The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Our Girls; Are we 120m or 170m Nigerians? Jega GCFR, INEC and 2019; Democracy Monuments; IGR

    Our Girls; Are we 120m or 170m Nigerians? Jega GCFR, INEC and 2019; Democracy Monuments; IGR

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014 – a year of painful empty days. We pray as the military makes efforts but we cannot comprehend the agony of families dragged into terrible emotional trauma. Where are they? When will they return?
    What is our real population- ‘170m’, ‘around 200m’? Where are these 170m Nigerians? Foreigners count us by satellite and know. Do the maths. INEC made 70m Permanent Voters Cards. Only 56m collected. Only 28+m voted. Add 10m for cancellations, disenfranchised, sick and bored making 38m or being generous 40m. If adults are 40% of the population, the under 18 year old are 60% or 60m. With this the total population is 100m or even 120m. What is the true census figure and ‘Where are the Nigerians?’ A reduced real population will improve our GDP and our rebased economy and help keep our people at home safe from South African xenophobia.
    The 2015 elections are over with  serious questions of legitimacy of winners and scandalous  outcomes in some states. There is ‘TTT’ ‘Triumph for victors, Tedium for Voters, Tragedy for the cheated’ and the dead with gloom for the losers and doom for the dead. INEC nationwide with exceptions in a few well known states stood against a massively corrupt and Machiavellian political machinery of partisan politics which is not ‘Do or Die’ but ‘Do Or Kill’ happily maiming or murdering, beating and burning, in the name of democracy. Is it really INEC’s job to face such a malevolent army of Nigerian political miscreants or should Nigeria take the responsibility to secure the peace with non-partisan police and armed forces before INEC steps in? Can INEC better secure the ballot boxes to prevent them being stolen and re-stuffed by party faithful who are unfaithful to the NIGERIAN DREAM OF DEMOCRACY & DEVELOPMENT?
    Nigerians suggest GCFR for Professor Jega in the 2015 Oct Honours List for being the GOC, commanding the heavily out-numbered INEC Army against the combined forces of evil. How dare we blame INEC for the evil execution of plans by ballot snatching maniacs? OFR should be given to only the ‘qualified’ screened RECs including a Posthumous award for the late REC burnt dead or murdered with his family in Kano. For the honest dead victims, around 120 in number, an MON? Many of ‘losers’ were actually robbed, cheated , denied democracy rights, molested and some murdered. What a blood-y waste. I congratulate the honest real victors. Particularly, in Lagos and Oyo States for choosing to be aligned with the federal centre for once in the life of Lagos and twice in Oyo State. The outcomes mostly show polyglot, multi-party states of affairs, with close numbers between the parties and a few landslides for both major parties needing investigation to exclude coercion and criminal intent. Governors won 38-95% of the vote and they must be servants of all the other voters as well and not just their ‘party people’.
    So a Supreme Court supported Fayose offers the olive branch of ‘please forgive me’ without offering an apology for ‘7 being greater than 19’, court invasions, or giving restitution or reparation for the damage or a fund raising for the dead. Paradoxically, he triumphed in the same judiciary that was rubbished on his watch. What percentage of the assembly seats were actually won legitimately not legally ? Which party will withstand a rerun in any state?
    After a short rest on its laurels, there is a lot of work for INEC to do by 2019. These elections have cost us well in excess of N1.5trillion-NISER Research confirmation please. The expenses include two days of total national economic shutdown, massive multibillion naira advertising – outdoor and electronic and newspaper; countrywide travel and hotel and rally and security costs, constant changes of political ethnic apparel, a billion posters, massive handouts denominated often in dollars to royalty, party people and perhaps even some INEC officials. Nigeria demands INEC focus on achieving the following ‘INEC Nine Point Agenda’: 1. Pursuit and Prosecution and Banning of those guilty of Election Fraud and Violence; 2. Penalise Political Parties financially and by banning participation in reruns, just as banks and companies pay fines for their employees fraudulent activities; 3. ‘One Day Elections’ to reduce economic and physical stress ; 4. Plan to allocate one INEC unit of three personnel per 100 voters; 5. ‘9am -4pm Walk-In Accreditation and Immediate Voting’; 6. ‘Anywhere Voting’ –to allow those registered elsewhere to vote in any booth; 7. Continuous Registration for PVC at 18 years of age at the INEC LGA Office; 8. Compulsory Return of Permanent Voters Card by families of the dead; 9. International Diaspora Voting Plan’; 10. E-Voting plan.
    Jega may require to finish the job he has started so well. He or someone very like him of impeccable ‘character and learning’ must supervise and analyse the enormous voter database now available, proffer solutions to existing problems and strategise on the INEC TAMPER-PROOF ROADMAP TO 2019.
    The election did cost over 120 lives of Fellow Nigerians. The Police and NHRC must investigate, produce a CID Report and prosecute every case and courts must be swift in justice delivery. These murdered victims proclaim the urgency of Nigeria and NGOs to erect ‘DEMOCRACY MEMORIALS’ with names, like at War Memorials, because this democracy struggle is a DEMOCRACY WAR.

    ‘Jega may require to finish the job he has started so well. He or someone very like him of impeccable ‘character and learning’ must supervise and analyse the enormous voter database now available, proffer solutions to existing problems and strategise on the INEC TAMPER-PROOF ROADMAP TO 2019’ 

    • To be continued..

  • April 1st Our Girls; One INEC team + One Card Reader/50-100 voters pls; Single day elections in 2019

    April 1st Our Girls; One INEC team + One Card Reader/50-100 voters pls; Single day elections in 2019

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. Soon it will be one tragic year. Congratulations to our troops and the supreme sacrifice some have had to make against Boko Haram. We wish they had acted one year ago.

    No results are announced by INEC at my press time Monday Am. Nigeria is still afraid of exit polls, which are part of the international political anticorruption arsenal. Why did INEC not quickly collate and announce ‘INEC authorized results’ at local collation centres immediately?  We pray that INEC will not be oppressed by the traditional demons against democracy as in the recent past. The election was not ‘pure’. There were unacceptable incidents of calculated and callous violence, stolen report sheets, bombs, attacks, gunfire, deaths and injuries, violence against the media and a fatal boat incident.

    However it ‘appears’ largely free and fair except for some very difficult orchestrated elections in violence-prone states. Voting should be a pleasant experience and not a dangerous punishment. Patience, perseverance and pragmatism are necessities in Nigerian elections and punishment for violence perpetrators. Voters will not swallow false results of a sham election rigged in their state.

    Exposure to scorching sun or tropical rain, no seats, no shade, no toilet facilities, was the order of the voting day. Worldwide we see elections where voters spend seconds or minutes for accreditation with driving licence or passport or voter’s ID and immediately vote with a choice of several curtained-off polling booths for secret voting. In this last election on the March 28 in my polling booth, INEC arrived at 8.45pm and we spend from 9.15am to 3pm being accredited as one card reader died on us and this was not replaced until the second one died at 1.06pm. Even then, it took the pressure of the citizens and a citizen’s vehicle to take INEC officials to HQ for replacements, which arrived at 2pm to accredit the remaining 100 out of about 280 voters. As usual in Nigeria, it was exhausting, time consuming and economically costly.

    I personally wiped my thumb and the card reader spent just 2 or 3 seconds to accredit me. However the person ahead of me was accredited on his ninth digit attempt. But even that took just about one minute. Of the nearly 300 voters only three or so had to be done manually. What are the lessons and corrections that can be offered? The card reader was a ‘qualified’ success preventing duplication, multiple voting, fake cards and post-voting stuffing of ballot boxes. The difficulty was when the card readers failed but card readers are multi-purpose anti-corruption device. In some cases where it failed the card reader was maliciously or politically crippled. Below are my conclusions or Post Mortem Findings.

    Post Mortem finding 1: The spending of four hours lining up for one three person INEC team to accredit over 150-500 people is too long and wrong. We in our station were ‘lucky’ as only 300 turned up out of 800 expected. Many voters had registered but only worked there and could not come to vote from home-lost votes. Surely in order to ‘Speed up the process,’ Nigeria have one INEC card reader/50 cards to speed up the accreditation process. The card reader is to be hailed as it severely limited vote rigging and voter number fixing.

    Post Mortem finding 2: A planned three INEC staff for 200-500 voters are unimaginably poor management. We eventually had two sets of three INEC staff. INEC needs to treat Nigerians better and plan ‘three INEC staff /100 voters’ in each polling station.

    POST Mortem finding 3:  Nigeria must have a single INEC election with one accreditation and same afternoon election of all offices: President, National Assembly, Governors and State Assembly. Nigerians and Nigeria cannot afford to shut down twice for elections at the cost and loss of many billions to businesses and government. Nigerians should not be forced to go through the mental, physical and financial stress of an 8-12 hour election, more than one day every 4 years. This will halve the INEC budget for police security, travel and vehicle transport hire, and voter register reproduction for the second election day and also save parties 50% of party agent hire fees and other monitoring expenses. INEC can apply some of the billions in ‘saved’ funds to hiring more INEC staff for a ‘one day election’, which will maximise the value of accreditation and queuing. It will cut wastage of time and energy and financial business losses and reduce security risks.

    If allowed to function, The permanent voter card and the card reader remain the best things that have happened to ‘honest elections’ in Nigeria. Of course, no Card reader revolution can totally prevent the massed forces of evil political elements misusing their position and power to intimidate voters, buy voters’ thumbs or steal ballot boxes. These manifestations of maniacal acts of demonic anti-democracy vandalism often characterise struggling democracies where ‘one man-one vote’ democracy is subverted by ‘party and personal perpetuation’ at any evil price.

    Serving politicians who have lost elections by legitimate means or had to use illegal means to ‘win’ the elections must ask themselves why they got it wrong? In four years’ time, 2019, when the electorate decides again, we do not want to be challenged by the same political arrogance, insulting electioneering behaviour and prolonged massive financial wrongdoing.

  • Our Girls; Fulani Herdsmen: Farmer War, Boycott Blood Meat: Be a political journalist. Count Your Vote 

    Our Girls; Fulani Herdsmen: Farmer War, Boycott Blood Meat: Be a political journalist. Count Your Vote 

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15 2014. To them, and 15,000+ murdered, add 90 executed in Damasak and those wives murdered directly by Boko Haram to keep them ‘pure’ till a heavenly reunion. Did someone say ‘Negotiate with Boko Haram’?

    As Boko Haram reduces under the offensive, we face the Fulani Herdsmen Vs Farmers War claiming 5,000+ lives, and another 90 Fellow Nigerians cruelly massacred last week. Election win or not, statesman, Fulani leader and General, Buhari, must resolve this festering Fulani Herdsmen-Nigerian Farmers leprosy sore before it causes an ECONOMIC BACKLASH BOYCOTT OF ‘BLOOD MEAT’ defined as ‘Meat transported and eaten at the cost of lives & livelihoods of fellow farming Nigerians’.

    I disturbingly see cow meat on my plate as the flesh of those murdered children and parents.  This senseless War should stop if Nigerians at the end of the cow transport chain, ‘EAT NO MEAT’ for three months. Speaking medically, no one will die from not eating meat, so why should people die BECAUSE WE EAT MEAT? Why can you eat meat delivered by the death of a child? You are an accessory and receiver of stolen goods- farm grass and crops eaten by the cows. You have blood on your hands.

    This is how it was in the 18th C Wild West of America. The war will continue after a boycott if, as suggested by some, it is a cover for a territorial Fulani war disguised as a cow-farmland war. A seeming senseless war or a cunning expansionist strategy?    The wickedness of unleashing weaponised OPC on Lagos citizens shows no difference between that group, its leaders and Boko Haram.

    Death and terror are just that. No ‘political’ excuses. Boko Haram members murder their wives. We know what OPC does to victims.Enough of the personalisation or ‘partyisation’ of Nigeria’s governance and public institutions by all parties in power at federal, state and LGA level and the traditional institutions.

    Governance, the private sector and traditional responsibilities are timeless and transcend political tenures. They should not be partisan. Politicians are hired and fired at elections and are 4-8 year employees of the citizens. They must not extort endorsements from the landlord, the institution of governance.

    Holding teachers, handicapped, civil servants and unions etc., to ransom to ‘declare for us’ is abuse.  ELECTION ALERT: INEC says we must not leave the polling booth after voting. The IGP must retract any wrong information. Leaving the polling booth unprotected by citizens is an invitation to fraud. In this election, INEC must make more statements that CITIZENS must OBSERVE & ‘COUNT YOUR VOTE’. Remember to take WATER AND SNACKS in a transparent bag for security for yourself and others including the election staff, neglected for 10 hours, with shops closed.

    I worry for young NYSC staff, so much is expected of them, for so little. Have you seen the squalor, poor sanitation and facilities of NYSC camps? Since 1973 or so, Nigeria has stolen billions from the NYSC Scheme. I served NYSC in Jos and Lafia in 1975/6 and am sickened by the debasing hovels given NYSC as accommodation today.

    With indifference to any lethal consequences, we again risk their nationalistic NYSC lives for Nigeria. Let no drop of NYSC members’, or anyone else’s blood, be spilt by murderers in the false name of politics. Too many NYSC heroes have died for other people’s greed. NYSC members, we salute you. Nigerian politicians should protect their NYSC ‘children’.

    No one should be allowed to make inoperable the PVC Card Readers with the protective role of an impartial Police and the Armed Forces uncompromised by criminal governors. Any ruling party agents cannot be allowed to repeat Ekitigate election revealed by the patriotic military whistleblower who deserved promotion and induction into the ‘Hall of Fame for Whistleblowers’. Recall the whistle blowing Police officer ‘O’.

    He should be the Foundation Hall of Fame whistleblower. All political parties should participate at ‘Political Security Meetings’.World expectations are high for the triumph of democracy in Nigeria. Rigging and Violence are a CIVILIAN COUP ATTEMPT, treason, and prosecutable. Do not forget the newly elected ‘Democracy Saint’ Obasanjo’s role in the recent election ‘victories’.

    On Sat March 28th, let no one say ‘no’ to voting. Every voter who ‘siddon look’ and refuses to vote is a vote against his candidate. Let no one be intimidated. We are all ELECTION MONITORS AS RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS. TURN ON YOUR CELL PHONE, RECORD SECRETLY ANY iniquity, UPLOAD TO PREPLANNED INTERNET AND MEDIA’. I suggest you download Meerkat through Twitter and use it to expose political wrong-doing. We are all POLITICAL WAR JOURNALISTS-say Kunle   and Kolade M. Let the good outnumber the bad, let honest voters outnumber riggers, let truthful lawyers outnumber lying lawyers, let honest judges outnumber corrupt judges, let police and courts accept electronic evidence of violence- a criminal code crime, let the court injunctions stop, let good overcome evil. NO ONE’S POLITICAL LIFE IS WORTH THE DEATH OF EVEN ONE NIGERIAN. Stay alive to tell the 2015 election story. Long Live Nigeria! VOTE FOR YOUR CANDIDATE, FREELY AND FAIRLY ON SATURDAY MARCH 28TH2015.PS NERC again totally failed to protect Nigerians by not preventing the recently reversed hike in electricity tariff. The NERC board should resign or be sacked for incompetence. And why don’t American police disable people by shooting the people in the arms and leg instead of dead?

  • Our Girls; ban tyre burning; Solar Africa?; Our soldiers; Single digit interest rates; cut political pay

    Our Girls; ban tyre burning; Solar Africa?; Our soldiers; Single digit interest rates; cut political pay

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. Happily our soldiers are moving forward, perhaps ‘with a little help from our ‘mercenary’ friends’? The greatest murderers in Africa are Ebola 10,000 and Boko Haram 15,000 dead and 1.5 to 3million injured mentally, medically, financially or family wise. And add POLITICS, political incompetence refusing to solve poverty alleviation problems and election violence. Political Murderers kill through bad policies or refusing to implement good ones. It is still blood on their hands even if it is only files they see and votes they sell in parliament.

    For example, the NASS as a Matter of Urgent National Importance, MOUNI, should introduce a Law ‘BAN ON TYRE BURNING’ by NAFDAC, SON, etc  when destroying seized goods as tyre rubber is the worst form of ‘man made’ pollution.  Each tyre is an environmental time bomb releasing 4,000+ chemicals in a black toxic cloud destroying the air breathed for days. We do not need to smoke, just stay near a burning tyre to die. Protesting citizens and vulcalisers clearing old stock should also be banned from tyre burning. ‘Ban tyre burning’.

    As we witness the solar powered plane flying around the world, belatedly the sun is actually taking its place in powering Africa. However we see business ignoring the sun for out-door advertising using electronic billboards currently powered by large street corner generators when solar energy would work better for them and the millions of streetlights. The cost of solar equipment has gone down by 80% and the efficiency has gone up by 80% in the last two years rendering equipment older than 2 years obsolete. The use of the sun goes against the selfish grain of most African Governments which seek to control and exploit the people’s rights through reckless billing for poorly provided utilities and other services never rendered for citizens rightfully demanding a modest modern human existence. No serious energy-conscious right-thinking, science and tech, savvy modernist African government ignores the sun and the power for independent social and business wealth and growth it offers. Africa should stop wasting the God given, clean air and sun. Botswana Innovation Inc built a largely solar-powered multi-story complex green multi-business Science and Technology Park. The Pan Atlantic University in Lekki, Lagos has built an Entrepreneurial  Development Centre powered by solar energy. Lagos State is powering 173 schools with solar power as part of a plan to ‘solarise all schools’.  Many states are playing lip service to ‘the solarisation of Africa’ by lighting streets. Good but ‘Solar Business Is Serious billion dollar Business’ needing a serious leadership to lead the continent of Africa out of the Dark Continent centuries. The sun has always been in Africa but Africans ignored and ran from it apart for sun-drying gari et cetera. If the UK, with its anaemic sun shining 10-20% of the year, can use solar for electricity, then we in Africa are stupid to miss something so huge developmentally. Dangote, rich from selling rice, cement and pasta and Co and CBN should contribute to a $2B-5 BILLION SOLAR ENERGY REVOLVING LOAN SCHEME at ZERO to 9% interest. African Scientists do little cutting edge solar research and hardly get the newest technology. Why are we in Africa not solarising all our new buildings as recommended by the new housing policy?

    However, there is a solar light at the end of our tunnel of electricity darkness and there are some inspirational examples. The IFC plans to fund alternative power sources under a ‘Lighting Africa Initiative’.  There is an EU plan to put Solar Panel Farms across the Sahara for EU power perhaps with an Africa spinoff.  Solar services are being offered by Total and Shell and many oil companies. Africa is dying for solar energy.

    As we hail the successes of our valiant troops against Boko Haram, we must remember that no victory without the supreme sacrifice. Add to that the deaths of over 15,000 and the maiming, orphaning, widowing by Boko Haram to sense the horror and urgency. All Nigerians should note the dignity accorded the heroic 38 Cameroonian soldiers killed fighting Boko haram. How many uniformed personnel have we in Nigeria lost? How were they buried? Perhaps we are too busy court-marshaling our formerly under-equipped troops. Should one-discountenance press suggestions that the real military problems were ICC, inefficiency, incompetence, corruption and greed further up the military chain of command?

    Nigeria is no stranger to our soldiers making the supreme sacrifice in foreign lands on behalf of ECOWAS, the UN in the Congo, and elsewhere. Certainly for soldiers who died in ECOMOG, perhaps around 8,000 courageous men, they were buried quietly. I saw a wife arriving by danfo, at her husband’s military grave during the funeral, crying out that the army could not even inform her that her husband was dead.

    Austerity everywhere. Russia has cut its salaries and reduced its interest rates to 14%. Unfortunately Nigeria’s CBN does not recommend slash in salary or our immorally high interest rates, now near 25-30%. The rich bankers are shamelessly protected at the expense of the suffering poor in Nigeria. We demand single digit interest rates for very small street business and citizens and citizens and salary cuts  for political office holders. Unfortunately Senate has increased the proposed NASS budget from N120b to 125b.

    And the Lagos Ibadan expressway has no ‘Emergency Expert Supervisors’ to get traffic going when it stops.

  • Our Girls; BH-IS; IDPs: single digit loans, billionaires, Banks; Okoya Thomas, Gimba; Putin salary cut

    Our Girls; BH-IS; IDPs: single digit loans, billionaires, Banks; Okoya Thomas, Gimba; Putin salary cut

    Our Girls, still missing since April 15, 2014, bring us to despair every day. Since then the Boko Haram death toll is approaching 15,000 and the displaced are estimated at 1.6-3million, voluntary and violence affected IDPs. And predictably Boko Haram has joined Islamic State with murderous consequences for ‘soft target’ West Africa which is now an agenda item of ‘Things To Do’ for well-funded and manned ISIS as it flees Iraq. Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon must stop squabbling militarily over who takes which towns and eliminate all pockets of Boko Haram before any link-up of forces and ideology of evil!

    Congrats to Dangote, Odedola, Alakija etc, among Africa’s and the world’s richest people, climbing in the Forbes List. Good feeling eh, for them and their drops of ‘charity’? We also have silent billionaires, some with good money but most with ‘bad’ money, disqualified by Forbes regulations. With riches, good or bad, come huge responsibilities to help others, ask Bill Gates and ‘TED’ for ideas. Most poor persons are not lazy, lacking in drive and dishonest. They just lack billion naira ‘connections’. Being  ‘chosen’ to be a billionaire by home delivery of  ‘awoof’ oil blocks, cheap rice and cement ‘Import Duty’ concessions or fronting for wealthy military geniuses are ‘connections’, not hard work. There are exclusive clubs admitting only rich kids and the politically wealthy in Nigeria where a ‘Champagne Coffin’ is 12-48 bottles of Champagne-on-ice@N120,000 each bottle, chicken feed to a rice, cement, oil or cellphone billionaire. Meanwhile we have up to 1.5 million IDPs desperate for rightful assistance for N120,000 start-ups to kick-start their Boko Haram bomb destroyed lives. Is the N56b Victims Support Fund donated partly by Dangote etc getting to victims speedily, with no red tape,  efficiently to ensure the right people get the FFF –Funds, Food and Furniture- needed today, not in 3 months when they will be demoralised, depressed, and even dead. And government and banks should realise that the IDPs are already motivated, experienced entrepreneurs with destroyed livelihoods urgently needing ‘Single Digit Start-Up-Life-Again Loans’ with Federal Government, or the VSF, offering collateral. Are First, Second, GTB, Stanbic, FMCB, or Zenith Bank giving ‘single digit loans’ to IDPs as a war effort support? No! There are many ways of combatting Boko Haram and ISIS. Make Nigeria more financially friendly for individual citizens- young and old entrepreneurs, seeking tiny loans.

    We mourn the passing of a serious good-hearted philanthropist and distinguished gentleman and exemplary Lagosian Chief A. Molade Okoya-Thomas We also mourn the passing of economist, public servant, Past ANA President and social engineer Alhaji Abubakar Gimba. I am honoured to have known them and many other true Nigerians.

    Nigerians are constantly forced to the wall of national shame and despair because of the distasteful evil that is said or read or another evil deed displayed in ‘exclusive interviews’ with malevolent political attack dogs from different political parties. Too often our youth see truth becoming a casualty of lies, morals abandoned, with the rise of brigandage and the failure of right. Wrong overcomes right. Strangely past Heads of State are forgetful of the truth behind their murky ‘service’, and take centre stage to postulate about a good governance they ruined. And people stupidly listen. With these moral and financial burdens Nigeria may remain in a squalid state at the bottom of world rankings in everything good and far below the basic human right on even toilets per capita. We are not in slavery or under colonialists but under worse- a destructive greedy political class!

    Yet we are the ‘largest economy in Africa’ and Nigerian banks declare 50% increase in profits while the people lack housing and single digit interest loans to survive. But we must remind ourselves that there are many good Nigerians, on our street, in our neighbourhood, in our state, in Abuja and in the Nigerian diaspora who are already exhibiting traits of Chief Okoya Thomas and Alhaji Abubakar Gimba. A country in search of genuine role models need seek no further than their own neighbourhood and the newspapers where daily ‘Nigerians struggle across the pages’ to be heard for justice and good. Every LGA should have ‘A Book of Role Models’, taught in neighbourhood schools. It is the dedication, calling and contributions by Chief Okoya Thomas and Alhaji Abubakar Gimba that helped to plug holes of corruption and incompetence in many areas while politicians steal, waste and misdirect our time and money. Without the hundreds of Okoya-Thomas and Gimbas of Nigeria, thousands of schools, hospitals and young citizens would have remained rubbish. Such Nigerians have filled the hole abandoned by government, and its thieving political agents. May they RIP.

    Even the reactionary Russian ‘Tzar’ Putin has reacted to the economic collapse of oil and sanctions by cutting salaries including his own. Why not cut political salaries in Nigeria by 75%? Much of governance has stopped for most of the last six months confirming we should run apart time political system. The media is ecstatic with the billions, it and the shareholders are making from politics. Are FIRS, LIRS etc which tax citizens almost for the air we breathe, are taxing the individual politicians, parties and political support groups for their adverts?

    Political Fact: The price of 2015 politics is in excess of N1trillion. Will this and more be stolen from the budget by any political party in power? Think and act ‘Anti-corruption!’

  • Our Girls; Funeral for murdered ‘Toilet Paper’ Naira;  Any resurrection?; Indian budget lessons

    Our Girls; Funeral for murdered ‘Toilet Paper’ Naira;  Any resurrection?; Indian budget lessons

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014 and Boko Haram bombs are taking lives daily. The regional armed forces are doing a good job and soldiers are paying the supreme price totally unsung, as usual. Let us pray.

    Ask yourself of this 2015 ‘democratic’ election: How Much, Who, Where, How and Why? How much is spent by parties? Who is paying? Where is the money from? How does it escape government coffers? Nigerian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and investigative journalists must deliver the truth about the ‘EVIL ELECTION EXTRAVAGANZA’. Go on. Work out the cost of this election, lethal and financial, and provide an ‘ELECTION COST FIGURE’. Nigeria is ripped off as politicians, our servants and employees, shamelessly spend a FRIGHTENING FINANCIAL FIGURE. Today we address this and the prevention of the funeral of the naira.

    There is an immeasurable cost in political mistruths rampantly regurgitated without intelligent interrogation by the mindless media. There are deaths and injuries which require monitoring and quantifying by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) so far reporting 58 deaths, including 28 police officers. The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) is a dangerous army needing to be demobbed, registered, tagged and all its members’ vehicles numbered for safety and recognition.

    NOW HEAR THIS: Apparently National Assembly (NASS) is considering the ‘Budget 2015’. Four items are glaringly missing from the budget which will stop the naira’s death and reverse it towards N150 in the first instance in its resurrection.

    First is the question of the ‘NAIRA AMOUNT’ for the ‘SECRET & CORRUPT REIMBURSEMENT OF ELECTION EXPENSES’. Incoming party members will in 2015 generously  reimburse themselves and their parties for real and imagined campaign expenses with interest by ‘illegally’ removing budget funds through bogus hyper-inflated’ phantom contracts. This cost can be calculated as an important research project by NISER, Political Science Associations and university students by a collation of a count of the cost of millions of items of election as following: The T-shirts and face caps in tens of millions, party clothings, posters- one billion, billboards, newspaper and radio and TV adverts, rent a crowd + organisation x 10,000 events and rallies nationwide and half a million+ bags of rice ‘stomach infrastructure’ and  inducements, bribes and ‘gifts’ to ‘show the enlightened party pathway’ to royal fathers, pastors@N7billion, imams@?billion, atheists and hundreds of groups and counter-groups and organisations set up for ‘party activities’. Also estimate the huge legal fees, N15m/SAN and N1-5m/lesser lawyers by some 2011 estimates before the naira fell to toilet paper value, of the endless court cases. The ‘2015 Election Reimbursement Figure’ will be billions and even A TRILLION NAIRA, up to 30% of the budget. The removal of this money will ‘ruin’ the budget even as Due Process and the Bureau of Public Procurement claim to save billions. This is stealing from every baby, child and adult Nigerian.

    The second figure missing is the opportunity for savings from an ‘Expected reduction of the political burden on the budget’, from ‘cutting salaries and perks, of all political office holders and political appointees by 50-75%’.

    Thirdly is the opportunity for budgetary savings by ‘REDUCING THE NUMBER OF POLITICAL OFFICE HOLDERS AND POLITICAL APPOINTEES BY 50%’.

    Fourthly, the budget misses out the opportunity for savings by getting all such political persons mentioned above ‘TO WORK ‘PART TIME’ AND FOR A SITTING ALLOWANCE’ except for ministers and commissioners.

    A word about our current currency collapse. Currency is national pride and currency appreciation is a goal of every leader except in Nigeria where the aim is a weaker naira to get more government naira for fewer dollars. ‘Currency stability’ is a mantra by economists and bankers but what is ‘currency stability’ when your currency has been made into toilet paper? Who needs stable toilet paper? Let our leaders pull our currency back from the brink of this this VERY Nigerian-made instability N210+:$1. If not, in a month or two the same economists will be praising the ‘new stability’ of N210+:$1 and fight any improvement or reversal to a stronger naira. Remember only the citizen gains from a strengthening naira as the naira buys more dollars. If you are a politician with dollars to change to naira to pay for salaries or elections, then a weak naira gets you more naira for the dollar. A politician with a foreign account will never improve the naira and will applaud the naira collapse because each $1m will buy N210m instead of N150 three months ago. Shamefully, since the time of recently 80 year old Gowon and 90 year old Shagari, happy Birthday to you, and all those in the picture of Shagari@90 ‘Past Heads of State’ responsible for our predicament, it has never been on any Nigerian civilian or military government’s agenda to ‘appreciate the naira’. Since poverty is ‘less than a dollar a day’, the fall of the naira plunges another 30% of the population below the poverty line in shameless ‘largest economy of Africa’. We require to drastically resurrect the naira from the toilet before the economists say ‘stability is better than appreciation’ of the naira. Wanted: A Nigerian leader to Resurrect the Naira –and Nigeria.’

    Nigeria and India face similar corruption problems. Any party solving Nigerian’s economic problems and working on the 2015 budget should tune Channel 413 and study the Indian Finance Minister Jailey’s 2015 Budget. Even toilets are budgeted for. NISER, economists, political students and all Nigerians must learn important lessons from the Indian Budget commentaries.

  • Our Girls; Politicians, bankers: No corruption difference? Fight ‘Illegally legal’ NASS salaries for life

    Our Girls; Politicians, bankers: No corruption difference? Fight ‘Illegally legal’ NASS salaries for life

    Our girls and many of our people have been missing on, before and since April 14, 2014. Many others, over 10,000, lie dead in mostly unmarked graves and there are the perhaps millions displaced or injured. The recent King of Saudi Arabia was also buried in an unmarked grave even though he had almost $20 billion, not as rich as Dangote whose name appears in the Swiss branch of HSBC discussions about international tax evasion and undisclosed secret bank accounts confirming international bankers’ fraud. In the 60s, the magazine West Africa advertised Swiss Accounts. Corruption has been around forever.

    The civil service, political and economic banking class all stink of manipulative corruption igniting the historic anti-corruption stance of the Buhari campaign facing the reactionary ‘who-is-who’ in ‘Who is afraid of Buhari?’ on the other side. Millions of Nigerians are frustratingly sick of the personal and public service cost of corruption consuming as much as 50% of budgets of most LGAs, states, federal government organisations.  This cost of corruption is murderous and is an election issue and an affront to national pride. Corruption thought is seen in the high political wages; bankers’ corruption is seen in high bank rates and destructive naira value. Political corruption includes a weak security strategy, near-perpetual darkness, potholes filling our roads, poor education and health delivery systems, high graft in government functions and services, cost of doing business, the greedy open hands of all uniformed organisations, poor return on the contract naira, the education exodus to Ghana, the growing Diaspora population and even worse – the corrupt funding of political parties by government/ contractor corruption.

    African leaders could have directed the Africa Union to declare ‘2015-2025 -The Solar 10 Years’ and negotiated the cutting edge solarisation of Africa as an ‘African-Anti-Poverty, Job Creation’ strategy against the invasion of fortress Europe and as a priority of development from village to Presidential Villa. Of course very few African countries have the criminally low power supply that Giant of Africa, Nigeria, has. The Nigerian citizen has been punished by politics for ever. All our powerlessness, suffering, falling naira, high interest rates are all caused by a lack of true leadership. It seems the leaders have got well ahead of the followers in ‘benefits’. In Nigeria we have a ’Politicians’ Paradise’  Vs a ‘Citizens Cesspool’ of preventable suffering from which we foolishly smile and applaud when we get chairs in a classroom or a few potholes filled or  a 31% pass in WAEC or ‘only 20 deaths from Ebola’ or a 50kmph slow-train while they get a new presidential plane.

    People wake up!! Do not applaud at the dregs given you while they steal us blind. Nigeria was never supposed by God to be so bad.  God gave us oil, geological minerals, millions of hard working people, 12 hours daylight a day, a good climate filled with solar energy, a naira valued at $1.2:1Naira in 1970. Where have they gone?

    Last week the National Assembly, NASS approved for themselves new salaries-for-life for certain national officers within the NASS. This is after receiving huge unknown Salaries and Perks, while in office which are SAPping our budget dry. All this in a country where politicians are regrettably the highest paid in the world while they cannot pay others their salaries and pensions. All this in a country whose currency has plummeted from N150 to 200+ or 25% and whose oil revenues have fallen by 50% through falling oil prices and reduced demand.  Is this ‘Salaries for life’ law a copycat law from the USA, EU or UK? Is there not a body which fixes Salaries and Perks for political office holders? This body perhaps called the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal something has failed yet again to curb the politicians who are drinking greedily from the near-empty well of Nigeria’s budget. But these politicians are already stupendously wealthy at the nation’s expense. How greedy can a man get? How many golf courses, private jets or mansions in different continents does a man need while fellow Nigerians are protesting seeking unpaid salaries and stolen pensions and food for children? This law giving life salaries and perks to even one NASS member is an insult to our sensibilities, morally reprehensible and though NASS may make it legal, it is an illegality and must be challenged in the courts as ‘ILLEGALLY LEGAL’. Today officers, tomorrow everyone in NASS. This must be challenged in court and some political parties must take this as a key policy strategy like the excessively high political salaries and the need to cut the NASS and state and LGA from ‘full time’ to ‘Part-Time with Sitting Allowances’. The politician appears as a blood-sucking leech on Nigeria’s budget. This political class must be stopped before there is nothing left.  Nigeria has had seven+ years of plenty stolen and faces politically induced seven years of resultant famine.  We need a change.

    Apologies for a missing sentence on Feb 18. The full paragraph was: Nigeria’s builders must visit The Pan Atlantic University Lekki, Lagos has a fantastic eco-friendly building, Enterprise Development Centre, powered by solar energy. All Nigeria’s buildings must be eco-friendly buildings. Of course Africa’s traditional mud and grass buildings were eco-friendly. There is a new National Solar Policy suggesting that all new houses under the new Nigerian Housing Policy and all new government and corporate buildings must include renewable energy, solar. These are huge policy steps

     

  • ‘Our Girls; Election postponement; Fear of Buhari; Political posters vs classroom edu-posters

    Our Girls and Our People’ are still missing since April 15. Hope unfortunately dwindles.

    Today I was expecting to further encouraging you to gear up to get your PVC and get you and your friends and family out to vote on the 14th February for the candidate of your choice. Nigeria’s warped political uncertainties and manipulations have overtaken even such an expensive day as election day. Elections are very, very expensive social implications for the citizens as well as government. Tens of thousands have changed wedding and other community function days. Office, movement, and market shutdowns cancel incomes for that day. Now the shift to March 28 will paralyse millions of pre-planned activities for that day.

    Unfortunately, the 2015 elections will not be the most important thing that will happen if it happens. Politics is not everything though the way politicians operate ‘kill or be killed’ policies on the innocent citizens is frightening. Nigeria is also suffering from negative political scheming by those seeking to continue their grip on power. What is even more important is that many families will be bereaved and members will fall ill, some will die or be diagnosed with deadly disease daily. Suddenly for them politics becomes meaningless. And though the elections, newly ‘postponed’ to March 28th, in the first instance, will ruin or rejuvenate our lives and may still result in more deaths and injuries, a major emotion, love, is again in the air.

    Newsflash: Hotels and Restaurants and bars and clubs and event places can quickly restore St Valentine’s Day to a full day and not just a fear-filled post-election evening! As a result of St Valentine’s Day love, February 14th, hundreds of thousands of unions and resultant marriages will hopefully last longer than the unholy political unions seen today.

    Where are the Nigerians dedicated to give service to Nigeria as opposed to those Nigerians, especially in power, scheming to denigrate Nigerians to a nonsense state? The whole world is watching the buffoonery of ‘the largest economy in Africa’ as it is makes a fool of political reasons masquerading as Boko Haram insurgency in four North Eastern states. We now effectively announce that we will crush Boko Haram during the next six weeks in a military pincer movement between Nigerian forces and AU Chad and Cameroon forces. Armed with this intelligence will Boko Haram stand and be destroyed or, more likely, melt away to reappear after the ‘assault’.

    There are so many rumours and much innuendo attached to the shocking, but not entirely unexpected, postponement of the elections. INEC’s obvious incompetence, though not admitted to by INEC, in distribution of PVCs can be addressed by immediately devolving the distribution to the original registration centres for 1-2 weeks. INEC must employ more hands or encourage local volunteers to assist employed staff to reduce waiting times. Nigerians must remember that many of the remaining cards belong to the dead since 2011, deceivers who illegally registered from Chad and Niger and the downright lazy who will not collect their cards out of sheer laziness or, worse still, unless they are offered ‘incentives’ to sell them. When will we learn that to be ‘fed’ money or rice to ‘vote wrong’ against our conscience soon results in our becoming ‘fed up’ with bad governance? Nigerians must decide now that rather than ‘vote wrong’ it is far better to ‘starve’ during the next 6 weeks and ‘vote right’ for our future, than to take petty bribes and rice to vote, only to be side-lined with poor governance and bad infrastructure for the next four years.

    The rumours churn about the unquenchable ‘Fear of Buhari’ being the beginning of malevolent scheming among military and civilian cohorts with less than clean hands who presided over the corruption and stagnation of Nigeria these past 40 years. Horror of horrors there is an insulting but unfounded rumour of a plan to install ‘in the interim’ the last of the formerly secret military triumvirate which many believe has helped to ruin Nigeria and keep it negative over-centralised and against true Federalism. Evil is alive. Remember the successful but Machiavellian plans of the Association to Bastardise [Better] Nigeria? It seems to have mutated into a worse group, promoting evil to disenfranchise Nigerians in 2015. By the way the triumvirate is made of familiar but not particularly respected names Babangida-Abacha-Gusau alias BAG. Only Gusau has never been president even for a ‘interim day’. What is his ambition? Never has one man Buhari, of fiscal integrity, caused such terror.

    Nigeria is currently immorally plastered with political face posters at 1000+/ candidate totalling 10-20million posters at N1-200/poster and multimillion naira electronic boards nationwide at a total cost of N3-5 billion confirming that politicians know that ‘A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words’ in elections. Why do politicians not transfer this knowledge to the children in Nigeria’s 1,500.000 classrooms? Nigeria must introduce ‘A10-20 Posters Per Classroom Policy’ to create jobs, and provide friendly classrooms and get equity between political and educational posters. Governments should buy school posters especially as their posters deface school walls.

    The NNPC forensic audit is a triumph for the Nigerian people and should be adopted for NPA, FAAN, Customs and all slippery organisations handling our money.

    World Cancer Day: Medknow reminds us that prevention by diet, environmental and lifestyle changes, early detection, treatment and care reduces the cancer burden.

    Collect your PVC and Happy Valentine’s Day.

  • ‘Our Girls’; Call Violent Politicians ‘Boko Haram’; Police: Fashola’s IT Gift; Deliver Election Baby!

    Our Girls and Our People’ are missing since April 15, 2014 with kidnappings before and after that date. This kidnap strategy has fed the cross-border modern slavery trade for generations. A family sold a 10 years old daughter ‘hoping’ she would become a martyr to enhance their status. If male martyrs get seven virgins, what do female martyrs get? Thankfully, Chibok, security and election violence are ‘issues’ on the lips, if not hearts, of election candidates and the electorate must keep candidates on their toes.

    It was not nuclear physics to predict that the evil Boko Haram would strike again in Maiduguri after failing last week. Are they an invisible group, moving hundreds of men and weapons, by ‘military magic’ on invisible roads and with no possibility of interception? Yes, they will murder to eliminate spies and gossips. But the Sunday February 1 attack on Maiduguri was predictable and preventable if many more troops were deployed.

    Increasingly ‘unknown’ police and armed forces personnel pay the supreme price. MEANWHILE WE PARTY. The number of 2014 murdered personnel is not available but approaching 1000. What value does Nigeria place on its uniformed personnel at Nigeria’s four ‘warfronts’ Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen versus farmers, ‘Armed Robbery and Kidnapping’ and Politics with ‘Violence’ as if the word ‘politics’ makes it more acceptable to be killed and as if it is alright for ‘upright’ politicians to plan, finance and carry arms? House burning is house burning, murder is murder, whether by Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen attack, armed robbery or by political thuggery. Politicians are Boko Haram if they use violence or cheat. Why does the serving Nigerian uniform corrupt the memory of dead fallen comrades with almost ritualistic public bribe-taking on streets and in police stations nationwide? Greed? Thankful we have an anti-bribery weapon in citizen cell phones and cameras with media ready to air uploaded material.

    Everyone must change. We wished that by January 1, all the yellow fever-traffic wardens, including the five on Sunday February 1 feeding frenzy duty at  Zenith Bank/Osuntokun Junction, Bodija, Ibadan, and police nationwide had received a 2015 Anti-Corruption Circular, asked them take an Anti-Bribery Vow to stop bribery activities with ‘Immediate Buhari-Idiagbon Effect’. They have role models like the fine gentleman Yellow Fever traffic warden at Customs/Secretariat road Junction Ibadan, who is worthy of media coverage, promotion to investigative duties and other rewards. Such a nearby contrast shows true Nigerians are alive and in uniform and with a good heart. FRSC has changed from the concept of the founding fathers. It must answer hard questions about its enhanced ‘Stop Traffic on The Highway’ policy as seen with perfection at Ogere, Lagos-Ibadan road. An FRSC with ‘Internal Affairs’ investigative teams must receive bribe complaints, monitor and keep their men and women in line – yes, even women in uniform take bribes. Female politicians are not exempt.

    Why would a father or mother, in full view of 30 people, stoop so low as to stand on the road, with hand out for a bribe from a commercial vehicle probably carrying their own relations? Nigeria’s children witness this dehumanising scene and when asked to draw pictures of uniformed personnel, often draw them with a hand outstretched for a hand out. The past IG Abubakar stopped checkpoints, saving Nigerians N12-N24 billion annually in bribes. Checkpoints returned first to ‘crack down’ on tinted windows and then ‘fake’ driving licences.

    What will the new IG please save us from? According to witnesses, and the Nigerian and UN Human Rights Commissions, ‘uniforms’ commit offences like murder by accidental discharge, falsification of evidence, torture with beatings, pepper in private parts, broomstick up the penis, rape in unlawful detention, illegal bail fee demands et cetera. The equipping of the first of a planned 100 police unit scheme with ‘modern’ IT technology by the Fashola Lagos State Government is a 30-year federal failure to modernise police records and forensics. Like with refineries, it pays someone for police IT to malfunction. It is a nationally reproducible opportunity to enter the 21st Century in crime recording with digital, still and video camera evidence, computerised records for accurate data entry and easy retrieval and cross-referencing of crimes and networked criminal records like names, faces, fingerprinting, addresses, contacts and evidence documentation. The governor mentioned it could cut out the outdated demand by police and courts to hold victims’ stolen assets like vehicles for years pending the case result and punishing the victim of the crime further.

    As we deploy over 1,000,000 hopefully anti-corruption police, NYSC members and Civil Defence for the February elections, let Nigerians ensure that beyond prayers for ‘A Safe Violence-Free Delivery Of The Election Baby’, we deliver all voters, empower ourselves to record on cell-phone camera, upload to pre-planned websites –identify your preferred website now- and disseminate any witnessed political violence and authentic results. Only then say ‘Amen’.

    If a murderer or thief can stop or be stopped, a politician can stop violence. Politicians: Stop violence or be stopped and prosecuted and go to prison, 10 years, for instigating or financing GBH- Grievous Bodily Harm!

    February 14 is Valentine’s Day. Was February 14 chosen as Election Day out of ignorance or wisdom? Red is for roses not blood. Flowers are for love not funerals. ‘Show Love not War!’ Happy February 14 in advance. ‘READY your phone camera. STEADY your audio recording. GO viral and VOTE’.

  • ‘Our Girls, Our People’; Maiduguri must not fall; Mumu media? 2015: Cut political salaries 75%.

    The Chibok Girls kidnap tragedy pales in relation to 10,000+ dead and millions injured, disorientated, destitute, displaced by a demonic Boko Haram and its recent murderous attack on Baga with between 150 and 2000 dead and now Monguno. We have serious issues in spite of our irresponsible unimaginably petty maxi-media mania and foolish frenzy for tiny political trivia. It is an insult of unimaginable proportions to question primary and secondary leaving qualifications, ‘certificates or equivalent’ for a presidential candidate from any party. Those entry qualifications were set up specifically to exclude the obviously uneducated and ensure that LGA councillors meet the minimum educational needs.

    The daily list of Boko Haram and Fulani and ‘so-called ‘political’ deaths are not just numbers but a tally of individual children, women, men with work, dreams, aspirations, possessions and responsibilities. Once again Maiduguri fails to fall due to efforts of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Is this renewed Boko Haram offensive against a State Capital not sufficient to concentrate our minds on serious issues and not political and media-hyped phantom matters? The media should also grow up, take a stand and choose issues and not be misled to champion carefully choreographed political intrigue. The media must not be ‘mumu’ and does not have to attend every single press conference or lick up every piece of political vomitus vomited by political pariah. Political pettiness alienates more voters than it wins.

    Let us take Maiduguri seriously and study it! Just last week soldiers were every 5 metres on roads in Maiduguri for the Presidential political visit.  That same strategy could defeat Boko Haram. The question therefore is ‘has the government deployed sufficient troops and equipment to contain Boko Haram?’ How can Boko Haram attack Maiduguri repeatedly with impunity? During the presidential visit Boko Haram seeking to get to Maiduguri had to settle for an attack on a village 5 kilometres from Maiduguri. This confirms that the Nigerian Armed Forces are up to the task. Why has the protection been reduced, just because the President, like Elvis, has ’left the building’?

    Nigerians do not need to be reminded that Maiduguri is an important place of history and a large multi-million citizen city. Nigeria cannot afford to lose Maiduguri. The loss of a city the size of Maiduguri in 2015 will be at the cost of a bloodbath that will turn the River Maiduguri red with the blood of many thousands who will also turn on each other, ethnically and religiously and gender-wise, during any mass frantic exodus. Then there will be another bloodbath for the recapture that has to follow for there will be a recapture to ‘save face’ of any incoming government. A bloodbath is not a word only. A bloodbath can best be visualised as trailer-loads of dead bodies and severed limbs heading from mass graves dug by contractor-rented earthmovers while tanker loads of blood, 33,000 litres or the blood of 6,600 people each, are washed from the sand toward the river to turn the river red. We prefer money over life so add the cost of rebuilding the bombed city. Maiduguri must not fall.

    With the elections two ’V’s appear – Violence and Voting. Violence is increasing in spite of the ‘Anti-Violence Accord’, AVA. Organisers of the Anti- Violence Accord expected all political parties to take AVA to their cohorts at states, LGAs and 16,400 wards. Presidential candidates will not directly perpetrate violence but leave that to henchmen in the side streets of state towns and capitals. We have failed to re-educate the urchin, area boy, okada driver, NURTW vehicle driver and conductor, so violence will be perpetrated unabated, no matter how many AVAs are signed in Abuja. Some taxis have easy identification but most danfos are unmarked and for rent for violence. We must all get our Permanent Voter’s Card, PVC and persuade friends, young and old, and young adults over 18 to ‘GET INVOLVED POLITICALLY’ and get their cards and ‘PLAN TO VOTE’.

    The Nigerian voter needs to evolve a VOTERS PROTECTION CODE OF CONDUCT to defeat anti-democracy forces seeking to undercount, over-count, cancel votes or unleashing violence.

    1. Nigerians of all ages have the right and responsibility to electronically record events at all voting booths and collating centres. To do this on voting day everyone should keep their fully charged phones on at least audio recording and video if possible and concealed for safety if necessary. This is to adequately record sudden anti-democracy events like violent attacks, cheating and other.

    2. Useful recorded audio and video material should be immediately uploaded to previously identified local and international monitoring and collating websites, blogs and media houses to quickly expose fraudulent and violent events.

    3.Voters must use their numbers to all remain to protect their vote through collation and announcement and have their own PARALLEL COLLATION TEAMS.

    When I started work the naira was better than N1:$1, today it falls pathologically through the psychological floor of N200:$1 to N208, toilet paper, perpetually pauperising salaried and struggling Nigerians, and plunging millions more below $1 a day. Nobody cares. Politicians of all parties at all levels must introduce 75% cuts in political Salaries and Perks, SAP, from January 2015. Ridiculously high political salaries and corruption, not falling oil prices, helped precipitate Nigeria’s financial crisis. Political salaries and transparent non-government party funding and the collapsing economy should be major election issues driven by an intelligent media.