arewafederation: I wonder how long it will take the mods to move this wonderful piece to front page.
Nice write up Omenka. This is one of the most intelligent post I have seen recently on NL.
BB013: Am surprised this well articulated piece hasn't made front page. Omenka kudo to u for a job well done This is wot barca is supposed to do but his blokes brain won't allow him
Well what can one say? If Lalasticlala and Ishilove in their wisdom think this doesn't deserve such publicity, who are we to say otherwise?
Thanks for the kind words.
As they continue to keep Jonathan's name in circulation, claiming responsibility of every gains made by Buhari, so shall we keep reminding them of some of the "salient" accomplishments and legacies of Jonathan while he was the president.
OMENKA,this is a great compilation no doubt,even though i sees this thread as somewat controversial(bcus of the mind blowing revelations),but not withstanding this thread should have been on fp since,can you imagine the useless threads by chukwudi and eurbomber made fp,if it is a thread that says "boko harams kills 20" they would have move it to fp even b4 the op put the link, bro sincerly i'm begining to lose intrest in nl bcus of this partiality,i always wonder where the blind followers of gej are during those trying periods,maybe they are just addicted to suffering,but bro,pls don't give up in your quest to free up the truth,bcus truth will always prevail KUDOS
OMENKA,this is a great compilation no doubt,even though i sees this thread as somewat controversial(bcus of the mind blowing revelations),but not withstanding this thread should have been on fp since,can you imagine the useless threads by chukwudi and eurbomber made fp,if it is a thread that says "boko harams kills 20" they would have move it to fp even b4 the op put the link, bro sincerly i'm begining to lose intrest in nl bcus of this partiality,i always wonder where the blind followers of gej are during those trying periods,maybe they are just addicted to suffering,but bro,pls don't give up in your quest to free up the truth,bcus truth will always prevail KUDOS
Thanks for your kind words man. Truth indeed would always prevail no matter how long it takes.
Lalasticlala, is there a fp embargo on threads critical of the past admin?? Why has one which places Buhari in bad light and glorified Jonathan made it to the fp while this still lies here?? This smacks of partiality.
Sending GEJ home was a task that had to be done; thank God once again for the 2015 elections. My only worry however is the slowness and unproactiveness of the present admin which is making it look no much different from past administrations.
omenka: Cc: Midolian, Obiagelli, Caseless, Clerverly, Demdem, PassingShot, Beremx. Hope you guys have been good.
For the wailingwailers, your insults and inane rants are expected.
Omenka you will continue to live. U can stop thanking and loving you and fellow patriotic Nigerians. We Will continue to support and pray for our president to be able to clean up the humongous mess PDP got us into. The ain't see anything yet.
size40: I became one of the happiest Nigerian to see GEJ removed from office through election. Am a Niger deltan and I hold no grudges for GEJ. But he is incompetent, weak and too corrupt.
When a country is saddled with morally and spiritualy bankrupt leaders, poo happens. The problem with NIGERIA is not just the politicians, even the followers who based their voting decision on stupid sentiments like he is a Christian, he is a Muslim, he is our club member, his great grand mother was our towns woman without asking the most important question " is he qualified ". I never for once agree with the selection of Good Luck because those who package and sold JEG to Nigerians did not tell us his achievents as the governor of Balyelsa state. They said he had no shoes when he was young, can any of those who promote and are still defending JEG take " I had no shoes to the market and by anything?, or present this as their qualification to get a job? I rest my case.
After my release from a three-day incarceration which terminated two days ago, I lost the appetite to contribute to discussions here. Nevertheless, upon some consideration I decided to do this.
For those who insist we just forgot about the immediate past admin and concentrate squarely on the current one, well, you might have a good point but the problem is, the guys that push this line of thought are the same guys that keep attributing every accomplishment of this government to Jonathan. When it has to do with some cheery news, an assembly plant here and there, stable power supply, etc, they go "oh thank you GEJ", but when those idiotic murderers set off a bomb, or the local currency takes a beating, they don't hesitate a split second to blame the President.
There's no gainsaying most of the ills we suffer today, from economic hardship (devaluation of the naira) to ethnoreligous intolerance have their roots from seeds sown by the past leaderships, especially Jonathan's.
So, in the spirit of fair coverage and keeping the legacies of Ebele alive, I decided to do this little piece.
Enjoy.
We've heard, on several accounts, about incidences of massive corruption under Jonathan's administration, chief amongst which were:
1. Fuel subsidy scam: This is arguably the biggest fraud in the country's recorded history. From the outcome of several probes, it was revealed that the monies stolen under this scheme ran into $16.4 billion. On some accounts, we had up to 2.56trillion naira stolen, the most conservative of which was 1.8trillion naira. The fact that the figures couldn't be reconciled by the various bodies who should have a common figure as to how much was actually expended on subsidy, from the Finance ministry to DPR, PPPRA, to CBN, showed that indeed the expenditure was questionable.
The most chilling part of this was that it was done with no supplementary approval (budget) from the NASS, in blatant violation of extant fiscal laws. Under the budget, only about 356 billion naira was appropriated. To this day, no explanation has been given as to what accounted for the astronomical rise in subsidy expenditure.
2. Pensions Fraud: Under this scam, we saw over 400billion naira (over $2.5billion then) stolen by Maina and his gang. sunnewsonline.com/new/n469bn-police-pension-fund-scam-they-want-me-dead-maina/
3. Crude oil theft: Under saint Jonathan's admin, according to the coordinating Minister of the Economy, Nigeria was losing a princely $12.6billion. thenationonlineng.net/new/oil-theft-and-a-ministers-lament/ . In this interview, Jonathan even sank as low as blaming the oil thefts on "the refineries abroad!!" He didn't think his surveillance contractors or himself had any blames to take whatsoever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCZos8xM7Iw. How much more dishonourable can a leader be?
4. Kerosine subsidy mega scam: Under the guise of a nonexistent subsidy on kerosine, the government of Goodluck Jonathan expended a whooping $8.76billion. This fraud was so staggering the governor of the nation's apex bank had to blow the whistle. But rather than investigate and bring offenders to justice, Jonathan went for broke, persecuted and criminalised the whistle blower! www.punchng.com/feature/kerosene-subsidy-the-hidden-mega-scam/www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26535530
At the risk of sounding verbose, I'd limit the cases to these as they are some of the most publicised cases of barefaced theft under the immediate past admin.
Now, let us sum up the figures above: 16 + 2 + 12 + 8 = $38billion!! The greatest betrayal of the mandate given Jonathan by Nigerians was that not a SINGLE individual is serving a jail term over this rot. That sends but only one signal to discerning minds- that the presidency itself must have been complicit in the whole scheme.
Here are some potentially life changing projects these monies could have been channelled into had Jonathan and his henchmen shown a little bit of honour and commitment to the course for which the Nigerian people elevated to where they were.
I call them the Opportunity Costs of Corruption.
1. The Itaipu Hydro Electric Dam. I chose to refer to this first because the problem of inadequate power supply is one that affects every single Nigerian and as a problem, has defied solutions by successive administrations, not because of insolvency but corruption.
Jonathan's government spent over $8billion ( www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fg-states-lgs-spend-8-26bn-on-nipp-projects/202324/ ) generating nothing but darkness. In the twilight of his administration, the economy of the nation was literally shut down as power supply dropped to its lowest levels in the country's recorded history.
Itaipu dam was built by joint effort between two countries- Brazil and Paraguay. It is the world's second largest hydroelectric plant with an installed capacity 14GW. It supplies 75% of electricity consumed by Paraguay and 17% of that consumed by Brazil. It cost both countries and investors $20billion to build to finish!
Let's put these figures into perspective: Kainji dam, Nigeria's premier electricity generation facility has an installed capacity of 760MW and cost us $209million to build. There are 1000megawatts (1000MW) in 1gigawatt (1GW). If we were to convert, we would have 0.760GW of electricity being produced by Kainji. ie. Kainji dam generates approximately 5.4% of what Itaipu generates!!
Now, had Jonathan's government decided to build an Itaipu-like dam rather than stealing the monies above, they would still have kept a change of $18billion and Nigeria electricity problem would have been history!
Given that the nation has a total installed capacity of 10,000MW (10GW) and an "available" capacity of 6,000MW (6GW), the total is still 4,000MW shy of Itaipu's capacity and what could actually be transmitted is 8,000MW shy of Itaipu's. Isn't this a disgrace??
The economic benefits in terms of employment and wealth creation having such a facility brings to a country can only be imagined.
2. John Hopkins Hospital: All of these for just - wait for it- $1.1billion!!!. m.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/its_open_the_johns_hopkins_hospitals_new_11_billion_building_welcomes_first_patients
With citizen dying of very preventable causes and spending millions of dollars yearly on seeking medicare abroad, imagine what a facility like this could have done for us in terms of prevention of deaths, prevention of capital flight and medical research.
Now, with both projects in the kitty, we still have about $16.9billion left!
3. The Mogul of Mumbai: This is one monstrosity that has placed India shoulder to shoulder with superpowers of engineering and technology. It is one of the world's largest petrochemical refineries with a capacity to refine 600,000 bpd. With annual revenues in the region of $18billion, one can only imagine what a facility like this could do to a country's economy.
Now, guess how much it took investors to set this up- a "paltry" $3.2billion!!
Subtracting this from the 16.9, we would have a change of $13.7billion left.
4. Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge: Nothing demonstrates Jonathan's grand deceit than his non-completion of the second Niger Bridge which happened to be one of his strongest campaign promises during 2011 elections. He even went as far as saying he'd go on exile if he doesn't complete that bridge before 2015!!
The Danyang Grand Bridge is a 165km engineering masterpiece built in four years, the same duration of time Jonathan plans to deliver his fabled Second Niger bridge of 1.5km!!.
Let's play with these figures a little: for a bridge of 165km to be built in 4years, it means about 3.5km would be built in a month!! Just imagine this!! It means the Chinese would take less than a moth to deliver what it would take Jonathan 48months to complete!!! If that doesn't make your head spin, then I don't know what else would.
To the interesting part: it took just $8.5billion to deliver this.
Again, subtracting from the change we are left with, upon building one hundred and ten second Niger Bridges (165km divide by 1.5km), we would still have a change of over $5billion left!! There are a billion and one things we could do with this amount of money as a nation!
These are but just a few things this nation could have done with the proceeds of corruption and incompetence in the last admin.
It remains to be seen how Jonathan cuts the image of a "hero" deserving of a Nobel Prize.
