Category: Tony Marinho

Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. May God bring them back safely.

Ministers should initiate the greatest good for the greatest number of Nigerians in the shortest possible time – with every stroke of their pens, every thought, word and deed. ‘Yes, Minister’!

Wanted: ‘INTER-MINISTERIAL MINISTERIAL SYNERGY’ for Development, not Rivalry for state destruction. All federal and even state ministers need Monthly Inter-Ministerial Communication And Cooperation, IMCC meetings. The power turbine too big to cross a bridge to its destination for 2+ years after being delivered to Nigeria’s port is disgraceful. Customs delaying power equipment containers for bribes is sabotage. An IMCC meeting must monitor progress of key state/federal projects from start to finish. Electric Power is key to citizens’ business success and welfare. There should also be ministerial/state monthly IMCC/states meeting on monitoring, problems, timelines and bottlenecks. Nigeria must have this ‘change’. States suffered from a ‘legal’ lawless bullying PDP federal power selectively stunting development. Minister of PHW, Babatunde Fashola is an expert in good and bad state/federal relations with success with late President Yar’Adua on the iconic Lekki Bridge and also frustration by interfering federal agents and evil ministers of works even using the military. The federal mission statement ‘Federal Might is Always Right’ is evil, wrong and anti-development. Minister of PWH Fashola and Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi are deliberately placed by President Buhari to execute solutions to dismantle this demonic dichotomy between federal and state. Every Nigerian is from a state.

WANTED: NIGERIA URGENTLY NEEDS 14-17 million homes, 1.000 LEKKI-LIKE BRIDGES, 10,000 pedestrian walkways, the filling of 2100 million lethal potholes to be filled by road gangs, like PWD of old, under supervision of local communities. Where are the Second and Third Niger Bridges? Our traditional roads followed colonial trade routes. We need new railways and roads in new directions, decongesting roads and railways like the Lagos-Ibadan DEAD Expressway which itself was 1970s bold new road going ‘where no one had been before’. The East-West Road is not complete. Apart from easing movement, tourism dollars also require these inputs.

WANTED: A 10 YEAR DRIVING LICENCE: The new ministers must ‘CHANGE’ the three-year Driver’s Licence life span to 10 years with additional fees, eg N1-2,000/year, to ensure no loss of revenue. Renewing every three years overworks FRSC staff and the unfortunate citizens. Civil Society, National Assembly (NASS) and Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) should jointly eliminate this major bottleneck in the life of Nigerians.

WANTED: A BAN ON TYRE BURNING: The Minister of the Environment, a veteran general of MDGs should see the value in a ban nationwide on burning of tyres with huge numbers of toxins released into the atmosphere and especially when used for burning the hair off the skin of cow-hide, later eaten, along with the toxins, by poor Nigerians. A radio and TV and poster nationwide campaign should help.

WANTED: SINGLE DIGIT INTEREST RATES for every Nigerian. Drastically cut the 12+% base lending rate, claimed by CBN on each loan transaction which has made Nigeria’s the laughing stock and necessitating the past government offering single digit rates for sundry businesses.

WANTED: EMERGENCY POWER NOW: The power problem is immediate, medium and long term. Minister of PHW, Fashola can use as a ‘Change’ template, the recovery from the Fukishima nuclear plant shutdown in Japan in 2011. Immediately, within three months, Japan replaced all the 10,000Mw lost by ‘Emergency Power Companies’. Nigeria must get the needed 10,000Mw out of 100,000Mw minimum the same way. ‘Emergency Power Companies’ are on the web. They can deliver local power on contract for 3-12+ months, terminated as medium term local power and particularly Solar Energy gradually replace it with IPPs and the long term plants.

WANTED: A NATIONWIDE MASSIVE MEDIA INFORMATION Agenda as a Weapon of Mass Development, not just during Ebola epidemics! We need realignment of federal/state information ministries, and massive inter ministerial activity to use the media and National Orientation Agency (NOA) for the complete ‘Ignorance Elimination’ and education of citizens, on not just government policies, but all things–health/social/life-skill/moral/civics messages. The media must be two-way, people to government. No hour without serious educational/motivation messages, not propaganda.

WANTED: A NATIONWIDE NETWORK OF YOUTH CENTRES- one per ward, local cheap, Do it Yourself (DIY), locally named for youth education/empowerment and two-way messages between ministries and youth.

WANTED: ENCOURAGE PRIMARY SCHOOL OLD STUDENTS ASSOCIATIONS to duplicate what secondary schools have been able to do to uplift education at that level.

WANTED : IMMEDIATE HOUSE OFFICER JOBS FOR ALL QUALIFIED  DOCTORS. No new recruitment until all seniors have been employed.  This is a quick crisis for Minister of Health Prof Isaac Adewole to solve.

WANTED: NATIONAL HONOURS LIST with Dr Bennet Omalu, President Carter, Rotary International, Bill Gates. Dr Bennet Omalu the 1990 University of Nigeria, Nsukka, medical graduate who discovered that American football players developed a chronic brain disease, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, CTE. President Carter/Carter Foundation for eliminating River Blindness, Onchocerciasis, Rotary International for Polio elimination and to Bill and Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the Malaria and Ebola Vaccine funding.

Nigeria should, among others, recognize International Guidelines based on Omalu’s work, restricting the age and number of times children and youth footballers can ‘head footballs’ abroad.

WANTED: A NATIONWIDE SCHOOL SPORTS PROGRAMME and ‘CAUTION’ ABOUT ‘HEADING FOOTBALLS’. Synergy among Ministries of Youth and Sport, Information, Education and Health are relevant in this to inform the 50m youth about this life-threatening manoeuvre in football.  To be continued….

Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. We pray for their urgent safe return.

So Nyesom Wike has lost out at the tribunal as governor. ‘Wike leaks’ legally! Should there be an election rerun? Such a rerun is an exercise of institutionalised fraud and a perpetuation of fraud. A person or party found guilty of fraud should do the honourable ‘WAEC thing and go to jail for 21 years’ and certainly be banned, barred or otherwise restrained from any purported rerun of same, said election. In fact without a rerun, the election victory should automatically be handed to the candidate with the next highest votes. If that candidate and party are found fraudulent, then the next candidate and party should take over. Only this will sanitise the system.

To effect political electoral change, the guilty party in court, must be identified as such in the political domain. He or she must be disqualified as unfit for public office in any rerun. The law is indeed an ass if it continues to allow the guilty person to participate in the rerun election, as in the past, anyone or any political party found guilty of election fraud. Such action is ‘defrauding the citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and its constituent states of democratic representation’.

What the politicians in the National Assembly (NASS) have approved as good punishment for the cheating youth of Nigeria must also be good for the cheating politician. Political corruption is worse than financial corruption. This is because it allows the corruptly ‘elected’ politician to have illegal access to the budget, illegal salary and perks for self and appointees who are illegally appointed. Indeed any project executed is illegal and contaminated by the corruption of the fraudulent person, or was he not aware of the illegalities and is he not criminally liable?

Any thief who enters a home and masquerades as the rightful owner is guilty of impersonation and defrauding the rightful owner of anything stolen or diverted for personal use of the thief. ‘Financial Restitution’ must be made of all money falsely utilised and imprisonment is in order for any fraudulent individual, political or career thief. High or low, such a person is a thief and an impostor obtaining things under false pretences. We as a nation have trivialised election fraud punishments as ‘wrist slapping’. When not caught the political perpetrator continues in office for four years, defrauding citizens and state throughout the rest of illegal term.

However, all of us must rise up and demand that an election founded on fraud in any part of the country and at any level will not stand, and equally importantly, will result in cancellation of the election, cancellation of the right of the guilty party to hold that or other political offices, and, cancellation of the right of the disqualified candidates party to field a candidate in the forthcoming rerun and any such election for 4-8 years. Indeed, I recommend that the NASS add two additional sanctions. One is that the guilty candidate must pay the cost of the tribunal case or at least pay a commensurate heavy personal and party fine. Secondly the political party must be fined sufficiently to finance the rerun election. Money will ‘pain the party’ and discourage others from such nefarious activities. Politics is the only activity for which contravention of rules is taken as a joke when someone gets caught. Our prisons are full of simple citizens who have run foul of the law but empty of politicians who have masterminded ‘perdition on earth’ for the citizens. Can anyone explain why we have schools without chairs and desks and libraries and toilets and running water? I cannot. Can anyone explain why we have clinics and hospitals without water and sanitation and clean walls?

In a matter affecting most people, can anyone explain why we have a national ‘Nigerian Epidemic of Potholes’ in their millions, killing and maiming citizens nationwide, slowing down traffic, and making life a misery? Can Nigeria not overcome its potholes? Can anyone explain why we have not got 100,000Mw of electricity nationwide but still take development advice from past leaders who presided over Nigeria’s Dark Ages? Who actually owns Nigeria? Who do the people work for, buy from, pay to? Dangote, we identify for naming everything after himself. MTN we can trace to Nigerians and South Africa, but who else owns Nigeria? Who owns our electric soul- the DISCOs and GENCOS as fronts and backbenchers and which ‘god’ do they serve? Apparently we Nigerians are on a chess or draughts board, pushed around, won or lost, bought or sold, by the same chess masters who played with our lives 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. They must be having fun. Nigerians are like slaves in an arena to be set loose temporarily to run free across the arena to some ‘freedom’ somewhere, only to be captured and returned and sold to another player for another few years. Does Buhari know that power is king?

Beyond politics, visit the delightfully visually stimulating and artistically inspiring ‘Harmony in Diversity’ photography exhibition at Foreshore Harbour Boat Club, Osborne 2 Estate Dolphin Area, Lagos featuring Dipo Adebo, Yinka Akinkugbe, Ivana Osagie and Seni Williams’  featuring photographs of models, skylines, oilrigs and birds-actual not the other kind, water townships and stunning landscapes. Don’t be told. Open Oct 25-Nov 7th, Go, bo!

Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. They will not be forgotten, but found. Amen.

The Oyo State House of Assembly’s list of the worst roads for government attention should add the treacherous ‘Road of 10,000 Craters’ Apete Road as ‘first’ among equals.

The Ministerial List is a breath of stale air. Buhari’s hands were more ‘tied’ than we thought. Must he reward party and friends who have an average age 60-ish, which is well beyond Nigeria’s life expectancy of 54 years? Nigeria hoped for 35-40-ish, new blood on the block. Age is not all ‘honesty or wisdom’ and youth is not all ‘stupidity or greed’. Yes, too few women who are 50% of vote and 50%+ of population. Politics is a ‘Man’s World’ and the bad Women-In-Power in petroleum, aviation and banking do not help their cause. Women like ABCD- ‘A Bag of Cut Diamonds’. For CHANGE credibility, Buhari should bring on board new blood. ‘The right women’, like ‘the right men’ are everywhere, but party machinery is against them. Now Senate complicates matters, demanding two state senators to recommend ministerial nominees- new jobs for the old boys. Saraki is going for the President’s jugular. If the senate has not purified itself of old tricks, what might that cost in Ghana Must Go money bags, promises, leverage or a pound of flesh especially with disparity in party affiliations? This is a recipe for ‘unsavoury political pepper soup’,’ deliberate delays and cunning corruption disguised as ‘high moral ground’. God forbid demands for ‘payback jobs’. Remember ‘send me your wife or daughter’ treachery? Nigeria just got worse, politically and morally.

And now senate elements demand immunity. WE THE PEOPLE SAY ‘NO,’ TO IMMUNITY. Phone, text, e-mail, tweet, instagram senators. Embarrass them into stopping this. Strategise for signatures to RECALL YOUR SENATORS. What have they done wrong that they are afraid will be exposed? Only senators with proof of ‘Declaration of Assets’ should sit over the nominees who should declare their assets. Then imagine having to bow. Many serious Nigerians will never take up ministerial appointment for this reason alone. Or else they will first visit the doctor for ‘EXCUSED FROM SENATE BOWING SICK CERTIFICATE’ because of a ‘stiff neck’, or Babangida’s radiculopathy.

Falae could have been killed. Many kidnap victims have died, unsung, un-avenged and un-investigated. Are the kidnappers arrested by Sunday on the North-South Cattle Trek a criminal gang roaming with reluctant intimidated cattle herdsmen bands? The gang reinvaded his farm, so ‘no’ to that. Any farmer with more than a dane gun is ‘arrest-able’ while some herdsmen and most attackers have AK47s as garments and are un-arrestable. Of course these attackers are not ‘terrorists’, but ‘errorists’ who ‘mistakenly’ kill people, abi? How are they different from anyone who kills at will and terrorises states? ‘WHEN IS A TERRORIST NOT A TERRORIST? WHEN HE IS DESCRIBING HIMSELF OR IS DESCRIBED BY HIS PEOPLE.’ When is a person a terrorist? WHEN HE IS CALLED A ‘TERRORIST’ BY HIS VICTIMS. The ferocity, quantum and deadliness of the arms used in Plateau, Nassarawa and Benue states and 10 other states do not suggest spontaneous actions. I did my NYSC in 1975/6 in Joyful Jos, Beautiful Bukuru and Laughing Lafia and travelled around Barkin Ladi, Shendam, Akwanga to Makurdi, places of tranquillity now ‘Terrorist’ bloodbath scenes. Where is ‘One Nigeria’ or even ‘One North’?

The cattle war bloodshed with 20,000 victims losing 100,000 litres of blood, three tanker-loads at 33,000 litres/tanker demands an International UN and NHRC Enquiry and solutions. Without such an enquiry, we cannot read ‘righteous indignation against cattle rustling’ or ‘altruistic protection of free movement’ in the war. ‘WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST RUSTLERS AND FOR OUR 1999 CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO COW TREK’ is not a 2015 answer. A cow is not worth a Nigerian life. In less developed African countries this would encourage accusations of a plan with an agenda to attempt economic and territorial subjugation, if not ethnic cleansing. That should not happen here. It is therefore up to the arrested ‘suspects, who should be shown publicly for victims to come forward to prove their innocence of kidnappings.

‘Mr President: Curb this cattle crisis before the War consumes Nigeria. Nigeria- Simply ‘CHANGE’ Cattle ‘Trek’ to a 1-3 day ‘Trailer’/‘Train’ Ride after ‘growing’ the cows from ‘birth to execution week’ on irrigated, year round Northern Reservations/Ranches. If the killings are cattle-related, they will stop. If the killings continue they must be a political or ethnic agenda requiring a response and Federal Government war reparations for victims.

A cattle crisis question: Do herdsmen pay for grass or grain or the destruction of farms and crops on the Cattle Trek? Do the cattle owners equip their employees with funds for the trek? The herdsmen live off the land- grass and other people’s hard earned grain. Rural Nigerians live in fear of a cow’s moooo! In Nigeria Mooo must no longer signify Murder.

Alams RIP? ‘Is this report a ‘death or disguise’ for Alams who was also maliciously rumoured to have died during the Hajj stampede when the UK for wanted him extradited? What will happen to that reported stolen money?’ – ask doubtful Nigerians. The UK must witness the Post Mortem to confirm DNA specimens come from the body. Middlemen will ‘disappear’ any stolen money in Nigeria. If true, let Alams’ death caution others who are laws unto themselves. God de O!

Our Girls are still missing since April 15,, 2014. In our 55th Independence week, as we pray and the military works, and bombs explode in Abuja, please end another war – The Fulani herdsmen/ farmers war, causing massacres and murders in all states where cows trek- denying Nigerian ‘rights to life under the 1909 constitution’. The Chief Falae kidnap has forced this ‘ignored’ war to centre stage though it has ‘silently’ claimed over 20,000 lives, and terrorised homes, farms and villages on the North-South Cattle Trek, (NSCT). The Nigerian Human Rights Commission should protect this war’s victims and not the cows.

Proper police and military intelligence debriefing will reveal the Falae kidnappers’ description, identifying marks, walk, talk, dress, weapons, food, mannerisms, names or pseudonyms, relations, contacts, conversations, hometown and laugh/psychological characteristics. The criminality inflicted on Falae is similar to that inflicted on other victims who deserve as much protection and investigation as Falae got. We are all equal before God.

President Buhari, Grand Patron of the Fulani Herdsmen Association can stop this ‘dirty’ war. In 1900s Nigerians and cows walked from Kano to Lagos, then ‘someone’ invented roads, buses and cars. We no longer walk, nor should cows. Are we facing another ‘Northern anti- polio’ argument? It is 2015 and destroying farmers’ fields is not ‘a right under the 1999 constitution’ or acceptable.

The 2015 solution to this ‘mass murder’ is to fatten cows on year-round irrigated Northern reserves. On a daily basis, fattened cattle would be carried on trailers or trains with grass and water for the three day journey countywide with no economic loss or life lost by herdsmen or farmers. As road and power improve, the cattle should be slaughtered in the North -extra jobs. Refrigerated trailers and train wagons would then deliver meat in daily convoys. No long trek, conflict, confrontation or criminality. Aiki, Kudi, Lafia for all. Shikena!

Otherwise only a ‘Cow Meat Boycott’ will stop the war. IS A COW MORE VALUABLE THAN A NIGERIAN HUMAN? Will you eat ‘blood cow’ knowing it was provided by the massacre of farmers in ‘peaceful’ Plateau, Benue, Nassarawa– ‘Blood cow’ like ‘blood diamonds’? If no one eats cow, the uneaten cattle will force a peace by politicians, chiefs and emirs. Enough of cow murders!

Here is part of my poem to mark October 1 read at Trenchard Hall, UI, Independence Concert:

Congrats Nigeria @55

Anticorruption Paparazzi ready steady goooooo / In the Nigerian nightmare many have cried/ and many have died/ Even children’s Polio plus / Has its murdered martyrs – polio minus./ Evil citizens stole the children’s inheritance – wealth/ In power, education and health/ Children without power and books to build the brain/ Because of that pension fraud or corruption pain / They offered us leaders to set us free/ Of them we chose Buhari / Buhari has at once three Wars/ Anti-corruption War/ Boko Haram War/ Fulani herdsmen-farmers War/ The lifestyle and fear of Buhari has saved billions/ Now he needs an Anti-Corruption Army of millions/ To clean up the septic tank/ And the cesspool from NPA to Central Bank/  Boko Haram may be in disarray/ But 3million IDPs and 30,000 dead, a heavy price to pay / We pray the Chibok Girls are found /And returned safe and sound/  Fulani Herdsmen need defeat / Before farmers cause a famine by retreat/ Nigeria may have to boycott cow meat/ To bring the herdsmen to the Peace seat / We must become Buhari’s Anti-Corruption Force/ To keep the war on course/Announce and Start ‘Corruption Watch’ /In your Ministry, Office, Hospital and Hostel/ Put your phone on in zones of corruption/ Upload to public media for Buhari’s attention/ Buhari-led, together let us vanquish corruption/ Or we face ridicule and destruction/ Become a soldier in the Buhari Anticorruption War/ Buhari and Nigeria need you.

President Buhari’s October 1 speech calls you to the trenches to stand with him and fight, using forces of change, against real forces of dark corruption. Buhari has called the passive to join the active, and calls ‘you’ and ‘me‘. He calls the army of talkers, watchers, complainers and siddon lookers to ‘come to our aid’.

Never before in the history of Nigeria have all Nigerians, rich and poor, known and unknown, criminal and crime-buster, had the tremendous opportunity to be heard and collectively stand shoulder to shoulder ABC –‘Against Bribery Corruption’ at the ANTICORRUPTION BARRICADES with their President, Buhari, a Distinguished Officer and Fine Gentleman, to join him in creating an formidable 100 million Anti-Corruption Army.

Already we are saner, led by a frugal president, cutting waste and theft and recovering stolen funds. Nigerians are reducing demands on politicians. Politicians and civil servants are in the eye of the storm. YOU AND I MUST SUPERVISE, watch and report them when they fall, demand bribes and corrupt gains. Buhari is great but leading an Army of Buhari-ites, we are greater. England has Churchill, America has Lincoln, South Africa has Mandela and now we boast ‘Nigeria has Buhari’. Embrace Buhari, follow where Buhari leads. You should join up!

But if you are unsure of the ‘Buhari Cure’ for ‘Nigeria’s Corruption Disease’, should watch ‘THE SUPREME PRICE’ a 2013 film by Joanna Lipper, narrated by Hafsat Abiola-Costello of KIND, a history of ‘why we are here’ and Nigeria’s bloodstained journey emphasising MKO’s and Kudirat’s sacrifice. Cry for Nigeria, past and present!  What is your sacrifice?