Tag: Jonathan

News: Plane crash in Yola. Sorry, but whose money? Is Yola General Hospital well equipped enough to receive plane crash victims? Governors must think about people, not personal profits. Congrats to President Jonathan for maintaining the election peace in the Presidential, Edo and Ondo elections–a hat trick. No violence- a true legacy.

While malignant corruption festers, a dying Nigeria teaches in schools that the theft of a goat is seven years in jail while a multibillion theft will fetch you a choice hospital holiday and ‘plea bargaining’ by returning 1/10th of the stolen money – punishment inversely proportional to the crime. Political righteous indignation at oil baron thieves is misplaced. They are all the same –thieves of votes or money! The judiciary has failed us. Imagine the judiciary ‘awarding’ a child molester only two years in jail with option of N80,000 fine. A fine for such a crime against your daughter, Mr What Justice?

The true guardians of people’s right to a better life–NLC, ASUU, NMA, NANS, NUT, PENGASSAN – deserve GCFR for their guarding of the republic, their sacrifices and foresight. When they protest on behalf of the downtrodden, the downtrodden and the politicians shower curses on them for ‘not being patriotic’. The real thieving culprits are ‘dividends of democracy’ politicians, contractors, conmen and especially civil servants drawing up ‘no work-no pay’ agreements. They have all stolen us blind leaving the citizens to ‘manage’ crumbs and still expected to be grateful as the politicians award each other more and more PPPs-Prizes, Profits and Plaques and ‘Best Governorships’.

Ribadu’s NNPC revelations amount to N86.6b or N577 /Fellow Nigerian, the $5b waste from gas flaring or N5,000/Nigerian, the megabillion pension scams, the N44billion UBE unaccessed funds or N600/ Fellow Nigerian Youth, the 30-70% contract percentage kickbacks for contracts, the electricity multimegabillion scam, Ladi Kwali Hall conferences, juicy NASS oversight allowances and customs ‘customers’ make massive needless suffering and death for the citizens. Scams amount to more than N10,000/Fellow Nigerian/per annum in losses. We have allocated enough contractor funds to build a road around the world and still we meekly accept to risk our lives and die on potholed death-trap and gridlocked Lagos-Ibadan, Ore-Benin and the East-West roads. Enough of billionaire contractors!

A serious government would have ‘A National Road Emergency Strategy’ and divide roads into 10-20km blocks and award them to hundreds of hungry qualified contractors for rapid completion. As in primary school the favourite example was: If one contractor can build a road in 36 months, 10 contractors can build it in 3.6 months. Or one big billionaire contractor should employ 10 times the staff working at 10 points to finish the work in one tenth the time – 3.6 months. It is criminal to give one billionaire political contractor a 300km road to build in 36 or 48 months. Nations in a hurry know better. And Nigeria needs to hurry into the 21st Century.

These revelations have lifted one tiny corner of ‘The Corruption Carpet’ covering Nigeria. We are horrified by the huge stealing while the same officials ‘lament’ about ‘poor allocations’ and ‘government cannot do it alone’. But ‘government can steal alone’!

The protests by Nigeria’s unions are at the serial abuse and poor treatment by politicians and absence of ‘civilisation indices’ in spite of great wealth hidden from the public scrutiny. In education these ‘civilisation indices’ are a friendly learning environment. In health these ‘civilisation indices’ are modern medical equipment and 16,400 Primary Health Centres –one per Ward, 21st Century equipment as used by brilliant medical Nigerians abroad. But in our medical ‘counterfeit centres of excellence’ only the signboard says ‘excellence’.

Nigerians, not just those who fly to hospitals abroad at our expense, deserve modern equipment as a birthright from our wealth. For the physically challenged, ‘civilisation indices’ include modern movement aids, braille, wheelchair access and computerised prosthetic limbs. For roads ‘civilisation indices’ include the thousands of side roads which must be ‘guttered’ and tarred. In transport we lack thousands of kilometres of railway tracks and modern human mass transit bus and monorail. On youth issues ‘civilisation indices’ include 16,400 non-political ‘Ward Youth Centres’. In addition we require serious entrepreneurial training, a broader job market, sponsored computerised sports databases, mini stadia and holiday coaching camps. On sanitation, ‘civilisation indices’ dictate that communities has rights to water and toilets. ‘Civilisation indices’ require we are malaria, polio and pothole free and also corruption free. With this money Nigeria can afford free quality health and education.

When will politicians learn to leave professionals alone to do their job? Nigerians have been ‘managing’ or coping with nonsense government and running ‘on empty’ since the military era. Stop corruption and fill Nigeria’s tank with the unstolen money. Government distribution of Sallah ram and Xmas rice to the few will not solve our corruption problems.

Nigerians do not want ‘dividends of democracy’ but return of the stolen ‘dividends of being Nigerians’. There is a lot to spend that stolen money on. Why do we allow theft when so many are deprived?

PS: How do Nigeria’s $billions ‘disappear’ untraced? Poor systems without computerisation, dishonest supervision and corrupt policing! Who own the colluding banks? Will the colluding managers, accountants, auditors and drivers escape unpunished? A bold leadership, non-political, must clean Nigeria’s stinking Augean Stable before Nigeria dies. Work and pray-with both eyes open or they will steal you too!