The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Your Project Equiano@275?

    Olaudah Equiano, born 0ctober 16, 1745 died March 31, 1797 is 274 years ‘old today. Happy posthumous Birthday!!. He was kidnapped from Eastern Nigeria before Nigeria became Nigeria, kidnapped from Southeast Nigeria and sold as a slave at 11 years old along with his sister; made the Middle Passage by sea to suffer slavery in The West Indies and Virginia and Georgia in America. He was first sold to a Royal Navy Captain and re-sold several times. He learnt to read and write and arithmetic. He bought his freedom and was cheated of his freedom before regaining it again in 1766. He became a member of the abolitionist Sons of Africa. He rose from being a kidnap victim and slave to becoming a clerk, sailor, hairdresser, horn player, businessman, assistant to sea captains, navigator, carpenter, shipwreck survivor and rescuer, and an anti-slavery leader beside Grenville Sharp and Wilberforce. He married and had two children one of whom married a reverend gentleman.

    He visited many countries including the Americas, England and Ireland, several Mediterranean countries and Turkey. He saw Mount Vesuvius erupt and was the first Nigerian to visit the artic in company of midshipman – later Admiral- Horatio Nelson. He came back to Africa, to Sierra Leone.  His portrait hangs in a UK Gallery.

    He is the ‘first successful Nigerian author and poet’. His book, an autobiography, is entitled ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African’ was published in 1789 and  sold over 10,000 copies and went through nine reprints in his lifetime and many more since because it was abridged as ‘Equiano’s Travels’ by Paul Edwards with an introduction by Professor  S E Ogude and published by Heinemann Publishers in 1996. Worldwide many activities, films, plays, poems, sculptures have been dedicated to the story of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa as he was during his lifetime. No doubt, next year 2020, the world, especially in many parts of America and the UK will celebrate the literary work, the cultural worth and the antislavery relevance OlaudahEquiano@275/2020 and compare now and then. But as usual Nigeria will largely be left out.

    But you, your school, your social group, your children, your friends and I can change that narrative and hashtag MakeOlaudahEquianoGreatAgain to create 1,500,000 ‘Olaudah Equiano Projects’ by 16-10-2020. Such projects would be one project in every classroom of every school, public and private, and one in every department of every polytechnic and university, and even the private and public sector. Knowledge of Olaudah Equiano is in Google and Wikipedia. There you will see that a wide range of efforts and events have been done to honour and learn from Olaudah Equiano’s suffering and survival.

    Building on that huge legacy, we in Nigeria can help fellow Nigerians especially the young ones still in school and tertiary institutions to constructively explore the arts to bring Olaudah Equiano to the attention of classmates and the community – drawing, cartoons, painting, posters, sculpture of his head and complete body in different types of material like paper, cardboard, wood, metal and using waste material in and around the school and university environment. They can explore drama about parts of his life, engage in ‘Essay, Debate and Discussions’.

    Such ‘Olaudah Equiano Projects’ can include competitions for poetry, songs and ‘tales by moonlight’ and other storytelling, role-playing, enacting parts of his life. Such efforts should include discussions and highlighting the projects by schools and other groups. A key theme for the year starting today and culminating in the 275th birthday on 16-10-2020 should be ‘Equiano Now and Then’ and ‘Equiano – Relevance of His Legacy Today’.

    The private sector and the public sector, both media and corporate interests, should sponsor ‘Equiano Events’, create media hype, programming and documentaries around the MakeOlaudahEquianoGreatAgain and build statues and name building and roads after him and announce 2020 Olaudah Equiano Scholarships and Prizes.

    The current LNG Literature Prize can be specially named as the 2020 Olaudah Equiano LNG Literature Prize or at least awarded in his honour and memory. All Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) branches and national ANA could name their 2020 conventions in honour of Olaudah Equiano and the national ANA could similarly name the annual ANA prize in honour of Olaudah Equiano@275.

    This is another not-to-be-missed ‘Nollywood Moment’ to project historical relevance and make cartoons, films and documentaries about Olaudah Equiano. Fashion can get on board with Olaudah Equiano T-shirt and caps graphics, Nigerian ankara and even catwalk styles, wristbands, schoolbag stickers etc.

    To be a catalyst for spreading ‘Lessons from the Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano’ all these projects should start now and be catalogued and blogged about towards a huge ‘Nigerian Olaudah Equiano Catalogue’ showcase on and before Olaudah Equiano’s 275th birthday on Friday October 16, 2020. No school should be without an ‘Olaudah Equiano Poetry/ Reading Club’ like we have had at Educare Trust since 1999.

    Contributing to this task will require the Corporate Social Responsibility contributions for shows and talent displays inspired by Olaudah Equiano@275’, donation of space for ‘Olaudah Equiano@275 Exhibits’ by exhibition centres and museums, provision of OlaudahEquiano@275 airtime/page space slots on ‘Olaudah Equiano Activities’ in the media. The task is ‘Equianormous’ and will fail if nothing is done. It could be ‘Equianormously’ rewarding if every student, teacher, school, tertiary institution and corporate body. Check back on Friday 16-10-2020 for Equiano exam result!

  • Chibok@2000; 8th NASS apologise! 9th NASS Jan-Dec, No Maradi Rail

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately for a Nigeria@60.

    It is now Chibok@2000days in captivity for students kidnapped at Chibok + Leah Sharibu. Appreciation to #Bringbackourgirls for keeping the matter on the front pages of Nigerian minds.

    Senator, I did not say Saint, Okorocha’s suggestion that Nigeria urgently requires a surgical reduction to NASS with one senator and three representatives per state is a good beginning, no matter what you think of Okorocha as governor. Judging from past NASS actions, its members who think refreshingly differently and talk about salaries etc., get hauled before some NASS Internal Disciplinary Committee. A strong punishment for free speech and pro-Nigerian but ‘breach of the NASS Code’ of silence, against dissenting voices also called anti-NASS activities. Dissenters among NASS members are quickly silenced and even internally prosecuted with suspensions for 180 working days, effectively one calendar year suspension and abandonment of responsibility to represent the voters who supposedly ‘elected’ the individual. Catastrophe!

    Unfortunately, NASS presents itself to Nigeria as an almighty and independent political party uniting its members against externally recommended change. Are their actions and earnings against Nigeria, to extract as much as ‘legally manipulation will allow? They are both judge and jury in their affairs. If a serving NASS acts against natural justice, is that not anti-Nigerian activity?

    Ask yourself: What is anti-NASS activity? Is it protecting Nigerian society from the manifest excesses of politicians?

    That Nigeria’s NASS has mutated at every political opportunity into the oppressor similar to the military era into a financially ‘spoilt child’ and a bloated blight on Nigeria’s political landscape and consumed by the disease ‘Political Consumption’ consuming a disproportionate percentage of the budget is not in dispute. Just compare it to any other country worldwide. Which slimming diet to apply is the problem as the patient, NASS, must sign its own prescription, death warrant, to shed financial and numerical weight for Nigeria to even be respected as a serious nation and even to survive. For years almost 80% of people I speak to want a reduction to ‘One NASS House’, preferably the House of Representatives with at best one or at worst two representatives per state, 37-74 in all, with ‘Part Time Sitting Allowances’ refundable verifiable travel expenses all to minimize abuse of Salaries and Perks, SAP. My personal recommendation is that members are fully funded by the electing state of origin.

    But inexplicably, and in my personal non-legal opinion, an abuse of their constitutional powers, NASS usually takes over the budget and approves huge amendments. The immediate past 8th NASS disgracefully withdrew a government approved N150b for the completion of the Lagos-  Ibadan expressway in 2018 and diverted it to constitutional projects for the 8the NASS membership to feed off. NASS should not have such powers the abuse of which has added untold 6-10 hours of extra hardship to millions of expressway commuters for an extra year. The 8th NASS members should beg Nigerians for forgiveness and apologise to current expressway travellers! The 9th NASS should not change the budget, just tweak it. Nigerians demand a January to December fiscal year.

    Hurray, the budget is being submitted so that the NASS can deliberate and come up with a consensus or compromise budget. It must as a matter of NASS efficiency and honour recalibrate the budget year to Jan-Dec cancelling the corruption of time by stubborn past NASS for reasons well known.

    One budget burning issue is the ‘Maradi Railway Affair’. Nigeria once gave electricity to neighbouring countries while Nigeria denied its citizens electric power. Is the story to repeat itself? No to ‘others first’! How can Nigeria use borrowed funds to build a 55km railway line into a foreign country – to Maradi in Niger Republic? According to the ECOWAS map, Maradi is not in Nigeria!! Daura is not in Niger Republic!!! Not yet at any rate. Nigerian cartographers, mapmakers, please confirm. Is Nigeria annexing Niger Republic or is Daura to be annexed by Niger Republic? What are we exporting or is it to import foreigners from Niger Republic? No!!! There are 100 places in Nigeria requiring 55km of railways. Railway charity is never done cross-border. Railway charity must begin at home for now. NASS and public opinion should stop this till Nigeria has railways to everywhere. Railways were suppressed by the same military policy in favour of a trailer industry.

    Our leaders have always explained why Nigeria is ‘Not Yet Great Again’. We know it was due to the past and present CINS -Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness of politicians, contractors and civil servants as well as unitary and lopsided governance destroying true federalism. Instead, governments served themselves the funds diverted from citizens’ infrastructure and social services. Governments disseminated misinformation, fake news and hanged. They re-branded ‘basic human rights’ as ‘Social Amenities’ and even worse ‘Dividends of Democracy’ suggesting to the citizen that books and electricity, are unimaginably wonderful gifts above the normal functions of governments. When ‘delivered’ they are criminally paraded as great media events, favours and huge achievements of governments. Worse still, government agents personalise distribution of such people’s property ‘governor’s or senator’s benevolence’ or ‘a governor’s wife’s personal gifts’. This must stop.

    Governors, tell the truth – ‘On behalf of the state, I make this available…….’.

    What will change in 2020 when we will be Nigeria@60? Electricity 60,000Mw???

  • Nigeria@59. Boldly plan 60,000Mw.Nigeria@60

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately for a Nigeria@60.

    With one day less than one year to become 60, what prospect is there that the coming 364 days will be used any more constructively than the past 59 years and one day? Government which could act at lightning speed always chooses the slow path especially when fixing roads, the lifeline of business, and growth activities. At 59, we cannot understand why potholes cannot be filled with urgency even during the rainy season. People have different needs and priorities than politicians.

    Obasanjo presented 400 engineers as FERMA with green pickup trucks. Nigerians applauded. Mumu!! There was no return to the ‘Rule of Engineering Law’ just worse rubbish roads ever since. Governance failure!! Sadly, Nigeria’s political history is weighed down with political versions of our ‘Nigerian Dream’ as we were serially and perhaps irreversible ruined by greater and greater failed mega-contracts amounting to trillions while abusing the intelligence of Nigerians by saying that Nigeria has no money.

    Amazingly, Nigerians are angry, vexing and flexing federal might with P&ID. Hurray!! But every deal, without exception is believed to cheat Nigeria! Why we no vex before? Think! If Buhari was not in power, we probably would have swept this under a huge carpet, with money going both ways. But we know Nigeria’s contracts are routinely awash with maximum failure and corruption. The suffering on the Lagos-Ibadan road, mirrored across Nigeria, only needed good maintenance contracts. Are any heads rolling? Our politicians are as guilty as the guilty in P&ID, only free to loot Nigeria.

    At 59, why does Nigeria’s ‘Evil’ still prevail against the electrification of Nigeria to the UN recommended 150,000Mw so Nigerian students can read through the night in a clean air and zero noise pollution atmosphere. At 59, families and business cannot overcome burning money daily to overcome the curse of 3,000Mw – one USA village supply. Partially xenophobic South Africa has 45,000Mw!

    At 59, Nigeria, under the ‘Evil’ political powers, now exports its most precious commodity, its educated professionals, the new intelligentsia, our citizens who hopefully will continue to repatriate billions of dollars from UK, USA, the Middle East Alaska etc. and increasingly now Canada. At 59, less educated, and less wanted, youth flee their disappointing homeland’s political ineptitude and government abandonment as a tsunami of Nigerian illegal migrants to become dead in the Sahara, drowned in the Mediterranean around Lampedusa Island, body parts donors, forced sex workers or unwilling and deceived prostitutes. At 59, ‘Evil’ still perpetuates the muddy quagmire on rubbish roads built and rebuilt at minimum speed and maximum extra cost to budgets, life and limb.

    At 59, ‘Evil’ causes the refusal of all governments to properly predict and control the traffic from 6am to 9pm to allow citizens to work and return home in a predictable manner daily. At 59, ‘Evil’ forces happily check particulars, especially on a Sunday, of terrified female and their children going to church and amused expatriate visitors to give them a good impression about Nigeria. At 59, bullying traffic officers pull vehicles out of heavy traffic instead of prioritising the removal of the traffic obstacle. At 59, we have no ‘pothole- filling strategy’ for the numerous government staff to fill ‘the millions of potholes of Nigeria’ by direct local empowerment labour, not contractor fraud. At 59, our neighbourhood association filled two dangerously growing leprous potholes with cement instead of a Nigeria@59 party. What did you do?

    At 59, we are being given government ministry of works assurance that certain ‘key’ roads will be ‘ok’ for the ‘ember months’ traffic.  Name one country which operates its public service responsibility around an ‘ember months’ calendar. Is road use not daily? What is a ‘key’ road? Every road budgeted and paid for once or twice but not done is a key road to Nigeria’s existence. The words ‘Key roads’ remind me of the hated term ‘core subjects’.

    At 59, the concentration on core subjects has cost Nigeria a broad educational range by forcing teachers to ignore the personal education needs of millions of students deliberately denied teaching and learning time with so-called non-core subjects.

    I refuse to ever use the hated word ‘minority’. Imagine a country seeking to become a nation@59 still unable to give a glimmer of hope and meaning to ‘True Nationalism’ with proud face and throbbing heart facing the flapping green-white-green from the flagpole when the national anthem is played. This is a country that even cheats its main ambassadors -athletes and fallen heroes- soldiers and pensioners- who die on undeclared battlefields and in never ending pension verification exercise queues without basic facilities like chairs and shade, while staff seeks bribes.

    Everyone is born with automatic pride in home, family name, state and country. It is the country’s failure to deliver the fundamentals of civilized life that erodes the citizens’ pride in that country. At 59, Nigeria is a country with a history of failing its citizens in security etc. Of course, the country is an inanimate object and it is actually the rulers, leadership, heads of household failures which collectively result in the perceived failure of society and therefore the country Nigeria to meet local and international yardsticks of civilization.

    Nigeria will be great again, but does it have to take so long? Why not 60,000Mw.Nigeria@60 in 2020? [to be continued]

  • Govs: Plan 2020 Pry6/SSS3 exam success; Pry School OSAs

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately.

    There was a recent ‘Future of Education Summit’ held at Nustreams in Ibadan, Oyo State hosted by Pastor Francis Madojemu. It was a great event exposing valuable old, modern and future education tools and prospects.

    Urgent actions can reverse the poor performance recorded by students in national examinations who need extra help. Teachers need extra support and incentives to lift weak students. The most immediate education war /emergency strategy in all states is to single out for six MONTHS HYPER-EDUCATION SUPPORT for the 2020 batch of students facing Common Entrance or WAEC/NECO in May/June2020. Without this the students will fail woefully-automatically. They need fatherly governors who must recruit/transfer the best, dedicated, motivated teachers, even NYSC, just to extra-teach primary six and SSS3 students during and after school and compulsory Saturday with group and individual training using fresh teachers. This strategy will guarantee better fortunes of state-based children in the national examination ranking.

    Primary schools need major support, the same as the financial and social benefits given secondary schools. Governors should encourage that ‘What is good for secondary school is good for primary school’. Governors must empower PRIMARY SCHOOLS TO SET UP OLD STUDENTS ASSOCIATIONS AND BOARDS OF GOVERNORS and reward the best as recommended by Educare Trust since 1994.

    The introduction of free primary and secondary education is welcome. Yes, teachers have cheated parents. Yes, some impose levies for exams and scams. Remember ‘the Delta State affair -Success The Girl’.  After 60 years of some form of ‘Free Education’ one thing is sure. Educare Trust has repeatedly pointed out that government can never provide enough exercise and text and story books, buildings, toilets, chalk for blackboards or marker pens for whiteboards, desks and chairs, staff rooms, sports equipment, laboratory equipment for all the students. Even Eaton and universities like Cambridge and Harvard where high fees are paid have no hesitation in sending out ‘SCHOOL NEEDS LISTS’ to old students and current parents requesting them to contribute in cash and kind to events and equipment. When PTA raises money, it should be left to the PTA to spend on what it wants, without government interference. Simple.

    Government should not deny individual PTA members of the right to support the school, even a free education programme. Our school suffered in the past when the battle of ‘Quality vs Quantity’ Free Education raged between political parties with the children as suffering pawns. Many good creative practical teachers were unable to function maximally as they were banned from even asking children to bring pins, newspapers, magazines, scissors, books or coloured pen to make posters for the walls. Even the parents mistake free education and refuse to supervise any aspect of their children’s lives related to school for the six years they are in school. Nobody running a school would reject financial, material and moral support from parents or community.  Government, the custodian of all schools servicing millions of needy youth cannot in 2019  afford to reject, purely to avoid political misinterpretation of ‘free education’,  financial, material and moral support from willing parents, PTAs, Old Students Associations or the social or business community. We suffered from an arrogantly underfunded free education in the past. Never again should ‘free education’ mean ‘No voluntary contribution’ by parents. Educare Trust suggests schools without libraries can ask each student to contribute voluntarily a book each to the CLASSROOM BOX LIBRARY to be returned at term end – no cost to anyone.  Teacher running arts, reading or music classes must be empowered to request students to bring educational material to help the learning process using an official ‘VOLUNTARY SCHOOL MATERIAL LOAN REQUEST FORM’. Educare Trust recommended from 1994 that well-monitored, with checks provided by PTA and a school Board of Governors can complement government budgets by voluntary extra material investment in school and classroom. PTA should keep its money within the classroom for wallposters, books, dictionary and encyclopaedia, sports equipment and science instruments.

    Governors need to authorize a long standing Educare Trust recommended annually updated School Needs List (SNL) exercise for every school. A SNL does not embarrass or disgrace a wise government. It is for genuine stepwise upgrading support from the community, social and business. Schools have faced 50 years of under-budgeting. This can only be reversed by joint effort.

    No man is an island. Education needs updates with new input into an ANNUALLY UPDATED CURRICULUM PAGE. Governor-directed inter-ministerial cooperation and ministry/institutional cooperation areas are key to a good governance and particularly health, environment and education programmes. The Ministry of Education must involve all ministries and  institutions to improve the local content of the curriculum.

    Every school has an assembly daily, 200+ a years. Educare Trust recommends that every school uses that time with ‘5-10MINS ASSEMBLY TALKS’ ON ‘LIFE SKILL TOPICS AND MESSAGES’ like environment, manners, morals, bullying, harassment, prepared by teachers and students bring 200 items of co-curricular knowledge to the students.

    Sadly, less than 1% of Summit participants had read or taught social conscience and Nobel Laureate Pa Professor Wole Soyinka’s ‘Ake; The years of childhood’ or heard of Olaudah Equiano, the First Nigerian Published Author who wrote ‘The interesting narrative of the life of Gustavus Vassa alias Olaudah Equiano’. He will be 275years ‘old’ in 2020. Nigeria is in trouble when it refuses to read or teach its heroes to generation Next!

     

  • Pa Akintola Williams; Do ‘Monthly Total Body Exam’; VAT re-think?

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately.

    All tribute to Pa Akintola Williams, eminent accountant and distinguished Nigerian professional colossus, reputation unscathed, at 100 years of age and an age rarely achieved in any world context. It would be interesting to have notes on his diet and that of all over 80s as diet is identified as an important contribution to healthy longevity. But be aware there is no rigid diet for long life. Remember it is written that ‘Man does not live by food [and drink] alone’  Long life is by the Grace of God but you can help by good choices in lifestyle and regular exercise, but not necessarily strenuous exercise, dealing adequately with stress and refusing excess of everything- particularly sugar, salt, oily foods and alcohol.

    Genes and the environment, clean or dirty of smoky, also play key roles. Being content and of happy disposition are essential as anger and hatred eat the body of the angry and hating. Poor environment is bad for the brain and the body especially the lungs. Congratulations sir, for a balanced and exemplary life. Citizens be aware that everyone, everywhere in Nigeria, in West Africa, in Africa, in every continent can take a step towards a universal healthy long life if they practice and teach their family and friends and workers and students one thing. You remember that we have taught girls and women and now men to do a Monthly Breast Examination, MBE, looking for lumps requiring further investigation to prevent cancer of the breast. It works even though too many young girls, captive in schools escape being taught properly this important preventive measure!

    It should be easy for the WHO and ministries of health to drive everyone, worldwide, to extend this success to the rest of the body and recognise the importance of the next big step – the Monthly Total Body Examination. The MTBE is a monthly exam of your body, by you and for your benefit, from head to the sole of your feet, including everywhere, neck, arms, armpits, groin, legs and soles of the feet- all best done while initially standing, if possible in front of a mirror. Then the abdomen is best examined lying down on the floor or your bed and pressing the abdomen in from top to groin feeling for masses in the abdomen, while breathing in and out. Draw a body on a sheet of paper and pin it up in your bedroom, your children’s room, the classroom, office, school and office notice board. Maybe every Ministry of Health needs to recommend this and even suggest a date eg 1st or 25th of the month for a national MTBE by all citizens.

    We are so busy with the shards and shreds of life politics throws at us that we have forgotten that we really can delay unnecessary death by servicing the needs of life including self-examination to catch disease early.

    We had an expressway. It was taken away from us. Government incompetence is brilliantly manifest by the catastrophic chaos that is mistakenly and nostalgically called the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, after 20 year zero maintenance -perhaps a million vehicle, 10 million citizens a week. This is a disaster of Nigerian proportions. The expressway has fallen from a mid-70s ’45-minute drive’ to Ibadan to a travel nightmare of unpredictable length. Yet no single government official has apologised for such incompetence, corruption and no name has been shamed by ICPC or EFCC.

    Government has historical and current guilt in this travesty of maintenance by allowed tolling with no maintenance, no pothole filled and no grass cut routinely, robbers, redirection of N150b by the 8th NASS and a total national failure to reduce maximum axle loads. When will it be as it was in the beginning? Germany’s Autobahn, Britain’s M1, built in the 50s-60s are still good due to ‘Compulsory Maintenance’. Why is ‘Compulsory Maintenance’ such a dirty and neglected and optional words in Nigerian politics? Complete the dismal picture with the Apapa Port road, our $9.6b fine and the tens of unproductive billions ‘misspent’ on ‘no electricity’. Add the cost and losses of the Enugu airport closed till December.

    Re-think VAT please! With any new VAT charges we require new VAT distribution rules. Let us keep VAT in the states of origin or allocate 60 -80% of VAT for use within the state of origin of the VAT. States who ban alcohol and terrorise nightlife have no right to demand VAT benefits from states which allow such activities. Morality is morality. Already this is a very amoral society when funds are wrongly distributed, by previous and ingrained and apparently immovable government fiat, between federal and states and LGAs. It is common knowledge that the states and especially the LGAs where immorally distributed between North and South giving serious financial benefits to the North. It is time for the VAT to stay where it was made.

    Nigeria’s slow discourse with the US on reducing our fees resulted in the US imposed a ‘reciprocity’ fee. It did not have to come to this if the government was acting in the interests of Nigerian. This is the typical fire brigade approach to local, state, national and international issues. Our leadership is allowed to ‘postpone the day of reckoning’ with no consequence except to the victims, innocent citizens of Nigeria, at every societal level.

  • Governors are state presidents; Osun: Water, not HQ

    Osun State has priority-advertised a water corporation headquarters contract. Water first; meeting SDG 6, headquarters later. Please first do 1,000 boreholes or a dam, governor-man! Think people now, not legacy later. Clean water is life and will reduce typhoid, cholera, death!

    A building is just another contract. Have we learnt nothing???

    Governors, every state is larger than 20 countries. Governors are ‘presidents of states’ and should, add to presidency and save Nigeria by making their states liveable. Governors are state presidents, make your state great! Move around the state monthly. Every state has had enough to be great but past governors and leadership and the parties were grabbing and greedy. 2019-2023 are not ‘years to steal’! Good governance is also about little things! Governors should shun a master-servant relationship with citizens. Keeping ‘political distance’ is dangerous, inflammable and destructive. Buhari makes this mistake.

    There is anger among miscreants suffering from budget theft, and among citizens financially castrated by non-payment of salaries and pensions. This anger is inflamed by excesses of politicians, contractors, corporate instant millionairism and billion-naira corruption scams and Big Brother. Tension is high, with hungry and angry –‘Hangry’ hopeless, homeless poor, and desperate, koboless jobless. Any word or ‘dirty slap hand’ can ignite a fire engulfing anyone anytime, in traffic, train, home or office.

    Nigeria’s volatility is seen in the horrors of violence, murder, arson, kidnapping, killing innocent police to kidnap their target, and terrible extrajudicial killings of citizens and police officers. Good governance at the micro-levels is important. Corruptly high corrupt political salaries and perks should go.

    Xenophobia is inhuman but Nigeria’s gallant 1960-80s anti-apartheid ‘war’ are distant history to today’s hungry young South Africans who witness foreign drug gangs and also ‘hard-working foreigners’ and their prosperity. If all Nigerians, good and bad, are unwanted, Nigerians should leave -life has no duplicate. Nigeria has expelled foreigners before. In Nigeria, destruction of businesses of foreigners but jointly-owned with and employing Nigerians must be stopped.

    Governor Makinde opened a closed one kilometre road running in front of Government House, Oyo State. Millions had to take a 4.5km long road prior to this. Governments should cost their actions. NISER and state ministries should calculate saving by millions of citizens in travel time, fuel and accidents prevention -millions of naira by citizens and an increase in the index happiness. A multimillion naira and priceless governor’s decision. Next, please fill the 40 year-old Sango-Elewure Rail crossing, Sango-Polytechnic, Ibadan. Increasing the Oyo education budget to 12 % will revamp education if corruption is prevented. Hurray!

    A governor’s honour is greatly improved by ‘Executing Simple People Projects and Policies’- after listening to the citizens. Governors and government houses should be near citizens to feel the pain and remedy the problems. Immediate action is what state executive council meetings are for and not just contract awards and long-term projects. There must be a press briefing after each meeting.

    Do governors ask ‘What can my government do today to impact on citizens’ lives today?’ Do they insist on hands-on monitoring to confirm implementation? Enlightened ‘21st Century Politics’ requires that governors must criss-cross the state monthly and unleash their ‘Power of Personality’, ‘Power of Presence’ a high visibility personal interest, in the daily problems facing their 2-20million individual citizens ‘suffering and grimacing’ in a state.

    Governors must know that citizens face a surge in population with migration -fleeing terrorism and financial decay. This influx is of ambitious young, trader-oriented or wild motorcycle-riding, often unruly, unmindful of local norms. The result is further strangling of traffic and damage to ‘the business of living, state-wide’. Our strangled roads, junctions and roundabouts deserve governor-led liberation in a humane but war-like manner. Creating a governor-driven new proactive attitude to the ‘Ease of Doing Business in the state’ is the most important challenge to every governor as he receives security reports and identifies citizens’ needs.

    The governor should never be accused of hiding from the people. The good governor must make himself active in this direction receiving daily reports from friend and foe without fear or favour on ‘time and motion’ studies about trips around the state. How can the governor speed up traffic and still provide parking if he has no knowledge of traffic spots? An active governor must insist on a ‘Weekly Cabinet Traffic Briefing’ with Traffic Reports and reviews of traffic performance from across the state? Without easy traffic passage and parking, there is no easy business. Business will die not develop! There is no business on an expressway because there is no parking! Governors must teach traffic authorities that ‘Intracity Dual Carriageways Are Not Interstate Expressways’, Parking is allowed on dual carriageways but not on Expressways except in ‘emergencies’. Rampant ‘No Parking’ collapses business. There must be no corrupt underhand distribution of parking permissions for bribes.

    Governor, get your hands and your commissioners’ hands dirty. Please 1] List and unblock one million drains with local drain clearing talent. 2] List and fill your one million potholes with local PWD Public Works Department efficiency. 3] List and unblock your 200 roundabouts and 1,000 key junctions from 5am to 9 or 10 pm with traffic authorities present. 4] Insist on punctuality especially in school starting at 8 o’clock, 5] Initiate Primary School Management Boards and Primary School Old Boys Associations to fund equipment in schools. 6] Hold SEC meetings by senatorial district or HOR plan state-wide.

  • Governors: Traffic can kill business

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately.

    Improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ achieves SDGs and is a challenge at every level of governance including Local Government Areas and private business. However it makes sense to simplify the measurement of ‘The Ease of Doing Business’ and introduce UN-Rating and UN-Recognised Happiness Factor manifest by putting a smile on the face of all interacting with government agencies and agents and not just federal government contact points. Beyond the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the secretariat, ministry, passport office or Corporate Affairs Commission, other actions will improve the total business experience. No governor should forget that traffic is a 20-40% unacknowledged chunk of our ‘doing business life’. If your trip to and from the point of doing business is a complicated dreaded nightmare, a potholed journey with uncontrolled chaotic traffic, then your government is failing and has work to do!

    Governors and LGA chairpersons:  There are three often neglected components to the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in your jurisdiction. 1] getting to the business quickly, 2] doing the business promptly and 3] getting back home quickly. Any morning sometimes from 5am in Lagos and 6-6.30am you may see people struggling to go to business- airports, work, school. A 10-minute delay in leaving home can add 1-2 hours to travel torture. Unfortunately you will rarely find active police and traffic officials at junctions before 7.30-8am. This creates a daily routine but unacceptable and unnecessary transport and security problem. Traffic officials must be in attendance earlier than the traffic jam for easier business access. I pass through three important unmanned junctions on the way to business and each of them deteriorates rapidly into a ‘me -first’ traffic chaos after 7.15am thus making business difficult. Unfortunately at the Awolowo-Secretariat Road junction in Ibadan even when the female police officials are there, one chronically behaves very unprofessionally, openly pursuing a personal agenda soliciting funds from drivers without censure. Fortunately there is a super-efficient traffic warden at the Customs junction 500 metres away. Where are the supervisors? Who trains them? Transport officials must be supervised by governments and security authorities using simple cell-phone recordings to monitor their work and confirm they are on duty to preempt traffic chaos.

    Number two: Doing the business and is a topic on its own.

    Number three- the ‘Ease of Getting Away from Business’ is as important as the business. Governments must care better for the citizen snarled in needless unsupervised traffic. Back in the 80s, we were deprived by our myopic military leadership and subsequent political class of using the inner-city train in Nigeria and are struggling to revive it. After work and during rains, the junctions and roundabouts are not adequately manned by traffic personnel creating a huge traffic jam nightly. The government’s traffic eyes and ears cannot close at 4.00 or 6pm. There must be working modern ‘Traffic HQ’ working 5am-10pm to supervise, deploy personnel or directly monitor and help the citizen get home. Government must study the traffic at junctions and roundabouts until 9-10pm. I often see traffic police strolling to their posts or receiving orders at 7.30am in police stations while traffic is impassable a few metres away. There is only one solution to this difficulty in doing business. Deploy police and traffic officers earlier and keep them on duty later at junction and roundabouts and provide raincoats and umbrellas for the catastrophic traffic when it rains. This progressive traffic management requires great thought, a masterplan, warlike deployment of personnel women and adequate supervision of same to avoid excessive opportunities for corruption.

    We really appreciate the headlong rush by government at all levels to talk freely about the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ an international yardstick to meet the SDGs under the purview of the vice president of behalf of government. Thankfully we have climbed up several notches. But the Nigerian citizens at home and abroad people know the truth when they visit to request government provided services from secretariat, passport and driving license offices and even courts. The media is rife with video evidence of the incompetent behavior common in Nigerian embassies closed for unannounced public holidays without even sending an email to those given appointments for these dates and also failings in passport and visa responsibilities making things successful only at lastminute.com or never.

    Carry out the ‘Ease of doing Business Test’ in your secretariat. Just look for the reaction when you as governor or LGA chairperson ask a cross section of Nigerians to visit any government facility and look for the immediate response – a frown, a neutral face or a smile or indifference. You will probably see an expression of fear. Most often you will get an excuse requesting someone else to go instead because of the expected disrespect, incompetence and deliberate obstructions. Nigeria is seeking to turn from an attitude of hindrance to that of help, from corruption to cooperation, from denials to ‘can do’. What a change. Amen!

    Mr Governor: Traffic is life and government’s main business and not nuclear physics. Judge yourself not only in IGR but also by how you have improved ‘The Ease of Living, Leaving and Entering your state and LGAs’ -traffic- and using government services.  And please remember that No Parking= No business. Traders need to be moved back freeing the roads and taxis, okada, keke, danfo need to be moved away from obstructing junction exits.

  • After retreat, what next?

    Governors Ministers Commissioners: After RETREAT – ADVANCE TOGETHER. Media- Weapon of Mass Development.

    This fine of $9,000,000,000 is $60/Nigerian. It is not a joke but a new yoke around Nigeria’s neck. Of course the Nigerian government will hire expensive experts in ‘technicality’, ‘adjournments’, ‘my client Nigeria is sick and must be admitted to hospital abroad’, all Queen’s Counsels and SANs, to explain away this monumental failure commonplace for 50 years -no power, no water and still no Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. There is a real financial cost every time government fails to behave competently. Every ‘come today-come tomorrow’, ‘not on seat’, has a cost. Heads must roll. Are we cursed or not, or do we have a Nigerian death wish through financial suicide?

    Governors, Politicians, Ministers, Commissioners: After RETREAT a call to arms! ADVANCE TOGETHER RAPIDLY. Do you know how many coffins make a country? Bad politics always causes death. To quickly get to the ‘Next Level’ The president and governors call [MM1] for ‘Cooperation’ between ministers, ministries, agencies and departments as we Nigerian citizens have been clamoring for. In keeping with the increasing the ’Ease of Doing Business’ we must reward inter-ministry cooperation.

    Too much money has been stolen retarding and destroying too many lives leaving Nigeria’s development 40 years behind the real world, measured by SDGs and mortality rates. Mediocre ministers will ruin us. Urgently introduce ‘Punctuality, Precise Practical Policies And The 1000 Little Things’. 2023 is just three real years away. Do no harm by omission or commission, by deed or denial of SDGs through developmental strategies. Urgency is the watchword. Going slow is corruption and a guarantee of failure. 2019-2023 can only be great if we have great collective leadership at state and federal and LGA level all complementary. You swore an oath! Read that oath every day as you calculate your pay! List and correct the wrongs you despised when you were a citizen in school, university, NYSC, on potholed roads, at police-less roundabouts and junctions at 9pm and were asked for bribes! Daily read the media, listen to debates and especially opposition media for ideas. Do not delegate this to your PA. Keep your old trusted friends and family and ask them questions.

    Your actions and inactions, decisions and indecisions, and delays will save or kill people depriving the suffering citizens of books and medicines and filled potholes, but you never see the gory blood or the corpses. I do. My colleagues in medicine do. The citizens on the un-sirened, potholed road do! Dead babies, children, youth, mothers, fathers, old people are political casualties – the unnecessary dead. Dead from a negligent, greedy, avaricious politics.

    Do you know how many coffins make a country? Count Nigeria’s coffins, stack them high! Their corpses had no right to die. How much blood shed makes a birth right? How much suffering creates a new society? Politicians pontificate that ‘citizens must suffer for development’ forgetting that the suffering is exactly because politicians themselves stole their past. Place the politician in the frontline and the war will end. Take the generator from politicians and the grid will work. To die in war is painful. A soldier joins up knows he could die and will not cry, but hopes that he will live is dependent on the GOC of his Division. Certainly the dead soldiers, police and civilian victims better deserve the appellation. Distinguished and Honourable and a month’s NASS Salary and Perks more than the NASS members. But to die in peace is a disgraceful democracy disaster, be it in an unfilled pothole, from cholera and typhoid in unclean water or in a market fire or unprotected in our undeclared Boko Haram war or be repeatedly robbed and raped in an IDP camp. To die in peace an unforgivable political failure warranting resignations and prosecutions!

    Now Hear This!!!  Governors, Politicians, Ministers, Commissioners need to know that this day in August 2019 Fellow Nigerians expecting to live will die today. They will die from past political incompetence, at the hands of Boko Haram, kidnappers, okada murderers, undetected ‘one chance’ danfos and taxies, road traffic monsters, cultists, thugs, armed robbers and myriad mothers and children and adults will die medical structures from malaria, malignancy, maternal mortality and water-borne cholera and enteritis. Do something.

    Ministers and Governors: Use the Media as THE 2019-2023 Weapon of Mass Development, WMD, better or as well as DSTV educates citizens on trafficking and plastic waste. Our local channels must take ignorance as a threat and dangerous challenge to development and educate the citizenry by offering airtime to ministries. Each ministry should submit 10 most important messages/month for dissemination daily on NTA or/and State TV and radio. This will correct the political mistake that Nigerians get little health and life skill information from the media preoccupied with making IGR and sensationalism. Life skill messages should be free to air. Nigeria disgracefully even charges Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary International to advertise about polio and AIDS to save Nigerians, not Americans. Shame. The ministers and commissioners can collectively agree to properly fund and use the media to ‘Allocate 30 minutes, 60 separate 30secs life skill messages covering the Public service announcements of all Ministries. NTA and state media’s reason for existence is SDG education or CSR.  For example a media drive on the benefits of ‘Monthly Total Body Examination’ cuts across every citizen and all ministries and saves lives!

  • D’Tigress;  Govs: Ombudsmen; ‘No Parking = No Business’

    Congratulations to all involved in the women’s basketball success of D’Tigress beating Senegal in the finals of the women’s Afrobasketball Championships despite of all the sports horror stories of deprivation, disappointment and devilish tricks from deliberate administrative lapses, incompetence and greed inflicted on most if not all flag-flying Nigerian athletes.

    Mr Governor: Create Job opportunities.  Nigerians demand that every Nigerian Government Organisation recreates the long-abandoned ‘Office of Ombudsperson’ for arbitration when Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) motivated outrageous circulars/demonic bills/illegal actions cause citizens to collapse in shock.

    Mr Governor: Where did your family park before you became governor? ‘Free flow of traffic’ is not achieved by ‘No Parking Anywhere’. ‘Regulating traffic’ is not ‘No Parking Anywhere’. Will you wrongly introduce ‘No Parking’ strategies before rightly 1] giving ‘Warnings Notices’ tickets for offending vehicles and 2] properly signboard-ing/marking  areas and 3] setting up Parking zones? Too many No Parking zones choke the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ruining IGR.  ‘No Parking Anywhere = No Business Everywhere’!

    Mr Governor: Are citizens’ opinions irrelevant? When, in governance meetings, do citizens become ‘Enemy Number One’ and fall from being ‘semi-respected’ voters to ‘reviled victims’, from being the ‘do focus’ to be treated like ‘dirt’ and exploitable and targeted as ‘IGR sources’! This is not ‘Good Governance’ but an authoritarian occupation strategy! Our political office holders often fail from Day One to service the 1000 simple things needed by people seeking survival through the ‘Ease of Doing Business’.

    Mr Governor: Please enforce the rule of law and human decency and do not allow staff to break the law to entrap and entangle voting citizens just to increase IGR. Such illegality will explain gangs of traffic authority staff seizing vehicles for ‘illegal parking’ on roads, including roads wide enough to have never had a traffic jam and have no ‘No Parking’ sign and no parking facilities. That would be governance corruption. Disgracefully there are exemptions to the unwritten ‘No Parking Law’ for political party meetings and party social gatherings. Their discriminatory action does not allow others to park for genuine state developing, IGR increasing, business purposes thus making nonsense of the ‘Ease of doing Business’.

    Mr Governor: Do your traffic staff discriminate against locals by exempting certain ethnic groups living among them from ‘No Parking’ Laws. In Ibadan, indiscriminate parking on Sabo Road is notorious for being ignored by traffic authorities which insults other citizens who are targeted daily. Mr Governor: Why one law to oppress the citizens and another law for others. That is criminal discrimination and blatant illegality! How can you ensure that decisions and actions taken at state and LGA Executive Council and state agency meetings are properly guided from day one towards the growth of the citizenry through increasing the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ on our streets?

    Mr Governor: In most communities Nigeria-wide often no single good activity can be pointed at to ameliorate the citizens’ daily suffering. So with No Parking’ arrests, the impact of governance is actually negative. This is because the authorities like governors etcetera  surround themselves with an unbridled unsupervised extortionist gang or group with the sole aim of ‘increasing IGR’ and they are prepared to use force. The road fines are too high.  In Oxford Street London, fines are one day’s minimum wage. In Nigeria fines are 1-2 months minimum wage- stupid.

    Mr Governor: You, commissioners and ministers are business persons and professionals who may have been victims of the government orchestrated crime of creating deliberately opaque traffic parking restrictions ruining access to business premises from hairdressers, pharmacists, clinics and hospitals. Empty, no traffic streets, strangulating business by inability to park is bad politics and bad for state business growth. Why allow traffic staff to attack the citizenry claiming wrong parking when there is no single ‘No Parking’ sign, no ‘Government Parking’ in the entire state. Is this what is taught in governor’s retreat and in business schools? Plan together, please.

    Mr Governor: Please let your conscience lead. Unmonitored uniformed authorities like traffic authorities are dangerous without serious supervision.

    EFCC investigates $16b power sector fund. Please add the $12.4b ‘First Gulf War Windfall’ under Babangida. Good, but how many 2019 frauds has EFCC prevented by proactively monitoring politicians, pension and other funds? Is ‘Obasanjo advocates lower interest rates’ diversionary or patriotic? Press, please ignore! Nigerians know the benefit of single digit loans. Obasanjo’s aburo, Babangida, increased loan rates from 4%. Why did Obasanjo and PDP not reverse them when we had serious money by saving $100m in foreign reserves? To improve the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Nigerians deserve single digit interest rates. The interest rate is made up of [1] 13.5% MPR Monetary Policy Rate of CBN and [2] 12-15% commercial bank rate added on, totally 25-30+%.

    Finally we have an international costing for one event in Nigeria’s chronic political and administrative CINS- Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness -N9b. NISER and social and political science departments nationwide can now add the researched computations for the quantum wasted cost/losses of other instances including the cost of failure to maintain the ‘former expressways’.

    Nigeria smilingly recently received many billions corporate in fines. What happened to the money? Well, Nigeria was counter-fined $6b in 2015 under Jonathan’s PDP for ‘loss of income’ through failure to provide gas power to the suing company and in 2019 cumulative interest making it a $9b blunder under Buhari’s APC requiring resignations and prosecutions and punishments.

     

    • [To be continued].

  • Toni Morrison; EFCC; Police; Governors’ ‘rain plans’

    ABCDEFGGHI=Avoid Bribery & Corruption Daily Everywhere For Good Governance Here Immediately.

    Toni Morrison US Nobel Laureate goes home at 88 years. Literature Laureates tend to live long but we are taxing our Professor Soyinka, 85, over ‘Revolution’ which has gotten Sowore incarcerated. What hope Nigeria?

    Morally, EFCC must use the correct administrative description and ‘allocate’ but not ‘donate’ seized loot. Even governors should ‘allocate’ and not ‘donate’ the people’s money! Should EFCC instead, legally and morally return misappropriated money, material and mansions from Badeh to the armed forces – the robbery victim?

    Sadly, three fine police officers shot dead for arresting a kingpin kidnapper without informing the local authorities perhaps to prevent leaks. The army and police must answer the ‘misunderstanding, murder, misinformation or mischief’ security question. Nigerians want the truth and the kidnapper. The other accused kidnapper, Evans is on a trial taking too long.

    It is rainy season! Governors send your staff out in the rain to help the citizen. Governance wrongly ‘makes life easy firstly for the political government people’ and sirens clear the roundabout and wardens open the road for the masked cars, jeeps and convoys, generators and furniture report and daily fuel arrives, salary and perks. The citizen also needs these things.

    When governors build expressways and misguidedly create and unleash unscrupulous transport authorities to arrest everyone parking, even where there is no traffic jam, or ‘No Parking’ sign, the governors approve entrapment, corruption, underhand payments and ruin business and Internally Generated Revenue, IGR. Out-of-town visitors will be chased away by roadblocks, LGA official thugs and area boys fleecing cars [like at Oja’Oba] and entry bottlenecks caused by roadside traders, vehicles and extortionist traffic staff. Even a potholed entrance to a city screams ‘We do not want your business!’

    Governors should train traffic staff to prevent traders blocking road lanes. My patients, staff and neigbouring traders and their customers had their cars impounded and billed N25,000 each with no ‘No Parking ‘ sign. Just government abuse of authority.

    Governors, with your new highways, plan to increase business. Partner with NISER’s underutilized traffic department. Traffic lights are not gods. Some cause more traffic than when they are not working. They must be regulated and altered to improve business for different times of the day. They require supervision and time and motion studies.

    Governors with your engineers, drive around towns and city streets. Roundabouts are a traffic education and opportunity for good governance and the trouble with the African ‘Junction Syndrome’ – ‘Orita Syndrome’ identified by Dr Olu Agunloye when he was Corps Marshal of FRSC. Contrast ‘Ease of Doing Business’ when roundabouts are empty at 6am on Sunday morning and at nightmare times like 10am or 7pm on a weekday when trading doubles in volume. Then see how strangled and dangerous and delaying they are made by unrestricted trading blocking the walkways and the wheelbarrows of wares reducing the road surface and the combined chaos caused by recalcitrant junction-hugging cult clusters of okada, keke, taxi/danfo. Free roundabouts, junctions, entrances and exits and you free the city, increasing time for business and pleasure opportunities.

    In Ibadan, Governor Makinde’s allowing okada and taxis access to Government House Road saved millions of hours and naira daily. Some traffic officials are extortionist pariah. How else can you explain the less than optimal traffic post at Bodija Market and at Oja’Oba Ibadan right in front of the Olubadan’s Palace both of which fail to keep traffic flowing and have no impact on keeping the two lanes open and free from being blocked by a line of taxies and on the other by a wheelbarrow gang which maliciously blocks a lane by parking wheelbarrows obstructing women traders. Solution: Get the traffic police to work, under supervision, to move everyone back five feet to restore the road to a two lane dual carriageway. And repeat at 1000 other places. Governors, the measure of your success will be the role of your staff in the Ease of Living and Moving and ‘What I can do with this authority to make life better.’  It is really about the ‘1000 Little Things’ needing doing in your state to make life better.  Governors must search for suffering, seek out solutions and solve the simple problems of life at every roundabout. Look, ask, see, send out your teams and serve us with solutions!

    Governor must make businesses accessible. In 1967 Ibadan obeyed roundabout laws. No longer. Roundabouts are round-blocks, no movement -just block!  It rained in Ibadan on Friday night. Every junction was blocked by ‘me-first’ drivers. Driving is a chess game, taking turns. During a two-hour failed outing, only good Samaritans manned junctions, well insulted for their effort. No rain resistant traffic officials at the 20 junctions I tried to cross.

    We have no teams of police, traffic warders, environment cleaners monitoring and clearing traffic and flood spots. No City Central Traffic Management Board? Governors and incoming ministers should please do the 1000 Little Things like a ‘WHEN IT RAINS PLAN’. Government cannot disappear. Anarchy can engulf traffic jams. A ‘WHEN IT RAINS PLAN’ keeps traffic flowing. Equip traffic police and environment officers with raincoat and umbrella and communication devices and protected traffic posts at junctions. This is good governance and one of ‘1000 Little Things’ governors and ministers must do. Governors must negotiate for police duty times of 5-6am to 9-10 pm with adequate overtime and rosters.