The issue is not sharing the money individually but distributing the revenue from oil wisely by investing on infrastructures and basic things a normal country need to function properly.The problem is that the people we call our leaders don't have the mental ability to lead herds of cattle,we are not talking of the brain washed educated people that are there,we are talking of education that comes from within,common sense. It takes common sense to know that the streets have to be kept clean,that includes everybody,the roads have to be maintained,electricity and water has to be properly managed etc.what we need in that country is a total reorientation of what life is all about,a situation where we begin to take pride in been resourceful ,creative and productive,not just looting and consuming.It seems like we don't have a generation before us,because there is no constructive precedence.As you make your bed so you lie on it,we live for the future, for the nest generation,to be proud of been a people,we should be thinking of exploring the galaxy,not how to clean  gutters.Human brain is like a muscle,the more you push it,the more it opens up. Time has come for us to do away with those visionless leaders,we are the people,we are the goverment and we are the future.

Thanks for your replies. I can see that we have great faith in the illusion of an omnibelevolent government. I can see that we would rather task the government to do impossible things, then complain when they don't happen. It hurts me greatly to have to abandon this topic without getting just one sympathetic response. Too bad.

Compared to politics, business is golden: when your ideas are underestimated by others, you make more money! If this was a business idea, I wouldn't have to waste my time trying to convince strangers. Business rocks!

i would just like to point out that alaskans do not recieve vasts amount of money from oil companies they on average recieve less than 1000 dollars (usd) a year, the companies such as alyeska and bp who have head offices up north pay for schools, encourage internships within the companies, and regularly give out scholarships instead of giving ppl large sums of money,

the answe is simple, Its nigeria, duh!

THE SOVEREIGNTY AND THE TREASURY

This is the fundamental collective hold of a true states

1 The Sovereignty is the collection of

a) The honesty of the people

If you have a man in charge of money meant to be used for a development of a state and he is dishonest with the information and money he spends it on himself no amount of money you give him will satisfy his wants.


b) The Patriotism of the people

When someone can Sabotage a state for personal gains.
Look carefully If water gets to the state the people that were selling water before would be afraid of the solution to the problem. The solution will take food from their mouths. It is not everybody that should sell water.

c) The hard work of the people
A man must work hard because there is dignity in labor. You can not exchange work for laziness and expect to be paid. If you reward a lazy man he will develop more lazy men. No amount of money can buy Laziness.

d) The Confidence of the people
The people must dream If Not THEY WILL HAVE NIGHTMARES The trust is one Good thing that you cannot use money to buy.


e) The Education and professionals (Wisdom Technique and knowledge)

From Ancient technique of farming and common sense problem solving technique form the OLD MEN OF INTEGRITY. (this is why Lagos should have very good Transport system because of the old cannot run after MOLUE EVEN IF YOU GIVE HIM ALL THE MONEY. YOU HAVE TO CREATE A SYSTEM.

f) The bravery of the People( Ability to take risk)

One very great asset of the people. There are people can stay in desert or in the ship for weeks and survive. There is evil and good in Bravery, you can choose to look at the Good and reward it. You will see someone that is about to die on the street and you risk being called a ritualist if you help him perhaps he dies. There are so many brave people in prison there so many lawyers that are there doing not BRAVE to HELP THEM. NO AMOUNT OF MONEY CAN BUY BRAVERY.

g) The love that they have for each other
When you see some one in need and you help him that is not Love that is Kindness. Love is looking for Good to do to you fellow person or Neighbor. You cannot BUY THIS WITH MONEY.

h) The religious morals of the people

THEIR IS SO MANY GOOD THINGS IN DIFFERENT RELIGIONS THAT MONEY CANT NOT BUY.

i) The family that makes up the states

IF You have a family that the husband is in japan and the wife in england you will see that the child is in danger of misbehaving, no amount of money will cure the behavior of that Child. The father and mother is their the child intelligence is very high.

j) The tribes and dialect with their languages

This is one of the greatest asset but because we have hard very bad leadership it has been used as a weapon. If you here a Ibo or Yoruba Guy speaking Ibo you will be very much accepted or imagine a Hausa man speaking Ibo very fluently. If I were to suggest that we send people to learn Ibo language because there are many people that speak Ibo than GERMAN. In Singapore I discovered that you must speak/understand more than one to get a Job.

In Ghana you can see some one speak four languages! it give you a high sense of patriotism and acceptance.

All this are assets not Liabilty They are more than money Ten million times.

Seun i so much i agree with your proposal but who is ready to carry it on. I think that Nigerian media is suffocating our progress. They in the media i think should carry must of these ideas and pressurize the govt to look this way and make amend instead of busying themselves publishing cheep informations on politicians who steal our economy dry.

I want to add something to what you suggested. The idea of ceding oil blocks to individuals is conspiracy against the oil producing states. Instead these oil blocks should be given to state govts who can provide the wherewithal to harness these resources and use the money for the betterment of Nigerians. They should as well team up with non oil producing states based on percentage to harness these oil blocks instead of giving it to individuals who engage third/Fourth party companies to drill and fill their pockets.

This is a marvelous idea. Let every individual b paid the oil revenue. Just the oil revenue. Then we can decide how to maintain our communities. That would be great.After all, people evacuate their drainages and fill pot-holes within their areas, if they had access to good money, they will repair their roads, provide power, and even build schools!

@Puker

You don't know that the state governor are already stealing your money. The focus on OBJ is to make you not see. 3 trillion Naira and thousands of Man Working hours made over 8 years what has he done with it.

THE INSTITUTE OF GOVERNORSHIP IS VERY CORRUPT NOW. YOU JUST WAIT AND SEE WHEN THE STATE GOVERNMENT HAVE CHANGED POWER.

WE WILL SEE WHO IS CORRUPT AND THEN THE COMMIT THEM TO THE LAW OF THE LAND.

WE DONT NEED TO NIGERIANISE CORRUPTION SO THAT WE KILL OUR CONSCIENCE.

emmydee:

This is a marvelous idea. Let every individual b paid the oil revenue. Just the oil revenue. Then we can decide how to maintain our communities. That would be great.After all, people evacuate their drainages and fill pot-holes within their areas, if they had access to good money, they will repair their roads, provide power, and even build schools!

I think you are under a great illusion as to how much oil revenue we get.In 2005,the Govt's total receipt was $17 billion-according to Seun's calculations,that will be about 16,000 Naira per person for one year.

What are you going to acheive over a year with 16,000 Naira? 

Remember that after paying every single penny,the Govt will be left barely little to fund the Police,Military,civil service,hospitals,education,e.t.c.

SEUN,
You don dey think like you brother OBJ,We need Train Links and super motorway, Good schools and hospitals and and A lot of Infrastrures for our people to leave in. I know say we don dey use to to dey throw shit from from window, But all this are what needs to be address Urgently and not sharing money. If you give poor nigerians money , they go first buy cars and expensive mobile phones and chasing woman before they go do anything with thier free money.
Seun take you time. I thought you were a man with a Vision. You don dey think Like Goodluck Jonathan who spent most of Bayelsa money to bring bounyce and and those american hip hop stars to nigeria to prove nothing. Now him say he wants to build a condom factory for nigeria, the factory wey ordinary Onitsha traders don get already.

Nawaaaa OOO

EPOMA:

SEUN,
You don dey think like you brother OBJ,We need Train Links and super motorway, Good schools and hospitals and and A lot of Infrastrures for our people to leave in. I know say we don dey use to to dey throw shit from from window, But all this are what needs to be address Urgently and not sharing money. If you give poor nigerians money , they go first buy cars and expensive mobile phones and chasing woman before they go do anything with their free money. Nawaaaa OOO

According to Seun,the money will work out at 36,000 Naira per person-Thirty Six Thousand Naira.Which kind of car can you buy with that amount or expensive mobile phone?

because Alaska,with a tiny populace distributes money.Nigeria-a nation of 140 million should start distrubuting money as well

PS:There are only 600,000 people in Alaska-That is the population of some Local Govts in Nigeria

What am saying is that Facilities will be of more benefit to the citizens than sharing money. No matter the amount of money you share , the Citizen will misuse the handout , so the government is in the position to spend the funds better but that is with a Nigerian Government with a Vision

in the first place the minerals act of nigeria states that all the mineral resources in nigeria belongs to the federal government.
in the second place, who will be the fund mamnagers[ the nse or what people that have no intergrity who will do the government biddings].
thirdly is it communally owned or what[smells like communism or socialism]
finally no gov in power except pat utomi's would want to release the goose that lays the golden eggs.
this thought is brillant but as omotola would say naija lo wa, what operates in alaska might not operate in nigeria.

the answer is very simple the leaders are making good use of the income generated in their 'own words' to solve so many unsolved problems that we see today in our society but am optimistic that if we vote the right government there will be a change that will affect everyone in respect to incomes generated by oil in Nigeria or there will be a revolt.

There is a lot of gut in this blog Nigeria is a blessed country with oil even our gas is more than oil yet we keep on surferring in the hands of greedy leaders I wonder what country like Chad that survive on eaten imported bread would be talkling about if the head is bigger than the body confusion arises; I think other sector of the economy should be consider.
Sharing this money won't do any good! guest I have more problem than been here.

Whoever suggested this needs a crash course in Economics.

What is Nigeria's true population? Is the last census figur really accurate?

What is the birth/death rate in Nigeria?

If the problem of ghost workers in the civil service has not been eradicated, what is the guarantee that this new idea won't suffer such?

With such large amount of money in circulation, what happens to the inflation rate?

Who accounts for the disbursement of this money?

Lots more,

Somebody please say something.

enolase:

Whoever suggested this needs a crash course in Economics.

Becareful,he will ban you!

enolase:


With such large amount of money in circulation, what happens to the inflation rate?

If you read the first page of this thread,he claimed it will bring about deflation!An injection of $40 billion into the economy according to him may cause deflation .

I believe this "sharing" is being suggested as a way of making the people lead a better life. And that's why the idea is fundamentally faulty. The role of managing our national wealth is actually that of the government. Though I love the idea of leaving the greedy politician with less of our money to squander but we all know this a tall dream just as much as what I'm about to suggest, rather unfortunately.

The people of Nigeria and indeed Africa should establish a system of setting specific targets for aspiring leaders.

These targets should be :

1. Based on agreed indices for national growth and development. e.g how many new roads, new colleges, new universities, new stadia, new homes etc to be built every year?

2. Fully defined qualitatively and quatitatively and devoid of jargons and rhetorics thus making performances easily measurable. e.g. rather than say “we want to improve the macro-economy by 10% in one year” We can simply say “We will build 2 million units of family homes in one year” Obviously this will create thousands of job, Hundreds of enterprises, improve peoples purchasing power, and reduce inflation. I guess this is what “improving the macro-economy" is all about.

3. Constitutionally and legally biding on whoever gets to the specified office. This system of setting growth targets must be entrenched in our constitution and every set target passed into law.

For example, assuming we have a legally binding target for the president to deliver 25,000 megawatts of electricity in 8 years, it will be unneccessary for an office seeker to come on the podium and promise 50,000mw. Campaigns will then be based on objective and practical methods of achieving our common goal rather than empty promises.

4. At the end of every term, office holders must be assessed by the level of performance against our collective goals. If goals are reasonably met, such office holders could be rewarded e.g by being allowed to serve again.

5. Leaders found wanting should be punished e.g by impreasonment or death (yes!)

But of course I'm just dreaming, again rather unfortunately!

@topic

it wouldnt work in the peoples best interest.

The suggestion is tempting but it would only result in inflation.
You would get the same effect if government decides to print bank notes and dole out to people.

The needs of the people should be addressed. Money is not neccessarily what people want. Money is just a means to an end.
Government should find ways to improve the educational systems, communication, security and health system.

As a Nation, the wealth is there, the task at hand is to find a suitable way to distribute the wealth.
by having projects (such as building new structures, refineries, roads) the government would use a stone to kill two birds.

1. Increase the number of people in gainful employment and
2. the creation of public amenities.

I saw this interesting article-http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0416/p01s04-usec.html?page=1

Even in a nation famed for its free market economy,52% of Americans receive income from the Govt

because the government is whacked!

Kudos Epoma,i wonder what seun means by sharing money in that society that people don't understand what money means,money is just paper,the real wealth is you and the resources you have.Africans are rich but we don't know because we are not tapping into our resources due to bad leadership and very very wrong orientation of life and precedence.Just becoming an organise livestock farmer in the village can make you rich,for generations.

Even in a nation famed for its free market economy,52% of Americans receive income from the Govt

Meaning what? That fact supports my point of view that giving this money to the people is feasible.
My proposal asks the government to give away money to its citizens equally: rich or poor, employed or unemployed.

money is just paper

Trust me, I understand money. Money is not wealth, but it can be used to transfer wealth. What I am suggesting is a transfer of wealth from the people who think they own us and to everybody else. You and I.

An excess of dollars will not result in inflation. It will result in a short importation boom, and nothing more.

Na waoo, Seun abi you from Ogun state?Your statesman is the president.You should know better.

Nigeria is not yet ripe for that kind of thing. You will begin to have ghost citizens, politicians pocketing the money etc. Even America's social security has a lot of issues today.

Nigeria is not yet ripe for that kind of thing. You will begin to have ghost citizens,

If you can first agree with me that it's a good idea, then we can talk about the implementation details.

Concerning inflation, do you guys believe that foreign investment of $40 billion or so will lead to inflation? If so, then I want you to consider that what matters is not inflation or no inflation, but better lives of people.

The world being a global village, the overall result of a dollar giveaway to millions of Nigerians would benefit us at the expense of everybody else in the world who spends dollars. Localized inflation won't be the result.

Seun:

Concerning inflation, do you guys believe that foreign investment of $40 billion or so will lead to inflation?  If so, then I want you to consider that what matters is not inflation or no inflation, but better lives of people.  

In the highly unlikely event that we get an extra $40 billion in foreign invesment in 1 or 2 years,this capital investment,will be inflationary but not on the same scale as a gratuitous distribution of money to rank and file citizens.

Foreign investment-in terms of building factories,buying equity in local coys,,e.t.c does not have the same effect on the economy as  gratuitous payments.

from wiki

Economics offers various definitions for money, though it is now commonly defined as any good or token that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts

Seun, you really need to study a bit more of economics

There are some fundamental issues that we all know.

DEMAND and SUPPLY.

Have you stopped to ask yourself why prices rise shortly after government increases minimum wage/salaries?

the reason why bread is N100 per loaf is because the common man can afford to have N100

The naira would suddenly be cheaper than toilet roll if every privates and harry has some few thousands in their bank accounts. The market women in your Omida Market will begin to sell bread to match the governments moneytry gift.

The economic solution you are seeking lies in the strength of the Naira. But it is a delicate balance. Too much strength is bad, too weak is bad too.
But we are in a time where the demand for Oil is high. So much so, that a strong Naira wont be to the detriment of Nigeria.

@Stranger 12

I don't think he has heard about the Udorji Awards in the 70s

A strong currency discourages exportation
A weak currency encourages importation

but what they (economist) fail to tell us is that most times
A strong currency encourages importation
A weak currency discourages importation

Nigeria WILL NOT suffer the side effect of strengthing the naira because OIL WILL ALWAYS BE IN DEMAND AND WILL ALWAYS BE EXPORTED
. . . i still wonder why people in power don't see things the way I do.

can someone tell me my above argument is valid and true or dispute it with reasons

Seun:

If you can first agree with me that it's a good idea, then we can talk about the implementation details.

Concerning inflation, do you guys believe that foreign investment of $40 billion or so will lead to inflation? If so, then I want you to consider that what matters is not inflation or no inflation, but better lives of people.

The world being a global village, the overall result of a dollar giveaway to millions of Nigerians would benefit us at the expense of everybody else in the world who spends dollars. Localized inflation won't be the result.

the foreign investment of $40 billion cannot lead to inflation until someone does something as crazy as spraying it in naira to nigerians from an helicopter
[s]without knowing it, that is your suggestion[/s]

Do you know that the result would be different if dollars is sprayed instead of naira?

[s]I normally don't make sense when I make comments like this but don't worry, there is always something wise in it, if you search deeply.[/s]

stranger12:


Nigeria will not suffer the side effect of strengthing the naira because OIL WILL ALWAYS BE IN DEMAND AND WILL ALWAYS BE EXPORTED

In Nigeria we spend the Naira.If Naira was to strenghten from 140 Naira to $1 to 70 Naira to $1.You will need to double your exports just to get the same value.

Whereas $10 billion of oil exports will before get you 1.4 trillion Naira to spend in Nigeria,$10 billion of exports will fetch you-with a massive strengtening of Naira- 700 billion Naira to spend in Nigeria.Inflation has to happen to bridge the gap

Also,you will have an increase in importation which will damage the little local industry we have.As a developing country,we need to develop an export oriented economic policy and discourage any policy that will bring about massive importation