The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Our Girls; Buhari: Beware of NAPTIN & ‘Energy mis-advisers’, Go Solar; SenateGate On/Off?

    Our Girls are still missing and our IDPs face conditions unsuitable for ‘Fellow Nigerians’ in the camps. Nigeria must not fail its IDPs who need financial empowerment for self-employment, improved self-worth even in the IDP camps and not handouts from uniformed NEMA strangers from around Nigeria.

    WARNING: The frightening headline on page 15 Sept 3rd in The Nation screams ‘Why Nigeria cannot use renewable energy’ in which the writer Akinola Ajibade reported the views of the Director General, National Power Training Institute of Nigeria [NAPTIN]  and the Managing Director of Ikeja Electric. The DG said that ‘Nigeria is not ripe for renewable energy’, urging ‘government and other investors to concentrate on hydro and gas powered plants for growth. It is impossible to grow the economy with renewable energy’ arguing that ‘conventional sources of energy are the best and widely acceptable means of generating electricity globally’. His colleagues in mega-misinformation, the MD said ‘solar, biomass and coal provide insignificant quantum of electricity megawatts, and as such, cannot meet the needs of the masses’. To add salt to our wounds on the same page – better called the ‘Energyless Page’, the Group MD of Aiteo Power said ‘Power will stabilise by the end of 2018’ and again ‘let us give power companies 60 months, five years, to execute their business turnaround plans.’

    These are ‘protectionist not progressive’ energy views. I find these views dangerous ’backward’ thinking and irresponsibly  out of step with ‘Buhari Change’ and shameful coming from a supposedly forward thinking training institution leader and ‘key actors and planners in the energy field’ at the time of world is talking and acting ‘renewable energy’.

    I was comforted to read a contrary view in The Africa Report N0 73 Aug-Sept 2015 sent to Educare Trust by Dr Pat Alabi. In it on page 60, Nicholas Norbrook writes under the title ‘Business: The Third Revolution’ that ‘Solar power is lighting up more off-grid villages as the price of a solar watt continues to plunge’ and ‘Renewable energy, the sharing economy and transportation innovation are reshaping economies across the world. Will Africa be able to leapfrog in its development to build revolutionary electricity, manufacturing and transportation networks?’ He quotes Jeremy Rifkin the author of ‘The Third Industrial Revolution’ and ‘The Zero Growth Marginal Cost Society’-essential reading for the Buhari government and universities and NAPTIN. Rifkin quoted Kofi Annam saying that ‘it could take to 2080 for Africa to be adequately powered.’ Rifkin sees the African opportunity ‘as with mobile telephones, to leapfrog legacy infrastructure in the power sector…and [get] a decentralised network of small-scale renewable energy generation.’

    In reality, there is an increasing percentage of power from renewable energy including solar even in countries with poor sunlight. In Germany renewable energy is 28% of supply. President Obama is in Alaska campaigning for renewable energy.  Can Buhari and Nigeria afford to be left out of this energy revolution? Why should President Buhari be advised any differently by NAPTIN? Nigeria needs power now, not in five years. It can harness the sun and also use emergency power supplies just as the Japanese replaced the 10,000MW nuclear plant within three months from emergency power companies. That 10,000Mw is a dream for Nigeria along the way to the 100,000Mw required, but it is a fraction of Japan’s usage. Power today is a human right from village to Villa and will change every Nigerian.

    A $2-5billion CBN SOLAR ENERGY FUND single digit loan spread over 2-3 year using the latest 2015 solar technology, high efficiency/low cost/long-lasting will immediately Solar-Revolutionise Nigeria in power and also power millions off-grid. God gave Nigeria oil. We abused it and the money from it. God also gave us the Sun. We cannot afford to abuse or we may lose it. PMB should ‘change’ the power sector, initiate a POWER EMERGENCY, CHANGE and implement serious SOLAR FRIENDLY POLICIES before God take the sun away and gives it a country which wants it. The internet has 20 reliable emergency power supply companies. Several large power generating ships berthed at ports and up the River Niger would IMMEDIATELY next month provide the 10,000 Mw needed in a short 6-12 month contract while the GENCOs/DISCOs catch up.

    The suit against the Senate leadership on ‘Forgery of Senate Standing Rules’ has not been dropped or has it? Strangely, those who were said to have dropped this ‘ball of political fire’ have been ‘praised’ by the ‘opposition’ for their ‘political maturity and sagacity’. Observers, myself included, had looked forward to the results of the police investigation as a test of the ‘new Police’ to be publicly corroborated in court. The court case verdict would have been a landmark against political corruption. It would have cleared up this murky ‘who-done-it Senategate’ case on which result the locus standi of [self-]serving officers of the Senate depend, some prancing around the UN Buildings and pontificating of migration and terrorism issues. Indeed the integrity and potential of the political process of ‘change’ depended on this court case, so let it go on.

    It can never be ‘political maturity and sagacity’ to accept a ‘wrong’ as a ‘right’. It is a sell-out. Indeed we have suffered from the compromised positions forced on the citizenry by a selfish political class, one bad decision at a time these last 50 years. We want and voted for ‘change’. True ‘Change’ does not accommodate court compromise or short-sighted selfish, backward thinking advisers.

    ‘There is an increasing percentage of power from renewable energy including solar even in countries with poor sunlight. In Germany renewable energy is 28% of supply. President Obama is in Alaska campaigning for renewable energy.  Can Buhari and Nigeria afford to be left out of this energy revolution?’

     

  •  Our Girls; Adefuye, RIP; 2007 Ignored letters to Ban Ki-Moon: UN Media plan; 2nd Niger Bridge

    Our Girls are missing since April 15, 2014. During his visit, the UN Sec Gen Ban Ki-Moon supported strident calls for their release.

    We mourn Great UI-ite, History Professor Ade Adefuye, 68, distinguished diplomat in Jamaica, UK, the Commonwealth and Nigerian Ambassador to the USA. RIP and May God comfort the family, Amen.

    On 6th May 2007, I wrote this unacknowledged letter to Ban Ki-Moon at UN Building, New York.

    Dear Ban Ki-Moon, A UN POSTER IS WORTH 1,000 WORDS but unseen by the world’s 3+ billion school youth. Why?

    1. Problem:  The UN’s wealth of preventive knowledge is not yet bridging the Ignorance Gap among the world’s people who suffer from ignorance while awaiting rare educational visits of NGOs or a UN team. Children, the Weapon of Mass Development, are in poor learning environments lacking life-skills.
    2. Solution:  Adorn Classrooms with 10 UN POSTERS each to achieve the UN POSTER EMPOWERMENT of 40-60million teachers & their 60 +million classrooms and disseminate all UN messages. – A UN- Schools Anti-Ignorance Initiative making every classroom a UN Information Room.
    3. Methodology: Preparation and worldwide distribution of UN Life-skills Posters. That knowledge will save/improve lives of school children’s families. – About 40-60million sets of posters are needed -the cost of a few UN jeeps.
    4. Funding: By UN/Public/Private AND MEDIA Partnerships at world/country level.
    5. Distribution: The UN agencies have posters that rarely get to world schools hungry for knowledge. The UN Sec Gen could get UN Country Rep to find Public/Private/Media partners to reproduce this material to reach every school.

    The UN could embark on this UN Ignorance Elimination Programme to raise a 3 billion student army of young UN Ambassadors with knowledge against social ignorance, and preventable disease to get behavioural change worldwide quickly. The UN must insist that education is more than the three Rs of Reading WRiting and ARithmetic.  [Education needs the R in PosteR.] Each poster will summarise topics for teacher empowerment.

    Yours, In the elimination of World Life-skill Ignorance through worldwide UN-led teacher/student empowerment – Dr Tony Marinho, Sec, Educare Trust. I got no reply.

    Also in 2007 I wrote to the UN Country Rep, no reply either.

    Good idea 2007 : The world’s ignorant youth in schools are an army thirsty for knowledge and Weapons for Mass Development [or Destruction if neglected], the UN should print a 50-100 page UN-ANTI IGNORANCE BOOK reprinted by Public-Private Partnership for all teachers with one page taught at assembly daily. Each page for a LIFE-SKILL THEME from Abortion, AIDS, Alcohol, Addiction, Bullying, Beating, Cheating, Child Labour and Rights, Democracy, Drugs, Dangerous Driving, Environment, Exercise, Food, Gender Issues, Hand washing, Healthy Living, Immunisation, Infant Mortality, Malaria, Maternal Mortality, Road Safety, River Safety,  Sanitation, Sex, Smoking, Sickle Cell, Toilets, Tuberculosis, Violence against Women to Zebra Crossings et cetera. This way, every child worldwide will have similar access to Life-skill knowledge to ‘empower’ the family.

    Additionally, Educare Trust Recommends UN Things To Change The World -UN 2007.

    1. Problem 1 Worldwide IGNORANCE of LIFE-SKILL MESSAGES. Solution: ADVERTISING at commercial volumes.
    2. PROBLEM 2: Private sector has billions for advertising but public -life-skill- sector has little. Solution: Partnership to eliminate ignorance. Every commercial advert- carton, container, wrapping, poster, picture, audio or visual- should carry an additional visual/audio social message [as ‘Corporate Social Responsibility-CSR’].
    3. UN Recommended widening of the UN/Private/Public frontier to involve the Advertising Media ADVERTISING GURUS like WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell in Global Fund Meetings. This will bring billions in funds from commercial advertising and cut cost of saving lives using a new UN SOCIAL ADVERTISING STRATEGY.  The Campaign would be called ‘The UN Dual/Add-On “Commercial/Social” Message Resolution’-a UN Revolution. It would involve UN Social Message Inserts in youth music programmes/videos like Channel O, radio and on News bar/runners under cartoons [and on social media platforms].
    4. Annually select the ‘100 UN, WHO and National and Local Life-skill Messages’.
    5. UN recommended ‘The UN Media 30 Minute Resolution’: Every media house should allocate ‘Life-skill Message’ time up to 60 or so 30-60 sec messages daily.
    6. Create one Youth Inspiration Centre/5000 youth. ‘A UN Youth Inspiration Centre Resolution’.
    7. Put Ten Books in Kiosks & Shops [Ten BooKs Mini-Library Programme] creating instant mini-libraries worldwide. Make this a UN Resolution to fight illiteracy.
    8. Create role model UN Youth Ambassador Healthy Living Programmes to fight disease and obesity ‘Meet Miss or Master UN who smokes clean air, no cigarettes, does no drugs, eats fruits and vegetables, takes few sugary drinks, exercises, reads widely, says ‘yes’ to virginity and ‘no’ to sex, avoids alcohol, and…does good deeds.’
    9. The UN Youth is UNique, UNconventional, UNusual, UNder no illusions, Undeterred.

    Today let me recommend that Ban Ki-Moon initiates a 2015 Oct/Nov Annual UN Advertising Media/Private Sector LIFE-SKILL IGNORANCE ELIMINATION MEETING for corporates to view and select from the 200 UN Life-Skill Messages for inclusion in 2016 advert calendars, campaigns, commercial cartons and product packaging. The UN must involve the Advert gurus with Recognition strategies to get the life-skill message into every home. Every dining table deserves a UN life-skill message on the Bread/Cornflakes packet like ‘Real Men do not beat their wives or children-UN Message’. A UN Poster is worth a 1,000,000 words. Forward this article to Ban Ki-Moon, please.

    PS: In four years, the non-corrupt Buhari can please give Nigerians the repeatedly overinflated ‘suspended’ 2nd Niger Bridge; and in one year, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    ‘The UN’s wealth of preventive knowledge is not yet bridging the Ignorance Gap among the world’s people who suffer from ignorance while awaiting rare educational visits of NGOs or a UN team. Children, the Weapon of Mass Development, are in poor learning environments lacking life-skills… In four years, the non-corrupt Buhari can please give Nigerians the repeatedly overinflated ‘suspended’ 2nd Niger Bridge; and in one year, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.’ 

  • Our Girls; Help for IDPs; V Agha & Ogie Alakija: 80 Not Out; Reverse School failure; Tax NASS pls

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014 and we continue to pray that the ongoing assault will yield the twin results of the extermination of Boko Haram and the release of Our Girls who must unfortunately have suffered severe physical and environmental deprivations, torture, perhaps sexual harassment and psychological trauma. All these have resulted in severe Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTMS) requiring an army of clinical psychologists and psychiatrists for Our Girls and the many victims and Internally Displaced Persons everywhere. The Nigerian government/ Victims Support Fund must employ 100-200 clinical psychologists and psychiatrists for the next one to two years to identify those at risk of depression, suicide or even murder to add to those psychologists recruited by the Red Cross. So apart from the physical care that UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is coming to inspect, we must implement the needed psychological care. We must anticipate the mind problems of these vulnerable children, youth and adults.

    The ISIS factor is a dreadful addition to the Boko Haram mix. There is ‘talk of talks’ with Boko Haram. In any coming negotiation who will mediate between such vicious villains and families of innocent victims numbering about 20,000+ dead added to the agonies and deprivations of 3-4million Internally Displaced Persons? After every fight there is talk. Nigeria must win the war before the talk.

    There is catastrophic systemic failure in education, attested to by repeated abysmal examination results. Perhaps it is inadequate to only analyse WAEC results after 6 years of school. Public release on the notice board and publication in STATE SCHOOL EXAM MONITORING REPORTS of the end-of-school-year promotion examinations class by class, set by set, JS1-SS3 should be an immediate requirement of all schools in Nigeria. This information compressed into School Ranking Tables is the minimum documentation of schools and the right of Parents. The ANNUAL CLASS PROMOTION EXAM RESULTS are a neglected Monitoring And Evaluation, M&E, tool for studying education, classroom quality and teacher performance and need much more publicity by School Management. PTAs should demand such information to target intervention for improvements by the end of the following year. This M&E OF ANNUAL CLASS PROMOTION EXAM RESULTS will identify the causes and the countermeasures against the repeated mass failure in WAEC.

    Life goes on in spite of Boko Haram. It is appropriate to pay tribute to this season’s 80 year- olds including Mr Vincent Agha- Gregorian, prominent Quantity Surveyor with Qu-Ess Partnership, intellectual giant, squashaficionado and mentor to many including me. Mr Ogie Alakija is also 80, distinguished captain of business, life-long sportsman with keen leadership role as a Captain in cricket, squash and tennis culminating in a leadership role as Trustee in Ibadan Recreation Club. He also took on a major but quiet philanthropic role helping many in business and the NGO world where he was Chairman of Educare Trust and a major supporter of youth activities and funder of its building project ‘The A-Z Hall’ –The Alakija to Zard Hall, named for our major donors-Mr Ogie Alakija and Chief Raymond Zard. They joined Mr SPA Ajibade, distinguished lawyer and silent guide of the youth, Professor Ayo Banjo-Mr Education, Chief Joop Berkhout- Mr Book, in the presence of Chief Akin Delano, distinguished lawyer and a host of ‘party faithful’-. They join Mr Bode Emanuel, business giant and Educare Trust Patron who was 80 years earlier this year along with Chief FRA Marinho also an Educare Trust Distinguished Member. Congratulations Sirs. Live long, live well and live healthy.    President Buhari’s instruction that the Police Recruitment of 10,000 must not be an excuse for ‘extortion’ should also include the new ‘stop and search’ that has replaced the checkpoint but appears just as corruption-prone. The uniform, FRSC and police, and the hand up to ‘stop and park’ are everywhere but where you need them –where there is a traffic jam or accident!

    Every state is bigger than 50 countries and the leadership should act responsibly aiming to make a difference to the citizenry as suggested even by Ban Ki-Moon. Financial extortion is an occupation of an occupying force, not a democratically elected government. The population of Nigeria is nowhere near the touted 160 million, probably nearer 120 million, even though the Census figures are part of the CORRUPTION that Buhari must eliminate. The true Census figures are the basis of the elusive ‘True FEDERALISM’ of which FISCAL Federalism is a major part. Recently, Mr Tokunbo Ajasin arranged with Ambassador T A O Otunla a conference/workshop on ‘Federal Opulence and State Indigence-A case for Fiscal Federalism in Nigeria’. True federalism may still be elusive but ‘True State-ism’ is possible. Besides President Buhari in Abuja, we want ‘State Statesmen’ in every state. And President Buhari can reduce the State-Federal conflicts over inland waterways, interstate roads, railways, schools and also the double taxation imbroglio which needs urgent attention by new Federal Inland Revenue Service boss, Mr Babatunde Fowler, from Lagos State where he raised massive some say near extortionist taxes only to have a large chunk diverted to politics and political profiteering, helping the Buhari election train. Mr Fowler must practice the principle that ‘A LITTLE FROM A LOT IS BETTER THAN A LOT FROM A FEW’ and he must start by insisting that NASS members pay their full taxes with no political exemptions. NASS HAS HAD A ‘LEGALLY ILLEGAL’ TAX HOLIDAY.

    ‘The population of Nigeria is nowhere near the touted 160 million, probably nearer 120 million, even though the Census figures are part of the CORRUPTION that Buhari must eliminate. The true Census figures are the basis of the elusive ‘True FEDERALISM’ of which FISCAL Federalism is a major part… True federalism may still be elusive but ‘True State-ism’ is possible.Besides President Buhari in Abuja, we want ‘State Statesmen’ in every state.’

  • Our Girls; Buhari Award; WAEC 38.6% Pass, is Nigeria failing youth? Japan’s classrooms

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2015 and the struggle goes on, with renewed Presidential vigour. We pray that the end is in sight with the multi-country approach and a three-month time-line even as Nigerians seeking a better future join the 250,000 boat migrants and 2,300 drowned and killed by boat engine fumes while crossing the Mediterranean. And please, President Buhari, reject ‘awards’ for ‘Integrity’ et cetera till you leave office. This will save Nigeria millions in EXPENSIVE PLAQUES WHICH HAVE BECOME A PLAGUE of ‘Conference Awards’ with zero value. ‘GIVE NOTHING OR A BOOK. NOT A PLAQUE’! The epidemic of ‘Wall Plaque’ Awards is a malignantly corrupt Nigerian disease – ‘Plaque-itis’.

    Children are wonderful creations of God, entrusted to our care. We fail and should go to jail!  Today many Internally Displaced Persons are children with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome memories. Meanwhile their peers are faced with PTSD from near-war deprivations in ‘normal’ Nigerian schools. We weep for Franz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched Children of Nigeria’s Earth’ in 2015 – in 70,000 pigsty ‘schools’ containing 1,000,000 ‘empty brain’ classrooms and with ‘less than nothing’ education. For 30+ years, I have been distressed that millions of Nigerian women labour and many die in pools of blood, sometimes in front of me, only to deliver children condemned by politicians to an ‘Education Execution’ in ‘Nigeria’s Epidemic of Education Failure’. Every year nationwide, 1,000,000/class set fail promotion exams from JSS1 to SS3 -about 6,000,000 failing children/year. And no remedy, just more failed multibillion Conferences and Summits and UBEs! Why? And all the support from PTA, Old Students, NGOs, Corporate Social Responsibility-CSR, UN/UNESCO/UNICEF or foreign embassy/donor assistance is a pittance. It cannot replace the leaks or holes in the education sieve caused by thieving education schemes/scams and the unwillingness of parents to confront government and behave responsibly. No child bears the surname ‘Government’. We have a serial ‘Government rundown of education’!

    In Oyo State, the Japanese are building classrooms. Hurray??? Yes, ‘Thank you’ Japan where its people have had 10,000 MW Fukushima nuclear plant disaster–2.5 times Nigeria’s power, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods since 2011. In contrast, Nigeria’s only disaster is a corrupt ‘Politics and Civil Service System. Nigeria should be building classrooms for Japan, abi?  Why only classrooms from Japan? After or instead of the classrooms, Japan, famous for science, IT, cars, bullet trains, solar and wind power, must be asked to GIVE OYO STATE A MODERN ROBOTICS LABORATORY in the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, The Ibadan Polytechnic and even in the Federal Faculties of Technology, Engineering and College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, for robotic limb replacement post-Boko Haram. Or perhaps a NEW AGODI GARDENS JAPAN-OYO STATE SCIENCE EXHIBITION CENTRE for more science knowledge. Anyone can build classrooms. Only the brilliant build Science Exhibition Centres. Both Ajimobi and the Japanese are brilliant. Foreign aid is welcome. Is there a Japan/Oyo State Robotics Exchange Programme between LAUTECH, Polytechnic Ibadan and Okinawa Lego Robots? Please Google Robotic Teachers in Japan, Robotic Technology in Japan, IEEE-Xplore, innovate.ieee.org, International Robot Exhibition in Japan and 1000 Japanese robotic websites. Building on this Japan classroom link, the Ajimobi Government can ask Japan to support a massive science teacher upgrade packages, science development kits in schools including Government College, St Anne’s and School of Science School, Elekuro. Japan is a leader in wind and solar technology. Beyond building mundane classrooms, Nigerians await the ‘JAPAN TSUNAMI EFFECT IN SCIENCE EDUCATION AND ELECTRICITY IN OYO STATE. Governor Ajimobi can bring Oyo children into a 2015 HIGH TECH FUTURE.          

    Excuse me, in which continent is 38.6% [ 616,370/1,593,442] a pass mark? The Dark Continent? And half of those who passed were attending private schools. The real pass rate for ‘public schools’ will be 20%. So 80% of public school students are not ‘fit for purpose’ after 6 years, in spite of UBE, PTF and sundry bodies spending too much on administration and corrupt contracts.

    And who is responsible for children’s failure? Education is not ‘nuclear physics’ but brain-bathing in knowledge stew stirred by teachers with facilities. Teachers protested being sacked for failing Governor Oshiomole’s Teacher Quality Control Tests. He lost and so youth failed again. Without sacking, the solution is to USE HOLIDAYS FOR ‘INTENSIVE TEACHER RETRAINING’ including the ‘HUMAN RIGHT OF A CHILD NOT TO BE INJURED, ABUSED, ASSAULTED OR BULLIED’.

    The WAEC students for 2016 should be targeted by EDUCATION ELITE FORCE/NYSC with additional lessons in MORAL AND SOCIAL SKILLS for ‘change’.

    This WAEC failure is Nigeria’s failure. The wealth of UBEC and other agencies contrasts with the empty classrooms which lack simple keys to an educated brain – BOOKS, WALL CHARTS, SCIENCE LABORATORY EQUIPMENT, SPORTS EQUIPMENT AND LIBRARIES/LIBRARY BOXES. AND THEN WE WONDER WHY NIGERIA’S CHILDREN FAIL IN THE UNFRIENDLY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. We all know DECREPIT SCHOOLS- UNFIT FOR ANIMALS BUT ‘OK’ FOR NIGERIA’S CHILDREN. OUR MIS-EDUCATION IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE OF NIGERIA’S CHILDREN.

    In government schools, THERE IS ONLY A 20% CHANCE OF PASSING AND AN 80% CHANCE OF FAILURE IN WAEC. Put this sign on the blackboard in every classroom as a permanent slogan for the education war.

    PS: Nigerian children do not need another Ladi Kwali Hall N1billion Education Summit. Under ‘change’, remove corruption from Education and booklists. ‘It is better.. to have a millstone around the neck.. than to harm… a child’ is a biblical quote for Education Stakeholders.

    ‘And who is responsible for children’s failure? Education is not ‘nuclear physics’ but brain-bathing in knowledge stew stirred by teachers with facilities’

     

  • Our Girls; IDPs; NPA Audit; ‘Lagos-Ibadan Stopway’;  A Buhari ‘Team Tomorrow’ today?

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. And the deaths go on. More African migrants are forced into the holds of unseaworthy boats and die of thirst and generator fumes’ poisoning in the Mediterranean. At home, the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, are serviced by a Nigerians victims’ support structure represented by the well-funded but slow-to-act Victims Support Fund together with the underfunded Red Cross and Blue Crescent. These should be reinforced by able-bodied and qualified IDPs to prevent a ‘donor-beggar’ relationship. Nigerian red tape and lack of empathy must not spoil the ‘Recovery Effort’ for the IDPs. Beyond photo-ops, real people with sympathy and technical skills are needed to bring succour to IDPs with 95% of the funds spent on IDPs, not ‘administration’. The Red Cross has trained ‘20 in psychological support services’. This empowerment is an overdue service adding to the ability of the Red Cross. The Red Cross must remember that Nigeria has unemployed psychology graduates who should be empowered to offer psychological support for IDPs. To cater for the 3-4million displaced, 100-200 psychologists, many of them indigenous IDPs, need employment. All qualified Red Cross staff must get this three day course to detect Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTMS, depression and suicidal tendencies.

    Hurray, the Police Service is looking into creating a Finger Print Database. But is it serious, just rhetorical or for PR purposes or another crime fighting gimmick that is programmed to fail and will never catch a thief? The Police must request for the INEC Voters’ Register as the most comprehensive database available. It can be beefed up by the FRSC’s Drivers Licence, Immigration’s Passport and Prisons’ Databases.

    Along with NNPC, Customs, FIRS and FAAN, the Nigeria Ports Authority is also a huge fraud-riddled foreign exchange earner. It must also be forensically audited working backwards from firstly year 2015, then 2014, then 2013 back to 2005 to get quick actionable Annual Reports.

    Thinking Point: ‘California Is Sinking’ according to Dr Faunt in a CNN report. This is because of the extraction of ground water in response to a major draught. Will parts of Nigeria sink from the massive volumes of oil removed from the ground?  And what will happen to the millions who build upon sand-fills? Will floods eventually reclaim those reclaimed areas? There are worldwide floods. Take Kaduna and Lagos for example and dams are threatening to be opened. Where and what next?

    ‘Instead of development we  have perfected the ‘Abuja Jamboree’  of Conferences, Summits and Colloquia –of increasing extravagance and budgets in Ladi Kwali Hall in the Sheraton, The Villa and other high end hotels, accommodation, travel and per diem’

    The way the Nigerian transport authorities have tackled the monotonously repetitive 6-18 hour traffic stoppage mayhem on the ‘Lagos-Ibadan Stopway’ in the last few months and especially the days of Redemption Convention compounds the already horrible reputation of that apology of a track, let alone the name ‘road’ or ‘expressway’. I have longed to take a helicopter flight and do a documentary or feature film including shots down the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway during a peak ‘zero movement day’ or weekend to record and count the 5-6 lane gridlock on either side for 30-40 kilometres. Sadly, I have counted from the free side of the road, up to 10,000 vehicles in one traffic gridlock. Which journalist has adequately recorded the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of trapped travellers? We must remember that if Nigerians drove correctly or were forced by barriers and FRSC to stay in the two lanes, like in the UK, and did not illegally overtake on each side whenever there was a slow-down of traffic, the traffic jam would actually be 80-100 kilometres of two lane traffic bringing total gridlock to the entire Expressway and backed up into the city. The Expressway can be seen as a long bridge and is to Lagos what the Niger Bridge is to Onitsha. Blocked it is useless to everyone including the economy! Inadequate it is useless! The much-touted, over-politicised and as yet unbuilt Second Niger Bridge must be built by this government, even in a Public Private Partnership, PPP, with the business communities of Asaba and Onitsha as major stake or shareholders. The value of a new bridge is seen from the Fasola/Yar’Adua dream New Lekki Bridge in Lagos, saving millions of travel hours daily in a state/federal deal. Imagine how many ‘Lekki-like Bridges’ Nigeria needs nationwide, over 100, to enter the annals of modern transportation! Instead of development we  have perfected the ‘Abuja Jamboree’  of Conferences, Summits and Colloquia –of increasing extravagance and budgets in Ladi Kwali Hall in the Sheraton, The Villa and other high end hotels, accommodation, travel and per diem. Talking of dreams, China wants to build the tallest building in the world in 19 days. The Egyptians have just built a ‘Second Suez Canal’ actually a 35km one way canal in one year for $4b instead of three years. What have we built?  A few billionaires!

    Our own Nigerian dreams turn out somewhat differently. Here our dream of a Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is a four-year nightmare. Why do Nigerians never build quickly? There are 20 contractors capable of doing 10-20km segments of refurbishment in six months each. Because of this failure to dream big and act big, Nigeria has inadequate infrastructure. The East-West Road happily nears completion, 40 tears late but must be completed immediately. There are 200 old roads that must be repaired and new roads pointing in new directions needed while the railways need further modernisation.  Can Nigeria have a Buhari ‘Team Tomorrow’ today?

  • Our Girls; BBC/CNN; IDPs VSF; Ebola V:CSR; Film Flop: Nonsense@NASSty -75% cut?; T/ Wardens

    Our Girls are missing since April 15 2014. Daily girl-child suicide bombers create more InternaIly Displaced Persons.

    The media should stop ‘advertising’ terrorist organisations by re-broadcasting message themes and photos of leaders giving them ‘authenticity’ and ‘free publicity’ denied more deserving citizens. Terrorists get automatic coverage, more than musicians and politicians. A deliberate ‘WORLDWIDE MEDIA SILENCE ON TERRORISM POLICY’ will lead to ignominy -an anti-terrorism policy. It is not censorship but ‘Sensible Silence’, ‘Silent Witness’ – wisdom. No ‘thank you’ to CNN and BBC for disseminating terrorist propaganda and photos for free with no fee to two billion impressionable youth and thus supporting the ‘Internet Terrorism’ Campaign.

    EVERYONE WANTS TO BE ON BBC AND CNN –‘GOOD, BAD, UGLY AND TERRORIST’.

    IDPs ARE NOT BEGGARS but ‘Internally Displaced Professionals’ market women, retirees, students WHO ARE RECIPIENTS NOT BENEFICIARIES. The N5billion Victims Support Foundation (VSF) released by President Buhari must empower IDPs, not non-IDPs, with positions and funds for wholesale provisions to open ‘gainful employment’ shops and work tools. IDPs deserve more than bedding and TV time. THE FACE OF VSF SHOULD BE AN IDP PASSIONATE PROFESSIONAL. Nigerians want no VSF scam ‘discovered’ in 2016. PREVENTION OF VSF CORRUPTION IS ‘CHANGE’. Buhari’s MANAGEMENT OF THE VSF IS A LITMUS TEST for anti-corruption ‘change’ and must not fail, be slow or stopped by red tape. To ‘change’, government needs supervising Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, agents and from Day 1, monitoring VSF financial and ‘goods and services’ chain. The EFCC also requires supervision to prevent graft and intimidation. The VSF initial release of N5billion must not disappear into secret 1%/month ‘bank roll-overs’ or 10-30% civil service corruption or contractor pockets with kickbacks and envelopes for the accounting ‘feeding-chain’ or kickback from IDPS. The fund must empower IDPs with no-strings, for business, not contractor or NGO schemes and scams. Make IDPs the contractors and NGO employees who must set up IDP FUND COMMITTEES and procurement facilities. CUT OUT THE MIDDLE MAN and LIMIT Maximum FUNDING/PROJECT TO N5million to spread the funds.  If not, corruption will erode N5billion to N1billion.

    Hurray for the Ebola Vaccine and efforts governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others put into medical research. A Nobel Prize is due for this and the Malaria Vaccine research team, please. What did Africa or Africans or corporations contribute to Ebola, malaria or polio research? Credit to Rotary International for massive anti-polio activities. However what did billionaire Mo Ibrahim, of the $5m Democracy Prize give? What did Babangida give or any African secret or public billionaire?  What did Dangote give? He wants to buy Arsenal FC. What did Otedola give or Adenuga, Alakija, Tinubu or any other ‘jankan-jankan’ or South Africa’s MTN bosses give or our ‘mythically profitable’ Banks like Zenith, First and Diamond banks who mysteriously profit amidst poverty. Did government give through CBN, NPA, NNPC, NLNG, to foreign or NIGERIAN MEDICAL RESEARCH? Why not? Africans misplaced priorities!

    African Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, billions annually, could have produced malaria vaccines 20 years ago saving millions. Shame on greedy, myopic Corporate Africa preferring to sell foreign treatments for malaria than invent vaccines! Some CSR is good but most prefer cheap T-shirt and face cap CSR. Even the new ‘MTN 25 Maternity Centres’ needs to avoid ‘misplaced applause’. Imagine if MTN had used the ‘boastful’ advert money to host a CORPORATE NIGERIA CSR STRATEGY CONFERENCE with 100 other companies and NGOs to upgrade 1000 maternities in 2015. That would save thousands on THE MOST DANGEROUS DAY IN THEIR LIVES- DELIVERY DAY. In 2016 Corporate Nigeria could COLLECTIVELY choose another 1000 Maternity Centres or ‘10million School Books for All’ or ‘1000 Ward Youth Centres’. Not all N4b+/Annum CSR is properly used though there is much need. Even CSR officials in Corporate Nigeria, government and donor agencies are not saints. Some take kickbacks for approving CSR.

    Africa, suffering from leader thieves, must ‘Thank God’ for the ‘generosity and selflessness’ of the UN, WHO and Corporate Europe’s ‘white man’ and the all-good ‘NEW VACCINATION COLONIALISM’. This is set to save and hopefully keep Africans at home and away from joining the millions dreaming and desperately departing and sometimes drowning while seeking to evade security and invade Fortress Europe. They seek a ‘BETTER LIFE FOR DEPRIVED AFRICANS’ through suicidal migration across the Sahara and on lethal tiny boats through the idyllic mid-Mediterranean Lampedusa Island known for funerals of thousands of nameless drowning en route Fortress Europe. African leaders must make Africa home for all, not just their family and hangers-on.

    Anyone fortunate enough to have sleep or gone deaf and blind during the last three weeks would have thankfully missed the flop film ‘Nonsense at NASSty NASS-2015’ serialised on TV. Nigeria is worse for the events. Is National Assembly (NASS) reducing its budget by 75%? In a voice vote from Fellow Nigerians, the ‘AYES’ have it for a 75% reduction. Should Nigerians have a ‘NASS -Salaries, Allowances and Perks-SAP- Referendum or recall our NASS members?

    ‘African Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, billions annually, could have produced malaria vaccines 20 years ago saving millions. Shame on greedy, myopic Corporate Africa preferring to sell foreign treatments for malaria than invent vaccines! Some CSR is good but most prefer cheap T-shirt and face cap CSR’

    WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND 1] Part-time sittings; 2] Cancellation of titles like ‘Honourable’, ‘Distinguished’ and ‘Excellency’ which are undeserved and; 3] ‘No’ to bowing in NASSty NASS and; 4] Standing when anyone but the President enters an event.

    Traffic Wardens at Osuntokun Junction, Bodija, Ibadan ignore Buhari’s ‘Change’ Agenda. Videoing and ‘interneting’ them will make them stop demanding bribes. Can they emulate the role model Traffic Warden at Customs Junction, 500 metres away?

     

  • Our Girls; Hurray: Malaria vaccine & No polio; INEC Voter Register as Police ID Database ?

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. The President is talking ‘dialogue’ with Boko Haram using perhaps the Sultan, the Emir of Kano and Conflict Resolution experts like Professor Albert. It must be difficult for the President, or Nigerians to contemplate negotiation with malignant evil. Who dare sit with people who may personally have sent suicide bomber children or who may blow the negotiation table up at the opening ceremony or a celebrated ‘Peace at last Federal –Boko Haram Agreement?

    July 2015 is ‘Wow’! Our Maternal Mortality Rate is 600+/100,000. Shame on African media for neglecting the ignorant citizen’s need for ‘LIFE SKILL’ knowledge and not doing more non-commercial 15 -30sec adverts for medical and social ignorance elimination! Shame on African governments for tiny health budgets! A million ‘hurrays’ for Nigeria’s  ‘ONE YEAR WITHOUT POLIO’ thanks to Rotary International, WHO, UNICEF and local partners and the vicious murder of polio vaccine health workers. Five million ‘hurrays’ for the new GSK MALARIA VACCINE to end malaria in childhood with funds from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others WHILE AFRICA’S LEADERS STOLE 50% OF THE BUDGET and under-budgeted health. Africa countries, except South Africa, offered about zero ‘Medical Research Grants’ in Nigeria’s and Africa’s Budgets.

    Over the last 30 years, Nigeria has made several very expensive, multibillion naira, and corruption riddled, attempts at getting Nigerians onto database.  I personally have been forced into five or six databases. Any more? The Nigeria Police Service or Force has no access to or has not asked for or has no interest in using any or all existing databases as a template for a NIGERIA NATIONAL FINGER AND FACE PRINT DATABASE IN 2015. Yet it is over 120 years after fingerprints were identified as an essential tool for crime investigations and made famous by fictional characters such as the literary private detective invented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle –‘Sheer Luck’ Holmes, I mean Sherlock Holmes. Since 1892 when the first case was prosecuted, our Nigerian Police ignore and disregard obvious fingerprints and foot prints at ‘the scene of crime’. The Nigeria Police does not even set up a standard Crime Scene Protocol cordon and photography as seen in every international crime film. Nigerians, from watching CIS, NCIS etcetera, know what a normal Crime Laboratory or Forensic Lab looks like in sophisticated scientific content, delivery of spectacular clues and interpretation by genius police laboratory technicians. These are neglected jobs for hundreds of graduates. No matter how far-fetched, the cases depicted in these films ‘based on real life criminality’ appear to be, the science is real and operational in other countries. Why are victims of crime denied such rights to scientific investigation in Nigeria? Finger prints and face prints, photographs, are not nuclear physics. They are the simple applications of basic science and the use of widely available cameras, even phone cameras and are the right of victims and their families to justice.

    The largest database of adult Nigerians is not in the Passport Offices or FRSC Drivers Licence Records or BVN or State ID or National ID or the cell phone database or whatever other ID that has been cooked up in order to perpetrate the fraudulent extraction of funds. The largest, most expensive, recent and probably the most authentic database is the INEC database. This can be upgraded and modified by compulsory reporting of deaths and routine crosschecking. Even double registration does not matter.

    The Presidency and/or the ‘changed’ National Assembly (NASS), if it changes, must initiate ‘ID DATABASE LAWS’ authorising and mandating the Police, EFCC and ICPC full access to state, Federal Finger/Face ID databases on routine request and corporate employees databases on a judge’s warrant authorisation. Of course there is some access by police to the massive cell phone database already. The police must not continue the apparent collaboration with crime by sabotaging or underutilising this available database. Building immediately on this requires a ‘change’ instruction to all Police formations and Police stations that ALL SUSPECTS MUST BE IDed PROPERLY WITH FINGERPRINTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, FRONT VIEW AND SIDE VIEW-THE MUG SHOT- AND ANY MARKS OR TATTOOS NOTED. Even the ear is a print. With a simple laptop computer or a photo camera, available from any big cell phone company, this information can be recorded and forwarded by internet, email or even WhatsApp or Instagram to a new Nigerian language password cyber-secure state, REGIONAL AND FEDERAL POLICE ID DATABASE run by serial teams of NYSC wiz-kids and cross-referenced with the INEC database and others as needed.

    The facilities to bring the Nigeria Police into 2015 already exist. We only need to harvest, harness and direct them to reach Nigeria’s ‘change’ policing goals.

    We can create a Police database and add a FOOT SECTION as many African thieves operate barefoot. It only requires the will of the Police itself to grow and ‘change’. There are today high enough quality phone cameras in the possession of every DPO in every single police station. Let them initiate the needed ‘change’. The Federal Government can get a database designed by patriotic Nigerians in IT in a week. In the unlikely event that it is not satisfactory, ‘for security reasons’, Nigeria can mistakenly spend good scarce foreign exchange on free Open Source or expensive Microsoft and other ‘secure’ Police packages or use any internationally acceptable existing Police format for interchanges from UK’s CID, INTERPOL, America’s FBI, the New York’s ‘Finest’ or EUROPOL.

    ‘ We can create a Police database and add a FOOT SECTION as many African thieves operate barefoot. It only requires the will of the Police itself to grow and ‘change’. There are today high enough quality phone cameras in the possession of every DPO in every single police station. Let them initiate the needed ‘change’’

  • Our Girls; IDPs; Reduce bank rates; Rethink CSR: N1m Prize Vs 10xN100,000 Prizes

    Our Girls are still missing since 15th April 2014 even as younger girls are ensnared an evil abuse of the Nigerian child, creating ‘female’ child soldiers forced into terrifying mass murder by suicide bombings. Child soldiers were the sad, pitied and tortured product of war-torn distant African nations where murderous mutations like the Lord’s Resistance Army unconscionably send the loved children of other people to kill and die. Children are easily manipulated, instructed, memory erased, hidden in crowds, name changed, fed, mourned, buried and  easily forgotten as they have no history. So now we have our own 10-year old child soldiers forced by threats of violence by others or brainwashed into blowing themselves up. Boko Haram and ISIS have exposed us to an age of spiralling dangerous depravity. Now we have millions of Internally ‘Disturbed’ Children, unable to go to school or enjoy a normal life among the Internally Displaced People being treated like refugees in their own country. They ‘live’, lifeless, less than half of them in IDP camps, the majority unrecorded, scattered with family across Nigeria. Our Catholic Church with other groups collects funds to help IDPs recover their dignity. IDP camps are not national job-creation centres or photo opportunities for politicians. Importing NGO manpower to run IDP camps is wrong. Vacancies must filled from the IDPs first and then from local communities. Each IDP, like bomb survivors, has personal problems of despair, dignity, esteem, self-sufficiency and responsibility mostly solved by paid jobs or self-employment with donated or loaned business funds. Making a displaced person a paid staff or a teacher in the IDP camp will help repair the psychological and financial needs of a family. The policy of ‘IF IDPs CAN DO IT, LET THEM’ should be IDP Camp recruitment policy.   Meanwhile, our myopic political leadership, mired in divisive politics, neglects the ‘Matters of Urgent National Interest’ facing Nigeria, preferring dangerous selfish political manipulations. Meanwhile, dying for Nigeria are more than 100 normal citizens last week and how many armed forces and police personnel? Dying for what? Nothing?

    Meanwhile the naira value has lost 45% in eight months. Nigeria makes no single ‘machine’ in science, medicine, industry or business- all attempts killed by 39 years of political and electricity power failure. So the cost of every business has risen while profits plunge. We all suffer from naira devaluation. All except the banks which inexplicably defy logic, making annual multi-billion naira profits but doing nothing useful for 99% of Nigeria’s businesses in Nigeria –a ‘Banking Corruption Cartel’ requiring the Buhari Effect to ‘Challenge Bank Culture’ which ignores the naira. Why must Nigerians borrow at 22-25%? What business pays such profits? Only banks! The banks are infamous for internal collective corruption from illegal roll-over of government funds and from round-tripping forex. Bank of Industry tells Nigerians that it is different, even giving loans for solar factories. Good but not enough. We demand low interest funds for all Nigerians.

    Following the ‘Years Of Plenty’ running paradoxically in parallel with the ‘Years Of The Locust’, the economy enters ‘Years of Famine’ with recession and Corporate Nigeria facing austerity and lower earnings. The obvious casualties will be the N4b+ CSR Budget and the beneficiary NGOs and needy. Big companies in the service sector, auditing, accounting, maintenance, catering and entertainment, hotel running give little or no CSR.  This must change.

    CSR has often wrongly been misused as cheap publicity PR gimmicks by corporates. ‘Change’ in CSR and in the Corporate and banking ‘Bonanza Millionaire Culture’ is urgently needed. Genuine CSR must be separated from corporate advertising and bonanzas. The malignant epidemic of ‘Instant Millionaires’ has created a psychological culture among lazy youth of ‘get-rich-quick-and –for no-work-done’. These corporates therefore have responsibility to reverse this mind-set among Nigeria’s youth of ‘Wealth Without Work’.

    CSR ignores the villages, grassroots, the source of corporate earnings. Most CSR is concentrated at ‘Corporate HQ’ and neglect the revenue source – markets, shops, offices, petrol stations, schools, hospitals in villages and towns.

    Nigerians demand a ‘CSR Change Policy’- a ‘Corporate CSR Local Impact Policy 2015’- with more CSR spent at local Points of Sale. At Annual General Mettings (AGMs), corporate shareholders should demand dissemination of CSR to every village. The inclusion of ‘CSR Local Outreach Awards’ for Corporate bodies during Annual Media events will encourage new CSR Strategies. Yes, reward distributors but also use distributors as a ‘CSR Channel’. Use your staff as a ‘CSR Channel’ to their home neighbourhoods and villages. Ask staff to suggest CSR projects. Customers make distributors successful. Corporate Nigeria must ‘Change CSR Strategies’, in CSR, let BRANCHES AND DISTRIBUTORS DISTRIBUTE CSR to communities.

    Corporates must ‘change’ the ‘Instant Millionaire Policy’ reducing THE SIZE AND INCREASING THE NUMBER OF PRIZES AND WINNERS who must be required to DONATE SOME OF THEIR WINNINGS to their chosen needy cause. There are many orphanages and NGOs in real need of small regular amounts-N10-100,000. If Corporate Nigerian insists on making 2000+ instant millionaires’ annually then put in a ‘’Winners’ CSR Provision’’ to make the winners donate 10-25% to a charity, school or hospital as cash/books/equipment.  The magic of N1,000,000 works abroad, where incomes are higher, but Nigeria’s desperate 120m+ population, poor pay and poverty demand a new Corporate Policy ’change’  with more winners. Corporates would be more relevant, sensitive and valuable, touching lives of more economically, and assist 10 times more families by giving 10 prizes of N100,000  instead one N1m prize.

  • Our Girls;  PMB: SOS at Mowe/Ibafo by JBerger; End ‘DRACONIAN DEMOCRACY’ in State, LGAs

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 2014. More suicide bombers every day.

    President Buhari must engage Julius Berger about the failure of the Mowe/Ibafo-Lagos expressway causing 40km, five hour, five lane wide traffic jams every Sunday evening. It took four hours to jet to Lagos on Saturday morning, July 11. The problem is bad road sections which almost stop traffic, lack of pedestrian flyovers with thousands crossing the road daily and lack of laybys for domestic passenger vehicles in the towns of Mowe and Ibafo.

    Nigeria has had 1999-2014 the ‘The Democracy Years of Plenty’ or ‘The Democracy Years of the Locust’ – the locust being the greedy and corrupt political, administrative and contractor culture. This created a monster which consumed all we produced and borrowed more to steal and even pay salaries. The years 2015-2019 will be ‘Years of Famine’- financial famine. ‘We the people’ are forced to pay for the thieving and mismanagement signalled by the fall by the 50% in the dollar-from N150 to N232 in nine months, the 50% fall in oil prices and the 50% reduction in demand for Nigeria’s oil due to distance, new nearer markets, foreign political discrimination against Nigeria and reduction in oil demands by America from the rise in shale oil. This is lack of disaster planning.

    Nigeria failed to save adequately during the Years of Plenty. Remember the political outcry against the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the Excess Crude Account, by gluttonous governors greedy for more to spend on thin air and not salaries? Today, both federal and governors have nothing! And salaries are owed, mostly due to ‘diversion’ and corruption. What a tragedy and travesty of Nigeria’s inheritance? If Nigeria was a bank, it would have collapsed and the thieves would be in jail for financial crimes and the money restored to government coffers. A ‘Confession’, saying ‘Sorry’ without ‘Restitution’ is unacceptable. Of course there was a trust issue between states and the Federal Government which has managed to keep 52-4% of the budget. Such trust issues include inter-party suspicion, unfair federalism, uneven access to Ecological Funds and corruption.

    About now the federal government, governors and chairpersons of LGAs and their ‘hooligans’ have begun to seriously plan, against the ‘financial drought’. They are planning to substitute for the lost ‘oil money’ revenues by ‘drilling’ the local population to extract what was lost in oil prices and corruption. Even the corrupt have the need to feed their greed. ‘Buhari fiscal discipline’ cannot be in everybody’s heart, eyes and bank account. The Nigerian citizen is a mini-LGA while struggling against the corrupt uniformed officer in all colours white to black. Many Nigerians have been held, intimidated, insulted and robbed by armed robber ‘official’ thugs with LGA ID cards at a LGA roadblock -a scam.  This and excessive government taxes on the few with violent harassment of the rest have generated a massive citizens’ anger. This pain is aggravated by the natural inclination of any UNSUPERVISED uniformed or authoritarian personnel to have attitude, aggression, arrogance, abusive language and violence with malicious vindictive seizures of signboards, goods, vehicles, motorbikes etcetera with destruction, loss or even theft of seized items or release for a bribe.

    Governors and pension fund handlers do not all have clean anti-corrupt hands. The huge cost of tax consultants and the fate of the money raised have left many citizens disappointed. The Extended Family is the oldest NGO and ‘Bank’ charging ‘No Interest And No Security’ in Africa though irresponsibly unrecognised in academic, economic and tax circles. Africans look after the Extended Family. Yet there are no ‘Personal Tax Reliefs’ covering unemployed family members, parents and families of deceased members. These characteristics of African society support systems are unrecognised even by African Tax which takes ‘TAX TEMPLATES’ directly from the World Bank, Woe Bank, and the IMF, ‘International Morticians Funeral Fund’ who as Europeans, look after only their nuclear family. ‘Be thy brother’s keeper’ is a reality in Nigeria and only a church charity matter in Europe because of the support systems of the dole and incapacity handouts. In Nigeria we have no such safety nets but are denied tax rebates for substituting for government social network failures. This is one area where ‘A HOME-GROWN TAX SYSTEM IS NECESSARY’ giving reliefs for extended family members and activities.

    The drive for IGR, Internally Generated Revenue, must no longer be devilish resulting in more Draconian Democracy. This is the time for ‘change’ in the way government treats its people. The people did not steal, government agents did.

    The hallmark of Draconian Democracy is deliberately and unreasonably inflated demand notices and bills and hyper-inflated fines. This is a quadruple crime of 1] Abuse of office; 2] Official intimidation; 3] Attempt to steal under false pretences, and, 4] Extortion. This amounts to a Human Rights Criminal Offence requiring a monitoring body against any official proved to be extortionist. Such officials should be exposed, demoted, jailed and sacked and denied pensions.

    Nigerians expect a change in ridiculous corruption-driven taxation demands and utility bills, ‘crude, rude letters’, ‘demand notices’, intimidation and attempts to extort. State assemblies and the National Asembly (NASS) should quickly enact a LAW AGAINST UNREASONABLE/STUPID TAXATION, IRRESPONSIBLE OVER-BILLING OR IRRESPONSIBLE BACKDATING. This may aim at forcing the government and its agencies to give their bills for vetting to A CONSUMER PROTECTION TAXATION/BILLING OMBUDSMAN appointed by civil society. This ombudsman may arbitrate disputes.

    ‘The drive for IGR, Internally Generated Revenue, must no longer be devilish resulting in more Draconian Democracy. This is the time for ‘change’ in the way government treats its people. The people did not steal, government agents did’

     

  • Our Girls; Educaretrust@21; Jega GCFR?; Chicken-change Senate statesman-less politics; Power ‘Buhari effect’?   

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. And another 150 innocent souls have been murdered.

    No doubt Nigeria needs many more local town and city Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) catering for 50million youth inadequately served for 30 years. But NGOs do not build themselves. ‘We the people’ do with love, care and funds from family, friends and followers. NGOs allow people to let others be their proxy service to humanity. The first generation NGOs like Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Boys’ Brigade, Man-o-War [and Peace] were abandoned instead of being promoted to line items in budgets. They constitute a volunteer army needing direction. Such NGOs need daily public support and media recognition as role models. Motivational friends, business and a part of the N3-5bilion CSR budget are needed for youth NGOs to succeed. ‘Many hands make light work’ and in spite of funding difficulties, the Educare Trust@21 story continued with contributions by Dr Roselie Ann Modder-Oyefeso, Principal Mr Ajekigbe and a 21 year old ‘Diaspora’ Lagos sector contribution by Patron Mr Bode Emanuel, Dr John Abebe, Mr Remi Okunlola, EtubonAnthony Ani, Chief FRA Marinho, Mr PK Tabiowo, Professor TA Ogunbiyi, Mr Raymond Kotey, Mr Sola MacGregor, Mr Seni DaSilva, F.I Damola, Michael Murray-Bruce and Dr Charles Hammond under Ms Sade Young’s watch.

    Educare Ttrust@21 has not yet ‘made it’ in spite of generous financial and intellectual support. Our failures highlight the need for every ward, LGA, state and the federal government to have their own independent ‘WARD YOUTH CENTRE POLICY’ setting up small cheap Youth Centres in every ward as soon as possible to educate against social ignorance and counter cults, gangs and terrorist sects. Once started each Youth Centre, named after the locality, can be added to in annual budgets and by individuals and local business.

    In an NGO, every minute counts and a volunteer or peer role model or parental figure or a conversation with an abuse victim may save a life, redirect a child in crisis, save years of youth suffering, give valuable volunteer inspiration, give career guidance, simply be a shoulder to cry on for an orphan, a place to ‘feel free’ from child abuse at home or bullying in school, a haven from a troubled home, a light in the darkness of ignorance or a sanctuary from cultism. What price do you put on NGOs being there to help? Send us your N1000/ month pls!

    In 1998 or so, a youth joined ET. He became computer savvy and expert in making film clips for ET’s education project about life-skill messages like anti-smoking, anti-bullying, anti-HIV/AIDS. These went on NTA, BCOS influencing many. He went to university and is working with a bank. His name is Funso Ogundele. Another young boy has a glad-to-sad story. He joined ET and went to University of Ibadan for medicine helped by ET including Professor Dipo Otolorin. He qualified but TRAGICALLY has not completed his house-job yet. After supernumerary ‘work-for-no-pay’ six months and two postings he and others were told to leave. He has been unable to complete the House job. His name is Dr Femi Temilola -awaiting six months House job posting. This is a disgraceful abandonment by the medical profession of its own Hippocratic Oath and responsibility to newly-qualified medical doctors. The regulatory body must stop hospitals taking newly qualified graduates over seniors needing ‘House Officer’ jobs. Enough of medical bureaucratic bottlenecks, discrimination and favouritism. A ‘COMPULSORY TAKING OF SENIOR PRE-REGISTRATION DOCTORS FOR HOUSE JOBS LAW’ is needed. Another youth made a very exciting composite painting of Professor Wole Soyinka@70. He is Daniel Iyoha. Young Seun Kayode and Seun Ajakaiye joined ET and used ET’s drama platform to take up University Arts Theatre courses. Many youth seize the opportunities presented by ET as stepping stone empowerment to success, integrity and knowledge and become peer role models for millions. I met a senior security officer who remembered visiting ET in 1998 to see a computer for the first time. Do you have an ET story? Share it on educaretrust@hotmail.com, http://www.facebook.com/educaretrustnigeria. We all stand on the shoulders of giants and must help others. ET graduates must complete the circle and give back, collectively and individually –experience, corporate connections and small regular amounts. Just 500 ET graduates giving N500-1000=N250-500,000 of service to Generation Next.

    Educare Trust needs your help, donations and a vehicle, a bus. And ET needs Endowment Funds and funds to run ET activities-N250-300,000/month. You can leave ET or other NGOs something in your will. Our lawyer Mr Funsho Ogunkeye will be willing to help. Can you or your company take one of 12 months to annually give us your CSR contribution? Which NGO do you and your shareholding company support?

    Sadly most of ET’s ‘change’ ideas remain ideas. Nigeria refuses to solve the poor reading problem with a ‘ONE STORY BOOK PER CHILD’ plan with a ‘BOX LIBRARY’ of 30 books in a plastic container/classroom. Every PTA in primary and secondary school should provide exciting book mini-libraries immediately. Any ‘change’ takers?

    The out gone Chairman of INEC Professor Jega deserves GCFR or GCON.

    Buhari-ism is working but allowed National Assembly to give Nigerians ‘chicken-change’ statesman-less Senate politics. Has the fear of Buhari forced Distribution Companies (DISCOs) to stop TOSSing [Temporarily Out of Service] electricity? The increased power supply saved billions in June in generator fuelling and maintenance costs, reduced air and noise pollution and the June ‘fuel subsidy’ of households and businesses by several billions.

    ‘Sadly most of ET’s ‘change’ ideas remain ideas. Nigeria refuses to solve the poor reading problem with a ‘ONE STORY BOOK PER CHILD’ plan with a ‘BOX LIBRARY’ of 30 books in a plastic container/classroom. Every PTA in primary and secondary school should provide exciting book mini-libraries immediately. Any ‘change’ takers?’