thelastPope:

I just had to refer to Al pacino to give you a picture of how the gangs operated in the early 20th century in America. I am in generous mood.

I know, I just saw a chance for a cheap shot and took it.

thelastPope:

When were you born that you are posting this nonsense here. We saw it with our eyes. Buhari, the illiterate sharia proponent was the beginning of Nigeria's economic mess and the decay we have today and he was a coward to boot. If he was a real man, he would not have hidden under Idiagbon's pants for 20 months. As soon as Idiagbon went for hajj, they kicked the fool out of office without a single fight. If that dolt had not truncated our nascent and budding democracy, we would have been a great country today. The idiota wanted to be a life president and had no single plan to return the country back to democracy. No wonder he never supported any of the struggle to return the country back to democracy throughout the 90s. Even people like Tinubu and Gowon at one time or the other learnt their voice to the call for democracy but Buhari was silent all along. Where was the idiotic Buhari when so many people came out to advocate to a return to democracy? He was busy frolicking and dinning and embezzling with Abacha and later declared Abacha corruption free. Now he wants to reap where he didnt sow. He wants to enjoy a democracy he vehemently truncated and fought against.

He will fail as he has always failed.

musak27: As I always preach, if u utter just an iota of lie about another man to feel good or look witty, you are definitely a disguised failure. These accusations must be back with full proofs for your opinion to count. Your utterances on nairaland baffles me a lot,because you always describe events in first person view manner. I just want proof. If you want to be referred to as an intellectual ,talk like one,so no abuses and insults,let the facts speak.

Development: PTF - shining in the gloom

The Petroleum Trust Fund, headed by former President, Gen. Buhari, has confounded all its critics. As a development agency, it has succeeded spectacularly where all others failed. Pini Jason has the details.

The one silver lining to emerge from the current heavy economic cloud must be the performance of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF). In October 1994, General Sani Abacha hiked the pump price of petrol from N3.25 to N11 per litre, promising, with Decree 25, to set up a Petroleum Trust Fund to distribute the gains from the increase on social and infrasturctural projects. The board of the fund, headed by former Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, was eventually inaugurated on March 21, 1995.

The Fund began with an initial capital of about N60bn in 1996. Its all encompassing mandate includes the rehabilitation of roads and waterways, educational and health institutions, providing textbooks and stationary, procuring essential drugs and vaccines, providing water supply systems, reviving crumbling agricultural sectors, connecting outlying areas to the national electricity grid, extending railways and telecommunications and ensuring consistent food supply.

The huge budget and all-embracing mandate earned PTF some criticisms. Some dubbed it "the alternative government," accusing it of duplicating the responsibilities of other existing government agencies. There was for instance an initial conflict about who should be tarring which road, between PTF and the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.

Yet, for once, other Nigerians began to hope that here was an agency that took its work seriously. The question was: could it carry out its entire mandate, or even a part of it? Everyone waited to see what would happen.

Initially PTF awarded contracts for the rehabilitation of 12,000km of federal highways (including drainages) nationwide, and between 25-100km of urban road in major cities such as Gusau, Benin, Funtua, Zaria, Enugu, Kaduna, Aba, Lagos, Lokoja, and Port Harcourt. A N27.3bn contract was awarded for road rehabilitation in the first quarter of 1996. The sum of N1.328bn was awarded to 53 pharmaceutical companies for the supply of drugs, while the importation of vaccines cost N229.9m. As at December 31, 1997, funds available to PTF stood at N115.1bn.

One thing even the most uncharitable critic of PTF will admit is that it has evolved a new way of doing things. This is true to its mission statement which is 'to establish and operate an open, modest and efficient organisation for the purpose of achieving the honest and timely execution of carefully designed socio-economic projects.'

Right from its inception, the Head of State directed the fund to operate a lean bureaucracy. It depends therefore largely on consultants supervised by Afri-Projects Consortium, the management consultant to PTF. This policy has created jobs and boosted the confidence of Nigerian professionals such as architects, engineers and quantity surveyors.

In many other ways, PTF has thrown a lifeline to dying sectors of the economy. Most of Nigeria's pharmaceutical companies were failing, and the foreign multinationals were divesting. But through its drugs procurement programme, PTF has turned the balance sheet of most of them into profit. Equipment and car leasing companies are also benefitting from the multiplier effects of PTF operations.

Banks and insurance companies have also benefited. Nigeria has a history of contractors collecting mobilisation (advance) fees and not carrying out the contract. But not with PTF. Every advance payment up to N10m must be guaranteed by a PTF-approved bank, while other advance payments are covered by performance bonds issued by similarly approved insurance companies. This method, apart from increasing solvency through cash deposits, has created business for banks and insurance companies.

One of the insurance companies that has benefited from PTF as a provider of performance bonds is The United Nigeria Insurance Company (UNIC), a composite insurance company which provides both life and non-life insurance. The total assets of UNIC stood at N979m while it grossed premium income of N916m and settled claims of N263m in 1996. With a staff of 552 spread all over its nationwide branch network, UNIC is today one of the leading insurance company in Nigeria.

Another company that has done good business with PTF is IPWA plc, formerly International Paints (West Africa) Ltd. IPWA is today one of the biggest and most diversified paint manufacturers in Nigeria. The company product range spans automotive paints, building paints, industrial coatings and marine coatings. Others are packaging coatings, protective coatings and wood finishes.

Most PTF contractors, specialist advisers and consultants lease and use computers, fax machines, printers and photocopiers. This has provided a new market for computer companies like Leading Edge Ltd., headed by Mr Tony Edoro, the managing director. Leading Edge is foremost in cloning computers with parts from diverse companies such as US Micro-Generation, IBM Direct, Merisel and Gateway. According to Mr Edoro, a widely experienced computer systems engineer, the advent of PTF has been good for Leading Edge. The company's turnover has grown from N50m in 1995 to well over N100m in 1997.

Apart from energising several sectors of the economy, PTF is also setting the pace in another direction. In the words of Mr Salihijo Ahmad, of Afri-Projects Consortium, the twin objectives of PTF are to "rehabilitate infrastructures and reorientate the people." This the fund does through its insistence on transparency even though some critics still accuse it of lopsidedness in project execution and selection of consultants and contractors.

In a country dogged by lack of transparency, PTF is the first, and perhaps the only public institution in Nigeria to publish its annual accounts. Last year, when he presented the annual report and accounts of 1996, Gen. Buhari promised to present the 1997 accounts before the end of the first quarter of 1998. He fulfilled that promise.

The 1997 account of PTF shows that it disbursed N24.3bn on roads, N21.2bn on security, N7.8bn on health, and N3bn on other projects. Other disbursements include N2.2bn on water supply, N936m on food supply and N476m on education. It realised a total of N1.049bn from various investment activities.

Reviewing the success story of PTF, Gen. Buhari said: "We have consolidated our execution of the take-off projects for the previous year and increased our intervention within the sectors. There is no doubt that the years ahead will witness even more intervention, as reports of some of the studies commissioned are received and project execution commenced."

The fund has embarked on community education to sensitise and enlighten communities of its activities. The idea is to bring recipients closer to the objectives of the fund, so that they can participate in project identification and selection as well as eventual PTF projects in their areas.

One aspect of the overall project that the public has raised an eyebrow over is the Armed Forces PTF. According to Gen. Buhari, PTF is under instruction to allocate 20% of its funds to the armed forces, and another 1% to the Federal Capital Territory. The allocation to the Armed Forces is probably a continuation of a practice that started during Gen. Babangida's time when he used to allocate excess revenue from the projected price of crude directly to the commanding officers. But what worries critics of PTF is that the military is not accountable to anyone regarding its utilisation of funds. Moreover, critics question the wisdom of allocating such a huge chunk to the military (who also usually takes the lion's share of the budget) over and above food supply, education and health. Apart from roads, the allocation to all other sectors does not add up to the Armed Forces PTF allocation.

Nobody knows how long PTF, a purely intensive intervention agency, will last or whether there will be a place for such an agency under a democratic set up. That decision, Gen. Buhari said, will be up to Nigerians. For now his preoccupation is to rehabilitate infrastructure and reorientate the people towards a new, effective and efficient way of executing uninflated contracts without kickbacks and without consuming mobilisation fees. [size=14pt]Said Gen. Buhari to PTF contractors: "If you perform well, you get a hand shake. If you perform badly, you get a handcuff."[/size]

ballabriggs: PTF the best organisation headed by Buhari and Dora Akunyili (a great woman, who saved Jona from Turai) as the executive secretary. An organistion headed by two hardworking and disciplined minds and not drunken sailor fishermen.

Till date everyone keeps talking of PTF, why not SURE-P as established by President Jonafraud? Because PTF impacted. PTF drugs, PTF textbooks for students, PTF mass transit buses, I saw PTF roads being rehabilitated.

Below is an article written by Pini Jason Onyegbadue, a big time critic of Muhammadu Buhari. He wrote this article in 1998.



GBAM!!!

ballabriggs: ^^^

Mr man close your mouth. Lagos Ibadan, Sagamu to Benin, Warri to Patani were motorable roads before 1999. The PTF road signs showing construction works were visible in those days- at least I can remember on Sagamu to Benin road very well. In my UNI those days we had PTF projects, water projects, PTF drugs for free, it was everywhere. That green and white logo showing the drop of oil was very visible those days.

At least we could get to PH from Lag in 9 hrs those days. Not until we were infected with PDP's demons did we start travelling for 18 hours just to get to PH from Lag.

You can earn your salary, tell lies to those who do not know your type. Biko avoid bringing those your lies to me.

Jona has budgeted over N9 trillion since taking over, what has he done with it? What have they done with SURE-P apart from give it to a rogue like Bode George to manage.

Afam4eva:
I think this is an insult to AD. A lot of people have the belief that AD changed to AC but i think what happened was that the leading figures in AD created a new part called AC and so, everybody assumed that AD changed to AD. AD remained a part and probably still remains a party after AC was created.

thelastPope:

I know you will gallop into hiding after posting trash about a foolish human being like Buhari. Can you show me one thing that they used over 200 billion PTF fund to do? Just one tangible one still visible today? nonsense!

OAM4J: Having two strong parties is good for the polity. At least Nigerians have a choice of voting the lesser evil party at every point in time, thereby forcing the more evil party to start doing more good than evil in other to regain power. Overall the citizens will be better for it. This of course is only true if majority of the people do not vote on some stupid sentiments only.

oddy4real:
all these one na filmtrick. They still cannot syand the firepower of the PDP. the PDP would give them the beating of their miserable lives in 2015.

thelastPope:


Lest you forget, 200 billion in mid to late nineties, it worth over 1 trillion or more today. Criminals

oddy4real:
all these one na filmtrick. They still cannot syand the firepower of the PDP. the PDP would give them the beating of their miserable lives in 2015. then, the APC would dismantle, re-merge and would keep losing.
i choose to vote the PDP over these thieves turned 'progressives'. when the door of my house is faulty, i would not call a thief to repair it for me.

thelastPope:

I disagree. You can add chime to the list of those few but most others are from states with strong opposition. Edo state is a good example. The only way Oshiomole could fight his way into the hearts of Edo citizens was to show good promise in a short time. He would not have survived the fight if he didnt show such promise. Edo state was a locked down PDP state.

Akwa Ibom has a strong opposition that is very vocal. Okorocha is in the same shoes with Oshiomole. He had to show good promise in a short time. Rivers is another state with a vocal opposition.

musak27: These accusations must be back with full proofs for your opinion to count. Your utterances on nairaland baffles me a lot,because you always describe events in first person view manner. I just want proof.

thelastPope:

What proof are you talking about?

chucky234:
They should have a re-think because PDP is way ahead of ACN/APC and would probably be drafting new strategies on how to easily soak whatever APC is going to throw at them,those thieves in PDP are way more intellectually sound than moron1c Buhari,Tinubu and their cohorts.

yommys01: Immaturity gets another definition from you it seems. Lad posted something Buhari was bold enough to do which so many of the recent past administration refuse to embrace and you go about talking about how Buhari refused to support demoracy.

He might have but that doesn't in anyway eliminate what he did for good and the point of discussion is never whether he supported demoracy or not.

Stay on topic mate. You sounded like someone who has an agenda.

kingoflag:

What is with the hate and desire for backwardness by you societally undesirable elements? In one fell swoop you agree that GEJ/PDP are crooks but your hatred for Buhari/Tinubu (obviously because of their religion and ethnicity--- u can deny it if you want) did not stop you from sounding crazy.

kingoflag:

What is with the hate and desire for backwardness by you societally undesirable elements? In one fell swoop you agree that GEJ/PDP are crooks but your hatred for Buhari/Tinubu (obviously because of their religion and ethnicity--- u can deny it if you want) did not stop you from sounding crazy.

thelastPope:

What proof are you talking about? Proof that he hid behind Idiagbon? Or proof that he was kicked out without a fight? Or proof that there are no PTF infrastructure we can point to today? Or proof that he was PTF chairman for 5 years? or proof that he truncated our infant democracy? Exactly what proof are you asking for please? Maybe you need proof that NL exists.

chucky234: Either you are simply dumb or got problem understanding written texts, what I wrote shows I am not a supporter of any political party but fighting solely for the betterment of my country.
GEJ and PDP are thieves and I don't think Tinubu and Buhari are any different,they are all thieves and this got nothing to do with ethnicity or religion as you dumbly insinuated.

Myself2:

[size=14pt]It is your hatred of GEJ that's making you sound crazy.Show me where chucky234 mentioned GEJ in his earlier post to which you replied,also tell me that you believe that Tinubu is a lesser thief than any alleged thief in the PDP,so how can you seek to replace a small thief with a bigger thief.Note that chucky referred to Tinubu as Tinubu,that's very instructive.
Personally I'm all for having the best candidates run against whoever the PDP presents come 2015,but if the best ACN can offer is politically useless and undemocratic tyrants like Buhari,then hell will freeze over first before ACN/CPC/APC/APP/APGA or whatever name they go by,can wrest power from the PDP.
Come to think of it,is it possible for a poisonous tree to produce harmless juices?how does any sane human beign expect to get anything short of fraud,stealing and manipulation from Bola Tinubu

Wonder,wonder wonder wonder wonder[/size]

kingoflag:

First off: WHY ARE YOU WRITING IN HUGE FONTS?! Are you ok?

Next: WHO THE FUXXCK ARE YOU?

I hate bigots. Go die somewhere hateful, backwards, failure-loving monkey. Go ahead and vote GEJ, beast!

kingoflag:

You can deny it all you want youre a bloody bigot!

touch4mony: jst his opinion u can still make ur kwn pls.how much do u even get from this ppl šéf that ur here killing ur šéf.all they care for is their pocket and generations unkwn