The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • ‘Our Girls, Our people’; Road Contractors/gov supervisors/ Ogere FRSC; N87/l; Prepare to Vote

    Our Girls and Our People are now being mentioned with hope of release even by government sources even though we are facing more and more incidents suggesting Boko Haram’s impunity and malicious vengefulness using 10-year old female suicide bombers perhaps even sold to Boko Haram by their parents according to one report and the raids in The Cameroons and Potiskum. The politics of the election or no election in the three north-eastern states appears to revolve around the fact that they are non-PDP states and it pays the PDP government if the election cannot hold ‘because of safety concerns for the local people’. These local people are from many ethnic groups and religions. Yes, many have relocated to Maiduguri as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), but many more fled South and hold jobs as security and other staff, unrecorded by the Refugee Register of either RED Cross/ UNHCR or Government’s Agency –NEMA.

    The disgraceful petty-trading of casualty numbers between the federal government and NGOs is a pitiful dance around the dead and an insult to those forced to give up their lives for Nigeria’s survival now numbering in the tens of thousands not to talk of the unregistered IDPs. Who ever knew that the Niga-Sat could also be used to count the dead in the streets and the destroyed homes in vandalised villages and towns?

    Seeing all the helicopters flying political VIP around the country, I have always personally wanted a helicopter, or even a Niga-Sat view of the misnamed Lagos-Ibadan Expressway during a six-lane wide 20-40km long traffic jams. These almost constant traffic jams are most recently caused by federal government employed construction wizards, RCC and Julius Berger, either not being available to widen the very narrow areas when a breakdown or accident occurs forcing immediate closure of one of only 1 ½ or two lanes. Since vehicles pass at the rate of 60-100/minute, the tail back can easily grow to 50 km within an hour. The reason why the tailback is not even longer is because Nigerian drivers always queue jump always overtaking on the shoulders and thus leaving behind and making fools of all those who stay in line. One must ask, having survived yet another massive traffic jam on Sat January 17, what exactly the government supervisors do to protect the interest of the millions of commuters on the road? The FRSC is preoccupied with ‘Stop and Particulars’ and has proven itself disinterested in maintaining traffic flow. Nowadays even stuck in a go-slow, one may be pulled off the road, and lose your place,  for ‘Stop and Particulars’ by FRSC even though other vehicles are overtaking on the sides. This FRSC technique has far outstripped the menace of Police checkpoints in the psyche of the travelling public. No doubt many dream of this new menace. Personally I have been stopped in and around Ogere six times to date and I have witnessed hundreds of vehicles stopped at Ogere in particular and several other places in general including Epe and near Redemption Camp. The FRSC would do well to adhere more to the guiding principles of the founding fathers. The FRSC should encourage and disperse its staff with briefing on and strategies and instructions or directives to spend, and be seen to spend, as much time keeping traffic moving as they do hindering the free movement of traffic and citizens. Constant ‘Stop and Particulars’ checking is sapping the enjoyment of the drive for many law abiding citizens driving safely between ‘A and B’.  FRSC gains nothing by joining those who target female drivers and expatriates driving without drivers on Sundays in for example Lekki or vehicles full of family members. Of course there are traffic offenders, most of whom can be corrected quickly, efficiently and cost effectively simply by a verbal warning or advice. In Nigeria, the abuse of the uniform and the ‘right to oppress’ are taken as rights by uniformed authorities. The new FRSC dispensation, in addition to deserved better emoluments, housing, promotion prospects and other perks for staff should also extract a ‘We Serve Contract’ and get a better educated workforce on the ‘Human Rights of Traffic Users’ ready to serve the nation and its citizens on the road. Having an FRSC post checking vehicles on exiting all motor parks may be a way forward if FRSC wants to quickly fulfil a daily quota of checks demanded by the authorities. The FRSC was not founded to replace the police but to make our journeys safer. The good work and dedication of many FRSC officers needs to be complemented by controlling and streamlining and refocusing the activities of those who fall short of the ‘keep traffic moving safely’ mantra.

    The cut in the price of fuel from N97 to N87 is welcome. The Public Complaints Bureau and the Consumer Associations need to investigate this ‘Government offer’ considering that the price of a barrel of oil has fallen by over 40% it requires us to question the mathematics to ensure we are getting the full benefit of this fall.

    We thought the big multi-billion ‘Victims Fund’ was going to do something. Shame! Nigeria is wealthy enough to overcome its problems if the money is not stolen. To kill corruption, get every eligible voter, especially young voter, 18+ a PVC and to the polling booth on election day. Prepare all eligible complacent youth to VOTE, VOTE!!!

  • ‘Our Girls, Our People’;  ‘CINS’, Violence in election; Political Constipation; ‘Don’t Steal Nigeria’

    Our Girls, Our Boys, Our People’ are awaiting justice and release, many since Chibok, April 15. We must rise against Boko Haram. Nigeria needs skilled professionals and good people. Are there enough? These are members of the long awaited ‘Critical Mass’. In the alternative Nigeria waits to die from hooligans and ringleaders masquerading as professionals and experts when they are professional thieves with ‘self’ as their goal but with ‘service’ as a diversionary  slogan. This malaise is everywhere, even in hospitals.

    In politics, Nigeria has a surplus of bad politicians judging simply at national, state and LGA quantum of development and compared to funds and budgets available. This quantifies the systemic political Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness, CINS. Can Nigerians ‘bother’ to ‘exercise their franchise’ to choose good over bad or the reverse, now disgustingly disguised as the stomach bribe- stomach infrastructure- and thus buying four years of silence? Do we put too much hope in the electorate to choose between ‘good and evil’? Are we still slaves in our own country, living from day to day, with no future life expectancy?

    As we approach the elections, we must all pray to be ‘invisible to the enemy’ -an army of political thugs, or politicians actually planning to provide dirty money, weapons and drugs – all aimed at violent overthrow of democracy through election rigging, voter card and ballot fraud and fictional figures. They say politics is a dirty game. No, the game does not play itself!  Politicians are very dirty players. Politics is not a game but a form of treatment for the disease of ‘leaderlessness’.

    Politicians should ‘fight the good fight’ on the fair play political field of battle with wise and witty word and good and better deed. Why are Nigeria’s political violence and murder acceptable? Why would anyone die or murder for political success of another? They have achieved political non-violence even in neighbouring Ghana, hurray.

    Let all politicians know, as we in ‘giant’ Nigeria sink solely because of their disgraceful behaviour, democratically free countries rise. Hurray! A free and fair play non-violent political field is the sole creation of the political class architects who can create disaster and doom or peace and security –simple decisions. Unfortunately many in our political class choose violence. Nigerians must guard against trivialising serious Human Rights Abuses.

    There is no such thing as ‘political violence’ –all is violence. The victims of violence during politics are just as injured, maimed and dead as from war violence. Ask the thousands of silent souls, dead victims so far since even 1999 if not since the 1950s. The terms domestic violence, political violence, campus violence and cult violence are situational descriptions of the same heinous crime. The situational terms do not reduce the criminality, the blood spilt, the bones broken, the bodies shot. Death by domestic, political, campus or cult violence is all violent – Grievous Bodily Harm, GBH, and all equally legally punishable.  Once they have successfully ‘Stolen Nigeria’ through violence in politics, the vicious victors spit on justice by masquerading before the media as good family politicians by carrying their victims’ babies on New Year’s Day while blood still drips from their hands.

    Survival of the nation is an emergency depending on the morality and machinations and motivation- self or service- of current politicians and how they conduct themselves. No matter what they have done in the past, each politician will still have to choose in 2015 between good and evil, like any thief or priest has to at each confrontation between God and the devil. Will public opinion or the threat of public ridicule work? Will it be a personal encounter with their Maker or dinner with political devils?

    Everyday government has the new opportunity to impact on every individual, save lives, improve incomes and prevent deaths through its activity. Unfortunately most of governance is scarred by ‘inactivity’ with nothing getting done or if it is done, it is 2-3 years too slow –‘political constipation’. Look at the Lagos-Ibadan expressway potholes, the pedestrian walk way at Alausa, the numerous stalled Lagos State vs Federal government ‘loggerhead projects’ with federal opposing every project- all suffering ‘political constipation’. From the airports to the roads, there are unsolved problems. The abysmal treatment of airline passengers needing to enter vehicles is a preventable nightmare-a FAAN incompetence issue. In other countries everyone is a VIP.

    Nigeria is very like a would-be beautiful Christmas tree. We have the wherewithal to create a wonderful Christmas tree and we buy the decorations and stick some on! Unfortunately politicians and others come and remove most of the glittering lights and ornaments and presents. Eventually the beautiful Christmas tree, Nigeria, is left bare and unfulfilled, till the next election when it will again be dressed for more to come and ‘steal Nigeria’ again. Will this stop in 2015?

    Can we see violence as a foreign enemy or a virus, like Ebola, and unite? If not, we will fall under ‘bad politics’ for another four years which will kill the country dead- politically and physically! Remember Nigeria has thousands of Nigerian economic refugees abroad from Babangida’s regime and now from Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen’s violence. Let us not add refugees from 2015 election political violence or we may well be in the millions crossing West African borders.

    Nigerian politician, think, and pull back from the 2015 election violence brink! Don’t steal Nigeria!

  • Our Girls, Gumsuri; GE Marinho;  29% WAEC pass, 71% Nigerian education failure; MEXAHNYIA

    Our Girls missing since April 15 joined by Gumsuri Dec 12 victims kidnapped by Boko Haram who murdered 33. Christmas Day will be empty for many. Let us all buy a present and a meal for an Internally Displaced Person, IDP and send them through your pastor or imam.

    Nigeria survives because of the sacrifice of millions. Permit me to pay tribute to Mrs Grace Ebun Marinho who joined the saints triumphant at 78 years. She had six children: Bisi, Nike and Tunji Osuntokun whose father Major Osuntokun, senior brother of late distinguished Professor BO Osuntokun, died when they were infants and Yinka, Funmilayo and Laolu Marinho with my father Dr Abayomi Marinho whom she married and supported through the rest of his life. She had a successful nursing career with Lagos State. I was sort of number one childas I was 17 or so years old when we met and all the children still have nightmares about me making them finish their food ‘because many children have no food to eat’. Sorry O, aburos! Now they have children they are singing the same song. I wonder why? I also used to take them to the cinema as compensation.

    Aunty Ebun was a uniquely warm hearted person, welcoming, smiling and offering all a meal and an invitation to stay, sometimes for years. She ran one of the last truly open houses in Nigeria. She had memory for family history and an excellence in the kitchen. Her Saturday moin moin was original ‘leaf wrapped and ready by 9am’ to be dispatched from her home where she presided as Mama Gbagada especially at Christmas, New Year and Easter-. My visits from Ibadan were completed by at least two moin moin, gariice block water and no sugar pls. Any moin moin affectionado knows that good moin moin always leaves the best tasting morsels hidden between the leaves. Her moin moin melted in the mouth. The lessons from Aunty’s life include patience, perseverance in the face of death and adversity and peaceful coexistence. Another lesson is that people, especially elderly relations, must be taken for regular completemedical check-ups. She will be missed particularly tomorrow, the first Christmas without her in Gbagada. May her gentle soul RIPP- Rest In Perfect Peace. Amen.

    We have cause to worry and not only about the absence of electric power growth since 1999 when it was 3000Mw and still is 3,000Mw 15+years and $?billions later. And the worry is not even at Fulani and Boko Haram Wars or the coming election violence war. We must worry that even in non-war torn parts there is routine disgraceful mass exam failure. The pass rate at the recent WAEC examination in key subjects is 29% pass or 71% failure.  The failures will enter the ‘market’ as cannon fodder for politicians who ‘mistakenly sent their own children abroad to study’ and some will join Boko Haram as examples that western education fails.

    The mass failure for young citizens is horrendous. It is a disgrace to government institutions where the vast majority of these failures occur in spite of N100 billion+ in the accounts of oversight bodies. Most schools lack basic education facilities, like good books and good teachers. The good student will study in a pigsty and still succeed. However, the majority of students worldwide are plodders needing prodding by good books and good teachers. American books tend to simplify complex problems better than traditional British books. The art and science of mental arithmetic has been lost to the calculator leaving the brain unchallenged, feeble and unable to add, let alone remember a telephone number. When I did the school run with eight or nine children we did mental arithmetic while I drove. Mental arithmetic is not WAEC mathematics but it helps.  As soon as you want to add 1+1 those around you immediately produce some IT device like an I-Pad. We require ‘Annual LGA, State and National Mental Arithmetic Prizes’ to revitalise our youth brains. Even our health officials were mathematically challenged as to whether there were 10 or 11 Ebola Victims.

    Note that 29% of anything is failure and each government level has responsibility. Education is a conveyor belt, so far with poor products. This failure requires a strategic  ‘Education War’ to counter Boko Haram. Our abysmal education fuels their propaganda. Government should learn from and not destroy private education. We should embrace and visit what is good. Visit Afe Babalola University AdoEkiti, ABUAD to get an honest education yardstick and work backwards to primary school. Every town has good private primary and secondary schools to measure against. God bless these great Nigerians proprietors, organisations and religious bodies which provide alternatives to failure, at a cost, yes. Government must provide better fast, for the current students on the education conveyor belt. Cutting class sizes, increased quality and dedication of teachers, more and better books and facilities are not nuclear physics, but the essential ingredients of education success and rights of the youths.

    Remember that in 2015 politicians will spend billions on millions of posters towards ‘election success’ but will never approve 10million educational posters for one million empty bare-walled classrooms in Nigeria for ‘exam success. Shame. A picture is worth 1000 words except in Nigeria.

    Ps: It is not too late to buy a present and a meal for an Internally Displaced Person and send them through pastors or imams. MEXAHNYIA.

  • Our Girls; Gumsuri victims;   Disgrace on Ibadan Lagos ‘Expressway’; B vs J on Fulani Farmer war

    Our Girls; Gumsuri victims;   Disgrace on Ibadan Lagos ‘Expressway’; B vs J on Fulani Farmer war

    For Our Girls –a short poem – Christmas came and now New Year/ For Chibok girls and Gumsuri victims Chibok girls we shed a tear/

    Too many ‘Fellow Nigerians’ live in fear/ Even questioning if God is near. And so, too many families will enter 2015 without word of their loved ones and will little hope of ever hearing from them again. The report that Boko Haram has a large contingent of neighbouring country foreigners should raise the stakes to a war situation, an invasion situation, even if the murder of an unknown number of Nigerian security officials is taken as an ‘insurgency’.

    As we pray for the return of all victims of the Boko Haram and the Fulani Wars, what do the two major political candidates offer beyond saying ‘peace’? Being a Fulani himself and a general, Buhari must have strong views on the lethal ‘Fulani matter’. What are his views on his strategy to end the ‘Fulani Herdsmen–Nigerian Farmers’ violence? He and we will bear in mind that the ‘Railway Transport of Cows‘ option has been suggested, as has the ‘Trailer Transport of Cows’. Indeed with railways, this problem would quickly become of historical importance –though the dead will remain dead, the crops will remain destroyed, the orphans will remain orphans, the widows and widowers will remain without a kobo in compensation.

    Unfortunately, Buhari has never proved himself a lover of modern transport or the modernisation of Nigeria, as he with or without Babangida, cancelled Lagos State’s Jakande Rail in 1983, hailed as solution to Lagos gridlock, at a suggested compensation cost of $184million penalty. Even when he was chairman at PTF, a lot of the resources ‘appeared’ diverted to the North but the railways unfortunately stagnated further. So it will be a miracle if Buhari builds an inch of railways or roads during his era should he become President. Of course we know what Jonathan is doing in this area but we must question its slowness and the cost. There are such huge outsized contracts that make nonsense of any purported anti-corruption drive. The result is an overpricing and obvious reduction in value of the end product – a proposed multi-state modern rail link nationwide.

    We spent five and a half hours getting from Ibadan to Lagos, just 110km, last Sunday December 20, another four hours Lagos-Ibadan on Sunday December 27,  18 kilometres an hour –on an expressway. Has government no shame even if it has no road management skills? Zero movement or massed vehicles are a danger. This regular crisis is a catastrophe waiting to become a mass carnage. The difficulties at the time I travelled had nothing to do with the Berger repairs as there are no repairs going on there and no church services at Redeemed or the Mountain of Fire. It is about bad roads and poor planning for the Ember months increase in traffic, in spite of noisy FRSC readiness claims and the noisy FERMA doing nothing to ’make smooth our paths’ just before and immediately before and after Redeemed, at Ibafo, Mowe, Berger, the bus stops in Ibafo, Mowe and at Berger in Lagos. Government should have sent its engineering staff to identify the top 10 or 30 or 100 worst bottleneck bad portions; secondly it would have immediately filled them; thirdly it would have widened the road at those turning points to accommodate turning traffic and also bus stops. Government should have led these same engineers and road maintenance departments to liaise with an increasingly questionable   FRSC, to stop stopping innocent passing vehicles at Ogere, but rather to ensure safe and unhindered travel at difficult spots. Unfortunately too many Nigerian ministry and organisational officials actually plan evil, not good, for the traveling public who are mere victims to be preyed upon by the use and abuse of the power of the uniform.

    Redeemed, Ibafo and Mowe are ‘towns with no overhead bridges and yet dual carriageways run through them. It is similar in many towns in Nigeria. What type of Nigerian human beings, engineers, have not built the 100 overhead bridges and 100 more turning points needed to reduce strain of jaywalking and turning.

    Government must solve this problem. Nigerians cannot wait four years for road completion, fall in oil prices and oil sales or not. Government should negotiate with construction giant Julius Berger to open all available road surface and start fixing the top 100 trouble spots first and start major construction from the Lagos end of the Ibadan Lagos side. By starting at the Sagamu junction, the contractors are delivering more vehicles quicker to the bottlenecks at Redeemed, Mowe and Ibafo and Berger. Fixing Mountain of Fire, Mowe and Ibafo now will allow quick exit of vehicles from these bottlenecks.

    Another key problem is the abuse of the road shoulder for driving. Those in the correct lanes look like idiots as all those who overtake on the shoulder will get in front sometimes 100 to 200 vehicles and six lanes are formed. This is so easily solved by a more efficient FRSC which should allow shoulder driving only in specific circumstances of accidents and lane obstruction. Government can also insert plastic barriers every 50 metres on all shoulders to discourage the practice. May your roads be rough, the Chinese quote proclaims as a prayer. The road of most Nigerians is rough enough from road management incompetence. HNYIA.

  • Our Girls, Gumsuri; GE Marinho;  29% WAEC pass, 71% Nigerian education failure; MEXAHNYIA

    Our Girls, Gumsuri; GE Marinho;  29% WAEC pass, 71% Nigerian education failure; MEXAHNYIA

    Our Girls missing since April 15 joined by Gumsuri Dec 12 victims kidnapped by Boko Haram who murdered 33. Christmas Day will be empty for many. Let us all buy a present and a meal for an Internally Displaced Person, IDP and send them through your pastor or imam.

    Nigeria survives because of the sacrifice of millions. Permit me to pay tribute to Mrs Grace Ebun Marinho who joined the saints triumphant at 78 years. She had six children: Bisi, Nike and Tunji Osuntokun whose father Major Osuntokun, senior brother of late distinguished Professor BO Osuntokun, died when they were infants and Yinka, Funmilayo and Laolu Marinho with my father Dr Abayomi Marinho whom she married and supported through the rest of his life. She had a successful nursing career with Lagos State. I was sort of number one childas I was 17 or so years old when we met and all the children still have nightmares about me making them finish their food ‘because many children have no food to eat’. Sorry O, aburos! Now they have children they are singing the same song. I wonder why? I also used to take them to the cinema as compensation.

    Aunty Ebun was a uniquely warm hearted person, welcoming, smiling and offering all a meal and an invitation to stay, sometimes for years. She ran one of the last truly open houses in Nigeria. She had memory for family history and an excellence in the kitchen. Her Saturday moin moin was original ‘leaf wrapped and ready by 9am’ to be dispatched from her home where she presided as Mama Gbagada especially at Christmas, New Year and Easter-. My visits from Ibadan were completed by at least two moin moin, gariice block water and no sugar pls. Any moin moin affectionado knows that good moin moin always leaves the best tasting morsels hidden between the leaves. Her moin moin melted in the mouth. The lessons from Aunty’s life include patience, perseverance in the face of death and adversity and peaceful coexistence. Another lesson is that people, especially elderly relations, must be taken for regular completemedical check-ups. She will be missed particularly tomorrow, the first Christmas without her in Gbagada. May her gentle soul RIPP- Rest In Perfect Peace. Amen.

    We have cause to worry and not only about the absence of electric power growth since 1999 when it was 3000Mw and still is 3,000Mw 15+years and $?billions later. And the worry is not even at Fulani and Boko Haram Wars or the coming election violence war. We must worry that even in non-war torn parts there is routine disgraceful mass exam failure. The pass rate at the recent WAEC examination in key subjects is 29% pass or 71% failure.  The failures will enter the ‘market’ as cannon fodder for politicians who ‘mistakenly sent their own children abroad to study’ and some will join Boko Haram as examples that western education fails.

    The mass failure for young citizens is horrendous. It is a disgrace to government institutions where the vast majority of these failures occur in spite of N100 billion+ in the accounts of oversight bodies. Most schools lack basic education facilities, like good books and good teachers. The good student will study in a pigsty and still succeed. However, the majority of students worldwide are plodders needing prodding by good books and good teachers. American books tend to simplify complex problems better than traditional British books. The art and science of mental arithmetic has been lost to the calculator leaving the brain unchallenged, feeble and unable to add, let alone remember a telephone number. When I did the school run with eight or nine children we did mental arithmetic while I drove. Mental arithmetic is not WAEC mathematics but it helps.  As soon as you want to add 1+1 those around you immediately produce some IT device like an I-Pad. We require ‘Annual LGA, State and National Mental Arithmetic Prizes’ to revitalise our youth brains. Even our health officials were mathematically challenged as to whether there were 10 or 11 Ebola Victims.

    Note that 29% of anything is failure and each government level has responsibility. Education is a conveyor belt, so far with poor products. This failure requires a strategic  ‘Education War’ to counter Boko Haram. Our abysmal education fuels their propaganda. Government should learn from and not destroy private education. We should embrace and visit what is good. Visit Afe Babalola University AdoEkiti, ABUAD to get an honest education yardstick and work backwards to primary school. Every town has good private primary and secondary schools to measure against. God bless these great Nigerians proprietors, organisations and religious bodies which provide alternatives to failure, at a cost, yes. Government must provide better fast, for the current students on the education conveyor belt. Cutting class sizes, increased quality and dedication of teachers, more and better books and facilities are not nuclear physics, but the essential ingredients of education success and rights of the youths.

    Remember that in 2015 politicians will spend billions on millions of posters towards ‘election success’ but will never approve 10million educational posters for one million empty bare-walled classrooms in Nigeria for ‘exam success. Shame. A picture is worth 1000 words except in Nigeria.

    Ps: It is not too late to buy a present and a meal for an Internally Displaced Person and send them through pastors or imams. MEXAHNYIA.

  • Our Girls; FERMA failure; Social Media Awards; A Political Party Corruption Index for Jonathan vs Buhari      

    Our Girls; FERMA failure; Social Media Awards; A Political Party Corruption Index for Jonathan vs Buhari      

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 denying families of the joy of the holiday season.

    FERMA must try to overcome its growing reputation for sleeping during the year and only waking up like Father Xmas –once a year-to declare ‘zero tolerance for potholes for Yuletide and New Year travellers’. Are we idiot children to be given ‘pothole filling’ as an annual gift? We all know that end of year budgets are used to steal money from contractors, contracts and government. Shame. FERMA should apologise to the millions who have lost time, money, tyres, vehicles and limbs and even lives in the potholes FERMA could not fill for 11 months. Be assured that very little pothole filling has taken place on the Lagos-Ibadan road. The massive traffic jam this last Saturday caused a marked traffic diversion to the Abeokuta/Papalanto Road and Abeokuta/ Agege Expressway both mislabelled as their condition makes them in a good position to compete for the ‘Road with a 1000 potholes’ Prize.  In the UK, government pays compensation to pothole accident victims and replaces their tyres etcetera. What exactly does FERMA do for the rest of the year apart from recruit Sure-P black shirts in Lagos and drive state officials off ‘abandoned for lack of funds’ federal roads? FERMA is not a good advert for the Federal Might!

    Hurray for the First Social Media Awards held recently in Lagos. It is a good step in the right direction and draws attention to the massive failure of the majority of companies and corporations and even the media to pay much more attention to influencing society and the lives of citizens through social media messages than currently done. For years we have been fighting for a larger space in the media for life skill messaging which has less than 1one percent of total media space in contrast to the commercial message which takes up 99% of advert space but does not affect or save life. The Ebola media triumph should be studied and replicated for many diseases including typhoid and life threatening conditions in same way Ebola was defeated through the media.

    Speaking politics, the primaries seem superficially to have been the most successful in history. But did the delegates vote or were they pushed or ordered?  We have no idea how much of Nigeria’s money changed hands in the direction of the delegates and how much godfatherism and godmotherism went on. The Lagos State PDP figures are touted as tainted with an overflow of 50+votes miscounted or mysteriously included. However even if 50 or 60 votes were legally added to the protestor or subtracted from the winner, would that change the outcome?

    With the outcome of both the PDP and APC primaries throwing up incumbent Jonathan and past military leader Buhari, the discerning voters of Nigeria have the opportunity to choose between the ‘questionable consistency of delivery’ of the PDP since 1999 to 2015 and the opportunity for change thrown up by the APC/Buhari ticket.  The voters are asking if Nigeria can endure another four years of PDP-style control and another four years of high internationally measured corruption? The new improved Buhari on the other hand, still has questions to answer on the malicious warped North-South wealth distribution  when he was running PTF.  Will such a man, who was unfair over PTF funds, be fair with the country’s budget? Has he learnt any lessons and can he run the country fairly? APC mysteriously touts the ‘holier than thou’ anti-corruption card and the APC perceived record of outdoing the PDP in service delivery and good governance. However the APC is by no means a white lily of anti-corruption and needs to massively improve on its anti-corruption activities, with some believed to own massive assets from governance. The overbearing exercise of ‘posts and position power’ has seen the Senate and Reps and governorship positions populated by the chosen family and loyalists. There is a big debate in the minds of voters about party corruption. Where do PDP, APC et cetera stand on the Political Party Corruption Index?  The truth is that most in the South are frightened at the prospect of negative growth expected under another northern government at the federal level as northern governments are known for their ‘North is superior policies and practices’. Nigerians know that the any southern in the government will be the usual ‘yes’ and AGIP, Any Government In Power, men and women who are infamous for looking the other way and asking no questions while others suck the life out of Nigeria.

    The electorate will vote as it is necessary to keep democracy running against the threat of a military take-over. The progressive states will have an advantage if they first stop party corruption immediately and ‘divert’ all incoming revenues towards honest budgetary spending. This spending should be on pothole filling- ‘Make straight our path’, textbook distributing –‘books now, buildings later’, school upgrading, salary and pension paying – ‘a labourer is worthy of his hire’, bridge repairing, scholarship giving, sports supporting, Boy Scout etcetera supporting programme all added to the planned stomach politics. The people’s happiness is dependent on both stomach and development.

    Everyone, politician and pauper, voter and violent politician, has a stomach. Why should it only be politicians who have a full and potbellied stomach and rosy cheeks when even the potholes remain unfilled?

  • ‘Our Girls’; Boko Haram/Fulani Wars; Osundare War won with words- People’s Poet Laureate

    ‘Our Girls’; Boko Haram/Fulani Wars; Osundare War won with words- People’s Poet Laureate

    Our Girls’ kidnapped are still missing since April 15 and as many as 220 citizens have been killed in one attack last week.  Think about ‘220’. That is 55 taxis full of happy citizens. Even in Nigeria where life is cheap, we are paying a price too high. The scenes are of blood soaked land fertilising a harvest of sorrow and hatred. These victims were happy babies, boys and girls with growing pains, working adults. Will the refugees be abandoned in spite of the Victims Support Fund? Boko Haram has run amok for too long while the military and politicians trade blame for underfunding, stolen military budgets, corruption, incompetence, morale and arms deals.

    Happily the Nigerian Armed Forces have recaptured towns and cut off Boko Haram (BH). Military historians know one military solution for such a vicious enemy. Allowing BH to retreat and regroup is a recipe for an ‘eternal war chess game’. The solution is to surround, cut off retreat, tighten the noose and force surrender without escape. Meanwhile, another column, military and political, must ensure reinforcements do not enter Nigeria.

    We blame foreign ideology and foreigners for BH’s malignant growth. We have a home-grown tragedy as another five Fellow Nigerians are killed in a Fulani herdsmen attack in Kogi State to add to thousands dead highlighting security issues in many states. Peace precedes development but did politics use past peace for maximum development? Every time we eat meat we should wonder how many Nigerian boys, girls and babies are dead, displaced, deprived just because we eat meat. In Nigeria cow meat is murderous business.

    Congratulations to Professor Niyi Osundare NOMA, NNOM on being recognised by his distinguished peers for international excellence in multiple fields of endeavour including academic arts particularly vocal musical poetic arts, social work and social commentary – a word less harsh than ‘social critic’, which may attract Presidential attack dogs even if you are a Nobel Laureate like Wole Soyinka. What can I say not already said so eloquently by the unanimous applause and smiling faces. There is a smile in every voice at the news. This success is that of a survivor. Niyi, you survived the firmament of a decaying academic environment, the loss of liberty, the falling currency and moral value in your country, forced medical and academic exile, the floods of New Orleans, the icy emptiness caused by the calamitous loss of your library and documents, the heavy heartbeats of oppressive sorrow at a lost tomorrow because of a wasted military and political yesterday, the power of post-military politics to pauperise the people. The www – The wonderful weapons of war are words –‘The Niyi Osundare War Won With Words’ – exploding from pages, dripping Quink, Bic, IT printer and e-ink making the thoughtless and the thinker think, wise and wishful words falling on wickedly deaf ears. The applause is justifiably deafening but be advised. Your people will not vote you in any political election. Macedonia does not want you, yet. They love you temporarily for your millions of words and poetry won naira notes. In Nigeria, today’s stomach has taken over from tomorrow’s brain. Shine on, friend where ever the whirlwind of words blows you! You are Niyi Osundare- Nigeria’s, no, Africa’s People’s Poet Laureate- crowned at last with no post.

    In 2005 I wrote a poem SHINE THE MIRROR for NIYI OSUNDARE 27-2-2005 in response to one he wrote for me, in The Guardian:

    It’s a privilege indeed to rub a warm shoulder / In this nation growing colder and colder. /A Music Museum, a shared good thought/ But 2010 before the idea is bought./ Meanwhile we call you friend / As you, the downtrodden, do defend./ I plead that you continue to write/ Let us never give up the fight. Never have words been mixed the same/ We must absolve ourselves of blame. / Becoming an Alhaji or a JP/ Are not really heaven’s key. / God quests for good deeds/ And is not fooled by bank accounts and long degrees. / ‘What did you do in your neighbourhood?’/ “My God, I was too good”/ When will everything have been said? / When we go to final bed? / We sleep with one eye wide awake/ And pray for dawn to quickly break. / This is the time without a doubt/ For you to use your poetic clout/ Fashion your words into a wick. /Herd the people with a poetic stick/ Guide them with your flame of fiery verse/ Save us all from the ‘Ignorance Curse’./ O, Ibadan Professor/ Write on Processor!/ Process your qualified non-cultist charges/ Ensure Nigeria’s anopheles brain enlarges. / Let them energise Nigeria’s body, elephantine. / The children will laugh at his-story, yours and mine. / Toothless, you and I will share a drink/ Old nobodies, they will think. / We’ll tell of coups and counter-coups. /They will ask ‘What are coups?’ / In that coming century of democracy/ Coups will be historical abhorrent criminality. / You, my friend, must write, / Your words shine the mirror bright, / Morning, noon and night. / Nigeria’s saviour is reflected in every mirror. END

    Without the reader, the writer is dead, words sinking like lead, words stuck in an unread book, where no one will look. There are more words written than read. So please read, if not for yourself and your family then in honour of Professor Niyi Osundare, NNOM.

     

  • ‘Our Girls’; DSTV/Multichoice: Keep Euronews; OBJ; No to IMF/WB: Naira up, political salaries down!

    ‘Our Girls’; DSTV/Multichoice: Keep Euronews; OBJ; No to IMF/WB: Naira up, political salaries down!

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. This is a tragedy that will not go away until there is closure.

    It is very unfortunate that Multichoice is removing Euronews from Channel 414 of its very expensive, N12,000/month cable bouquet. This is typical and unfair. Euronews gives a world overview especially about the EU countries with up to date science, arts, sport and political content. It is not biased towards the US or the UK. The daily Rendez-vous, ACT social responsibility adverts and ‘No Comment’ videos give visual insight into many issues. Just today we saw the ice festival and Musica, Futuris and Space. Multichoice is once again behaving arbitrarily. We have paid for that channel and Multichoice is therefore in breach of contract!  Euronews like Chinese stations, 409 and 415 and the Indian station 413 give us ‘channel jumpers’ and for those who go through 20 or more channels in a night, a rich menu of knowledge.

    I protest in the strongest possible terms the removal of Euronews from the DStv KU Africa band and urge reinstatement. Africa must know what is going on in the EU. It is Euronews which gives widest coverage to migrants fleeing Africa and winding up drowned at Lampedusa and other islands. Keep Euronews! How will we learn about the rising National Front anti-black sentiment in the EU without Euronews? Do not misunderstand me. Euronews is a global channel and if Multichoice/DStv is to remove it then it should also remove BBC, CNN and Sky News and Aljazzera as being irrelevant to Africa, abi? There are Nigerians in every EU country. Or does Multichoice think we are too stupid to appreciate Euronews in Africa?

    Obasanjo has attracted attack dogs. Of course the main problem is not the quality of his comments but the question ‘what did he do when he held absolute power?’ Yes, he got our ‘foreign debt’ cut massively. The goodwill he had should have impacted on the railways which lurched from the Canadians, Indians and Chinese. Only now is the Jonathan government finally ‘growing’ the railways perhaps on the railway blueprint designed by late Engineer CSO Akande for the Obasanjo regime? Obasanjo stopped the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway approved World Bank funded road contractor, cancelling the contract, forcing Nigeria to pay an undisclosed ‘Breach-of-Contract’ fine in the millions of dollars. The rest as they say is history, bad go-slow history. Obasanjo threatened to complete the East-West Road and the Second Niger Bridge as political bait. Obasanjo’s politics and election outcomes are political science’s Machiavellian masterpieces. Obasanjo and Jonathan, like all Presidents, except Yar’Adua who allocated land for the Lekki Bridge, share a hatred for Lagos State unleashing stunting fiscal and physical obstacles including withholding N10 billion and approvals for development and unleashing dogs of war, ministers of the federal republic, and the ‘new improved’ Black Shirts of Sure-P on Lagos. Hitler also had Black Shirts and Brown Shirts, remember?

    Last week this column discussed austerity measures associated with the fall in oil prices and decreased sales of oil and gross mismanagement of the economy with a skewed ‘Salary and Perks’ structure in favour of a greedy overpaid political class and civil service. Obasanjo has reached similar conclusions. I repeat the key points even as we ‘congratulate’ our first female OPEC President Diezani Alison–Madueke. Do you remember when the National Assembly (NASS) insulted the coordinating minister of the economy for insisting on a budget at $73 per barrel benchmark? Now oil is $73 and may fall to $60/barrel. Nigeria should reduce the pump price now. Perhaps an apology is in order but unlikely as even the Inspector General of Police (IGP) exposed himself as someone with cheap values and strong political leanings as he refuses to ‘recognise’ the Speaker.

    Warning -South Africa plans to add 6-9 Gigawatts of nuclear power and to export nuclear technology to Africa by 2030. This will cost up to $90b. Nigeria’s nuclear plant is due in 2020. Please site it right in Central Business District in Abuja next to NASS, so politicians will be forced to fear for their own lives. Nuclear and corruption are explosive.

    Ask, as a tropical nation where is solar energy? We are now monitoring gas flaring by satellite tracking. Kudos to this government for initiating a ‘Clean Cooking Scheme’ with distribution of one million gas stoves just as the Indonesians did. Now we also want a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) backed ‘$5billion Solar Scheme’ to allow 2-5 year one percent loans for cutting edge, 2014 Solar Schemes.

    And why is the IMF as usual happy to support CBN’s increase in MPR to 13% and fall in naira value? The UK, USA and the EU dropped their interest rates to near zero so all citizens could access funds to stimulate growth. Abroad monetary policy is ‘help the citizen’ In Nigeria it is ‘screw or eliminate the citizen’ as a serious economic strategy. Politicians from across parties must cut salaries by 75% and go part-time with sitting allowances. Constituency projects must be scrapped. Let us make fiscal responsibility an election question? America and the UK did not devalue their currency. Why are the IMF, ‘International Mortician’s Fund’ and ‘Woe Bank’ delighted at naira devaluation? There are alternatives. Someone should tell them that reviving the economy is about assisting all hard-working human beings in Nigeria with low interest loans and not mere economic number-crunching and selective loans to targeted industries.

  • ‘Our Girls’; ‘Scale the fence in defence of democracy’; Austerity, Fiscal Responsibility; ‘Ember’

    ‘Our Girls’; ‘Scale the fence in defence of democracy’; Austerity, Fiscal Responsibility; ‘Ember’

    Our girls are still missing since  April 15 and no sign of a solution.

    So, another austerity period looms. Have we learnt no lessons? Far more than the financial demands of civil servants, it is the greed of the political class which sucks the blood of the treasury like a giant leech. It is never satisfied and always takes more and more. All the political class is paid and given too much in ‘Salaries and Perks’, ‘SAPping’ the treasury dry. There are no concrete answers given to questions of how much they take home. Is it N10m and N30-40m monthly for National Assembly – NASS Reps and Senators respectively? No wonder the political struggle in NASS showed members prepared to ‘Scale the fence in defence of democracy’ – their own democracy! Politicians from across parties, every Special Adviser in every ministry, every political hanger-on from LGA to Aso Rock, and do not forget senior civil servant administrators, all have easy access to secret allocations of land which they sell for millions and have many perks as of right, merely for being in-post?

    Yes, the price of oil has crashed reducing the revenue but that crash should also bring down the cost of the so-called fuel subsidy. Yet the pump price has not been affected. Why? The first round of belt-tightening should be within the billions/day blood sucking political class. We expect NASS to pay as much attention to political budgetary waste as to power tussles. NASS must immediately announce cuts in NASS operational costs including costs of public hearings and committee meetings. NASS must go part-time. Salaries must reduce by 75% to or better still replaced by sitting allowances.  Constituency projects must be scrapped. There should be an announced and effective slash in numbers of active politicians paid by governments at all levels by at least 75%. The post of Special Adviser should be severely scrutinised as a cost-saving opportunity. Special Advisers should be reduced in number by 80%. Special Advisers should revert to being used part-time and on demand, as the need arises, not permanent. There is something called fiscal responsibility. As interest rates remain the highest in the world, except for some ‘Favoured  Areas’ and the naira plunges lower and lower because of political profligacy, can we say we have a government demonstrating fiscal responsibility? Will this be a debate question during the elections?

    In addition to the political questions around the budgetary waste, we must ask hard economic questions. Why is our oil not being bought by many countries? It is because of shale oil and oil at nearer points than Nigeria to the countries in need. For example, Angola and Ghana are nearer to the US and UK markets than Nigeria. So why would they buy from Nigeria? Is the Nigerian market as business friendly as the markets of Angola and Ghana for example. Has Nigeria started producing enough kerosene? Why have we not, as a gas-producing nation not moved from kerosene to gas for cooking? As a tropical nation, why have not moved more massively into renewable energy like solar energy? As the people brace up for the political and financial mayhem about to be unleashed in the name of democratic elections, is any politician offering hope in these areas? Manifestos are easier to write than practice.

    The impossible and too often impassable Ibadan-Lagos road is under punishingly slow repair. We sympathise with the family of the contractor murdered on the expressway.  Beyond that malicious tragedy, must we suffer a near-death experience in order to smile in Nigeria? So many missed meetings, so many millions of wasted hours and billions in lost opportunities on a road that should have been made six lanes over 30 years ago. When first approved, it was supposed to be a six lane road, three-a-side. Instead, the government upgraded airport road in Abuja into a misplaced 10-lane ‘masterpiece’ just to rub our noses in their disgraceful arrogance of power while showing us that they actually know the right thing to do even if they put it in the wrong place. Unfortunately, those long charged with the responsibility for good roads are loaded down with National Honours for their dishonour. With their ill-gotten proceeds of unexecuted or improperly ‘executed’ contracts, they then seek other political offices like governorship and NASS membership unmindful of the deaths and delays from contract failures!

    We again ask what it costs the federal government supervising engineering team and indeed the minister[s] of works and transport, demanding better, one or two feet wider, usable lanes with smoother surfaces in the interest of the comfort of and human rights of millions of fellow Nigerian babies, children, women and children who are forced to use the roads daily?

    It is very sad that government responds to the ‘ember months’ as special times to fix the roads. Roads and road users kill and maim all year round and not during ‘ember’ months only. So please fix the roads and potholes year round to save many lives and much property in ‘non-ember months’. Travellers in ‘non-ember months’ have as much right to smooth safe journeys as in ‘ember months’ of September, November and December.

    PS Thanks to those who came to my performance of ‘You Do Not Know Me’ in Lagos.

     

  • ‘Our Girls’;  Chibok retaken?; ‘You Do Not Know Me’: Promote your talents

    ‘Our Girls’;  Chibok retaken?; ‘You Do Not Know Me’: Promote your talents

    Our Girls are still missing since April. And Chibok, the home of many of their anguished parents, is under attack, capture and recapture. The Boko Haram War is a war and not a skirmish and it must be won in Nigeria’s favour with humane handling of refugees and victims. The frequently used retreat to Sambisa and other forests must be cut off to prevent this back and forth battle. I am always amazed at how little I really know about those around me and how little they know about me. We all begin at the starting line of life as children offered opportunities to learn. There we imbibe and interact with the influences that will develop some talents and skills and drop others. We hone the chosen ones into professional skills. Imagine we all start with 10 equal skills. Over time some are suppressed and others are developed. An easy example is singing. Almost everyone except me can sing and sing well. I was excused from my St Gregory’s College entire school choir in 1964. Most of you readers have good voices but you only sing in the shower. That talent, the voice, is one of the most suppressed. These suppressed talents may manifest in hobbies. I am sure you can add your own particular expertise that we know little about.

    Open the box and unleash those skills for pleasure and for lowering your blood pressure. Yes, you may make some money from talents. Talents may decay or remain in the drawer or cupboard only to be discovered and discarded when you are gone. Then they will just be thrown away along with other things you hold dear. Many products of such talents have been burnt in the garden fires to make space for tomorrow.

    I will give you my own example, not as a boast, but as a template to use to do better. ‘You do not know me!’ You think you know me. You judge me based on this column and hearsay. I also judge you, with incomplete information. It is what humans do with their tiny brains. They see, hear judge and jump to damning conclusions. The tongue is the worst weapon on earth as it starts wars requiring more tongues to end the war. The human feels the urgent need to be an authority and to be judgemental without the responsibility of logic. The human jumps to conclusions based on the incomplete world of the ‘here and now and the yesterday’. For the human the ‘I’s have it every time. ‘I am, I was, I think, I know’.

    My template: Over many years I have been favoured with a cherished medical practice which has offered me a wonderful and sometimes stressful opportunity to participate in the lives of many others. In between patients, I have put down ideas as stories in several books for all ages covering poetry, novels and short stories. It has been difficult getting published and once published getting sold has been a nightmare as most publishers seem to have an anti-social policy of non-promotion of writers and another criminal policy of not paying accurate royalties which stand at just 10% of the book cover price. The writer usually writes to be read. The unread writer is dead. To overcome a country lacking a powerful book reading culture, I have been forced under the name ‘You Do Not Know Me’ to put together programme to challenge us all to deliver our talents and hobbies to the wider world.

    I have put together a Children’s Matinee at the Chamber of Commerce on Saturday November 22, at 12noon. This is followed the same day by a short film and sketches performed by professionals based on my writings for presentation at 6pm at the Chamber of Commerce, Victoria Island on Saturday November 22. You are invited.

    In addition I always have a camera when I travel particularly on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and I keep it near me at work. I have taken over 10,000 photographs of situations, flora and fauna. I have shown some to friends to break the boredom of doing nothing mentally challenging or constructive for hours at parties. Rather than go quietly into the night, I decided to show them at a photo exhibition. I selected 70 photographs from my collection and ‘doctored’ them on the computer for a PhotoArt Exhibition at Didi Museum in Victoria Island, Lagos closing tomorrow Thursday November 19, at 6pm. You are invited.

    The message above is not really about whether you come to my shows. It is to irritate you enough to outdo what I have done under the name ‘You Do Not Know Me’. Start your self-examination, re-examine, and reinvent yourself as someone arising from your hobbies. Do not allow your talents and hobbies to remain in a drawer of cupboard. Impress your children, your office colleagues with any of a hundred other talents. Others do it. When we attend international conferences, there is an evening for all the professionals to showcase talents. It is fun to see a distinguished professor of surgery or philosophy or economics sing, recite poetry, juggle plates or play the trumpet. Nigerians spend so much time at parties it makes sense for party organisers to include an open microphone segment for guests to show their talents. Having such outlets is of personal psychological value and promotes self-esteem and may be of financial value.