The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Raise IT budgets for courts, Police efficiency

    Raise IT budgets for courts, Police efficiency

    The commendable success of the police in tracking and arresting the participants in the despicable armed robbery and home invasion which led to the occupant falling from the balcony rather than face a terrible ordeal and certain death caused by young aggressive very evil men. It is reported that some were arrested en route another robbery. Thank goodness or we could now be reporting on another murder. Congratulations to the police everywhere!

    Only the police will be able to tell us, after interrogation, how long they have been robbing and killing without being detected, investigated seriously or detected or even arrested during their years of criminal existence in and around Abuja and Zamfara. Hopefully, this interrogation will lead to further arrests and solving of other older unsolved cases. Could this be because past victims did not have the massive social media and mainstream media reach and political backlash leverage surrounding the wickedly motivated attack and murder of or sadly deceased ARISE TV journalist?

    We know that the nation is facing under-policing made worse because the police is severely overstretched with a sizable percentage of active service personnel allocated to ‘VIP GUARD DUTY’, some guarding handbags while elsewhere for example seven were killed in a Kaduna attack in the last few days. It would be a resounding achievement by the police and army if the attackers of these more recently murdered Fellow Nigerians, the  latest ‘Kaduna Seven’, as yet unnamed and without social media clout, are also arrested ‘with immediate effect’ by a similar police and military operation.

    Too many crimes are let go unless the victims’ relations escalate the matter and often have to fund parts of the investigation process themselves. Exactly how much is allocated to each police station for crime reporting and investigation. In most cases even paper and pen are required from the victim’s family for writing statements and ‘transport money’ moving around is standard. This brings down the value of our many well trained highly capable hard-working police in the eyes of the citizenry. We must make adequate provisions for all police to do their best work in all their cases and not just for certain cases.

    Nigeria is supposed to be recruiting 30,000 new policemen and women. There are many stories swirling around the coming of state police and ‘local knowledge’ benefits and the ‘political abuse/private state governor or LGA chairman’s army’ dangers. We await the political conclusion and subsequent positive results on both issues -recruitment and state police.  

    But then we are still in Nigeria, a country in which judges are still forced to personally record cross-examination and opinions in handwriting in court when most of the rest of the world has stenographers, computers, in court live video recordings and even INSTANT SPEECH-TO-TEXT FACILITIES – available on your phone now! These are to quickly accumulate and confirm accuracy of case-related legal information transmission. Is there a conspiracy against modernising the court system in Nigeria?

    Is there a group that wants to keep justice slow and unsteady with cases taking years, some up to 20-30 years?  We are in a country with 200,000-250,000 lawyers and many more at the cutting edge of international law practice while living abroad and with approximately 700 SANs. In spite of this massive legal brain power, the citizens suffer under the agonisingly slow court system clearly demonstrating ‘JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED’. There are annual hugely expensive NBA meetings all dedicated to assessing and improving the self-acclaimed ‘Learned Profession’, though many other professions dispute the justice and legality of this ‘self-crowning with cerebral excess’.

    Read Also: IDS, ActionAid partner to deepen fight against poverty in Nigeria

    The citizens expect, no demand, a unity between the traditional red, silk and black robes and assorted wigs, seen in court, to spearhead modern police station legal procedures and a smoother, more efficient, less daily expensive court recording procedure backed by the NBA. Many lawyers are in the National Assembly, NASS, and the corridors of political power and can collectively improve the judiciary budget.

    The judiciary budget is for an independent branch of government and should advance the cause of justice delivery nationwide, not just in Abuja.

    The training of personnel or recruitment of IT staff and computerisation of evidence taking  for all police stations and courts across Nigeria should be top of the agenda of the Tinubu government, state governments and LGAs, Body of Benchers, judges committees, SAN and NBA.  The citizens are tired of waiting for ever for justice.

    In contrast politicians always get what they want. The politicians get the police as guards, needed by the rest of us. The politicians get quick decisions on election matters at special short-lived  ‘Election Tribunals’ while citizens’ cases take years ‘or till death’. Politicians have ridiculous multi-million naira monthly incomes while the citizens get a pittance as minimum wage.   IT IS TIME THE CITIZENS GOT BETTER RECEPTION IN POLICE STATIONS, SHORTER TIME IN COURT AND ANOTHER FREE AND FAIR ELECTION LIKE 1993.   

    For too long Nigeria has tolerated, fought, lost gallant personnel and JTF members and witnessed resurgence of Boko Haram, bandits, terrorists and some violent herders with poorly sustained repercussions and many rehabilitation strategies copycatting but outdoing the Nigeria Delta militants settlements programmes.

    We must curb these dangers before the election for 2027-2031 when the police will again be spread too thinly to counter the evil political elements strategizing now to fight Nigeria and INEC, with ballot rigging and violence.

    Nigerian citizens@65 deserve better!

  • Libraries + Computers +AI= 21st C Education

    Libraries + Computers +AI= 21st C Education

    As we celebrate the girl-child and remember the Chibok Girls, now women, held in captivity, we must ensure that all qualified girls register for the next election. It is their right and required to help right any wrong done them when growing up. New INEC chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, please empower the millions of 2019-2027 14–18-year-olds who will have matured to voting age by 2027.

    Education is facing a tsunami change in information dissemination strategies with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, AI. Unfortunately, too many Nigerian students, now adults were cheated of library books throughout school life. Millions including teachers have never held a novel, encyclopaedia or a proper dictionary.

    Now the Federal Ministry of Education, UBEC and other government education agencies are jumping the void of no books and no libraries and no grants to buy books across the school spectrum. Just like with the cell phone, our education system appears to at last be going digital. Hurray and can one go without the other or should they go together- a good library system and a good computer, IT/AI system?

    Digitalisation of public schools with integration of Interactive Smart Boards spearheaded by the minister, Tunji Alausa is the way forward. The education tsunami is not partisan. Our children are not partisan; they are entitled to education, period!

    Just last week Governor Seyi Makinde launched a program to train 18,000 teachers on the use of teaching materials including tablets. Hopefully the teachers will receive their tablets and the tablets will not be stolen by criminals or taken back or diverted by supervising civil servant. We need regular weekly inventory checks. If this tech/AI project works and materializes along with other programmes nationwide, perhaps our youth will also leap onto the present wave of computer-powered knowledge sweeping the world. AI is being taught to kindergarten (KG) students in villages across China and even Vietnam with emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, and AI. PhD graduates teach KG and primary school in many Western countries. Many of our KG and primary school teachers are not fit for purpose. Nigeria and its officials must take such giant leaps in education to catch up.

    As we stand on the brink of opportunity to leap into the new world of AI, it is worth remembering a similar time in history. In 1998 at Educare Trust at Brick House we set up the first Educare Trust Youth Exhibition Centre and put the first public access computer in the hands of the children of Ibadan with a computer then donated by Tunji Adepeju of Project Link. It was amazing then to see those children, now 35–45-year adults, gather around in wonder to navigate the new beast of technology presented to them. They cautiously typed their name and their faces lit up in huge smiles of wonder as they were surprised to see the letters appear on the computer screen. The rest they say is history. But it was never enough and government did not jump on the bandwagon to make its army of students in public schools computer literate then or even at this time -30+ years later.  As years went by, we trained over 8,000 youth in IT and many others indirectly. Nigerians are still waiting for the youth centres so desperately needed in each ward nationwide. Hopefully they will be part of the Ward Development Strategy promised by the Tinubu government.

    Read Also: Davido announces ‘5IVE’ tour across Nigeria

    There is a security and a power problem in most schools and these problems must be addressed if IT tablets and smart white boards are to replace or complement chalk and blackboards in public schools. Solar is the solution. Education strategies cost money and great moral willpower often lacking in politicians and governance structures.  Government must pursue this effort to its logical end- the empowerment of our teaming youth trapped in schools which are too often not fit-for-purpose. 

    Every youth in, or out of school, is the child of a mother with went through the agony of ‘The Labour War-d’, risking and giving their lives, so that the child would live to today. For tomorrow, the child needs good modern education today. Yet today we as government and private sector provide too little, too late support for those youth in unfortunate circumstances; private school facilities and teacher skills are fat better. Of course, some youth will excel even in public education because they are naturally brilliant. But a good education, like good governance, is also the right of underserved and underfunded students. Not everyone, rich or poor, is born brilliant.  Nigeria should use private and public sector partnerships to jump into the future, today. 

    The jury faces bitter conflict between the need for a library vs the need for computers. Most schools have neither but they should have both. They are equally essential in today’s education tapestry and equally valuable and not mutually exclusive stepping stones to a level playing field of educational knowledge empowerment. Schools need computers and also libraries with government bought Nigerian authored books.

    Some governments have policies to prevent parents contributing voluntarily to improve facilities in schools. This is taking politics too far into the classroom. Even the richest schools worldwide ask parents to contribute, so the poorest schools cannot meet international teaching levels if they are denied the huge input of volunteer parents into the ‘School Needs List’ that every school should have. We must stop this education treachery.  

  • Free ectopic pregnancy & CS; ID Politicians

    Free ectopic pregnancy & CS; ID Politicians

    Happy World Teachers Day. May we empower, equip and pay them to better win the education war.  Amen.

    Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN pledges to introduce clean naira notes. Good. Hopefully the good work of the Tinubu government and governor of CBN, Yemi Cardoso and his team to service proper mechanisms for proper use of available funds, naira and dollar, and the efforts to prevent fraud in the supply and service chains like customs and the oil sector, will also improve the value of the clean notes.

    At the behest of the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, the bank moguls, often rightly vilified for their greed, collectively released N60b of funds earned from Nigerian citizens’ money in the very profitable bank balances of trillion naira-a-year banks for the refurbishment of the Wole Soyinka National Theatre. Hurray for Sanwo-Olu’s wisdom in choosing to leverage on and actually create a Mega-Public Private Partnership. This is most likely the largest in Nigeria and the way forward. Congratulations to the bank moguls and all involved. However, the curse of most government projects and some in the private sector is poor maintenance.

    Hopefully, having expended such a huge sum in resuscitating the WS National Theatre, these same bank moguls have an adequate maintenance blueprint. We have just refurbished the multibillion-naira Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and already, as reported recently in this column, a chronic lack of political will and civil service supervision and maintenance has resulted in thousands of islands of weeds and grass growing along the concrete barrier. Shame!

    Read Also: 98% of Nigerian workers to be exempted from PAYE tax from January 2026 — Oyedele

    The Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, SOGON, and women’s groups should together fight the danger of death from ectopic pregnancy. Hospital frontline staff and administrators should be ordered to release ‘GUIDELINES FOR ECTOPIC PREGNANCY CASES’. Ectopic pregnancy patients bleed inside, not outside. No blood is seen by the staff to alert them to the serious situation. The patient can deteriorate very quickly, within five minutes and collapse and die while the staff are selfishly haggling with the patient or the family over the patient’s insurance or ability to pay. Even with money some patients are turned away to avoid ‘inconvenience to the staff or hospital’. Maybe the staff want to close or are just coming on duty.

    No medical service with the capability to perform emergency surgery should be allowed to reject such patients. The patient has a high chance of dying while being conveyed to another hospital which also could also reject her if she arrived alive. That second rejection will almost certainly be a death sentence. When I was in practice, I introduced the 15-minute rule for ectopic pregnancy patients. It meant that from diagnosis in the casualty or clinic, to rushing the patient to theatre for knife-on-skin, it should not take more than 15 minutes.

    Some patients’ families will run away, deserting the patients resulting in zero hope of recovering the funds expended on surgery. It is also true that sometimes the medical personnel are unfairly and wrongly burdened by conviction or compassion, with raising the ‘lost’ surgical funds.

    Unknown to readers, many doctors throughout the country and probably widely in the developing world, pay towards drugs, investigations and surgery procedures for many needy patients, rather than have those same patients abandoned, refused admission or discharged to suffer and even die because they were financially challenged. Delay in ectopic pregnancy care is a death sentence. Period. 

    We heard a lot around a ‘FREE CAESARIAN SECTION’ policy.  Hurray! We await its introduction to help level the financially uneven delivery ground for what is the ‘MOST DANGEROUS DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WOMAN AND CHILD’ in the ‘LABOUR WAR-D’. Why not decisively deal politically with these twin maternal medical emergencies at the beginning and end of the pregnancy spectrum and introduce a ‘free caesarean section and free ectopic pregnancy for those who cannot afford them’?

    When implemented countrywide, ‘FREE CAESARIAN SECTION & FREE ECTOPIC PREGNANCY FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT AFFORD THEM’, will bring comfort to millions of families, noting that 70% of the citizenry are poor. It is a worthy investment in the health service delivered to women and in families especially when we consider the amount of money stolen as attested to by the huge sums for which many politicians are taken to court for by ICPC and EFCC, even if they are not convicted due to technical and other loopholes.  

    For years it has been advocated that Nigeria should have adopted a warlike stance against Boko Haram and its fellow terrorism travellers years ago. It did not and now we are facing a serious low and high tech, including terrorist drone, escalation. Certainly, Nigeria should adopt a much more warlike attitude to acknowledge the cost in our millions displaced, injured and killed and our security heroes past who have fallen fighting Boko Haram since 2009. A warlike footage must cut cost of politics, including the ludicrous cost of political forms for the coming elections and diverting such funds to the military and psychological defeat of the terrorists.  

     A warlike stance against Boko Haram and other terrorists can only become a reality if we take seriously the combined past and present plight of our dead and more than five million Internally Displaced Persons. We demand a new pressure group – ‘INTERNALLY DISPLACED POLITICIANS’ – IDPOL- made up of politicians who cannot go back home, because of terrorism and Boko Haram. Nigeria must defeat terrorism, Amen              

  • 44th OLUBADAN; Nigeria @ 65: Great education expectations

    44th OLUBADAN; Nigeria @ 65: Great education expectations

    As we celebrate the enthronement of Oba Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, aged 81, as the 44th Olubadan of Ibadanland and absorb his call for an Ibadan State, let us appreciate his personal journey through life from being poor to becoming a brilliant mathematics student to becoming senator and Oyo State governor in 2003. His dream as governor was to have 30 students a class; he himself had 26 students in his own class in school. He took his dream, as governor of Oyo State to Abuja.

    Sadly he did not serve as governor long enough to carry out his plan and Oyo State is the worse for it, all these years later even today. The then Governor Ladoja had his tenure truncated and he was removed due to the then reigning political evil of the day which placed presidential whims and caprices over and above the will of the people. The public domain is unaware if there was any presidential regret for the removal, but Oba Ladoja is certainly having the last laugh due hopefully to his God-given longevity, the righteousness of his case, and the unjustified quantum of political evil dealt him just for being naturally kind-natured. We wish Kabiyesi Rashidi Ladoja a long, exponentially progressive and peaceful reign. Amen.

    One thing government must take up is that we must teach that not everyone who wants to set up a stall or trade or even run a keke or an okada in every market can have that privilege or be accommodated in 2025. There is no longer space for everyone. Nowhere in the world can 50 tri-cycles (keke), 100 commercial motor-cycles (okada) and 500 traders be squeezed into existing spaces. They should be enumerated, given numbers and allocated spaces. Move the excess elsewhere, like in other areas. The encroachment of the unlimited traders with their baskets and wheelbarrows on the road lanes and keke lines strangles Ibadan at various points like the entire Mokola, Bodija, Agodi and Mapo areas making movement a nightmare in daylight and endangering even our children. Perhaps methods of numbering and allocation of spaces need to be revisited and updated to make better use of the amazing new roads in Ibadan to help speed up traffic and stop the unnecessary traffic jams. The inability of the authority to maintain two functioning lanes through the above markets, and the ease with which the police on duty ignore the need to open such roads daily makes things worse.     

    Read Also: Governors, Atiku, Jibrin, Kalu, Mark, Fayemi: Nigeria’s challenges surmountable

    Happy 65th Birthday Nigeria. It is difficult to be happy when so many Fellow Nigerians have been senselessly killed by terrorists and herders, also terrorists actually, and other individuals and groups who use murder of innocent unarmed citizens and sometimes armed and uniformed service personnel for no just cause. At this time of celebration, we are reminded, if we have forgotten, by our government at the Africa Union, that we still have 10+million children out of school in a country which started free education 60 years ago.

    Let us re-ask ourselves why a country like ours has over 10 million out of school children in spite of its God-given wealth. Let every thief in Nigeria, rich or poor, political or contractor or civil servant or ‘uniform’ or Bank and CBN beneficiary, accept responsibility for being the direct cause of those 10m+ out of school children. They must accept full responsibility for the consequence of their collective past and perhaps ongoing nefarious activities of depriving those 10m of schooling.   Ten million is a big army of youth to grow to adulthood without education. This is a recipe for state destruction in 10 years or more.

    Surely, we can all see the simplest, easiest and cheapest solution is to have a ‘MASSIVE 10 MILLION IN SCHOOL PROGRAMME WITH AFTERNOON CLASSES THE EXISTING CLASSROOMS RUNNING TWICE DAILY WITH EXTRA SETS OF TEACHERS OR EXTRA PAY FOR EXISTING TEACHERS’.

    Citizens are disgusted that the accused Ondo Church terrorists’ lawyers put forward a plea for bail. Do our lawyers not know that murder and any accusation which attracts the death penalty do not qualify for bail? Do they not get taught that in Law School? An appeal for bail in this horrendous circumstance appears like a strategy at time-wasting, a popular legal exercise in legal futility and a marked disrespect for the dead. It is also a rude slap in the face of the Fellow Nigerian citizens and relations who survived the deadly vicious attack which was calculated to mutate a simple Sunday church service into a terrorist funeral fire and a national tragedy.       

     Are we to suffer at the hands of yet another cabal in our long search for fuel self-sufficiency? We all get stopped abruptly and without any road safety concerns every day by union workers taking toll money from all passing commercial vehicles. One would have thought they would move to cashless payments but that would expose their true wealth. The face-off in the petroleum industry is really an eye opening event as it exposes the players for what they stand for and what they stand against. Please examine the case and ask who is really on the side the Fellow Nigerians as we celebrate Nigeria @ 65. The answer will make you think twice or thrice.

    Happy Birthday Nigeria @65. May you not suffer forever. Amen, 

  • NOA:  Teach MAINTENANCE; ‘2026 No Corruption Year’ please 

    NOA:  Teach MAINTENANCE; ‘2026 No Corruption Year’ please 

    Lagos and Ibadan have road sweepers and they do a good job though we pray they are paid at least minimum wage. The new improved Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is the cause for concern before it falls back into the weed-growing decay it was before the 15+year restructuring. An incorrupt, efficient, effective, continuing and supervised maintenance culture should prevent it lest it raises its ugly head again.

    After this costly reconstruction, there must be a specific Lagos-Ibadan Expressway daily maintenance contract among the thousands, of compulsory, recurrent expenditure maintenance contracts of federal and state and local governments.  There are urgent things needed to repair the neglect, deliberate and misguided in Nigeria. Most of those things are not expensive, or even nuclear physics. They are the simple things that make countries great.

    MAINTENANCE & SUPERVISION ARE THE EASIEST THINGS TO INSTITUTIONALISE AND THE FOUNDATION FOR MAKING COUNTRIES GREAT. Without realising it, we in Nigeria were adequately taught by our colonial masters the ‘METHODOLOGY, MONITORING AND VALUE OF MAINTENANCE & SUPERVISION’ but we see ‘maintenance and supervision money’ as stealable, corruption-compliant, budgetary allocations designed to be stolen. WE SHOULD TAKE FORWARD SOME GOOD FROM THE BAD OLD COLONIAL DAYS. The Nigerian Civil Service inherited the routine daily, monthly annually, up to the multi-year ‘Repairs and Painting’ maintenance advance appointments filing system that guaranteed maintenance strategies in the 60s long before computers.

    For example, our three different government quarters when my father was a doctor in the 60s and 70s in Yaba, Lagos, were repaired and repainted and inspected by a supervisor every seven years without begging, prompting or bribing. After Nigeria took power, they began to skip the maintenance and supervision date and eventually stopped maintenance visits but the budgetary allocations continued. Corruption and its cost and consequence. 

    Read Also: Alleged terrorism: Court to rule on Kanu’s no-case submission Friday

    The secret of the success of good governance countries is obvious. Visit their airports, schools, hospitals, government and private offices and especially toilets. They carry out continuous daily maintenance and supervision which are a cost-effective way of managing and spreading resources and making structures last longer. They enunciate the generally practiced good habit of maintenance and supervision. The political class apparently needs to be reminded about the ‘good old POTHOLE FREE days’ of the very basic but highly effective Public Works Department. The PWD khaki shorts army of men with a tripod of sticks with a red flag and wheelbarrow of tar in a boiling kettle patrolled and filled potholes before those same potholes became car wreckers and killers. Now we let the potholes grow for years, destroying all traffic, before an overpriced and under-executed road poorly supervised contract is awarded. 

    With serious National Orientation Agency, NOA help, we must authorise and teach, our millions of children and youth in our primary, secondary and all tertiary institutions as well as politicians and managers of public spaces like markets, garages and stadia, the value, importance and necessity of ‘Maintenance & Supervision’ in the new school curriculum, just implemented for the year 2025/2026, in tertiary course material and as moral responsibility of politics and polices.  We must practice what we teach.

    No country seeking development or claiming good government can allow its primary flagship highway to succumb to dirt and time-accumulated debris. Imagine corn or bush growing on the cement? Has any supervisor reported this? Our Lagos-Ibadan Expressway requires that the cumulative 240km of double road lanes be cleared along all water drainage holes. The contractors who applied for and were awarded the contracts need to be called to order and made to become responsible to make Nigerians proud when plying the expressway.  These contractors, who are Missing In Action (MIA) in the ‘Maintenance and Supervision War’ in Nigeria,  must be made to know there is a new sheriff in town heading federal roads who cares for maintenance and insists on responsible maintenance contract execution  and reporting countrywide. They must be closely supervised with daily and weekly reports sent to the directors of highways authorities for censor and action.

    It is easy to clear the roads of dirt and grass. Only irresponsibility allows grass to grow on roads made of tar or cement. Many years ago, this column suggested a way of increasing employment and improving incomes around the country by dividing such roads into five or 10km segments for local communities to recruit local cleaners through contracts given at the local traditional and administration level. Meanwhile the zonal and national directors of works at LGA, state and federal levels must reverse past failures. Erring contractors can easily be identified by their unkempt roads or are they protected so much that  Nigeria is condemned to dirty unmaintained roads.

     At last Nigeria is planning to make solar panels. We have wasted our sun, just as we wasted our opportunity to produce petrol and lost to corruption the income from the over 50 silent petroleum products Nigeria never benefited from when refining was done abroad. Who got that ‘petroleum by products’ money over the last 40 years? Over many years due to corruption, poor maintenance and inefficiency in the petroleum sector, this has cost trillions and even lives.

    In 2025 approaching 2027, Nigerians need a ‘2026 Maximum ‘No Corruption’ Service’ from their political, contract, civil service, banking leaders who have traditionally selfishly and criminally placed personal family and political party funding greed above the desperate child, citizen and country needs.

    Let 2026 be the ‘2026- NO CORRUPTION YEAR’!     

  • Politicians: Let every day count for the citizen 

    Politicians: Let every day count for the citizen 

    The Onitsha market shooting is yet another wake-up tragic occurrence crying out for a preventive solution in the ongoing saga countrywide called ‘The Government Uniform vs Fellow Citizens’. It is a pity that citizens have to die by this method so senselessly across the country. This is often only because of ‘an assumed lack of accountability by those in uniform’ resulting in widespread almost routine physical excesses of ‘uniforms’. This ‘abuse of uniform’ has become so commonplace as to be glossed over by the citizenry who largely cry silently ‘Thank God it was not me’ when such uniform strike again. 

    Yet this characteristic abuse of office resulting in death of a pregnant woman and her unborn child is an expected outcome of giving uniforms and guns and power to people without very close supervision. Close supervision is the key to prevention of ‘uniform-caused crime’ as it led to the introduction of bodycams in many security outfits worldwide. We suffer the latest widely known overreach of those empowered to control us, politically or socially or governmentally, through wearing a uniform and carrying a stick or gun.

    Fortunately, the governor who created the uniforms involved has taken immediate action and arrested the uniforms and investigations have been carried out and prosecutions are taking place. No matter how genuine a governor is or how strong his desire to serve, his reputation is only as good as the weakest link in the chain between him and the last citizen he has supposedly fought and won an election and taken an oath to serve. 

    Many genuine mourners will be attending the unexpected funeral of the prematurely dead diligent pregnant mother who died of bullet wounds merely for going to market where an ‘abuse of uniform’ occurred;  an irreversible abuse of office for which no apology or quantum of money would be enough.

    There are many types of uniforms worn by government officials. Politicians are government officials, make no mistake.  Politicians also wear a uniform. And they abuse that uniform also. They use their uniform to control the budgets and what they do with those budgets cares for and certainly can kill some members of the citizenry. How much time do politicians spend doing things selflessly for the citizenry? When politicians do things affecting the citizenry, do they think of the side effects when their men go ‘authoritarian’ when not supervised?  

    Nigerian politicians must recognise the citizen as needing protection for both politicians and the other uniforms of government. The vast majority of citizens are honest and many uniforms extort from them as a routine. Too many politicians feed off the same citizenry, denying the citizenry a rightful share of the budgets and projects supposed to lift the citizens out of poverty.

    Read Also: Troops kill three terrorists, capture IPOB Commander Gentle de Yahoo

    We need to get more done with less funds so that the budgets will go further to help citizens more. Nigeria has made too many politicians and hangers on very wealthy at the expense of additional penury and lack of opportunity and lowered achievements of millions. 

    Where we are today compared to our total income over the years is far behind expectations.  We should be a country in a hurry with everyone shouting hurray. Certainly, there is good work being done by the current administration to recover from years of ‘abuse by government of the citizenry’.  Many good steps have been made, but many budgetary quotes seem completely out of sync with reality. There must be a way to further reduce the cost of contracts. There is a general feeling that budget padding and contract inflation are acceptable, approved and ok when they are not such a large part of government corruption in the countries we aspire to be like.

    The deliberate opaque funding of political parties is a huge albatross around the neck of Nigeria and the huge self-service appetite of politicians for a ‘larger share of the funds available’ are serious problems for the citizenry. The Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, sets the stupendous ‘Salaries And Perks’ for politicians which SAP Nigeria dry. Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) is trying to stop RMAFC  from further raising the emoluments of politicians who are among the best paid politicians worldwide at par with many countries fulfilling all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

    We in Nigeria have a minimum wage of N70,000 set by very well-paid politicians. The problem is that N70,000 is not a liveable wage today. In addition, simple things which can be done almost overnight have still not been done by the federal government. The citizen is equally or even more the responsibility of state and local government. It is unacceptable that electricity is still lacking and too many schools lack enough books and equipment for staff and students and too many hospitals still have no electricity and enough drugs and there are still not enough clean public toilets. This government may not have put us in this hole. All party leadership at all levels in past power have cumulatively contributed to our poor performance to date so far but the citizenry certainly expect the current government to take responsibility for the urgent emergency measures needed to get us out of the hole.

    Act now please, politicians should stop ‘counting the days to election’ and instead let ‘everyday count in Citizen Friendly Projects’.     

  • Leadership conference vs. leadership conscience

    Leadership conference vs. leadership conscience

    As a politician, actual or potential, or a Nigerian, please interrogate your personal journey since birth and the role of HONESTY or DISHONESTY in your actions. Get a leadership conscience! Political honesty/dishonesty brought us to dollar-less collapse under the Buhari/CBN Emefiele regime. Buhari’s proclaimed honesty, his job appeal, was overcompensated by his greedy cohorts, and one man’s apparent CBN dishonesty with non-payment of dollar debts and 1506 housing-unit estate. Please add the petroleum and dollar round-tripping which have been stopped by the Tinubu regime angering many politicians and so-called businesspersons and perhaps precipitating the Politicians Come Back Gallery for 2027. Will they be honest in future?

    It is never too late to start to be honest. Dishonesty has cost Nigeria trillions of dollars, truncated the achievements of every Nigerian, and has killed millions by not preventing and curing diseases and through the dishonest manipulation of policies like road maintenance, okada motorcycle and life jacket clueless policies. Need we add the dishonest environment with chronic non-payment of salaries and pensions -a catalyst for dishonesty?

     You do not have to go to school to be honest. Every citizen from infancy to the grave every minute faces family and personal and social honesty questions. From stealing meat, money and sweets from siblings, to borrowing car keys. Pranks or dishonesty? Yes, we are all taught ‘honesty is the best policy’ and are tested when in administrative control of wardrobe, bedroom, kitchen, home, classroom, company or a country struggling to become a nation.  

    We celebrate yet another National Leadership Conference as we mourn the parade of political so-called heavyweight leaders embroiled in political financial and administrative corruption – manifest by failed and uncompleted projects [their own and inherited] and mountain of unattained election promises, and flood of failed unending corruption cases in court, which do not mean innocence as they can be dropped for technicalities and ‘political party crossing’ in exchange for dropping or not pursuing criminal charges.

    All these have resulted in a 40-50 year period of Nigeria’s citizens suffering from a ‘failure to thrive’ with failed dreams and unattained aspirations. Of course, there will be first-in-class and prize winners in every circumstance and school, no matter how poor the political impact in communities because achievement is recognised and celebrated even among the neglected, the poor, in poverty and in deprived and oppressed communities and deliberately imposed adverse circumstances. But the losers, the less achieved, lose more at the poor level because there is no safety net of political, social or family pecuniary wealth to support and remedy failure of a less-successful achievement.

    For example, who supports those who have failed MOCK exam but have no access to funding private teachers to coach them before the final exam a month later? In Educare Trust, we took about 160 of such indigent failed MOCK students and paid N500k for private coaching for a month and achieved a 60+% pass. It is doubtful whether any of the ‘MisLeaders’ since forever who deliberately campaigned or went into government of their own volition, are unaware of the simple criteria of ‘Right VS Wrong’ repeated ad nauseum at leadership conferences over 50 years.

    Read Also: South Africa vs. Nigeria: Chukwueze, Nwabali  sure of Super  Eagles’ win

    Leaders, when spending public money  must stop the greed encouraged by deliberate opaque political secrecy, poor auditing/accountability, poor punishment and the civil service contract policy of ‘This is how we normally divide it’ and  ‘What’s in it for me and my family?’. They and we all, must join the tens of millions of honest Fellow Nigerians who have been honest forever, every hour of every day and every year and substitute ‘What’s in it for me and my family?’ with ‘What’s in it for my fellow citizens young and old?’ be it any of the SDGs or endorsing and executing citizen-friendly policies. Let us have an example.

    For 50 years the citizens have been manipulated and suffered humiliation and embarrassment and other untold hardship while attempting and often failing to get Nigerian passports. Now, under this Tinubu administration a team of Fellow Nigerians led by Minister Tunji-Ojo took this passport issuance delay as a huge sign of long-standing citizen negligence and systemic corruption and they have succeeded in reducing the timeline for getting a passport to just a week, even abroad.

    It is when the pothole is fixed that we realise the time lost from neglect. But nobody pays for the loss and injury and deaths caused by the pothole during the period of neglect. And meanwhile, the person responsible has been given a N160m+ jeep ‘because of bad roads’. POLITICIANS MUST GIVE, NOT TAKE. POLITICIANS MUST REDUCE THEIR EMOLUMENTS TO CIVIL SERVICE GRADE 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 for President. 

    All Good Governance, Good Administration and Good Leadership Lessons that our leaders, present and especially past, failed leaders need from their family and religious group prayers and conferences to succeed is to take the decision to ‘Say NO’ to 40+ year cross-party record of corrupt enrichment, personal corruption, greed and impunity in deed, policy and pecuniary in the interest of our 160million   citizens.

    Political parties must re-educate party faithful to GET A DAY JOB.  Reps or Senate race could cost each candidate and party a billion naira for campaign and party faithful. This money cannot continue to be stolen from the Nigerian budget. What is the cost to Nigerians of political parties during and after elections?

    DON’T DO WHAT YOU CANNOT ANNOUNCE ON TV. 

  • Optimum wage; refineries; drownings

    Optimum wage; refineries; drownings

    Hurray, Imo State has followed some other states and has increased minimum wage from N70k to N104k, Ebonyi State increased minimum wage to N90k. Government sets the minimum wage and often it is not the optimum wage required for a wage earner to live a normal life without having to get a second job. It is well known that the N70k is not adequate to exist especially when it is realised that it does not even fill the petrol tank of an average car and over half of it will be spent by the worker merely trying to get to work on the 20 working days in the month. All other governors must do as much or better to lift the economy at the local level.

    We agree that the federal government’s macro-economic measures are working and that perhaps the worst of the financial pain is over. However, more state governments and LGAs should join in to increase availability of funds not for politicians, but at the grassroots by paying an optimum, not minimum wage, to all government workers. This will force a rise in the salaries paid to private sector workers and help compensate for the crash in the value of the naira.              

    Congratulations to all young winners of sports and academic prizes and especially Nafisa Abdullah Aminu, the Teeneagle Global Champion. Education, Education, Education in all areas including computer use and Artificial Intelligence are vital to secure the future for each and every one of our teeming youth in and out of school. We must spend the over N100+billion UBEC unspent funds wasting away  and encourage corporate Nigeria and the ETF and PTAs and Old Students Associations at primary and secondary and tertiary levels to get more involved in quality education infrastructure.

    Certainly, reward successful students in order to encourage them but we are responsible for the useful education of many millions. Crime can be committed by the educated and the uneducated and it is a crime on the part of government not to educate them adequately to their full cerebral and social potential.

    The NNPC Plc announcement that ‘long term neglect hinders refinery revamp’ is correct but it is common knowledge. It also demonstrates the demon on the backs of Nigerians since forever.

    Read Also: Fed Govt opens doors to local, foreign partnerships on renewable energy

    Fortunately, our new NNPCL board is pointing to the truth. But how much of this truth was deliberate neglect, sabotage or corruption or all three together responsible? This would have been prevented if we had in place a past good honest greedless leadership and a compulsory annual forensic financial and technical audit which should have quickly alerted monitoring authorities to the crimes long before they crippled the country. Nigeria’s losses in prestige, indices of transparency and stolen funds are not calculable in currency but they are in human progress and SDGs-Sustainable Development Goals. The trauma inflicted on the citizenry by the 40 year ‘Turn Around Maintenance’, ‘TAM Scam’, full of hope, sadly signifying nothing, has victims in every home and on street corner in Nigeria, victims deprived by the theft of that money and loss of the use of the petroleum products not produced. A theft of our patrimony, our golden fleece, lost because some preferred a mess of pottage.

    When politicians steal, they actually believe and laughingly say ‘it is not your father’s money’ or ‘has your father lost some money?’ However, it is our fathers’ money and our inheritance in every budget. There is no ‘nobody’s money’ in Nigerian government budgets.

    Just because you do not see the blood of Nigeria’s victims of corruption does stop you from seeing the sorrowful soul of the suffering masses in the eyes and poorly clad bodies and poor upward development of the street people you pass every day. Yes, they laugh and joke because corruption and poverty diminish but do not deprive them of moments of pleasure from a joke or the company of a loving family or friends.

    When is corruption enough; when is corruption at a dangerous level and when will it give way to good governance in the interest of citizen and national survival of even the corrupt individuals -10, 20, 40%? What really happened to the money annually allocated to the now infamous recurring budget ‘TAM’ Scam? While we applaud the current board of management for stating the well know obvious, we must ask if this board has introduced the preventive measures necessary QUARTERLY FORENSIC AUDITS, FINANCIAL ALARMS AND to make NNPCL operate successfully like other similar organisations worldwide?

    The greater fear is that a new government in future may, for greed-sake, introduce a low morality board to reverse any positives from this board. That is our collective fear because abuse, misuse of petroleum resources has been the single most destructive and regressive event hindering the development of the citizens and the country in the past. Will it continue to prevent our progress in the future? We must work and pray that the benefits of the petroleum industry reach all of us and not just a few, as it was in the past up to the very recent past.

    Sokoto loses 100 to another canoe accident. Do we learn no lessons? It would appear that the repeated request for citizens in the canoes to wear life jackets and for no action to be taken is a failure of governance to protect youth from their parents if children were involved. 

  • 8086 development wards; $41b

    8086 development wards; $41b

    It is celebration at Educare Trust as it is with all NGOs and political commentators who have exhausted themselves at meetings, conferences, strategic workshops and in an avalanche of never-acted-upon newspaper articles advocating the POLITICAL WARD AS THE UNIT FOR DEVELOPMENT MONITORING ACROSS THE COUNTRY.  This obvious step has been rejected until this current government. All politicians start at the ward level. We are very annoyed at the wasted time, over 60 years, it has taken politicians to get back to the beginning, the grassroots where it all begins and ends. Wards are ignored except at election time when money is spent but no tangible lasting infrastructural project is executed.

    We are all very happy that ‘WARD RECOGNITION’ has finally happened. The next question is what is the development expected at every ward nationwide?  Identifying suitable sustainable and expandable infrastructural items taken from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is an easy measurable yardstick comparable across the local government areas, the state and country. Many LGA councils, even when given funds not stolen by the state government, have no clue as to why they are there apart from sharing money after the workers and pensioners have been paid and the political party in power has deducted its own pound of flesh leaving nothing for development. Hopefully, now that the federal government is leading and forcing all to take a census or inventory ward structures for purposeful and incremental expansion and development, we will see the lives of the grassroots citizens change such that they will not feel forgotten, left behind, ignored, and looked down upon when compared with town and city people.

    Furthermore,  advocating using the ward as the unit for development  across the country allows for the starter firing gun to be shot at the LGA, state and federal levels for awards, rewards and recognitions for the ‘Best Ward’ in each and every SDG item. This, as an ‘ANNUAL, SDG AWARD AT WARD LEVEL’ would stimulate healthy rivalry and spread knowledge of healthy developmental standards and habits. For example, many wards have  motor parks, schools and even clinics which are dirty, unsightly and not fit for purpose as they lack basic human rights amenities, all  easily identified including absent sanitation, shelter, security, running water, waste disposal and cleaning services.

    Read Also: PDP regrets fielding Atiku in 2023 – Sen. Abba Moro

    We all know that the money collected from motor parks goes to union officials and local thug-lords and area or party bosses with no deductions for development. Most wards have no running water, so they inadequately cater for the drinking and toilet needs of hundreds of travellers, visitors and workers every day who are often forced to carry out any toilet function in the open in 2025.

    If you want to measure or judge a person, visit the toilet at home or office. Sadly, some of the worst toilets are where you should expect the best – government offices, clinics and hospitals. But Oga-at-the-top always has an exclusive toilet for the ‘executive bottom’ and kept under lock and key. Everyone else can go to the bush, abi no ne so?

    So, the ward is the most important place to place to start introducing Sustainable Development Goals and to join the battle to quickly achieve ‘AN END TO OPEN DEFECATION’ nationwide. At first, the task may appear impossible, but if all levels of government are committed to Nigeria’s SDG progress, over a short few years we should see a difference when we pass through or visit any ward anywhere.

    Rome was not built in a day…but it was eventually built. We have been building Nigeria for years and there is obviously progress. However, it is taking too long and we are not where we should be and have underdeveloped the rural areas because of the negative financial effects of massive multifaceted and multi-faced corruption which, in spite of ICPC and EFCC and Police and NGOs like BudgIT and SERAP, often checkmated by court performances, repeatedly and unchecked, biting huge chunks out of the legs of the Nigerian economic development elephant. This has condemned many projects to stillbirth, part or suspended construction, with the funds allocated exhausted, misspent, disappeared or worst if we have to pay  for a loan which was stolen with nothing to show but a growing debt to pay.

    Nigeria, many of your so-called leaders and followers have misled you and have had no mercy on you -an elephant with a mighty future if led correctly with an affectionate honest followership. We must not overlook the greed of every political party once in power.

    Our forex reserves have at last crossed to $41billion mark. Is this figure gross or net? Some years ago, the last CBN governor announced we had over $30b as foreign reserves but later investigation claimed the figure was actually $3b.  Presumably this is not the case today as we have seen the current CBN governor’s efforts to pay debts and raise reserves. We all await a recovery of the fallen naira. Kudos to the CBN governor and his team and also to this government for easing the political and criminal pressure on the forex earnings, and having a target to raise our foreign reserves. What foreign reserve target is Nigeria aiming for?  $50b,$75b or $100b by the end of this regime? We must not forget Nigeria’s past leadership failed to provide the expected reserve in excess of $200b for our population. 

  • Alakija @ 90; Hail the common person

    Alakija @ 90; Hail the common person

    A very happy birthday to Mr Ogie Alakija @90. He is indeed a man of many positive  parts and role model roles including being a lifelong dedicated sportsman and sports supporter, international cricketer and captain in 1967, squash player, trustee of Ibadan Recreation Club, astute businessman in construction and other industries, founder of Durante, quiet but generous philanthropist, and a pillar of moral and financial support for NGOs including Educare Trust – a 31-year-old health and education NGO which has impacted on millions of youth and adults. As chairman, Educare Trust, he was instrumental in the completion of the upper floor of the Educare Trust Youth Centre building. We wish him peace and good health.

    As we wake and sleep each day, we are restless at the unnecessary burdens we carry as Fellow Nigerians in and outside our country still struggling to become a nation. We cannot ignore a single one of the tens of thousands of citizens have been murdered simply for living in their communities with approximately 5-10million actually displaced or relocating to safer areas in the last 10 years. They deserve a monument with their names carved in stone.

     There should be another monument to the tens of thousands of Fellow Nigerians who are dead or deprived of limbs and livelihoods by the Okada epidemic, an unfortunate political solution to a mass transit problem in which high speed irresponsible, untrained and unchecked youth, some on drugs and alcohol, all full of the unbridled exuberance, arrogance and the unfounded invincibility of unchecked youth, carry the population at high speed, breaking every highway code rule. Their ‘I am king of the road’ attitude has led to crashes resulting in death and grievous bodily harm.

    Millions are diseased or deceased or disappointed in inadequate health facilities as persistent poor sanitation and inadequate water supply, primitive waste and faecal disposal allow typhoid, malaria and cholera to torment communities. Millions of youth in and out of the struggling school system struggle to become something useful to themselves and their families and their country in poor ill-equipped education structures using a slow to adapt, difficult to change, out of date curriculum, now to be manned by education graduates recruited from graduates of teacher training institutions with a new abysmally low cut off of 100 for entrance when the best are used elsewhere in the world to teach their own Generation Next.

    Why are all these happening in our time?

    We must never forget the cunning scheming and government complicity and criminality of officials and private individuals in our past even if we forgive and refuse to prosecute those responsible for the pit dug for Fellow Nigerians by serial and irresponsible military and civilian governance defects and cross-party elite perpetrators. And now the same political people are gathering again. Did they go to remedial school, learnt lessons, apologise for their past activities which caused ‘Nigeria’s failure to thrive’? 

    The depth of the deceit and extent of the multi-year crisis is best exemplified by the huge number of EFCC, ICPC and Police enquires and court cases amounting to trillions of naira. Remember that being freed by courts on technicalities, verdict summersaults and gymnastics and media mischief does not mean innocence. The accused must be morally innocent, not just inability to prove guilt. We should adopt the French court system where you should prove your innocence.

    Read Also: Africa Youth/Junior Weightlifting Championship: Ezenwa  opens  Nigeria’s  account with two gold, silver

     It is not the common man or woman who deserves condemnation for Nigeria’s predicament though politicians are quick to point to the demands made on them by the common man as a reason for the politicians’ demand for the humongous Salaries and Perks sucking Nigeria dry.

    The real citizens of Nigeria are the backbone, not the political class.  The millions of farmers and families, the millions of market women clogging markets from predawn to post dark, the tsunami of citizenry flooding Nigerian towns and cities every single weekday, the masses of youth trooping to and from school daily during term constitute the backbone of Nigerian survival against the onslaught by the greedy politicians on the funds available to make Nigeria great. Politicians make themselves great at our expense. 

    Indeed, most Nigerians deserve national honours for carrying the nearly dead country on their heads, toiling day and night while politicians played extreme politics with the economy. When will this change?

    The only benefit Nigerians received was relatively cheap fuel. We are still struggling with colonial levels of power supply. Our huge fuel consumption as a nation was driven by a transfer of dependence on power supply from the national grid to the generator which is now the ‘Noisy Power Heartbeat of Nigeria’. No country can be economically competent if it relies on each household, service or business generating its own power.  Hopefully the six development zones will address this.

    There is corruption in all countries, but it does not strangle the citizenry, forcing them to grovel before arrogant civil servants and politicians who are competent in corruption but not in service delivery.

    We had low corruption in the beginning but the political, contractor, civil service cartels taught how to smuggle fuel, roundtrip fuel and dollars, pad budgets and dodge prosecution with playacting illness in court.

     Natasha, love her or hate her, showed up NASS members by the outstanding quality and quantity of her empowerment projects delivered by her even before the fracas.

    Copy the good in others please.