Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. And the Boko Haram bombs did not fall silent with the change of baton at Aso Rock. This is contrary to the belief of those who vehemently and venomously claimed that President Buhari was a kingpin behind Boko Haram’s violent agitation and that all hostility would cease once he took over control. In fact there has been an escalation with the deaths and injury of hundreds from suicide bombers and actual assaults in Borno and neighbouring states. This increases the urgency of the proposed, and purportedly resisted, move of the Military High Command to Maiduguri which must not fall. We pray Our Girls will return safely even as we bury the dead, blown up and shot, by an unrepentant Boko Haram. The Amnesty International Report about the armed forces is a serious accusation about human rights abuses in the war zone and it requires investigation. ‘Our Boys’ are on trial for their lives accused of a number of ‘death sentence’ crimes and some have been sentenced. These issues will create a huge crisis of confidence in the military and need to be handled seriously to prevent a breakdown of the system.
The omens for corruption continuation worldwide are bad, bad, bad. Everywhere we turn, a new scandal breaks out and is ripe for dogged press revelation, restitution of ill-gotten gains, criminal prosecution and incarceration of the perpetrators in a ‘correction facility’. We pray also for protection of all whistleblowers who should by now have an international organisation- WBA –Whistle Blowers Association.
The new Presidency is opening up the nearly decade long Haliburton scandal and more revelations on other scandals should be in the murky pipeline. Almighty FIFA faces extinction if not a cataclysmic evolutionary upheaval. Sepp Blatter has stepped down just two days after such a scandalous endorsement and boastful ‘election victory’ with the support of CAF and other developing countries. Were those votes ‘in return’ for financial largess from FIFA as those countries were beneficiaries of concealed, unannounced millions of FIFA dollars for ‘development of the sport’? Unfortunately this money was hardly ever seen in those countries on the sports fields of the youth, in football clinics, in equipment, coaching tours, talent hunts. Where there was a sign, the quantum has been tiny in proportion to the volume of funds being revealed as having been transferred. When FIFA pays or gives grants to Nigeria’s NFA, who knows and who gains –administrator or footballer or coach? It is always the administrators, first, second and third with footballers and coaches and facilities getting next to nothing. NFA has had a smell for as long as I can remember, reinforced by the infighting in the board. Nigeria did not even know that such huge dollar funds were available and flowing through some of the arteries of NFA. Even as we follow the money trail of Jack Warner through the bank trail led by the investigative reporters in the BBC, we must ask exactly how much has Nigeria received over the years from Sepp Blatter’s FIFA? Nigeria, being infamous for corruption, is unlikely to escape unscathed from any bribery accusations or scandals involving payments by South Africa, Qatar or even Russia. Who is monitoring Nigeria’s ‘Other Money’, among non-oil incomes? The secret sources of the country’s revenue include the CBN’s malicious 13% interest rate on all loans, NPA’s private foreign currency fortune from shipping fees, FAAN and its near secret landing charges. The CBN is a real moneybag, NPA and FAAN take payment in dollars for sea and airport use.
Why did the electricity suddenly start working better on the June 29? Who is afraid of Buhari? The fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom. Already we can estimate the amount of money saved per day by not having a profligate President. Nigeria estimates that about 50% of the budget has been lost year on year by greedy presidents allowing their equally greedy staff follow them down the greedy trail to also be greedy to cover up their own greed. In the last week, now 1460 -12days, we, Nigerians, have been saved by the Buhari style of governance on airfares, entourage, feeding the minions. But much more has been saved by all government departments sitting up, crossing their ‘T’s and dotting their ‘I’s and stealing less and less because ‘whistleblowers are everywhere- or they should be’.
It is a pity that the yellow fever traffic wardens and police in many parts of the country including Ibadan are still taking bribes from taxis and danfos in broad daylight and at night. Can they not see the importance of this moment in history? Are they still clutching at the old ways even as the Anti-Corruption Tsunami is gathering steam among the people? One would have expected that the ‘Anti-Corruption Riot Act’ would have been read to everyone in uniform, or are they not a central and very public part of the new government efforts to clean up the country from the epidemic of corruption smiled on by successive evil kleptomaniacal governments?
It will be would be very stupid of APC to lose the Senate and House of Representatives leadership positions to PDP merely because the APC members could not agree among themselves, by consensus or by majority vote, after such a long a difficult and struggle since 1999. We expect much better of 2015 politics.
‘When FIFA pays or gives grants to Nigeria’s NFA, who knows and who gains –administrator or footballer or coach? It is always the administrators, first, second and third with footballers and coaches and facilities getting next to nothing. NFA has had a smell for as long as I can remember, reinforced by the infighting in the board’
