"Greatness is not in Aso Rock but PMB took greatness there. You weren't great becauseq you are President, you're President because you're great. Just like Awo, Zik, Ahmadu Bello, Aminu Kano, Uncle Bola Ige, Mko, they were great without being President. OBASANJO had been President three times, yet, he is still in desperate search for greatness...."

Nobel Literature Laureate Wole Soyinka, while speaking to the BBC this week, called out President Muhammadu Buhari for a failure to deal with the terror being visited on Nigeria in the name of grazing cattle all over the country. Buhari is a patron of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), a pressure group for cattle owners, and Soyinka suggested that the president’s conflict of interest was a factor in his failure to act decisively on the issue.

The literature professor said the president should address the country saying: “I know I am the patron of the cattle rearers association etc., and I am a cattle rancher myself and it is a business. And I do not run my business by killing people. I do not run my business by raping, by displacing, by torturing. I do not run my business by occupying land that does not belong to me and I am warning a business people in the food commodity, all cattle reared, whatever comes to you for illegal occupation for trespassing on other people’s property is your business and I am ordering the army, I am ordering all the security forces to back citizens’ efforts in flushing you out.”

But Soyinka and the entire country know that Buhari won’t even think about saying anything of that sort. The reason the president won’t act was alluded to by Soyinka – cattle breeding is a business and a very lucrative one for that matter. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its World Cattle Inventory ranking of 209 countries, placed Nigeria at 14th in the world with 20m cows. One cow is worth about 200,000 naira. This means cattle breeding in Nigeria is a 4tn naira (approx. $10bn) business.

Unlike Brazil on the top of the world cattle inventory and other countries on the top 10 like the US and Argentina, where ranches are the main places for breeding cattle, Nigeria’s 20m cows use the entire country as grazing land. Those cows are owned by very rich and powerful Nigerians, who pay the herdsmen a very small wage for looking after their assets. Most of the beef on Nigerian dinner tables comes from those cows. The cow owners deliberately choose the primitive method of moving cattle by foot across the country in search of pasture instead of housing the cows in ranches. The costs of feed and water for 20m cows would run in billions of dollars annually.

The profitable business of breeding cattle is run, in the words of Soyinka, “by killing people”. This is because cows are moved all over the country in search of grass and water. This often results in trespass on people’s farms and the destruction of crops. Farmers tend to retaliate to the destruction of their livelihood and violence ensues. The cows are also vulnerable to cattle rustlers. To protect their investment, rich cattle breeders engaged an armed militia that carries out reprisal attacks when the business of grazing is disrupted by either irate farmers or rustlers. Those reprisals also serve as a deterrent for any community thinking about preventing grazing in any shape or form.

The powerful cattle owners include senior politicians, the military and police top brass and other wealthy Nigerians. The police and the military do very little to stop the violence involved with herding and former army chief and ex defence minister Theophilus Danjuma accused the military of colluding with the herdsmen. They collude because very senior officers are also involved in the cattle business. Recently in Bende, Abia State, the police commissioner arrested traditional rulers after farmers in the community retaliated because herdsmen took over their farms.

The amount of money involved and the power of those that own the cattle mean that the violence is unlikely to be quelled soon. It is time to try something different.

Nigerians need to ask themselves whether the beef on their dinner table is worth the bloodshed involved in the business. In advanced countries many have been known to quit eating meat after revelations of animal cruelty. But Nigerians don’t seem bothered about the people killed to satisfy their demand for beef.

There are two examples of how a peaceful approach to end the violence can be adopted and adapted to the Nigerian terrain. Firstly, “blood diamonds” or “conflict diamonds” were diamonds sold to finance insurgencies and warlords in countries like Sierra Leone. The UN, with a handful of resolutions, played a major role in the effort to reduce the trading in those diamonds. The beef in Nigerian markets are “blood beef”, but the Nigerian government can’t be expected to act because senior officials, including the president, are involved in the business.

Nigerians would have to take direct action to end the killing. This brings us to the power of peaceful grassroots mobilisation as was shown during the Montgomery Bus Boycott against the policy of racial segregation in public transport in Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1955 to December 1956. The boycott was a lot more than black people just refusing to ride the buses. It involved serious grassroots organisation. People with cars volunteered to provide car pools to ferry people to work. Others walked miles to work and they provided each other with company, singing along the way to make the walking less stressful. The boycott hit the bus companies where it hurt the most - in the pocket. They were forced to change.

The time is ripe in Nigeria for a mass boycott of beef. Most of it comes from Fulani herdsmen’s cows. If you don’t buy the beef, you will make an impact on a business run by killing people. When people stop buying, the rich owners may reconsider their business strategy. There should be a mass sensitisation campaign about the links between the cattle business and deaths due to the search for grazing land and refusal to invest in ranching by the rich owners of the cattle. There should be a mobilisation programme to provide alternative sources of beef and meat. It should go beyond just calling for a boycott and hoping for the best. An end to demand for Fulani herdsmen beef would create a business opportunity for other business people to set up ranches and breed cattle in a modern and more sustainable way.
https://www.naijiant.com/articles/fulani-herdsmen-crisis-time-for-a-beef-boycott/

Commentor:
Ok looters, vandals and arsonists.

As the remarkable #EndSARS protests appear to fizzle out in Nigeria following the despicable shooting of protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate on Wednesday night, one of the things that stood out has been the conscious attempt by commentators on mainstream and social media to draw a line between the peaceful protests and the rioting and looting that crept up on the back of the protests, or “hijack” the protests as some in the media have described it.

This has seen most of the mainstream media in Nigeria labeling the rioters and looters as “hoodlums” and “miscreants”. Most Nigerians, taking their cue from the media, have adopted those labels. They are plain wrong.

While rioting and looting can be destructive, context is necessary here. French poet and novelist Victor Hugo argued that: “If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.” The “darkness” of Nigeria that drove many to protest about police brutality also resulted in the majority of Nigerians living in conditions of abject deprivation. It is that deprivation that needs little encouragement to take advantage of situations like #EndSARS. As the South African anti-apartheid activist Joe Slovo put it, “to live in an environment in degeneration is to produce a degraded people.” Rather than point at the rioters, it is more helpful to examine the causes rather than the effects – how government failure made millions of Nigerians live in degeneration.

A “hoodlum” is someone who engages in crime and violence, a hooligan or a gangster. The Nigerian commentariat seems to ignore the fact that such a term is more appropriate for the people in power than the rioters on the streets. Human Rights Watch, in an October 2007 report – Criminal Politics: Violence, Godfathers and Corruption in Nigeria, described politics in Nigeria as a “criminal enterprise”, detailing how politicians use violence, gangs and cults to gain power. https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/10/11/criminal-politics/violence-godfathers-and-corruption-nigeria

These are the real “hoodlums”, whose misrule causes the “darkness” or degeneration that leads many Nigerians to rioting and looting. Fela Kuti called them “Vagabonds in Power”. But the Nigerian media has consistently failed in its duty to tell truth to power and call out the real “hoodlums” by their name.

As the rest of the world watches the drama unfolding in Nigeria, with the likes of Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra and other stars lending their support to the #EndSARS protests, a Nigerian journalist and former magazine editor based in Toronto, Canada made these pertinent points: ‘The rioting and looting by “hoodlums” and “miscreants” (Naija TV’s favourite words) are how the poor, hungry and uneducated conduct their own protests. While it is politically expedient for the educated middle class protesters to dissociate themselves from the rioting, the fact is that they are part and parcel of the whole. In fact, the rioting and looting is what gives protests teeth, and makes them an effective tool of change.

‘It is the fear of the unruly mob and the damage they can do to property and even lives that make the wealthy business interests and comfortable rich people working with the ruling government seriously consider real change. So while the looting is unfortunate, it makes the protests less toothless, less something the government can safely ignore’.

In the song “Burnin’ and lootin” Bob Marley calls for “burnin’ an illusion tonight”. As many parts of Nigeria burn from looting and vandalism, the time is right to burn that illusion perpetrated by the Nigerian media and other bandwagon jumpers that the rioters and the looters are the “hoodlums”, while ignoring the gangsters in government, whose looting and criminality are at the heart of the crisis in Nigeria.
https://www.naijiant.com/articles/endsars-the-nigerian-medias-smearing-of-rioters-as-hoodlums-is-wrong/

The Lagos floating 4.1.9 white elephant hotel

The Sunborn Yacht Hotel, now back at London's Docklands and restored to its splendour

I was in the Docklands in east London yesterday and was a bit taken aback when I saw the massive and luxurious Sunborn Yacht Hotel moored by the River Thames.

I was like: “Is this the same boat that was taken to Lagos in November 2008 to help turn the city into a tourist Mecca and a Dubai of West Africa”?

The floating hotel was part of the Docklands scenery from 2005 until some people thought it was a good idea for it to be moored by the Lagos Marina. The deal that took it to Lagos was shrouded in mystery. Then Lagos State commissioner for tourism Tokunbo Akifuyomi claimed it was acquired under a “public private partnership” between the state government and Diamond Capital Investment Ltd and that it was going to boost tourism in the state.

No one was quite sure who contributed what to the estimated 8bn naira (about $40m) price tag. What became clear was that yacht fell very quickly into a serious state of disrepair and rust, and was not put to use, with no tourist dollars coming in.

The Sunborn Yacht Hotel in Lagos, unused and decaying
The Sunborn Yacht Hotel in Lagos, unused and decaying
The yacht disappeared from Lagos in 2013 and some have claimed that the public money used to acquire it also disappeared with it. The opposition in the state screamed corruption and asked then governor Babatunde Fashola to account for the state’s involvement in such a floating white elephant.

Tunji Shelle, the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) asked in early 2014: “After floating miserably on the Marina water for so long, the controversial Sunburn Yacht, which cost the Lagos State Government, under (former Governor) Bola Tinubu, a whooping N8bn suddenly disappeared, only to be sighted at Thames in England.

“Now, the question is: who orchestrated this 419 and who were the beneficiaries of this waste of public fund. This is certainly a fraud and (Governor Babatunde) Fashola must tell us something he knows about this fraud, failure which he remains an accessory after the fact in the fraud.”

The claims that no public money was involved in the deal were betrayed by the response at the time from Joe Igbokwe the publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State: “Every successful investor or businessman will tell you that business is not a bed of roses. He knows business is not all about gains all the time; you gain in some and lose in some. It is the same with governments all over the world. No government anywhere in the world will tell you that it has achieved 100 per cent success in every decision it has taken.

“The world will forgive you for taking decisions and making all the mistakes but the world will not forgive you if you do not take decisions at all for fear of failure. LASG [Lagos State Government] has done away with the bad business called the Sunborn Yacht project. Case rested.”

After being refurbished and modernised in Finland, the bad business for the people of Lagos, but “good business” for “the beneficiaries of this waste of public fund” aka the Sunborn Yacht Hotel returned to London’s Docklands last year.

It was a remarkable case of “back to sender”. Shame we can’t say the same about the Lagos State money that funded its purchase.
https://www.naijiant.com/articles/the-lagos-floating-419-white-elephant-hotel/

Nigerian govt and billionaire Aliko Dangote contributing to poverty – Oxfam

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote is commonly seen as the acceptable face of Nigerian capitalism, with his many “investments” in the country and charity work. But Oxfam has a different view and has highlighted how Dangote contributes to entrenching poverty in his country in a briefing paper “An economy for the 99%” published today.

The report argues that the wealth of billionaires such as Dangote is rarely self-made, with at least one third of the world’s billionaires’ wealth inherited and another 43% linked to cronyism.

It also noted that once accumulated wealth develops a “momentum of its own”, it allows its owner to seek the best investment advice, dodge taxes and otherwise achieve a rate of accumulation far higher than ordinary savers can obtain.

It goes on to state in the “role of corporations in driving the inequality crisis”: “Tax revenues are critical for funding the policies and services that can fight inequality, and progressive taxes directly shrink the gap between rich and poor. Tax revenues also provide the services that the corporations benefit from, including infrastructure and healthy, educated citizens. However, tax is largely something that corporations seek to minimize. This can be achieved in two ways: through making use of accounting tricks using tax havens and loopholes in the law; or by securing preferential tax agreements and ‘holidays’ offered by various countries. It is estimated that Nigeria loses $2.9bn a year in tax revenues due to tax incentives. One tax policy, for example, states that any individual or corporate investment in publicly owned infrastructure is entitled to claim tax breaks; which last year provided a company owned by Aliko Dangote – the richest man in Africa – with a 30% tax break on a road project. This follows a long history of tax incentives offered to the cement magnate”.
https://www.naijiant.com/articles/nigerian-govt-billionaire-aliko-dangote-contributing-poverty-oxfam/

Ojukwu v Nwobodo: The battle of Nkpor


18 March 2019

Nigeria’s recent presidential and governorship (s)elections in Rivers State, aka “Rivers of Blood”, has, once again, brought to the fore the violent battle for supremacy in that state between two former allies, current governor Nyesom Wike, and his predecessor and transport minister Rotimi Amaechi. The struggle between the two, which has led to fatalities, has involved thugs, members of “cults”, and seen Nigerian security forces contributing their own “quota” towards the violence on behalf of the transport minister.

This deadly rivalry has been likened to another bitter clash about 36 years ago between two prominent politicians from the same state, which had national repercussions. A year before the elections in August 1983, President Shehu Shagari, of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), with an eye on splitting the Igbo vote – they had voted overwhelmingly for the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) led by Nnamdi Azikiwe in the last election – pulled off a masterstroke by granting a presidential pardon to Emeka Ojukwu.

Ojukwu was the legendary leader of the attempted secession of the predominantly-Igbo Eastern Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra between 1967 and 1970. He fled to Ivory Coast when the secession was finally quashed in a very bloody civil war. Ojukwu, on return from exile, joined Shagari’s NPN and ran for a Senate seat, representing Onitsha zone in the old Anambra State. Onitsha was also Azikiwe’s constituency and Ojukwu’s joining the NPN was viewed as an affront by the state’s governor, Jim Nwobodo, who liked to think of himself as Azikiwe’s “political son”.


Jim Nwobodo (second left) and Nnamdi Azikiwe (second right)
For Ojukwu, Nwobodo was like an “illegitimate son”. And he invested a lot of time in personal attacks against the governor, questioning his “Igbo” credentials and parentage. Nwobodo was born in Lafia and opponents spread rumours that his father was not Igbo. At one rally, Ojukwu told the crowd that before anyone aspired for a leadership position in Igboland, people needed to know who his father was in order to assess his pedigree. The fact that Ojukwu’s father, Sir Louis, was the first Igbo millionaire, must have grated with Nwobodo. The personal attacks got even more venomous, with claims that Nwobodo’s mother worked in Lafia as a woman of ill repute. Nwobodo’s supporters countered with claims that Ojukwu was a “coward” that fled Biafra, leaving others at the mercy of the conquering federal troops. He was called “Ogbo-oso 1” – “one that runs away” in Igbo.

The only two TV stations available at the time helped feed the frenzied atmosphere. NTA Enugu was controlled by the federal government, so was rabidly pro-NPN. It devoted a lot of airtime to Ojukwu and all the anti-Nwobodo rants. This was countered by the state-owned ATV, serving as a mouthpiece for Nwobodo and the NPP.

It all came to a head when Ojukwu and his convoy of supporters were heading to a rally and they ran into Nwobodo and his motorcade at Nkpor Junction, at the outskirts of Onitsha. Both men were with their army of thugs. Ojukwu’s was known as the “Ikemba Front” – named after the title given to the homecoming war hero by folks in his hometown, Nnewi. Nwobodo’s thugs called themselves “Jim’s Vanguard”.


Jim Nwoodo as governor of Anambra State
At Nkpor, with sirens blazing, Nwobodo, as governor, would have expected all cars on his stretch of road to give way for his convoy to proceed. Ojukwu had different ideas. He allegedly ordered his men to proceed head-on. The man who was known during the civil war as “the General of the People’s Army”, then used to roll in a Mercedes SUV assembled at the Anambra Motor Company (Anamco) in Emene and known locally then as an “Anamco jeep”.

Ojukwu was said to have poked his head out of his car’s sunroof top and started barking orders to his men, as gunshots started going off when no side was willing to give way. It was unclear at the time if anyone was injured, but the two protagonists appeared at their favourite TV stations that evening to give differing accounts of what happened.

Nwobodo read from a prepared text and seemed a bag of nerves. What came from Ojukwu was pure unscripted theatre and a throwback to his famed oratory during the civil war. He spoke about how Nwobodo got out of his car and told his men: “Get him (Ojukwu). Don’t let him escape this time”. He then ended his monologue with: “I have not been through the hell of war, through the heart of shells and bullets, to succumb to the excesses of a megalomaniac love-vendor. Yes, that’s what he is! James Nwaogbodo is a megalomaniac love-vendor!” Ojukwu may have been referring to rumours in Enugu at the time that Nwobodo made his money as a love-vendor for military top brass during military rule.

Nwobodo always preferred to be addressed as “Jim” and his surname “Nwobodo” was probably a shortened “Nwaogbodo”. It is likely that Ojukwu felt that Nwobodo didn’t like the longer version. Throughout the campaign, Ojukwu never passed up an opportunity to call the governor “James Nwaogbodo”.

Both men would lose – Ojukwu to Edwin Onwudiwe of the NPP, and Nwobodo to Christian Onoh of the NPN. While Nwobodo was very unpopular by the end of his first term, it was most likely that the results were falsified against him. The widely-held view at the time was that a goat in Azikiwe’s party would win any election in the state.

In December 1983, the military overthrew Shagari’s regime, citing election rigging alongside a long list of other grievances and Muhammadu Buhari was installed as the leader of the junta.
https://www.naijiant.com/articles/ojukwu-v-nwobodo-the-battle-of-nkpor/

The current edition of the UK’s investigative journalism and satirical magazine, Private Eye, has alleged that former president Goodluck Jonathan is the owner of a £4.5m mansion in Weybridge, Surrey.

According to the magazine: The National Crime Agency (NCA) last week deployed a new anti-corruption weapon for which there are high hopes: the so-called “unexplained wealth order”. It designated two properties, worth £22m and held by an unknown eastern European, as probably acquired from dirty money.

Investigators will now demand an account of where the dosh came from with a view, in the absence of a satisfactory explanation, to confiscation. Whether this heralds a new front in the war on kleptocracy or just a shrewd PR move at the launch of a new policy remains to be seen; but Private Eye magazine – which has exposed the extent of prime property ownership through offshore companies as a key money-laundering device – has identified several more the authorities might want to look at under their new powers.

Goodluck Jonathan, former president of Nigeria, and his wife Patience, appear to be behind a £4.5m mansion called “Hillside” on the St George’s Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey. The property was acquired via BVI [British Virgin Islands] company Transocean Group Holdings.


The entrance to the exclusive and secluded estate
Jonathan’s compatriot, Folorunsho “Folly” Folarin-Coker, former head of the number plate production authority in Lagos, resides at a Georgian townhouse in Chelsea that was acquired for £2.4m in 2010 – while Folly held office – via Marshall Islands company Express Holdings Ltd.


Folorunsho “Folly” Folarin-Coker
£4.5m will get you a six-bedroom detached house with an indoor pool in the St George’s Hill estate according to estate agents Zoopla. Their website claims: “St George’s Hill is set in approximately 900 acres and features a private championship standard 18 hole golf course, two nine hole courses and a separate private tennis and squash club. The tennis club is one of the foremost racket sports clubs in England, with 30 grass and all weather tennis courts, two indoor courts and four squash courts. The tennis club also has it’s own indoor swimming pool and a well-equipped gym, restaurant and bar.


A £4.5m property in the St George’s Hill estate
“St George’s Hill offers an ideal location for families looking for security and privacy and there are several English and international schools in the area including Reeds, St George’s College and the acs International School in Cobham”.
https://www.naijiant.com/guestcolumn/goodluck-jonathan-owns-4-5m-mansion-surrey-uk/

Governor Jide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State said last week: “Thousands of people come into the city [Lagos] without plans, and we do not have any border control to mitigate this. A lot of people come into Lagos and they really don’t even have a place (to stay). They do not have a means where the next meal is going to come from; they do not know where they are going to sleep and that’s the reality”. He added: “People erect makeshift shanties but you also have NGOs that say you can’t remove them”. The reality is that the governor is blaming the victims of poor governance for the reality that they dwell in slums or are homeless. Two-thirds of the population of Lagos, a city with an estimated population of 21m, live in slums.

What the governor is trying to do is deflect attention from governance failures and pin the blame on those “non-indigenes” that left their states to come and make a living in Lagos. This tactic also plays the old divide and rule chestnut in which the xenophobia of locals is weaponised against people that are seen as “other”. It is “dog whistle” politics that has little to do with reality.

While overpopulation presents a challenge to the government of the state, the reasons for this are hardly mentioned, neither are the benefits, so there is little chance of coming up with a solution. Firstly, every Nigerian has a constitutional right to adequate shelter. Section 16(2)(d) holds that: “The State shall direct its policy towards ensuring that suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens”. It doesn’t exclude citizens that “come into Lagos without plans”.

Sanwo-Olu should address what he has done to fulfil this constitutional requirement as he swore an oath to uphold the constitution when he took office in May. If he wants to claim that the government can’t possibly cater for all those that come to Lagos without a “plan”, where are his plans to provide suitable accommodation for the Lagosians that have lived there for decades? Naijiant.com has previously suggested state governments support the provision of relatively cheap and decent accommodation for people of modest means with these units that cost as little as $12,000.

But there is no plan to provide housing or any other social programmes for the people of Lagos State because much of the revenue available to the state finds its way into the pockets of the likes of the governor’s puppet-master Bola Tinubu. The billions that Tinubu has acquired from his two terms in office from 1999 and installing his puppets as governor since then, with some people tagging him as Nigeria’s longest-serving governor, should have gone a long way in reducing slum-dwelling in Lagos.

Additionally, governor Sanwo-Olu said nothing about why people from all over Nigeria tend to move to Lagos. This is mainly for historic and economic reasons. Lagos was Nigeria’s capital until 1991 and has remained the commercial capital. Most of Nigeria’s industries, businesses, financial institutions, and so on have their headquarters in Lagos. It also has Nigeria’s premier international airport and major seaports. Despite the Nigerian constitution stating in Section 16(2)(a) that “the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring the promotion of a planned and balanced economic development”, very little has been done by successive federal governments to shift the focus of economic activity from Lagos and address this imbalance that leads to a shortage of opportunities in other states and overpopulation in Lagos. Airports such as Enugu lack the necessary infrastructure to attract international traffic, thereby reducing the reliance on Lagos and facilitating the type of economic growth in the southeast region that would help curb the influx of people into Lagos. It is a similar story with the ports in Warri, Calabar and very little progress being made with opening up inland waterways.

While the Lagos State governor may be excused for failures at federal level, it is still his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) that has been in control at that level since 2015 and has presided over – just like previous regimes – planlessness with little economic development, balance or unbalanced. This failure then manifests itself in overcrowded shanties in Lagos. The governor then ignores the causes, focuses on the effects and resorts to blaming the victims. If they came to Lagos “without plans”, it appears the governor’s only plan is to divert attention from the grand larceny that is going on in the state under his nose, coordinated by his puppet-master.

Nims Obunge is the senior pastor of Freedom’s Ark Church, in Bruce Grove, Tottenham, and well known among Nigerians and other black people in London, from his ministry and work with several faith organisations, government and voluntary agencies around curbing violent crime in the British capital.

He is running as an independent to be mayor of London against the incumbent Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party and others such as the Tory candidate Shaun Bailey, who is also black, and ex-foreign minister Rory Steward, who is also running as an independent.

Obunge said while launching his bid for City Hall: “We invite Londoners, to be part of this historic movement as we step up together to secure London’s prosperous future. Be part of a campaign that makes London safe, affordable, and electric.”

President Muhammadu Buhari is at it again on a London trip shrouded in secrecy, evasion and probable lawbreaking. The Globetrotter-in-Chief returned to Nigeria from a trip to Russia last month and then headed off to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia three days later. He didn’t bother return to Nigeria from Riyadh and instead flew from there to London last Saturday for what his spokesman called a “private visit”. He is expected to be in London until 17 November.

In April this year he spent 10 days in London on another “private visit”. In 2017 he was holed up for 104 days in London in what was termed a “medical vacation”.

Buhari has persistently refused to reveal to the Nigerian public, that he is supposed to be serving and who are footing the bill for these “private visits”, the reason why he needs those visits. This has left the room open for speculation about the president requiring treatment. The failure to disclose the ailment is in addition to the staggering hypocrisy of a president that has closed the country’s borders and only three days ago urged Nigerians to patronise locally-made products.

aloeman15:
who exactly did u write dis 4?

About two months ago, the Nigerian government announced the closure of the country’s land borders to all goods. According to the country’s Comptroller-General of the Customs Service, Hameed Ali, this was done to stem the influx of smuggled goods, especially rice and tomatoes, into the country.

The border closure is an economic aberration as most countries don’t usually close their borders for trade-related reasons. They do so, as in the cases of Sudan, Rwanda, Eritrea and Kenya, when their security is jeopardised. They also sometimes do so during disease epidemics, such as Ebola, that have the potential to spread across borders.

So, what does Nigeria stand to gain from this unprecedented measure? Ali pointed out that the border closure has significantly increased revenue from import duties. This increase in revenue is a welcome fillip for a country struggling to close the 2019 budget deficit of a whopping 2.18 trillion Naira. This represents about 2% of the country’s 2018 nominal GDP of 127.8 trillion Naira (about US$397 billion).

A flyer from 1947 surfaced on social media last week publicising an event entitled “How can Nigeria help Britain”, organised by the Pan African Federation of Great Britain. Speakers at the event included a delegation of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) headed by Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik). Zik at the time was a firebrand nationalist leading the agitation for the independence of Nigeria from British colonial rule, which made him an “enemy” of the British state. The NCNC delegation were meant to be on a “goodwill mission”. But that wasn’t how it was seen in official circles at the centre of the British government.

This was clear from a letter published under the British Documents on the End of Empire Project (BDEEP) by the the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in the University of London. The letter came from George Beresford-Stooke, Chief Secretary to the colonial government in Nigeria, to A B Cohen, who was the Assistant under-secretary (director) for the Africa Division in the Colonial Office, “describing views of Nigerian govt on Dr Azikiwe’s personality, his methods, his delegation and his financial support”.

2kurupt:
You obviously don't know football. Stop posting misleading information, that's not what made Linda Ikeji to blow

RTSC:

Are you kidding Me?
So because you didn't dominate possession, it means you would be defeated?

How old are you and when did you start watching football?

General0847:

Compression is your problem. You used the wrong English there Mr blogger. Bye.

General0847:

Who came from behind? Give your head a wobble.

General0847:
Brazil had to fight for the equaliser but it's Nigeria that snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat.
Yeye bloggers.

Despite reservations about the performance, it was a respectable result against the five-time world champions. Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr should be encouraged by the performances of Aribo, Osimhen and the calm Semi Ajayi in central defence. Simon also caused Dani Alves problems on the left and he seems to have finally recognised the importance and effectiveness of simplicity.

That said, whenever you watch Nigeria, you can’t help but wonder that a very good team is lurking behind the iffy performance, waiting to jump out.