Not only are these allowances probably much higher today, with Saraki as Senate President, President Buhari is guaranteed a monstrous fight to reduce this highest pay to political representatives anywhere in the world, Britain and the U .S inclusive
“Government is determined to secure the country, manage the economy, create employment and fight corruption. Some articulate writers have said if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria. This APC administration intends to kill corruption in Nigeria. We will do our best, I assure you. We are getting the facts and logistic requirements together” –President Muhammadu Buhari to Nigerians living in South Africa.
A fiasco is defined as a humiliating failure; some effort that went quite wrong or a wine bottle in a straw jacket. For me, this is precisely what the shebang at the National Assembly represents for the APC. Truth be told, my initial reaction to Bukola Saraki emerging the Senate President was: Yes, if a Tambuwal, why not a Saraki? Nor was that a flight of fancy because I believe, and still do, that he was as qualified as any member to be the Senate President considering his contribution to the emergence of the party. It should not be difficult to remember who heads the political camp to which Abubakar Kawu Baraje, who led the walk-out from the PDP Abuja mini-congress on Saturday, August 31, 2013 belongs, nor the fact that Senator Saraki brought a whole state with him into the party. However, all these thoughts were shredded when it became known that, out of desperation, he permitted his coronation to be, not only instigated, but funded, by a gang of PDP treasury looters and their cousins, the oil subsidy rogues, all of who are eager to hamstring the anti-corruption war President Buhari promised Nigerians so they can again escape justice through the machinations of the now totally rudderless EFCC. They have since been on a celebration binge. It is galling, if not puke-inducing, that in his political alchemy, Saraki thought nothing of selling his party cheap by accommodating Ike Ekweremadu, a PDP senator, as Deputy Senate President.
The Saraki shenanigan becomes more nauseating the more when we come to learn of the horrendous corruption of the Jonathan administration. For instance, President Buhari is expected to meet the leading global watchdog on corruption, the Oslo-based, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), very soon to see how billions of dollars in the Nigerian oil revenue leakage can be curbed. According to Zainab Ahmed, the Executive Secretary of its Nigerian arm, over $7.5 billion is yet to be recovered from oil and gas companies since 1999, while the agency’s audits show that $11.6 billion of dividends between 1999 and 2012 from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company were not remitted by the NNPC whose oil swap deals have been discovered to be more of scams.
And that is only in the oil sector.
As you read this, millions of Nigerian workers, in at least 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states, have not been paid their salaries for over six months. It therefore becomes extremely agonising that Bukola Saraki, a leading light of a party elected almost solely on its promise to fight corruption could, out of overaching ambition, go into an unholy alliance with these mandarins of corruption. Nigerians must now brace up for all manner of opposition from the National Assembly to the Buhari government’s efforts to kill corruption, a demonstration of which we may soon see during the president’s attempt to re-energise EFCC. Saraki, of course, knows that something must give but if he thinks he would succeed in thwarting the hopes of Nigerians, then I have news for him. It’s even nice that he showed his hands, and what manner of National Assembly he intends to lead, early.
In the article: ‘It Is Time We Storm This Bastille’, (Sunday,12th June, 2011), I wrote as follows on then immediate past Bankole-led House of Representatives: “When in the past week the EFCC finally caught up with the erstwhile Speaker of the House, Nigerians came to know that the Speaker, together with the House leadership, had been borrowing illegally for un-appropriated purposes. In their defence we came to learn that the following new allowances were approved at an executive session on March 30, 2010: Speaker N100m, Deputy Speaker N80m, House Leader N60m, Deputy House Leader N57.5m, Chief Whip N55m, Deputy Chief Whip N54.5m, Minority Leader N54.5m, Minority Whip N50m, Deputy Minority Leader N50m, Deputy Minority Whip N50m’. For what job you would you say! They also agreed payment of outstanding allowances dating way back to 1999 – 2007; all from un-authorised funds.”
Not only are these allowances probably much higher today, with Saraki as Senate President, President Buhari is guaranteed a monstrous fight to reduce this highest pay to political representatives anywhere in the world, Britain and the U .S inclusive. I then concluded by saying that we, the people, must storm the National Assembly and chase them back to their villages or to gaol. Already, even before the ink on the signatures of members of the 8th Assembly could dry, they are now expecting alerts from their banks announcing their respective share of a humongous N8.4 Billion ward robe allowance as if they have been going naked all their lives.
How unconscionable can they get?
No wonder a highly perceptive Dr David Kuranga, of Kuranga and Associates, has suggested that “if President Buhari is going to have any success in unravelling the complex and heavily entrenched corrupt interests in Nigeria, he is going to have to successfully tackle and overcome far more difficult opponents than the Saraki allies who just bested his party in the National Assembly.” This is very true because their ambition to eat Nigeria raw is collective and party blind. Therefore, for President Buhari to succeed, and for Nigerians to be free from these predators – the Deputy House Speaker, Lasun Yusuff, is already quoted as defending their utterly callous N150 billion budget in a dying economy – Kuranga concludes that President Buhari, and of course, the party, should treat the senate leadership as a political insurgency until they surrender and resign from their positions and that Nigerians just must say no to a political class riding roughshod on their well-being.
Otherwise, it will be a promise of change deferred.
It’s a new dawn in the housing industry in Nigeria –the Nigerite story
I seize this opportunity to congratulate the Board, Management and staff of Nigerite Ltd, Nigeria’s leading manufacturer in the roofing, ceiling and flooring sub sector, which, this past week, formally commissioned its multi billion naira Kalsi project, thus opening a new vista, and opportunity to providing fresh solutions to the Nigerian housing industry
I hasten to appreciate, and commend the strategic thinking of both the Board of Odua Investment Ltd, then under the Chairmanship of Alhaji Sharafadeen Alli, Dr Bayo Jimoh as Group Managing Director, his successor, Wale Raji and the Etex Group, Nigerite’s Belgian partners which, with its over a hundred years experience in the field, and presence, in more than 40 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, had the presence of mind to know that for Nigerite to retain its premier position in the Nigerian roofing, flooring and ceiling sub-sector, it must step up to becoming a total housing solutions company. Hence the strategic entry into the Dry Construction technology phase, which means, among other things, that a 4-bed room bungalow can now be fully delivered in 2-3 weeks, anywhere in the country.
It gladdens the heart too that one’s name, as Board chairman, and those of my worthy colleagues on the Nigerite Board when the project was approved, can never be missing when the history of this golden era of Nigerite, is being written. It is with a heavy heart that I recall the extremely valuable contributions of our two elderly colleagues, Otunba Olu Adebanjo and Chief Sunny Oyekunle, the long serving Company Secretary, who were recently called to higher service. May their gentle souls rest in perfect peace. Immense congratulations to the successive Managing Directors, especially, Monsieur Frank Le Bris, and his management colleagues who saw it to completion. I warmly congratulate the entire staff who should see this as a further guarantee of their jobs and means of livelihood.
Manufactured from cement, quartz sand, cellulose, natural calcium silicate, and water, Kalsi boards are processed by autoclave (drying process under high pressure and temperature) for durability and dimensional stability, and have massive advantages over the traditional building methods.
