As a small government conservative, the change is desire is a Government that gets out of the way for individuals and business to thrive. Government all other, have shown to be incompetent in running businesses.
Government should focus on providing the right environment, which is basic infrastructure and RULE OF LAW. There should be consequences for breaking laws.
Nigerians are naturally entrepreneurial, we dont need a welfare state.. we will thrive if the opportunity is provided
In my humble opinion, I believe that this country will stagger in terms of wholistic development if the issue of ethnic segregation isn’t addressed. Though I know that this problem isn’t a short term issue and cannot be solved within even two tenures of any govt., institutions and policies should be made to foster a nationalistic spirit in Nigerians.
The nysc was created for such a purpose, but I believe more direct institutions and policies involving education (both direct and subliminal) should be sponsored to instill the spirit of unity in our youth.
The children, the families, religious institutions must be aligned with these policies because in my opinion, any quick fix policies of amnesty, job creation, electricity and infrastructure creation program created today will suffer bias and inequality due to this primary Nigerian/ African problem.
Where there is inequality there is resentment and anger. This may lead to agitation which can become violent and bring to play the insecurity experienced from independence to the biafran saga of the civil war to the Niger delta insurrection and more recently boko haram.
My opinion, in as much as infrastructure, employment etc are short term plans that must be immediately catered to, our unity is constantly evolving long term project which must be focused on before its too late
#5000 FOR THE UNEMPLOYED; not the solution to eradicating Poverty
I believe the government should answer some of these questions before going ahead.
a). How many poor people do we have in Nigeria?
b). Where can we find them?
c). How do we identify them?
d). What are the limits?
e). How long will this programme last?
d). What happens to the families after it ends?
In time past, giving cash to individual had only resulted in looting.
SOLUTION.
#5000 based on the Nigerian economy can bearly provide food for a large family.
The Government should should strenghten the Social welfare services and use them across the states to locate, and assist the poor.
Social welfare services is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. its main components are
family and Child Welfare
Rehabilitation
Counselling & Corrections
Care of the elderly.
This will help the beneficiaries go through an orientation programme which involves a specific period set for financial assistance in which they are equipped and expected to become independent of Social Welfare.
2. UNEMPLOYMENT
Employment generation is a primary economic development goal of every industrialising nation. More jobs generally mean more economic actities, more tax revenues for the government and less idle time. Job growth permits the expansion and improvement of public goods and services, leading to an improved quality of life and enhanced prospects for future employment growth.
The NDE(National directorate on Employment) had created various programmes in the past, which failed to achieve their purpose e.g Operation Feed the Nation( 1976), Youth Empowerment Schemme (2002), National Economic and Empowerment Development Strategy(2004) and many more.
How then can we make these employment programme work?
These questions can only be answered by developing and implementing a national employment program that is relevant to our socio-economic mileu.
PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS( Ukwuegbu Anthony Chijioke, Uni of Lagos).
1. The program should aim at providing marketable skills i.e skill acquisition.
2. The program should be able to provide start-up capital (form of cash or equipment).
3. The program should encourage public work programmes i.e labour intensive jobs.
Youth unemployment poses a risk to the Nigerian society. The consequence of this problem, if no major corrective initiatives are taken, could be disastrous for the nation. Youth unemployment has national and global impacts, notably among which are increased violence, crime, drug abuse and political instability. Desperation can drive many people into living outside the law in order to survive and as a means of expressing dissatisfaction at the apparent neglect of their very existence. Furthermore, the negative consequences include poverty, psychological problems of frustration, depression, hostility, abduction, murder, armed robbery, and all manner of criminal behaviours causing general insecurity of life and property.
SOLUTION
1. Career guidance services should be made compulsory and provided for all levels of education to help students in making realistic career choices. The efficiency of any career guidance effort will be dramatically enhanced if it begins early in life and becomes a way of thinking.
2. The government should ensure that the policy measures be strictly adhered to by encouraging the various financial institutions to grant soft loans to potential and prospective youth entrepreneurs in order to encourage small scale businesses.
3. Vocational and technical education should be introduced at all levels of education. It is an indisputable means of reducing youth unemployment since it is skilled-oriented and employment motivated.
4. Entrepreneurship education should be incorporated into the curricula of secondary schools and tertiary institutions. This will help shift the youth from being ―job seekers‖ to ―job creators‖ and also from social dependence to self-sufficient people.
5. In promoting youth entrepreneurship, government should concentrate on those activities where youth are known to have comparative advantage. Globally, modern information and communication technologies are offering significant opportunities for job creation. The Nigerian government should therefore explore how the ICT industries can provide new jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth. They could then take advantage of this exploration activities to mobilise the energies of the youth from destructive tendencies to productive people.
6. School-to-work transition skills should be introduced into the curricula of senior secondary school and tertiary institutions in the nation, specifically, for the final year students who are about to enter into competitive labour market. The training should create avenues for providing experience with a view to promoting and developing desirable work ethics and culture for national development. Youth should be trained to possess skills that are congruent with real labour market demands.
Extracted from
Vol. 7 (1) Serial No. 28, January, 2012 Pp.307-321. IAARR
Indexed African Journals Online:
Dear President Buhari’s anti-corruption war….
Kindly spread this evil news of unpatriotic citizens to any level.
Mrs Regina Obianyor buried her husband in Enugu State and used her wing of duplex to burn our house in Raji Rasaki Estate Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos.
The type of business I did in Great Japan cannot be done without having a guarantor, and you cannot have a guarantor without your proving that you are human. My-in-laws who saw me through have waited too long for Lagos State and Federal to make their decision on those unwanted crimes, particularly our civil suit (No.FHC/L/CS/388/2007). in the court of Justice Yunusa against Ansell dellis, Nigerian custom and others and all our goods taken by Lagos State without any single notice and ARSON case, now tragedy has happened. Death has taken over, caused by organized crime and weak government.
You cannot believe a man who claims to be Honorable but not, never. Nicholas Ukachukwu allowed himself to be used by the Adamawa Governor to pull out N8bn of Adamawa State’s money, and much more we do not know of. Obviously that must have led him to do their evil bidding by using the same company to hijack and burn my house in Abuja. He is from Osumenyi, Nnewi South of Anambra State. Police investigation case file is in Zone 2, Lagos.
And Fidel Ononuju, who conspired with Nigerian Cusoms’ staff and others and brought almost empty container as a threat to my life, is also from Osumenyi Nnewi South of Anambra State.Their investigation case file is in State CID, Panti, Lagos.
Okwuego, who was a campaign manager of Atiku Abubakar then, brought Felix Ewenike as a Chairman of Raji Rasaki Estate Residents’ Association. Felix conspired with a gateman at the estate gate and stole our parcels, also from Osumenyi, Nnewi South. Their investigation case file is in State CID, Panti, Lagos.
It took years to investigate one after the other and discovered that those men came from the same town, but from different routes with one evil agenda. You can imagine how many Igbo Diasporas they have secretly destroyed to make sure our land has no peace in the advantage of their evil masters who some were PDP (now APC) protect them not to face the consequence of what they have done.
The way they entered my company was above the common imagination. Some of them entered us through Union Bank/Union Homes, and another through Standard Trust Bank (now UBA). It is unbelievable as we keep on tracking their records.
Mrs Regina Obianyor buried her husband in Enugu State and used her wing of duplex to burn our house in Raji Rasaki Estate, Lagos, (ARSON) and has a strong link to Mustapha, the man whose photo appears in the attached diagram. She is from Obosi, Anambra State, claiming by her. Ezeobi (SAN), also from Anambra State, who plotted Obianyor next to us is dead after the arson. His dead body is missing in Enugu State. In Igbo’s tradition, abomination has happened in between. Mrs Obianyor’s investigation case file is now returned to Legal Department in State CID, Panti, by the order of Attorney General of Lagos State. But taking too long. Generally police need to move faster in dealing with crimes in our country.
Their highest evil destruction is suing us in different magistrate courts in Lagos. How they used male and female Yoruba magistrates to drag us in all the magistrate courts in Lagos State. For example, a case was transferred from Apapa to Igbosere and to Ebute-Metta, in their bid to make us weak and pay the agent Fidel Ononuju who sued us to pay him for bringing empty container to us. And there is no acknowledgment of waybill attached in the suit that he has delivered the goods to us. The same way, they used Onyimadu, the Anambra State man, who owns the warehouse to take away our motorcycles, marine engines and etc. that worths more than a million US dollars. About their criminality of the Deputy Sheriff in taking away our goods without any single notice to us, we exposed to the Lagos State Governor with our letters dated 20 May2013 and 4 March 2015 for payback. This is all evil they planned and executed to a man who has done no wrong to any of them, back and front stabbing.
But Fashola as lawyer keep quiet. Time to start punishing the lawyers who avoid due process and transparence in their tricks to steal the benefit of his client or any other person is now. That a strong way to show our seriousness to wipe out corruption in our society.
We are expecting the new governor of Lagos State Mr Ambode to solve our problems which his predecessor could not, those goods are so important to our life. At least our kids will be able to return back to school, and returning back to our legitimate business is a strong opportunity for some good workers ..
We thank Chukwu, God, Allah, Kamisama for giving us strength and knowledge to resist them not to succeed in all their crimes including the arson because the investigators were able to find the culprits to be, obviously those suspects.
I saw so many wrong in Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani tribes who are in the head of institutions failed to uphold our constitution that should have punished those suspects because the crime is written all over them.
Current President, we thank you for giving us a freedom of information platform to expose these problems, although we expect some of our problems would be solved in your regime , but it was just watching how they were hurting us.. We urge you and your office to drop a copy of our letters to the President-elect, Gen. Buhari, especially our letter dated 9 March 2015 which we sent to you through DHL (Waybill No.5862118846, signed by Lucky Bama on 10 March 2015).The same letter was sent to the Attorney General of Lagos State and his office acknowledged on 10 March 2015. We exposed the fact we had been under their bondage for 16 years, for being a patriot and law-abiding Nigerian. They are fighting against a man who has no enemy. The Diasporas, mainly Igbos, have to witness that your long-time hardworking with good reputation in your host country can be targeted and destroyed openly in Nigeria by those evil men who think they are above the law, when they eventually remember you.
The citizens are expecting a serious change from the new government that no one should be above the law. .
We urge the President-elect Mohammed Buhari to make use of all the petitions. Even the one in the media network against the institutions, especially the judges/judiciary, the police and the politicians. That will go a long way in stopping them from continuing to make Nigeria hell to so many good people like us. Every day we are expecting liberation from all this pain.
I know you cannot possibly read every letter written to you especially letters from people you don’t know; I hope you read some and I certainly hope you read this one.
Lest I forget. I want to thank and congratulate you. Thank you for fighting a good fight and leading with compassion.
Congratulations. You have been on this journey a while and I assume this victory must be personally gratifying for you.
I am proud to call you my president. That is something I’ve longed to, but haven’t been able to say in too long. It also helps that you look the part. I don’t know if it’s your frame, your name or what, but everytime I see your photograph, I am immensely proud.
I write to you today because I am concerned. No one is a bigger supporter of you than me. That’s right. Even though I wasn’t a paid member of your campaign team, I repeat, no one is a bigger supporter of you more than I. This is true in part because my support for you isn’t simply because I was looking for change; it comes from a deep place of belief. I believe in you. You are the very definition of authentic. Even those who don’t like you agree that you say and do what you believe: to your own hurt sometimes. I have said many times in the past that there isn’t a living soul in Nigeria who is a better fit to lead Nigeria at this time, all things considered, than Muhammadu Buhari. In that regard, you stand by yourself.
There are many problems that plague us as a people and as a nation. I submit that corruption is the mother of them all and therefore the one that requires the most urgent attention. It is the one problem that has given birth to and successfully nurtured many other problems. If we are going to have a chance to successfully combat corruption, it must be tackled at the highest levels requiring a proven and tested leader at the top.
Someone remarked the other day that Nigeria’s problems are too many, too big to be solved by a single person and therefore ‘Buhari cannot solve Nigeria’s problem alone’. While it is true that one person cannot solve all the problems, it is also true that in human history every meaningful, notable and enduring change has been championed by one man and I submit again that there isn’t a more suitable person to lead Nigeria than you, my president. There may be many that are eligible, yes, but none more suitable. I said earlier that you are authentic. Here’s why that is so important. Any leader who hasn’t consistently demonstrated the virtues he wants built in others is fake, fraudulent and inauthentic. You, my president has been there, done that. You have been and seen power at the highest levels that thankfully did not corrupt you. If it didn’t corrupt you in your forties, I dare say it’s reasonable to assume it won’t corrupt you now in your twilight years.
Now, what happened less than two weeks post your inauguration in the legislative houses concerns and worries me and that is my primary reason for writing to you this open letter. I think it could have been and should have been avoided. More so, if we continue at this pace I don’t see how and why it won’t happen again, yet we must do all to make sure it doesn’t happen again. There are other calculations I have heard about that suggest this may have been a good thing after all, in that it breaks the hold of power that may have been too heavily concentrated in certain person(s) or camp. If it is true, so be it. But my worries remain.
Whereas I can’t ask you to take the wholesome responsibility for the unwise, deeply selfish behavior of others, I will say this: you sir, are now the (spiritual) father of the nation. You are by yourself: our brother, teacher and role model.
A major role of a leader is NOT to come up with all the right answers and all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen and flourish. It is in this regard, my president, that am making noise. The problem of corruption is so endemic that even very corrupt people have joined up in the fight against corruption still cloaked in their soiled garment of corruption. Change is difficult and will therefore be resisted. To create the environment I talk about requires a regular dose of inspiration of not only where we came from but of where we are going and what we must do to get there.
Your voice is big and powerful and you must use it sir. Regularly, you must use it. Daily, you must use it. To remind us of the magnitude of the task at hand, you must use it. To remind us we are up to the task, you must use it. To let us know we can count on your support in fighting corruption wherever we see it, you must use your voice. Your voice, not anyone else’s. Not even your respected VP’s voice. Your voice my president. You are the embodiment and the authentic logo of the winnable fight against corruption. Nobody carries the credibility you have in this regard. Nobody has the license you have. Use the bully pulpit. Talk to your children. We want to hear your assuring voice of encouragement. We want to be carried along in your plans to return Nigeria to greatness. We want to enjoy the ride with you, not just be driven to the destination. We are ready and waiting. Lead, not from behind. Stand tall in front and we will hail from behind.
Nigeria’s problems are indeed too many, too big and no one expects you to solve them all by yourself. We are ready, but by yourself, you have to let us know what needs to be done. Give us something to work on. But more importantly, give us something to work toward’.
OUR LEADERS ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE ORDINARY CITIZEN
Political offices in Nigeria are so lucrative that once you occupy one you are “made” for life, no wonder these politicians can do anything to either get “elected” or appointed into any of these offices. Nigerian politicians are amongst the highest paid in the world and when compared to the country’s GDP per person it gets worse.
A publication by daily trust in 2013 reported “Nigerian federal legislators receive much higher salaries than their counterparts in wealthier countries and key developing nations, according to an analysis published by the Economist magazine. A Nigerian legislator receives an annual salary of about $189,000, equivalent of N30 million, which is 116 times the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per person, says the publication which was posted on the magazine’s website on Friday.
The figures put salaries collected by Nigerian senators and members of the House of Representatives way ahead of those received by fellow parliamentarians in the 29 countries whose data was analyzed by the Economist.
In terms of volume of cash earnings, the Nigerian legislators beat their counterparts in Britain who take $105,400 yearly, as well as those in the United States ($174,000), France ($85,900), South Africa ($104,000), Kenya ($74,500), Saudi Arabia ($64,000) and Brazil ($157,600).
In terms of lawmakers’ salaries as a ratio of GDP per capita, the gap is even much wider. While the salary of a Nigerian lawmaker is 116 times the country’s GDP per person, that of a British member of parliament is just 2.7 times. According to the data, only Australian lawmakers, with $201,200 annual salary, receive higher amounts compared to Nigerian legislators, but their salaries are only 3 times their country’s GDP per person.
The National Assembly has been secretive with the specific amounts members collect in salaries and allowances, refusing to provide information to journalists and activists even when requests are made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
A total of N150 billion was voted for the National Assembly in the 2013 national budget but there is no breakdown, which should have shown at least a summary of the legislators’ earnings.
Daily Trust wrote a letter under FOIA requesting for the National Assembly’s budget breakdown but this was refused. However, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) documents in possession of Daily Trust show that a senator is entitled to N35 million and member of the House of Representatives N29.28 million in the first year of each legislative session when they receive allowances that are payable once in four years–accommodation, furniture and car allowances.
Source http://allafrica.com/stories/201307221471.html?viewall=1
The reality is these politicians are out of touch with the sufferings of the ordinary Nigerian citizen. Even those who used to be loose it once elected or appointed as their lives dramatically change overnight and they get lost swimming in an ocean of wealth and luxury. They deceive the citizenry that they are serving the nations whereas the nation and its citizens are wallowing in abject poverty, her “servants” are amassing billions for their selfish selves and their families.
My thoughts:
According to the Holy book, the Bible, God came down to the Earth and become a man, Jesus. He lived among, walked with and ate with ordinary men in order to save man. He understood what it meant to be a man.
These politicians do not understand what the average Nigerian goes through, so how do you expect them to work for your good. The Salaries of Political office holders in the country should be a reflection of the Country’s GDP per person. There should be no secrecy with respect to the salaries and allowances of all political offices. Assets should be declared before and after holding such offices which should be made available to the public for scrutiny. All the luxury attached to these offices should be striped so they live like the ordinary citizen, then and only then will they have the motivation to work and change the nations positively.
The moment we begin to understand that within us lies the answers and not in foreign allies, then our success will not be far fetched. You do not need a visitor to tell you when and how to manage your home rather your visitor(a passer by) should adhere to your home rules and regulations…that is if any. but if you think you need( and not want) what this visitor has for your home management, then trade for it without compromise as the house rules must stand. do not obtain mercy but be merciful. first our belief system (mindset) has been devalued so much that we need a visitor to even spoon feed us during meal time just after participating even in cooking. now i didn’t say drive your visitors away no, live with them for as long as they wish to stay (hospitality) but house rules must not be violated. a visitor visits because of interest and not really because of sympathy. so strip yourselves of visitor’s help ideology then will you value your ideas. remember a visitor’s idea could unite or divide a home based on his own interest. so lets stop receiving (policies, grants, funds, empowerment, assistance, loan, prayers) and start off by giving because if we do not stop receiving, we will never know we can give.
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
The pride of any government is the attainment of higher value level of development in such a way that its citizens would derive natural attachment to governance. However, for a nation to be in a phase of development there must be some pre-requisites, which include socio-political and economic stability. The gap between the developed and the developing countries is not static or narrow but is continually widening. A large majority of the world’s population in developing world lives in a state of poverty. The problem of urban population, rural stagnation, unemployment and growing inequalities continue to face less developed countries, which Nigeria belongs. Hopes of accelerated development are difficult to realize. This gloomy situation is of great concern to stake holders and the concerned citizenry. Nigeria has not been able to engender meaningful development in spite of her huge resources endowment. This has greatly affected her quest to improved quality of life of her citizens. Poverty, unemployment and starvation still pervade the nook and cranny of the country.
PROBLEMS
In spite of series of development strategies, put in place by successive governments, and sometimes with good intentions, all attempts to generate meaningful development proved futile. Based on this, one is now confronted with these puzzles: “Were those previous development plans or strategies bad in their context, or wrongly projected?” If nothing was wrong with the plans, then why is it still difficult to generate meaningful development in spite of the huge resources at our disposal? The solutions to these puzzles are not far fetched. A lot of factors have combined together to fetter nation’s development. One, there are in most cases, no executive capacity responsible for the formulation and implementation of the plan. What we usually see are officials entrusted to such a position but without any meaningful executive authority. Some of the previous development plans failed because; there was little or no consultation of the general public. Planning is supposed to involve even the peasants in the villages. Even, the Local Government officials who are close to the people were not consulted. Planning is not an edifice where technocrats alone operate (Mimiko, 1998). Lack of good governance also militates against national development. Where there is no good governance, development becomes a mirage. This is as a result of bad leadership in the country. Most of our leaders have no sense of commitment to development but to enrich their pockets.
THE CHANGE I DESIRE
There is need for attitudinal change. Nigerians must as a matter of fact change their pessimistic attitude towards development. The idea or belief that “things cannot work in Nigeria or Nigerian factor” should be discouraged. Real development is achieved through internal activities rather than from external influences. Development is seen as a process generated within a society by forces propagated and invigorated by the actual members of that society. It is believed that true development can neither be started nor sustained by outsiders. Although, no country can develop in isolation, but heavy emphasis should not be placed on foreign resources for the country’s development. The models of development of Japan and China show how these countries utilize their internal resources both human and material for rapid economic development. It is reasonable that Nigerians should inculcate a high sense of patriotism as demonstrated by the Japanese and Chinese. Importantly, citizenship should be promoted over indigeneity in order to achieve cooperation and participation of all communities in the development process. Omotoso (2008) noted that the 1999 constitution is directly or indirectly promoting indigeneity in the country. For example, section 318(1) of paragraph (IV) supports indigeneity. The constitution sets parameters for indigenes and non-indigenes. It equally gives legal bases to various discriminatory policies that actively promote indigeneity, contrary to some sections that argue against discrimination. This is very contradictory. Leadership in Nigeria must behave in a way to inculcate the spirit of patriotism in the minds of the people, so that they will be ready to stand with the government in her development efforts. When Nigerians see themselves as one and not as belonging to one section of the country as portrayed presently, the urge to develop Nigeria will be germinated and sustained.
From Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research Vol. 3(9), pp. 237-241, November 2011
Tolu Lawal and Abe Oluwatoyin.
Personnal request.
Dear Ideasbrige Network,
Keep up the good work. This will only make meaning if the government intervenes.
Kindly reorganise blog page and place comment box up page, scrolling all the way down will put people off. Also, we would love to get feedback on our posts and some little appreciation.
WHAT I SEE
In Nigeria, efforts have been made to improve human development through different past programmes, which flopped and yielded no positive results. Currently also it is observed that the Nigerian government is posting records of economic growth, which disjunctively speaking, has in no way or manner translated to improved welfare for the people. Counting the opportunities wasted by NDE and NAPEP, it becomes right for empowerment planners to follow the path of discipline, commitment and sound-minded effort. This is because the two reviewed institutions have been diagnosed of corruption, lack of proper planning and of not acting ‘by the book’. Ignorance and incompetence has spelt their activities to the extent that monitoring and evaluation, which are normal procedural strategies are disregarded and the situation becomes a case of ‘anything goes’. This has unfortunately resulted to a low level of human development and unstable socio-political environment.
THE WAY FORWARD
Indeed the Nigerian economy needs thoroughly planned and delivered empowerment scheme as necessary hang-on spring to uplift the development stage and maintain a stable sociopolitical environment. The government must at all cost avoid the practice of recycling (public officials), who are bereft of new and strategic ideas to successfully run empowerment programmes. Re-aligning the management of NDE, NAPEP and other poverty alleviation programmes to the knowledge-based empowerment model will improve insourcing of data gathering and analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation strategies. This will re-inforce a link between learning, planning and programme execution. The government should of necessity, review the code of conduct guiding role players to urgently bring about discipline and strict observance of rules of engagement and as much deemphasize playing politics with such serious issues as unemployment and poverty. A properly executed empowerment programme would take people off the streets and make them productive. Through a well modelled empowerment programme, idle youths who would have been recruited to destabilize the State would be working, and adding to economic growth and development, while stability of the State also goes unchallenged. Therefore, in Nigeria where unemployment and poverty has reached crisis level, it is necessary that empowerment efforts must be placed in the hands of the very ‘cream of the crop’. Above all, government must initiate vibrant economic policies and programmes capable of creating more employment opportunities and/or encouraging self employment among the teeming unemployed Nigerian women and youths.
adopted from Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences Volume 4, No. 4.4 Quarter IV 2013 ISSN: 2229 – 53137 By Emecheta Kingsley Onyemekara.
FOSTERING STABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA THROUGH INTEGRATED YOUTH AND GENDER EMPOWERMENT PROCESS AND PLANNING
In Nigeria, crisis and instability has precluded the government to a large extent from implementing its economic transformation programme. There has been remarkable episodes of insurrection in the country, ranging from the Niger Delta, Jos Plateau, to the Boko Haram (a terrorist group, whose name translates to as “western education is sinful”) secterian crisis. There is also subsisting level of criminality and armed banditry. This has been possible because of the sea-sand of unemployed and socially excluded young men and women roaming the streets, waiting to be recruited for any neferious purpose. The activities of these groups have variously affected service provision, state of infrastructure and general economic performance. Howbeit, the persistence and prominence enjoyed by these crisis situations is also as said, a result of the availability of poor and unemployed youths who are at each point willing to be recruited. These ones who Nigeria claims do not exist are the real bombs the nation must difuse by discovering and remoulding them, if the country must live in peace (Olagunju, 2012).
Consequently, providing these youths the opportunity to acquire self-reliance education and employment is key and should be the earnest concern of all governments particularly in Nigeria. Indeed Anumnu (2001) explicitly maintains that the greatest worry of any growing nation like Nigeria is how to fully utilize education to develop people’s ability to manage and induce change; or how to improve the standard of living of her citizenry and effect national development.
Provision and administration of socio-economic incentives for women and youth development have been seriously hampered by corruption. It is also safe to say that corruption brings about conditions like bad economy, unemployment, poverty and hunger. Emperical evidence according to Mauro (1997), suggests that corruption lowers investment and retards economic growth to a significant extent. There is also the propensity of corruption to tempt government officials to choose government expenditures less on the basis of public welfare than on the opportunity they provide for extorting bribes. Such situation diminish the empowerment process and may trigger off crisis that would retard economic growth and development. The Nigerian government must on this basis, learn to ‘bite the bullet’ in an attempt to fight corruption. This factor cannot be left out, when consideration is made as to the causes of the failure of past poverty reduction efforts in Nigeria.
It is absolutely necessary to adopt a massive capacity building exercise for empowerment planners who should be the athenaeum of knowledge and strategies for poverty reduction and empowerment. Furthermore, applying constructionist approach to empowerment administration will suffice as “man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing …man’s capability to transform his surroundings… (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 1972a), especially when it comes to fighting corruption, negligence and ineptitude.
Government agencies like the legislature may be inclined to fight corruption and official laxity in public institutions, but may not be properly disposed to doing so. This may either be as a result of lack of political will or dearth of the requisite knowledge to do so. In view of this, government should be enlightened to realise that corruption for example, flourishes where distortions in the policy and regulatory regime provide scope for it and where institutions of restraint are weak. It is the same when an Organization or person has monopoly power over a good or service which generates rent, has the discretion to decide who will receive it, and is not accountable (Bannon, 1999).
The executive and legislative arms who institute, appoint, confirm and allocate budgetary provision for empowerment institutions, must for the above reasons, initiate collective assault on breach of operational guidelines. They should act to strengthen anti corruption agencies and build capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country (Daily Independent online, August 29, 2013), through continous training. In this sense, capacity building both for the regulators and role players is necessary. By the above facts, the purpose of a knowledge-based empowerment programme would be to transform an ignorant situation to a situation built on knowledge rallied from solid investigations. In planning poverty alleviation and empowerment therefore, concerned institutions must base their actions and decisions on concrete and verifiable facts and data.
Adopted from Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences Volume 4, No. 4.4 Quarter IV 2013 ISSN: 2229 – 53137
By Emecheta Kingsley Onyemekara.
The 12 Steps Recovery Programme from Oil Addiction is a composite of the current reforms being carried out in Nigeria, along with those successfully implemented in developed and emerging economics. Some of its recommendations are also bore from avoiding the mistakes in others in faulty implementations of reforms. Nigeria has an enviable position from learning what has worked in other countries and what has not.
The “12 Steps” focuses on sectors in need of attention for the plan to be successfully implemented, as they would hold the key to shoring up the Nigerian economy and provide a platform to launch its people into prosperity.
It must also be mentioned that while a good size of the recommendations involve liberalisation and deregulation, it must not be confused with non-regulation. A poorly regulated or unregulated industry only lays down the foundation for much bigger problems in the future as the US financial crisis can testify to.
The programme is designed to address the following:
1. TRANSPORT : A more efficient transport system allows for the movement of goods and people to all corners of the country.
2. COMMUNICATIONS: Communication systems eliminate the physical distance between any two communities and allow for the speedy exchange of information. In today’s world of increasing globalisation, it is now a requirement for any business to be able to communicate effectively and quickly.
3. ENERGY : Every aspect of the economy is dependent on energy. The vital role it plays in today’s society cannot be understated. The provision of affordable energy and the constant supply of power to light up houses, offices and factories will be essential in getting the Nigerian economy back on track.
4. HEALTH CARE : A healthy workforce is the engine of any economy. Failure to cater for the health needs of the country’s population only leads to a decrease in the production of goods and services as workers take more time off work than they need to.
5. EDUCATION AND TRAINING:
An educated workforce is a more efficient workforce. A better educated population also present multiple opportunities for the economy to diversify beyond its traditional pillars. This was an approach followed by the Asian Tigers, who invested heavily in education to produce a workforce that could provide value-added services as income generators for economies that had little or no natural resources.
6. AGRICULTURE & NATURAL RESOURCES: With the global food prices on the rise and Nigeria being a net importer of food, the country will be better served by reviving its agriculture sector, which was also Nigeria’s chief export earner before the discovery of oil. The availability of cheaper foods will also lead to an increase in the quality of life for Nigerians as more people will be able to afford put more food on the table for their families.
7. ENVIRONMENT:
Damage to the environment has long term implications to the Nigerian economy as it can lead to a deterioration of health of the general population, a depletion of natural resources and increased cost of doing business. It is much cheaper to put in preventive measures to protect the environment than to clean it up down the line. Protecting the environment is no longer a social issue but an economic one, and one that the Nigerian government will need to embrace fully.
8. FINANCE AND HOUSING:
A strong financial sector stimulates growth in the private sector through the availability of credit and can lead to more affordable housing for the average Nigerian.
9. ENTERPRISE & INNOVATION:
Promoting micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) can lead to a reduction in poverty and unemployment, and lead to wealth creation for the owners of the businesses. All these have a direct effect on the economy, and it also useful in reducing the wealth gap between the haves and have-nots.
10. LEGAL & SECURITY:
The enforcement of contracts and adherence to the rule of law not only provides a suitable environment for doing business locally and fighting corruption, it can also lead to increased confidence almost investors looking to plough their money into the Nigerian economy.
Increase internal security also fosters external foreign investment and adds to the quality of life of the country’s citizens. Tackling the crisis in the Niger Delta region and the wave of violent crime across the country will go a long way in improving the country’s image.
11. TRADE:
Improved trading opportunities in Nigeria’s non-oil sectors can be a major foreign currency earner for the country. Nigeria has a number of mineral resources that have yet to be exploited due to the government’s focus on petroleum.
Also the country is blessed with cheap labour but high energy cost and poor infrastructure have discouraged the growth of a manufacturing base in the country. If an enabling environment where the overhead costs of operation can be brought down to within reason, along with the enforcement of laws in the country, protection of investors, and education reforms, Nigeria can develop a manufacturing base that can rival those in South East Asia.
12. TOURISM:
Tourism is a good foreign currency earner for any country as every tourist dollar spent has a multiplier effect on the local economy. Improving internal security, improved transportation and a strong financial system can aid the government s efforts in improving the tourism sector in the Nigeria.
The country has lot to offer from the diverse ethnic makeup of the country to different climatic conditions (hot humid weather in Lagos, cool temperate weather in Jos) and geographical features (Mangrove swamps in the south, arid savannah in the North). There is something for everybody.
The “12 Steps” were selected to achieve the following:
INCREASE THE EFFICACY OF THE ECONOMY:
Improvements in the transport, communications and the energy sector will bring about a reduction in the cost of production and distribution of goods and services. This will invariably lead to putting goods and services within the reach of more Nigerians.
BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE:
Improvements in education, healthcare, agriculture and housing sectors will bring about an improvement in the quality of life of Nigerians. Also taking active measures to protect the environment, not only improves the quality of living in the country, it also prevents huge avoidable costs in cleaning the environment later in the future. Lastly improvements in security will make the people feel safe.
FIGHT POVERTY:
Promoting and supporting enterprise, along with improvements in the financial sector and legal framework will foster the growth of micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) which have been show to fight poverty, increase wealth creation and reduce unemployment.
INCREASE INVESTMENTS:
Improvements in the infrastructure, along with those in finance, security, enforcement of laws and education should bring about an increase in both local and foreign investments. The presence of the right infrastructure makes it cheaper to produce goods and services, the enforcement of laws makes it easier to conduct business, and an improved educational system produces quality candidates from which companies can select their staff from.
INCREASE FOREIGN EARNINGS :
Improved trade and tourism will bring about an increase in much needed foreign earnings.
DIVERSIFICATION : Opening up other sectors of the economy brings out diversification, making the country less reliant on a traditional base e.g. agriculture and oil .This is particular significant in rural communities.
Posted by African ExaminerArticles/Opinion, Latest News, Letters/RejoindersFriday, June 12th, 2015
“Dear Mr. President,
As the gentle breeze reaches you, we bring our plight to your attention as we anticipate your promise to end corruption, impunity and insecurity in Nigerian. It will be insane for any of us to start complaining now, as we are all aware of PDP misuse of the country’s wealth for sixteen years.
Honestly, this open letter is meant to shed more light on the challenges faced by Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora especially as it pertains to Nigerian embassies abroad. Though your office is open to the people unlike your predecessor who alienated himself from the masses, I choose this medium to actually send a point to those who might not be privileged to see a private letter.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari
We have absolutely no reason to doubt your commitment to cleanse the government of corruption and create a government that works for the people of Nigeria. We know that this campaign will outlive your presidential term just as efforts in different aspects of our national life have outlived other patriotic Nigerians in the past. This time is particularly important because Nigeria stands at the threshold of greatness or implosion, and the decisions you make in the next few years will significantly determine our future as a country.
We recall your promise during the campaign to end the impunity of extrajudicial and journalist killings and deliver justice to the families of the victims. This gave new hope to many people who defied fear and terror to vote for you.
We know that our quest for truth, justice and healing faces historical and structural challenges that are not easy to transcend. Victims, witnesses, advocates, and family members continue to face threats to life and health. But we cannot stop working to end the culture of impunity and joining efforts to bring forth a culture of accountability.
Tackling this problem demands wisdom and firmness that the previous government was unable to show. You have to make difficult decisions, and there is no way out of the mess our dear nation has been thrown into that will be easy. Like many Nigerians, I hope you do whatever it takes to restore normalcy to the country.
Secondly, I would also want to bring to your attention the criminal practice of Nigerian embassies across the globe. One wonders whose interests they protect or if Nigerian embassies that are supposed to protect the rights of every Nigerian living in diaspora have now become businesses. The daily exploitation of Nigerians by these embassies must come to an end; we must define the path of our country on accountability and transparency at home and abroad.
These embassies continue to charge Nigerians twenty dollars to stamp any document most especially in eastern European countries, this act is illegal, criminal and alien to the constitution of Nigeria. The problem extends beyond monetary exploitation to their lack of concern for Nigerians living in the countries they serve. In different countries around the world, embassy staff don’t answer phone numbers on their websites, hardly respond when Nigerians in trouble, and generally behave as if they don’t care at all. We cannot expect people to respect us if those people know that we don’t matter to our own embassies in their countries. Here in Ukraine, the story is not different; we must stop this if we are interested in reclaiming our place as the giant of Africa.
Sir, you have to strive for the change that we desire. You know Nigerians trust you to deliver on your promises, and I strongly believe that addressing these two issues would be a great way to start your mission to move Nigeria to the heights of greatness that it so surely deserve.”
Sincerely,
Comrade Ahmed Omeiza Lukman, Kiev Ukraine.
MY SUGGESTION
We can redeem our place by boosting our economy; making it attractive to foreigners and Nigerians in diaspora.
The perceived support of a stable economy drives Nigerians the western world only to be humiliated at foreign borders. It is high time we made our nation what we seek in foreign nations.
The government should promote Nigerian made goods and services, supply funds and all necessary support required to make the latter world class. This will create great competition for foreign goods and improve our foreign exchange presence.
Nigerian Politicians Are Too Corrupt And Insane – Richard Branson
Our Reporter August 7, 2012
International businessman with billions of dollars to his name, Richard Branson, has lambasted the crop of leaders we have in Nigeria for their high level greed which, according to him, is killing big brands wishing to do business with the government of the country, for the growth of Nigeria’s economy.
Below is the revelations by Mr. Branson on his experience in Nigeria…
The chairman of Virgin Atlantic said: “…we have virgin’s ill-fated footsteps by setting up a new airline in Africa in conjunction with Nigerian government…the details of the doomed attempts to crack the Nigerian market in the 2000s is better imagined…we put …together a very good airline-the first airline in West Africa that was ever IOSA/IATA operational safety audit accredited but unfortunately it got tied down to the politics of the country…we led the airlines for 11 years…
“We fought daily battle against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from us, politicians who saw the government 49% as a meal to seek for all kinds of favour…watchdogs (regulatory body) that didn’t know what to do and persistently asking for bribes at any point…Nigeria people are generally nice but the politicians are very insane…that may be irony because the people make up the politicians…
“But those politicians are selfish…we did make N3billion for the federal government of Nigeria during the joint venture…realising that the government didn’t bring nothing to the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria Airways…The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians KILLED it…Nigeria is a country we SHALL NEVER consider to doing business again..”
Why does the government fold arms and watch the aviation sector go down the drain?
Air travel in Nigeria has become a nightmare. Just last week one of Aero contractors old airplanes developed mechanical fault due to lack of servicing. For God’s sake these plains are too old. These companies should be sanctioned.
It seems the government has decided to trade the lives of the good people for self enrichment. Mr president Sir, please come to our rescue.
The international airport roads are like dreaded forests, halls are dilapidated.
Nigeria is supposed to be the pride of the African economy yet it seems smaller and less productive as other smaller countries have more stable economies. This is made evident in the world trade exchange rates; a dollar is sold for 200 naira. That is more than what the average poor person earns. Poverty seems to be a compound word in our rich nation. This has contributed to families turning to illicit ways of making wealth; Rituals, Robbery, Kidnapping, etc. As long as poverty remains, these ills of the society will prevail.
We desire a stable economy. We want to travel to other countries on vacations not to become prostitutes, seek refugee protection , or to traffic drugs all to make a living. It is indeed a story too sad to tell of how many have lost their lives in this cause.
Let the youth be given opportunities they deserve to express their needs and let them be heard.
Let our leaders create job opportunities for our sustainance , encourage entrepreneurship and development in diversified sectors not just oil and gas.
“Nigeria is the giant of Africa, a tall and handsome giant I must add. But sadly, this giant is battling with lots of deformities and disabilities. The crimes perpetrated are carried out by the very people of Nigeria, corruption is the order of the day at every turn, we pollute our own environment, drains and gutters provided by the government made for water to pass through have become dumpsters, we clamp them up; causing flood. Perhaps the government is supposed to come to our individual homes to teach us how to take care of our own homes and immediate environment. Planet earth is the only planet that supports human life and it is utterly appalling to see how much levity we treat it with.
Fraud another major problem in Nigeria is perpetrated by the old and young alike. The nation Nigeria is not made up of just the land mass but also the people on it. So if Nigeria has a bad image, so does the people; the government and the governed alike. The people of Nigeria seem to have forgotten the age long assertion that we need not wait for what the government can do for us but we should also ponder on what we can do for our nation.
Nigeria is our collective responsibility. The people carrying arms and taking to the street are not wired or predisposed to be criminals, chance has placed them there. Look at what has become of the erstwhile militants when they were given the opportunity. Today many graduates are roaming the streets unemployed, not because they are lazy and haven’t searched for jobs, but for lack of experience. Many employers have 7-10 years or more as a prerequisite for employment but how can these people garner experience if they are not first given an opportunity? And by the way, these organizations are not manned by angels, but people.
Yes, the slogan good people, great nation may have been abandoned for the more fascinating ‘FASCINATING NIGERIA’ but the spirit of GOOD PEOPLE, GREAT NATION must not be abandoned.
I reiterate, Nigeria is our collective responsibility. Whether leaders, whether commoners, we are all people of Nigeria. If we remain in the state we have been in time past, there is invariably no way we can achieve the status of a good people and a great nation. Of course this does not go to say there are no good people in Nigeria. The problem is there are not enough good people, so of what use is your voice if it cannot be heard? Of what use is your strength if it cannot shake a thing? Of what use is your height and color if you cannot be noticed in the crowd? And of what use is being good if you cannot make your country great? Being good is not all; positive steps have to be taken in making our country great. It is a new year; it is another opportunity to make a difference, to be the change we want to see”
Adeoye Peace, Faculty of Law University of Ilorin, Kwara state Nigeria.
The government can boost the Nation’s economy by encouraging production, promotion and use of high standard ( SON approved) products such as food, clothes and accessories. Also the Nigeria football leagues should be upgraded to match world class clubs.
•Lower or no electricity bills
•Compared to generator users, there is no fuel cost and stress of getting it and no fumes.
•People living in the remote locations where power is unavailable or too expensive to hook-up too can have electricity.
Just to mention but a few.
Without going into detail, one can enjoy electricity by means of using solar energy (energy from the sun), wind mill (using energy from the wind). Don’t forget, where there is frequent electricity supply from the utility company, you can store some energy for back up.
We will need the following to complete a solar project or back up.
1. Solar panels
2. Power Inverter
3. Charge controller
4. Batteries to store energy
5. wires and cables
6. Monitors/meters
The solar panel consists of cells called photo voltaic cells and these, covert the energy received from the sun to electricity in simple terms (this electricity is a direct current d.c). The panels can last up to 20 years plus. The panels can be fixed, adjustable or of the tracking type. You can decide to go for a complete panel from manufacturers (already made) or build panels by yourself using solar cells- the latter is for the hobbyist. The panels are rated in watts eg 80w solar panel supplying 12v continuous at a given time
The inverter
Power Inverters are available in 3 basic designs, two of which I remember very well now – the one that out sinusoidal waves and those that are modified sign wave type (meaning not pure sine waves and do have limits when it comes to its application) . The power inverter converts your storage battery power into the 240 volts AC that runs your appliances. It is the heart of your solar energy system. Unless you only run 12 volt DC appliances you will need a power inverter to supply your AC. This is just the basics.
The Charge Controller
A Charge Controller is necessary to protect the batteries from over charging and supply them with the proper amount of energy to promote long battery life.
Batteries
Without Storage Batteries to store energy you would only have power when the sun was shining. There is a lot more to batteries than just the ordinary car battery. Yo may need to change batteries over the years.
Wires and Cables
Without the right size of cables, you are likely to experience inefficient transfer of power (greater losses) and overheating.
Meters
This is required to monitor the performance of your solar system.
Firstly, it is very necessary to know what gadgets you will be using (eg. tv, sat. receiver) and how long you will use them on solar power and how much energy your battery can store and which solar panel (rating in power) will supply the required energy to be stored or used.
A lot goes into calculating the cost of setting up a solar system. First one has to consider the period of usable sunlight available at their location to do this calculation. For us here close to the equator, we get about 7 to 8 hours or more of sunlight during dry season, just a rough estimate.
How do I know I need 100w or 80w or 300 watts solar panel for my project?
The power consumption of appliances is given in Watts. To calculate the energy you will use over time, just multiply the power consumption by the hours of usage.
Eg. If I have 90W tv set which I want to use for 6hrs, 25W satellite receiver for the same period, and a 50W fan for 3 hours. What will be the energy required from the solar panels for the period?
1. the energy for each appliance is Watts x time (hours) = Wh
So, the watt hours for the tv = 90 x 6 = 540 Wh (watt hours)
Watt hours for sat. receiver = 25 x 6 = 150 Wh
Watt hours for fan will be = 50 x 3 = 150 Wh
2. sum the watt hours for the individual appliances ie. 540 + 150 + 150 = 840 Wh (watt hours)
This means that the solar panel will need to supply 840 watt hours of energy to the battery each day to cover the total power required by these appliances.
3. since there are bound to be losses in the system However, to account for natural losses, we multiply the result by 1.2 (this factor allows for natural system losses, assuming 85% efficiency). Therefore, we will assume the panels will actually need to be able to supply a total of
840 x 1.2 = 1008Wh
4. so, to supply 1008Wh of energy the panel we assume to receive 7 hours of sunlight will be rated at 1008 Wh / 7 h = 144W
So, I will need 144W solar panel to supply energy to my appliances above at the given time.
Regarding point 3, it also means, if I have a solar panel rated at 100W receiving sunlight for 7 hours a day, the total energy supplied considering 85% efficiency will be 100x7x0.85= 595Wh and not 700Wh
5. Your battery should be able to store 1008Wh of energy. Since batteries capacities are rated in Ah (Ampere Hours) you need to multiply Ah by the Volt rating to know the Watt Hour. Power(W) = Voltage (V) x Current (I) ; Watt hour = VxIxHour
Therefore Ah (which is I x h) = Wh / V = 1008 / 12 (the number 12 represents a 12v battery)
= 84 Ah
So it means you will need not less than a 84Ah, 12V battery (deep-cycle batteries, not ordinary car batteries) to do the job.
NB. Another way of calculating battery capacity is explained in this example. Should my battery be rated at 84Ah, 12V the watt hour (energy) will be 84Ah x 12 V = 1008Ah
It implies that the battery can supply a 150watt appliance for 1008/70 = 14hours”
DON’T PROMISE TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS, PROMISE TO HELP THEM SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS
By Ucheka Anofienem
Idea and Business Strategist.
…….an author, who helps clients with ideas and information to excel. a Business and Human Capital Development Consultant based in Abuja, Nigeria.
Email:ucheka1968@gmail.com
“The in-coming government of Gen. Mohamadu Buhari of Nigeria should be forthright and lay foundation for good governance with the right perspective, otherwise they will give wrong impression by raising false hopes and unrealistic expectations which have already started with faulty campaign promises.
You will fail if you promise to provide jobs for the estimated 60 million unemployed Nigerian youths. You can’t. The promise will fail and the people will hate you. Build the infrastructure as well as the institutions that will facilitate development, set the platform that individuals, groups, companies and organizations can leverage to create their own wealth. Give priority to quality education, especially in the north. There is no remedy that will save an illiterate population from poverty. (Discourage the Almajiri system and mop the children into formal schools. Any leader who believes it is impossible to stop the menace is unfit to rule). When this happens many things will naturally fall in place.
Your biggest effort will be to find how to get Nigerians to start thinking on what they can do to succeed with their own effort, hard work, and commitment to come out of poverty. Promise to provide the facilities people can leverage to do things for themselves and excel much more than the government can ever do for them.
I believe the job of the government at this critical moment is to give inspiration and motivating encouragement to Nigerians to look inside of themselves and put their gifts, talents, creativity, innovation and inventive spirit to use. When they are mobilized and enabled they can weave better baskets that will sell in London, they can compose songs and produce videos that will compete in California, they will develop new machines and remodel telephones and software what can compete with Nokia, Techno and Microsoft, they will do wonders in sciences, medicine and agriculture. Simply create the enabling environment and pave the way for excellence and the people will astound you with their capabilities.
There are myriads of businesses that can be started without money or very little of it. Government should mobilize to teach Nigerian youths to be self-driven, to develop the ability to take self-help entrepreneurial initiatives, to have the can-do spirit, to have self-belief, to realize nobody can help them better than they can help themselves. Government should admit to the people there is no government job that can go round for everybody, but they can start their own business and grow to employ somebody else. Government should inculcate possibility mentality into Nigerians. If this concept is hammered and wired into their brain it will stick within a few years. When that happens, there will be a buzz, a wealth revolution and national consciousness.
Government cannot give jobs and shouldn’t promise it. Rather, they should make intervention funds available to assist those who genuinely need it. They should make the process of accessing such money easier. Make it a loan repayable with or without interest, make the monitoring strict, both of disbursement and utilization. They should not give it through any political group, or banks, or Micro Finance Banks that will manipulate and circumvent the resources to their personal interest like we now witness. All the billions CBN claimed to be disbursing to assist SMEs are ineffective, because their strategy is wrong. Many people are not even aware of the existence of such funds, those that are aware cannot access the money because nobody taught them how to package their business to meet requirements. They agencies managing the money, including MFB made everything difficult. Yet the government is rejoicing at its effort to fight poverty.
Most of the claims of success of SURE-P Graduate Internship and YOUWIN Scheme are false and unverifiable. What is the wisdom in facilitating a temporal employment for someone in a company that does not consciously prepare him to becoming self-employed entrepreneur? What happens to such fellows when the companies throws him out into unemployment after a year? Has there been any assessment of failure rate among those to whom SURE-P disbursed N10 million to? As a rule, 80% of every new business fails within the first five years, and who needs N10 million naira to start a new business? Those are poorly taught out strategies, and unfortunately they are celebrating unverified assumptions and unfounded success.
There is vast wealth in Nigeria; the challenge is persistent misplacement of priority. Look at the billions Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) spent on jamboree on Jonathan’s reelection bid. If it can mobilize youths from Calabar, Maidugri and all over Nigeria to Abuja with a wave of the hand, can’t it use the same financial muscle to mobilize same youths towards starting creating their own jobs? You can remind me it’s an individual initiative, but we all know from whose wallet the reimbursement will come eventually.
Think for once what will happen if the billions of naira expended for the election campaigns, including the billions of dollars used to bribe the elites were used to build mass housing that the ordinary citizens can access. Will that gesture not lift some people out from the slums and ghettos? Will the economy collapse if it devote N50 billion naira to mobilize same jobless youths invited from their villages to attend useless rallies in Abuja to make bricks, mould blocks, and directly build low cost houses without any contractor taking 40% of the fund for himself? How can we believe in a government who does not agree houses should be built so people who had not N10million and N3 million to buy one can afford to live in decent homes. There is money in Nigeria, the problem is that government’s elitist policy does not care about the issues that will lift those who should be helped to come out of poverty.
Solving Nigerian problems are easy because Nigerians are creative and inventive. The explosions in the entertainment (especially the music and home video industry) proved it. The achievements in sports had shown we are not lazy folks. Nigerians pastor the largest churches in 8 European nations, and there are many more generating exploits across America, Asia and the Caribbean. The government did not arrange that. There are hundreds and millions of Nigerian professionals and experts scattered across the globe. The government did not send them there. The big names and globally acclaimed achievers of Nigerian descent today were not made by government.
What Nigerians need, and what government need to do now is to give Nigerians a purposeful sense of direction. Assemble deserving exceptionally intelligent Nigerians and give them scholarship. Harvest the inventive and creative ones and support their idea and works. Guide them to monetize and commercialize such skills. Encourage people to be the best that is in them.
Bring young enterprising Nigerians and teach them how to think and evolve unique ideas and lead them to strong implementation strategies. When this type of orientation shapes up, I believe people will be ashamed to be seated for a N10,000 naira monthly paid job. There will be competition for excellence. More jobs will be created, not by government, but by Small and Medium Scale business entrepreneurs who are poised to make a difference. The small scale businesses in United States are responsible for 60% of new jobs created, not even the big multi-billion corporations. Does it then trouble you when government jokes with micro business financing in Nigeria?
All government need to do is show people the way and they will get there themselves. Do not spoon-fed anyone, or fool them to hope government is going to provide jobs for all the teeming unemployed. Don’t lead anyone to hope he is going to get a job in Shell BP or NNPC and get a fat salary at the end of the month. It will be deceptive to promise people free money every month for being unemployed. When it comes to that pay them the money, but carry them to plant palm trees in the deserts of Yobe State and the forests of Edo State. In six years time they will have palm oil and enough brooms to sell and they will be rich. Self-developed person has limitless opportunities he can create for himself.
Our land is fertile; the agro sector is huge and unexplored. The solid mineral sector holds so much promise. Please mobilize the youths there and they will create wealth in a matter of months. We say no and not anymore to useless and keep-them-quiet kind of jobs. The people are looking forward with great expectations, they are not expecting miracles, but if the government is unable to do nothing they will know too. However everybody is waiting for the best.”
( By Ukachukwu ThankGod, an AWARD WINNING blogger )
“We look forward to a prosperous Nigeria where the basic necessities of life are provided for every citizen.This can only be attained by change of attitude towards governance by our leaders.Obstinacy on their part to embrace change is an invitation to a revolution;violent or non-violent.History will judge!”.( Ukachukwu 2015).
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
“Five Reasons Why Buhari’s presidency is good for Nigeria
I have adduced these reasons why Buhari’s presidency is good for Nigeria.
1) The emergence of Buhari and APC is good for deepening and entrenching the democratic culture which we as a people have adopted, a culture that is inherent from our various civilizations.
2) We have become a model of democracy for Africa. The influx of who-is-who in Africa at the inauguration has given Nigeria the platform to emerge as the heartbeat and de-facto leader in Africa. This is a prerequisite for a permanent seat at the United Nations.
3) Wealth is being spread more than it would have been under a continued Goodluck Jonathan and PDP continuum as the wealth of the country would have been concentrated on the few who have been at the forefront since 1999 under PDP.
4) It showed that every region in this country is equally important as unity in any region can be a determinant in any election. Parties have learned that having presence and being active in every state in Nigeria is essential for wide acceptability as a national party.
5) Every section of this country has hope of participating in this democracy as a stakeholder, is guaranteed the topmost position of the presidency. .”
Posted by ThankGod Ukachukwu at 4:29 AM
The Beginning of Change – The First Week of President Buhari’s Presidency
I happen to find myself at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja on the day former President Goodluck Jonathan handed over Nigeria’s flag to his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari. I was having lunch with a friend. As we drove towards Hilton Hotel, uneasy calm filled with an air of apprehension hovered. You could not but think about the unprecedented “phone call” from Goodluck to Buhari which saved Nigeria from plunging into crisis head on. I remember digging the internet some years back to confirm the assertion from the CIA and their foreign affairs counterparts that Nigeria will disintegrate in 2015. That apprehension kept me pondering the unperturbed peace which permeated the atmosphere, in fact, it was a festive mood. After the lunch, as we made our way out of Hilton, I and my friend were treated to an usual spectacle, a red carpet reception of about 7 (seven) African presidents as they arrived in VIP to rest before they proceeded for the Presidential Gala night. It was pomp and pageantry instead of war and crisis. However, it was later that day that I learned that the president ‘neglected’ his guests and headed to his Jumat prayers. That I envisaged as the president missed the official Jumat of the inauguration activities the previous friday. This action was greeted with condemnation from several quarters including the visiting heads of state some who were offended while Buhari supporters saw his actions as flawless.
It is imperative to note that Nigeria is a religious country. However, as a plural society with different religious inclinations, the president of Nigeria first allegiance is to the nation and it is believed that such an occasion as important as the reception of various presidents of Africa and international dignitaries should not be treated with levity. No wonder the superpowers and most other presidents in the international community shunned the inauguration as their advisers would have envisaged such a lacuna. As the most populous country in Africa, given the enterprising nature of Nigerians and our ability to be pacesetters, other sister African countries are looking up to us to be the rallying point and a big brother. Africa must have a leader and Nigeria is in a good position to take over as that leader. While some have insinuated that the president is a religious extremist based on his antecedents, his actions on daily basis confirms that assertion. In other not to draw the ire of Muslims, I would have expected the president to have excused his guest, held short prayers like 30 minutes and rejoined the reception to deliver a powerful message to African leaders that they have to get their acts together and emulate Nigeria, which is building a model of democracy for the continent.
Related to the foregoing, the President has started his international diplomatic shuttles in earnest and to the ire of many Nigerians, he has spent the first one week of his presidency outside, away from those who gave him the mandate. While international support and cooperation is imperative to moving Nigeria forward, the problems that burgeons the nation need to be tackled from the home front. For us to be respected worldwide, we have to show that we can lead in Africa. The president preferred to attend the G7 summit and ignored the World Economic Forum’s Africa summit holding in Cape Town. That was billed from 3-5 of June and I believe that Buhari should have been at that forum to outline his Economic agenda from the African perspective. As the author of the referenced article on Quartz noted, all eyes were on the man who would not be there. I do not want a president who will ignore things at the local and continental level and thinks that hobnobbing with the international community is the solution to our problems. We are no longer colonies, we are our own people and we should determine our lives.
Irrespective of this lacuna, the president has towed a good line to pay heed to the fact that we also need international support albeit incompletely. As he heads to the G7 summit which has taken Russia out of the equation, permit me to imagine Nigeria as a replacement for Russia in the G8. Is it possible for Nigeria to be in that group, yes, but it depends on our leaders and how well Nigeria’s trajectory of development in the next 10-15 years moves. As the president heads to the G7, the happily returned prime minister of the United Kingdom has tasked Buhari on the expectation as he joins the world’s most advanced and elite club in a summit. As I noted earlier on the comments section, the request from Cameron was met mostly by a backlash. However, in response to others opinion, I started below:
Most people don’t get what Cameron is asking for. APC and Buhari got this presidency through unconventional ways of propaganda and rhetoric. Now that is not what you apply to solving the complex problems of a developing country. You need a policy thrust, a policy direction, an elegant plan which will be followed to rescue Nigeria from the purported decay. Now that is what the West want to see if they are to cooperate with Nigeria. Not all the aggression, covert and overt, and cooked up lies against PDP and Jonathan. We cannot exist in isolation, we need foreign direct investment (FDI), we are going to sell oil and we will borrow funds. They need a broad and detailed policy base of the Buhari’s administration, not the kind of conference that was hurriedly put up the other day. You don’t go to G7 to tell them you will fight corruption and BH, you need to tell them how you will use sophisticated method of economic development to tackle issues. You need to outline your foreign policy, now we have become a model of democracy in Africa, what role are we going to play and how? Africa needs us and I didn’t hear Buhari mention anything like that. As one guy on Sahara Reporter said, that speech was ‘vague’ and ‘illusory’.
As I noted earlier, some are averse to the foreign trips that have become the trademark of the Buhari presidency. Late Yardua was the opposite of Buhari as he rarely travelled. Goodluck was better, it seems Buhari wants to surpass them all. However as many such as Chief Olu Falae voiced out on Vanguard, the president would have stayed home with his primary contingency in the first week of his presidency to plan and ponder with various interest groups and with a broad spectrum of Nigerians from whom he will get inputs with which he will depart to meet with our friends to discuss issues of paramount importance to Nigerians. However, he is the president and he calls the shots.
As we continue to enjoy the peace with anxious outlook to know the direction the next four years will look like under this dispensation, activities and clues have been emerging slowly. On May 30th, we were greeted with the news that the president has declared his assets to the agency, Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) responsible for such declarations in Nigeria. However, many were taken aback when the declaration was announced as an official secret. While some understood Buhari’s promise of asset declaration as an open affair as chronicled here – Buharimeter- a website by group of civil society who wants to take the president to task over his promises, staunch supporters of the president came to his rescue saying that he has fulfilled his constitutional requirement. The news filtering in after the uproar is that the detials of the declaration will be made public after verification by the CCB. However, we have to wait for the expiration of the first 100 days which the president himself set as limits for his assets declaration. The next day, the high point was the appointment of spokesmen for the president, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu respectively as special adviser and senior special assistant respectively. My take on their appointments was:
I hope their first assignment today Monday 1st June 2015 will be to address the media on the president’s declaration of assets. We need facts and figures, physical assets and liquid cash. Change is here. We need to start on a clean slate. No skeletons to hide. We are watching!
That did not happen.
We are still expectant as that will be done after the verification by CCB.
While the president is relishing his ascendency to the topmost position of the federation, issues of national and economic importance have continued to pervade the polity. I will not have done justice to this review if I don’t mention the nagging issue of fuel scarcity that has become the albatross of the first week of Buhari’s presidency. However, as usual we will overcome. Again, the contentious issue of fuel scarcity, a seemingly easy problem to solve given that the raw material needed to arrive at all the finished products we require as fuel for all kinds of land moving and flying machines is abundant in the Niger Delta. I will not dig deep into this issue but I will mention the request from some professional organisation in the oil and gas sector who have lend their voice on how the president can handle this issue and save Nigerians the recurring scourge of incessant fuel scarcity. Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in support of a Civil Society organisation, Conscience Nigeria, has urged the president to work at increasing local capacity before removing fuel subsidy.
MY THOUGHT ON THIS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
This is the problem with Nigeria. Removing fuel subsidy is a strategic decision whereby the government would decide to remove the subsidy under the parlance of elaborate plan and policy thrust to contain the resulting vagaries. What is required is a framework and timeline which will be based on consultations and extensive planning over a period of time – at least 3 years- to ensure that adequate measures are put in place to cushion the effects on the masses, deal with increasing local production to a certain level, putting down a legal framework to overhaul the petroleum sector because we are dealing with a system and their is interrelationship existing amongst the various components. You don’t just remove fuel subsidy, you will create problems that may eclipse fuel subsidy. This is why many of us show disdain at the Buhari’s presidency because of the lack of sound policy frameworks that he intends to employ in tackling the complex hydra like problems bedevilling Nigeria.
The president is still outside the country for the first 9 days of his presidency. The fuel situation has been diffused a little bit, queues are still visible at the fuel stations. It was the patriotism of Ifeany Ubah,a hard-line supporter of the immediate past president that saved Nigeria from consternation and anarchy. While some have praised his love for country, others have labelled him a sycophant who is jostling to curry favour or avoid being prosecuted by the present administration for yet to be known wrong doings in the past administration. If not for anything, he was the leader of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, the flagship support group of former President Jonathan’s re-election bid. Be it as it may, he saved Nigerians so much pains and hard life. Just as he is vilified for doing good, the former president has been on the receiving end. The beginning of the many travails which may be the norm in response to Buhari stance on corruption. Even Buhari acknowledged the benevolence and magnanimity of Goodluck’s behaviour as crucial to the sustenance of our democratic institutions, some ignoramus have been been yelling at others who dare to call Goodluck Jonathan a hero. Among those who have magnified these calls are the beautiful singer, Adokiye and Sylva, former governor of Bayelsa State. While one cannot place the context and reasoning and would choose to ignore the girl who should have concentrated on her beauty and what she knows best and be sensible before commenting on national issues, I have strong words of caution for Sylva as I responded on Vangurd thus:
Its understandable coming from Sylva, however, you cannot change the obvious. Goodluck’s benevolence and magnanimity is why you can open your nonsense month and talk in a peaceful Nigeria today. The crisis would have swallowed loud mouthed hypocrites like you.
Within the week, what most of knew since the emergence of APC was confirmed in an interview with the Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmad Coomasie, a former Inspector General of Police, that what was branded change is a northern agenda to grab power. I stated further that, Coomasie are actually right. Many of us in the know have echoed the same sentiments. Many were hoodwinked into believing the ‘change’ mantra. However, the former president’s men, his party and including himself were complacent. The south has never been united. The south is a tripartite union. The north have never been sincere about Nigeria’s leadership, they always have hidden ambition, to grab power. As the House of Representatives and Senate are preparing to elect their leaders, the former governor of Delta had for seen a scenario where the President, Senate Presidency and Speaker are all from the north. This he unequivocally submitted as untenable as a nation.
Many in the South South, including Asari have echoed similar sentiments as is unfolding. In fact, he made it known that Goodluck Jonathan was his own waterloo as he refused to listen to their pleas. However, I believe Nigeria is better for the present situation. Even though the truth must be told, however we have to move on. If not for anything, the South South would have realised that the North have always cherished their friendship because of what they are endowed with. They have realised that it is good to be at peace with your neighbours. The animosity that existed between Prof Eyo Itah and Nnamdi Azikiwe have been resolved. It is South Versus North, the way it was originally before the amalgamation. That is the fault line. I hope the SW will realise themselves soon. It’s only a matter of time. Because the North have never been sincere about Nigeria’s leadership. Of all mighty men, a weak man was selected to lead a war made for men of valour, just like weak men, he chickened out. He opted for peace, he loved his life so much, it’s a lesson for future politics, being a good man does not equal good leadership. You need people with very strong resolve, those who can even make a government ungovernable to grab power.
In conclusion, the first week of Buhari’s presidency has been inundated with violence and death caused by fuel tankers plunging into markets, houses and passers-by and continued attacks by BH. As the presidency has started off with international diplomatic shuttles, he hasn’t completely ignored the home front, he sent and have gotten approval for 15 advisers, 3 short of the number his predecessor had from both arms of the National Assembly. As he returns to take over fully the reins of power, he has huge challenges to surmount and Nigerians and the international community are waiting in earnest for breath of positive change.
I wish President Buhari will succeed. However, our wishes do not determine the future all the time, its our actions and inactions that shape the future and cause the forces of nature to obey us. As Buhari echoed in his inaugural address, “We have an opportunity, let us take it”
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Honestly we do not know what the Government uses our tax for. Tax collection and its utility statements should be made CLEAR to public. This would encourage Nigerians to pay Tax properly and also help the government to be transparent and accountable for tax collected .
WORKABLE SOLUTION:
Increasing Revenue profile ; Corruption free Tax collection
Materials and reference.
a. Extract from Dr Ngozi Okonji Iweala’s note to the president
b. Adebayo (2004).
Important Tips from reading
A). The government can actually increase its revenue profile by deepening and expanding its tax collection drive. In achieving this, she said, the government engaged the services of a foreign tax consultant. The measure brought in additional $500million into its coffers last year.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said if consistently pursued, the measure could fetch the government $3billion over the medium-term.
Instead of spending almost everything that comes into the government’s coffers. There is need for the government to rebuild its buffers.
She said the incoming government should also tinker with the option of raising the Value Added Tax (VAT), which in its present five per cent level, she pointed out, is the lowest in the world. Raising the margin by another five per cent, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala argued, would make a difference in increasing revenue. She said the proposal is already included in the 2015 budget before the National Assembly.
“We can look at other taxes, like the VAT, which is in the budget for 2015. We have the lowest VAT in the world, which can be doubled. This can bring another $3billion into the revenue profile,” Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said, adding that these steps are needed to drive the economy beyond oil.
B). Government should utilize taxation as an instrument of regulating the general economy. Since income tax provide large source of national revenue. Effect on inflation, unemployment and social and economy objective has become the prime consideration in enacting tax law in Nigeria.
To FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT AFRICA
To encourage comments and discussion participation, Kindly provide prizes or some form of incentives.
Kindly contact me via email if my attention is needed and also i have other workable solutions which I will love the Government to consult me for.
Ideas Bridge Network 
As a small government conservative, the change is desire is a Government that gets out of the way for individuals and business to thrive. Government all other, have shown to be incompetent in running businesses.
Government should focus on providing the right environment, which is basic infrastructure and RULE OF LAW. There should be consequences for breaking laws.
Nigerians are naturally entrepreneurial, we dont need a welfare state.. we will thrive if the opportunity is provided
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In my humble opinion, I believe that this country will stagger in terms of wholistic development if the issue of ethnic segregation isn’t addressed. Though I know that this problem isn’t a short term issue and cannot be solved within even two tenures of any govt., institutions and policies should be made to foster a nationalistic spirit in Nigerians.
The nysc was created for such a purpose, but I believe more direct institutions and policies involving education (both direct and subliminal) should be sponsored to instill the spirit of unity in our youth.
The children, the families, religious institutions must be aligned with these policies because in my opinion, any quick fix policies of amnesty, job creation, electricity and infrastructure creation program created today will suffer bias and inequality due to this primary Nigerian/ African problem.
Where there is inequality there is resentment and anger. This may lead to agitation which can become violent and bring to play the insecurity experienced from independence to the biafran saga of the civil war to the Niger delta insurrection and more recently boko haram.
My opinion, in as much as infrastructure, employment etc are short term plans that must be immediately catered to, our unity is constantly evolving long term project which must be focused on before its too late
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#5000 FOR THE UNEMPLOYED; not the solution to eradicating Poverty
I believe the government should answer some of these questions before going ahead.
a). How many poor people do we have in Nigeria?
b). Where can we find them?
c). How do we identify them?
d). What are the limits?
e). How long will this programme last?
d). What happens to the families after it ends?
In time past, giving cash to individual had only resulted in looting.
SOLUTION.
#5000 based on the Nigerian economy can bearly provide food for a large family.
The Government should should strenghten the Social welfare services and use them across the states to locate, and assist the poor.
Social welfare services is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. its main components are
family and Child Welfare
Rehabilitation
Counselling & Corrections
Care of the elderly.
This will help the beneficiaries go through an orientation programme which involves a specific period set for financial assistance in which they are equipped and expected to become independent of Social Welfare.
2. UNEMPLOYMENT
Employment generation is a primary economic development goal of every industrialising nation. More jobs generally mean more economic actities, more tax revenues for the government and less idle time. Job growth permits the expansion and improvement of public goods and services, leading to an improved quality of life and enhanced prospects for future employment growth.
The NDE(National directorate on Employment) had created various programmes in the past, which failed to achieve their purpose e.g Operation Feed the Nation( 1976), Youth Empowerment Schemme (2002), National Economic and Empowerment Development Strategy(2004) and many more.
How then can we make these employment programme work?
These questions can only be answered by developing and implementing a national employment program that is relevant to our socio-economic mileu.
PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS( Ukwuegbu Anthony Chijioke, Uni of Lagos).
1. The program should aim at providing marketable skills i.e skill acquisition.
2. The program should be able to provide start-up capital (form of cash or equipment).
3. The program should encourage public work programmes i.e labour intensive jobs.
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PROBLEM : YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
Youth unemployment poses a risk to the Nigerian society. The consequence of this problem, if no major corrective initiatives are taken, could be disastrous for the nation. Youth unemployment has national and global impacts, notably among which are increased violence, crime, drug abuse and political instability. Desperation can drive many people into living outside the law in order to survive and as a means of expressing dissatisfaction at the apparent neglect of their very existence. Furthermore, the negative consequences include poverty, psychological problems of frustration, depression, hostility, abduction, murder, armed robbery, and all manner of criminal behaviours causing general insecurity of life and property.
SOLUTION
1. Career guidance services should be made compulsory and provided for all levels of education to help students in making realistic career choices. The efficiency of any career guidance effort will be dramatically enhanced if it begins early in life and becomes a way of thinking.
2. The government should ensure that the policy measures be strictly adhered to by encouraging the various financial institutions to grant soft loans to potential and prospective youth entrepreneurs in order to encourage small scale businesses.
3. Vocational and technical education should be introduced at all levels of education. It is an indisputable means of reducing youth unemployment since it is skilled-oriented and employment motivated.
4. Entrepreneurship education should be incorporated into the curricula of secondary schools and tertiary institutions. This will help shift the youth from being ―job seekers‖ to ―job creators‖ and also from social dependence to self-sufficient people.
5. In promoting youth entrepreneurship, government should concentrate on those activities where youth are known to have comparative advantage. Globally, modern information and communication technologies are offering significant opportunities for job creation. The Nigerian government should therefore explore how the ICT industries can provide new jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth. They could then take advantage of this exploration activities to mobilise the energies of the youth from destructive tendencies to productive people.
6. School-to-work transition skills should be introduced into the curricula of senior secondary school and tertiary institutions in the nation, specifically, for the final year students who are about to enter into competitive labour market. The training should create avenues for providing experience with a view to promoting and developing desirable work ethics and culture for national development. Youth should be trained to possess skills that are congruent with real labour market demands.
Extracted from
Vol. 7 (1) Serial No. 28, January, 2012 Pp.307-321. IAARR
Indexed African Journals Online:
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Dear President Buhari’s anti-corruption war….
Kindly spread this evil news of unpatriotic citizens to any level.
Mrs Regina Obianyor buried her husband in Enugu State and used her wing of duplex to burn our house in Raji Rasaki Estate Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos.
The type of business I did in Great Japan cannot be done without having a guarantor, and you cannot have a guarantor without your proving that you are human. My-in-laws who saw me through have waited too long for Lagos State and Federal to make their decision on those unwanted crimes, particularly our civil suit (No.FHC/L/CS/388/2007). in the court of Justice Yunusa against Ansell dellis, Nigerian custom and others and all our goods taken by Lagos State without any single notice and ARSON case, now tragedy has happened. Death has taken over, caused by organized crime and weak government.
You cannot believe a man who claims to be Honorable but not, never. Nicholas Ukachukwu allowed himself to be used by the Adamawa Governor to pull out N8bn of Adamawa State’s money, and much more we do not know of. Obviously that must have led him to do their evil bidding by using the same company to hijack and burn my house in Abuja. He is from Osumenyi, Nnewi South of Anambra State. Police investigation case file is in Zone 2, Lagos.
And Fidel Ononuju, who conspired with Nigerian Cusoms’ staff and others and brought almost empty container as a threat to my life, is also from Osumenyi Nnewi South of Anambra State.Their investigation case file is in State CID, Panti, Lagos.
Okwuego, who was a campaign manager of Atiku Abubakar then, brought Felix Ewenike as a Chairman of Raji Rasaki Estate Residents’ Association. Felix conspired with a gateman at the estate gate and stole our parcels, also from Osumenyi, Nnewi South. Their investigation case file is in State CID, Panti, Lagos.
It took years to investigate one after the other and discovered that those men came from the same town, but from different routes with one evil agenda. You can imagine how many Igbo Diasporas they have secretly destroyed to make sure our land has no peace in the advantage of their evil masters who some were PDP (now APC) protect them not to face the consequence of what they have done.
The way they entered my company was above the common imagination. Some of them entered us through Union Bank/Union Homes, and another through Standard Trust Bank (now UBA). It is unbelievable as we keep on tracking their records.
Mrs Regina Obianyor buried her husband in Enugu State and used her wing of duplex to burn our house in Raji Rasaki Estate, Lagos, (ARSON) and has a strong link to Mustapha, the man whose photo appears in the attached diagram. She is from Obosi, Anambra State, claiming by her. Ezeobi (SAN), also from Anambra State, who plotted Obianyor next to us is dead after the arson. His dead body is missing in Enugu State. In Igbo’s tradition, abomination has happened in between. Mrs Obianyor’s investigation case file is now returned to Legal Department in State CID, Panti, by the order of Attorney General of Lagos State. But taking too long. Generally police need to move faster in dealing with crimes in our country.
Their highest evil destruction is suing us in different magistrate courts in Lagos. How they used male and female Yoruba magistrates to drag us in all the magistrate courts in Lagos State. For example, a case was transferred from Apapa to Igbosere and to Ebute-Metta, in their bid to make us weak and pay the agent Fidel Ononuju who sued us to pay him for bringing empty container to us. And there is no acknowledgment of waybill attached in the suit that he has delivered the goods to us. The same way, they used Onyimadu, the Anambra State man, who owns the warehouse to take away our motorcycles, marine engines and etc. that worths more than a million US dollars. About their criminality of the Deputy Sheriff in taking away our goods without any single notice to us, we exposed to the Lagos State Governor with our letters dated 20 May2013 and 4 March 2015 for payback. This is all evil they planned and executed to a man who has done no wrong to any of them, back and front stabbing.
But Fashola as lawyer keep quiet. Time to start punishing the lawyers who avoid due process and transparence in their tricks to steal the benefit of his client or any other person is now. That a strong way to show our seriousness to wipe out corruption in our society.
We are expecting the new governor of Lagos State Mr Ambode to solve our problems which his predecessor could not, those goods are so important to our life. At least our kids will be able to return back to school, and returning back to our legitimate business is a strong opportunity for some good workers ..
We thank Chukwu, God, Allah, Kamisama for giving us strength and knowledge to resist them not to succeed in all their crimes including the arson because the investigators were able to find the culprits to be, obviously those suspects.
I saw so many wrong in Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani tribes who are in the head of institutions failed to uphold our constitution that should have punished those suspects because the crime is written all over them.
Current President, we thank you for giving us a freedom of information platform to expose these problems, although we expect some of our problems would be solved in your regime , but it was just watching how they were hurting us.. We urge you and your office to drop a copy of our letters to the President-elect, Gen. Buhari, especially our letter dated 9 March 2015 which we sent to you through DHL (Waybill No.5862118846, signed by Lucky Bama on 10 March 2015).The same letter was sent to the Attorney General of Lagos State and his office acknowledged on 10 March 2015. We exposed the fact we had been under their bondage for 16 years, for being a patriot and law-abiding Nigerian. They are fighting against a man who has no enemy. The Diasporas, mainly Igbos, have to witness that your long-time hardworking with good reputation in your host country can be targeted and destroyed openly in Nigeria by those evil men who think they are above the law, when they eventually remember you.
The citizens are expecting a serious change from the new government that no one should be above the law. .
We urge the President-elect Mohammed Buhari to make use of all the petitions. Even the one in the media network against the institutions, especially the judges/judiciary, the police and the politicians. That will go a long way in stopping them from continuing to make Nigeria hell to so many good people like us. Every day we are expecting liberation from all this pain.
Anacho I-u
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LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT
‘My dear President Muhammadu Buhari,
I know you cannot possibly read every letter written to you especially letters from people you don’t know; I hope you read some and I certainly hope you read this one.
Lest I forget. I want to thank and congratulate you. Thank you for fighting a good fight and leading with compassion.
Congratulations. You have been on this journey a while and I assume this victory must be personally gratifying for you.
I am proud to call you my president. That is something I’ve longed to, but haven’t been able to say in too long. It also helps that you look the part. I don’t know if it’s your frame, your name or what, but everytime I see your photograph, I am immensely proud.
I write to you today because I am concerned. No one is a bigger supporter of you than me. That’s right. Even though I wasn’t a paid member of your campaign team, I repeat, no one is a bigger supporter of you more than I. This is true in part because my support for you isn’t simply because I was looking for change; it comes from a deep place of belief. I believe in you. You are the very definition of authentic. Even those who don’t like you agree that you say and do what you believe: to your own hurt sometimes. I have said many times in the past that there isn’t a living soul in Nigeria who is a better fit to lead Nigeria at this time, all things considered, than Muhammadu Buhari. In that regard, you stand by yourself.
There are many problems that plague us as a people and as a nation. I submit that corruption is the mother of them all and therefore the one that requires the most urgent attention. It is the one problem that has given birth to and successfully nurtured many other problems. If we are going to have a chance to successfully combat corruption, it must be tackled at the highest levels requiring a proven and tested leader at the top.
Someone remarked the other day that Nigeria’s problems are too many, too big to be solved by a single person and therefore ‘Buhari cannot solve Nigeria’s problem alone’. While it is true that one person cannot solve all the problems, it is also true that in human history every meaningful, notable and enduring change has been championed by one man and I submit again that there isn’t a more suitable person to lead Nigeria than you, my president. There may be many that are eligible, yes, but none more suitable. I said earlier that you are authentic. Here’s why that is so important. Any leader who hasn’t consistently demonstrated the virtues he wants built in others is fake, fraudulent and inauthentic. You, my president has been there, done that. You have been and seen power at the highest levels that thankfully did not corrupt you. If it didn’t corrupt you in your forties, I dare say it’s reasonable to assume it won’t corrupt you now in your twilight years.
Now, what happened less than two weeks post your inauguration in the legislative houses concerns and worries me and that is my primary reason for writing to you this open letter. I think it could have been and should have been avoided. More so, if we continue at this pace I don’t see how and why it won’t happen again, yet we must do all to make sure it doesn’t happen again. There are other calculations I have heard about that suggest this may have been a good thing after all, in that it breaks the hold of power that may have been too heavily concentrated in certain person(s) or camp. If it is true, so be it. But my worries remain.
Whereas I can’t ask you to take the wholesome responsibility for the unwise, deeply selfish behavior of others, I will say this: you sir, are now the (spiritual) father of the nation. You are by yourself: our brother, teacher and role model.
A major role of a leader is NOT to come up with all the right answers and all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen and flourish. It is in this regard, my president, that am making noise. The problem of corruption is so endemic that even very corrupt people have joined up in the fight against corruption still cloaked in their soiled garment of corruption. Change is difficult and will therefore be resisted. To create the environment I talk about requires a regular dose of inspiration of not only where we came from but of where we are going and what we must do to get there.
Your voice is big and powerful and you must use it sir. Regularly, you must use it. Daily, you must use it. To remind us of the magnitude of the task at hand, you must use it. To remind us we are up to the task, you must use it. To let us know we can count on your support in fighting corruption wherever we see it, you must use your voice. Your voice, not anyone else’s. Not even your respected VP’s voice. Your voice my president. You are the embodiment and the authentic logo of the winnable fight against corruption. Nobody carries the credibility you have in this regard. Nobody has the license you have. Use the bully pulpit. Talk to your children. We want to hear your assuring voice of encouragement. We want to be carried along in your plans to return Nigeria to greatness. We want to enjoy the ride with you, not just be driven to the destination. We are ready and waiting. Lead, not from behind. Stand tall in front and we will hail from behind.
Nigeria’s problems are indeed too many, too big and no one expects you to solve them all by yourself. We are ready, but by yourself, you have to let us know what needs to be done. Give us something to work on. But more importantly, give us something to work toward’.
By SAMMY BADAKI
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OUR LEADERS ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE ORDINARY CITIZEN
Political offices in Nigeria are so lucrative that once you occupy one you are “made” for life, no wonder these politicians can do anything to either get “elected” or appointed into any of these offices. Nigerian politicians are amongst the highest paid in the world and when compared to the country’s GDP per person it gets worse.
A publication by daily trust in 2013 reported “Nigerian federal legislators receive much higher salaries than their counterparts in wealthier countries and key developing nations, according to an analysis published by the Economist magazine. A Nigerian legislator receives an annual salary of about $189,000, equivalent of N30 million, which is 116 times the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per person, says the publication which was posted on the magazine’s website on Friday.
The figures put salaries collected by Nigerian senators and members of the House of Representatives way ahead of those received by fellow parliamentarians in the 29 countries whose data was analyzed by the Economist.
In terms of volume of cash earnings, the Nigerian legislators beat their counterparts in Britain who take $105,400 yearly, as well as those in the United States ($174,000), France ($85,900), South Africa ($104,000), Kenya ($74,500), Saudi Arabia ($64,000) and Brazil ($157,600).
In terms of lawmakers’ salaries as a ratio of GDP per capita, the gap is even much wider. While the salary of a Nigerian lawmaker is 116 times the country’s GDP per person, that of a British member of parliament is just 2.7 times. According to the data, only Australian lawmakers, with $201,200 annual salary, receive higher amounts compared to Nigerian legislators, but their salaries are only 3 times their country’s GDP per person.
The National Assembly has been secretive with the specific amounts members collect in salaries and allowances, refusing to provide information to journalists and activists even when requests are made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
A total of N150 billion was voted for the National Assembly in the 2013 national budget but there is no breakdown, which should have shown at least a summary of the legislators’ earnings.
Daily Trust wrote a letter under FOIA requesting for the National Assembly’s budget breakdown but this was refused. However, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) documents in possession of Daily Trust show that a senator is entitled to N35 million and member of the House of Representatives N29.28 million in the first year of each legislative session when they receive allowances that are payable once in four years–accommodation, furniture and car allowances.
Source http://allafrica.com/stories/201307221471.html?viewall=1
The reality is these politicians are out of touch with the sufferings of the ordinary Nigerian citizen. Even those who used to be loose it once elected or appointed as their lives dramatically change overnight and they get lost swimming in an ocean of wealth and luxury. They deceive the citizenry that they are serving the nations whereas the nation and its citizens are wallowing in abject poverty, her “servants” are amassing billions for their selfish selves and their families.
My thoughts:
According to the Holy book, the Bible, God came down to the Earth and become a man, Jesus. He lived among, walked with and ate with ordinary men in order to save man. He understood what it meant to be a man.
These politicians do not understand what the average Nigerian goes through, so how do you expect them to work for your good. The Salaries of Political office holders in the country should be a reflection of the Country’s GDP per person. There should be no secrecy with respect to the salaries and allowances of all political offices. Assets should be declared before and after holding such offices which should be made available to the public for scrutiny. All the luxury attached to these offices should be striped so they live like the ordinary citizen, then and only then will they have the motivation to work and change the nations positively.
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The moment we begin to understand that within us lies the answers and not in foreign allies, then our success will not be far fetched. You do not need a visitor to tell you when and how to manage your home rather your visitor(a passer by) should adhere to your home rules and regulations…that is if any. but if you think you need( and not want) what this visitor has for your home management, then trade for it without compromise as the house rules must stand. do not obtain mercy but be merciful. first our belief system (mindset) has been devalued so much that we need a visitor to even spoon feed us during meal time just after participating even in cooking. now i didn’t say drive your visitors away no, live with them for as long as they wish to stay (hospitality) but house rules must not be violated. a visitor visits because of interest and not really because of sympathy. so strip yourselves of visitor’s help ideology then will you value your ideas. remember a visitor’s idea could unite or divide a home based on his own interest. so lets stop receiving (policies, grants, funds, empowerment, assistance, loan, prayers) and start off by giving because if we do not stop receiving, we will never know we can give.
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NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
The pride of any government is the attainment of higher value level of development in such a way that its citizens would derive natural attachment to governance. However, for a nation to be in a phase of development there must be some pre-requisites, which include socio-political and economic stability. The gap between the developed and the developing countries is not static or narrow but is continually widening. A large majority of the world’s population in developing world lives in a state of poverty. The problem of urban population, rural stagnation, unemployment and growing inequalities continue to face less developed countries, which Nigeria belongs. Hopes of accelerated development are difficult to realize. This gloomy situation is of great concern to stake holders and the concerned citizenry. Nigeria has not been able to engender meaningful development in spite of her huge resources endowment. This has greatly affected her quest to improved quality of life of her citizens. Poverty, unemployment and starvation still pervade the nook and cranny of the country.
PROBLEMS
In spite of series of development strategies, put in place by successive governments, and sometimes with good intentions, all attempts to generate meaningful development proved futile. Based on this, one is now confronted with these puzzles: “Were those previous development plans or strategies bad in their context, or wrongly projected?” If nothing was wrong with the plans, then why is it still difficult to generate meaningful development in spite of the huge resources at our disposal? The solutions to these puzzles are not far fetched. A lot of factors have combined together to fetter nation’s development. One, there are in most cases, no executive capacity responsible for the formulation and implementation of the plan. What we usually see are officials entrusted to such a position but without any meaningful executive authority. Some of the previous development plans failed because; there was little or no consultation of the general public. Planning is supposed to involve even the peasants in the villages. Even, the Local Government officials who are close to the people were not consulted. Planning is not an edifice where technocrats alone operate (Mimiko, 1998). Lack of good governance also militates against national development. Where there is no good governance, development becomes a mirage. This is as a result of bad leadership in the country. Most of our leaders have no sense of commitment to development but to enrich their pockets.
THE CHANGE I DESIRE
There is need for attitudinal change. Nigerians must as a matter of fact change their pessimistic attitude towards development. The idea or belief that “things cannot work in Nigeria or Nigerian factor” should be discouraged. Real development is achieved through internal activities rather than from external influences. Development is seen as a process generated within a society by forces propagated and invigorated by the actual members of that society. It is believed that true development can neither be started nor sustained by outsiders. Although, no country can develop in isolation, but heavy emphasis should not be placed on foreign resources for the country’s development. The models of development of Japan and China show how these countries utilize their internal resources both human and material for rapid economic development. It is reasonable that Nigerians should inculcate a high sense of patriotism as demonstrated by the Japanese and Chinese. Importantly, citizenship should be promoted over indigeneity in order to achieve cooperation and participation of all communities in the development process. Omotoso (2008) noted that the 1999 constitution is directly or indirectly promoting indigeneity in the country. For example, section 318(1) of paragraph (IV) supports indigeneity. The constitution sets parameters for indigenes and non-indigenes. It equally gives legal bases to various discriminatory policies that actively promote indigeneity, contrary to some sections that argue against discrimination. This is very contradictory. Leadership in Nigeria must behave in a way to inculcate the spirit of patriotism in the minds of the people, so that they will be ready to stand with the government in her development efforts. When Nigerians see themselves as one and not as belonging to one section of the country as portrayed presently, the urge to develop Nigeria will be germinated and sustained.
From Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research Vol. 3(9), pp. 237-241, November 2011
Tolu Lawal and Abe Oluwatoyin.
Personnal request.
Dear Ideasbrige Network,
Keep up the good work. This will only make meaning if the government intervenes.
Kindly reorganise blog page and place comment box up page, scrolling all the way down will put people off. Also, we would love to get feedback on our posts and some little appreciation.
Ahmed Luqman.
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WHAT I SEE
In Nigeria, efforts have been made to improve human development through different past programmes, which flopped and yielded no positive results. Currently also it is observed that the Nigerian government is posting records of economic growth, which disjunctively speaking, has in no way or manner translated to improved welfare for the people. Counting the opportunities wasted by NDE and NAPEP, it becomes right for empowerment planners to follow the path of discipline, commitment and sound-minded effort. This is because the two reviewed institutions have been diagnosed of corruption, lack of proper planning and of not acting ‘by the book’. Ignorance and incompetence has spelt their activities to the extent that monitoring and evaluation, which are normal procedural strategies are disregarded and the situation becomes a case of ‘anything goes’. This has unfortunately resulted to a low level of human development and unstable socio-political environment.
THE WAY FORWARD
Indeed the Nigerian economy needs thoroughly planned and delivered empowerment scheme as necessary hang-on spring to uplift the development stage and maintain a stable sociopolitical environment. The government must at all cost avoid the practice of recycling (public officials), who are bereft of new and strategic ideas to successfully run empowerment programmes. Re-aligning the management of NDE, NAPEP and other poverty alleviation programmes to the knowledge-based empowerment model will improve insourcing of data gathering and analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation strategies. This will re-inforce a link between learning, planning and programme execution. The government should of necessity, review the code of conduct guiding role players to urgently bring about discipline and strict observance of rules of engagement and as much deemphasize playing politics with such serious issues as unemployment and poverty. A properly executed empowerment programme would take people off the streets and make them productive. Through a well modelled empowerment programme, idle youths who would have been recruited to destabilize the State would be working, and adding to economic growth and development, while stability of the State also goes unchallenged. Therefore, in Nigeria where unemployment and poverty has reached crisis level, it is necessary that empowerment efforts must be placed in the hands of the very ‘cream of the crop’. Above all, government must initiate vibrant economic policies and programmes capable of creating more employment opportunities and/or encouraging self employment among the teeming unemployed Nigerian women and youths.
adopted from Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences Volume 4, No. 4.4 Quarter IV 2013 ISSN: 2229 – 53137 By Emecheta Kingsley Onyemekara.
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FOSTERING STABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA THROUGH INTEGRATED YOUTH AND GENDER EMPOWERMENT PROCESS AND PLANNING
In Nigeria, crisis and instability has precluded the government to a large extent from implementing its economic transformation programme. There has been remarkable episodes of insurrection in the country, ranging from the Niger Delta, Jos Plateau, to the Boko Haram (a terrorist group, whose name translates to as “western education is sinful”) secterian crisis. There is also subsisting level of criminality and armed banditry. This has been possible because of the sea-sand of unemployed and socially excluded young men and women roaming the streets, waiting to be recruited for any neferious purpose. The activities of these groups have variously affected service provision, state of infrastructure and general economic performance. Howbeit, the persistence and prominence enjoyed by these crisis situations is also as said, a result of the availability of poor and unemployed youths who are at each point willing to be recruited. These ones who Nigeria claims do not exist are the real bombs the nation must difuse by discovering and remoulding them, if the country must live in peace (Olagunju, 2012).
Consequently, providing these youths the opportunity to acquire self-reliance education and employment is key and should be the earnest concern of all governments particularly in Nigeria. Indeed Anumnu (2001) explicitly maintains that the greatest worry of any growing nation like Nigeria is how to fully utilize education to develop people’s ability to manage and induce change; or how to improve the standard of living of her citizenry and effect national development.
Provision and administration of socio-economic incentives for women and youth development have been seriously hampered by corruption. It is also safe to say that corruption brings about conditions like bad economy, unemployment, poverty and hunger. Emperical evidence according to Mauro (1997), suggests that corruption lowers investment and retards economic growth to a significant extent. There is also the propensity of corruption to tempt government officials to choose government expenditures less on the basis of public welfare than on the opportunity they provide for extorting bribes. Such situation diminish the empowerment process and may trigger off crisis that would retard economic growth and development. The Nigerian government must on this basis, learn to ‘bite the bullet’ in an attempt to fight corruption. This factor cannot be left out, when consideration is made as to the causes of the failure of past poverty reduction efforts in Nigeria.
It is absolutely necessary to adopt a massive capacity building exercise for empowerment planners who should be the athenaeum of knowledge and strategies for poverty reduction and empowerment. Furthermore, applying constructionist approach to empowerment administration will suffice as “man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing …man’s capability to transform his surroundings… (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 1972a), especially when it comes to fighting corruption, negligence and ineptitude.
Government agencies like the legislature may be inclined to fight corruption and official laxity in public institutions, but may not be properly disposed to doing so. This may either be as a result of lack of political will or dearth of the requisite knowledge to do so. In view of this, government should be enlightened to realise that corruption for example, flourishes where distortions in the policy and regulatory regime provide scope for it and where institutions of restraint are weak. It is the same when an Organization or person has monopoly power over a good or service which generates rent, has the discretion to decide who will receive it, and is not accountable (Bannon, 1999).
The executive and legislative arms who institute, appoint, confirm and allocate budgetary provision for empowerment institutions, must for the above reasons, initiate collective assault on breach of operational guidelines. They should act to strengthen anti corruption agencies and build capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country (Daily Independent online, August 29, 2013), through continous training. In this sense, capacity building both for the regulators and role players is necessary. By the above facts, the purpose of a knowledge-based empowerment programme would be to transform an ignorant situation to a situation built on knowledge rallied from solid investigations. In planning poverty alleviation and empowerment therefore, concerned institutions must base their actions and decisions on concrete and verifiable facts and data.
Adopted from Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences Volume 4, No. 4.4 Quarter IV 2013 ISSN: 2229 – 53137
By Emecheta Kingsley Onyemekara.
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Worth sharing. …………
The new Nigeria by Obi Igbokwe. (2009)
A 12-STEP PROGRAMME FOR THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY
The 12 Steps Recovery Programme from Oil Addiction is a composite of the current reforms being carried out in Nigeria, along with those successfully implemented in developed and emerging economics. Some of its recommendations are also bore from avoiding the mistakes in others in faulty implementations of reforms. Nigeria has an enviable position from learning what has worked in other countries and what has not.
The “12 Steps” focuses on sectors in need of attention for the plan to be successfully implemented, as they would hold the key to shoring up the Nigerian economy and provide a platform to launch its people into prosperity.
It must also be mentioned that while a good size of the recommendations involve liberalisation and deregulation, it must not be confused with non-regulation. A poorly regulated or unregulated industry only lays down the foundation for much bigger problems in the future as the US financial crisis can testify to.
The programme is designed to address the following:
1. TRANSPORT : A more efficient transport system allows for the movement of goods and people to all corners of the country.
2. COMMUNICATIONS: Communication systems eliminate the physical distance between any two communities and allow for the speedy exchange of information. In today’s world of increasing globalisation, it is now a requirement for any business to be able to communicate effectively and quickly.
3. ENERGY : Every aspect of the economy is dependent on energy. The vital role it plays in today’s society cannot be understated. The provision of affordable energy and the constant supply of power to light up houses, offices and factories will be essential in getting the Nigerian economy back on track.
4. HEALTH CARE : A healthy workforce is the engine of any economy. Failure to cater for the health needs of the country’s population only leads to a decrease in the production of goods and services as workers take more time off work than they need to.
5. EDUCATION AND TRAINING:
An educated workforce is a more efficient workforce. A better educated population also present multiple opportunities for the economy to diversify beyond its traditional pillars. This was an approach followed by the Asian Tigers, who invested heavily in education to produce a workforce that could provide value-added services as income generators for economies that had little or no natural resources.
6. AGRICULTURE & NATURAL RESOURCES: With the global food prices on the rise and Nigeria being a net importer of food, the country will be better served by reviving its agriculture sector, which was also Nigeria’s chief export earner before the discovery of oil. The availability of cheaper foods will also lead to an increase in the quality of life for Nigerians as more people will be able to afford put more food on the table for their families.
7. ENVIRONMENT:
Damage to the environment has long term implications to the Nigerian economy as it can lead to a deterioration of health of the general population, a depletion of natural resources and increased cost of doing business. It is much cheaper to put in preventive measures to protect the environment than to clean it up down the line. Protecting the environment is no longer a social issue but an economic one, and one that the Nigerian government will need to embrace fully.
8. FINANCE AND HOUSING:
A strong financial sector stimulates growth in the private sector through the availability of credit and can lead to more affordable housing for the average Nigerian.
9. ENTERPRISE & INNOVATION:
Promoting micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) can lead to a reduction in poverty and unemployment, and lead to wealth creation for the owners of the businesses. All these have a direct effect on the economy, and it also useful in reducing the wealth gap between the haves and have-nots.
10. LEGAL & SECURITY:
The enforcement of contracts and adherence to the rule of law not only provides a suitable environment for doing business locally and fighting corruption, it can also lead to increased confidence almost investors looking to plough their money into the Nigerian economy.
Increase internal security also fosters external foreign investment and adds to the quality of life of the country’s citizens. Tackling the crisis in the Niger Delta region and the wave of violent crime across the country will go a long way in improving the country’s image.
11. TRADE:
Improved trading opportunities in Nigeria’s non-oil sectors can be a major foreign currency earner for the country. Nigeria has a number of mineral resources that have yet to be exploited due to the government’s focus on petroleum.
Also the country is blessed with cheap labour but high energy cost and poor infrastructure have discouraged the growth of a manufacturing base in the country. If an enabling environment where the overhead costs of operation can be brought down to within reason, along with the enforcement of laws in the country, protection of investors, and education reforms, Nigeria can develop a manufacturing base that can rival those in South East Asia.
12. TOURISM:
Tourism is a good foreign currency earner for any country as every tourist dollar spent has a multiplier effect on the local economy. Improving internal security, improved transportation and a strong financial system can aid the government s efforts in improving the tourism sector in the Nigeria.
The country has lot to offer from the diverse ethnic makeup of the country to different climatic conditions (hot humid weather in Lagos, cool temperate weather in Jos) and geographical features (Mangrove swamps in the south, arid savannah in the North). There is something for everybody.
The “12 Steps” were selected to achieve the following:
INCREASE THE EFFICACY OF THE ECONOMY:
Improvements in the transport, communications and the energy sector will bring about a reduction in the cost of production and distribution of goods and services. This will invariably lead to putting goods and services within the reach of more Nigerians.
BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE:
Improvements in education, healthcare, agriculture and housing sectors will bring about an improvement in the quality of life of Nigerians. Also taking active measures to protect the environment, not only improves the quality of living in the country, it also prevents huge avoidable costs in cleaning the environment later in the future. Lastly improvements in security will make the people feel safe.
FIGHT POVERTY:
Promoting and supporting enterprise, along with improvements in the financial sector and legal framework will foster the growth of micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) which have been show to fight poverty, increase wealth creation and reduce unemployment.
INCREASE INVESTMENTS:
Improvements in the infrastructure, along with those in finance, security, enforcement of laws and education should bring about an increase in both local and foreign investments. The presence of the right infrastructure makes it cheaper to produce goods and services, the enforcement of laws makes it easier to conduct business, and an improved educational system produces quality candidates from which companies can select their staff from.
INCREASE FOREIGN EARNINGS :
Improved trade and tourism will bring about an increase in much needed foreign earnings.
DIVERSIFICATION : Opening up other sectors of the economy brings out diversification, making the country less reliant on a traditional base e.g. agriculture and oil .This is particular significant in rural communities.
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OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI.
Posted by African ExaminerArticles/Opinion, Latest News, Letters/RejoindersFriday, June 12th, 2015
“Dear Mr. President,
As the gentle breeze reaches you, we bring our plight to your attention as we anticipate your promise to end corruption, impunity and insecurity in Nigerian. It will be insane for any of us to start complaining now, as we are all aware of PDP misuse of the country’s wealth for sixteen years.
Honestly, this open letter is meant to shed more light on the challenges faced by Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora especially as it pertains to Nigerian embassies abroad. Though your office is open to the people unlike your predecessor who alienated himself from the masses, I choose this medium to actually send a point to those who might not be privileged to see a private letter.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari
We have absolutely no reason to doubt your commitment to cleanse the government of corruption and create a government that works for the people of Nigeria. We know that this campaign will outlive your presidential term just as efforts in different aspects of our national life have outlived other patriotic Nigerians in the past. This time is particularly important because Nigeria stands at the threshold of greatness or implosion, and the decisions you make in the next few years will significantly determine our future as a country.
We recall your promise during the campaign to end the impunity of extrajudicial and journalist killings and deliver justice to the families of the victims. This gave new hope to many people who defied fear and terror to vote for you.
We know that our quest for truth, justice and healing faces historical and structural challenges that are not easy to transcend. Victims, witnesses, advocates, and family members continue to face threats to life and health. But we cannot stop working to end the culture of impunity and joining efforts to bring forth a culture of accountability.
Tackling this problem demands wisdom and firmness that the previous government was unable to show. You have to make difficult decisions, and there is no way out of the mess our dear nation has been thrown into that will be easy. Like many Nigerians, I hope you do whatever it takes to restore normalcy to the country.
Secondly, I would also want to bring to your attention the criminal practice of Nigerian embassies across the globe. One wonders whose interests they protect or if Nigerian embassies that are supposed to protect the rights of every Nigerian living in diaspora have now become businesses. The daily exploitation of Nigerians by these embassies must come to an end; we must define the path of our country on accountability and transparency at home and abroad.
These embassies continue to charge Nigerians twenty dollars to stamp any document most especially in eastern European countries, this act is illegal, criminal and alien to the constitution of Nigeria. The problem extends beyond monetary exploitation to their lack of concern for Nigerians living in the countries they serve. In different countries around the world, embassy staff don’t answer phone numbers on their websites, hardly respond when Nigerians in trouble, and generally behave as if they don’t care at all. We cannot expect people to respect us if those people know that we don’t matter to our own embassies in their countries. Here in Ukraine, the story is not different; we must stop this if we are interested in reclaiming our place as the giant of Africa.
Sir, you have to strive for the change that we desire. You know Nigerians trust you to deliver on your promises, and I strongly believe that addressing these two issues would be a great way to start your mission to move Nigeria to the heights of greatness that it so surely deserve.”
Sincerely,
Comrade Ahmed Omeiza Lukman, Kiev Ukraine.
MY SUGGESTION
We can redeem our place by boosting our economy; making it attractive to foreigners and Nigerians in diaspora.
The perceived support of a stable economy drives Nigerians the western world only to be humiliated at foreign borders. It is high time we made our nation what we seek in foreign nations.
The government should promote Nigerian made goods and services, supply funds and all necessary support required to make the latter world class. This will create great competition for foreign goods and improve our foreign exchange presence.
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#Sai Buhari#
Una wan use my head chop Akara?
Na naija be this oh!
If I surrender my ideas, what do I get in return?
Kizito
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CORRUPTION reason for aviation failure.
I read this article and thought I share
Nigerian Politicians Are Too Corrupt And Insane – Richard Branson
Our Reporter August 7, 2012
International businessman with billions of dollars to his name, Richard Branson, has lambasted the crop of leaders we have in Nigeria for their high level greed which, according to him, is killing big brands wishing to do business with the government of the country, for the growth of Nigeria’s economy.
Below is the revelations by Mr. Branson on his experience in Nigeria…
The chairman of Virgin Atlantic said: “…we have virgin’s ill-fated footsteps by setting up a new airline in Africa in conjunction with Nigerian government…the details of the doomed attempts to crack the Nigerian market in the 2000s is better imagined…we put …together a very good airline-the first airline in West Africa that was ever IOSA/IATA operational safety audit accredited but unfortunately it got tied down to the politics of the country…we led the airlines for 11 years…
“We fought daily battle against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from us, politicians who saw the government 49% as a meal to seek for all kinds of favour…watchdogs (regulatory body) that didn’t know what to do and persistently asking for bribes at any point…Nigeria people are generally nice but the politicians are very insane…that may be irony because the people make up the politicians…
“But those politicians are selfish…we did make N3billion for the federal government of Nigeria during the joint venture…realising that the government didn’t bring nothing to the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria Airways…The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians KILLED it…Nigeria is a country we SHALL NEVER consider to doing business again..”
Why does the government fold arms and watch the aviation sector go down the drain?
Air travel in Nigeria has become a nightmare. Just last week one of Aero contractors old airplanes developed mechanical fault due to lack of servicing. For God’s sake these plains are too old. These companies should be sanctioned.
It seems the government has decided to trade the lives of the good people for self enrichment. Mr president Sir, please come to our rescue.
The international airport roads are like dreaded forests, halls are dilapidated.
Please look into these.
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Nigeria is supposed to be the pride of the African economy yet it seems smaller and less productive as other smaller countries have more stable economies. This is made evident in the world trade exchange rates; a dollar is sold for 200 naira. That is more than what the average poor person earns. Poverty seems to be a compound word in our rich nation. This has contributed to families turning to illicit ways of making wealth; Rituals, Robbery, Kidnapping, etc. As long as poverty remains, these ills of the society will prevail.
We desire a stable economy. We want to travel to other countries on vacations not to become prostitutes, seek refugee protection , or to traffic drugs all to make a living. It is indeed a story too sad to tell of how many have lost their lives in this cause.
Let the youth be given opportunities they deserve to express their needs and let them be heard.
Let our leaders create job opportunities for our sustainance , encourage entrepreneurship and development in diversified sectors not just oil and gas.
For details of workable solutions, please contact me on eedehabro1@gmail.com
Ejiro Edeha
+2348035536641
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By Adeoye Peace.
“Nigeria is the giant of Africa, a tall and handsome giant I must add. But sadly, this giant is battling with lots of deformities and disabilities. The crimes perpetrated are carried out by the very people of Nigeria, corruption is the order of the day at every turn, we pollute our own environment, drains and gutters provided by the government made for water to pass through have become dumpsters, we clamp them up; causing flood. Perhaps the government is supposed to come to our individual homes to teach us how to take care of our own homes and immediate environment. Planet earth is the only planet that supports human life and it is utterly appalling to see how much levity we treat it with.
Fraud another major problem in Nigeria is perpetrated by the old and young alike. The nation Nigeria is not made up of just the land mass but also the people on it. So if Nigeria has a bad image, so does the people; the government and the governed alike. The people of Nigeria seem to have forgotten the age long assertion that we need not wait for what the government can do for us but we should also ponder on what we can do for our nation.
Nigeria is our collective responsibility. The people carrying arms and taking to the street are not wired or predisposed to be criminals, chance has placed them there. Look at what has become of the erstwhile militants when they were given the opportunity. Today many graduates are roaming the streets unemployed, not because they are lazy and haven’t searched for jobs, but for lack of experience. Many employers have 7-10 years or more as a prerequisite for employment but how can these people garner experience if they are not first given an opportunity? And by the way, these organizations are not manned by angels, but people.
Yes, the slogan good people, great nation may have been abandoned for the more fascinating ‘FASCINATING NIGERIA’ but the spirit of GOOD PEOPLE, GREAT NATION must not be abandoned.
I reiterate, Nigeria is our collective responsibility. Whether leaders, whether commoners, we are all people of Nigeria. If we remain in the state we have been in time past, there is invariably no way we can achieve the status of a good people and a great nation. Of course this does not go to say there are no good people in Nigeria. The problem is there are not enough good people, so of what use is your voice if it cannot be heard? Of what use is your strength if it cannot shake a thing? Of what use is your height and color if you cannot be noticed in the crowd? And of what use is being good if you cannot make your country great? Being good is not all; positive steps have to be taken in making our country great. It is a new year; it is another opportunity to make a difference, to be the change we want to see”
Adeoye Peace, Faculty of Law University of Ilorin, Kwara state Nigeria.
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The government can boost the Nation’s economy by encouraging production, promotion and use of high standard ( SON approved) products such as food, clothes and accessories. Also the Nigeria football leagues should be upgraded to match world class clubs.
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What I see; Poor Power Supply.
PHCN is rated has performed far below satisfactory.
In Nigeria power outages last almost all through the year.
My Ideal Solution/Advise = Resort to Solar Energy Utility.
Reference; Naiaraland Forum, Sathobs profile, 2010.
Look at some advantages
•Lower or no electricity bills
•Compared to generator users, there is no fuel cost and stress of getting it and no fumes.
•People living in the remote locations where power is unavailable or too expensive to hook-up too can have electricity.
Just to mention but a few.
Without going into detail, one can enjoy electricity by means of using solar energy (energy from the sun), wind mill (using energy from the wind). Don’t forget, where there is frequent electricity supply from the utility company, you can store some energy for back up.
We will need the following to complete a solar project or back up.
1. Solar panels
2. Power Inverter
3. Charge controller
4. Batteries to store energy
5. wires and cables
6. Monitors/meters
The solar panel consists of cells called photo voltaic cells and these, covert the energy received from the sun to electricity in simple terms (this electricity is a direct current d.c). The panels can last up to 20 years plus. The panels can be fixed, adjustable or of the tracking type. You can decide to go for a complete panel from manufacturers (already made) or build panels by yourself using solar cells- the latter is for the hobbyist. The panels are rated in watts eg 80w solar panel supplying 12v continuous at a given time
The inverter
Power Inverters are available in 3 basic designs, two of which I remember very well now – the one that out sinusoidal waves and those that are modified sign wave type (meaning not pure sine waves and do have limits when it comes to its application) . The power inverter converts your storage battery power into the 240 volts AC that runs your appliances. It is the heart of your solar energy system. Unless you only run 12 volt DC appliances you will need a power inverter to supply your AC. This is just the basics.
The Charge Controller
A Charge Controller is necessary to protect the batteries from over charging and supply them with the proper amount of energy to promote long battery life.
Batteries
Without Storage Batteries to store energy you would only have power when the sun was shining. There is a lot more to batteries than just the ordinary car battery. Yo may need to change batteries over the years.
Wires and Cables
Without the right size of cables, you are likely to experience inefficient transfer of power (greater losses) and overheating.
Meters
This is required to monitor the performance of your solar system.
Firstly, it is very necessary to know what gadgets you will be using (eg. tv, sat. receiver) and how long you will use them on solar power and how much energy your battery can store and which solar panel (rating in power) will supply the required energy to be stored or used.
A lot goes into calculating the cost of setting up a solar system. First one has to consider the period of usable sunlight available at their location to do this calculation. For us here close to the equator, we get about 7 to 8 hours or more of sunlight during dry season, just a rough estimate.
How do I know I need 100w or 80w or 300 watts solar panel for my project?
The power consumption of appliances is given in Watts. To calculate the energy you will use over time, just multiply the power consumption by the hours of usage.
Eg. If I have 90W tv set which I want to use for 6hrs, 25W satellite receiver for the same period, and a 50W fan for 3 hours. What will be the energy required from the solar panels for the period?
1. the energy for each appliance is Watts x time (hours) = Wh
So, the watt hours for the tv = 90 x 6 = 540 Wh (watt hours)
Watt hours for sat. receiver = 25 x 6 = 150 Wh
Watt hours for fan will be = 50 x 3 = 150 Wh
2. sum the watt hours for the individual appliances ie. 540 + 150 + 150 = 840 Wh (watt hours)
This means that the solar panel will need to supply 840 watt hours of energy to the battery each day to cover the total power required by these appliances.
3. since there are bound to be losses in the system However, to account for natural losses, we multiply the result by 1.2 (this factor allows for natural system losses, assuming 85% efficiency). Therefore, we will assume the panels will actually need to be able to supply a total of
840 x 1.2 = 1008Wh
4. so, to supply 1008Wh of energy the panel we assume to receive 7 hours of sunlight will be rated at 1008 Wh / 7 h = 144W
So, I will need 144W solar panel to supply energy to my appliances above at the given time.
Regarding point 3, it also means, if I have a solar panel rated at 100W receiving sunlight for 7 hours a day, the total energy supplied considering 85% efficiency will be 100x7x0.85= 595Wh and not 700Wh
5. Your battery should be able to store 1008Wh of energy. Since batteries capacities are rated in Ah (Ampere Hours) you need to multiply Ah by the Volt rating to know the Watt Hour. Power(W) = Voltage (V) x Current (I) ; Watt hour = VxIxHour
Therefore Ah (which is I x h) = Wh / V = 1008 / 12 (the number 12 represents a 12v battery)
= 84 Ah
So it means you will need not less than a 84Ah, 12V battery (deep-cycle batteries, not ordinary car batteries) to do the job.
NB. Another way of calculating battery capacity is explained in this example. Should my battery be rated at 84Ah, 12V the watt hour (energy) will be 84Ah x 12 V = 1008Ah
It implies that the battery can supply a 150watt appliance for 1008/70 = 14hours”
I DARE THE GOVERNMENT.
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Letter to the President.
DON’T PROMISE TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS, PROMISE TO HELP THEM SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS
By Ucheka Anofienem
Idea and Business Strategist.
…….an author, who helps clients with ideas and information to excel. a Business and Human Capital Development Consultant based in Abuja, Nigeria.
Email:ucheka1968@gmail.com
“The in-coming government of Gen. Mohamadu Buhari of Nigeria should be forthright and lay foundation for good governance with the right perspective, otherwise they will give wrong impression by raising false hopes and unrealistic expectations which have already started with faulty campaign promises.
You will fail if you promise to provide jobs for the estimated 60 million unemployed Nigerian youths. You can’t. The promise will fail and the people will hate you. Build the infrastructure as well as the institutions that will facilitate development, set the platform that individuals, groups, companies and organizations can leverage to create their own wealth. Give priority to quality education, especially in the north. There is no remedy that will save an illiterate population from poverty. (Discourage the Almajiri system and mop the children into formal schools. Any leader who believes it is impossible to stop the menace is unfit to rule). When this happens many things will naturally fall in place.
Your biggest effort will be to find how to get Nigerians to start thinking on what they can do to succeed with their own effort, hard work, and commitment to come out of poverty. Promise to provide the facilities people can leverage to do things for themselves and excel much more than the government can ever do for them.
I believe the job of the government at this critical moment is to give inspiration and motivating encouragement to Nigerians to look inside of themselves and put their gifts, talents, creativity, innovation and inventive spirit to use. When they are mobilized and enabled they can weave better baskets that will sell in London, they can compose songs and produce videos that will compete in California, they will develop new machines and remodel telephones and software what can compete with Nokia, Techno and Microsoft, they will do wonders in sciences, medicine and agriculture. Simply create the enabling environment and pave the way for excellence and the people will astound you with their capabilities.
There are myriads of businesses that can be started without money or very little of it. Government should mobilize to teach Nigerian youths to be self-driven, to develop the ability to take self-help entrepreneurial initiatives, to have the can-do spirit, to have self-belief, to realize nobody can help them better than they can help themselves. Government should admit to the people there is no government job that can go round for everybody, but they can start their own business and grow to employ somebody else. Government should inculcate possibility mentality into Nigerians. If this concept is hammered and wired into their brain it will stick within a few years. When that happens, there will be a buzz, a wealth revolution and national consciousness.
Government cannot give jobs and shouldn’t promise it. Rather, they should make intervention funds available to assist those who genuinely need it. They should make the process of accessing such money easier. Make it a loan repayable with or without interest, make the monitoring strict, both of disbursement and utilization. They should not give it through any political group, or banks, or Micro Finance Banks that will manipulate and circumvent the resources to their personal interest like we now witness. All the billions CBN claimed to be disbursing to assist SMEs are ineffective, because their strategy is wrong. Many people are not even aware of the existence of such funds, those that are aware cannot access the money because nobody taught them how to package their business to meet requirements. They agencies managing the money, including MFB made everything difficult. Yet the government is rejoicing at its effort to fight poverty.
Most of the claims of success of SURE-P Graduate Internship and YOUWIN Scheme are false and unverifiable. What is the wisdom in facilitating a temporal employment for someone in a company that does not consciously prepare him to becoming self-employed entrepreneur? What happens to such fellows when the companies throws him out into unemployment after a year? Has there been any assessment of failure rate among those to whom SURE-P disbursed N10 million to? As a rule, 80% of every new business fails within the first five years, and who needs N10 million naira to start a new business? Those are poorly taught out strategies, and unfortunately they are celebrating unverified assumptions and unfounded success.
There is vast wealth in Nigeria; the challenge is persistent misplacement of priority. Look at the billions Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) spent on jamboree on Jonathan’s reelection bid. If it can mobilize youths from Calabar, Maidugri and all over Nigeria to Abuja with a wave of the hand, can’t it use the same financial muscle to mobilize same youths towards starting creating their own jobs? You can remind me it’s an individual initiative, but we all know from whose wallet the reimbursement will come eventually.
Think for once what will happen if the billions of naira expended for the election campaigns, including the billions of dollars used to bribe the elites were used to build mass housing that the ordinary citizens can access. Will that gesture not lift some people out from the slums and ghettos? Will the economy collapse if it devote N50 billion naira to mobilize same jobless youths invited from their villages to attend useless rallies in Abuja to make bricks, mould blocks, and directly build low cost houses without any contractor taking 40% of the fund for himself? How can we believe in a government who does not agree houses should be built so people who had not N10million and N3 million to buy one can afford to live in decent homes. There is money in Nigeria, the problem is that government’s elitist policy does not care about the issues that will lift those who should be helped to come out of poverty.
Solving Nigerian problems are easy because Nigerians are creative and inventive. The explosions in the entertainment (especially the music and home video industry) proved it. The achievements in sports had shown we are not lazy folks. Nigerians pastor the largest churches in 8 European nations, and there are many more generating exploits across America, Asia and the Caribbean. The government did not arrange that. There are hundreds and millions of Nigerian professionals and experts scattered across the globe. The government did not send them there. The big names and globally acclaimed achievers of Nigerian descent today were not made by government.
What Nigerians need, and what government need to do now is to give Nigerians a purposeful sense of direction. Assemble deserving exceptionally intelligent Nigerians and give them scholarship. Harvest the inventive and creative ones and support their idea and works. Guide them to monetize and commercialize such skills. Encourage people to be the best that is in them.
Bring young enterprising Nigerians and teach them how to think and evolve unique ideas and lead them to strong implementation strategies. When this type of orientation shapes up, I believe people will be ashamed to be seated for a N10,000 naira monthly paid job. There will be competition for excellence. More jobs will be created, not by government, but by Small and Medium Scale business entrepreneurs who are poised to make a difference. The small scale businesses in United States are responsible for 60% of new jobs created, not even the big multi-billion corporations. Does it then trouble you when government jokes with micro business financing in Nigeria?
All government need to do is show people the way and they will get there themselves. Do not spoon-fed anyone, or fool them to hope government is going to provide jobs for all the teeming unemployed. Don’t lead anyone to hope he is going to get a job in Shell BP or NNPC and get a fat salary at the end of the month. It will be deceptive to promise people free money every month for being unemployed. When it comes to that pay them the money, but carry them to plant palm trees in the deserts of Yobe State and the forests of Edo State. In six years time they will have palm oil and enough brooms to sell and they will be rich. Self-developed person has limitless opportunities he can create for himself.
Our land is fertile; the agro sector is huge and unexplored. The solid mineral sector holds so much promise. Please mobilize the youths there and they will create wealth in a matter of months. We say no and not anymore to useless and keep-them-quiet kind of jobs. The people are looking forward with great expectations, they are not expecting miracles, but if the government is unable to do nothing they will know too. However everybody is waiting for the best.”
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OUR DREAM NIGERIA
http://ourdreamnigeria.blogspot.ca
( By Ukachukwu ThankGod, an AWARD WINNING blogger )
“We look forward to a prosperous Nigeria where the basic necessities of life are provided for every citizen.This can only be attained by change of attitude towards governance by our leaders.Obstinacy on their part to embrace change is an invitation to a revolution;violent or non-violent.History will judge!”.( Ukachukwu 2015).
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
“Five Reasons Why Buhari’s presidency is good for Nigeria
I have adduced these reasons why Buhari’s presidency is good for Nigeria.
1) The emergence of Buhari and APC is good for deepening and entrenching the democratic culture which we as a people have adopted, a culture that is inherent from our various civilizations.
2) We have become a model of democracy for Africa. The influx of who-is-who in Africa at the inauguration has given Nigeria the platform to emerge as the heartbeat and de-facto leader in Africa. This is a prerequisite for a permanent seat at the United Nations.
3) Wealth is being spread more than it would have been under a continued Goodluck Jonathan and PDP continuum as the wealth of the country would have been concentrated on the few who have been at the forefront since 1999 under PDP.
4) It showed that every region in this country is equally important as unity in any region can be a determinant in any election. Parties have learned that having presence and being active in every state in Nigeria is essential for wide acceptability as a national party.
5) Every section of this country has hope of participating in this democracy as a stakeholder, is guaranteed the topmost position of the presidency. .”
Posted by ThankGod Ukachukwu at 4:29 AM
The Beginning of Change – The First Week of President Buhari’s Presidency
I happen to find myself at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja on the day former President Goodluck Jonathan handed over Nigeria’s flag to his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari. I was having lunch with a friend. As we drove towards Hilton Hotel, uneasy calm filled with an air of apprehension hovered. You could not but think about the unprecedented “phone call” from Goodluck to Buhari which saved Nigeria from plunging into crisis head on. I remember digging the internet some years back to confirm the assertion from the CIA and their foreign affairs counterparts that Nigeria will disintegrate in 2015. That apprehension kept me pondering the unperturbed peace which permeated the atmosphere, in fact, it was a festive mood. After the lunch, as we made our way out of Hilton, I and my friend were treated to an usual spectacle, a red carpet reception of about 7 (seven) African presidents as they arrived in VIP to rest before they proceeded for the Presidential Gala night. It was pomp and pageantry instead of war and crisis. However, it was later that day that I learned that the president ‘neglected’ his guests and headed to his Jumat prayers. That I envisaged as the president missed the official Jumat of the inauguration activities the previous friday. This action was greeted with condemnation from several quarters including the visiting heads of state some who were offended while Buhari supporters saw his actions as flawless.
It is imperative to note that Nigeria is a religious country. However, as a plural society with different religious inclinations, the president of Nigeria first allegiance is to the nation and it is believed that such an occasion as important as the reception of various presidents of Africa and international dignitaries should not be treated with levity. No wonder the superpowers and most other presidents in the international community shunned the inauguration as their advisers would have envisaged such a lacuna. As the most populous country in Africa, given the enterprising nature of Nigerians and our ability to be pacesetters, other sister African countries are looking up to us to be the rallying point and a big brother. Africa must have a leader and Nigeria is in a good position to take over as that leader. While some have insinuated that the president is a religious extremist based on his antecedents, his actions on daily basis confirms that assertion. In other not to draw the ire of Muslims, I would have expected the president to have excused his guest, held short prayers like 30 minutes and rejoined the reception to deliver a powerful message to African leaders that they have to get their acts together and emulate Nigeria, which is building a model of democracy for the continent.
Related to the foregoing, the President has started his international diplomatic shuttles in earnest and to the ire of many Nigerians, he has spent the first one week of his presidency outside, away from those who gave him the mandate. While international support and cooperation is imperative to moving Nigeria forward, the problems that burgeons the nation need to be tackled from the home front. For us to be respected worldwide, we have to show that we can lead in Africa. The president preferred to attend the G7 summit and ignored the World Economic Forum’s Africa summit holding in Cape Town. That was billed from 3-5 of June and I believe that Buhari should have been at that forum to outline his Economic agenda from the African perspective. As the author of the referenced article on Quartz noted, all eyes were on the man who would not be there. I do not want a president who will ignore things at the local and continental level and thinks that hobnobbing with the international community is the solution to our problems. We are no longer colonies, we are our own people and we should determine our lives.
Irrespective of this lacuna, the president has towed a good line to pay heed to the fact that we also need international support albeit incompletely. As he heads to the G7 summit which has taken Russia out of the equation, permit me to imagine Nigeria as a replacement for Russia in the G8. Is it possible for Nigeria to be in that group, yes, but it depends on our leaders and how well Nigeria’s trajectory of development in the next 10-15 years moves. As the president heads to the G7, the happily returned prime minister of the United Kingdom has tasked Buhari on the expectation as he joins the world’s most advanced and elite club in a summit. As I noted earlier on the comments section, the request from Cameron was met mostly by a backlash. However, in response to others opinion, I started below:
Most people don’t get what Cameron is asking for. APC and Buhari got this presidency through unconventional ways of propaganda and rhetoric. Now that is not what you apply to solving the complex problems of a developing country. You need a policy thrust, a policy direction, an elegant plan which will be followed to rescue Nigeria from the purported decay. Now that is what the West want to see if they are to cooperate with Nigeria. Not all the aggression, covert and overt, and cooked up lies against PDP and Jonathan. We cannot exist in isolation, we need foreign direct investment (FDI), we are going to sell oil and we will borrow funds. They need a broad and detailed policy base of the Buhari’s administration, not the kind of conference that was hurriedly put up the other day. You don’t go to G7 to tell them you will fight corruption and BH, you need to tell them how you will use sophisticated method of economic development to tackle issues. You need to outline your foreign policy, now we have become a model of democracy in Africa, what role are we going to play and how? Africa needs us and I didn’t hear Buhari mention anything like that. As one guy on Sahara Reporter said, that speech was ‘vague’ and ‘illusory’.
As I noted earlier, some are averse to the foreign trips that have become the trademark of the Buhari presidency. Late Yardua was the opposite of Buhari as he rarely travelled. Goodluck was better, it seems Buhari wants to surpass them all. However as many such as Chief Olu Falae voiced out on Vanguard, the president would have stayed home with his primary contingency in the first week of his presidency to plan and ponder with various interest groups and with a broad spectrum of Nigerians from whom he will get inputs with which he will depart to meet with our friends to discuss issues of paramount importance to Nigerians. However, he is the president and he calls the shots.
As we continue to enjoy the peace with anxious outlook to know the direction the next four years will look like under this dispensation, activities and clues have been emerging slowly. On May 30th, we were greeted with the news that the president has declared his assets to the agency, Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) responsible for such declarations in Nigeria. However, many were taken aback when the declaration was announced as an official secret. While some understood Buhari’s promise of asset declaration as an open affair as chronicled here – Buharimeter- a website by group of civil society who wants to take the president to task over his promises, staunch supporters of the president came to his rescue saying that he has fulfilled his constitutional requirement. The news filtering in after the uproar is that the detials of the declaration will be made public after verification by the CCB. However, we have to wait for the expiration of the first 100 days which the president himself set as limits for his assets declaration. The next day, the high point was the appointment of spokesmen for the president, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu respectively as special adviser and senior special assistant respectively. My take on their appointments was:
I hope their first assignment today Monday 1st June 2015 will be to address the media on the president’s declaration of assets. We need facts and figures, physical assets and liquid cash. Change is here. We need to start on a clean slate. No skeletons to hide. We are watching!
That did not happen.
We are still expectant as that will be done after the verification by CCB.
While the president is relishing his ascendency to the topmost position of the federation, issues of national and economic importance have continued to pervade the polity. I will not have done justice to this review if I don’t mention the nagging issue of fuel scarcity that has become the albatross of the first week of Buhari’s presidency. However, as usual we will overcome. Again, the contentious issue of fuel scarcity, a seemingly easy problem to solve given that the raw material needed to arrive at all the finished products we require as fuel for all kinds of land moving and flying machines is abundant in the Niger Delta. I will not dig deep into this issue but I will mention the request from some professional organisation in the oil and gas sector who have lend their voice on how the president can handle this issue and save Nigerians the recurring scourge of incessant fuel scarcity. Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in support of a Civil Society organisation, Conscience Nigeria, has urged the president to work at increasing local capacity before removing fuel subsidy.
MY THOUGHT ON THIS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
This is the problem with Nigeria. Removing fuel subsidy is a strategic decision whereby the government would decide to remove the subsidy under the parlance of elaborate plan and policy thrust to contain the resulting vagaries. What is required is a framework and timeline which will be based on consultations and extensive planning over a period of time – at least 3 years- to ensure that adequate measures are put in place to cushion the effects on the masses, deal with increasing local production to a certain level, putting down a legal framework to overhaul the petroleum sector because we are dealing with a system and their is interrelationship existing amongst the various components. You don’t just remove fuel subsidy, you will create problems that may eclipse fuel subsidy. This is why many of us show disdain at the Buhari’s presidency because of the lack of sound policy frameworks that he intends to employ in tackling the complex hydra like problems bedevilling Nigeria.
The president is still outside the country for the first 9 days of his presidency. The fuel situation has been diffused a little bit, queues are still visible at the fuel stations. It was the patriotism of Ifeany Ubah,a hard-line supporter of the immediate past president that saved Nigeria from consternation and anarchy. While some have praised his love for country, others have labelled him a sycophant who is jostling to curry favour or avoid being prosecuted by the present administration for yet to be known wrong doings in the past administration. If not for anything, he was the leader of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, the flagship support group of former President Jonathan’s re-election bid. Be it as it may, he saved Nigerians so much pains and hard life. Just as he is vilified for doing good, the former president has been on the receiving end. The beginning of the many travails which may be the norm in response to Buhari stance on corruption. Even Buhari acknowledged the benevolence and magnanimity of Goodluck’s behaviour as crucial to the sustenance of our democratic institutions, some ignoramus have been been yelling at others who dare to call Goodluck Jonathan a hero. Among those who have magnified these calls are the beautiful singer, Adokiye and Sylva, former governor of Bayelsa State. While one cannot place the context and reasoning and would choose to ignore the girl who should have concentrated on her beauty and what she knows best and be sensible before commenting on national issues, I have strong words of caution for Sylva as I responded on Vangurd thus:
Its understandable coming from Sylva, however, you cannot change the obvious. Goodluck’s benevolence and magnanimity is why you can open your nonsense month and talk in a peaceful Nigeria today. The crisis would have swallowed loud mouthed hypocrites like you.
Within the week, what most of knew since the emergence of APC was confirmed in an interview with the Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmad Coomasie, a former Inspector General of Police, that what was branded change is a northern agenda to grab power. I stated further that, Coomasie are actually right. Many of us in the know have echoed the same sentiments. Many were hoodwinked into believing the ‘change’ mantra. However, the former president’s men, his party and including himself were complacent. The south has never been united. The south is a tripartite union. The north have never been sincere about Nigeria’s leadership, they always have hidden ambition, to grab power. As the House of Representatives and Senate are preparing to elect their leaders, the former governor of Delta had for seen a scenario where the President, Senate Presidency and Speaker are all from the north. This he unequivocally submitted as untenable as a nation.
Many in the South South, including Asari have echoed similar sentiments as is unfolding. In fact, he made it known that Goodluck Jonathan was his own waterloo as he refused to listen to their pleas. However, I believe Nigeria is better for the present situation. Even though the truth must be told, however we have to move on. If not for anything, the South South would have realised that the North have always cherished their friendship because of what they are endowed with. They have realised that it is good to be at peace with your neighbours. The animosity that existed between Prof Eyo Itah and Nnamdi Azikiwe have been resolved. It is South Versus North, the way it was originally before the amalgamation. That is the fault line. I hope the SW will realise themselves soon. It’s only a matter of time. Because the North have never been sincere about Nigeria’s leadership. Of all mighty men, a weak man was selected to lead a war made for men of valour, just like weak men, he chickened out. He opted for peace, he loved his life so much, it’s a lesson for future politics, being a good man does not equal good leadership. You need people with very strong resolve, those who can even make a government ungovernable to grab power.
In conclusion, the first week of Buhari’s presidency has been inundated with violence and death caused by fuel tankers plunging into markets, houses and passers-by and continued attacks by BH. As the presidency has started off with international diplomatic shuttles, he hasn’t completely ignored the home front, he sent and have gotten approval for 15 advisers, 3 short of the number his predecessor had from both arms of the National Assembly. As he returns to take over fully the reins of power, he has huge challenges to surmount and Nigerians and the international community are waiting in earnest for breath of positive change.
I wish President Buhari will succeed. However, our wishes do not determine the future all the time, its our actions and inactions that shape the future and cause the forces of nature to obey us. As Buhari echoed in his inaugural address, “We have an opportunity, let us take it”
Posted by ThankGod Ukachukwu at 4:17 AM
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Oludare Akinyele
WHAT I HAVE TO SAY
Honestly we do not know what the Government uses our tax for. Tax collection and its utility statements should be made CLEAR to public. This would encourage Nigerians to pay Tax properly and also help the government to be transparent and accountable for tax collected .
WORKABLE SOLUTION:
Increasing Revenue profile ; Corruption free Tax collection
Materials and reference.
a. Extract from Dr Ngozi Okonji Iweala’s note to the president
b. Adebayo (2004).
Important Tips from reading
A). The government can actually increase its revenue profile by deepening and expanding its tax collection drive. In achieving this, she said, the government engaged the services of a foreign tax consultant. The measure brought in additional $500million into its coffers last year.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said if consistently pursued, the measure could fetch the government $3billion over the medium-term.
Instead of spending almost everything that comes into the government’s coffers. There is need for the government to rebuild its buffers.
She said the incoming government should also tinker with the option of raising the Value Added Tax (VAT), which in its present five per cent level, she pointed out, is the lowest in the world. Raising the margin by another five per cent, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala argued, would make a difference in increasing revenue. She said the proposal is already included in the 2015 budget before the National Assembly.
“We can look at other taxes, like the VAT, which is in the budget for 2015. We have the lowest VAT in the world, which can be doubled. This can bring another $3billion into the revenue profile,” Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said, adding that these steps are needed to drive the economy beyond oil.
B). Government should utilize taxation as an instrument of regulating the general economy. Since income tax provide large source of national revenue. Effect on inflation, unemployment and social and economy objective has become the prime consideration in enacting tax law in Nigeria.
To FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT AFRICA
To encourage comments and discussion participation, Kindly provide prizes or some form of incentives.
Kindly contact me via email if my attention is needed and also i have other workable solutions which I will love the Government to consult me for.
Thank you.
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