautiful bride self in the comity of nations, a disappointment when compared to its sibling countries of similar age and colonial oppression. Of course, there has been foreign participation in this aberrant political behaviour at variance with the norms in other countries and it truly has further contributed to the ‘The Rape of Nigeria, The Beautiful Bride.’ Our own citizens entrusted with the keys to the country and its copious coffers and saddled, by virtue of the Pledge of Office, with the responsibility for the protection of the virtue of Nigeria the beautiful bride, act like pimps, turning Nigeria into a repeatedly abused prostitute forced by the abusive authorities to service the greed of local and foreign nationals. Many foreign banks are awash with the proceeds of that rape having advertised for secret accounts as far back as the 1960s on the back pages of West Africa and similar magazines.  

Nigeria has previously been married against her will to some of many suitors in do-or-die, kill-and-go corrupted contests mis-called FAF, ‘Free And Fair’ pseudo-democratic elections where the rights of the electorate were denied by immoral political forces. She has been kidnapped by different ranks in her armed forces boasting ‘self-acclaimed patriotism’ or ‘retaliation for perceived or actual wrongdoing’ or ‘I-can-do-it better- than-you’ reneging on or modified their mandate of ‘protection of country and citizen’ and, instead, turning the beautiful bride into a beautiful prize of a war on one’s citizens and country and placed her in the cruel criminally minded care of greed driven jailers and murderous minders. Now some people are talking of a second interim government as if that is in any way legal and without reference to the fate of the first ‘fake’ interim government in the time of Babangida. We all know what happened during the subsequent terror and avarice of the Abacha era. We are still receiving trickles of Abacha loot. When we see any and every politician, try to see into their minds. Most except maybe a president and vice president should not be stood up for. Even some governors would find it hard to qualify.  We raise them up by standing and are surprised when they mutate into monsters. Yes, we are a respectful country – a two-way street. But the leadership and the politicians do not respect us. So we the citizens should make a Bill FOR STANDING: Nigerians will only stand for the president and vice president. You may add governors who are mini-presidents of 3-15m citizens. But they must be deserving. But we must not stand for ministers and commissioners. Perhaps we can introduce ‘taking a seat’ just as a ‘taking a knee’ as a protest.         

The suffering citizens have to go through to get a passport is mostly disgraceful human collusion and human failure. The very idea that passports are not printed in sufficient numbers for distribution to all states and foreign embassies suggests an ignorance of the magnitude of the duties and responsibilities and an incompetence of monumental proportions. In a normal country, it is not possible to underfund budgets of adequate, delay routine passport production in excess of demand without being sacked. The passport office has been in the hands of one or two ethnic groups since forever. Why? Certainly, the leadership has failed to deliver on its core mandate passports. Is no one else equally trustworthy or more efficient in the country? Is it a government plan to strangle the supply of passports?

The incoming government must make passport turnaround times two weeks. More capture points, more IT specialists and more passports. Shorter waiting time – not nuclear physics. Just rights of citizens and responsibilities of governance denied until now. But it is getting worse not better. Politicians and civil servants who slow down service-delivery, like failing to deliver passports in 2-4 weeks, should be removed and penalised. 

Electric buses are available in several African countries. Now they are said to be in Lagos. Hurray! But where will they get electricity in a city largely working on generator power? Questions are being raised on the actual cost of the buses. It is a transparency matter. Simple.

If Nigeria is to be rescued and not subjected to more rape, it must grow at the state level and not only the federal level. Every four years the citizens yearn for an improvement in their lives.  Nigeria deserves to be much better off than it is. The real danger is that if we have more of the same disregard for the citizenry we will sink further into the disarray and despair and financial embarrassment.

The question is how to guarantee that the 2023-2027 class of political office holders live up to the people’s expectations. Constant public pressure and scrutiny will help. We must put in place from day one mechanisms to detect fraud and diversion of funds long before large sums are stolen. The political class must be instructed on the consequences to citizen and country of any and every theft and urged to keep the Pledge they swear to every day and live up to the National Anthem.

This also applies to the 2023-2027 class of contractors and civil servants. How do we convince them, and every employee, that ONE YEAR OF HONESTY will change Nigeria and we will all demand another year of honesty and so on. ‘Nigeria needs Rescue, not more Rape.’

SERAP, Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project, is suing the Federal Government for contempt in connection with failure to recover over N40b pensions allocated to former Governors. Nigerians are also against payments, such as cash, vehicles every four years and houses in state and Abuja. They demonstrate maximum greed as every governor is reasonably well-off before taking office, and this well-offness never deteriorates during office.

 Many of the governors served as chief financial officers of states which did not pay salaries or pensions as and when due, and indeed owed pensions sometimes for years. Governors should be realistic and know that this is just ‘Governor Greed’ and oversteps the honourable bounds of Good Governance.

This matter should never have come up as Nigeria is facing serious economic, security and public office holder trust issues. It is a distasteful disgraceful misuse of office. They worked and were well paid for their 4 years or 8 years including the so-called security vote believed not to be subject to any audit or scrutiny ‘for security reasons.’    Hundreds of thousands of Fellow Nigerians were 7-10 hours and longer on the LIE, Lagos Ibadan Expressway, on Sunday, the 7th May 2023, in four to five lanes aside for up to 30Km or more.

No, this time it was not due to the construction though the construction compounded the matter later. For some years, it has been pointed out that the basic LIE design has too few emergency crossover points which could remain closed until an emergency occurs blocking one side. During such a LIE closure, the road crossing could be opened under the authority of the road traffic agencies to allow traffic to loop to the other side of the road for three or four kilometres and then cross back to the correct side at the next emergency crossover bypassing the accident area. All this in an orderly supervised manner.

A petrol tanker heading towards Ibadan had some accident, ending up lying on its side, and apparently petrol had to be syphoned off to prevent a fire in the Ibafo area of the LIE. The incident blocked the Ibadan- bound traffic from early morning and probably the previous night. Many vehicles changed sides into the Lagos-bound lane facing oncoming traffic and succeeded in bringing that lane to a stop also. Now the stuck Lagos-bound traffic also decided to reverse and change sides and drive down the Lagos-Ibadan side, and succeeded in stopping any traffic which managed to escape the original cause of the traffic gridlock. The mayhem was compounded by the arrogance of the drivers insisting on their right of way. Traffic was at a standstill for a long time.

 Many vehicles, endeavoring to escape at any costs, were directed into the sideroads around Mowe/Ibafo. Sadly, those roads are narrow, with gullies and poor road surface resulting in further traffic gridlock on the so-called escape route. The routes were manned by entrepreneurial or opportunistic, sometimes aggressive and sometimes nice local area boys, some of whom were fond of extracting money per vehicle entering their area of operation. Motorists were between the devil and the deep blue sea.  

Dangote refinery is due for commissioning by outgoing President Buhari on May 22. We anticipate the results and the costs to the consumer. Dangote’s previous business ventures in cement and flour and sugar were not marked by any reasonable home-grown advantage pricewise. Will the refinery products be any different?  

About 58 victims of kidnappers were rescued by police and other security outfits. This is fantastic news. We are still hoping and praying that the remaining Chibok Girls and others kidnapped around the country are being actively sought so that the Buhari government does not hand over any ‘Awaiting Action’ or ‘Pending’ files on kidnapping, especially of children. The parents are owed their children by the 2017-2023 Buhari government.  Deliver these kidnapped children to their parents.  

WATER RESOURCES BILL WARNING: ASSEMBLY MEMBERS BEWARE! This is the exact time that the obnoxious National Water Resources Bill, rejected in 2018 and 2020, will be represented or smuggled in surreptitiously at this end-stage 9th or early 10th Assembly using the infamous ‘Saraki Technique’ – get political things done quickly during the horse-trading, euphoria, depression and confusion of the ‘Assembly 9 to 10 Transition.’ Watch out. It could be placed in the middle of a long list or big pile of ‘Let us Quickly finish our work and Pass these Bills’ I beg you all, just to tidy up our exit or entry.’

BE ALERT!! ACTIVELY STOP THE WATER RESOURCES BILL FROM SLIPPING THROUGH THE 9TH ASSEMBLY OR BEGINNING OF THE 10TH ASSEMBLY.

Kara Bridge crash and fire. Five dead due probably to the impatience, impunity, lack of maintenance and overriding ‘might is right’ arrogance of commercial drivers, be they okada, danfo or heavier duty vehicles. Their lawlessness is now ‘legal.’ The citizens are now at fault and beg them for legal right of way.

Meanwhile the road authorities have questionable education programmes and ignore the Okada Epidemic which degenerates frequently into an ‘Okada Lynching Gang’ even when the okada is wrong. Police should hold the zonal okada union officials responsible for the criminal and murderous activities of members and every okada rider needs to have a ‘Recognizable Serial Number’ for OKADA ID-entification during nefarious activities even as Nigeria is on the descent into total anarchy.

 How do we re-teach humane, respectful dealings between citizens to citizens ready to fight a friend to the death for N50 while billions are stolen and misappropriated by the people they praise? A job for the National Orientation Agency?   

Nigeria has been described as many things, including ‘The Beautiful Bride’ with a huge attractive annually renewable dowry for her citizens but which funds, stolen and secretly criminally plea-bargained away annually in hundreds of billions, are sequestered by pariah politicians, boa constrictor contractors, corrupt civil servants and avaricious agencies of gluttonous government leaving the masses suffering, underachieving, dying or dead from the theft of the masses’ money. 

The evidence of abuse of the beautiful bride called Nigeria is sadly all around us, seen in children’s eyes. We are suffering the abuse constantly, which is why so many travel for medical care, every business has a generator and alternative water supply, there are 20+million Nigerians living in political and economic refugee status abroad and 100+millions, by living below the poverty line shaming shamelessly parasitic politicians.

Exam question: Why is Nigeria, our beautiful bride, nearly or actually last in all positive Sustainable Developmental Goals and other indices, and nearly or actually first in bad moral and other indices in world ranking? Answer: Corruption – financial and by negative antipeople action and inaction. 

Nigeria deserves rescue not more rape!

PROBLEM PROJECTS FOR THE INCOMING GOVERNMENT NEEDING QUICK STARTS FOR LONG TERM RESULTS:

ENFORCING OUR PLEDGE of Justice, Faithfulness, Loyalty, Honesty, not rape and plunder! We cannot wait for government officials to steal 100b or the injustice of four years of ‘UnFederal Character.’ We demand quick discovery and public plea-bargaining if any at all.   

COST OF GOVERNANCE: Operation Economic Rescue…The government must lead and re-educate Nigeria’s politicians on reducing financial expectations and engineer a reduction in total remuneration by 75% for the Federal Executive Council and National Assembly. The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) must downsize the political budget because of our crippling debts and put politicians on upper rungs of the civil service structure levels 15,16,17, 18, 19 and remove the political super-Salaries And Perks and Pensions- ‘SAPPing’ Nigeria dry and Government must cancel the curse of budgetary Constitutional Projects.

FOREIGN RESERVES: Increase targets and expectations… Our foreign reserves should have been $100-200b+ considering our huge dollar earnings and population. Before we boast of our now $36b = $0.2b/1m population we should be reminded that the apartheid ravaged South Africa has $60b foreign reserves for 59m =$1b/1million citizens, Even Ghana has $9+b for 32m =$0.3 b/1m citizens, more than Nigeria.  Our Singapore sister in post-colonial economic need at independence now has $281b for 5+m citizens= $5.5b/1m citizens. So, Nigeria is in a weaker foreign reserve position than our co-colonial survivor Ghana. 

TAKE INTEREST IN NIGERIANS ABROAD: ‘Make Nigeria great again’…. Every time there is a conflict, we are surprised at the number of our fellow Nigerian citizens engulfed. South Africa, Ukraine, Turkey, Libya, Sudan, Ghana, desperate illegal economic and social migrants crossing the Sahara with drownings around Lampedusa. Anywhere there is suffering to be experienced, Nigerians seem to be first to be there for that suffering appears better than the suffering at home inflicted by a generation of gluttonous political leadership depriving citizens of dignity, hope and happiness on home soil and everything needed for a decent living with social opportunities and even denying some the right to life with wrongful incarceration and death.

DEBT REDUCTION STRATEGIES: We have a huge debt burden around N77trillion or roughly N400,000, around the neck of every Nigerian.

RESTORE NAIRA VALUE AND DIGNITY: Wrestle the black market from the black marketers who thrive on a hugely weakened dollar-naira exchange rate which operates on the philosophy of ‘you work for your money and we will play with your money by halving its dollar value whenever we feel.’ 

ELECTRICITY: SOLAR POWER THE CITIZENS OF NIGERIA ASAP: not generator-powered street lighting.     

Politicians should stop being infected with widespread ‘Grandiose Delusions’ disease common to almost all politicians in Nigeria. The japa syndrome is fulfilling the human right to travel abroad for better opportunities and better care of family, one’s primary human responsibility. 

Japa-itis is not caused by the Nigerian doctor who is about to be punished for being stupid enough to get among the best grades in school and becoming a Nigerian doctor whether he or she trained in a poorly funded federal, state or private medical school. Japaitis is due firstly to the persistent political disease – the politicians’ 60-year decision to deliberately underfund the budget with ‘INADEQUATE HEALTH, EDUCATION and POWER BUDGETARY ALLOCATION’ which should be 12-20% to pay workers well and provide equipment and 24/7 power as found abroad for medical & educational & power facilities. Even that would not be enough to cover corruption level deficits.

 A close second cause of japaitis is the WORSENING NAIRA VALUE with no increase in Salaries & Perks and Pensions to anyone except the professional politician and padded budgets. This compounded the inability of doctors, nurses, technologists and IT workers and all others to meet personal professional goals and domestic commitments.

A professional unable to feed and educate the family is a disgrace prone to mental issues like depression, aggression etc. Decisions must be made for family survival and progress, including work-related trips to self-respecting societies which themselves may have some problems as witnessed by strikes in the UK and France.

 Politicians-no-de-hear-word anywhere. This was compounded by a long history of a combination of poor, dirty working conditions, unstable remuneration, broken service conditions, irregular and fractionated salary and poor federal, state and LGA financial policies, poor policing and distribution of available funds, limited positions with attractive employment and job opportunities.

All these are in the full control of the professional politician and not the professional in medicine.  

Yes, there is japa syndrome and the only employed profession not japaing is the political class. Ask yourself why? The reason is known to every non-politician Nigerian. Politicians are the only ones with decent remuneration, i.e., taxpayers’ subsidies, in Nigeria. Go and look at the stupendous government ‘Political Salaries and Perks and Pensions’ and CONSTITUENCY PROJECT FUNDS to know why not.

 Politicians do not have two heads, two brains or even two bottoms and do not do twice or even HALF as much work as other government employees, doctors included, so why should politicians pay themselves so much more each month than do doctors, engineers, technologists, nurses, IT, agriculturists teachers and then punish doctors in particular for wanting to move to where they can get economic rights to support their families enshrined in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Law.   Since these professionals cannot be paid such huge amounts, it requires politicians to cut their SAPPs down by 75% to a scale in the civil service scheme in the region of directors and permanent secretaries.

The origin of the japa syndrome in medicine aka ‘brain drain’ is not a medical affair and medical doctors should not be identified as scapegoats to be punished for it. The diagnosis of the doctor as the cause of the ‘brain drain disease’ is wrong. The prescription of ‘five years imprisonment in Nigeria’ is wrong and the disease japaitis or brain drain will continue and worsen. Students work very hard to get into and even harder to stay in medical school. On graduation, most doctors work very hard, sometimes in conditions made impossible by the politician underfunding medical service delivery. Doctors who remain and new doctors should not be shackled in this way.

We should criminalise non-provision of SDGS like 24/7 UNINTERRUPTED power SUPPLY which paralyses day and nighttime activities like the blood bank chain, operating theatre operations and laboratory services for a large part of every single working day in hospitals and clinics nationwide. It paralyses lecture and laboratory and research and reading time in the primary, secondary and tertiary education systems. We should criminalise the non-provision of refineries, an international disgrace and a huge financial burden on Nigerians.

This after 62 years of independence and broken political promises. It is the politician who should be banned from travelling, once he takes any political office, for five years. He or she should be banned from owning or running a generator, and should use only the medical and educational and electricity facilities in his or her state for five years. Kia-kia our electricity, health and education problems will disappear.

Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye, retired from the Kogi State judiciary as an expert in electronic jurisprudence, an area pertinent to our current judicial journey with its fake, fraudulently altered and fickle tsunami of documentation, evidence, and even audiovisual fact, fiction and fantasy. These pollute social media and cyberspace content, some correct information or even comedy but turned by 419ers, hackers, unscrupulous bloggers and miss-informers. Fake news was initially the preserve of a criminally minded political class and the class of ‘spin doctors’ whose sole employment criterion was deception and disenfranchisement of the electorate and derailment of the election. As a result, no picture, story, video, document or report can be taken as ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ without expert, critical, forensic IT analysis. ‘Congratulations,’ wishing Justice a successful retirement teaching tertiary judicial electronic regulation to the professionals of tomorrow.

Professor Christian Happi, professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Redeemer’s University, a private university in Ede Osun State, has just won the 2023 Al-Sumait Prize for African Development from His Highness The Crown Prince of Kuwait, Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, on behalf of the Government and People of Kuwait. This is a magnificent achievement speaking to what can be achieved by service to populations by Africa’s scientists and their teams on home soil when their institutions are fully-funded by international and local donors in a university system which welcomes and works with them, solving their problems rather than hindering them with academic, administrative and financial bureaucracy which frustrates scientists forcing them abroad for survival and satisfaction.

The truth is that the political and civil service class disrespect scientists forgetting that their smart cars, cellphones, drinks, food and homes are from the research of scientists and technological wizards, properly funded and salaried for years.

Nigeria and particularly Ibadan are blessed with many tertiary and post-tertiary research institutions founded with genuine academic and research-usefulness goals. They used to deliver usable results but now almost uniformly suffer from the decay of CINS – Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence Selfishness – manifest by politicised boards of governance and management, with unskilled leadership, underfunding with neglect manifest by salaries without funds for research or even maintenance. Most Nigerian research laboratories are grimy-windowed, cobwebbed, dust-infested, rodent residences, only cleaned when a dignitary is expected.

These laboratories cry out through budgetary requests for the multi-millions needed for mundane and cutting-edge equipment for usable results. But the purse-string holding civil servants in supervising ministries and the budget-hawk politicians in Houses of Assembly at state and national level would rather spend N50-60m buying a useless but visible jeep than an electron microscope unseen in a sterile laboratory.

But the problem is worse than even that. You can be underfunded and still be clean but not in Nigeria. Visit any lecture hall or demonstration room in most universities. Why do most cleaners only barely manage to sweep passages but no under-tables, corners or remove cobwebs or marks from walls and identify for immediate repair broken chairs in Nigeria’s classrooms from primary school to PhD lecture room? Even if the institution is broke can the cobwebs and windows not be cleaned?

Please, never seek a clean usable toilet in any tertiary institution as they are almost uniformly all under lock and key for ‘senior bottoms’. So, man or woman, as you are banned from the official lavatory, get ready to ‘pee against a tree’! And then be caught on camera and prosecuted by campus security, hehe!

Professor Happi’s success, almost a Nobel Prize, is hope and inspiration for thousands of Africa’s scientists and not just the highly-skilled scientists working and training in his laboratory. When he tried to establish the genome laboratory, Redeemer’s University immediately saw the credibility value. Many other university environments are too politically toxic to new ideas, new personnel and new quicker work ways.

The Happi success story is from a life-long dedication to scientific excellence, an adequate reward system, an equal-opportunity access to international research funds and grants and the benefit of having impacted the WHO positively even before Covid.

What are the lessons learnt and the relevance to Nigeria of the success of Professor Happi’s research in Covid and other areas as we enter the 2023-2027 political cycle? Yes, politics impacts science, often negatively. Each state should liaise with local and national research institutes to identify mutually beneficial areas. Certainly, Nigeria’s political period 2023-2027 must provide budgetary funding for research, like South Africa does. The chief lesson is that Nigeria has neglected its scientists at its peril. Only a serious 2023-27political effort may adequately fund, for equipment and research, all the research institutes towards the Research and Development, R&D, needs of states and Nigeria.

We can all recite acronyms for our research institutions. CRIN, FRIN, NISER, IAR&T etcetera but what impact do they have locally? We are not yet eating CRIN chocolates.

Our governors for four or eight years could partner more with such institutions for R&D for the benefit of local citizenry. The research institutions are machines needing funding to run smoothly. The IITA stands out, like Professor Happi’s lab, for being massively internationally funded. Nigeria’s R&D needs cannot be met and the country cannot survive or thrive unless the civil service and political class jettison corruption in thought, word and deed in favour of progress. For example, the Makinde government linkages with IITA and other linkages like University of lbadan and other universities should be upgraded and expanded for more local training and wider research benefits from agriculture to traffic control, reaching farmers and solving mounting traffic jams.

We ignore the research institutions, allowing them to decay, endangering us. AN UNDERUTILIZED R&D INSTITUTION IS AN ABANDONED PROJECT. The 2023-27 tenure requires new research directions. In four years, targeted research can translate into development. Annually universities have numerous local under and post graduate projects requiring translation into developmental action. What a waste. While we rejoice with Professor Happi, who is a brilliant Cameroonian African scientist, we remain unhappy with Nigerian research quality, quantity and use. Let 2023-2027 politics bring more funds and more cooperation in institutional ‘Research & Development’ – a political decision.