The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Our Girls; Jerry can fuel/refineries;  Abandoned IDPs? ; 10,000Mw by 2019 = too little too late!

    Our Girls; Jerry can fuel/refineries;  Abandoned IDPs? ; 10,000Mw by 2019 = too little too late!

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. We will not forget them and will not forgive those with a defective political morality who mentally traumatise their families.

    Nigerians are being turned into animals! About 50% of fuel bought at stations is used in generators at home and office, so why can government play the ostrich and have a RULE NOT TO SELL IN JERRY CANS? That will not stop jerry-can sales. Only adequate supply will kill the profiteering jerry-can smugglers trade.

    Even as Internally Displaced Persons increase at the hands of the Fulani herdsmen/farmers war nationwide and the army is at last taking on the matter, there is a report that abandoned IDPs are disturbed because of the failure of the Victims Support Fund to adequately feed, clothe and shelter them. These are fellow citizens displaced and pauperised for whom a N57billion VSF was set up. Is the money finished or just vanished in corruption as usual?

    In spite of the great Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Netherland and Norway Transparency International 2015 ranking TI 1-5/168 Top 5, every country has A PERCENTAGE OF RESIDENT IN-COUNTRY CORRUPTION, RI-CC, 1-5% up to 10% maximum to allow for sustainable development. The RI-IC MUST NEVER BE SO LARGE AS TO KILL THE COUNTRY! Nigeria, TI 136 with Camoros and Tajikistan, is unfortunate that this unwritten limitation of corruption has never been well understood by the thieves in the political, civil service and contractor classes. Compare Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, TI 48/168, both oil territories with ‘RI-CC’. We have seen news videos of Nigerian legislators and governors shouting down former Coordinating Minister Okonjo-Iwala on her establishment of a Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF. Instead of such savings, the shouters misspent or stole the funds that should have been saved and here we are today –broke. They should note that Saudi Arabia, even with its own Resident In-Country Corruption, is planning to hike its SWF to $3 trillion to ensure that its 6-7million citizens are cushioned against economic travails in future. Signs of ‘good’ leadership which has already supplied over 200,000Mw of power some as solar power! Meanwhile, in sharp corrupt contrast, our own wealth in Nigeria, which could also have been a SWF was siphoned off in similar trillions of naira to corruptly enrich the powerful elite since before the military era to cushion them and their families for 1000 years while the rest of us are left in current darkness and fuel-lessness and joblessness.

    Still on ‘10,000Mwlessness’. That promised 10,000Mw by 2019 will be the equivalent of our 2-4,000Mw today as our needs as a developing country will more than double by 2019 from increase in manufacturing, factory and family electricity needs and consumption. Nigeria must solve this powerlessness as it did with the landline telephone deficit. By jumping to the cell phone! We need this ‘JUMPING TO NEW TECHNOLOGY’ approach for electricity generation and distribution to overcome terrorism on the pipelines and repeated refinery sabotage. Nigeria needs that 10,000Mw of power now, today. By 2019 we expect 50,000Mw. What have others done? Can we copycat?

    Simple, like so many countries without much sun, we can harness our magnificent sun in a SOLAR REVOLUTION’. Using 5-8 year repayment 1-2% loans direct from a $2-5billion ‘CBN SOLAR GRANT SCHEME’ we can mostly ‘get off the grid’ for most of our electricity, except the big things like air-conditioners. With BVN, Immigration Passport and FRSC Drivers Licence Records and INEC Voter’s Cards, this is easy to administer as identification of participants will not be a problem. Of course there are many living in the comfort of the 24 hour-powered National Assembly who ensure Nigerians remain trapped like millions of desperate flies on the giant nationwide spider web of the failing national electricity grid. But we have been ‘paying and praying ‘ to the corrupt grid for the past 50 years paying through our noses for little or no service to a spider-master tarantula of a federal parastatal steeped in greed leaving us in darkness.

    This is supposed to be the most intelligent, least corrupt and most progressive government we have ever had at the centre. But common new refineries we refuse to build to increase fuel supply at local prices! It should creatively introduce policies to decentralise power–electrical and revenue formula – to the states, policies that go massively solar and create local jobs through local power generation even if that means coal in Enugu. Every state must accept that ‘Nigeria, Federal Failed to Fuel and Power Nigeria’. There are many Emergency Power Companies which can generate power to feed into the grid or supply state by state on a temporary one month to two years basis. All 10,000 Mw lost to the Japanese earthquake was replaced within three months by Emergency Power companies. We need those companies to bring immediate solutions and save millions of litres of diesel and the pollution from the million + generators.

    Let us recall the elderly, their pension plans ruined by the budget-spending profile profligacy of the political class which has impacted so negatively on Nigeria and the citizens’ commonwealth. Fridges empty, open in the powerlessness of ’10,000Mw by 2019’, their contents smelling of power corruption and contamination in the dustbin as we are reduced to a ‘daily bread existence’. How do families survive this Triplet Disaster of ‘Powerlessness, Petrolessness, Pensionlessness and Salarylessness @2016? What about Joblessness?

     

  • Our Girls; 10,000Mw NOW, NOT 2019! Electricity is an Emergency, not an astronaut in space

    Our Girls; 10,000Mw NOW, NOT 2019! Electricity is an Emergency, not an astronaut in space

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 though one may sadly have been forced to become a recent suicide bomber, we pray even as more than 300 Agatu Nigerians murdered by Fulani herdsmen perhaps from ‘abroad’. This is exactly like the horrendous happening in New York, London, Brussels, Paris, North Africa but Nigeria does not value life with even a moment of silence! The authorities have never decisively acknowledged or intervened in the escalating FULANI HERDSMEN/ FARMER WAR except to disarm farmers. Rather the authorities accuse a ‘foreign legion of devils’ from neighbouring countries as the murderers. O yes??? Nooo!  If so, that is AN INVASION breaching Nigeria’s territorial integrity and a declaration of ‘WAR ON NIGERIA’!!! Soldiers have been killed. If ‘foreign enemy units’ dressed in combat jackets, firing AK47 ammunition at poorly or unarmed defenceless women, children and farmer fathers and  occupy farms, rape and murder, is that not WAR? If Nigerian Fulani herdsmen are not involved, then they should join farmers and the Federal Government against the ‘AK 47 armed foreign militias’ herding cattle through farms taking crops WITHOUT PAYING [aka STEALING] and destroying lives and livelihoods [aka TERRORISM, ARMED ROBBERY, DECLARATION OF WAR]. Already the attacks have caused tens of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons. BY DRIVING WILLING FARMERS OFF THEIR LANDS there will be a LACK OF WILLING PRESENT AND NEXT GENERATION FARMERS. As a traumatised orphaned child, would you aspire to farm in future if you entire family and village are wiped out for being farmers? Could this be the aim –to wipe out certain farmers and claim their lands? The result will be vast lands unfarmed, unemployment and food shortages. Eventually there will be retaliatory ‘laying waste the land’ by ‘scorched earth’ bushfires to starve ‘foreign’ cattle until RANCHES AND TRAIN TRANSPORT ARE INTRODUCED. This is laying the foundation for a ‘FULANI HERDSMEN/FARMERS FAMINE IN NIGERIA’. What will tomorrow’s cows eat? Who will BOYCOTT and who will eat tomorrow’s cows? Even cow-meat needs farm vegetables! COOPERATION NOT CONFRONTATION IS THE KEY TO A GOOD MEAL. A FAMINE is a VERY REAL AND PRESENT DANGER that the Federal Government needs to prevent!

    The Rivers State brand of ‘murderous democrazy’ demonstrated rivers of blood, maniacal mayhem horrifyingly exemplified by the murder of a young NYSC member, Okonta Samuel, add weight to the horrendous ‘life is cheap’ Nigerian circumstance. A death does not matter to a greedy politician!  Get this straight. It cannot and is not the responsibility of INEC to provide security at polling booths and collation centres. INEC is a civilian election body. It is not equipped by law to compulsorily operate in a zone where the political participants are MURDEROUS CRIMINAL COMBATANTS with POLITICAL goals. It is the responsibility of the Federal Government and states to for safe elections. They fail repeatedly but no punishments!

    No amount of compensation, scholarships, naming graves, roads or buildings after the deceased NYSC OR OTHER PARTY MEMBERS OR POLITICAL THUGS can wipe away that failure or the smell and sight of that blood spilt for the greed of others, still alive and unwilling to submit to democratic procedures, in attaining their evil ‘democratic ‘ambitions.

    The one major ‘change’ is we are promised a mere 10,000Mw within three years –no change! Should we applaud or be appalled, appreciative or angry? Our leaders in the past stole our power money! Now we are broke and in 2-4,000Kw darkness! As a developing country, in three years our power needs will double. The UN reports power needs are 1,000Mw/1million or about 150,000Mw for Nigeria which always had the money but the authorities were too serially greedy and short sighted to provide it under past regimes since 1960, failing the power vision. Instead they bought generators for themselves and to hell with the rest of us, abi?  Today half our fuel import bill provides power from environmentally disastrous generators, which supply 95-100% power needs of most Nigerian homes and businesses. So what will a paltry 10,000Mw do for Nigeria after so many stolen billions, so many ruined businesses and so many millions of dreams have been poured down Nigeria’s drain, truncating growth of brains, the youth and businesses nationwide and driving companies abroad? It is too little! When Japan was faced with its nuclear disaster, Fukushima, it replaced the lost 10,000Mw in three months with emergency power supplies from specialised companies. POWER HAS BEEN MADE AN IGNORED SHAMEFUL EMERGENCY killing Nigeria. Government must not run away from the RESPONSIBILITY OF AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE.  Nigeria can and must provide 10,000Mw within three months by decentralising power and sharing responsibility with states and the private sector. Electric power must be devolved to states under true federalism. Abused federalism has caused our massive power fraud. Many states have governments as fraudulent as the recent federal governments but TRUE FEDERALISM is long overdue. WE WANT POWER NOW, and all other things will follow –increased jobs, business, and taxes! This promised 10,000Mw plan must be REVISED UPWARDS TO 20,000 OR 30,000MW BY 2019, BY ANY MEANS- United Nations, World Bank, IMF, CORPORATE, CBN FUNDS –  NECESSARY to bring IRREVERSABLE POSITIVE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE to Nigeria’s homes and businesses by 2019. It will take more than all the power Nigeria generates in 10 years to launch the rocket to put a Nigerian in space. Power is more important to Nigerians than an astronaut in space by 2030!

     

    • tonymarinho.com for blog.
  • Our Girls; Fulani- Farmers War;   Ayodele: Stop criminalising results; Corruption;  Apapa tankers

    Our Girls; Fulani- Farmers War;   Ayodele: Stop criminalising results; Corruption;  Apapa tankers

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. We pray with what result?

    Another mass murder, this time in Agatu 300+ Nigerians dead. I address this issue frequently. The total Fulani-Farmer death toll is more than for Boko Haram, in the 20,000s. In The Nation May 9, 2012 I wrote: Blood Cow Meat; Boycotts & Cow Corridors; Ethical Cow Meat; National Cow Conference?  

    In addition [to Boko Haram War, we face] the Fulani herdsmen/ farmers [the Second War] with deadly disputes on the North-South cattle corridor over ‘The Right and the Wrong of Way’ through farms from social arrogance, hidden political agenda and armed robbery motivation. There is talk of ‘Economic Meat Sanctions’. Unsold, cattle would flood the North. Nigeria’s North-South Cattle Run could use trailers or trains [and grazing areas].   

    What is the acceptable cost of meat in human blood – destruction of other families? We eat ‘Blood Meat’ brought to our table through misery, injury and death. We must solve this before we are forced to have retaliatory ‘Cow Meat Boycotts’. We need an ‘Ethical Meat Movement’. No one should bleed, die or be injured, mentally or physically, because we want meat to eat!

    How can a Nigerian cow be more valuable than a Nigerian’s life or livelihood – second class citizens to cows! Think economics. Potholes kill Nigerians, cow meat should not! Transport and sell cow meat. But, like Shakespeare’s Shylock taking ‘a pound of flesh’ from Antonio, we also must spill not one drop of blood – human blood!

    Dr Wale Okediran tackled this in ‘Tenants of the House’. The current ‘tenants of the NASS’ must suggest ranches in the North and 1-2 day North South trailer and train as an alternative to the 2 month murderous food and water trek unless the cow palaver is just a decoy and the real Fulani agenda is conquest of land and murder? President Buhari, Patron/President of Fulani farmers, Nigeria wants answers and a stop to this Nigeria’s second war.  

    Dada Ayodele is a casualty of the education war! Highest scoring graduate of UNILAG, his story speaks tragic volumes of the quality of decision-making among supervisors in our educational exam system already mired in an IT debacle at the last examination. An educational system which red-flags ‘excellence’ as ‘fraud’ is wrong. His excellent pre-university results were withheld without investigation truncating his opportunity to enter university. Surely the investigative team should make an investigative phone call, have an interview or test to confirm that brilliance. What authority enables a Nigerian education body to withhold results without any investigation? Then surely this means that all our geniuses have risked results being cancelled due to educational scepticism and Monitoring and Evaluation irresponsibility? This young man lost money, time and effort by being forced to get into UNILAG through a diploma course. Surely the Minster of Education must immediately call the education body to overhaul the ‘cheating detection mechanism’, institute more fail-proof steps in future. Before any arbitrary cancellation of exam results, every case of ‘criminal brilliance’ demands an investigation panel in which the student is further scrutinised before being condemned. Elsewhere in the world we celebrate brilliance. Only in Nigeria could education authorities maliciously dismiss ‘High IQ Achievers’ as ‘cheats’. That misapplied stigma of dishonesty will taint candidate starting from loss of respect from siblings, family and ‘former’ friends and linger with the computerised exam body during other exams. A proper ‘Appeals System’ must be implemented. No ‘Too Good To Be True Result’ should be cancelled or withheld unless there is a ‘Truth Test’.

    Other government people build on structures and leave their countries better than they found them. Nigeria’s political class and many other Nigerians are ‘Too Personally Greedy for Nigeria to Grow or even Survive’. We seem never to learn, no matter how many Soyinka words are written, Fela songs sung, music made, plays acted, films filmed, deeds done  or history stories told and retold. The thief will always be a thief –just more greedy each time –millions to billions totalling trillions! Will the ‘uniform’ always steal? Will the tax man always remain biblical, taking most for himself and some for government? Will the judge always be biblically corrupt?

    The same old lawyers’ team, gather in black-winged gowns and skullcap wigs, unmistakably looking like vultures fattened on the citizens who are dead, deceived and dispirited. The lawyers are centre stage, nodding and shaking their heads to the beat of the adjournment and bail drum. There is nearly zero moral rectitude heartbeat, difficult to detect in their breasts and few moral fibres in their garments. They gather around suspects, ignoring the victims of crimes committed, to delay, deflect, divert the court’s attention span and defend those accused of corrupting the election process or looting the budget of incomprehensible amounts of money. And judges deliver ‘questionable judgements’. Meanwhile who defends the depressed, diseased and even dead from the theft of billions which has truncated ability, education, health, roads, power supply, housing, jobs and even lives? Perhaps the Nigerian Human Rights Commission which should take these thieves to court for Human Rights Abuse of the voting citizen?

    Look at Apapa Port area Nigeria as it chokes on its own wealth blocking the arteries of human movement. It has spawned thousands of tanker trailers destroying Lagos. Meanwhile everyone knows that the only efficient seaport is one with traditional trains and railway evacuation of containers.

  • Our Girls; ‘The Feeling of Governance’; Pothole-Free Nigeria; Can DNA rescue Nigeria’s Crime Scene?

    Our Girls; ‘The Feeling of Governance’; Pothole-Free Nigeria; Can DNA rescue Nigeria’s Crime Scene?

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014, we pray.

    Nigeria is like a never ending drama, a thriller and murder mystery stage play, a new Revised 2016 edition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The ‘Feeling Of Governance’ is missing in the nation. Massive nationwide pothole-filling for ‘Zero Tolerance to Potholes’ will change the perception and also provide immediate evidence of governance especially at this time that Nigeria incompetently and stupidly lost a hardworking minister, his wife and son to preventable road carnage. No guilty verdict on the driver will reduce the ‘remote control’ responsibility of governance in the minister’s death and the death of thousands from ruptured tyres torn in Nigeria’s 10 million jagged potholes. These Nigerian potholes do not have to be here, no matter how rich Nigeria was or how poor Nigeria is. Potholes wreck nations.

    There was an accident on the pothole expressway at 7.20am on Sunday March 13. A Coca Cola trailer lay on its side. A group of travellers had stopped in ‘sympathy’ and were helping themselves to 1.5 litre bottles of Coca Cola with torn labels. The single traffic personnel ignored the theft. I have seen many accidents where those helping most are usually making ‘take away’ with cellphones, money and watches. A nation that cannot fill its potholes should not go Atlantic City or another dirty airport or a tourism programme. Motorable, pothole-free roads are as much a citizen’s right as being Polio free. Pothole free roads are not a dividend of democracy. Potholed roads are a manifestation of the ‘Demons of Democracy’.

    The ‘Great Expectations’ for CHANGE are wallowing, mired in the repeated disappointments of the Nine O’clock News carrying re-runs of old court scenes with new ‘accused’ actors but the same lawyers. The NNPC staff strike has crippled Nigeria. We need ‘CHANGE’ quickly. Police and Customs Uniforms, are still accused of taking money!

    Why does everything Nigeria touches as government fizzle into incompetence, disappointment and nothingness? We find health, education, roads, water, supply, electricity projects and of course pension schemes all become billion naira scams. No plan works, no idea develops, no service serves the people! This results in leaving a trail of extreme poverty, truncated dreams and shattered lives for 120,000,000+ Nigerians. Is it the sun or are we just low achievers? The Arabs pay foreigners to run services. Should we?

    Is it true that UCH Resident Doctors are on a warning strike partly because accreditation has been withdrawn for Obstetrics and Gynaecology post graduate courses in the formerly ‘Premier Learning Health Institution’ in Nigeria and West Africa? I declare my serious bias because I studied medicine in University of Ibadan and O&G in University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan. The loss of accreditation in a medical course is like if true, it confirms than no institution is being allowed to grow but all are not experiencing stagnation but actual decay in the ‘Learned Health Services’. The minister of health, a ‘Learned Academic’ who grew from UCH also, must be more than a little alarmed at this. He must move swiftly to ensure improved standards of UCH and all other tertiary institutions to repair the shredding reputation of tertiary hospitals across Nigeria and UCH in particular. Linking individual hospitals and departments with cooperative similar organs abroad may be a good measure as inbreeding has led to a near collapse of standards in Nigerians hospitals. Beyond repetitive court cases and oceans of wigs and gowns and ever-increasing delays, injunctions, ‘change of judge’, and bail arguments, there is no good news. The news from Ethiopia is about a new drought. Will it spread to West Africa where already les rain than usual is predicted?

    Employment is coming –or is it? If the Lagos DNA Lab works. The jinx on the federal forensic laboratories was due to corruption –an annual N50million sinkhole slush fund. In Nigeria almost anything ‘laboratory’ and ‘Library’ is subject to corruption causing a stunting of facilities and services and a collapse of crime investigation. Dr Justin Uku was Chief Pathologist in the 60s at the Pathology Laboratory on Broad Street. He left at 50 for the USA to become Chief Coroner to Buffalo County. You dare not imagine the degree of cutting edge science that was in his Buffalo lab. The denigration of science by Nigeria has stunted generations of young scientists and laboratory technicians rendering them jobless and also incapacitated the criminal justice system which worldwide depends on ‘Science Evidence Based’ Convictions. Nigeria still does not know how to ‘ISOLATE AND SECURE THE CRIME SCENE’. I was at Uncle Bola Ige’s House the day after he was murdered, and at my first cousin’s Funsho Williams’ home the day following his murder and I have been at many robbery scenes. In no case was the scene cordoned off. In both murder scenes it was theatre of the absurd with increasingly important people being taken on tours. Fingerprints, photographs and handwriting have been used for 150 years. Computers and digital camera are commonplace. Nigeria has had over 10 different and ‘face and fingerprint capture’ for biometric capture. Government promised that there would be compulsory ‘Shared Information’ between security agencies. Nigeria needs a computerised crosslinked network of Forensic Laboratories dealing in DNA and all other evidence. The age of the scientific policeman may be here. Students, science graduates and police would do well to study science or go for Forensic Science Courses.

     

  • Our Girls; True Federalism; Needless Powerlessness’; ‘Deceptions of Democracy’; ‘Solar Century’; Lagos DNA

    Our Girls; True Federalism; Needless Powerlessness’; ‘Deceptions of Democracy’; ‘Solar Century’; Lagos DNA

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014, pray for them.

    Nigeria was never poor, unable to cater for its ‘huge burden’ population as falsely stated by political class to cover its theft. Nigeria’s wealth was politicians’ ‘best kept secret’. Nigeria is blessed by God with oil and was rich for the last 50 years increasing exponentially till the ‘Nigerian Fiscal Famine of 2015-????’ The ‘Nigerian Fiscal Famine’ was precipitated by 1) Massive 70-100% corruption in national, state, public and private life; 2) Spectacular moral and political failure to establish a strong $50-100+m Sovereign Wealth Fund with 1-10% of revenues; 3) Failure to diversify the economy by massively increasing power to the required off and on-grid 150,000Mw with 1.5 million power service jobs, using God’s second gift to Nigeria, solar energy, and other sources; 4) Failure to factor into the budgets economic countermeasures to the  inevitable fall in oil.

    Halfway over the precipice, why are we blaming those who put the brakes on the crashing vehicle Nigeria, Buhari and Co, and not his predecessors? The predecessor should be condemned to media silence and jail for fiscal, power and political failures. It is a Human Rights Crime Against Humanity to give 150,000,000 fellow Nigerian citizens just 2-5,000Mw power. This is the crime of ‘Needless Powerlessness’ amidst plenty. Nigeria must urgently replace this lost power to prevent another generation of nationwide misery, generator fumes, noise pollution and the massive cost to families and businesses that ‘Needless Powerlessness’ has caused. The ‘Pain of Powerlessness’ is real.

    Nigeria was richest in the last 20 years from God’s oil. Nigeria still has God’s sun if only we had a decisive, visionary ‘Solar’ leader. Can Buhari become that leader in this ‘Solar Century’?  These ‘50 years of progressively increasing Plenty’ did not coincide with a visionary Churchillian, Kennedyesque or Mandelaian leaders. Instead Nigeria experienced progressively worsening Presidential manipulation of budgets, funds and elections with an increasingly greedy political class feasting on ‘Corpus Nigeria’ with the greediest civil service and contractor classes in the world. Obasanjo’s recent rant and boast at 79 years is in conflict with the developmental disappointments of his two-nearly-three term regime. Later Presidential hands-off election manipulation was not reproduced in states though budget draining was specialised in by all parties.

    During the 50 years, particularly the last 20, infrastructure services to Nigerians was characterised by media misnamed ‘dividends of democracy’ when they were actually demonic ‘Deceptions Of Democracy’ exemplified by corrupt ‘Constituency Projects’ which steal 70-90% for enrichment of National Assembly (NASS) members concerned. Have our media no conscience? The hoodwinking of citizens is more widespread, involving all government activities like handing out exercise books and road construction. Most are ‘Deceptions of Democracy’ and we must stop attending and stop applauding while we are continually being defrauded  by the ‘Gang of Politicians’ in power, past and even present. Happily the Federal Government has apparently stopped the Security Vote, the monthly slush fund which was a hangover of military government corruption.

    The worst thing about our farcical and fraudulent country is that shame, repentance and reparations never go with offences committed like the abuse of ‘True Federalism’ by withholding central approval for meaningful state development. The success of the Lagos Lekki Link Bridge is a fine example of true federalism practiced by visionary leaders like late President Musa Yar‘Adua. But Lagos needs 20 such bridges!  Other states have similar development needs stopped by a scheming federal political and Civil Service government machinery with a mantra ‘To Deny Enemy States Development Projects’! Across Nigeria there are 100 State-Federal Agreements/state awaiting urgent presidential approval. Look at the repair of federal roads in states -a disgraceful example of Federal–State discordance! For years, citizens of states run by political parties different from the party running the Federal Government were squashed, mistreated, ignored and cheated of their federal rights.

    Will there be no reparation or apology from past heads of state advising us on the way forward when they misled us? Is Buhari that visionary leader to embrace states and re-orientate federal might and stop Federal Vs State Ministry infighting? Every Nigerian belongs to a state. For years, only ‘Some Northerners’, not all,  were ‘allowed’ to strut the federal stage and force narrow regional educational and other interests on the national agenda executed as ‘Federal Might’.  Everyone else represented himself with no reference to his own Oba/Obi before national decisions were taken. Obasanjo re-gained some territory and Jonathan tried. Where are we going now – hopefully not back to ethnic domination? Buhari must know about Fasola’s titanic battle with opposition federal ministers sent as attack-dogs shamelessly delaying development and destroying their home states. While fighting corruption, Buhari can initiate a ‘Federal- State Cooperation Action Plan’ with a ‘Coordinating Minister for State Development’ to fast track development. The Council of States must cut State-Federal red tape and inter-ministerial bottlenecks around development projects. No more State-Federal dichotomy. We want ‘Unity in Democratic Diversity’.

    Nigeria’s ‘In Office Offences’ cannot attract ‘judicial immunity’ or ‘SAN’itisation from herds of lawyers encouraging another ‘50 years of fiscal impunity’ that sent millions to graves and left many millions more underperforming and underachieving. Strangely we and the media are hungry to call on disgraced ex-presidents and even Al Mustapha for advice at public lectures. Is our heroes’ blood so worthless?

    Lagos State is to get a DNA forensic laboratory, hurray. Criminals and ‘pregnant’ boys, beware! It pays to do DNA!

  • Our Girls; Okada Epidemic; Fulani/Farmer War; Curb Power failure; Law on Limitation of lawyers per case!

    Our Girls; Okada Epidemic; Fulani/Farmer War; Curb Power failure; Law on Limitation of lawyers per case!

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. We continue to pray for their safety and that of the citizenry of the affected areas. The motorcycle battalion of the Nigerian Army is welcome but it should be more hush hush. The Okada, motorcycle, has removed many young Nigerians from the farm and village and has created an epidemic killing and maiming probably up to 10% of the population. Ask!  Every Nigerian knows an okada victim. That is a murderous epidemic, infecting every village, town, city and community with a deadly virus.  This okada virus should be curbed as it is not economic sense to promote mono-transport. Every politician must visit one of the Orthopaedic Hospitals before making any new okada constituency donations of such deadly weapons.  OKADA MUST DIE FOR THE PEOPLE TO LIVE.

    The Fulani-Farmers war is murderously out of control. Current methods are failing. Now we are told the perpetrators are from ECOWAS countries. It is not an excuse for Nigerians to be murdered in their ancestral farms by herdsmen who for 40 years have launched a vicious war against the citizenry. President Buhari may have had to relinquish his toga of Patron of the Fulani Herdsmen’s Association but he must find a lasting solution. The nation may have to boycott cow meat for six months to bring sanity and protest the murder of their farming citizenry in 20 states.

    Nigeria has suffered the serial leadership incompetence of 40 years. That primary incompetence manifests as poor power supply, 2-5000Mw when we need 150,000Mw or 1,000Mw per one million citizens as recommended by the United Nations. Fareed Zakaria of the CNN pointed out that every six hours, more solar energy reaches the world’s deserts than the world uses in one year. What a waste. Morocco is focusing concentrated sun’s energy to provide power. What is Nigeria doing? Unfortunately Nigeria refuses to even rent 10,000MW FROM EMERGENCY POWER COMPANIES AS AN EMERGENCY MEASURE to cater NOW for the citizens, LIKE THE JAPANESE DID WHEN THEY LOST THE 10,000Mw Fukushima nuclear Power Plant. Nigeria was rich for the last 40 years, our money stolen by agbada thieves.  Today’s politicians should be much more sorry for the corruption of politicians, past and present, and repair 40 year damage to the power grid done by providing that Emergency Power, 10,000Mw within three months using part of the $30b CBN foreign Reserves and international donor funds. It pays the world to keep Nigerians in Nigeria. Imagine 100+million added to the world’s refugee crisis ‘seeking heaven alone’. Will the world survive the tectonic shift from 100m Nigerians fleeing Nigeria and attempting to cross the Sahara, reach the Mediterranean, take 100,000 boats and cross to The Island of Lampedusa en route  Fortress Europe, the UK in or out of the EU and even the USA?

    Congratulations to Gianni Infantino, new 9th President of FIFA. Will he be good for football in developing countries? Hopefully he will clean up FIFA and the over 200-member Football Associations. Perhaps even Nigerian Football Association will come clean with its funds from FIFA HQ for the development of football in Nigeria. Think of the millions of youth denied quality footballs and training for which FIFA funds have been allocated and corruptly disbursed in dollars.

    We have gone mad – legally, morally, socially and, of course, financially. The recent Supreme Court election victory decisions, though incontestable legally, are mired in the moral court of public opinion and that of the many dead from unforgivable political violence. Secondly, the over-representation of ‘legal luminaries’, even in the tiniest of courts where they line up for photo-ops while often defending the indefensible for monumental fees. There is a Statute of Limitations on time to prosecute, which is immoral anyway. A crime is a crime, not just for 30 years. Nigeria requires yet another LAW OF LIMITATIONS to back up. The law we need is ‘The Law of Limitation on Numbers for Legal Representation’ IN WHICH THE NUMBER OF LAWYERS PERMITTED TO ATTEND ANY SINGLE NIGERIAN CASE IS LIMITED to, for example, one SAN, [sane or sick, haha], two Senior Lawyers, [yellow wigged] and three Junior Lawyers, [bright white wigs], and one NYSC Lawyer, [wig on backwards by mistake]. Nigerian Lawyers are used to going around in ever-enlarging herds. As the judge said, it suggests the tactic, though expensive, is solely aimed at intimidating the court and the opposition. It also demonstrates the financial power of the party who hired the legal luminaries supposedly ‘bent’ on seeking ‘justice’ at any price! Regrettably, we see the same lawyers spouting against corruption and election malpractices one day, and defending the accused perpetrators the next day.

    For too many Nigerians, life is a game –dangerous, deadly and dear- expensive with too many costly failures. Fortunately, there is hope for humanity beyond the crass corruption of Nigeria, capitalism of the West and communism of China USSR. Under the new organisation ‘BREAKTHROUGH ENERGY COALITION’, Bill Gates and some fellow billionaires- all made from crass capitalism- and the University of California- donation and patent rich- are funding the ‘NEXT GENERATION ENERGY SOURCES’ to fast-track better cheaper, non-carbon,  power sooner than later. Google it. I am not sure if Dangote is part of the ‘Team To Power Tomorrow’ but Nigeria cannot afford to be left behind again and needs a serious solar power shift to 10,000Mw today, this month and 50,000Mw by 2017!

     

  • Our Girls; Prof Olajide Ajayi: 11yr old orphan to octogenarian, poor to Professor of Surgery 

    Our Girls; Prof Olajide Ajayi: 11yr old orphan to octogenarian, poor to Professor of Surgery 

    Our Girls are still missing since Oct 15 2014. We pray constantly for their return.

    Enough of pitiable politics! Today it is Personal and Professorial! An ‘80 Not Out’ is indeed a milestone. But no letter from the President! It does not come to all, even when they work and pray or corruptly steal Nigeria into their personal pocket. It is in God’s hands though the devil can destroy the wickets of life, ‘a Golden Duck’. Happily it came to Professor Olajide Ajayi last weekend. Yes, he was Cricket Captain. That landmark witnessed impressive outings of a distinguished and successful family and a formidable array of ‘Ajayi Aficionados’. Professor Ajayi’s rollercoaster Odyssey is in his very readable autobiography Up & On. As one prizes open the super, sad and sinister stories that make a biography or autobiography worth reading, we expect to find life’s familiar footprints, the cruel cousin, the tear trail, the unfortunate uncle, the reasonable relation, the rude relative, the fortunate failure, the dogged determination, the foolish feud, the love and lust and loathing of life, the supreme struggle, the terminal triumph and the enviable ending that make a biography resonate with the reader.

    In Up & On, Professor Ajayi traces his relationships, triumphs and trials from birth to 11 years old when he became an orphan, to octogenarian, from an uncomfortably student existence he described as ‘parasitic’ to Professor of Surgery and a distinguished professor at that. In growing up he encountered family love, sibling and parental loss, both the ‘wicked witch’ and the ‘fairy Godmother’ and climbed his first Mount Everest, mathematics excellence. He was a student with shoes but ‘no medical textbooks, no human skeleton’; penniless, who borrowed books and money from individual student friends’ generosity’, to cross the Rubicon of the second MB Examination in Medicine. We learn, still true today, the only way to overcome in mathematics is to practice –to try, try and try again. The only way to overcome ‘medical booklessness’ is to borrow books or to stand and read books in bookshops while pretending to make difficult choices between textbooks to purchase but your brain is really consuming chapters, digesting differential diagnosis of devious diseases to be copied from memory on return home- a corner in someone else’s home. We learn that you can borrow someone else’s skeleton to learn ‘skeleton’.

    From witnessing a crocodile’s white underbelly being sliced up, he developed maximum skilfulness with the stainless steel super-sharp surgeon’s scalpel on the soft bellies, breasts and bottoms of patients. He made fruitful forays into the pursuit of clinical excellence, administration, teaching and incorrupt management at Teaching Hospitals and founding and upgrading medical schools nationwide. Abroad he became renowned worldwide and he conceived or nurtured many medical babies to adulthood. The West African College of Surgeons, National Post Graduate Medical College to name two, and thousands of doctors who are the better for the tough lessons taught by a tough teacher, from a tough struggling background, who we all much later learnt had a very soft underbelly. The International Federation of Surgical Colleges received his commitment and leadership. Despite an awesome reputation as an ever available ‘damn-fine’ surgeon, he fulfilled his societal duties. Having set aside his scalpel, which I had the privilege of seeing flashing in theatre lights many times, he grew his philanthropic and church work while not relinquishing medical education advancement. Obtain copies of Up & On as birthday presents and ‘reality adventure stories’ for your 15-24 year old youth at home and in university to make them appreciative of your parenting and become highly motivated with tips to overcome educational and work trials.

    At 80 Professor Ajayi remains an honoured guest in many ‘younger’ homes, especially those of The Group, where his presence as a seriously big brother ‘egbon’ figure adds quality, elevates the conversation and dare I say comedy –he is a very jocular Jagunaso – close up. The nation pays this tribute to an honest, straight-talking, humorous, visionary, scalpel-wielding titan in medicine, surgery and society and a relevant role model to role models and my teacher in and out of medical school. When we respectfully say to him ‘You will live long, Sir’, he will reply with a sly twinkle-eyed smile, Have I not lived long enough’ and we re-reply Noooo! and will add You will be 100, in health and wealth, Amen! And he will say I am not sure you wish me well and we protest that he should doubt our motives. I join millions in congratulating Professor Ajayi and D, D, B and K and the larger family on keeping each other going before and since Aunty Beatrice, the ‘genetic polyglot’ left this earth. Teacher wa, E pe fun wa, Sir. PS Professor Ajayi, has a phrase- ‘You Know’ and you answer that you ‘do know’ or nod your head ‘knowingly’ even as you and he know that you do not know what he knows! He also has a unique unmistakable voice. It is a cross between authority, impatience and soothing, unless of course it is the thunder of annoyance!

    He climbed many Mount Everests. Siting on this latest Mount Everest of Distinguished Age his character is not ‘to go quietly into the night’. It is the dawn of the Age of the Octogenarian. The timeless tick-tock is digital, silently ticking nanoseconds. What next Sir?

     

  • Our Girls; Wanted: Made in Nija Valentine? Practical not Theoretical Science/Arts/ Sports Education 

    Our Girls; Wanted: Made in Nija Valentine? Practical not Theoretical Science/Arts/ Sports Education 

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray for their discovery.

    I hope your Valentine was enriched by Made in Nija cards, tropical love flowers, locally made fashion gifts, and local currency? Next Valentine: Love local, love Nigerian with 100% Nigerian sexy hibiscus or red bougainvillaea love flowers instead of the odourless, artificial foreign plastic thorn-less rose!

    How did your love life stand up to the peer pressure, commercial and economic strains of an avaricious Valentine’s Day? Are you a Valentine Survivor or a Valentine Victim – a deflated, lost lover, new entrant to the line of ex-this and ex-that, ex-partner? The queue is mostly ex-boyfriends expelled for failing the huge Valentine’s gift expectations of an avaricious ‘loved one’ with demands including a silent generator with one year free petrol/diesel or rent paid Lekki Flat. NEPA/PHCN/GENCO/DISCO have caused many couple breakdowns with their permanent power failure. Hopefully a Sunday Valentine, fear of Zika, HIVAIDS and pregnancy introduced ‘holy celibacy’ into the mix except for the married!

    So Einstein was right about Gravitational Waves. He was an expert in Theoretical Physics -super cerebral physics. Nigeria has a traumatised science education in schools because Nigerian educationists mistook  ‘theoretical’ science to mean a cheap alternative to ‘practical’ science thus ‘saving’ money to steal later on ‘disposables’ like chemicals, litmus paper, lenses and test tubes. Unfortunately the malicious educators did not realise that ‘practicals’ are to science education what ‘a picture’ is to art – ‘worth a thousand words’. ‘Practicals’ light a spark which lights the way to scientific enlightenment in the dark recesses of the brain. If that science spark is not ignited by ‘light bulb eureka-I found it’ moments during science experimentation, the brain may never consider science and its derivatives in SSS1-3– ‘BCP‘, Biolo-Chemi-Phys‘ or Biology, Chemistry, Physiology. This deprivation of the ‘science spark’ caused a generation of Nigeria’s youth, maybe 50m, to grow up indifferent to, or fearful of, science and ignorant and even scared of science. This generation tending towards courses like Business Administration or Commerce. Of course many students gravitate to Mechanical, Electrical and Computer Science. Educationists set up JSS 1-3 to fulfil the teaching responsibility of ‘Exposure to Science and Arts’ as a formidable foundation to empower them in choice of subjects in SSS1-3 and career.

    The loss of ‘practicals’ is a plague of ‘Nigerian home-grown education failure’ spread to Sports and Arts subjects battered by the cancellation of ‘sports equipment’ like discus, javelin, footballs confirmed by the scandalous cancellation of PE- Physical Education. As for Arts, ‘practicals’ refer to ‘arts equipment’ like books, updated, regularly refreshed libraries, theatre, paper and paint, musical instruments, sculpture material and excursions to theatres, museums et cetera.  Science students require excursions to museums, rivers, farms, forests, universities et cetera – all long abandoned because schools have no budgeted funds and bus.

    The criminal-minded ‘Mean Men from the Ministry’ of Education diverted, deleted and ‘disappeared’ these funds. They were bent on 1) Keeping Nigerian youth ignorant and, 2) Stealing from children. Men in the Ministry of Education execute a ‘Ministerial Counter Plot’ killing science, arts and sport ‘practicals’.

    The lack of ‘practicals’ is deliberate sabotage by those who undertake to build the youth brains. Murder from within, from a trusted mentor- even up to a colluding corrupt minister in the Ministry of Education.

    In spite of these drawbacks, many Nigerians excel. But many choose not to explore and exploit their God-given talent concealed in the convoluted cerebrum hidden away in the recesses of the un-stimulated, unlit, un-sparked brain. The child’s brain is like a flat car battery needing a kick-start from another battery – ‘practicals’- to achieve full potential.

    Since the dawn of mankind the five ‘S’s –Survival, Stomach, Sex, Science and artS have dominated.  Survival, stomach and sex are basic animal instincts. The appreciation and exploitation of Science and Arts on the other hand, distinguishes humans from other animals. This appreciation resides in the brain which requires to be stimulated by exposure to different types of stimulus from a very early age to release and achieve its full potential.

    The complaint of poor technological skills of artisans and technologists has its foundation in this neglect by the Nigerian government policy of ‘practicals’ in science and technology subjects. In medical schools, if the bodies for anatomy dissection had to be paid for, medical schools would soon be forced by ‘lack of funds to steal’ to introduce the ‘Theory of Anatomy’ a prelude to the ‘Theory of Medicine’. Imagine theoretical doctors produced with no practical knowledge.

    There is lack of ‘practicals’, accountability and a monumental moral financial responsibility failure in the Ministry of Education confirmed recently by chronic criminal conspiratorial civil servant budget inflation. The fraud scandals include stealing of the ‘practicals’ budget. If all Nigeria’s 70,000 or more schools and polytechnics were properly equipped for ‘practicals’, the money stolen would not have been available to steal.

    Disgracefully, politics and outright stealing even in education ministries have made Nigeria become the only country worldwide where ‘books’ are not essential components of education and are only occasionally distributed as ‘donations’ from politicians as the insultingly corrupt ‘constituency projects’ or Governor’s ‘gifts’.

    Adult government Nigerians must stop stealing our children’s education budget funds and REVERSE  THE WHOLE EDUCATION PENDULUM BACK TO THE ‘PRACTICALS’ PARADIGM in Sport, Science and Technology ‘Black and Decker’  and Arts equipment in all schools to make PRACTICALS RETURN AND REIGN in the Youth brain.

  • Our Girls; Gov: Parking Lane & Car Parks, Pls; Supreme Judge; ZikaV: Death to Mosquitoes! 

    Our Girls; Gov: Parking Lane & Car Parks, Pls; Supreme Judge; ZikaV: Death to Mosquitoes! 

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. Pray! May you have a prayerful Lent.

    What we are missing. South Africa has high speed rail and 45,000Mw. United Kingdom is paying citizens to ‘go solar’. Here the Lagos Ibadan Expressway will be finished by June 2017. What about Nigeria’s power and potholes?

    Governors must please prevent the ruin of states by ‘No Parking Terrorism’ by Internally Generated Revenue-driven unsupervised staff. Keeping traffic flowing does not mean that citizens or visiting drivers deserve no respect, caution, ‘No Parking’ signs, or ‘Car Parks’ and ‘Parking Lanes. ‘No Parking’ is valuable on wide roads. LET THE PEOPLE PARK! ‘No parking’ can be ‘economic sabotage’ reducing customer numbers, destroying businesses, driving visitors away and reducing taxes. We need ‘ROAD USERS PROTECTION ASSOCIATIONS’.  Governors: Drivers should not be denied rights to ‘CAR PARKS AND PARKING LANES’ on wide roads especially if they are not causing traffic jams! Most cars are owner-driven so please abolish the mischievous ‘SOMEONE MUST SIT IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT’ law?

    Zika Virus, (ZikV) was discovered in Zika Forest Uganda in 1947. It is transmitted by a daytime mosquito, Aedes different from the evening/night-time Anopheles carrying malaria. It spread to South and Central America and now worldwide. It is associated with small-headed babies, microcephalus and with Guillain Barré Disease (GBD) and deaths. GBD and microcephalus babies are seen in Nigeria but Zika links have not been investigated. Nigeria is endemic for malaria, yet we do little. Even hospitals lack mosquito nets for patients. ZikV can spread through sex, like AIDS, but also by kissing. Happily, the mosquito/malaria made the colonialists prefer East and South Africa instead but we must not worship such killers. WHO has declared an emergency. Nigeria failed to do so against malaria/mosquito and typhoid/poor sanitation!

    However, Nigeria must make a stand improving on the old vilified DDT spraying and wole-wole sanitation efforts from the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately the sanitation inspector became synonymous with corruption of the uniform –concocted infringements, extortion, greed and power drunkenness = health system failure! Now Nigeria lurches from emergency campaign to campaign. Eventually such campaigns consume billions but deliver less!

    Health has been a corruption quagmire in Nigeria. The HIV/AIDS International Fund fell under corruption. The Ebola Campaign also had disappearing funds but happily forced frightened Nigerians into improving sanitation in schools and markets which reduced typhoid. School sanitation has stopped, falling to previous subhuman poor levels. We are in a Lassa War, praying for no diversion of funds or inflated emergency laboratory or health equipment contracts and bribes to feed the greed of political and health officials seeking ‘what is in it for them to steal?’ and feeding on corpses of fellow citizens dying around them. Can Buhari stop medical corruption?

    Nigeria has uncoordinatedly and unsuccessfully fought the mosquito to date. The only visible tactic of the war on malaria/mosquito is the sometimes corporate driven distribution of, or ‘for sale’, insecticide treated nets, ITN, which is sporadic, uncoordinated, unsustained, unmonitored and unevaluated. Nigeria’s gutters and markets are among the most unsanitary worldwide, never managed properly or sprayed to kill mosquito larva. Yet every single LGA nationwide has received at least a N750m to N3billion allocation PER YEAR during the last 10 years– mostly all stolen or diverted by governors and chairmen. We have no moral right to seek support from the Global Fund or other foreign AID organizations to do the job abandoned by thieving LGAs.

    Nigerians, think ‘out of the box’ against the female ‘missquito’ which bites and causes malaria and the male mistersquito! For example why do night-duty nursing staff stations not have a protective mosquito giant mosquito net tent around them? Why do we fold away or close our nets, wasting a huge bag to capture mosquitoes? When you are not in bed why not let the net do work for you? Open one side of the net to capture the mosquitoes flying around! Before going to bed close it with the captured mosquitoes, crush them and remove them from the net. Google ‘Mosquito Capture Competitions’. Winners have captured four million mosquitoes.

    Nigeria should put the Mosquito on in a multi-ministerial Hit List involving Health, Education, Youth, Science and Tech, IT Ministries to initiate, coordinate and monitor Anti-Mosquito Strategies. NUC, ETF, TEFund must direct funds towards students, under/post graduates and lecturers to disseminate and increase research to increase mosquito capture and reduce mosquito birth. The students and Nigerians must physically capture and destroy mosquitoes. HIV/AIDS is not spread by mosquito bites, but ZIKA Virus is! ‘Death to Mosquitoes in Nigeria, West Africa and the world!’ is a war task that ‘must be done’.

    The collapse of the Saraki case attempting to prevent ‘False Assets Declaration’ prosecution is a Supreme Court plus with massive anti-corruption nationwide political and civil servant Assets Declaration effects. The Supreme Court Lordships will explain on Dec 12th their election judgement. Supreme Court judgements worldwide combine ‘Legal And Moral’ justice, ‘LAW= Legal and Wise’, expanding the ‘Letter Of The Law’. Supreme = ‘All Knowledge’. Judges presumably must have no allegiances, preferences or prejudices except the highest morality. Late UK’s Lord Denning was judged the ‘People’s Judge’. Hopefully Nigeria has several ‘People’s Judges’? Nigeria should not remain a chronic case of ‘The old order changeth, but the law changeth not’. ‘The Law Is An Ass’ must not apply in Nigeria. ‘In times of Change, should the Supreme Court also change?’

     

  • Our Girls; Sango Ibadan; Theft not Laundering; OBJ Message from Masses;  ‘Change’ Laws?

    Our Girls; Sango Ibadan; Theft not Laundering; OBJ Message from Masses;  ‘Change’ Laws?

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 and their families grieve on.

    Governor Ajimobi should please to use his good offices with Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi and perhaps Minister Babatunde Fashola to solve any historic State Vs Federal political party quarrel/rivalry which created the failure of one half of the Sango Level Crossing and Sango/UI Road, a jinx that has lasted 40 years. Do people dig it up as they create many potholes every night for traditional practices? The 40-year Sango rail-crossing traffic jam caused by the uneven iron rail line/ road interface is like a plague on the dual carriageway bringing misery to millions. Perhaps the road maintenance workers are awaiting the governor’s directive to fill the potholes by the rail line? SOS!

    We must install/empower institutions to curb leaders’ corrupt – politician, civil servant, contractor, citizen and ‘any uniform’ even anti-corruption agencies like the police, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), State Inland Revenue Service (SIRS) etcetera. Why is it that Authority Becomes Corruption (ABC) in Nigeria? Why does ‘Authority = Corruption’ in Nigerian Moral Mathematics.

    All Nigeria’s ‘A-Z Gates’ like Armsgate teach that the money was never government’s to ‘give out’. However government has no authority or right to misappropriate the commonwealth! These money theft crimes are mischievously called money-laundering to reduce the crime attracting a petty sentence of two years in prison no matter the ‘the laundry size’! This law needs reform but the lawmakers are mired in the quagmire of ‘questionable budget allocation and [ab-]use’. ‘Laundering’ suggests a cleaning exercise and thus a more palatable crime than stealing or robbery or ‘Financial Terrorism and Murder’, a more accurate description of the crime which kills women and children.

    LAUNDERING IS ACTUALLY A THREE PART ECONOMIC CRIME 1) Conspiracy to steal from the Federal/State/ LGA citizens’ – Economic Terrorism. 2) Theft. 3) Diversion or exchange of stolen money, ‘laundering/ ‘WASHING THE MONEY’! CBN money cannot be converted to the property of the party, for political party activities, elections, gratification, inducement, publicity, prayers or parades. Stolen money should be recovered and returned to Nigerian workers as salaries and pensions, school texts for children, hospitals for women in labour wards, to fill the murderous potholes. Beneficiaries are receivers of stolen goods, knowingly or unknowingly. ‘Ignorance is not an excuse before the law’.

    Members of 2015-2019 government must learn this new lesson, ‘KEEP PARTY HANDS OFF PUBLIC/PEOPLE’S FUNDS’ a lesson still ignored at state/LGA levels by all parties. Recovery of billions will improve the naira, provide funds towards the budget and reduce the deficit. It is refreshing to have a government fighting for and not denigrating the naira, not done since Buhari was last in office – ‘The Champion of the Naira’. On The Naira We Stand!’ Only Nigerians with dollars seek a toilet-paper dead naira. Bring ALL our stolen money back into the budget. We must frighten financial criminals with multiple ‘forensic accounting’ investigations of every government and private organ with government funds in it. Reduce extravagant imports, localize food and goods consumption to boost local business and reduce import bills. The Treasury Single Account (TSA) thankfully stopped the usual civil service December theft of billions in the traditional ‘End of Year/Christmas Corruption’!

    We fight corruption and combat ‘legal extortion’ among draconian democracies at state level bent on ‘raising Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) funds’. There is a high ‘legal’ taxation and fees in some States where to get Governor’s Consent can attract severe fees. The taxes and contract kickbacks were mainly used to illegally fund multi-party electioneering across the country like at Federal level –‘State Armsgate’. The economy shrinks, naira falls but will costs go up or down to compensate? Will taxes go down, relieving citizens and capturing more taxable adults?  A little from a lot is better than a lot from a few.

    Nigerians have tightened their belts periodically for 50 years due to the serial greed and ‘failure to lead’ and ‘failure to save’ of a greedy politics and we suffer on. Our budget is a ‘Bulk Budget’ typically African, allowing ‘bulk theft’. Foreign budgets are in ‘line item’ minute detail making for easy identification of missing money. Government theft occurs worldwide, but Nigeria’s causes murder.

    OBJ’s letter to NASS and by extension to state assemblies, the ‘Anti-car’ and irresponsible ‘anti-constituency allowance’ message is more important than the messenger who has questions about Third Term bid, Ghana Must Go bags, and election anti-democracy activities. Nigerians complained, NASS ignored us. Now OBJ is speaking, NASS talks back! Beware! THIS TIME OBJ SPEAKS THE MASSES’ MIND! Nigeria’s politicians may/will soon tear off togas, breath in to hide bloated bellies, leave mansions, bury fortunes and try to hide among hungry, angry –‘hangry’ unemployed and devalued masses who will throw their ‘legally illegal’ constituency  empowerment items back in their faces! The masses are tired of waiting for ‘Politicians’ Attitudinal Change’, to follow the ‘Political Change’. The masses will gather at every house of assembly demanding ‘change’.

    As government seeks to change the anti-corruption laws, introduce laws which 1) Force the accused to defend wealth or forfeit ‘wrongful wealth’; 2) The accused do not get bail if charged with ‘stealing from the public purse’ – equivalent to ‘murder’ and ‘Economic Terrorism’, 3) The guilty get sentences commensurate in length to funds stolen. As Nigeria squirms under the Supreme/Appeals Court Election Tribunal judgements seeming to support ‘Election Fraud/Violence’, guilty politicians/parties must be banned from re-runs for 1-4 years. Politicians/thugs in violent areas must be tried for murder, GBH- Grievous Bodily Harm or for altering elections.