The Nigerian 'penkelemesi' (peculiar mess)

 


You would begin to understand the scope of the problem in this country when you remember that two Nigerian leaders on whose watch the nation's universities turned a cesspool now boast of full-fledged, world standard universities of their own! Ask IBB, OBJ et. al... Oh, the latter even had a deputy who owns one of the best university campuses on the continent! History will judge these men for deliberately undermining our future while all the while building a future of opulence for their own.
One would wonder, where was OBJ's ingenuity with agriculture during his two terms in government from 1999 to 2007? Instead of that 'talent' translating into a home-grown solution to the food question in the country, we instead developed a craving for imported food. And yes, OBJ himself prospered tremendously within said period. For a farmstead that started in Ota, Ogun State in 1979, the retired general now controls an impressive swathe of arable land across the country's six geo-political zones in a fully mechanized operation that spans everything from palm oil to poultry.

Question is, how much of these ideas could he have made available to the Nigerian economy as a deliberate policy of government with the vast economic implications that agriculture holds for this country? Or was it a question of simply angling for a monopoly for himself and his friends, a case of the rest of us living at their mercy?

Today, the cost of that act of treachery runs into the billions of dollars every year while he and his can afford to have fresh chicken and fish on their table every day for next to nothing while the rest of us rely on rotten food from abroad at cutthroat prices.

How about his fair-skinned 'younger' brother, IBB? This is the one man who can be credited with institutionalizing misappropriation and misapplication of public funds in Nigeria. It was through his dubious ingenuity that Nigerian public office holders learnt the art of stealing billions of dollars. Before he came to power, most reports of official corruption was in the millions of naira and not in the billions of naira or billions of dollars as we saw during the virulently corrupt regime he presided over.

As problematic as elections were in the 1st and 2nd Republic, almost non of them dealt us the kind of blow this fellow delivered when he annulled the 12th June 1993 presidential election. This nation is yet to fully recover from it. So, to cap it for this evil reign, IBB again innovated a new epoch, one that was to evolve into a huge monster: that it was alright to fiddle with the nation's electoral process. Today, it's almost a given that any election  conducted anywhere in the country will return with a warped result and to compound the problem, the players now do it with brazen impunity.

I challenge anybody with the resources to do a study with the aim of unraveling how much of Nigeria's commonwealth is in the pockets of these two men and their ilk and then do another to determine just how much of Nigeria's future they're angling to own. It'll be an interesting read!

#‎nigeriansgovexoneday‬

 

National Cake

 
God, I love this country! Imagine that someone's asked to render a selfless service for what's already an outrageous fee but then what does he do? He asks if he could bring his friends to the party too- for a fee!

 
FG rejects delegates’ request for aides’ allowance- The Punch
The Federal Government has rebuffed request by some of the delegates to the ongoing national conference that their personal aides be paid by the government.

Each of the delegates are to receive N12m for the three months exercise.

The allowance include money for accommodation, transportation, part of feeding (the delegates are to have free lunch at the venue of the conference.

However, the delegates are expected to have aides such as drivers and personal assistants in order to ease their works and movements.

However, investigations by one of our correspondents showed that some of the delegates met in Abuja on Monday shortly after the inauguration of the conference by President Goodluck Jonathan where the welfare of their aides was discussed.

The delegates, it was gathered, wanted the Federal Government to take over the allowances of their aides.

While some of them at the informal meeting said that the issue be raised during plenary, thinking that the N12m was meant for them and not their aides, a few of them were said to have disagreed.

One of the delegates, who was at the meeting, confided in our correspondent that the organisers of the conference ought to inform them about the number of aides they were to employ and who would be responsible for their salaries.

Another delegate was said to have given an example of the members of the National Assembly whose aides he said, were being paid by the Federal Government.

“This does not affect the salaries and allowances of these lawmakers,” one of the delegates argued.

At the inaugural sitting on Tuesday, a delegate from Jigawa State, Senator Mohammed Jibrin, asked the leadership of the conference to tell the delegates the number of aides each of them were expected to have.

“We need to know the number of aides we are to employ,” he demanded.

Another delegate, a lady also asked the management of the conference who was going to be responsible for the welfare of their aides.

In her response, the Conference Secretary, Mrs. Valeria Azinge, said there was no provision for personal aides of the delegates.

She informed the delegates that the Federal Government had monetised their accommodation, transportation and sitting allowances.

Naija Blues!

 




 In a classic Nigerian government move, President Goodluck Jonathan has reportedly directed that three employment slots be reserved for the families of those who died during the exercise nationwide. He said one of the three beneficiaries must be a female.

The source added that Jonathan also directed that all those who sustained injuries and were receiving treatment in hospitals be given automatic employment in the immigration service.
Considering the peculiarities of this particular case, I would say OK, reasonable move. Is it a smart move though?

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I would think there should be better ways of compensating both the injured and the bereaved.

For job positions that require specific skill sets, methinks ordering that the injured be given automatic employment, in itself defeats the whole purpose of the recruitment exercise.

Question is, are these injured ones the best candidates for those positions? Do they have the requisite skills to adequately fill those vacancies or is it just a question of filling vacancies these days?

And again, why is our sense of perception and justice in this country so twisted? Imagine the U.S. government offering all the victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme a refund of money lost or offering to compensate the families of those whom the Tsarnaev brothers slaughtered during the Boston Marathon in April 2013 without the vigorous pursuit of the perpetrators and the perception that justice had been served. It's called closure! It's enough compensation for many people just to know that those responsible have been made to face the music.

So, imagine what many families of the dead are feeling right now knowing that Abba Moro and David Parradang are still in office and would probably not receive more than a slap on the wrist for causing the deaths of 19 job seekers after dispossessing them of N1billion of money they don't have! It's outrageous!

You know what's funnier? Let's ask Abba, Parradang and their 'consultants' to bring all the money they collected from these applicants to the National Assembly in Ghana-must-go bags and see if they'll be able to produce it. That's when you'll know just how much shit we're in in this country.

In saner climes, there would have been a harvest of high profile resignations since that news broke and the courts would have begun to see some action but not here and certainly not these ones.

Premium Times: Suspended CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi, Responds to Allegations of Financial Recklessness
~ Published: March 16,2014

The suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has issued a statement responding to allegations of financial recklessness leveled against him by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria and the Nigerian presidency.
In the lengthy statement distributed to the media early this morning, Mr. Sanusi denied any wrongdoing, saying he had already sent a detailed response to the presidency.
Read his full press statement below.
I am compelled to make this public statement to address the various allegations levied against the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and cited as the reasons for my suspension from office as the Governor of the CBN on the 19th of February 2014.
As a matter of record, the allegations were made in the following documents:
i. Briefing Note of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) dated 7th June 2013, Ref: PRES/188/T&I/89 to His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan [the Briefing Note];
ii. The Letter of Suspension dated 19th February 2014, which I received from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation; and
iii. The petition dated 9th February 2014 by Mr. Erastus
Akingbola.
However, before I go into the above issues, let me reiterate for the records, the achievements of the CBN during my tenure as the Governor:
The Record...
Firstly, let me state that I have been extremely fortunate to have had a solid and supportive team led by the Deputy Governors and supported by the Departmental Directors, as well as thousands of hardworking and dedicated staff who must be given the credit for all that the CBN has achieved. I would also like to acknowledge for the record, the foundation laid by my predecessor, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, in a number of areas. The CBN Act, 2007, which he championed, established the CBN as a truly autonomous entity of the Federation, and made it possible for us to take the difficult decisions necessary for restoring and maintaining macroeconomic stability. The FSS 2020 and PSV 2020 documents provided the principal strategic roadmaps that led to many of the innovations in payment systems, non-interest banking, financial inclusion, the Asset Management Corporation, IFRS, Risk-based Supervision, and the like.
Indeed, it will be impossible for me to review almost five years of revolutionary change made possible by the work of thousands of employees in the CBN in collaboration with other Regulators, Banks and Other Financial Institutions and Government Ministries in this press statement. However, I will mention a few of the key highlights.

THE FANTASTIC NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT

THE FANTASTIC NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT

by Donald Falayi

 Welcome to Nigeria, the West African nation with the most fantastic governmental model in the world! Ours is perhaps the only country in the world whose problems have so far defied all known structural models, which in a sense makes us one of a kind.

In just 53 years, we have tried everything in the books; first a parliamentary democracy, then  military interventions of different shades and character, a few dictatorships, a couple of complacent pseudo-democratic regimes, and at least one democratic dictatorship. You would think that with all these experiments, my country would have found a model that works for its very peculiar problem, abi? Shior! You don’t know my country!

Here is one character of the Nigerian governmental model that makes ours such an interesting system: outsourcing. We are masters in outsourcing governance!

Here, we outsource everything from power, water supply, road construction & rehabilitation, education, and job creation e.t.c. Oh, that list continues but first you must understand how this system works in case you are studying it for your dissertation!