The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Our girls

  • Our girls; murder; naira

    Our girls; murder; naira

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray for their return.

    Mixed messages of incompetence and indifference from government.

    The figure ‘70+’ is a ‘murdered Benue farmer citizens’ number with 73+ millstones around the government’s neck as it fails miserably to deal with the plot that unleashed the reign of terror imposed by Fulani herdsmen’s unlimited, nationwide unprovoked and premeditated attacks amounting to the Fulani herdsmen’s war- my subject over 30 years. Are they singing to an international agenda as the effect is cross-continent reaching even East Africa. The deaths of soldiers and policeman added to more than a total of 100,000 ‘bloodied civilians’ amounts to a war as I have said for many years, and confirmed by Prof Wole Soyinka. The Vietnam War claimed 54,000 US soldiers. Our ECOMOG War claimed between 3,000 (government figures) and 12,000 (non-government) estimates. Some journalist or researcher should go back and total the almost daily reports of five, 10, 20, 300 deaths in the news reports of the Fulani herdsmen War for 10, 20yrs. What will be the final death count and what is our total cost for unity? Are the perpetrators ghosts and the killing fake or phantom to always automatically escape arrest? Whither Nigeria. Only when a defence to the senseless murders is planned, it is torn down as being terrorist. Our words are the wrong way around. The attacker is the terrorist; the defence strategist is the counter-terrorist. In Nigeria we specialise in turning victims into accused and terrorists into tribal heroes. Stop the killing!!

    Congratulations, Nigeria made the targeted $40b by beginning 2018 during economic hardship. The first aid care, under the ‘save the naira’ policy of Buhari and CBN support for the naira. Phase one has paid off. Phase two will be easier with the hike in oil price to nearly $70/barrel which will boost our reserves to a targeted $80-100b by April 2019 if not Dec 2018. Phase three must go hand in hand and that is to get the naira to ‘crash back’ to N150:$1 or lower to destabilize the forex hoarders. We should recommend a CBN-led forced fall of N1 naira per day to return to the golden age of N1:$1.5 by Dec 31, 2018. Ibrahim Babangida crippled Nigeria when he halved the naira value overnight and skyrocketed interest rates –a presidential knife in Nigeria’s back. Can we reverse that blow also overnight? Or perhaps improve at N1 per 1-2days to achieve N130: $1 by Dec 31? No other government has dedicated such efforts to reversing losses inflicted on the naira.

    The unpredicted fall and now spectacular rise in oil price towards $70+ confounds ‘doom and nay-sayers’. However that $70barrel cost should not make our oil imports more expensive if our own oil is exported to be refined. The real problem is our tragic incompetence as a nation, to in four years, get its refineries up to 150% production locally to combat manmade paralytic Christmas and New Year shortages.

    The president’s dismissal of the entire efforts to restructure is an insult, painful, but predictable given the benefits he and his groupings, ethnic and otherwise, gain from the power accrued under the status quo since 1956. It is deeply saddening to millions of victims of political and military fiat which lopsidedly created states and hundreds of LGAs to favour certain parts of Nigeria, arrogated huge swaths of the budget to itself and giving power to few. It speaks volumes of the paralyzing and blinding nature of the office of the president to any modern and citizen targeted progressive agenda. Is it the seat or the occupant at fault?? Probably the combination. It is legitimate in a democracy, even one as fragile as ours, to ask ‘Do you trust your president to make merit and objective decisions and appointments?’ The answer is chillingly negative. The president can change this perception in 2018, but has misjudged the mood by appointing Ahmed Rufai Abubakar as Director General, National Intelligence Agency, NIA, demonstrating his presidential and personal rigidity to his agenda? Trust demands more than ‘Our Unity is Non-negotiable’.

    But what is the current true presidential vision and mission for Nigeria? Yes, he wants to restore value and pride to the naira, if possible to N150 and lower which will automatically by definition lift millions out of poverty and ‘re-dignify’ Nigeria while making deserving fools of naira speculators and dollar hoarders -a sound and praiseworthy achievement. However this ‘grand naira recovery scheme’ will be no virtue if the Fulani herdsmen-murdered farmers’ body count skyrockets due to presidential insensitivity, collusion or indifference to the victims of the Fulani herdsmen’s rampage. He has also the self-inflicted burden of an additional hurricane of sectional mainly Fulani ‘Oga at de top’ appointments, difficult to defend in a cosmopolitan country populated with some of the best brains in the world and some of the worst.

    Away from the presidential responsibilities and government failures it behoves us to know that the work of our hands, brain, family, community will make the nation great or small in 2018. It is well-known that just one evil-minded corrupt president and evil cohorts [which Nigeria has had an abundance unfortunately], a single corrupt political or business policy or decision in your official capacity, in and out of uniform, can raise or ruin your neighbour, your community or your country. Be vigilant!

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; 2018: Honesty year?

    Our Girls; 2018: Honesty year?

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray for their return.

    The murderous herdsmen and other violence call attention to the precarious violent nature of life. Will the $1billion improve security or be diverted for 2018 elections? Study Iran closely.

    This poem was read to a Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan Christmas audience.  Help save one child.  Stop The Dirty Slap Today: When a dirty slap makes you blind / You will find / It is hard to get around/ And if you cannot hear sound/ Because he slapped your ear / You will live in fear/ So don’t dirty slap your son, / Your wife, classmate, neighbour, or anyone/ Your arm / Is not for Grievous Bodily Harm – GBH/ Overcome the bully in you.

    Nigeria suffers from the devastation sown by a predatory, parasitic, heartless hyper-consumptive greed-ridden self-preserving anti-restructuring politics in which politicians dismiss or pervert professional reasoning thus crippling development with some professional collusion.

    For Nigeria’s growth in 2018, government and politicians must break the cycle of greed and also listen to professional groups. Nigerians are not sure if government knows how to put skilled political appointees, preferably alive and not dead, into boards. Nigeria urgently requires highly skilled hands and not just contract exploiting politicians stealing funds for 2019 election. Can any board change the perception of the NPC- National Population Commission as corruptly responsible for census figures, a tragi-comedy of fake figures making an ethnically corrupt nonsense of development data? Currently the fake figure of 180m is disputed down to 120-140m based on sectional criminal 30% inflation.

    Historically politicians have misinterpreted their role, seized powers and funds and carved a swath of destruction following board appointments. The political class arrogates to itself ‘Politics as first profession among all professions’ but has failed to deliver a professional job in any sphere of need, except greed.

    In 2018 we drown in the poor naira value, fuel shortage, the absent second Niger Bridge, the truncated Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and other major roads, abysmal budgets for health and education and the malignant epidemic of profligacy within the unaudited political process.

    The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a United Nation (UN) agreed international yardstick measuring and fast-tracking human activity. UN-SDGs monitor politicians and governments which use or should facilitate provision of sustainable clean air, water and sanitation, food, shelter, transport, education, employment, security and environmental protection.

    Already, many societies which take governance as a sacred duty of service to the citizens consider the SDGs as the human right to a decent life. We can and must use the SDGs to boost or criticize the development of Nigeria at street, state and national level.

    The planet Earth is a living breathing organ infected by a parasite commonly called ‘human rash’ sorry ‘human race’ with 7.6 billion brains going in different mostly destructive directions, hungry mouths and loose bowels and bladders and 30.4 billion destructive combined legs and waste-making arms combined.

    The greatest revolution that Nigerians require to guarantee the survival and prosperity is to ask ‘How difficult is it to be honest?’ and stop personal corruption by an oath of ‘One Year of Honesty’. Do we have five, or 80million honest Nigerians willing to take the Oath of Honesty? Such a move is not far-fetched as the Bank Verification Number (BVN), tax cards, the National ID card, driving licence, voter’s card, passport issuance all have databases which if cross-linked will create a knowledge base forcing citizens to become more honest. Corruption in the workplace is worldwide but should never stunt development or family growth.

    Governments have convinced the citizens that they, by giving bribes in response to demands, are responsible for ‘Uniform Corruption’ among the government Police etcetera. No. The responsibility to keep uniforms non-corrupt lies with the uniforms who breach their employment contracts and the government, not the violated victim. Nigeria practices poor deterrents, punishment, disgrace, exposure and return of stolen assets. Massive recruiting of independent supervisors and military police and internal affairs is also necessary.

    Only an incumbent government, not the citizenry, can clean up the uniforms in Nigeria without bloodshed. Following the disgrace of the ‘revered’ judiciary, all the ‘checks and balances’ also need monitoring including EFCC, ICPC, tax authorities and Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR) – those who monitor petrol stations which must be like Caesar’s wife- above board. The gains will be an honest Nigeria. As with the Ebola epidemic, one day we will stop the epidemic of corruption or Nigeria will die as a nation!

    Nigeria must stop legally-illegal and immoral discrimination against the citizen by the politician in pensions and salaries. The anti-corruption revolution also involves parents lying about the number and age of children to pensioners juggling age declaration, civil servants corrupting contracts, from uniforms and professionals with corrupt demands.

    Teach these Educare Trust SDG Goals:

    [1] Clean up your mouth/ language- Replace ‘OMG’ – ‘O My God’ with ‘O My Goodness’, ‘O SH-T’ with ‘O Sugar’. Replace ‘O F—K’ with ‘O Foolish’.

    [2] To Monthly Breast Exam, MBE add Total Monthly Body Exam, TMBE for everyone, SDG 3.

    [3] Start / join a campaign to stop the ‘Dirty Slap’ causing blindness and deafness in children! SDG 3, 4

    [4] ABC- Avoid Bullying Children-and adults SDG 3, 4, and

    [5] Say ‘No To Corruption of Mind and Money’ -All SDGs  1-17

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; Your ‘Selfie’ SDGs 2018 Plan – ABC?  

    Our Girls; Your ‘Selfie’ SDGs 2018 Plan – ABC?  

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray. Happy New Year 2018 but their parents and families are still in turmoil from the absence of their children.

    Nigeria faces four serious wars: Corruption fighting back; Boko Haram, herdsmen and the looming election war. The election war will be with two consequences: (1) Traditionally accepted Budget Vandalisation by politicians for election purposes and; (2) Traditionally accepted violence. Citizens have been maimed and murdered at every Nigerian election. Can we stop the victimization of citizens during the Election 2018 – ‘A ZERO VIOLENCE, ZERO VICTIM ELECTION 2018’?

    And can Nigeria’s EFCC, ICPC, Police CID and whistleblowers plan a pre-emptive preventive monitoring programme to prevent 2018 budget theft and dirty money entering politics? This will save billions for the execution of projects and have a ‘Zero stolen funds from this 2018 Budget’? If SERAP, NGOs and others scream and shout, monitor and evaluate, we may save our as yet shamefully unpassed 2018 budget from being diverted at all levels for election war chests of billions- all misspent millions for election face posters and media hype including mega-billboards and bribes and stomach infrastructure.

    We must find a way of keeping governments working throughout this election year. Shamefully in the past, traditionally all government shut down during the election year with all contract funds diverted and stolen! Nigeria cannot afford such a negligent and wasteful party political policy and budget rape! Citizens must force governments to deliver year-round services.

    The Nigerian media has powers and responsibilities to guide society that it does not fully exercise in the national and citizens’ interest. Nigeria media revenues will increase from the billions to be spent on wasteful party election media campaigning. Nigeria requires a cross party/public declaration of war against plastic waste choking our gutters, streams and rivers and strangling our animals, fish and farmland. Abroad this particular war against plastic waste war is led by the international media programmes like Sky, CNN, BBC on Ocean Plastic Pollution and other issues like the migrant crisis and slavery as their CSR- devoting 1+% of their earnings towards funding give back projects forcing UK, USA and politicians and citizens to act. The Nigerian media also needs to allocate income and needs to come together for an Annual Media Strategy Plan to prosecute a ‘War on Ignorance’ aimed at educating both politician and the public through exposés, interviews and documentaries and by highlighting the solutions to problems faced by Nigeria due to for example, environmental pollution including plastic control, human rights abuses, corruption, migration murderous myths and other important areas of public interest to widen the 2018 political/public debate.

    There are other wars to fight and these are brilliantly encompassed as United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) 1-17. Every government at LGA, state and federal level and Ministry, Department, Agency (MDA) level and every community, institution, religious body, corporation, company, business, household, family and individual should make a 2018 SDG commitment, a resolution to embrace and practice the UN-SDGs in all their discussion, plans and activities.

    With this SDG pillar of support in 2018, Nigeria will, or could, take a great step forward towards SDGs by 2030. Let us not look back in Jan 2019 and say ‘I wish we had done this SDG thing last year’ – like we ask why have the refineries not been finished in the three years of this regime? Please as staff yourself, or as boss, ask your staff to web-search UN-SDGs and come up with ‘Your Selfie SDG Project’ at house, office, street, community and organisation’s SDG Project Plan for ABC: Action, Broadcast and Change choosing any or all relevant SDGs. SDGs belong to every single human being and especially Nigeria which has been stunted in its growth in human development indices for decades. Please enlighten yourself with deep knowledge of SDGs so you can question at every opportunity every single political candidate and party about how they intend to achieve the SDGs if they are elected in 2018. Politicians hiring assistants should only hire those who have empowered themselves with SDG knowledge. No politician, worldwide or in Nigeria in particular, seeking to participate in governance in 2019 should be allowed to be even presented for election without a working and indeed deep understanding and knowledge of SDG. Every institution from primary, secondary, tertiary of all description – medical, finance, professional, security, service organization requires empowerment to internalise the SDG yardstick at every board and department meeting to construct its 2018 strategic plan. The commonest question in every meeting of one or two or more should be “Which SDG are/can we meet with this action or project? ’. ‘Ignorance of SDGs’ will be no excuse for failure to monitor or for political failure.

    No one on earth should be ignorant of the SDGs and the social and mass public TV media organs have the right and responsibility and the means to place SDGs, the most unkempt secret ‘WMD’, Weapon of Mass Development’, in the hands of both politicians and the people to encourage and force an SDG development agenda and methods of Monitoring and Evaluation, M&E, which will benefit all. This month is the time to plan week by week, month by month, quarter by quarter for the year 2018 with timelines for delivery of the SDGs.

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.  Happy New Year

  • Our Girls; No budget? Christmas poem

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray. Happy New Year to you, and to their families with a homecoming!

    Unfortunately, National Assembly (NASS) failed to deliver our budget passage by deadline December 31 – failure of politicians in NASS to deliver the morally greater good.

    Poem Christmas@ University of Ibadan 2017 –Tony Marinho.

    And the Magi appeared / Perhaps looking rather weird / Towering above us, each on a Eastern camel / Just like we depict today in china and enamel / Bearing a trinity of gifts in hand/ The Magi each brought a Gift/  To meet Christ, God’s Gift.

    Gold as a metal precious, like your wedding band/ Frankincense as perfume or for incensing/ Myrrh as oil for anointing./ In our politically induced deadly poverty / We face the reality / Of the true Gifts of Christ as deity /And struggle between the patronage of politics / And the burden of piety. / Have your own personal Magi appeared/ Were they unknown feared or endeared? / Has your Frankincense become corrupted nonsense, / Has your Gold become cold, borrowed, stolen or sold?

    Has your Myrrh been mired in fake news and ugly rumour / While you struggle with a life growing into a malignant tumour? / Christmas is not an X-mas/ Unless you declare the X as Christ’s cross / But rumours of crucifixion are premature on Christ’s birthday / When we know he has 33 years to stay. / But Christmas has been mispronounced/ And today it is time we announced / Christ is worth a full spelt name/ Any abbreviation / Is a shame, an abomination. / Should we ban saying Christian/ And replace her with a Christ-ian / Should we stop saying Christmas/ And replace it with Christ-mas? / This Christmas, give away more than you get / No money? Then share your smile, handshake and sweat / Give to needy strangers what you give to family and friends/ Towards the unloving make amends / At Christmas our Saviour is The Master of Disguise / Naked, thirsty, hungry – learn the signs and recognize/ Christ in every one around/ Christ in every distress sound / Your house help is in need of help/ The reverse reason for the name help/  Wait by your dustbin with a Christmas gift/ For one Mama taking little Christ on the dustbin dinner shift/ To fill another hole in a never-filled baby belly /

    While well-fed children eat Christmas jelly watching DSTV telly. / We are reminded of Mary’s labour and delivery /As we endure Nigeria’s hard labour, no delivery, only misery / In a country so blessed with you and you and naira trillions

    That s-elected thieves steal in multiple billions/ Meant for potholes, railways, health, power, scholarships/ Forcing youth to drown in the Mediterranean’s sinking ships /  After migration, surviving Sahara Sun, Libyan slavery, Egyptian organ taker /

    Sending youth to meet their maker / As they slit a migrant youthful throat for a Jacob’s coat/ You are left in the cold, / New slavery’s sold/  We close our eyes pretending to pray/  While the thieves get away with pension and pay/ And if they show up here today /We will stand up, kowtow and bow in a welcoming way / As many roam among Christmas day dustbins / While their leaders ‘Mr Misery’ commit billion naira sins / Teach each other not to worry about Christ-mas presents/ When we are gifted with God’s Son’s Presence. / Become a Queen. King, Prince or Princess of Kindness/ At last gasp what would you choose-another present or God’s Presence? /  What country leaders dare refuse power to the people? / Leaving them in darkness of despair, divorce, depression / Not to talk of business and family cost of power substitution and business  regression /  Creating you ‘The generator generation’ / While the leadership rapes budgets to pay for generators./ No solar for us as we are sun spectators / Are you here for Christ’s sake/  Or Christmas cake/ Christ is not far away, But just across the way/ Your neighbour, That stranger / The irritating youth or urchin / Your window stuck to his enquiring chin / Ensuring red traffic lights are no longer fun / But a moral money gauntlet to be run/ Testing your generosity each day/ Hands in your face for their daily pay / You fight urchins like vipers/ Trying to take over from your windscreen wipers/ Don’t pay and you look so mean/ And other urchins gather at the scene / The blind beggar led by his daughter who is sighted / Will abuse you or be delighted/ They are more than before/ So before you go out of your door / Arm yourself with naira notes -the sound of music –full range / Christ-mas is not the time to have ‘no change’ / Suppose your Christmas Dinner is in someone’s dustbin / Because political criminals commit multibillion naira sin? / Our Saviour was born to smile, laugh, suffer and die

    Today we are ordered to celebrate, not cry / We must restore Christ to this Christ-mas / And the Christ into Christ-ian /

    Find Christ in your wageless, pensionless neighbour/ Regardless of any strange behaviour / Recognise in him your newborn Saviour/ And if you cannot be a Magi/ Share Cubes called Maggi.

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.   Happy 2018 Again!

  • Our Girls; SDG: Budget; Kill bill

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    With 11 days to December 31, we plagiarize the Musical Youth song ‘Pass the Dutchie on the Left hand side’, to read

    “NASS OOOO!!   NASS OOOO!   Pass the budget by the 31st’, Pass the Budget by the 31st.  Or sing ‘All we are saying is “Pass the budget by the 31!st!’”Nigerians should record this and design e-cards to inundate social media, NASS and politicians to fulfil Global Goals Goalkeepers ABC- Action, Broadcast and Change for SDGs 16 & 17 –aiming at a Jan-to-Dec budget cycle.

    Witness the National Assembly (NASS) public hearing on the apparently corruption-fights-back, ill-conceived and malignantly motivated NASS-driven HB585 NGO Regulatory Bill known by NGOs as ‘The Anti-NGO Bill’. Is the bill really to paralyse politically-focused NGOs and religious bodies, unconverted and undefeated by herdsmen and Boko Haram, and to secure Election-2019 with ‘stomach infrastructure’ using a camouflage-cloaked Draconian Decree 4-style Bill? NGO SDG-related activities fight a war of many battles against corruption and endemic voter ignorance and for major restructuring and political reform. Now this war must be fought to keep Nigeria’s 70m + youth contented or entombed at home and away from further inflating the Saharan- Mediterranean slave trade and ‘visa-less migrant crisis’ crossing to fortress Europe and beyond. NGO-championed SDG 16 +reforms include 1] One NASS House –Representatives, 2] Part-time sittings, 3] Modest sitting allowances, 4] Payment of NASS members by home states, not the federal government and 5] ‘Politicians: Get A Day Job’ and 6] Budget and good governance monitoring.

    NASS is a parasitic creation of a mosquito or leech-like parasitic milito-political system. It cannot self-destruct or preside over its restructuring. Nigeria lacks Gorbachevs or Yelsins. NASS seeks to kill these Good Governance SDGoals by strangling the ‘Kill Bill’ advocates-NGOs. Paradoxically, the NASS public hearing returned an honest, uniformly negative analysis. Among the chief spokespersons was the erudite Bishop Mathew Kukah who led an ‘NGO Bill Wake Keep’. We expect ‘We announce the Obituary of HB585’ from NASS. NGOs should fix ‘A National Day for NGO Bill Cremation’. Our NGO, Educare Trust, was represented by our treasurer and former NASS Member, Wale Okediran who also led health sector NGOs. He viewed his successor ‘Tenants Of The House’ from the populo side. His Tenants Of The House is being filmed by Kunle Afolayan.

    Pathetically NASS dismisses citizenry’s concerns instead of correcting its ‘disapproval rating’. NASS wallows in media-hype and self-adoration ‘signifying nothing’, ignoring public anger at the NASS institution and NASS members’ apparent megalomaniacal mannerisms, high-handedness and self-aggrandisement in budgetary allocation to itself and the hauled before it and rubbishing of officials watched by wives and children on TV.

    Sadly NASS appears to portray itself not as Nigeria’s protective eagle, but as a vulture perched on the ‘High Table of Public Hearings’, bullying and pecking at the cowering carrion of public and private sector officials fearful of losing jobs and/or reputations on national TV with no punishment for NASS members who are not necessarily all renowned as ‘Caesar’s wife’ or distinguished and honourable as the dictionary definition projects and who are not ‘shining examples’ of honesty, humility and service – maybe self-service.

    Can NASS ever occupy the moral high ground? Former SEC DG Arumah Oteh overcame a convicted unpunished NASS criminal but SEC was punished by NASS with a zero budget. A NASS member speaking against NASS financing met the Mafia’s silence Oath ‘Omerta’, and was apparently maliciously suspended for one year! Only NGOs spoke out!

    Undeserved perks and pensions have deceived NASS into self-deification. NASS members were uncomfortable when confronted at the public hearing by respected citizens, independent of government and NASS patronage, who could not be intimidated or dismissed, many with the humanitarian distinction of replacing a little of what millions of Nigerians have lost to a greedy avaricious politics. These citizens were forced by conscience to create NGOs, embarrassing themselves, expending their resources, begging family, friends, businesses and even NASS members, for funds. The titles ‘distinguished’ and ‘honourable’ have no ‘fear factor’ to them. Behind the sea of ‘hostile and aggressive’ NGO faces, NASS members should see the tsunami of millions of grateful NGO beneficiaries – all ‘hostile and aggressive’ at a failed overly-expensive criminal governance system most exemplified by NASS excesses and easily corrected by a 90% cut in NASS budget.

    NGOs serve the under-served and repair gaping holes in the tattered social and moral fabric of society abandoned by criminal governments. Our society survived because of the ‘zero percent loan bank’ the extended family, now destroyed by ‘no salaries and pensions’. Are NGOs wasting their time? All NGOs cannot raise N1b locally annually while NASS manipulates or self-budgets N125-N150b! QED. Quad Erratum Demonstrandum!

    Nigeria has always had enough funds –and too many corrupt fund managers! ‘Cutting Corruption’ is the greatest cross-cutting change needed! NASS can do a chameleon change or citizens’ will change it. The ‘Nays’ better have it!!!!

    Give Knowledge as free Christmas Presents. Teach these Educare Trust SDG Goals: [1] To Monthly Breast Exam, MBE add Total Monthly Body Exam, TMBE for everyone, SDG 3. [2] Replace ‘O My God’ with ‘O My Goodness’. [3] Stop the ‘Dirty Slap’ causing blindness and deafness especially in children! SDG 3, 4 and [4] ABC- Avoid Bullying Children-and adults SDG 3, 4.

    NB: Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

    Merry Christmas- Christ-like, smile at/ help/feed one ‘Christmas’ stranger!

  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 – no tolls

    Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 – no tolls

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    Today we talk Ejo Eko foreign reserves up, budget and tolls no thank you

    Ejo eko, the Lagos snake, a python-the hundreds of lorries parked from Surulere to Apapa- strangling the life and economy of Lagos is a dangerous disgrace as highlighted by Channels TV with bridges likely to be compromised from vehicular deadweight.

    Happily the foreign reserves have risen to above $38,000,000,000 and should top $40 by January making predictions of $55-60,000,000,000 by end 2018, realistic and the naira will rise again.

    National Assembly (NASS) has less than three weeks, 18 days, to the Nigerian people’s deadline for budget passage by NASS ‘1-1-2018’. Communicate with NASS politicians to encourage, force, empower, and energise them to stick to the people and not the politicians’ agenda. I make this ‘Legitimate Demand’, indeed a ‘Citizens’ Command’, on behalf of citizens to NASS that it sleeps not, breaks not, holidays not, laughs not, indeed eats luxuriously not, and drinks nothing but water until the passage of the 2018 Budget by 1-1-2018.

    Even the divorce settlement of BREXIT forced bothUK and EU politicians to burn the midnight light, never generator, haha, to achieve a breakthrough. NASS should learn to do the right thing, first with budget and then with the coming elections, from such real foreign democracies. Nigerians risk life and limb to benefit from other people’s investment in their own countries while back home their families wallow in darkness, self-pity and hopelessness. The budget approval and the coming election offer yet another opportunity to conduct the deadly game of politics quickly in the interest of the downtrodden citizenry. They cry inside for a better ‘Beloved Country’, a cry from Africa for many different political reasons, ever since Alan Paton published Cry, my Beloved Country way back in 1948. Politicians have opportunity to reconstruct to get real politics started but as long as the political godfathers and strongmen and few women are the ones who serially and chronically ruined Nigeria in the past 50 years, what hope have we for a new beginning?

    NASS is the face of Nigerian politics, in lifestyle, utterances, actions, empathy or pack of same and morality. From assessment of the various financial and other scandals which have plagued it and disappeared under the voluminous carpet, NASS is an easily assessable quality check on the Nigerian politics measured against other political institutions and the state of the nation and the citizens’ expectations or lack of accomplishment of those expectations. Let the NASS be fully aware of the huge weight of public opinion already against it for its profligacy, mega-money status and apparent insensitivity to the comparative squalor of the citizenry when compared to the extractive political salary legally-illegally extracted from the same federal government budget and purse!! Politics is indeed an extractive industry. NASS must do the needful to ensure that it passes the budget to help save its troubled reputation.

    Any NASS member should think again if he or she thinks his or her political posturing points ‘shown on NTA’ are more important than the survival reasons why hundreds of thousands of young Nigerians set out as part of the ‘migrant crisis’ to risk their lives and lived ones to cross the Sahara and Mediterranean for a ‘better life abroad’ where they expect what they do not have at home. Running water, constant electric power supply, pothole-free roads, mass transit, sound education, good health and housing are denied human rights of citizens in Nigeria. For years this column has warned of the growing ‘Migrants Crisis’ and the perils of this new 21st Century slavery generation. A number of years ago, CNN or BBC carried several investigative reporter documentaries by an excellent West African reporter whose name escapes me. He explored migration, slavery and travel. Today the matter is even more in the open than then. But is the more recent CNN exposure, again under CNN’s Freedom Project, supported by a social media explosion, helping to curb the practice that led to the migration crisis? Probably of little effect because the local media does not relay such documentaries to common people likely to flee.

    I do not like every budget item especially selling assets as some buyers may have stolen money in the past and want to launder it –a sort of double stealing. Even tolls have problems. We are not good road managers, causing suffering for citizens unnecessarily! All current tolls are inadequate, undermanned, poorly or mismanaged toll roads, totally underperforming tollgates as exemplified by the Lagos Oniru and the New Lekki Bridge often a nightmare for traffic movement. Just look at the hours added to Lekki travel by the toll bridges. Yes, they make billions for their owners and government but in an archaic manner. Will the tremendous traffic jams in Lagos with stand-still traffic become nationwide when federal government re-introduces toll bridges? Far better to increase the vehicle and driving licence fees by say N5,000 each and make electronic pre-paid tickets cheaper than tickets bought at the toll gate. Toll operators care nothing for reorganising the disorganised crazy 20 lanes into six orderly queues 50 metres to the toll points merely by stretching out their plastic barriers 50 meters out. Simple queue management!

     

    • NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16
  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 our human right

    Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 our human right

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    National Assembly ( NASS ) has less than four weeks, 25 days, to the Nigerian People’s Deadline For Budget Passage by NASS ‘1-1-2018’. NASS should not say ‘no’ for whatever reason. Everything is possible in politics- even rarely correct decision making!! Was it not NASS which passed, was it, 67 bills in one day?  It is to get results like this that we are being forced to pay NASS between N125 and 150,000,000,000 – to do our will, not its will. In the opinion of many, NASS is truly an unproductive highly extractive industry for little tangible returns. It is payback time. The budget is not a matter of life or death. It is only a matter of differing opinions on facts, fiction and figure. NASS should do our will to see the budget passed by 1-1-2018, warts, mistakes, differing estimates of oil income, differing guestimates of oil prices and all differences are speculative. The accolade ‘The first NASS to pass a budget by 1-1,’ will be a far greater crown than a litany of quibbling questions and blowing hot and cold with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Judging from all the multibillion ‘corruption-gates’ in and out of NASS, NASS has no leg to stand on by delaying the budget.

    Note that every million naira stolen results in X number of deaths from inability to afford medical treatment for family and poor diet and impoverishment from absent jobs making the thieves actual murderers by their actions. Political science and social science departments and must research this as stealing billions makes the thieves mass-murderers.

    Let NASS pass the budget by 1-1-2018 for our children. We all know that a lecturer can fail even a professor in any examination if she wants to or if the price is right. So also with NASS which could delay or fail the budget forever on genuine and spiteful technicalities. It pays many to see this government fail just before the elections, as they again jump ship. Nigerians are on to their game, inflicting shame on Nigeria while our youth suffer in pain and are sold into Libyan slavery and used as bush meat for body parts. We the voting public all see through this filibustering/delaying shameful smokescreen. Such grandstanding and time-wasting politics may be okay for developed countries which deliver every comfort like power, water and sanitation, no matter which political party is in power.

    Our situation is shamefully different and cannot afford such political tactics. However it is such ill-conceived activities which fuelled the mass migrants’ movement. Why did these same MDAs have plain sailing since 1999 but are suddenly found wanting! Nigerians need their budget now for the year Jan-Dec. Should we not prepare a ‘Thank you NASS’ Card as NASS gives Nigeria this Christmas and New Year Present, although NASS would merely be doing its job.

    The Nigerian outcry from multimillionaire politicians about the ‘Migrants’ Misery Trail’ through the Sahara and across the Mediterranean Sea to drown in the sands or the sea off Lampedusa amounts to crocodile tears. The migrants and many resident Nigerians lament the needless absent infrastructure across Africa and particularly in our country where common electric power is ‘multi-billion naira corruption-ridden nuclear physics’ –killing citizens -murder. Yet China, the new big cheese worldwide, adds 30,000+Mw, to their grid annually even as more people in authority in Nigeria are discovered with more billions of our commonwealth. Of course we should have 150,000Mw by now and all heads of state should be ashamed and stop talking. They dropped Nigeria into this bucket of powerlessness.

    I have a simple yardstick for Nigeria’s development that affects every one of our citizens -power. That test is positive in every other country in war-torn Africa demonstrating Nigerian leaders’ collective colossal ineptitude. The test is the ‘One Year No Blackout Test’ – if I can turn on a switch with uninterrupted power every time for a year. Only then will I know that Nigeria is developing to the barest minimum expected by those youth forced to search for ‘the human right to 24 hour power’ by fleeing our country and risking life and limb and crazy organ donor doctors.

    Do you know what it means to be held down, perhaps put to sleep, and have a kidney or two and a cornea or two and even a heart removed just because your country’s leaders have stolen the money, murdering jobs, roads, health, and pensions, making life unliveable and a death sentence at home or abroad? And then the murderers blame youth for migrating to add insult to operation injury. Nigerian politicians have failed so many millions and should do more than apologise.

    Let nobody tell you that you have failed Nigeria if you did not steal – murder, or misguide, or cheat Nigerians and Nigeria. You are not responsible for Nigeria’s failures unless you took funds or made selfish decisions, denied others their rights to education, health and pensions and good elections by you actions and mis-actions. It is not about the electorate getting what it deserves because you see how much elections misspend with the odds stacked against honest candidates.

     

    • NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16

  • Our Girls; A Nigerian Equiano @ 220 years event?

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    Also this week: ‘Senate: Budget by 1-1-2018 Pls’ and slavery.

    The hot African sun burning us reminded me that sunless countries are going solar. Will the petroleum cartel release Nigeria from bondage for it to embrace solar?

    Senate President Bukola Saraki, strangely, calls for unity before restructuring. Unity is a tasteless soup made by ingredients of justice! JUSTICE -Justice, Unity, Truth, Trust, Integrity, Character and Equity. The absence of justice components demands restructuring. So why are Nigerians denied them?

    National Assembly (NASS) has five weeks to the people’s deadline for budget passage 1-1-2018. NASS must undertake not to fail this annual ‘Budget by ‘Jan 1st’ Exam’!! Hurray, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and 2nd Niger Bridge are in the budget again. Will ‘DELETE’ or ‘DECIMATION’ be their lot, in favour of ‘constituency dances’ demanding EFCC attention? NB: The Chinese 26-mile world’s longest bridge cost $1.6b. Nigeria has spent the last 40 years thinking of the 2nd Niger Bridge at what price please.

    NASS should have the political sagacity to perform speedy ‘budget passage’ or face 2019 electoral failure. NASS financial bill of N125-150b was never given voluntarily but forcibly taken by NASS.  SERAP should approach the Supreme Court to urgently pronounce on whether this NASS self-allocation is rightful harmless political horse-trading, ransom, kidnapping, extortion or theft as it is taken annually contrary to 150+million moral, monetary and media arguments.

    Why does NASS, made of a mere 469 s-elected persons, dismiss the media-publicised yearnings of over 150m citizens to 1) Peg its budget to N15-20b, 2) To move from bi-cameral to unicameral house by constitutionally cancelling Senate, 3) Change to part-time sitting legislators; 4] Keep their day jobs? No one expects ‘Sensational Mass Senate Suicide’ but many wish for the ‘Suicide of the Senate as an Institution’, not the members, by, for example, an 5) Amendment to the constitution. “We the Senate hereby suspend/eliminate the Senate in the economic national interest’. Even Mugabe went, so why not Senate, perhaps through the 6] People’s weapon ‘A Referendum Option’ introduced into the constitution or by other popular demand e.g. the Presidency. The most revolutionarily suggestion is that it is time that 7] NASS members should actually get paid by their home states and LGAs who s-elect them and not the federal government!!

    Unfortunately, we see a dangerously schizophrenic NASS where members dance disgracefully or practice buffoonery one minute and act deadly serious and sometimes insultingly so the next minute to perceived enemies, even arrogantly banning them for an entire year.

    Misuse of budgets have created a slave trade today where black people fleeing African nations mismanaged by politicians for 50 years are falling into the slavery trap. They are now sold for $400-700 in Libya and elsewhere as revealed by CNN’s ‘Slave Trade’ documentary. This should shame African and particularly Nigeria’s governments whose greed forced people to flee their inhospitable birthplace. Remember every governor and LGA chairman in Nigeria had had enough ‘allocation’ to develop but so far only two or three states can claim to have achieved anything.

    Any African anti-slavery strategy requires massive publicity of the CNN film on local TV networks to dissuade potential slaves. Of greater importance is creating a better environment at home and poverty elimination – Sustainable Development Goals-1. Poverty leads to hardship from political ineptitude and government corruption. This forces new violent vistas, to be opened through desperate deadly travel away from hardship. Arriving penniless, African migrants become trapped by fellow Africans, Black and Arab, in Libya and killed for kidneys, corneas and or sold as slaves. My own personal ancestors were among 4.9 million sold to Brazilian slave owners in the 1700s and we returned in the late 1800s only because slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888. As 2017 marks the 220th anniversary of the death of Olaudah Equiano at 42 years old, Nigeria and Association of Nigerian Authors should set aside an Annual Olaudah Equiano Day on his birthday, October 16, 1745, 272 years ago in Essaka/Isseke in Anambra State or his death day March 31, 1797. Congrats Anambra governor, Willie Obiona on re-election. Save Olaudah Equiano from eternal slavery, Please.

    Disgracefully, Nigerian politicians and probably you the reader do not even know the most inspirational and internationally famous of pre-Nigeria slaves, Olaudah Equiano, friend of Wilberforce and shipmate of Lord Horatio Nelson of Trafalgar Square, traveller to the Arctic and Nigeria’s first recorded Anti-corruptionista!

    Where is Nollywood’s Olaudah Equiano?? African Proverb: A country which ignores ancestors will be ignored by descendants!  Please Google, read and teach your children about ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African’ published in 1789 and abridged as ‘Equiano’s Travels’ by Paul Edwards.. Olaudah Equiano died on March 31, 1797, 220 years ago. Yet Nigeria abandoned its best weapon, made no noise about an already international man. Can the minister for education request all schools nationwide to have an ‘ Annual Anniversary of Olaudah Equiano Slavery-Prevention Event’ with a reading of his book, a play based on his life or today’s slavery/bullying problems, a talk, a debate and recruit the press to publicise such activities for Nigeria and the prevention of slavery domestically and internationally and meet all Sustainable Development Goal from 1-17 as slavery impacts all life?

     

    • NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16  

     

  • Our Girls; Buhari: ‘Making the naira great again!!’

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    It is six weeks to the people’s deadline for budget passage 1-1-2018! Senate: Perform now. Do not fail this exam and Nigeria!!

    Nigeria shines at last in World Cup qualifiers preparations. Google the amazingly, Seun Adigun, Akuoma and Ngozi Onwumere Omeoga, American born-successful Nigerian athletes by personal struggle have qualified for the Winter Olympics – Pyeongchang 2018. Remember the Jamaican men’s bobsled team 30 years ago? Urgent Nigerian government and private support, please!! Shame!

    Making the naira great again: Buhari’s Unhidden Naira  Agenda. It is easier to destroy the economic lives of Nigerian lives than to build them. Soldiers know this but sometimes they build. President Buhari and VP Osinbajo and their team are re-building the naira. Hurray!!

    NB: Buhari and his economic team know, if you do not, that a stronger naira is the only way to keep fuel prices affordable to Nigerians as the price per barrel goes back up to $62+ even if we refine locally.

    The most glaring example of past political failure is the continuous ruining of the currency keeping the citizens impoverished and beggars reducing the fiscal achievement of every family! The continued fall in naira value from N1:$1.5 is the clearest sign that almost all presidents participated in this destruction even as Nigerians suffer under an interest rate rising from 2% to 25% interest rates and dwindling value of quality of life, investments, pensions and savings.

    The pension and unpaid salaries is a measureable ‘tragedy yardstick’ of presidential and governors’ historic dishonesty and failure to provide worker’s rights and social safety net. The endless disgraceful rounds of pension verification and nonpayment of salaries would quickly end if politicians were paid last and not first in everything –a sure sign of service. A country’s currency is so easy to kill. In an instant the value can be cut by 50% by scheming and irresponsible actions and massive corruption, but the recovery may never come, especially as those responsible for protecting the naira also have ‘priority 1’ personal fortunes in foreign exchange currencies to protect.

    A most successful achievement of this government is the rise in the foreign reserves to over $34b.

    This confirms that President Buhari’s unhidden agenda is to make the naira great again. In this he stands against the advice of many ‘devalue, devalue’ easy way out politicians and civil servants mis-explaining to government leaders that a cheaper naira means more naira per dollar to make it easier to pay salaries in naira with fewer earned dollars from oil. They may also add that a cheaper naira makes any dollars held personally abroad, or stolen, spectacularly more valuable in naira –a win-win situation for currency thieves, speculators and of course politicians seeking to exchange acquired dollars for more cheap naira in a coming election!

    No one noticed citizens committing suicide when the naira fell, but some die. If the naira rises, huge numbers will automatically be lifted above the poverty index. Also some bankers, speculators and politicians will probably commit suicide, like whenever Wall Street crashes. A cheap naira leads to a fall in ‘real wages’, purchasing power from resultant higher prices and demands for higher salaries to pay for the escalating prices of goods and services like rents, transport and bills.

    Buhari has seen through this fiscal fog– a smokescreen scam at the highest political levels aimed directly at defrauding Nigerians of their just inheritance and keeping their human value down, letting only those who have foreign exchange flourish. Every salary earner and 2019 political aspirant should study economist Henry Boyo’s ignored advice. Only Buhari is anywhere near achieving what is possible. For his Presidential Naira Protection, PNP, he stands alone among our rulers. He has said that a nation’s currency is its pride even during his first term. This government means to achieve a very firm fiscal foundation before the elections and wise Nigerians should take heed and not squander the gains by wrong election decisions. Good economics does not yield fruit overnight or in one term. The usual dollar inflow pre-election will be an albatross around the corrupt politicians’ necks because they will be forced to sell dollars for N150 or less by then. Amen!!

    Everyone knows that Nigeria’s rulers and politicians denied us our birthright of having $100-200b in foreign reserves in CBN guaranteeing $1.5:N1 since the naira was born. Why do we fail to add the income of Babangida’s punishing ‘Gift’ to Nigeria- the extra Monetary Policy Rate component, now 14%, added on to every loan to make Nigeria’s bank loans a punishing 25-30%. Surely any social science faculty can calculate the income of CBN since 1999 to know how much is in CBN from that double income of petro dollars and loan-naira.

    Senate: What is the 2018 budget income item from MPR in 2018? The best thing for the naira this for this government is to aim for $50-70b in foreign reserves to create a ‘foreign currency crash’ to N120-150:$1 and better – an effort at achieving Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals –the eradication of poverty. A reversal to N120 ASAP backed up by $50-$100b in reserves by 2023 will create a salary buying power increase.  As the naira fell quickly, so can it resurrect! Sell your dollars now OOO!!!!

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1/1/2018 pls

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014, contravening UN-SDGs Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5 and 16 the yardsticks for development set by the United Nations. Work for their release. Please access #FreedomForGirls film on Youtube by ‘Beyonce and 100 girls’ and show As Many Girls As Possible – AMGAP – and at home, school and work. Please spread the film word to achieve SDG 5-Gender Equality. No girl should not see this Youtube download.

    Belgian judge has 24 hours to determine bail for the Catalan leadership. In Nigeria it can take 24 days for the same bail determination. Is it our judges, courts, counsel or awaiting trial persons obstructing a similarly swift progression of the law in Nigeria?

    Let no politician sitting so arrogantly comfortable in National Assembly (NASS) get more comfortable because their red seats should be on fire with the budget 2018. Let not one of them be in any doubt about the immediate priority for Nigeria and all Nigerians for speedy budget passage by December 31 even if it means postponing their numerous breaks and holidays.

    So far some of them have screwed up the reason for their senator-ship or representation of their people in NASS. The latter is a constitutional necessity and Presidential right – finito! The APC government peppered, many say polluted, with ‘double degree holders’ –‘PDP, APC’ who soon may get another one making them Triple degree holders PDP, APC, PDP. They are now conveniently APC/ ex-PDP mostly ‘on-sabbatical’ in APC or ‘on survival’ for financial reasons in APC. Nigerians are allowed to suspect from what has happened so far that they are ‘on-sabotage’ masquerading as APC, in a malignant mis-marriage of very strange bedfellows doing Nigeria no democratic good. Nigerians are hoping to see a new constructive not destructive seriousness in parliamentary budgetary process in line with an APC desirous of moving this country forward. The parliament needs to set its democracy demons aside and become the first NASS/ Senate to meet the internationally logical democratic deadline of December 31 for budget passage.

    Parliament need to sign up to the APC government and get on board the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ policy , in this case ‘Ease of Doing Budget Passage Business’ in Nigeria – an Oath-Related Responsibility of lawmakers who are supposed to be facilitators with ‘reasonable modifications’ not ‘Spoilers with powers to delay, rewrite and completely redirect the budget’. They are not ‘government’, but lawmakers! This budget could become a landmark, a trail-blazer for future NASS/ senates by laying precedent. The APC/ ex-PDP on sabbatical/on-sabotage should not fall foul of, or be seen to collude with those who would maliciously delay the budget beyond December 31. Why? Probably to spite Fellow Nigerians, this government and Buhari in particular. Perhaps also as punishment for cutting off the gravy train that bill-passing is rumoured to have been in the past by providing for them Ghana Must Go Bullion Bags as ‘Bribes-for –Bills’ while perhaps quibbling over funds for hospitals and schools. In many citizens’ eyes and hearts, the NASS lowered itself to disgrace by vainglorious grandstanding and manipulating the APC’s budget in 2017, by insertion of Constituency Projects, removing funds from the Lagos Ibadan Expressway the central transport artery feeding all Nigerians added to their historically immoral salary structure and mostly nauseating performance on nightly TV. This was indeed a Pyrrhic victory for NASS as whatever it gained in the budget was lost in the court of public opinion. But perhaps NASS does not care much for citizens’ collective opinions. Can it redeem itself with this 2018 budget process? No one expects NASS to be a rubber stamp but it has no right to be a brick wall.

    What a glory for this NASS/Senate if it achieves timely passage by December 31 or earlier – quite an ordinary feat worldwide! In Nigeria we must make mountains out of mole hills and bridges out of flyovers. It would be political suicide of election-losing proportions for any NASS member to stop the wheel of timely passage of the budget, especially for perceived selfish petty political gain like constituency projects. And spoiling the APC record. Nigerians must wait for such failed politicians at the election and fail them too! The 150m odd citizens would happily applaud the NASS/Senate if they complied with common sense and the dictate of accountancy, audit, logic and even democratic norms worldwide, not dividends of democracy. All eyes and ears should be tuned to NASS/ Senate to see if they have the political integrity, intellect and cranial capacity to divert their personal democratic disaster and to understand that budget approval time, the ease of ‘Doing Budget Business’ is not the time to hold Nigeria to ransom by fighting, a stalemate or a standstill. Any delay beyond December 31 will diminish and disgrace the NASS/ Senate in the eyes of the citizens and be an insulting denial of the rights of citizens to rapid development. NASS is sitting an exam during this budget session and we the examiners will follow their progress in the media daily and mark their performance and reward them appropriately at the next election. Contact your NASS members now and warn about this budget issue. NASS is not a deity or divine, just s-elected people in a room with a responsibility they often fail to deliver!

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.