I wonda why after much prayers,GOD has answered our prayers in GEJ and some who lack understanding continue 2 beat around d bush in d name of bringing him down.A CHILD WHO DANCES SULUGEDE SHOULD KNOW DAT SULUGEDE IS D DANCE OF D SPIRITS!

foolish man, he cancelled d project to sucumb to pressure from northeners with fleets of trailers, railway will definately kill their haulage business, debt reduction or creating an enabling environment for all. buhari is a looser

maxpro-xl:

foolish man, he cancelled d project to sucumb to pressure from northeners with fleets of trailers, railway will definately kill their haulage business, debt reduction or creating an enabling environment for all. buhari is a looser

So what has haulage got to do with  a metro?
You know what a metro or light rail is sef.

Anyone ever see cow inside london metro make you talk now?

there are too many illiterates on nairaland. this man's decision was based on 2 committees' reports. i would have expected that the members of the committees names are mentioned here and we find a way of asking them or rather investigating what led them to the decision which the president endorsed. from what I gather, 90% of the committee members were from south west! including some very popular people whose names we praise today.

next topic abeg!

If the metroline had continued, I can GUARANTEE you that it would have fallen to pieces now like everything else run by government. Come to think of it, what would be the power source of this metroline now? Just like our aiports (except MM2), the metroline stations would now be dirty, dysfunctional and a beehive of agbero's and touts. With the wat govt manages things, imagine closing late from work in Lagos and having to go underground to take a train to your destination at say 9.30pm!! I leave that to your imagination!!!

Moral of my story!! Such things are better left in the hands of the private sector to run!!!

Sir, it is true that govt has no business in managing big businesses like the metroline but the govt was in the best position at that time, even now, to establish it so that what later reform did to telecommunications in Nigeria can be possible in d transport sector. The current BRT programme is a refence point, established by Tinubu, sustained and improved by Fashola Even Buhari himself knows that later govs of Lagos who were and are still more imaginative than he is wud have changed d face of d project. I'm talking about the likes of Marwa, Fashola who stepped into the fine shoes of Jakande. But, Buhari chose to dictatorially throw away the baby away with d bath water.

Olokode:

Sir, it is true that govt has no business in managing big businesses like the metroline but the govt was in the best position at that time, even now, to establish it so that what later reform did to telecommunications in Nigeria can be possible in d transport sector. The current BRT programme is a refence point, established by Tinubu, sustained and improved by Fashola Even Buhari himself knows that later govs of Lagos who were and are still more imaginative than he is wud have changed d face of d project. I'm talking about the likes of Marwa, Fashola who stepped into the fine shoes of Jakande. But, Buhari chose to dictatorially throw away the baby away with d bath water.

a. The current BRT program is modeled after Lagos's old LSTC program -- Tinubu did not establish this from nothing --- same as the current metro program.

b. There are still lots of questions on this that need to be answered before we pretend it is all one side at fault -- We are speaking here of a country in recession and a loan that seems so so very risky a loan for government to sign people up for.

And u think it was not more risky to risk d taxpayer money already expended on d project let alone d penalty dt was paid. u only need to listen to Alh Jakande to accept dt a huge amount was paid by Lagos as penalty.
Also, ur insistence on the justification of Buhari seems to fail to consider d fact dt dt loan he claimed to be afraid of wud not have killed Nigeria but it wud by now ve aided busnesses to contribute over 1000% of its total sum to d national economy. Let's kindly stop defending d indefensible. A bad thing is bad. Simple!

Olokode:

And u think it was not more risky to risk d taxpayer money already expended on d project let alone d penalty dt was paid. u only need to listen to Alh Jakande to accept dt a huge amount was paid by Lagos as penalty.

According to what I have gotten so far, Lagos did not actually have to pay any penalties after the so-called cancellation-- it was a forefeiture of amounts already paid -- supposedly by past governments( I presume federal included). This is according to new reveals from the current government, meaning that the rumor that is cost the Lagos tax payers $60 million is probably not based on fact, but I hope we learn more as time goes on.

Olokode:

Also, your insistence on the justification of Buhari seems to fail to consider d fact dt dt loan he claimed to be afraid of wud not have killed Nigeria but it wud by now ve aided busnesses to contribute over 1000% of its total sum to d national economy. Let's kindly stop defending d indefensible. A bad thing is bad. Simple!

Wrong . . . Apparently, it was a 450 million dollar loan. In a recession, and in Nigeria, at that time, that was a huge amount of money. Also I have nowhere insisted that Buhari was justified in cancelling the project at the time because up to this minute, I still say we don't have the information to make any rational conclusions on this. And the current Government does not seem willing to allow us access to information still to better aid us in making decisions.

The only example I have applied so far are examples from cities and countries currently tackling recession and how that has lead to cancellation of equally massive and likely benefitial projects. Eg. Chicago. A highspeed metro in this city will, Like Lagos

a) Solve the traffic problem

b) greatly improve transportation and investment

c) attract investment dollars by the billions

Unfortunately, that plan has been put on hold and every work done so far, put on hold. Even after the Mayor went to China to record and campaign for the reviving of the project. The cancellation is welcomed by most everyone, not because we do not know what highspeed rail could do for us now and in the future, but because our city needs to recover from the recession before we plunge ourselves deeper into debt.

Like I said earlier, it is too easy to make claims after the fact. However, one can use Chicago as good case study for what the situation was probably like during the period -- 1982-1990.

Now, let's see,

Decades ago, a man and his cohorts truncated democracy.
This man gave reasons for truncating it, and did nothing to ensure that Nigerians got a more befitting democracy.
He never made plans to return democracy to Nigeria, not to talk of being honest with any such plan.
He did everything by military fiat and truncated a long term project that Nigerians of today would have enjoyed immensely.

Today, he wants to enjoy this same democracy at the very helm ( unfortunately, the constitution as of today does not bar coupists from contesting).
He gives us a lame excuse for canceling a brilliant project.
He wants us to take his word for it.

I for one, do not trust this man's sense of judgment or fairness. He will do things lopsidedly; the way he has always done things, no matter whose ox (the masses) is gored.

He is a relic from the past, and an embodiment of Nigerian past mistakes

31 REASONS WHY BUHARI DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR VOTE
In my books, Buhari is a pretentious anti-corruption fighter. The trajectory of a man's journey in public life matters. For the following reasons I cannot vote for Buhari:
1. He is an oligarch who does not believe in equality before the law. The way he jailed Lateef Jakande, Jim Nwobodo, Ambrose Ali, Pa Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Ayo Ojewumi on cases that had no foundation and allowed Awwal Ibrahim, the then Niger State governor, who was arrested in Heathrow Airport in London with 14 million pounds sterling and several millions of Niara and dollars to be put under house arrest is my evidence. He also allowed Shehu Kangiwa, Sokoto State Governor who conducted and supervised the famous Bakolori Massacre of poor peasant farmers who's land were appropriated without compesation to remain under house arrest.
1(a) Ayo Ojewumi became blind as a result of his imprisonment over false charges and died shortly after.
1 (b) Prof. Ambrose Alli also became blind as a result of this false imprisonment. When he died, he had only one undeveloped plot of land to his name.
1© Pa Adekule Ajasin was never the same after his eventual release and remained sickly for the rest of his life When he died, he never had any property anywhere in the world except the one he had built from his sweat as long term teacher and school principal in Owo Township.
2. He put in place a retroactive law that killed three men, innocent men in my book, by public execution.
3. He jailed Ndukar Irabor and Tunde Thompson of the Guardian on stories that were factually true under Decree 4. He had told the Nigerian journalists then that it did not matter whether the story reported was true or not, if his regime did not like it, the writer would go to jail.
4. He supervised the smuggling of 53 suitcases filled with cash through the MMA against the protests of General Tunde Idiagbon and ironically, Abubakar Atiku, the then Director General of the Customs who later became the Vice President and a compromised politician himself. This smuggling of the suit cases was supervised by his ADC, Col. Mustapha Jokolo.
5. He jailed Fela Anikulapo -Kuti on trumped up charges under an emergency law which prompted the sentencing judge to confess that he was ordered to do so and apologized to the late musician. It was Buhari's administration that said it has "decided to deal with this Fela problem once and for all."
6. He convinced all the northern political leaders against allowing the National Identity Card program because according to him, this would unravel the myth of a Northern population majority
7. He is an Islamic fundamentalist, the Bin Laden of Nigeria, who told his northern followers never to vote for anyone who was not a Muslim.
8. He is a coup plotter.
9. He has never been able to account to Nigerians what he did with the 20 billion Naira of the Petroleum Trust Fund of which he was the chairman under Sani Abacha.
9(a) He has not been able to point to any project that he prosecuted outside the Northern Nigeria with the so-called trust fund.
10. He was in full support of all the atrocities of Sani Abacha against the Nigerian people. There is no single record of his criticism of Sani Abacha during those dark days when Nigeria was on precipice. It shows that he is a patriot of convenience and as such unfits to lead the country.
11. Buhari, as part of his Triba-listic practices placed President Shagari under house arrest inside a palatial mansion in Ikoyi while he locked up Shagari's Vice, Alex Ekwueme in Kirikiri Prison. Shagari is Hausa/Fulani like him while Alex Ekwueme is an Igbo man.
12. Ikemba Emeka Ojukwu, another Igboman who returned from 13years exile just a little over a year then was as well locked up in KiriKiri Prison by mean-hearted Buhari. Up till today we are not told what Emeka’s offence was.
13. Busari Adelakun died of ulcer because Buhari refused him to be taken out of prison for immediate medical attention. The then Governor of Ogun State, Bisi Onabanjo suffered similar fate which we were told led to his untimely death.
14. Buhari ransacked the house of our late sage, Obafemi Awolowo and consfisticated his International passport. Which civilized democratic society would elect the likes of Buhari as President, the same individual who overthrew an elected President? Never!
15. Plus Buhari having Sam Mbakwe in jail, went for one of Mbakwe's wives. He established himself again for what he was/is letting Mbakwe receive in jailhouse news of the death of another of Mbakwe's two wives. One (I can't remember his name now; Odenigbo?) also died in jail.
16. Buhari's henchman and sponsor, CPC governorship candidate for Kano State, is Mohammed Abacha, the same person that had/ran a personal killing squad, coordinated the killing of Kudirat Abiola & attempted to kill Ibru; and also stashed money in underground tanks, all less than 13 years ago, Nigerians have very short selective memory. Shame
‎17. Buhari discriminated against persons from other ethnic groups/faiths; and that as PTF Chairman, he employed an overwhelming number of Fulani/Hausa/Moslem people at the detriment of other groups and concentrated PTF projects in the North. If in doubt read El Rufai's testimony where he wrote about Katsina boys who used the money they made at PTF to bankroll Yar'Adua's election in 1999.
18. Buhari is unforgiving. When he "took over" by coup in 1983, he even remembered an article written a very long time ago by Bisi Onabanjo ('The Mallams are coming') and a later one in which Onabanjo wrote that people should watch out for that "gangly officer from the north" after Buhari gave a no holds barred speech at some Army functions where he was reported to be very openly pro Fulani and pro Islam to the exclusive of all else and also talked about termination of democratic rule. For that, Onabanjo got one of the harshest jail terms and treatments.
19. Buhari intolerance is worse than Obasanjo's. When he was adopted as the ANPP's candidate on the night of the party's Primaries without prior warning to the other candidates (and a few of them protested), Buhari got up and made a speech that those people must be disciplined. I subsequently saw him on BBC's "hard talk" and he frightened me and the interviewer with his archaic and fundamentalist intolerant views. His understanding and articulation is very much in doubt.
20. The evil genius, IBB and his crew similarly ran rings around Buhari. On the 10th anniversary of Abacha's demise, Buhari said that Abacha stole nothing from Nigeria! Despite millions of Dollars recovered from banks around the world and the Abacha family signing a formal agreement to return over $1 billion dollars, Buhari still said that Abacha's stealing remains an unproved allegation!!!! Why? Because Abacha set Buhari up like an emperor and let him use oil money from the Niger Delta to develop the North without supervision or questions.
21. Buhari snubbed the same Nigerians he now wants their votes by refusing to appear before Justice Oputa Truth and Reconciliation Panel. Despite the fact that Buhari knew how important reconciliation is to the stability of democracy. Buhari has never apologized at anytime.
22. Buhari executed Lawal Ojuolape (30), Bernard Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26). To put it quite plainly, one of those three – Ogedengbe - was executed for a crime that did not carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. and At the time Ogedengbe committed the crime it did not carry that punishment. If we must live as civilized citizens we must go by the rules. Article 11.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: "No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission WHICH DID NOT CONSTITUTE A PENAL OFFENCE, under national or international law at the time when it was committed. NOR SHALL A HEAVIER PUNISHMENT BE IMPOSED THAN THE ONE THAT WAS APPLICABLE AT THE TIME THE PENAL OFFENCE WAS COMMITTED. Killing people with retroactive laws is not the civilized thing to do - and for as long as we will have people who refuse to see the truth only because their heroes are inching to rule when they have not purged themselves we will continue to wallow in misery.
23. Let’s informed Buhari that Lateef Jakande’s $60 million metro rail project for Lagos, which he cancelled immediately after he over-threw the Second Republic, has now accumulated a debt profile of over $3 billion for Lagos State, making the state the most indebted state to Paris Club in the federation.
24 let also remind Buhari that Gbolahan Mudashiru, his Military Administrator for Lagos State, alerted him on the clause in the contract agreement that would yoke the state to this debt, if the contract was cancelled unilaterally, and that he replied Mudashiru, that he didn’t care a damn. Though the fund for the execution of that project which would have given the people of Lagos an intra-city light train transport system would not have come from Buhari’s Supreme Military Council, General Buhari, as Military Head of State, cancelled this wonderful project of the state government, with ethnicity on his mind.
25. Let us again tell him that his action of jailing Dr Alex Ekwueme, then Nigeria’s vice president, from Anambra, and keeping President Shehu Shagari, from Sokoto State in a house arrest in Ikoyi was also ethnically fired.
26. So also was the shorter end of the stick he handed the South, as chair of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), in the execution of projects.
27. Shagari’s regime (1979-1983), incurred Buhari’s wrath when it decided to investigate the US$2.8 billion that disappeared from the Midland Bank, London account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation, (NNPC), during General Obasanjo’s era as military head of state that preceded Shagari’s. Dr. Olusola Saraki, Turaki of Ilorin, was the majority party leader of the Senate at the time and he headed the Senate Committee set up to trace the stolen money after some three years of clamor for such an investigation by members of the civil society. The money was traced to the Midland Bank London branch fixed account of Buhari, Obasanjo’s appointee as military head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. The Committee’s report was presented to the Senate during the tail end of Shagari’s regime in 1983, so the House decided to deal with the matter soon after the 1983 general elections.
28. He locked up without trial, politicians and critics including Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, notorious for clamouring for the exposure of the oil money rogue. Vera Ifudu, who was an NTA reporter then, was sacked through his prodding as military ruler, for reporting what Dr. Olusola Saraki had told her in an interview about how the missing money was traced to Buhari’s account at a Midland Bank London branch. Vera eventually won her case of wrongful dismissal in court against the NTA and was financially compensated.
29. Abacha rehabilitated Buhari with the chairmanship of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) before he (Abacha) died in 1998. When Obasanjo returned to power in May 1999 as civilian president, he found that over 2.5 billion naira had not been properly accounted for in the PTF and that there was not much on the ground to show for the colossal expenditure the agency was claiming. On the day Obasanjo announced the scrapping of the PTF, a non-staff brother-in-law of the boss, allegedly serving as his conduit on some PTF projects, died suddenly from what appeared to be heart failure.
30. Buhari’s conflicting statements on the money laundering charges involving his ADC in 1984 on the 53 suit cases saga, has indicted him.
31. He should reveal to us his health status… Buhari at 69 yr old is a clear liability on Nigeria and Nigerians is Nigeria a health insurance scheme?
If Nigerians reward dangerous, insensitive, dishonest, mean, cruel, partial, egoistic, religious, fundamentalist, conscienceless human beings like MOHAMMADU BUHARI with the presidency of Nigeria with his kind of track record, then why do we still wonder why Nigeria has not and will not make it?
I can not in good conscience support Buhari's candidacy on the above grounds. I wish we have intelligent people who know what democracy means. I wish we have civilized minds. However, I am 100 percent sure that Buhari will never again rule Nigeria.
It is clear that apart from the states of the North-West and North-East, his Congress for Political Change (CPC) would hardly earn 25 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the remaining states of the federation. By implication, two zones just cannot earn Buhari the presidency he is looking for, no matter their voting strength.

Based on the FACTS we have on this thread.

1. GMB admits that he did that

2. The reason he gave does not hold water

3. No one else here has relevant facts to either attack or support what he has said (primarily because Nigeria at the time had not internet, data storage bank or anyone that thought this information would be useful later)

4. It doesnt matter how many people advice you as president or how many committees you tell to look into it. the decision would rest solely on you. If you make a wrong decision it will come back to haunt you.

The moral of the story is this. GMB made a mistake, GMB tried to make up for it with an "innapropriate excuse" all he should have said was he is sorry.

Explaining now really does not change anything; the project was never executed, money was still lost and Lagos traffic is not any better if he was as sincere as he is painted out to be he should have explained all this in the last two years before he wanted to become president as far as im concerned this is just an effort to try and curry sympathy or objectivity from the citizens of Lagos.

If he wants to or wanted to help he still can, not as a president but as a person.