₦airaland Forum

“The leadership has not also told the truth about
our salary because we earn just N45,000 as against
the N75,000 that outsiders have been made to
believe”.

dont8: ...And here is an article written by Sabella Ogbobode Abidde.


[size=14pt]Jonathan And His Kinsmen[/size]

https://img.thenigerianvoice.com/images/content3/204x_mg_chxj0nmay7_naija_296864921.jpg

"In spite of this reality, Jonathan, a man who claims to come from a humble background and poor parentage and lacking shoes and modern amenities, does not see it fit to do anything about the abject condition of his people? What nonsense! How much will it cost to build two major highways and eight connecting roads in and around the Niger Delta? No more than four weeks’ worth of oil export! How much will it cost the oil-producing states to build first-class schools and hospitals, and to provide potable water and clean environment? Less than thirty percent of their yearly budgets! How much will it cost these states, in concert with the federal government, to industrialize the region? Less than twelve weeks earning from oil export."


This President – President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan -- has six sets of problems. First, he is not suited for party politics. Second, he has a limited and provincial worldview, which makes it difficult for him to grasp complex domestic and global issues. Third, in the political arena, at least, he is not loved, feared, or respected. Fourth, he may have steely nerves and the heart of a lion; but outwardly, he is weak and cowardly and scared. Fifth, he lacks the skill to effectively articulate and execute his plans – assuming he has any. And finally, he is not to be a good judge of character. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have appointed seventy percent or more of the men and women he has so far brought onboard.


I intend to return to these observations in the very near future. Here and now, however, my interest is on the president and his kinsmen: men and women from the Niger Delta who are members of his inner conclave. Many – very many of these folks are enemies of progress and growth. Individually and collectively, they have refused to tell the President the whole truth. They failed to tell him the complete and unadulterated truth. The truth they should have told him some six to nine months into his presidency was this: resign or get your acts together! The Ijaw among them should have been more vocal, more direct, and more honest. As a result of their failing, Jonathan and his presidency has been curse to our collective aspirations.


Instead of being honest and patriotic, they urge him on; they sing his praise; they make him believe he is good for the country; they make him believe the country needs and want him; and then they feloniously gloss over his deficits and incompetence. Lately, they’ve been whispering in his ears: “2015-2019 is yours, ordained by the God of Abraham!” What a disservice! What evil! For the Ijaw among the president’s kitchen cabinet, several decades of isolation and exclusion and poverty seem to have severely damaged their humanity and their sense of self to the point where, today, it is all about self-aggrandizements.


Many of the honest and sincere voices among the Ijaw have been silenced. The forward-looking ones have been excommunicated. Those who object to and make their objections public have either been severely frustrated or alienated. The Jonathan Praise Singing Project does not want or need Ijaw men and women who genuinely want the president to succeed. Critics are not wanted. Gadflies are not needed. Rationale minds are not welcome. What the Jonathan Project wants are attack dogs and character assassins. They embrace pathological liars and neurotic cheats and pipe dreamers and snake-oil sellers. In their minds, Nigeria now belongs to them and them alone. Therefore, in Nigeria’s vernacular, “it is time to chop and chop.” And they plan on chopping until 2015 or 2019. After 2015 or 2019, they intend to revive the Niger Delta Crisis.


The questions I have, and have had since Jonathan’s ascension are these: What are we to do about the sorry state of the oil-producing communities? What are we to do about the larger Niger Delta? How do we prevent a reoccurrence of the Niger Delta Crisis? What are we going to do when we run out of oil? What do we do when the lands are no longer able to sustain farming, and the rivers so polluted that fishing is almost impossible? And even if we don’t run out of oil, what do we do when the world discovers alternative source of energy? How do we move Nigeria forward? And who, in the name of the almighty, is going go clean and restore our terrible and sickening environment?


If Jonathan – a son of the soil – does not pay serious attention to the region, on whom should the Niger Deltans place their hopes? If Jonathan does not develop the riverine areas, what right would the Ijaw have to cry on the shoulder of the next president who, definitely, will not be an Ijaw? Since the late-1970s at least, oil has been the dominant earner of foreign exchange; and more than eighty percent of the nation’s budget has come from petro-dollars. Yet – yet – there are no travelable roads and bridges and hospitals and enviable human development and what is commonly referred to as Federal Presence.


In spite of this reality, Jonathan, a man who claims to come from a humble background and poor parentage and lacking shoes and modern amenities, does not see it fit to do anything about the abject condition of his people? What nonsense! How much will it cost to build two major highways and eight connecting roads in and around the Niger Delta? No more than four weeks’ worth of oil export! How much will it cost the oil-producing states to build first-class schools and hospitals, and to provide potable water and clean environment? Less than thirty percent of their yearly budgets! How much will it cost these states, in concert with the federal government, to industrialize the region? Less than twelve weeks earning from oil export.


And so, while Jonathan and a section of his kinsmen (and governors from the oil-producing states) are chopping and misappropriating public funds, they should remember that they will not be in power forever. They may lose elections. They may be impeached. They may become incapacitated by mental or physical sicknesses. They may die. Yes, they may die! And of course, death is a great leveler. And especially in the case of Mr. Jonathan -- whether he remains in power beyond 2015 or not -- he is likely to be the most reviled man in the history of the Niger Delta; and certainly, may become the most despised after General Olusegun Obasanjo.


What Jonathan’s kinsmen should have told him or what they should be telling him is this: “if you can’t effect change and improvements in the economic and political space don’t make it worse; and secondly, stay away from the 2015 presidential elections.” It’s that simple. It is this simple because, as we approach the halfway mark of his presidency, one can hardly point to quantifiable achievements at home and abroad. Especially at home! The Ijaw ethnic group – spread over six states – is still waiting for Jonathan to positively impact their lives. In so many ways, not much has changed in the riverine areas since the Portuguese and the British first set foot in that part of the world more than 700 years ago. The larger Niger Delta region is also waiting. Indeed, the entire country is also waiting.

seunfly: Of all reporters in Nigeria, saharareporters is the best. They see things far ahead of others and most of what the impossible things they ve seen have become possible. People like only call them agege reporters because u are short sighted

HNosegbe: Wind mills in the north? This doesn't make sense to me. Please expatiate.

Or do you mean solar power? Because I hear Katsina is doing something like that.

Bukkyade: It is a realistic and feasible target. I commend Maku for telling us the truth about the timelines. Given the nature of work to be done on our power grid, it will take 2-3 years to complete it. But the good thing is that they have already started doing something already that will evacuate almost about 5,000MW that will be generated by the new GENCOS in 2014. I have friend that works with a Sri lankan firm that is handling the one of the Transmisdion lines and she revealed to me the intensity of work and progress on site.

HNosegbe: Well said. However do you think it will meet our industrial and domestic needs say, ten years down the line?

I think the real issue here is the over-dependence on the FG-controlled national grid for power supply. What we need to do going forward is to decentralize the power generation and distribution process to allow states, local governments and private individuals generate, transmit and distribute their own power within defined geographical spaces.

Nations that boast of adequate power supply don't leave all the work to the central government.

Delafruita: really?how do you explain the fact that these money was required in febraury,the agreement already stated that FG will have to guarantee the money but then the FG reneged at the last minute.if they had reneged from the beginning it would have been better,but lagos received the first tranche which it used to begin the project only for FG to renege when it got to second tranche.that slowed up work on the road while lagos sought other means of funding and adjusted delivery date.it is now that the project is taking shape that FG now decides to live up to its responsibility

Delafruita: if i am to understand you correctly,NCAA runs solely on IGR hence it doesnt require any budgetary allocation hence is free to dispense of its funds as it desires.the ignorance you potray is only overshadowed by the cluelessness of the retardeen.almost every government agency generates revenue and such revenue is remitted to the federation account.every government agency submits its requirement for every fiscal year which is deliberated upon by the national assembly before such is included as a subhead in the annual budget.so you see that your argument falls flat in the face of facts

Imanuelle: There were others but only coscharis had security vehicles in their quote
That's why they one the bid

(vi) On June 28, 2013, NCAA Parastatal Tenders Board
approved the selection of First Bank Ltd for the Lease
Financing as well as Metropolitan Motor Vehicles and
Coscharis for the supply of the vehicles. All necessary
approvals were duly sought and obtained accordingly.

Tolexander: This issue is less severe than the heading painted it!

Iceman296: ..Still Not Convinced. There are Contradicting Facts Layed there!

themaskedman: Though this isn‘t about politics but sometimes you can‘t help but give it raw to these APC e-hooligans. With the kind of noise they make about Lagos, it should be the last place to be associated with cholera.
Indeed Fashola is working.

Garri the 1st: Have PDP Governors provided clean drinking water for residents of their states??

Smelly Hypocrite!!

When the major opposition political parties came together
earlier this year to form the All Progressives’ Congress
(APC), many Nigerians were excited that finally, the
Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) which has been in power
at the centre and has controlled the legislature and most of the states since 1999 will finally face true competition.

Despite my calls for cautious optimism in a few opinion
pieces, I was still of the hope that this would herald the
start of vibrant opposition politics and we the electorate will be the better for it, as both parties will battle for our hearts and minds in terms of policy debates and constructive criticisms. It goes without saying that every democracy needs a strong and vibrant opposition to keep the government of the day in check.

However, many months after, it is sad that the APC has
fallen far short of my expectations. It is not that they have not been talking. On the contrary, it is that they are talking of the wrong things when they talk, or keeping silent in the times their voices are needed to be heard. The APC has let golden opportunities for them to build up their electoral value slip by while they go chasing shadows.

For example, the four months-old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has presented an excellent opportunity for the APC to not only criticize the PDP government’s higher education policy, but to also lay out what it will do to make higher education more accessible and of higher quality if they are elected into government in 2015.

But what we have instead heard from them has been stony silence, (or empty criticisms), until last week when they criticized the honorary doctorate degree awarded to the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan by a South Korean university. In the logic of APC, the First Lady should not have received the award considering the fact that university students in Nigeria have been at home for four months.

It is befuddling how an award conferred on a private
citizen, as the Constitution does not recognize the Office of the First Lady can be wrong because of an ongoing strike by university lecturers. How do the two correlate? Is it because her husband is the President? But she is not part of the government or policymaking, is she? Is this the best the APC has got for us with regards to this strike?

Again, when still last week, news broke that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had bought two bulletproof BMW cars for the Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah at the cost of N255 million in a brazen case of profligacy, if not of outright fraud, one would have expected that the APC to have jumped on this and apply pressure on the Presidency to take action. They could also have mobilized their members in the National Assembly who have oversight function over the Aviation Ministry to bring it up on the floor.

Instead, they have prioritized issuing warning statements to the Presidency not to ‘abduct, harm or force him to resign’ the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi who has been in a long-running battle with the Presidency, and ironically, is not even an APC member.

The strategy of the APC leaves a lot to be desired – they
clearly ignore obvious opportunities for them to shine and
build up their electoral value and chase issues that are
either of no relevance to them or are so mundane that they are better ignored.

In other places, they have the misplaced belief that an
opposition party is meant to criticize everything the
government does, even if it is something that they once
believed in, such as the sudden opposition of many of the
party bigwigs to the proposed National Dialogue.

It is not that it is wrong to oppose the National Dialogue;
after all, yours truly is a strong critic of it. But when it was
the same thing you have been clamouring for years that
you are suddenly opposing because your political
archenemy is pushing for it now, it leaves one confused as to what you are truly fighting for.

It also seems that the APC is so bent on making sure that
President Goodluck Jonathan does not get re-elected in
2015 that they are losing sight of the big picture. Nothing
the government does warrants criticism unless it can be
directly linked to Jonathan. As someone said, if Jonathan
says he likes breathing, APC would declare their hatred for oxygen.

There is so much the APC can achieve as a party in
opposition if only it will get its act together. It should take
advantage of opportunities where the government is falling short to try to woo the electorate with how it would act in such a situation when it is voted into government.

Not only that, it is necessary for its members in the
National Assembly to distinguish themselves by their
legislative duties, debates and motions. With 135 members in the House of Representatives alone, there is so much potential for them there.

It is about time this giant woke up from its slumber.

Nigeria and the State of Israel will tomorrow (23rd October,2013) sign Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) to enable airlines from both countries fly directly to each other’s territory without stop-overs in other destinations.

Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah will sign on behalf of Nigeria while her Israeli counterpart will sign for his country.

Oduah left Abuja this morning to the State of Israel for the event.

According to the Minister of Aviation, the agreement signing is the culmination of twelve months of negotiations between officials of the Department of Transportation of the State of Israel and Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Aviation.

The agreement will pave way for direct flights into the two countries by designated airlines from both countries based on the Principles of Reciprocity. Before now, Nigerians travelling to Israel, including Christian Pilgrims have had to endure the long winding stop-overs in neighbouring countries before being airlifted to the Holy Land.

The Agreement also adequately addresses the question of
imbalance in the BASA between Nigeria and other contracting countries. Under the terms of this Agreement, Nigeria and the State of Israel will enjoy equal rights and privileges in the implementation of the BASA.

The State of Israel will join three other countries in the Middle East that have air services agreement with Nigeria.

Joe Obi
SA (Media) to the Hon. Minister.