Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Work for their release.
Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) calls off strike. Was it necessary? Could it have been avoided by wide and earlier dialogue? Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is still on strike and other health workers are planning to join.
Hurray, Nigeria’s foreign reserves are over $33b. This government must realise that it cannot hope to overcome the very fresh stigma and ill-informed bitterness caused by the post-Jonathan economic collapse at the next election without major appreciation of the naira against the dollar. This can be achieved only if the government does not stop increasing our funds until we have $50b to foreign reserves, just $1b/month to really back up the naira. It will be aided by a fully functional refinery sector for 100% local content, to bring to zero the imported petroleum products and associated foreign exchange drain. No one talks of the profits accruing to Nigeria from the sale abroad of all the plastic and petrochemical by-products of petroleum refining –amounting to a huge multi-billion dollar scam over the years against Nigeria. We have had better power supply this last week reducing our expenditure and consumption on petrol and diesel. Potholes require to be filled nationwide by federal, state and LGAs to quickly ease the travel plight of Nigerians as a pre-election strategy and give an impression of caring for the masses.
Again, 50 traders drown in River Niger. How much does a life-jacket made from the normal life-jacket or from empty plastic bottles cost?
Another examination result out for governments to assess their services as teachers to the youth. Youth failure is unfortunately caused more by teacher failure than student failure i.e. bad teaching. Matters are not helped by the misperception and often the actual practice of recruiting poor quality material to teacher training colleges as exemplified by the cut-off of 100 for teacher training colleges. This is to be contrasted with Nordic countries where PhD graduates teach the youngsters of those nations and teachers are paid well and promptly and highly motivated. Those countries know that the youth are the most powerful weapon in the development arsenal of any nation. In our country, youth is seen as a drain on resources which the leadership prefers to appropriate for itself by scams and schemes leaving the youth to fend for itself.
All Nigerians are paying dearly for bribery at political party and personal politician level – a consequence of corruption far beyond the N400b National Bureau of Statistics corruption price tag. Bribes are got by forcing bleeding families, individuals, businesses and organisations to divert needed chunks of their funds which should have been spent on self-development and productive ventures. Stopping corruption reduces the cost of living and business. To achieve this Nigeria and Nigerians have to say ‘No to Bribery, Financial Crimes and Morally Corrupt Decision-making’. They must embrace efficiency, transparency and a high level of personal, public, corporate, professional and uniform morality. The call for restructuring is a strident call to reverse corrupt morally reprehensible unjust decisions of past governments so that a ‘Just True Federal System’ can emerge ASAP.
One day, even in Nigeria, children will not hold their hands out in the classic ‘Demand for a Bribe’ when asked in their classroom to imitate a politician, policeman or FRSC official. Children are not only traumatized by the child abuse of being forced to be victims of child trafficking, to be child soldiers or petty thieves in the market. Witnessing bribery and corruption are also part of nationwide child abuse inflicted so openly by Nigerian society daily on children in public and private transport or walking on their way to school or market. Just as every child has witnessed an okada crash, so every child has witnessed ‘Uniform Bribery and Corruption’. They say ‘Where there is a uniform, corruption is not far behind’ or worse. Imagine the huge child psychology problem this has created in young minds. Meanwhile in class you want them to learn morals and social studies. From whom and from where?
N400b would have built 80-100,000 homes at N4-5m each. In contrast it would have bought only 800 houses at the high end N500m each. In other words, the use of money is important and money spent by you and I on bribes would be better spent by you and me on our perceived needs and not spent by someone who happens to occupy a post he uses to extort bribes.
Have you heard the argument that ‘Granted it is a bribe but the money given to a deliberately difficult gateman, the nasty obstructing secretary in Oga-at-the-top’s office, a trigger-happy checkpoint police man, a rude JAMB office clerk, a naughty dismissive nurse, or a ‘nearly not on seat’ file-signing civil servant to help you get your rights may trickle to family, friend and community’? The bribe money may therefore help the ‘needy’ remain in circulation and substitute for salaries and pensions. In short though such bribes actually increase the cost of doing business, the money still reaches the common pool – the local money market. But is that ‘social service’ the job of the money in your pocket? Are you their NGO to provide for their needs and greed when you have your own rights to your money and commitments? No!
NB: Nigerians discover a new generation of untainted ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019.
