Ibime:

As for anyone that said Ribadu is slow, try doing a PHD @ Cambridge like Ribadu was, let's see whether you would last a month. Or try building legally watertight cases like Ribadu had to do at EFCC.

Ribadu? PhD @ Cambridge? Do you even believe what you just wrote?

Anyway, I googled. He did a training course at HBS in some sort of police management course. Not an MBA or PhD, just some police course. For all we know it was a two week seminar   (As an aside, I see this thing a lot on LinkedIn these days. I was looking at someone's profile. . . they didn't list the place they went to college or graduate school as part of their education, instead just listed the 3 month training course they did at Harvard. So you look at their resume and think, "ooh, wow! Harvard!", and then see that they were there for only a few months   )

In any case, that obviously is no evidence of intelligence. I'm sure most of these Nigerian politicians could pull some strings and go visit Harvard for a couple weeks too and get a certificate from them  

Ibime:

Even if the biggest dunce leads Nigeria, he will improve your life x2 by simply corruption and indiscipline.

Haba! Corruption is PART of the problem, but not all of it. Quite possibly not even the biggest part.

And NEWSFLASH: President doesn't have to be a smart technocrat, only his ministers do.

Eh, I never claimed he has to be. But at the same time, let us not give Ribadu more credit than he is due. He did a fairly excellent job at the EFCC. This doesn't mean he is good material for the presidency.

dayokanu:

ACN rigged in Ekiti state? I did not see any news or allegation or court case stating that maybe you can clarify with some instances. not saying they are squeaky clean but I would rather go with them than PDP.

It was definitely in the news.  Mrs Ayoka Adebayo(Nigeria's former sweetheart/super woman) manipulated Tinubu, as well as some other groups manipulated Tinubu in the rigging and bribing going on back in Ekiti 2009.

Kobojunkie:

It was definitely in the news.  Mrs Ayoka Adebayo(Nigeria's former sweetheart/super woman) manipulated Tinubu, as well as some other groups manipulated Tinubu in the rigging and bribing going on back in Ekiti 2009.

As usual, nothing of substance to add on any topic except the odd 1 to max 5 lines of opinionless emptyness.

^^ I thought Ayoka Adebayo tried to rig in favour of PDP.

At a time she offered to resign and Dora mandated her to annouce the result after lampooning her on TV.

Was that not why she was rejected by Ondo state?

Sagamite:

Even if your point were true, since there is no alternative you can point to, your best attempt to achieve improvement is not to support incumbency, but to keep on punishing the misrulers by voting them out.

Supporting the incumbent because you do not think the opposition is any better will not change the incumbent's actions.

Well, all of this is a moot discussion, since Ribadu has 0 chance of beating GEJ.

But let's pretend that the ACN represented a strong opposition, but one which would be just as bad if they achieved power. Should I then support them over GEJ's PDP? All other things equal, perhaps your strategy might make some sense (actually, I don't even necessarily agree that it makes sense, but let's just assume this for now.)

But are all other things equal? No. If I support the ACN/Tinubu Congress of Nigeria, then this only strengthens Tinubu's profile and increases the probability that he becomes Oloye of Yorubaland. I have zero interest in seeing Yorubaland enslaved by one man.

dayokanu:

^^ I thought Ayoka Adebayo tried to rig in favour of PDP.

At a time she offered to resign and Dora mandated her to annouce the result after lampooning her on TV.

Was that not why she was rejected by Ondo state?

I think the main is the Ekiti situation, not what happened as a result. She did implicate Tinubu/ACN in the rigging and bribing going on - some other parties also did. It was in the Papers. This was before Ayoka announced she was resigning.

@dayokanu: Just this week there was political violence in a town in Ekiti West LGA. Some jackass on one of the Ekiti newsgroups spun the political violence as "pushing and shoving", but did not mention that this pushing and shoving led to people being carried to the hospital 

The ACN knows how to play the media game very well.

Kobojunkie:

I think the main is the Ekiti situation, not what happened as a result. She did implicate Tinubu/ACN in all the rigging and bribing going on - some other parties also did. It was in the Papers. This was before Ayoka announced she was resigning.

Stop peddling lies

She did not implicate Tinubu.

eku_bear:

Well, all of this is a moot discussion, since Ribadu has 0 chance of beating GEJ.

But let's pretend that the ACN represented a strong opposition, but one which would be just as bad if they achieved power. Should I then support them over GEJ's PDP? All other things equal, perhaps your strategy might make some sense (actually, I don't even necessarily agree that it makes sense, but let's just assume this for now.)

But are all other things equal? No. If I support the ACN/Tinubu Congress of Nigeria, then this only strengthens Tinubu's profile and increases the probability that he becomes Oloye of Yorubaland. I have zero interest in seeing Yorubaland enslaved by one man.

I thought you declared yourself an Awoist? How is Awolowos acts different from Tinubus current acts?

Sagamite:

As usual, nothing of substance to add on any topic except the odd 1 to max 5 lines of opinionless emptyness.

On this one, I agree with you, unfortunately!

dayokanu:

I thought you declared yourself an Awoist? How is Awolowos acts different from Tinubus current acts?

That is unfair

You know the truth and you know that what Tinubu is doing would never have been approved by Awo.


Please! Please, respect the Sage!

eku_bear:

Well, all of this is a moot discussion, since Ribadu has 0 chance of beating GEJ.

But let's pretend that the ACN represented a strong opposition, but one which would be just as bad if they achieved power. Should I then support them over GEJ's PDP? All other things equal, perhaps your strategy might make some sense (actually, I don't even necessarily agree that it makes sense, but let's just assume this for now.)

But are all other things equal? No. If I support the ACN/Tinubu Congress of Nigeria, then this only strengthens Tinubu's profile and increases the probability that he becomes Oloye of Yorubaland. I have zero interest in seeing Yorubaland enslaved by one man.

If you have a reward that 2 parties want and you can only give to 1. You have a set of criteria you expect to be met and will give it to the party that most likely meets most of the criteria, yet none meets the criteria or is better than the other in meeting it.

If you give one of the parties the reward (which is very powerful) and also give that same rewarded party the impression you will not take it away as the other party is not worthy, you are not giving any incentive for the incumbent to change. They know they will always have the reward.

On the other hand, if you at intervals punish the incumbent (any of the 2 parties) for not improving by awarding the reward to the opposition, you create a competition as they want to retain the reward at all cost. This is evident in industries where switching by consumers is high, it forces businesses within that industry to up perfomance (or to lower their prices). Governments use regulation to aid switching to force competition that benefits consumers. For example in the UK, you can change mobile service provider easily as you do not have to change numbers as there are laws that force the any of the industry's firm to connect with existing number. If mobile firms know you are stuck with them because you will find it hard to switch as you are used and know with the number, they will not offer a better deal.

Monopoly does not aid competition.

Sagamite:

Come on, obviously all you will here is corruption, corruption, corruption but that was his job. And he did it very very well.

Also lets be frank, corruption is fundamental to the problem of Nigeria. I don't really see or have ever seen any Nigerian politician talk about pragmatic economic development that is not the hackneyed ones of (Power, infrastructure etc) bar Pat Utomi. To be frank with the level of education, mental retardation and moral perdition of the average Nigerian, such talk is a waste of time and academic, no wonder Utomi is still an academic.

I need more from him than this. Hell, Tinubu who I distrust has better ideas for economic development than Ribadu does. Tinubu and Fashola are developing a model of PPP that will bring in the capital Nigeria sorely needs to develop infrastructure. Why isn't Ribadu talking about any of these sorts of things? Ideas about economic development CAN be marketed to the masses, if you explain them well enough.

I don't think Jonathan or Buhari have ideas on economic development, new ideas of merit worth writing home about or better than Ribadu's.

Good point. Perhaps I'm holding Ribadu to a higher standard. But he MUST be held to a higher standard, since he is a relative newcomer and nobody.

There are enough papers and ideas of what Nigeria needs to do. The implementation is the challenge, and one of the major hinderances in corruption. Here is a man that has been pragmatic and knows about corruption and hates it as much as I hate moorons.  

Corruption again is only part of the problem, not all of it. Even if Nigeria were entirely corruption free, it would not develop optimally unless we find ways of bringing capital from abroad to build infrastructure (roads, power), invest in farming, etc. Long story short, the Nigerian economic pie is too small. So even if it were shared perfectly well, it wouldn't be enough food. The economy needs to be grown.

And sorry for taking so long to respond.

^^ Sorry but I think corruption is the major thing.

You cant have corruption entrenched the way it is in Nigeria and have any meaningful development.

All the foreign aid and IMF loans we have had since the last 40yrs where have they gone to?

fstranger1:

That is unfair

You know the truth and you know that what Tinubu is doing would never have been approved by Awo.


Please! Please, respect the Sage!

Agreed, let us never compare Tinubu to Awolowo again. That is an insult to Awolowo. Awolowo was a servant of the Yoruba people. Not a servant of his own political and economic interests. Awolowo wasn't installing his kin and homeboys into every political office, even kicking out incumbents.

eku_bear:

Agreed, let us never compare Tinubu to Awolowo again. That is an insult to Awolowo. Awolowo was a servant of the Yoruba people. Not a servant of his own political and economic interests. Awolowo wasn't installing his kin and homeboys into every political office, even kicking out incumbents.

You are right!

If you Examine the principles behind what Tinubu is doing. Examine the morality. Take an example of the internal wrangling he had with Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, is that consistent with true party politics? if somebody is doing something for self, then there is danger ahead. Fair enough, he survived and we know how he survived and it was in ACN's favour that he survived. Whatever method he used, we supported then , but that does not mean that we would not recognise the faults in his way of doing politics.The problem with Tinubu and others is that they have a private agenda of their own that is not consistent with our Awo's philosophy.

dayokanu:

^^ Sorry but I think corruption is the major thing.

You cant have corruption entrenched the way it is in Nigeria and have any meaningful development.

All the foreign aid and IMF loans we have had since the last 40yrs where have they gone to?

It is somewhat counterintuitive, but no, corruption is not the biggest problem. Lack of electricity, poor roads, lack of access to capital are the biggest problem in Nigeria (of course, some might argue that corruption is the reason there is no electricity. . . )

I made a post on this a couple days ago here:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=578787.msg7522194#msg7522194

Scroll down to the bottom of that page, there is a link to a World Bank report on the Nigerian economy. Kenya, Indonesia, Venezuela are similarly corrupt, but are a lot more economically competitive than Nigeria is.

If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Anyway, I strongly recommend reading through that report when you have time. Lots of good stuff there.

dayokanu:

^^ Sorry but I think corruption is the major thing.

You cant have corruption entrenched the way it is in Nigeria and have any meaningful development.

All the foreign aid and IMF loans we have had since the last 40yrs where have they gone to?

I agree corruption is a big problem, but using IMF loans to point to the problem is just ridiculous. The problem with non-implementation of IMF loans is not strictly a Nigerian problem and the problem can ONLY be addressed by IMF. Blaming the Nigerian government for non performance of IMF loans is unfortunate.

dayokanu:

I thought you declared yourself an Awoist? How is Awolowos acts different from Tinubus current acts?

Someone is dragging Awo's name to the PIT LOO. that's unfair, Tinubu reppin Awo is impossible pls

We took those loans for some reasons right? Most likely infrastructural development. Where are the infrastructres we used the loans to develop?

fstranger1:

You are right!

If you Examine the principles behind what Tinubu is doing. Examine the morality. Take an example of the internal wrangling he had with Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, is that consistent with true party politics? if somebody is doing something for self, then there is danger ahead. Fair enough, he survived and we know how he survived and it was in ACN's favour that he survived. Whatever method he used, we supported then , but that does not mean that we would not recognise the faults in his way of doing politics.The problem with Tinubu and others is that they have a private agenda of their own that is not consistent with our Awo's philosophy.

Do you know about the Awolowo vs Akintola war that led to the breakdown of the first republic?

Draw parallels with the Tinubu vs Fashola scenario if you can

good news

eku_bear:

I need more from him than this. Hell, Tinubu who I distrust has better ideas for economic development than Ribadu does. Tinubu and Fashola are developing a model of PPP that will bring in the capital Nigeria sorely needs to develop infrastructure. Why isn't Ribadu talking about any of these sorts of things? Ideas about economic development CAN be marketed to the masses, if you explain them well enough.

Good point. Perhaps I'm holding Ribadu to a higher standard. But he MUST be held to a higher standard, since he is a relative newcomer and nobody.

As I said, it is all academic and a waste of time. It will not win you votes in a country where 70% are illiterates and 20% of the remaining 30% are half-baked, under-educated or miseducated.

At the end of the day, you are not choosing between Fashola and Ribadu. You are choosing between Ribadu, Jonathan and Buhari. None of the 3 has what you use to eliminate Ribadu and Ribadu is a better, smarter, livelier, more progressive, more passionate and more proven man than the other 2.

eku_bear:

Corruption again is only part of the problem, not all of it. Even if Nigeria were entirely corruption free, it would not develop optimally unless we find ways of bringing capital from abroad to build infrastructure (roads, power), invest in farming, etc. Long story short, the Nigerian economic pie is too small. So even if it were shared perfectly well, it wouldn't be enough food. The economy needs to be grown.

And sorry for taking so long to respond.

You are right. Corruption is only part of the problem, but as I said, it is a fundamental part. Eliminating/diminishing it will drastically impact our development.

Contracts that should cost N30m and would give the contractor a very healthy profit are being dished out and signed by corrupt officials for N300m with an understanding that they will get their 10% cut. Others in the chain will get their various cuts. Eliminating (I am being surreal) corruption will save N270m that will mean you can do 9 more of the same project.

People like Soludo milked the CBN by signing legal fees that should not be more than N5m for over N100m for Olisa Agbakoba.

Elimating corruption will not turn us to Dubai, but fck lord, it will multiply what we can do with what we currently have. And if we are that serious, honest and transparent, the extra foreign funds you are alluding to will come without us needing to go and find it.

^^ With corruption even with the 300m the project would not be done and you have already taken a loan for it.

Do you know that the benin Ore road contract is always awarded yearly to Tony Anenih and Nobody touches it

Eliminate corruption and other things would fall in place

he can win. he just needs to campaign hard across nigeria. he should pick a powerful woman for VP and go for youth and women vote. he can win.

dayokanu:

We took those loans for some reasons right? Most likely infrastructural development. Where are the infrastructres we used the loans to develop?

Do you know about the Awolowo vs Akintola war that led to the breakdown of the first republic?

Draw parallels with the Tinubu vs Fashola scenario if you can

Common. If my memory serves me well, the difference in what transpired between Awo and Akintola Vs. Tinubu and Fashola is as clear as light and day.

Awo and Akintola: They both did not agree on how how to move Yorubaland forward. Awo believed in the social engineering  policies of the AG while Akintola  "was widely believed to have urged the Action Group (AG) leadership in the 1960s to seek to join the federal coalition of which the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) was the senior partner. Chief Awolowo realised this danger and was determined not to allow the Yoruba and other progressive minded Nigerians be part of the scheme " In a way OBJ is the modern day Akintola, if I am allowed to make such comparison. I do know that Akintola was a smooth talker, a brilliant lawyer and a man of original ideas, unlike our dull and thuggish OBJ.

Tinubu and Fashola: This all about Tinubu's selfish interest and Fashola's attempt at stopping Tinubu from emptying Lagos state treasury.


Please correct me If i am wrong!

Plenty of countries are equally or even more corrupt. Yet they are progressing despite their corruption. Why? Does this not suggest that we've overstated the importance of corruption on the economy?

^^ How did you arrive at this conclusion?

By external perception or facts on the ground? External perception of corruption and the actual levels of corruption experienced are completely different things.

debosky:

^^ How did you arrive at this conclusion?

By external perception or facts on the ground? External perception of corruption and the actual levels of corruption experienced are completely different things.

It is well known that China is the most corrupt country in world, yet they are more developed than us.


And, if you think the US is not as corrupt as Nigeria, well, i have a plot of land to sell to you in Asorock.

Corruption is absolutely the most pressing problem in Nigeria.

The mentality of corruption is what breeds Indiscipline, shortcuts, incompetence and all other ills that affect every sphere of society from our Leaders to Police to the lecturers who train our youth to be useless and incompetent.

Anybody arguing nonsense is not worth discussing with.

@debosky: So your point is that the countries ranked as more corrupt than Nigeria by international groups might in fact be less corrupt? Or perhaps there is something particularly insidious about Nigerian corruption versus that of similarly corrupt countries?

If that is your point. . . what evidence do you have that trumps the work of those international groups?

eku_bear:

@debosky: So your point is that the countries ranked as more corrupt than Nigeria by international groups might in fact be less corrupt? Or perhaps there is something particularly insidious about Nigerian corruption versus that of similarly corrupt countries?

If that is your point. . . what evidence do you have that trumps the work of those international groups?

What was being assessed was perception of business owners to corruption - how on earth can this be a valid measure of the impact of corruption on infrastructural development (to take an example)?

When the surveys were done, would the companies owned by politicians used to rip off Nigeria tell the surveys that corruption is rife?

Looks like I'm going to have to quote from that report again:

Other sources appear to confirm that although corruption may be perceived as a major bottleneck in Nigeria, it is not much worse than in comparator countries. Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index (CPI), which attempts to quantify the degree of corruption as seen by businesspeople and country analysts, ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). Table 2.9 shows that Nigeria ranks 147th (of 180 countries), close to Indonesia; Kenya and Venezuela appear to be slightly worse. These results may, at first sight, seem intriguing. Internationally, Nigeria is perceived to be a country in which corruption is a major problem. In fact, the data from table 2.9 do suggest that corruption is (in relative terms) problematic because it ranks Nigeria 147th of 180 countries. However, a closer look at the data shows that corruption does not appear to be much worse in Nigeria than in the other comparator countries, especially Kenya, Venezuela, and Indonesia. According to the investment climate survey data fewer firms in Nigeria perceive corruption to be a major or very severe constraint when compared with Kenya, Venezuela, and Indonesia, which is in line with the perceptions reported by Transparency International.
It can be argued that managers internalize corruption and hence report a lower level of corruption even though the problem is actually higher than perceived. To address this concern we looked instead at objective indicators of corruption, such as the amount of bribes paid “to get things done.” Even in this case, as shown earlier, objective indicators of corruption show that the amount of bribes paid by firms in Nigeria is lower than that paid in Kenya and similar to the amount paid in Indonesia. Furthermore if we look at the evolution of corruption over time we notice that in the past few years Nigeria’s corruption level has been improving. This finding is confirmed by other sources and is a result of the significant effort taken by the Nigerian government to fight corruption through enacting the Corrupt Practices Act and establishing the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (figure 2..

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/03/18/000350881_20090318152502/Rendered/PDF/476070PUB0338855B01Official0Use0Only1.pdf