Category: Tony Marinho

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

Let us trace the people’s suffering amidst plenty of God’s gifts ‘sun, soil and oil’ its source! Even the traffic jam can be politicized as a failure of politics, governance, the budget, maintenance and of course ubiquitous multibillion corruption.  Can National Assembly (NASS) honestly say that their huge Salaries and Perks, saping us dry and their questionable constitutional projects are the necessary projects to project Nigeria’s development quickly after over 50 years of political interference and deliberate developmental inertia? Does any member of the current NASS deserve to be re-elected given the NASS position on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway?

Everything is politics. Lest we forget, there was a N15b item in the 2017 budget to quickly finish by end 2017 the long overdue Lagos-Ibadan Expressway – LIE, the main artery in and out of Lagos, with millions of people and tens of thousands of vehicles /day. After many years of increasing life-taking suffering on the unmaintained, potholed road, Nigerians were skeptical when the road finally appeared on the government agenda. Nigerians thought it was another pre-election gimmick, like mythical Second Niger Bridge which is still believed to be economic punishment inflicted politically for the 1967-1970 Civil War. After all, Abuja is a city of 100 bridges, flyovers, but few streams let alone rivers. The promise of doing the mythical Second Niger Bridge has been ‘election promise’ political gimmickry since 1999. Yet its completion can only be good for entire Nigerian economy, but the myopic powers, even Jonathan, thinking ‘punishment over profit’ ignored the huge development responsibility.

Similarly after years of politics and bloodshed in over 10,000 pothole craters, and fires involving multiple tanker/vehicle crashes, the LIE was started late, as an afterthought in the Jonathan’s PDP government. Distraught commuters actually thought it was another ‘Fake Pre-Election News Story’.But some good work was done by both contractors but at a huge insulting cost to the commuter tortured by ‘Mass Misery’ and suffering accompanying the construction, inadequate alternative routing for the millions of commuters causing 10-15 hour delays in narrow lane traffic and stuck in the mud on a diversion.

Commuters, the voters, are always victims of politics and construction mayhem. For years they endured the ‘You Must Suffer, Have Pain To Have Development Gain’ a popular insult to the citizen from politicians once elected as government. When will the LIE suffering end? Unusually the successor APC government was keen to finish the LIE contract by end 2017 without too much of the usual trans-party bickering and contract reworking. Unfortunately NASS, whose members do not use the road and instead fly around courtesy of our tax money, tragically for millions of commuters, refused to appreciably fund the LIE.

NASS rejected the APC budget for LIE-N15b. This further exposed NASS to Nigerians as an apparently greedy and self-centred third force in government preoccupied with constituency ‘petty local and poorly audited projects’ instead of channelling such funds to the national development plan and strategic projects from which all Nigerians will  benefit; NASS has been a selfish disaster for the Nigerian commuter. As you struggle around ask if any NASS member is worthy of re-election. Why not change them all?

LIE is not for the Southwest. The LIE services every part of the country. The LIE would have been completed by December 2017. Instead the millions of commuters endure 3-6 hours in horrendous six lane, queue jumping, 30 kilometre jams, as I write this. And just for travelling 120km. We are told the contractors are on site, blocking off lanes, with almost zero control of off lane side-driving queue jumping vehicles further delaying those in the queue. There are too few traffic control personnel to control the 30km long traffic and the automatic queue jumpers and get the traffic to move. Even when they are there, they are more motivated and preoccupied by the current craze with ‘stop and particulars’, even in a four hour go-slow. I have been stopped more than 20 times now. Twice this last weekend.

History, civics, geography and even Christian Religious Studies, CRS, were removed from the school curriculum by the federal government under political direction, crippling the knowledge base, dreams and job opportunities of tens of millions of Nigeria’s Generation Next. The state governors’ collective failure to verbally and actively defend their right to teach the full history of the various peoples originating in their own state history is a shameful and almost irreparable ‘Historical Error of Mind-destroying Proportions’. Governors should have taught their own school populations history, civics CRS and geography simply by keeping the children back in school for 30 minutes a day or an hour or two on Saturdays under the blanket title of ‘General Knowledge Classes’. If this had been done we would not have a generation of students, Nigeria’s best but wasted asset, who are ignorant of these foundation subjects.

Happily CRS is being restored, employing many and improving morality. Hopefully it is not ‘Fake Pre-Election Feel Good News’ to be withdrawn by an elected/ re-elected president come 2019. Meanwhile the politicised tellers of fake news and twisted stories of Nigeria’s authentic history must be identified and their bad effects countered by local content books in schools and ‘after-school classes’.

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

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

Dangote School of Business for University of Ibadan is good. More please. Coming 10-year passport is good. Now 10-year driving license please. 1,000 security personnel deployed to Zamfara is better late than never, good. Wider deployment with more men, better.

Ghana legislature and the entire proud Ghanaian nation were addressed by televising the ‘Half Year Budget Performance’ of that country’s 2018-2019 Budget presentation to parliament. Nigeria is just warming up with the budget passed seven months late-a legislative failure, for that same time frame. Does Nigeria’s National Assembly (NASS) consider how Nigeria has been stopped from competing on a level economic playing field with countries which have January to December budget years, a yearning of the current government crushed by differences of principle, policy or politics with NASS. The Ghanaian example shames Nigerian legislators but have they any shame?

With fanfare the Head of Service announced a face lift for the Federal Secretariat, Abuja. I was hoping for a similar resuscitation for moribund and mismanaged Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi Lagos where it is a painfully expensive eyesore of mega-proportions but they say is the ‘legalese’ of finance causing a 10+ yr so far 10+year delay. This aside, the reason why the ‘refurbishment of the federal secretariat reminds us that even at the highest level of governance in Nigeria, ‘incompetence’ is rife and ‘Maintenance is still a dirty word’.

Why was everything good that the colonialists taught us about maintenance thrown out with the bad? Every conference harps on maintenance but no maintenance ever gets in the budget or it is merely another line in the budget to be stolen with no maintenance work done. In the 50s-70s, every government property, office or quarters had a painted circle on the entrance wall with the next date when the Public Works Department (PWD) had put in their diary to come to renovate the premises by direct labour. Every seven years, everywhere got renovated in stages according to the PWD Diary.  Every year 1/7th [14%] of the government property was renovated and every month of every year 1/12th of 1/7th [1.2%] of government property was automatically and systematically renovated, no bribe. Why did Nigerian government officials and politicians abandon that excellent ‘PWD Maintenance Dairy System’ of systematic renewal? As we embark on emergency federal secretariat renovation, let us institutionalise a seven- year renewal plan.

At a time of almost uniform mourning and fear even on the Kaduna-Abuja highway when a female professor and many others were brutally murdered, the weeping was drowned by the jubilations surrounding the movements of NASS members removing their sheep’s clothing.  Politicians in Nigeria have performed far below expectation. Service is almost contrary to their visible character. Do Ghanaian parliamentarians dress simply but do more? Can NASS be as efficient in worrying about policies that will develop all Nigeria within the four years of any government instead of paralysing governments for upwards of two years with six month delays every year for four years in budget passage? And this even when the ruling party supposedly has the majority. The wolves have removed their sheep’s clothing having inflicted the planned budgetary delays and retarding the performance of the government unmindful that the budget and the policies are for the profit of the people of all parties and all parts of Nigeria.

Even Nigerian students have been inflicted with massive corruption. What have they done to deserve to be overcharged, mistakenly or deliberately, by Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) which until recently was almost a criminal organization, yet another government agency unfit for purpose? Is there one that actually is fit for purpose, without bribes, delays and diversions?  JAMB used to be a corrupt organization feeding on students and providing fake results. It became untrustworthy. We championed the Post-UME to take back admission control to within the universities to guarantee they had the final say. This thankfully largely over five years cleansed the universities of a generation of pay-for place ‘unworthy in character and entry level-learning’ students who mushroomed into the violent and terrorizing cult revolution and ignorant graduates.

Amazingly JAMB has paid to government its surplus in excess of N15,000,000,000, N15b or N7+b/year. This massive feat of the current chief eexecutive officer, Prof Is-haq Olarewaju Oloyede is worthy of being presented with an immediate highest national honour in an immediate ceremony in the president’s office and a ‘whistleblowers fee’ paid for him of 5% i.e. N350m for the first year as his payment. It was an irrefutable huge whistle-blowing statement on previous JAMB CEOs and top office holders. Actions speak louder than words and so does N7b. He cannot claim for Year 2. However the previous JAMB senior management must be grilled by EFCC/ ICPC to investigate prosecute and recover the N6b for 2016, N5b for 2015, N5b for 2014, N5b for 2013 etc.

Since JAMB is an education exam body and is not a profit making one, this money amounts to a criminal overcharge on Nigerians students. It should be refunded to students who sat the examinations, just like when banks overcharge. This is N3,500 each from approximately two million students or over N4,500 for 1.5m students usually for servicing JAMB annually. Government must do the right thing and cut JAMB fees from N5,500 to N1,500 now, please.

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

We discuss power, professional failures. It is four years+ since our Chibok Girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. We await the release of the remaining Chibok Girls. Inexplicably, our Dapchi girl-child, 15-year old, Leah Sharibu is not released. Why have we not extricated one single girl from the terrifying clutches of Boko Haram?

Why does Nigeria allow expressway repairs by Julius Berger to cause such heavy traffic jams?

The power grid has collapsed three times this year but it is a powerless collapsed grid, period. This is testimony to a myopic insensitive amoral governance structure obviously failing the citizenry since around 1978 when blackouts first became ‘normal’ and the first generators sprang into life, circumventing the political failure to provide power but unfortunately signifying the death of the power grid forever because others recognized a business opportunity in 1,000,000 generators with fuel needs ad infinitum. Unbelievably, serial governments since 1966 were so callous as not to add just 1,000Mw/ year to the grid- a fundamental to any rolling development plan as Nigeria requires 150,000Mw at UN recommendation of 1,000Mw / 1 million population. Is this not, therefore, a glaring example of the urgent need to ‘at last and at least’ decentralise the electricity governance system more radically to overcome our CINS of Corruption Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness to which we should add Irresponsibility in management skills stunting our past rulers’ ability to supply the human right of modern electric power- SDGs  7,8,9,11,12? Inhumanly we are still struggling with the monster of ‘illegal billing by guesstimate’ only because it is a crime-ridden corruption cash-cow for DISCOs. All this in spite of trillions thrown at power since 1999-most of it ‘disappeared’?

Since the 70s, the federal government has been morally and manpower-wise a failure in the provision of power to the country. Under restructuring and decentralization, power should be the problem of the individual states which are smaller manageable units more easily held responsible for the provision of power needs of their own people. Remember that each state in Nigeria is larger than some countries which because they are bona fide countries power their people. For how long will homes and offices burn trillions of naira in substitution for the grid with fuel and generator fumes when if the grid was working we would all save at least 90% of our current expenditure on electricity supply? Where is the $1-5b CBN Solar Loan Facility to be repaid at single digit interest rates, to allow Nigerians to buy solar equipment and get off the grid? Such solar loan facilities are widely available in many EU countries and the UK where the sunshine is only 10% of our sunshine. Nigerians must be assisted to harness this gift of God –the sun.

Excuse me, the media has got it all wrong. It may be politically correct to use the terminology farmers/herders clash but is not factually or morally correct. The farmers are the ones murdered, their produce destroyed and lands razed and seized. It is a herders/ farmers clash which clearly shows for posterity that the farmers are not the aggressors but the victims. It also seems to be politically correct to use the more generic job description ‘herders’ and drop the ‘Fulani herders’ which is specific as all Nigerians have known who they are traditionally and that they are actually the perpetrators or culprits. This war started long before the Gadhafi boys announced by President Buhari. Remember that President Buhari was Grand Patron of Fulani herders when Lam Adesina was governor in Oyo State during a Fulani herders/farmers clash. The ethnicity is merely part of the job description.

There is a plethora of new names in the mix with the old in the run-up to the coming elections at all levels. Worldwide, the perceived ‘’unknown’ has repeatedly unseated the known hands. Can and will this happen in Nigeria so prone to stomach infrastructure in exchange for voting allegiance?  It is a pity that the traditional names are being raised for the presidential race. There are many new candidates but will the voters go and vote ‘old’ or vote ‘b-old and new’?

Once again, just like Jesse of old when 1000 people lost their lives, pipeline fire and destruction of property rears its head, even in the markets where fires are routine. Are there no engineers maintaining the integrity of such lines to raise alarms? Of course engineers do not even fill the potholes threatening and sometimes ending the lives of their family members on the expressways so why should they fix pipelines before they burst? We suffer from a ‘professional ethic paralysis’ or ‘professional castration’ caused by a politics which ignores professionals as it is preoccupied with self-aggrandisement while the country ‘burns’ in reality and figuratively. Politicians would rather buy N37-50m jeeps than order N50m cancer care equipment. Can we start a social media ‘Expressway Pothole Watch’ to force an unembarrass-able government into sending its road engineers to fill 10-year old potholes now while waiting for politicians to fund the expressway by 2025 or whenever?

We always provide medicine after death – after pipelines and petrol tankers burst into flames, after potholed roads killed a senator or minister, or after a herders’ attack when they have ‘mysteriously’ disappeared. Nigeria, who will save you from these burning in these flames?

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

Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Inexplicably Our Dapchi girl-child, 15-year old, Leah Sharibu is not released. Shout and scream until government gets all our girls back.

As Nigeria faces daily rampaging marauders, the mounting death toll from the herders murderous and callous invasion of the Nigerian farm space will almost certainly cost President Buhari any moral high ground he thought he had. Death cannot be wiped from memory with a few ‘good deeds’. Too many dead have had too much bloodshed to be swept under the carpet of party loyalty by the 2019 electorate. Everyone is well enough travelled due to business, educational, NYSC or ethnicity to know someone displaced or murdered or is familiar with the murder village or LGA. The souls of the innocent will not die, but cry out to Buhari for justice. How much longer before we are all consumed?

The disgraceful revelations of the forensic audit into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) up to 2015, or more obviously NHIScam,  is yet another nail in the coffin of the citizens of Nigeria yearning for adequate healthcare. The sums manipulated are enormous but ‘billions’ are common among the thieving class of Nigeria. The NHIS is exposed to have misplaced, mismanaged or directly used with criminal intent, the sum of $1,000,000,000, $1billion or N135,000,000,000, N135b using the exchange rate of the time. We are used to hearing probably true stories of organisations being solicited or volunteering to ‘roll over’ funds for anything from days to several months thus delaying the ‘as and when due’ salary and pension payments, payment of debts for services rendered like contract medical bill payments. We have heard of ‘finder’s fees’ being paid anyone from CEO to accountants who deposit public and private money in banks. Periodically our workers and retirees have to resort to strikes to get their monthly benefits while the officials laugh all the way to the bank ‘for their percentage’.

Is this NHIS scam any different from the previous and obviously ongoing scams, from electricity to road to education, tearing us apart? Be aware that the NHIS’s reputation has been rubbish, almost a cesspool, since inception. I was not impressed in my personal professional relationship with it. It is plagued by opaque accounting, arrogance in its relations with partners, preferring to give orders and instructions without negotiation, deliberate delays in payment of legitimate bills for services rendered by primary and secondary care providers, suspicion of corruption and discrimination in the payment and non-payment and refusal to pay bills and insisting on paying bills in bulk and stopping payments of the bills of 99 patients if one patient’s bill has a question mark from the NHIS.

The forensic audit is a picture of a  plague ravaging the NHIS. In contrast, its template the UK NHS celebrates 70 years of service to many including ‘former’ Nigerians. The forensic audit has exposed a great lack of projects to grow the NHIS. It demonstrates a great amount of small minded decisions like bank stuffing. Follow the paper trail to those who benefited from kickbacks, finder’s fees, and delayed bill payments of millions of participants. Prosecute  and when found guilty, have their assets stripped and imprison them. The money appeared in NHIS accounts in and around 2012, presumably to boost medical services. Or was it a carefully orchestrated scam with $1b between $8 and $12/person.

In a normal society, we would have expected a 2012 conference or NHIS task force to accept memoranda and proposals from stakeholders in medicine to discuss the A-Z relevant to standard National Health Services worldwide and to the Nigerian context which is statistically altered by high family numbers, multiple partners, numerous children, infrequent salary payments and an untested home address system. From ambulance services to Zika virus, defective health service should have been put on the table, dissected and sewn back together with the problem exposed – all to better allocate the funds. The NHIS research team, if it existed should have been doing a good computer-based Research and Development, R&D job by collating medical journal papers and hospital vital medical statistics to produce data on the commonest diseases, medications, surgeries and failures of the medical system. We have severe problems in malaria, maternal and infant mortality and cancer care with too few centres offering any semblance of cancer diagnosis and care at state level.

We have too little good quality equipment spread too thinly. Every single General Hospital should be as good as a Federal Medical Centre or very good State Hospital. Medical practitioners cannot afford the 25-30% interest on loans for already exorbitantly priced medical equipment. Medical equipment is more expensive in Africa than in the UK or Middle East but Africa charges a low price for using the equipment and cannot recover the cost. Similarly for medical drugs.

Instead of investing in banks for the profit of a few, an intelligent caring NHIS could have partnered with medical equipment suppliers, pharmaceutical companies, and various training bodies to produce those  trained in the needed skills and equipment use and recovered the money over time by deducting the money from investigation fees et cetera. If the $1b which is not worth $0.5b can be recovered, the NHIS must empower medical services nationwide and not banks to better impact Nigeria’s poor health indices.

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