The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Our Girls; Happy New Year

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Unfortunately our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released and still remains under the threat of death. many IDPS and herder victims will have a lousy Christmas.

    The poem below was delivered by me at the Christmas Music Concert Trenchard Hall, Ibadan on December 18, 2018.

    Congratulations

    The labour of our heroes past

    Shall never be in vain.

    Who is your first hero past?

    Audience reply please

    Because of who’s labour

    Are you here today?

    MY MOTHER

    The birth of CHRIST

    Through MARY’S Labour pain

    Is our gain

    But a forgotten labour pain

    Take Christmas home

    let it REMIND us of the suffering of OUR mother

    Birthday is the most dangerous day

    In the life of mother and baby even more-so on Christ’s birthday

    So be grateful and happy

    And say ‘Thank you’ again to Mother

    For giving you, a sister or a brother

    This year there is a growing fear

    And even a tear

    That this CHRISTMAS

    Will have a CRITICAL mass

    Of very hungry citizens

    EATING 00010001

    WITH NO CHRISTMAS

    Shelter, food, clothes or money

    this is not funny

    No comfort for 4million IDPs

    some near your house and home

    The unemployed and even employed

    Their stomachs grumble

    As they fight the pangs of hunger

    Extracting  sorrow

    For today, Christmas Day and tomorrow     

    More than ever before

    We need to share

    Show we care

    we all have something to spare

    even if it is just a Happy Christmas smile

    Become a Christmas wise person

    From the East and everywhere

    offering gifts

    Follow the suffering star

    Open every door

    Bring out unneeded clothes

    extra utensils, good old toys

    for motherless girls and boys

    Food, money,

    a smile bathed in honey,

    say hello, please and thank you

    Do some good..

    You know you should

    You know you can

    Help a child, woman and man

     Do you know that your driver, domestic help

    All need some help

    share some TLCare

    IF YOU DARE

    The needy stranger is nearer than you think

    -do you know the pain in your friend’s blink

    Do you know any one’s bank account

    Exactly what amount/ Is in your friend’s pocket

    Poverty may not show on the face

    buy a box of sweets and biscuits

    put them in the car

    send some as Christmas gifts every day

    to the junction and where the needy children are

    we do not have time to think  we hardly blink

    listen to the world

    COPY Christ’s GOOD

    LIKE WE KNOW WE SHOULD   

    The world plans ahead

    or we’ll all be dead

    drowned in plastic oceans

    burnt or frozen in climate change

    turn from plastic to reusable glass bottles

    Save the trees Give up wrapping presents this CHRISTMAS

    Cut down, save and recycle your Christmas cards and envelopes

    into school artwork and jotters

    Reduce, Recycle, Reuse,

    Stop Single Use Plastic

    Bottle, straws, party cutlery, shopping bags

    Refuse to make more refuse

    Chewing gum is plastic

    Why line your stomach with chewable elastic?  Who will be the next victim

    of Boko Haram, herders, fraud, theft?

    YOU SAY ’GOD FORBID’

    GOD DID FORBID

    BUT WE DO THE FORBIDDEN ANYWAY

    Where do we turn FOR PEACE -right or left

    And there is the bully in your home and school

    The playground can be designated a battlefield,

    with real casualties..

    sticks, belts, pebbles, stones,

    catapult and elastic band

    Do not care where they land

    aiming lollypop and broom sticks, pellets and stones

    at BULL’S EYE  -our child’s eye

    Blinding her for life, GOD FORBID

    GOD DID FORBID

    BUT WE DO THE FORBIDDEN ANYWAY

    The dirty slap blinds the eye, deafens the ear

    concusses the brain,

    STOP your children heading footballs

    or the repeated small brain damage/ will head them to the doctor

    or the bottom of the class , last

    Do you know someone planning a baby?

    Remember this secret 

    A TABLET A DAY OF FOLIC ACID a day

    Keeps brain abnormalities away

    Correction

    it works ONLY IF STARTED BEFORE CONCEPTION

    Christ was born TO SAVE OUR SOULS

    BUT WE MUST SAVE EACH OTHER’S BODIES

    BETWEEN NOW AND NEXT CHRISTMAS

    PS if you get a text message Mechahnyia, what does it mean?  It is Merry Christmas And Happy New Year -2019.   

     

    Urgently Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; Insecurity; Ibadan/Lagos/Apapa; Ajaokuta

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Unfortunately our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released and still remains under the threat of death.

    Boko Haram is still launching vicious and costly surprise attacks in its traditional killing ground almost with lethal impunity and mounting deaths among our gallant military personnel. This is unfortunate and suggests the need for moving more troops into the area which has repeatedly been attacked before.

    Is it not strange that we shout about the murderous Boko Haram while across the country our very own politicians are recruiting, paying and encouraging thugs to set up a terrorist spots near you or me? And they think that is OK. Well it is not OK. No Nigerian should be harassed, terrorised, maimed or murdered for a vote. We expect ‘POLITICAL THUG’ whistleblowers to reveal guilty politicians.  ’Political’ does not diminish the crime of murder and grievous bodily harm, committed in the name of politics and the political funders are murderers, criminals and terrorists themselves as their agenda is to cause death and subvert the will of the people. This is clearly a coup plot and should be punished as such. This curse visited upon us as politics must stop.

    There has been no improvement in the traffic jam on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. The spokesperson of the contractors should come out and tell the client, Nigerians, exactly why we are having such mega suffering while on the road. It is not fair to punish the travelling public in their quest for making a living or fulfilling family obligation because of huge neglect by the government machinery to address the problems of movement. What can we expect when in Lagos the trailer-driven gridlock in Apapa access is causing a huge disaster and danger to Apapa residents especially at night when the security operatives have withdrawn and ‘lights are out’? It is quite unbelievable that Apapa, a highbrow suburb of Lagos has been brought to its knees by external forces of politics and infrastructural collapse in and around the Apapa Port complex -all beyond its control.

    So Senate has approved $1billion for Ajaokuta, a 40-year project destroyed by the machinations of governments over time. Is the equipment not also 40 years old and ready for the dustbin of corruption history?  Let SERAP and BUDGit, EnoughIsEnough, EFCC and ICPC start their due diligence and monitoring pre-emptively and proactively. We are tired of the predictable lament to be expected in 1-2 years that the money disappeared into thin air, bought inferior machinery, was diverted for season’s greetings etc. Such a scenario must be nipped in the bud by pre-emptive anticorruption strategies. Nigeria cannot afford Ajaokuta to remain as a conduit for corruption forever as in the past. Will economic steel ever be produced?

    The vice presidential debates are a breath of fresh air amidst infighting and distrust. The debate is hugely valuable in finally pointing all the political attention towards the policies that have ruined and those which could resurrect our society which is so traumatised that we have our own share of the migrant crisis. It is interesting to note the ability to speak grammar and analyse and proffer solutions to the questions the citizens have asked but no one has bothered to answer for them. At least the millions of viewers can see how their favoured candidates perform or under-perform. I think there should be debates at state level for governors and National Assembly (NASS) and state assemblies. At least the politicians are at last forced to think about how to provide real solutions to our myriad problems in NIGERIA. The speakers had their day on the air, but not all the candidates shone. Some should never even try for the office. Vice presidents are usually sidelined or under political house arrest in Nigeria so as not to outshine the incumbent president, so it is good to hear them speaking in case we never hear from them again.

    We hope that the presidential candidates will also have a similar debate.

    Disgracefully it is in this week that the budget for 2019 will be presented by the president to the NASS. So who and what were responsible for this ridiculous but chronically recurrent delay in budget presentation. Following the wicked political games around the last budget, it is unlikely that the 2019 budget will even be implementable before December 2019. Disgraceful.

    We are all guilty of increasing plastic pollution as we all use and abuse the plastic-ness of things, so easy to throw away –’Disposability’ but forget the other property – ‘Longevity’ of plastic unless it is the bio-degradable variety. In the short term the longevity of plastic can and must be exploited as ‘Reusability’ to reduce plastic waste today by ‘Keeping It Longer’ for use in your possession in your home, work, play place, and travelling between them. You can also find ‘non-plastic alternatives’ to “reduce new replacement plastic’. Every country and every citizen should know that the world has decided to halt, and if possible reverse, the ‘The Plastic Epidemic’ by Reducing, Reusing/Recycling, and Rescuing Waste Plastic- Stop straws, plastic bags and bottles, ocean plastic, chewing gum. You have a personal role. Choose to pollute chose to reduce plastic pollution in your environment with your actions, instructions, connections and example within your family, friends etc.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; Expressway disaster – Vote out this NASS

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    The president should explain to the country why he has not accent to the new Electoral Act. Will any new law be effective in this coming election? We have expended a lot of hot air on this and the Petroleum Industry Bill. We need closure.

    NASS staff strike, ke? It demonstrates clearly the problem with Nigeria. If those at the heart of an indisputably greedy National Assembly, (NASS) could not be trusted to ensure that their own staff get paid as and when due by whoever should have paid them regularly. I wish that the people would follow suit and ‘strike’ against all members of NASS in the coming election in 2019 and ensure that every single one of the current crop of NASS members is removed and replaced by non-past governors. The Senate should not be converted into an ‘immunity from prosecution’ retirement home for tired governors and serial political office holders. I and tens of thousands of others have just suffered a total of eight hours travelling to and from Lagos, a four-hour maximum travel in normal times. This trauma was inflicted on me and millions of fellow travellers this last Saturday and Sunday, only because, NASS when given the opportunity to serve the country in an already laid out manner, deliberately held meetings and budget review sessions in which someone actually decided to suggest NASS take steps to deny adequate funding already put in the last 2018 budget for the sole purpose of finishing the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    For the traveller daily ensnarled in the construction constricted areas, we can blame Julius Berger or even RCC for not taking note of the volume of traffic when restricting access. But the buck stops at the desk of the NASS for the contractor delays and failure to provide adequately for the easy passage of the tens of thousands of vehicles daily.  All this work would have been finished last year or latest mid-2018 if NASS had shown the slightest sense of responsible behaviour when it was asked to fund the remaining part of the road in the 2018 budget. NASS’ complete disregard for the travelling public along that heavily travelled artery should be rewarded by the citizens’ complete disregard for NASS members seeking public office. The NASS action in the matter of delaying and denying expressway funding should be recalled in full detail and acted upon by any and everyone who has suffered or knows someone who has suffered on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway during the last year, numbering in their millions. I repeat, no NASS member deserves a return vote to a seat in the red or green chamber judging from their lack of support for the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    Nineteen drowned in boat mishap Chewuru in Kwara. Sorrow is deep but Nigerians must get used to the fact that lifejackets are cheap. We have lost too many to drowning across Africa this year.

    There is nothing new in the ‘New’ Public Buildings Maintenance Policy. I am a witness that routine maintenance according to a well-oiled step by step plan and diary was done routinely on government residences in the colonial times when a seven year cycle of painting and general upgrade maintenance was performed on government quarters and Public Works Department (PWD) was available for other maintenance work during the intervening period. Short term greed and perhaps contractor collusion killed it once the colonialists left. Well, I suppose we should be grateful it is back some 40 years after it was killed by high ministry officials but it should never have been changed in the first place.  I wonder where the diary of the seven year cycle of maintenance used in those days is today. It would make interesting reading and a guideline of how things were done correctly in the pre-computer days.

    So during the darkest days of the Abacha Error, not era, when I was invited to give the Obafemi Awolowo Lecture under the chairmanship of Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo and convinced that it would save many lives, I undertook to plead for the extension of the cell-phone to the medical personnel, particularly doctors on duty and nurses estimating that the immediate market would be 3,000,000 subscribers. I considered doing something dramatic like kneeling down and begging on camera but fortunately I did not go that far. If I had, I probably would have been roped in to the infamous ‘coup plot’ begging video. How wrong I was and how wrong were the forces which denied Nigeria and 100m Nigerians the cell-phone for another five years until Obasanjo allowed’ it, kick-starting a communication blitz and a trillion naira business. And so it will be for all the other restrictive policies of a strangulating federal system which was installed to strengthen the head, mafia and government, at the expense of a starved, strangled body – the people.

    Why are suspects held together, kept together, tied together during parades, transported together and then tried together. Are they interrogated together? Separating them from arrest to trial allows for crosschecking statements about an incident under investigation. Isolation from fellow accused is a tried and tested method of establishing the truth without violence or torture.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.      

  • Our Girls; Water hyacinth; clone? NASS out? population?

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    Congratulations to Super Falcons for winning the ninth Africa Women Cup of Nations, AWCON. Well deserved.

    A few weeks ago, the Senate and I believe the House of Representatives suspended sitting because the sound system was out. If every Nigerian institution closed for one day or more because of a sound system failure, we should expect nothing for development. Surely the National Assembly, NASS, is still in Nigeria and specifically in Abuja where sound systems are easily available for hire within an hour or two. What a disgraceful example of waste of public trust to the citizens. Meanwhile the destructive activities of herdsmen continue unabated.

    Channels TV carried an item on the Mountaintop University research into the use of the weed known as water hyacinth to make paper. This is very good as the water hyacinth seems to be ravaging all our waterways, hindering boat transportation and obstructing local fishing activities as well as covering large areas of water hindering light and gas exchange altering the eco-environment for fish, algae and other marine life.  If you use a social web research programme like Google, Bing etc, you will find 20 other uses for water hyacinth which you may also champion by informing others in your local area and through your local institutions like universities and polytechnics and schools. A look from the Third Mainland Bridge will attest to the serious nature of this water hyacinth epidemic

    President denies being a clone. Very good. When he is ill, they say he is too ill to rule. When he is well, they he is too well to be himself. Me I do not know o! I have acted old and young people on stage with the help of a little makeup. Medically, the matter is simple. Confirmation of who is who is as easy as a DNA test on the whole family which confirms parentage of the children and closes the case. Surely the whole family was not cloned if anyone was cloned at all. Therefore get that DNA done by an impartial witness.

    We the citizenry must become much more politically active and articulate our expectations of future government policies. We must support only candidates willing to work along the lines we chose as the expected future of the nation. Some suggested lines include support candidates willing to work to get:

    1. Politicians on Grade Level 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 the highest for serving presidents.
    2. Home state to fix the salary and pay it and accommodation since the politician is on posting from the state.  Similarly LGAs can pay the state assembly members
    3. Reduction of ridiculous political salaries and perks SAPing Nigeria dry.
    4. The imposition of sitting allowances
    5. The cancellation of constituency projects and route all development project request in good time through the relevant ministerial budget structure for approval and routine execution by the relevant ministry with no further interference or financial involvement of the NASS chambers
    6. A huge increase in budgets to health and education
    7. A huge increase in FG, state and LGA scholarship and youth empowerment schemes on a scale more in proportion to the student population.
    8. A single house by cutting out one particularly the senate
    9. Insist that judges finish cases before moving on promotion
    10. To put people policies in place

    This sounds like a tall order. However most elections are won or lost utilising only 40 or 45% of the vote. The rest of the votes are unused or unusable if criminally obtained. The legitimate voters dissatisfied with the current big two or three parties can change the political narrative simply by coming out and concentrating or one candidate.

    Really 190 million???? Guesstimated census and now supported by UN! Unfortunately, we are just parrots repeating conjectures and invention of concocted ‘fake’ census figures. Our National Population Commission, NPC has failed to pass the truth and integrity test and any figures will not be believed by the aggrieved. Only the majority is happy to preserve the imposed status quo. Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, ECN, Power Holdings Company of Nigeria, PHCN and successors are expert at what in Nigeria has become known as a ‘Guestimate’, a hyper-inflated imagined bill designed to punish the customer or perhaps force him to pay a bribe. Old NITEL became a super-specialist if you made the mistake of having international calls on your phone.

    We keep boasting that we are 190m people in Nigeria. How? Based on false census figure bloated for politico-ethno-religious malicious reasons since the 50s when the British tampered with the results to precipitate our life-long census problem? Assuming a conservative 20-30% inflation figure, we are probably 150m-ish. If we are actually the figure advertised, our successive leaders, most still alive should hang their heads in collective shame Nigeria’s ‘failure to thrive’ and refusal to meet all our Millennium and Sustainable Developmental Goals milestones allocated by the UN agencies for all countries.

    Does any of the incumbent NASS members deserve to be sent back after they effectively stabbed Nigeria in the heart by messing up the budget year by seven months, and persisting in taking ridiculous and unjustified salaries and perks totally out of proportion to the service, if any, that they may collectively or individually have rendered.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.     

  • Our Girls; 100; Promoted judges; Editors: Policies or politics?

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    More than 100 gallant officers and men of the Nigerian armed forces who were also our fathers, husbands, sons and brothers fell victim to Boko Haram’s unfathomably murderous ideology and evil ways. Add the Boko Haram’s kidnap of Gamdoru citizens numbering 50 with a very horrifying and emotionally terrorising uncertain fate as near-slaves, sex slaves and even become victims of staged televised execution. When will we take Boko Haram and other forces like Islamic State seriously war-like enough to adequately blanket the Northeast with adequate numbers of troops of the armed forces and compulsory garrisoning of every town and village and road in the area?

    Surely our government has already recruited the EU countries for satellite monitoring of the area to detect enemy troop movements with a view of counterattacking and even preventing attacks on our widespread civilian populations. Meanwhile, the herders/marauders raiding, ruining and murdering farmers nationwide and continues to cause havoc and create anxiety and looms large everywhere. It is difficult to say that the country is not in serious trouble. The question on everyone’s mind nationwide is – ‘what next, is anyone safe anywhere?’

    The very bad habit, now a ‘tradition’ of suspending the National Assembly, NASS, plenary whenever a member dies is a bad one, wasting the time and money of thousands who travel or otherwise have inconvenienced themselves to be present in NASS to meet a political person or otherwise interact. What is the cost of a suspending plenary? N10m, N100m? Another wasted day in Nigerian politics. The suspension of plenary over the death of the 44-100 soldiers in Metele, mentioned above is similarly in bad taste even if it is well meaning. A holiday is ridiculous at this time of national tragedy and major threat to Nigeria. What should have happened was a robust debate, a minute of genuine silence, continued work, a plan of action to support government in combating this murderous malevolent and well planned attack. NASS should suspend the ‘bad tradition of suspension of NASS on the death of any member’.

    There is a brand new Grand Egyptian Museum costing $1billion. Wow!!!  Meanwhile we in Nigeria have serial governments which cannot see the value in completing our National Library and our own museums decay and are still ancient refusing to become both ancient and modern.

    Elizabeth Ochanya, aged 13, raped to death, will not die in our hearts and minds but that is not enough. Justice must be swift and seen to be done. Too many open and shut cases stall with calculated delays and eventually slip through the cracks of justice creating the usual but unfortunately very well known injustice in our justice system. Indeed judges getting promotion should not be allowed to advance until they have disposed of all already started cases. Abandoning cases midway causing untold costs to both prosecution and accused and is a strain especially for victims and innocents and a stain on the reforms-in-progress judiciary. Similarly, now GE has withdrawn from the concession it applied for and won and fought for against the machinations of a noisy NASS for narrow gauge railway. What cost in time and money to the people of Nigeria using railways? More backwards and forwards with no progress.

    Our journalists and news review persons who review the newspapers every morning on radio and TV have regrettably fallen into the ‘Only Politics Matters’ Syndrome and largely ignore the other major non-political stories that really matter to the public. They have a duty to balance their commentaries and not give too much public space and time during press reviews to the trivial and sometimes disgraceful and well-choreographed political pettiness and tiffs which always dissolve into political nothing and reconciliation. So why waste time on them? Rather, after one political commentary, let them please put the people first and highlight real things that matter, also in the same papers.

    We see TV reviewers ignoring ‘real news’ items that matter to the majority in favour of ‘fake fights and make-up between politicians’ repetitively highlighted like the regular ‘Embrace Between Political Pythons’ or a ‘he-said-she-said’ all political trivia and gossip about political gladiators. The people and their matters must matter more to the newspaper editors and reviewers than political trivia designed to catch the eye and attention of gullible editors and reviewers. Politics makes us sick and dizzy with its backwards and forwarding. Who cares who politically stabs whom in the political back again and again? Politics is everything and nothing. In a society so abused by politicians, editors have the responsibility and the power not to create a political monster from over publicity.

    In the last couple of months before the election, editors of all newspapers have yet another opportunity, to naturally be abandoned, of direction wayward politicians towards the topics that really matter to all other Nigerians. Nigerian editors should seize the moment and produce front pages that matter to the citizen and the survival of the nation, and identify and use issues and real people news stories to push political personal stories sideways to force politicians to see and begin to debate the real news that will guide the politicians back to the old well-trodden but now discarded path of service to the people.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; Who killed education? Restructure

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014 Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    Still in regard to the Babangida autobiography mentioned in last week’s article, there will be a few truths which may be interrogated to explain some of the strange ‘never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven’ Babangida ‘error’ – the Dele Giwa BOMB BLAST, the two party system, Option A4, the annulment resulting in tyranny under the Abacha/Al Mustapha regime and the continued downward spiral of the nation spawned by the placement of the military in perpetuity in politics. I am not aware he, Babangida, needs my book-money in retirement. Ex-presidents are like governors-in-retirement in ‘satisfaction’, though many Nigerians certainly would need money from him if he is willing to give some up.  Many years ago in an article, I invited him, Babangida, to write a cheque of $10,000 to each of the 70,000 schools in Nigeria for books to fill the starved libraries instead of opening his secondary school and later university on the ashes of the many failed government schools, deliberately underfunded. Of course, he cannot be blamed for the profligacy of the PDP or the single-minded strategic exploitation of the citizenry of Lagos State to fund self and ‘war-like’ political campaigns nationwide. Those are for someone else’s autobiography. A question – is there a Babangida Foundation?

    Channels TV deserves every credit for the recent football and just concluded athletics meet as does Lafarge for the literacy competition and many others. What Channels and few other corporate bodies and individuals have done is only to reintroduce what we had before the military era and what all other countries have today to develop their youth. It is terrifying to know that some Nigerians entrusted with making policies for the good of our children decided instead to sabotage their future by destroying all ‘practical aspects of education’ be they practical sport, practical science, practical physics, practical chemistry, practical biology, practical art and literature, practical music and most heinous of all, practical library which permanently damaged literacy and knowledge dissemination. Now, if you think that practical aspects of education are expensive, you are correct. The result of this disastrous ‘Nationwide Cancellation of Practicals’ was really many millions of naira ‘saved’ while millions of brains and bodies were ‘lost’ and deprived of their full potential. Unfortunately all this money saved was just diverted and stolen, as originally planned. The second part of the plan worked as well. Nigerian students nationwide began a programme of lifeless minimal education. And technology was not left out in the planned, systematic destruction. No polytechnic is worth the name due to equipment lapses and failures. Even sport was practical-less resulting in students being taught the ‘Theory of Everything’ with resultant ‘knowledge of nothing’. The children could tell you the theory of litmus paper but had never seen it change from red to blue. They knew the measurements of a long jump pitch but had never jumped. Now if you are never given paper to draw, paints to paint, instruments to play, experiments to perform, libraries to read and get lost in, what type of grown up will you be to yourself and your children- Generation Next? Multiply that by a generation of youth to see why Nigeria is still underperforming.

    For teachers and students numbering millions nationwide in targeted Nigerian schools, Track, Field, Music Room, Laboratory and Library ‘hour’ became obsolete. ‘A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words Except In Nigeria Where Practicals Are Frowned On.’ And for this crime against the children of Nigeria, not one myopic, ethnic, parochial, reactionary, archaic and certainly non-science background, functionally illiterate education-imposter permanent secretary, minister, or director has been identified, prosecuted and jailed for being responsible or indicted for this crime against the collective youth brain of Nigeria. And if it was such a laudable activity why is no one willing to come forward and take the ‘discredit’? This means the secret anti-education education ministry Mafia has succeeded in destroying the dreams of millions and crippled our youthful ‘search and grow’ science and technology potential. Now our artisans and technologists know little of the practical aspects of their jobs and are displaced in the industrial market by foreign African economic migrants. It also explains why, abandoned by a conniving government at federal level and a spineless state government, we have to rely on good people at Channels to provide ‘Practical Sport’ as a support in finding the next athletes.

    Education depends on the goal. It seems our government planned for and succeeded in producing poor quality material. What a Human Rights crime against children that went unchallenged by state governors. If you have an education, you should get or make a job, earn money, be a heard voice in the future. Sometimes, the forces that draw us back must be overcome with argument. For years mobile phones were the exclusive preserve of the government elite. From them it trickled down to the top echelon of the business community. But some of us had seen the power of the cell phone. I mentioned it in my Obafemi Awolowo Lecture during the terror of the Abacha regime. From mining, waterways, VAT, corporate tax to roads, Nigerian will benefit from decentralisation or restructuring as with cell phones which freed us from NITEL. Even hospitals need freeing from the fist of federal might.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16. 

  • Our Girls; Can NLC, ASUU stop NASS salaries and perks?

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014 Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    Obasanjo says Nigerians are frustrated. Not an original observation, sorry though he is not correct. Nigerians are very, very frustrated and have been very, very frustrated almost all their lives and the lives of their parents as well from a lack of love of Nigeria by its leaders. Currently, we are at the deliberate but still inexplicable nine-month serial delays in budget approval, a wicked, evil and successful attempt to ruin the economy. Add the perpetuation in politics by, and the easy manipulation of the media of, the old and largely failed past presidential guard in the country’s highest offices. The imposition of candidates, the continued financial consequences of the massive theft and misuse since 1999 of our public funds precipitating the pauperisation of the citizen but not the politician who still illegally, legally steals irresponsibly and mentally inexplicably huge funds masquerading as salaries and perks with no remorse far in excess of the sums stolen by all the criminals convicted of fraud and theft or even enjoyed by politicians in the best economies in the world. Nigerians are indeed very frustrated that politicians from all major parties rub citizens’ noses in their poverty while politicians get richer. Unfortunate.

    It is a pity that our president is ‘proud to declare a State of Emergency in Water -Sanitation and Drinking’. Similarly a new vehicle launch boasts it has a car that can ‘Cope with Nigerian Roads’ like Peugeot of those days ‘Made for Nigerian Roads’. When will we have roads like everywhere else? Only if the political class make that decision between self and citizen.

    The NLC and all bodies going on strike separately should put as Number One on their agenda what many citizens consider to be Enemy Number 1- the National Assembly (NASS) and force it to cut its hyper-greedy salaries and perks, SAPing Nigeria dry. NLC etc should also target the colossal constituency projects and lead a campaign for cancellation of in favour of relocating the funds into the ministry budgets. NLC should also campaign to put politicians on the state and federal salary structure at levels up to level 20 or even level 24 for president. These could have been part of the fight for increased minimum wage. Perhaps ASUU, striking for improved services and fulfillment of long past agreements should remain on strike and be joined by other bodies like the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, until NASS recants its exorbitant and extortionist emoluments greater than in any other political class worldwide.

    The reason why the education budget is so much lower than the UN recommended 26% is that the politicians trivialise the need to equip education to a level at par with anywhere in the world. Nigeria has always had the money for education. Just see how many trillions have been unaccounted for, and therefore stolen, during the military misadventure and since 1999. Witness the abandoned projects and disappearing funds for pensions and salaries. The money for education and even good quality health and good roads was and is there but it was and perhaps is, to a much lesser degree, diverted to corruption-driven projects and the greed of politicians, contractors and civil servants. They are like a plague of locusts on citizen. Their steps to amend the constitution are belated and an afterthought to placate a population disgusted with its non- passage of the budget for nine or 10 months. When did our thieves stop stealing a few millions and move to a billion and more? Was it not under the military that their ‘chop-chop’ appetite was whetted? If the huge sums were never stolen, there would have been funds for all important projects to railways to meet Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Of course it takes a leadership that is anti-corruption in morals, policies and cash and bullion matters. At present we have a leadership which appears to be failing in parts of this definition and the violence and ethnically-based appointments are there for all to see. Would he jail those who are suspected of corruption but who gave him support to win his first term? Will he turn on the apparent corrupt friends-in-high-places making them strange bedfellows, if he wins a second term? The story is told that he surrounded himself through his top main appointments with the Daura Mafia because he is hell-bent on preventing being ousted by another military coup a la Babangida, who is still very much around and by the way is planning an autobiography!!!

    Personally I cannot give a kobo of my money to Babangida for his autobiography as his reign left a very bad taste in my mouth, a huge dent in the dollar value of my naira, created the first wave of professional refugees heading abroad, and an increase in the Monetary Policy Rate under the vulture International Morticians Fund and the Woe Bank. However I hope as a tribute to Nigeria, and as a penance for sins past, he will give away one million copies of the book. And readers please do not dustbin the book or burn the book before reading it. No knowledge, no matter how annoying, is wasted. I do not expect revelations of pre-coup plot meetings or assets declaration in the book.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16. 

  • Our girls; Modern museum input; Forensics

    Our Chibok Girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    The struggle for minimum wage continues. Food insecurity looms if the terrorism by herdsmen and their collaborators is not reversed so that farmers and their families can recover and can get back to work.

    Jay Ajayi is an American born in London who plays with Philadelphia Eagles. He has an exhibition in his honour on display at the London Museum. But not a word about him in Nigeria where we relegate sports heroes to one-day-wonders – forgotten immediately. General Shehu Yar’Adua has an exhibition in his honour in Central Abuja. Paradoxically Obasanjo has an exhibition in his honour in his controversially-funded presidential library while the National Library remains abandoned. Emeritus Prof O O Akinkugbe, at the impressive and international ceremony of ‘Hanging His Stethoscope’ at 85 years and 60 years of dedicated and excellent medical practice and medical education has an exhibition with Mr Kolade Mosuro as curator in his honour in the Akinkugbe Kidney Centre in UCH Extension. That exhibition should be permanent.

    The lesson of a Nigerian-American in the London Museum and the exhibitions in Nigeria is for our largely ancient traditional museums to enter the modern age, even in one section or area of the floor space, by bringing the population into direct contact with the life and times of any of 2,000 iconic individuals in Nigeria. They should not have held public office and not be politicians but successful professionals who have held their heads high in spite of the warped politics which places politics first among all professionals and carried the torch of the Nigeria far higher than any politician. That torch dispelled the darkness imposed by clouds of political uncertainty and developmental backwardness and showed a way through the darkness of despair to many. Nigeria has even better undisputed heroes of no political but excellent professional persuasion with a message in the display of their life and times which would be inspirational to others.

    It is the duty of every ancient museum nationwide to introduce the idea of a modern section to help bring the attention of our youth to the fact that even ancient artefacts were once modern and in daily use. ‘Today’s modern is tomorrow’s ancient artefact in the museum in 100 or 1000 years time from now. Our museums should now have vast stores and collection officers of today’s common artefacts against tomorrow’s exhibitions. ‘’100 years of the telephone, the light bulb, the generator, the soft drink, transport, plastic items’’ start with a collector.

    The application of dependable modern forensic methods to crime scenes is long overdue. There was a Police Forensic Laboratory at Oshodi, I believe though much neglected before an international intervention in spite of an annual misplaced Police Forensic Laboratory vote of N50m dating back many years which never would have passed forensic analysis. There are many murders daily which are never properly investigated. The painstakingly methodical, time consuming and successful investigation of the disappearance of General Idris Alkali by Military Intelligence is to be appreciated, especially if it was conducted according the Human Rights Watch and  Amnesty International. We expect such rigour to be applied to all subsequent murders starting with the violent murder in Lagos of Ope Badamosi as at present several theories ‘Who don it’ and motives and backers are making the rounds and muddying the waters. It is time as I have said repeatedly in this column, to integrate all the data bases especially the voter card and sim-card data base of faces and fingerprints for the detection of culprits. Nigeria has too many unsolved murders. Enough is enough. Nigeria deserves a modern crime fighting scientific approach to criminal activities to give the best chance of solving such crimes.  Bereaved families deserve closure.

    What do you want for you and your family out of life? Safety, security, decent pay for decent work, civilised interaction with security and ministry ‘forces’? Will you do the necessary to get what you hold dear at the next election? Are you a principled voter thinking long term benefits or a pepper soup voter thinking of one meal and forever hold you peace for at least four years? To continue in power, with malleable electorate the governments require an undereducated voter class, easily manipulated, easily deceived, easily fed and easily controlled with fake and other news. For how long is the country to be bought and sold by politicians of any party jostling for four or eight years of ‘ownership’ of the country called Nigeria? This buying and selling of the commodity ‘Nigeria’ will never instal the right quality of politician required to transform Nigeria into a nation. That requires a Mandela. But Mandela held ideals he ‘was prepared to die for’ not bribe for. We as voters should seriously examine the other parties. Learn the lessons from the US midterm elections. High turnout is a hugely important, but neglected simply executed responsibility of the electorate. Secondly if 30m voters vote for one of the new parties, it would sweep away the current crop in National Assembly (NASS) sit-tighters and allow a shake up and economic reform  of the NASS. Nigeria requires a political and security sea-change.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.     

  • Our Girls; Lottery lunacy; Plastic-recycle

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014 and Chibok was attacked again last week leaving eight dead. What heinous effrontery and where was the army? Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.  The killing of the traditional monarch, Agom Adara, kidnapped on the Kaduna highway after several security officials were killed must be seen in the same vein as the Khashoggi murder – another horrendous crime whether in or outside a diplomatic mission. Now General Alkali’s first grave has been found, but his body had been moved. DSS personnel killed in Cross River! Death everywhere and no remorse and respite. There can be no restitution. No one can bring back the dead! And now six people including four nuns are kidnapped in Delta State. Once again we are praying.  The rape and murder of a 13 year old girl by the guardian and his son is another heinous crime.  No one is safe.

    I watched the amazing youth performing as mathematical whiz kids on Cowbellpedia. Inspirational girls and boys. Congratulations to Cowbell and former MD, Keith Richards and other companies supporting different subjects.

    Meanwhile the stupid world lottery formula is a mathematical disgrace to the human race, making no moral, economic, social or mathematical sense. Research among past winners has shown that large winnings have destabilised families, emotionally and mentally, with serious results including murder. Collective human madness has raised its irresponsible head in stupendous idiocy with the new rollover weekly jackpot of $1,600,000,000 or N576,000,000,000 or N576b. The obscene prize has been won by a rural American and is 20% of the state’s annual budget. Ridiculous.  Contrast that with the famine in Yemen and the 60% poverty in Nigeria, the IDPs and the drowning migrants. Is the local Nigerian lottery system any better? The problem with today’s lotteries is that numbers are picked at random from an infinite combination. The old lottery system was to pick from only the sold numbers. Lottery with no rollover should be used especially where the poor are many. Nowadays with computers, each number can be logged in at point of sale.  Just like the banks which use automated but random selection system from a data base of existing customers.  This LOTTERY LUNACY MUST STOP because the winnings could have been better divided into 16, 000 prizes of $100,000 or 8,000 prizes of $200,0000 or 1,600 prizes of $1m.

    The Americans have, with a fingerprint, allegedly caught the bomber linked to bomb sending to 14 high democrats and he is in jail. Meanwhile back home in Nigeria, we ask ‘wetin be ‘’fingafrint’’ abi fingerprint?’ For your information there are five or six countrywide Nigerian databases, the best of which is the SIM Card database, that are yet to be cross-linked for security  benefits to families, and society. And please remember that the man aka Evans, whose name is associated with serial kidnappings, is playing maximally to the public gallery hoping it will be exhausted by repeated delays. Now Evans seeks relief claiming that his statement was made under duress. I am sure those who were kidnapped and accusing him of being the ring leader will also claim they suffered extreme duress and forced to pay under duress, abi no be so?

    We all remember there is at least one eyewitness who identified him and his gang and there is telephone evidence. So what has confession got to do with the ‘open and closed’ case? Let him be tried in just one solid kidnap case and if found guilty he can be jailed for life especially if a security agent was killed. Then, if convicted, while in jail he can attend trial on cases more difficult to prove. We must never discountenance the horrendous terrorisation of victims and their families.

    Educate Nigerians about plastic and urgently introduce an environment curriculum review for inclusion of modern environmental information in education institutions from the 2018/2019 session. You, the reader, have a personal role to educate your family, workforce, community and commercial contacts including your market users. Note that 200 billion cubic metres of ice are melting in the Antarctic even as the world reels in floods, forest fires and even city fires and droughts. We must join the outrage against ‘The Deadly Worldwide Plastic Epidemic’ even as the 7.6 billion citizens fill our waste systems with plastic which fills the stomachs of fish and animal life, on land, sea and air and enters the food chain as invisible plastic micro-plastic pellets entering fish during feeding and is fed to humans, cows and chicken. Global plastic use stands at approximately 8-9billion tonnes produced approximately six billion tonnes waste. You have a role not to pollute the water and farmlands with waste plastic. Others will not save your world. You spread the word. You reduce your plastic use in cups and straws and spoons and bottles. You recycle plastic items many times. You use bigger dispenser containers for water storage and fill one reusable container, flask or plastic bottle, from it many times. Since last year, instead of wasting 12 bottles each 1.5litres/day x 200 working days or 2,400bottles /year for staff at work, we use zero bottles by using a recyclable and replaceable 20litre water dispenser and everyone brings a flask, so many different colours. And stop chewing gum because it is plastic.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.     

  • Our Girls; ‘Khasshogi incidents’ everywhere, no culprits anywhere

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably Our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released

    The Kasuwan Magani massacre with 55 dead and 20 injured in Central Kaduna followed by a herdsmen attack killing 15 farmers in Bauchi must question our nationhood. The death or injury of one person is one too many.

    Was Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khasshogi’s horrific murder a premeditated chokehold from 15 men or a beating gone wrong? Was the body dismembered and scattered? Reality beats the imagination.

    Medically, there is no humane murder and all governments have killed, creating ‘Khasshogi Incidents’ everywhere starting with colonial genocides and ‘the most important assassination of the 20th Century – Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba – similarly cut into pieces but then burnt in an oil barrel by Belgian and Congolese soldiers for being a communist when America and the West wanted control over Congo’s minerals against Russian communist threats. Mobutu subsequently ruined the Congo/Zaire! Nothing new under the sun!!

    Many are tortured and killed outright, ‘no tears, no cry’ except for grieving families unwittingly talking to executioners washing blood from overalls of death. The methods are legion, a ‘credit’ to the devilish brain of Machiavellian homo sapiens. Bullet, car crash, burning, bomb blast, beating, crocodile/lion/rabid dog/pig eaten, drowning, raping to death. Pealing of skin while alive which was popular during the Catholic inquisition -flaying with burning alive at the stake, cement encasing legs and body alive or dead and cast into the river. Helicopter drops of live victims into shark or crocodile waters of onto land – Argentina, Chile, Uganda. Putting victims alive or dead into mincemeat makers for shops, popular with the mafia if they did not machinegun victim first. Electric shock with generators in dark cellars or police tasers and brute force and shooting to kill, were and are popular with government officials as are spies armed with poisons, gas or nuclear material and simply starving to death, all adequately publicised in Breaking News and films and books through Hollywood and other places. Nigerians railed against excesses of SARS, police and military cells and Amnesty International has constantly criticised human rights abuses. Last week in Kwara State, the politicians have already protested a ‘plan to rope politicians’ into the discovery of human parts where the arrested have identified their clients.

    Unfortunately, the regular ritual killings and dismemberment of bodies, the ‘’Khashoggi Incident’ is frequently reported in Nigeria and African countries for ritual ceremonies for money making, protection, politics, success and victory over enemies but no end users are ever caught. Disappearances and one chance trips have been common historically. The draconic military regimes of South America and Africa were notorious for disappearances around coup plots, real and imagined, democracy opposition struggles, and the ‘power of being in power’ where human rights were the first casualty.

    No one should forget the victims of riots from coal miners’ strike days in Enugu and the www -wild wild west and wetie – the horrific petrol burning of political opponents and families in houses demonstrating the murderous history of democracy. Following the pogroms in the North and the subsequent one million plus deaths from war, starvation and executions during the Civil War 1967-70, the Buhari-Idiagbon, Babangida and Abacha violent regimes stand out for excesses of demagogic democracies littered with bodies like those of the Odo- Ona Ibadan Kill and Go police victims, the numerous victims of political thugs of politicians in Oke Ado and Molete, Onagoruwa, the Abiolas, Pa Rewane, Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni 9. I worked with Professor CSO Sowunmi of Amnesty International and many others on a Victims Support Fund to bring relief to families of the incarcerated and document Abacha victims. How could we have forgotten/forgiven Al Mustapha so soon with no apology? But all governments have tasted power drunkenness and fulfilled the thirst for killing. For example, Kunle Adepeju in 1970 UI. Under Obasanjo as a civilian president, the murdered victims of Odi in retaliation for soldiers deaths. The seemingly acceptable execution of voters and politicians like Funso Williams, Chief Bola Ige, Ayo Daramola, and others testify to the acceptable violence of ‘The Democracy Wars’. We should add the checkpoint deaths, extrajudicial killings, most unknown, bodies thrown into the bush and Olympian Dele Udoh – Google him. The Apo 6. Let us add the Boko Haram and herders war victims, dead or as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) numbering in their 3-5 millions. The onslaught of the Okada epidemic with its mounting death and disabled victims numbers. The huge cult problem in schools and universities and gangs in neighbourhoods and NURTW’s bloody trail in politics and victims of modern slavery and human slavery by a political government that enslaves its people by neglecting education. We must not add to it come 2019 election. ‘Khasshogi Incidents Everywhere, No Culprits Anywhere’ like ‘Murder, murder, everywhere and no culprits anywhere!!’

    But Nigeria remains a great country. Abi no bi so? After all the US, Britain, Belgium and South Africa and the Middle East rode to economic and political success riding on the broken backs of  16-18th century  50million slaves and their progeny. After 100 years of internal political slavery of now 150m+ people in Nigeria. It is time for liberation!! Shall We Overcome???? When exactly, please? Politicians should ‘Make Nigeria Great To Live In’ and not just ‘Horrible To Die In’!!

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.