₦airaland Forum

989900:
No disrespect, but your first sentence in the above^^, kinda describes the interpretation of the remainder of your rejoinder . . .

. . . à la comparing our resources, income, and administration (Civilian vs Military) vs. results with then vs. now.

Depleting the reserves and a sh!tty currency, while plunging the country into more debts, while selling oil for the highest prices ever, over the longest period ever by any administration=failure!

Throw in oil subsidy payments from N300b to N1.3 trillion in a year thereabout, and watch NOI's explanation at the Lagos town hall debate, then tell me that's not dumb, or deceitful whichever fits.

I can't make head or tail out of this incoherence. Depleting reserves and sh!tty currency, you think it's the Finance Minister that manages currency reserves and exchange rate stability and not the Central Bank of Nigeria? It's funny that people now blame her for the effects of falling currency value, when she was calling for increased savings, our new "saviours" made the following call:

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s main opposition party said it will scrap the country’s sovereign wealth fund and a separate excess crude account if it wins elections in February.

“We’re going to put a stop to them,” Lai Mohammed, a spokesman for the All Progressives Congress, or APC, said in an interview in London yesterday. “The sovereign wealth fund and the excess crude account are illegal.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-30/nigeria-s-opposition-wants-to-scrap-sovereign-oil-funds

If she was against making savings, then the above statement would have been unnecessary and superflous.

As for oil subsidy going up, most of the miscomprehension arises from how oil subsidies are accounted for. The idea that subsidies only cost 300bn Naira in a nation of 177m people before NOI is utterly risible and profoundly naive.

Alphonsocapone:
pat utomi is also a good economist.

Is Pat Utomi a better economist than NOI?

989900:
Apparently, Nigeria would disintegrate economically without her SMH!

Or are we already with her at the helm?

People use terms naively. A disintegration of the economy is exactly what took place in the 80s requiring us to negotiate an IMF bailout. We are not even remotely close to that despite having a Boko Haram insurgency to cope. GEJ is an incompetent buffoon but I think NOI was one of the few shining lights that helped keep public finances relatively stable.

suwailad:
are you so daft? Please bring the source where the news media quoted him VERBATIM saying that!
Oh God, what education did you have?

Wouldn't it be easier to upload the video to show he said something else in his speech? At the moment, both sides are relying on media reports or interpretations of the speech.

It is incumbent on those insisting they know exactly what Buhari said in his speech to provide evidence. This applies to both sides.

Reaper231:
If thrs one person I'm sure Buhari shld retain it's OSITA CHIDOKA; Minister of Aviation

What has he actually achieved?

demelza:
This is obviously a huge joke

NOI is a competent minister. She's probably the best development economist the country has. If you beg to differ, please point me to better economists that Nigeria has.

It's difficult to comprehend the illogic of these simpletons. What actual difference does it make if your tribesman is in a political position? Do you think the indigenes of Minna, Kano or Daura who have produced Presidents have a better living standard than those of Oshogbo or Nnewi who haven't?

Buhari would either make a good President or not. If he does, the inhabitants of Nigeria will benefit irrespective of their ethnicity. If he doesn't, the reverse will be the case.

Unless you are part of the elite or close to them, it makes no difference whether your tribes people occupy particular positions. We have had decades of Northern rule without meaningful impact on Northerners vis-a-vis Southerners as empirical evidence. Nigerians' penchant for tribal zero-sum calculations is insurmountable despite overwhelming contrary evidence.

slinkman:
this is just a local govt in abuja

Any person with a brain would question why the total votes cast is just 18 thousand.

If only 2 states' results have been collated, Jega's statement rebuts victory claims made by both PDP and APC activists in the last 24 hours. I'm not sure how you can spin Jega's rebuttal into a solely anti-FFK comment.

dexmundo:
even without the much expected bombing of oil facilities in the niger delta, the price of oil now is half of what it was in the last 6 years and there is no reserve or soverign wealth fund to dip hands into. He must have to borrow and put the nation into another IMF / paris club situation

If you read the news, you will hear mention of the embezzlement of 30 trillion Naira or $49bn under GEJ's administration. If Buhari will end corruption and those corruption stories are true, it follows that this money which was previously stolen will now be available to the public purse. So, there shouldn't be any revenue shortage at all.

The problem with this article is that it accords too much credence to a statement by Buhari that sharia law should be imposed throughtout the country. In reality, extending sharia law country-wide is impraticable.

nationwide1:
This woman should stop deceiving herself. She is one of the worst things to have ever happened to Nigeria.
She is one of the reasons Jonathan's government is rated low. If Jonathan eventually wins, this woman should be booted out.
Nigeria economy is very strong and she is borrowing from the world bank and foreign reserve is depreciating at geometric rate. This woman is the joker of the century.

I'm not sure I get this logic, are you saying only weak economies borrow? That will mean that almost all economies in the world are weak.

With respect to the reserves, when the price of oil plummets and dollar receipts plummet as a result, reserves will fall irrespective of what the finance minister does.

You only have to look at the living standards of Northerners who have dominated the Presidency to realise that having your ethnic kinsman in Aso Rock makes no difference to 99.99% of the President's tribesman.

I have always known that most of the hysterical anti-GEJ criticism is driven by tribalists who feel their tribe is not given a larger share of the national cake. You can sense this when these same proponents for good governance make all sorts of excuses for their inept state governors.

This election is like the liars' Olympics. Both sides competing to see who will tell the most lies.

bushdoc9919:
There is cause for alarm...because regardless of who wins in 2015....neither of them has any idea on how to fix this. Instead....we hear the same old ''I will build roads'' campaign....which means more money....which means the savings account gets raided over and over.

That is why I do not like PDP or APC. We are on the verge of economic crisis....and all they can chatter about is tribe, religion, and other inane things.

Really....the solution here is simple.

1.Prices are going to be raised....which means no more subsidy.

2.There is going to be seat-belt tightening. Everyone will suffer.

PDP really should take much of the blame here. Since 1999...they have failed to get us off our resource dependency. Which is why we are here today. Because oil dependent countries always get into trouble when the oil price drops.

Absolutely, the blame rests on the government's shoulders. There is no doubt that via corruption and mismanagement, it has failed to act in a fiscally prudent manner and has squandered an oil boom when it had the opportunity.

But simply leaving the analysis at that misses a salient point, much of what economists describe as waste - subsidy and bloated public sector - happened with the active consent and in line with the demands of the Nigerian "intelligentsia". If you ask me why Nigeria is dysfunctional, I will refer you to simple cause-effects, cause always precedes effect. It is not enough to blame government for every misfortune when we know that Nigeria was dysfunctional before PDP and before Jonathan so neither is the cause of the dysfunction. The PDP government and its policies are merely a symptom of the dysfunction. The common denominator remains the Nigerian people from whose rank and file leaders and policy makers emerge. It beggars belief that Nigeria's elite supports bone headed economic policies whilst expressing shock and horror at the outcome. For a classic example of this dissonance, see populist comments made by the opposition only a few months ago:

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s main opposition party said it will scrap the country’s sovereign wealth fund and a separate excess crude account if it wins elections in February.

“We’re going to put a stop to them,” Lai Mohammed, a spokesman for the All Progressives Congress, or APC, said in an interview in London yesterday. “The sovereign wealth fund and the excess crude account are illegal.”

The $1.5 billion sovereign wealth fund, called the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, was started in 2011, with the ruling People’s Democratic Party saying the country needed to save money for future generations. The Excess Crude Account, which stands at $4.11 billion, is used by the government to cover shortfalls in its budget and give foreign investors comfort the state can guard against a fall in the value of the currency.

Foreign investors closely monitor the excess crude account, which has helped attract high portfolio flows to Nigeria in the past two years, according to Esili Eigbe, Lagos-based head of West African research at Exotix, a frontier markets investment bank.

“Part of the reason you’re seeing a push for Nigeria is because of some of the shock absorbers,” such as the account that holds oil earnings above a budget benchmark, he said in a telephone interview. “You have to look at this in the context of the household. The household without savings is vulnerable to swings and shocks.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-30/nigeria-s-opposition-wants-to-scrap-sovereign-oil-funds

It is important to note the context and assumption under which those comments were made in the Bloomberg article. It was made in a context of high oil price and in the assumption that saying you will scrap rainy day funds appeals favourably to Nigerians. So why are Nigerians now bleating that we have little savings to cushion an oil price fall?

arsetalks:
I try not to be triabalistic but I find it very odd that the igbos who are the biggest importers of goods to the country will support this clueless man known as GEJ the jerk.

Many importers are going out of business fast and it is due mainly to one man's cluelessness.

It is funny to note that when crude price was circa $110-$160 in the world market, the naira never firmed up but it is on a decline when price of crude oil crashes.

Gej needs to tell Nigerians what he did with the savings from the excess generated from selling our oil.

NOI needs to explain to us what has all of a sudden changed in her stance. She said about 1 year ago that there is no cause for alarm, why the alarm now.

My friend, instead of hyperventillating here, let's examine the underlying premises of your post:

1) Pro-GEJ stance is primarily an Igbo phenomenon, therefore, it stands to reason that Buhari is likely to triumph
2) Buhari will fix our problems including the depreciating Naira value

If those 2 premises above are correct, surely this prediction that Naira will fall significantly in 12 months time is completely misguided and there is no cause for alarm?

This is what I "love" about Nigerian politics, the total separation between reality and politics. I had actually wanted to start a thread about the futures' market pricing of Naira's value and what it tells us but never got round to it.

If the market is pricing Naira to fall significantly over the next 12 months, if you are a GEJ or Buhari supporter who litters this site with claims that your candidate will definitely win and that your candidate has a handle on matters, this is an opportunity to make significant amounts of money. Take a Buhari supporter for instance as this is more apt to them, if Buhari is definitely going to win and he will fix our problems, then the Naira is not going to 263 to the dollar in 12 months time so there is a golden opportunity to take a contrary bet. So what are our professional posters waiting for, bet away if you believe any of the things you spout.

You only have to go on British Airways' site and check flights from London to Abuja to see the flight arrives early morning. That's hardly "sneaking in."

DONGOYARO1:
You are right
we are still chasing shadows. The real fight is in Gwoza and Bama. The loss of both towns would deal a fatal blow to the Haramites; it would end their caliphate nonsense but 'might' not necessarily end the insurgency

Losing Bama and Gwoza won't end Boko Haram, they were active before taking both. However, it will severely cripple their capabilities.

jomoh:
[b]Nigeria had the rainy days but the GEJ administration refused to save. [/b]Instead they spent the savings Nigeria had despite having 2 saving accounts viz the Excess Crude Account (ECA) and the foreign reserve.

My friend stop spewing these fatuous untruths. I would be the first to state that GEJ is an inept buffoon but claiming that "he refused to save" is a lie too far. Inspite of his ineptitude, economic and agricultural policies are 2 areas where I give him some credit, or rather NOI and Adesina.

Please see the article I posted earlier - when you say he "refused" to save, refused whose requests for savings? Is it the opposition who were playing to popular opinion by demanding that we stopped saving or the Nigerian public who believe that oil is manna from heaven that must be spent immediately on wage increases and subsidy?

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s main opposition party said it will scrap the country’s sovereign wealth fund and a separate excess crude account if it wins elections in February.

“We’re going to put a stop to them,” Lai Mohammed, a spokesman for the All Progressives Congress, or APC, said in an interview in London yesterday. “The sovereign wealth fund and the excess crude account are illegal.”

The $1.5 billion sovereign wealth fund, called the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, was started in 2011, with the ruling People’s Democratic Party saying the country needed to save money for future generations. The Excess Crude Account, which stands at $4.11 billion, is used by the government to cover shortfalls in its budget and give foreign investors comfort the state can guard against a fall in the value of the currency.

Foreign investors closely monitor the excess crude account, which has helped attract high portfolio flows to Nigeria in the past two years, according to Esili Eigbe, Lagos-based head of West African research at Exotix, a frontier markets investment bank.

“Part of the reason you’re seeing a push for Nigeria is because of some of the shock absorbers,” such as the account that holds oil earnings above a budget benchmark, he said in a telephone interview. “You have to look at this in the context of the household. The household without savings is vulnerable to swings and shocks.”

Many places remain under the firm control of Boko Haram - Gwoza and Bama to name just 2. Yet, if you read these stories, you will think Boko Haram has been defeated or is on the verge of defeat. These paid posters have no shame, why is the government celebrating the liberation of towns when they should never have fallen in the first place and whilst many remain under the terrorists' control?

What this oil price crash fallout exposes is what I have always highlighted for years on this site, Nigerians support many bad policies whose consequences they completely are unable to associate with the policies they support. It's a knack for not knowing the relationship between cause and effect.

At the heart of our problem is that we invest too little and consume too much. Take two things - subsidy and public sector wages. At every juncture where the question has arisen as to reducing/abolishing subsidy and wages, Nigerians have always demanded that these 2 major recurrent expenses be maintained. This is seen as "sharing the wealth" and a mark of a conscientious Nigerian. The reality is that the road to hell is paved with "good intentions".

On the politics aspect, it's ironic the present hypocritical cries about the fall in Naira when only a few months ago, we had news like this:

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s main opposition party said it will scrap the country’s sovereign wealth fund and a separate excess crude account if it wins elections in February.

“We’re going to put a stop to them,” Lai Mohammed, a spokesman for the All Progressives Congress, or APC, said in an interview in London yesterday. “The sovereign wealth fund and the excess crude account are illegal.”

The $1.5 billion sovereign wealth fund, called the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, was started in 2011, with the ruling People’s Democratic Party saying the country needed to save money for future generations. The Excess Crude Account, which stands at $4.11 billion, is used by the government to cover shortfalls in its budget and give foreign investors comfort the state can guard against a fall in the value of the currency.

Foreign investors closely monitor the excess crude account, which has helped attract high portfolio flows to Nigeria in the past two years, according to Esili Eigbe, Lagos-based head of West African research at Exotix, a frontier markets investment bank.

“Part of the reason you’re seeing a push for Nigeria is because of some of the shock absorbers,” such as the account that holds oil earnings above a budget benchmark, he said in a telephone interview. “You have to look at this in the context of the household. The household without savings is vulnerable to swings and shocks.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-30/nigeria-s-opposition-wants-to-scrap-sovereign-oil-funds

The bigger question is why support either PDP or APC, they are indistinguishable, 2 cheeks of the same butt.

Meiji:
I know the NL partisan crowd will not comment on this thread since it doesn't talk specifically about Jonathan or Buhari or about PDP and APC. Apparently BOTH parties are perfectly satisfied with the status quo. Yet our gullible people will line up and take bullets for their "rock star" politicians who don't give a toss about them or their future.
We are a naïve, shallow, credulous people.

The dominant posters in the politics sections are mercenaries, vultures feeding on the carcass of Nigeria's political system. They are less interested in the actual state of governance and more focused on promoting their sponsors.

I wonder what happens to the expensive newly acquired equipment which Boko Haram had seized from Nigerian forces. If Chad recaptures them from Boko Haram, what mechanism has our inept Govt put in place to ensure they don't take back to Chad?

Popemax:
The news is true confirmed by a friend in Baga......also in Michika...kudos to Nigeria Army,am so happy for for this....we lost some solders in that fight.....APC go and die

I hope it is true but I find it hard to believe. Also, how come you have a friend in Boko Haram controlled Baga who is able to contact you?

This news is most unlikely to be true. Don't believe anything from the Nigerian military.

mathskill:
How the military suddenly grew wings and 2 weeks to election? How come BH suddenly vanished into thin air. Azazi said it, Nyako said it Dr. Stephen Davies also said PDP is BH. PDP politicized BH n for reasons known to them orchestrated the spread of BH. Now it has backfired on them judging by the potential defeat at the polls. What do they do? They tell their BH to sheat their swords and then claim victory hoping that will turn political in their favour. Well they are late. We shall vote them out come Febuhari.

I like your style: If the news is that Boko Haram has captured more territory, you proclaim that this is proof that it is in cahoots with the Govt. If the news is that Boko Haram has lost territory, you also proclaim same thing. These sorts of either or conspiracies are a figment of the imagination. The only conspiracy going on here for me is the Govt trying to give the impression that it is making it progress against Boko Haram.

What's wrong with Nigerians? This ranking is a web ranking which measures popularity on the web. I just get frustrated with how gullible people are.

The Army is boasting that it repelled attacks on Maiduguri but the attack there was merely to keep the Army occupied, distracted and unable to reinforce its troops in the main target - Monguno.

Aderupoko2:
PDP lie effortlessly

This means PDP have mastered time travel as they were able to go back to 1986 and get the New York Times to write an article that doesn't paint Buhari in a positive light.

Scientists have found that the 'cowgirl' position is responsible for half of all penile fractures during sexual intercourse

It might have emancipated women from the drudgery of the 'Missionary Position', but it seems that men are paying a painful price for revolution in the bedroom.

"Woman on top" is the most dangerous sex position, according to a new scientific study. Scientists have found that the position, dubbed "cowgirl", is responsible for half of all penile fractures in the bedroom.

The research also revealed that the "do'ggy-style" position, with women on all fours, is behind 29 per cent of afflictions.

In contrast, the traditional "man on top" is responsible for just 21 per cent.

Doctors and academics looked at patients attending three A&E units with suspected "penile fractures" over a 13 year period.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11359960/Woman-on-top-is-most-dangerous-sex-position-scientists-conclude.html

This is why one must remain a missionary despite all these "modern" women. Our fathers only practised missionary, we should keep our traditions.