MissMeiya: LMFAO. Like a reverse Uncle Ruckus from the Boondocks. He stuck to my foot like gum on the floor, but I successfully managed to scrape him off.
YES, please join. I'm drafting the new year's e-newsletter right now. Lots of exciting announcements
Now I know you didn't grow up in the US. Dummy a reverse Uncle Ruckus would be an afrocentric, well rounded individual with a lot of love for himself. Do you see how I've caught you out with little or no effort on my part? We call Nigerians like you freshies - fresh off the boat from Nigeria and still in awe about the greatness of the white man
Dummy you watch boondocks but you don't even understand what its about.
I see you're just getting introduced to Cap28. Nairaland's resident bitter racist with a low self-esteem that shines through his multiple Freudian slips. By day, he skulks around caucasians, fuming and raging in hatred and bitterness and once his day job is over, he rushes over to Nairaland to accuse successful black people of being 'Uncle Toms'.
He's been doing this shtick for years now. We've learnt to tolerate his brainless conspiracy theories. Just realize that he cannot be reasoned with...personally I read his rants for the comic value
I find it totally ironic that a wannabe black American douche bag who goes by the user handle "texazzpete" can describe a proud African man like myself as having low self- esteem. Im willing to bet money on it that very few black American men would take on the user name "Lagos Tyrone" or "Mushin Jamal".
By the way I think a more appropriate user name for you would be "AjegunlePete" - Just saying .
Oh by the way the black americans that you and Ms Meiya love to copy regularly look down on you and humiliate you all the time - check this out:
[b]Is The UN Using Vaccines To Secretly Sterilize Women All Over The Globe?
Posted by TheRedPillGuide in Control Grid, Eugenics & Depopulation, News, Vaccines on November 12, 2014
Michael Snyder November 11, 2014
Vaccines - Public Domain
In some areas of the world, purposely cutting off someone’s family line is considered to be one of the most wicked things that you can possibly do. But that appears to be precisely what the United Nations is doing. Two UN organizations, the WHO and UNICEF, have just been caught red-handed administering “tetanus vaccines” laced with sterilizing agents to girls and women in Kenya. And as you will see below, this is not the first time that this has happened. Apparently there is a well-coordinated international program to use vaccines to secretly sterilize women in poor countries all over the planet. The United States needs to immediately demand a full investigation of the UN vaccine program, but I wouldn’t count on that ever happening under the Obama administration.
There have always been anecdotal stories of women all over the globe being unable to have children after receiving UN vaccines. But now we have scientific proof. Lab tests that were recently conducted found an antigen that causes miscarriages in the vaccines that were being given to girls and women in Kenya. A story that was posted on Life Site News about this caused shockwaves all over the Internet. The following is an excerpt from that report…
Kenya’s Catholic bishops are charging two United Nations organizations with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus inoculation program sponsored by the Kenyan government.
According to a statement released Tuesday by the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, the organization has found an antigen that causes miscarriages in a vaccine being administered to 2.3 million girls and women by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Priests throughout Kenya reportedly are advising their congregations to refuse the vaccine.
“We sent six samples from around Kenya to laboratories in South Africa. They tested positive for the HCG antigen,” Dr. Muhame Ngare of the Mercy Medical Centre in Nairobi told LifeSiteNews. “They were all laced with HCG.”
So exactly what is HCG?
The following is how Natural News described what it does…
HCG is a chemical developed by the World Health Organization for sterilization purposes. When injected into the body of a young woman, it causes a pregnancy to be destroyed by the body’s own antibody response to the HCG, resulting in a spontaneous abortion. Its effectiveness lasts for years, causing abortions in women up to three years after the injections.
This is an absolutely horrifying scandal, but the mainstream media is totally ignoring it.
Perhaps that is because they agree with what the United Nations is trying to do.
And should we actually be surprised at what the UN is doing? After all, the UN has publicly declared in writing that it intends to reduce population growth in Kenya…
The United Nations and its oftentimes barbaric population-control apparatus are under fire again after releasing a deeply controversial report claiming that the African population of Kenya is too large and growing too quickly. To deal with the supposed “challenge,” as the UN and its “partners” in the national government put it, international bureaucrats are demanding stepped up efforts to brainwash Kenyan women into wanting fewer children. Also on the agenda: more taxpayer-funded “family-planning” and “reproductive-health” schemes to reduce the number of Africans to levels considered “desirable” by the UN.
Critics promptly lambasted the plot as undisguised eugenics, with some experts calling it a true example of the “war on women.” Among other concerns, analysts outraged by the report noted that the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the establishment’s fiendish efforts to slash human populations — especially those considered “undesirable” by self-appointed guardians of the gene pool — have a long and sordid history going back decades. Today, the agenda marches on, as illustrated in the latest UN report calling for drastically reduced numbers of Kenyans.
When very evil people tell you that they intend to do something, you should take them very seriously.
And without a doubt, the UN is evil. To use vaccines to secretly sterilize women against their will is almost too wicked to describe with words.
But the UN will keep doing this until we demand that they stop. Back in the 1990s, similar sterilization campaigns using tetanus vaccines were being conducted in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines. The following comes from thinktwice.com…
Here are the known facts concerning the tetanus vaccination campaigns in Mexico and the Philippines:
* Only women are vaccinated, and only the women between the ages of 15 and 45. (In Nicaragua the age range was 12-49.) But aren’t men at least as likely as young women to come into contact with tetanus? And what of the children? Why are they excluded?
* Human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) hormone has been found in the vaccines. It does not belong there — in the parlance of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the vaccine has been “contaminated.”
* The vaccination protocols call for multiple injections — three within three months and a total of five altogether. But, since tetanus vaccinations provide protection for ten years or more, why are multiple inoculations called for?(3)
* WHO has been actively involved for more than 20 years in the development of an anti-fertility vaccine utilizing hCG tied to tetanus toxoid as a carrier — the exact same coupling as has been found in the Mexican-Philippine-Nicaragua vaccines.(4)
And these are just the incidents that we know about.
I think that it would be safe to say that wherever the UN is vaccinating people for tetanus all over the world there are probably sterilizing agents in those vaccines.
[b]Bill Gates, Monsanto, and eugenics: How one of the world's wealthiest men is actively promoting a corporate takeover of global agriculture
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world's poor (http://www.guardian.co.uk). It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world's systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.
The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family's history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world's food supply is to reduce the world's population by a significant amount in the process.
William H. Gates Sr., former head of eugenics group Planned Parenthood
Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates Sr., has long been involved with the eugenics group Planned Parenthood, a rebranded organization birthed out of the American Eugenics Society. In a 2003 interview with PBS' Bill Moyers, Bill Gates admitted that his father used to be the head of Planned Parenthood, which was founded on the concept that most human beings are just "reckless breeders" and "human weeds" in need of culling (http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html).
Gates also admitted during the interview that his family's involvement in reproductive issues throughout the years has been extensive, referencing his own prior adherence to the beliefs of eugenicist Thomas Robert Malthus, who believed that populations of the world need to be controlled through reproductive restrictions. Though Gates claims he now holds a different view, it appears as though his foundation's initiatives are just a modified Malthusian approach that much more discreetly reduces populations through vaccines and GMOs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus).
Gates Foundation has invested heavily in converting Asian, African agricultural systems to GMOs William Gates Sr.'s association with Planned Parenthood and continued influence in the realm of "population and reproductive health" is significant because Gates Sr. is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/leadership/Pages/william-gates-sr.aspx). This long-time eugenicist "guides the vision and strategic direction" of the Gates Foundation, which is currently heavily focused on forcing GMOs on Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
The Gates Foundation has admittedly given at least $264.5 million in grant commitments to AGRA (www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Documents/BMGFFactSheet.pdf), and also reportedly hired Dr. Robert Horsch, a former Monsanto executive for 25 years who developed Roundup, to head up AGRA back in 2006. According to a report published in La Via Campesina back in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA's grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto, and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).
The same report explains that the Gates Foundation pledged $880 million in April 2010 to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs. GAFSP, of course, was responsible for providing $35 million in "aid" to earthquake-shattered Haiti to be used for implementing GMO agricultural systems and technologies.
Back in 2003, the Gates Foundation invested $25 million in "GM (genetically modified) research to develop vitamin and protein-enriched seeds for the world's poor," a move that many international charities and farmers groups vehemently opposed (http://healthfreedoms.org). And in 2008, the Gates Foundation awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research GM wheat, which is the next major food crop in the crosshairs of Monsanto's GM food crop pipeline (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).
If you control agriculture, you control the populations of the world The Gates Foundation's ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming -- these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.
Rather than promote real food sovereignty and address the underlying political and economic issues that breed poverty, Gates and Co. has instead embraced the promotion of corporately-owned and controlled agriculture and medicine paradigms that will only further enslave the world's most impoverished. It is abundantly evident that GMOs have ravished already-impoverished people groups by destroying their native agricultural systems, as has been seen in India (http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html).
Some may say Gates' endeavors are all about the money, while others may say they are about power and control. Perhaps it is a combination of both, where Gates is still in the business of promoting his own commercial investments, which includes buying shares in Monsanto while simultaneously investing in programs to promote Monsanto.
Whatever the case may be, there is simply no denying that Gates now has a direct interest in seeing Monsanto succeed in spreading GMOs around the world. And since Gates is openly facilitating Monsanto's growth into new markets through his "humanitarian" efforts, it is clear that the Gates family is in bed with Monsanto.
"Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really "donating" anything, but instead of paying taxes to state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions," wrote Silvia Ribeiro in the Mexican news source La Jornada back in 2010.
"On the contrary, their 'donations' finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world ... Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa' (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM)."
GenBuhari: But also bear in mind that some if not a lot of the people you argue with maybe white or agents of the white man, who's sole purpose maybe to distract Africans from hearing the truth.
Very true, my brother that's why once I've made my point I don't bother. The tragic thing though is that many are brain dead nigerian losers who think that because they are working two shitty jobs in the US they are now an authority on US foreign policy, give the average hungry Nigerian the opportunity to eat just two square meals a day and these losers start having delusions of grandeur (Ms Meiya). These losers have no idea how the US or Europe works, these are the same losers who get racially abused on a daily basis and simply swallow the insults and then come onto NL to vomit rubbish about things they know nothing about.
MissMeiya: Oh, good. You can take correction. Your sentences are very much improved. There is hope for you yet.
Please continue to improve yourself, and one day, people will create conspiracy theories about you too.
And yet with your fake hair, fake eyelashes and bleached face the white man STILL treats you like a dirty who.re, never like a white woman, when are you going to realise that you have been consigned to a position of inferiority by the white man?
GenBuhari: cap28 please don't allow yourself to be drawn into throwing insults back and forth. I takes away from the message you are trying to give. Just ignore the insults and keep giving your message.
My wish for these brain dead no hopers is a Jonestown style massacre that will leave majority of them dead, I think it will be good for us a people as it will definitely improve the gene pool.
MissMeiya: I thought about reading this, then I noticed you have difficulty forming coherent sentences, so I changed my mind. Enjoy the rest of your miserable, insignificant life.
How does it feel to be rejected and at the bottom of the food chain?
Keep that tongue firmly glued to the white man's anus - he will never treat you like his equal but he will enjoy the sensation
GSKing: Unfortunately, the hypocrisy of the first order is a disastrous disadvantage to your penurious, ill mannered, pompous, irredeemable, uneducated, wanton, cynical, underaged, mentally challenged, bipolar life. Bad news, you can never ever ever be in a position of authority in the same country I was raised.
Luckily, we're all entitled to our respective opinions, and if the trash you've posted on this thread is your unbiased opinion on the issue of philanthropy, my friend, that's your funeral.
Why on earth are you still typing and spewing sawdust with your electronic gadgets? Do you realise that its the same people you hate that has been making life easy for your and your unfortunate patents since your conception?
Lowlife, bitter son-of-a-b1tch.
I'll leave you to your incoherent foolish talk about your dreams and ambition in ruling your acclaimed kingdom, you talk like the prince of all demented phools.
Dirty deranged urchin, who may not have crossed the shores of Nigeria. You don't like the 'white men' and their mercifulness, yet you won't carry placards to aso rock to protest against international diplomacy. Discombobulated mountain goat.
Taa- get back to your security job post where you belong. You think regurgitating the contents of a thesaurus equates to intelligence. This is the same fool who will remain as quiet as a mouse in the presence of white people and will open his yellow teeth like a grateful porch monkey when they send him to run errands for them.
Listen up you docile white man worshipper, your day of reckoning is at hand, fools like you will be the first victims of the mass spiked vaccines that will be circulated to unsuspecting braindead zombies like yourself, if you had even a scintilla of intelligence I would have referred you the Jonestown massacre that took place in Guyana where a group of equally s.tupid and brainwashed no hopers like yourself ended up being massacred by a man who they foolishly looked up to as their messiah. Dumbo keep dreaming and salivating about a man whose only mission in life is to reduce third world populations using vaccines.
MissMeiya: You seem to be projecting. I own part of a company that is revolutionizing agriculture in south east Nigeria, and will start an energy firm in the same area once I complete my master's in energy management. I've never spent up to a year in Nigeria my entire life, and this is what I decided I would do with my time on earth. You think everyone is as useless as you? Also, my hair is natural. And my boyfriend is a born Nigerian. You don't know me.
Hahaha - Do I sound like I give a fck about your fairy stories? You are just another wanna be who.re who will spend the entirety of your time on your back begging and pleading for a job from some dirty Nigerian sugar daddy just like the rest of the whor.es in Nigeria, everyone knows Nigeria is not run on the basis of merit so who are you fooling, definitely not me. your low self esteem and desperation to be accepted by whites indicates to me that you would never dream of wearing your hair natural.
Hit a nerve, huh? You must really lack accomplishments.
Er and your own accomplishements are what exactly?
let me guess?
wearing floor length plastic hair in order to look like a white woman.
sorry bi.tch, no matter how hard you try no white man will ever accept you or accord you the respect he accords his own women.
They laugh at your pathetic attempt to look like their women as soon as your back is turned, so keep kissing that whi.te mans arse from now until eternity you will still remain where you have been consigned to - AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FOOD CHAIN!!
GSKing: Typical Nigerian. Poverty stricken, unfortunate scavenger. You're very unintelligent. Hope you've thrown your phones and computers away? Billy-goat. Always leery of every help rendered to your ungrateful race.
I've said it times without number, cynicism is in the black gene. Unfortunately, I and my family are black.
Smh.
This is the handiwork of poverty, religion and illiteracy combined. How can so much crap come from one person?
Tufiakwa!
look at this shameless beggar! When will you grow a set of balls and learn to have self respect, are you not ashamed to still be begging for help from your enemies in your old age.
Slaves like you are the reason that black people are spat upon every where we go in the world.
Forever begging, pleading and crying for help from people who hate you.
People like you are a cancer on the black race, if I am ever to enter the corridors of power I will make sure people of your ilk face immediate execution as you are nothing but a liability on the black race.
MissMeiya: Don't quote me, loser. Take a look at your life. Know that when you die, no one will notice because you left absolutely zero impact on the world.
and guess what fck face , even though you are alive you might as well be dead because you are nothing but a walking corpse and your fate is already sealed by virtue of the fact that you are a black woman who has zero worth in the eyes of the white power structure who degrade and humiliate you on a daily basis.
Silkmoth33: Population control is key to ensure appropriate rationalisation of a nations natural resources.
Nigeria is a nation that is overcrowded.
Poverty eradication is number one on the mdgs.
They are right to empower our bellies.
the only problem with your analysis is that only third world nations have been singled out for this population reduction programme and not European nations or nations where the majority population comprise people of European ancestry - which means people like you and I are in the firing line for decimation by way of spiked vaccines, wars, destabilisaation programmes, economic collapse, the list goes on.
MissMeiya: Bill Gates popularized the personal computer. That's what PC means. Personal Computer. Every. Single. Country. On. Earth. Uses his products. He receives uncountable amounts of money from the entire world. Every second. Do you understand? Even if every one of his descendants spent every minute of their lives trying to exhaust his money from now until forever, it would be impossible. And his will doesn't even give all his money to his children because he wants them to work hard. Then he retired from Microsoft so he and his wife could dedicate their lives to trying to use THE WORLD'S MONEY to fix THE WORLD.
Some perspective for all of us.
you are a dreamer if you believe that Gates gives two shits about fixing the world, he is a member of the elite and the elite are only concerned with making the world a better place for themselves and not to improve it for the rest, the elites believe that they are more deserving of life than everyone else.
Did you know that Bill Gates father was a prominent Eugenicist ? If you don't know go and research his family background.
Should we now say no and don't collect these gifts?
You people will never learn. This is the same way you were warned to diversify your economy because of the US's plans to stop buying your oil. Did any of you listen? No. What happened in the end?
Now you are being warned about the motives of an American philanthropist who has been linked to high profile depopulation programmes, I'm beginning to realise that the problem in Nigeria is not just poverty but lack of curiosity or willingness to learn.
Why would a multi millionaire from a nation with a history of racism, exploitation and hatred towards blacks be so interested in your well being?
I would advise you go research the term 'eugenics', Wikipedia defines it as :
" the belief and practice which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population.[4][5] It is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of people with desired traits (positive eugenics), and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics).[
Gates and his cronies believe that the black race is undesirable and needs to be culled or reduced drastically. If you think this multi millionaire white man gives two shits about the health of black Africans you need your head checked.
Bill Gates wants to drastically reduce third world populations and he is quite open about this, Nigerians are sleep walking into a situation that they do not understand, keep following this man at your peril:
Bill Gates is involved with population control think tanks in the US , his objective along with the objective of many US and European philanthropists is decimation of non white populations where there are valuable natural resources, keep digging your graves by buying into his lies and hidden agendas.
Obama's Dream Realized, Nigeria's Nightmares Just Began By Toyin Dawodu
Forty years ago, a young Nigerian returned home from his studies in England with his hard-earned degree in engineering. Proud and ready to get to work building his country providing for his family, he accepted a job with Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, which was Nigeria’s national power company at the time. The young engineer was a true Nigerian. He was smart, he was bold and he had a huge vision for Nigeria’s prosperity that went beyond collecting a few bucks from foreign countries for Nigeria’s then newfound oil. Armed with his formal education and razor sharp mind, the young engineer laid out a plan for Nigeria’s prosperity, using crude oil as a way for Nigeria to create multiple revenue streams.
After six years working with ECN, he left his post to build the new industrial economy he thought Nigeria deserved. He wrote a plan to create a chemical industry based on using the oil as the raw material to create a chemical industry, a plastics industry, a chlorine industry and other materials that would come right from the Nigeria’s rich oil supply.
It was a brilliant plan that, if properly executed, would have set Nigeria on a growth path like the exponential growth we’ve seen in China, Singapore, and South Korea. But no sooner had he implemented the plan when the saboteurs began offering bribes for him to manipulate the cost of raw materials so third parties could essentially rip off the Nigerian government. When he refused, he was framed, nearly jailed and finally lost his company.
It’s a familiar story, isn’t it? We’ve seen the same thing and worse happen to a multitude of would-be leaders who have bright ideas and a passion for Nigeria but one fatal flaw – they have integrity. Leaders who can’t be bought don’t last as leaders very long in Nigeria. How many ambitious Nigerians have fallen victim to the greed and jealousy of visionless leaders? I don’t doubt it was these same devilish leaders who are responsible for Nigeria’s current economic predicament.
Nigeria relies on imports for ninety percent of its industrial raw materials. While we pump about two million barrels of oil a day, we have to import oil from Ivory Coast to provide petro to fuel our cars and generators. Ivory Coast doesn’t even have an oil well! Nigerian leaders have voted multiple times to use Nigerian resources to improve on Nigeria’s refineries, but soon the money disappears and the refineries remain unproductive.
So, what does that have to do with the American president, Toyin? Everything.
Three years ago, I wrote an article which I entitled Obama’s Dream is Nigeria’s Nightmare. In it, I warned Nigerian leaders that America would soon stop importing Nigeria's oil. At the time I wrote the article, Nigeria exported at least one million barrels of oil per day to the U.S. When Obama came into office, one of his dreams was to reduce America's dependency on foreign oil.
I believed he would achieve his dream and the impact would be detrimental to Nigeria, which depends on oil revenue for over 90% of its foreign exchange.
Just as I suspected, the U.S. has significantly decreased imports of Nigerian oil. At the start of 2014, the U.S. was importing about 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Nigeria. That’s a 90% drop from the million barrels a day the U.S. was importing just a few years ago. According to an article published in the Financial Times, the U.S. Department of Energy did not import a single barrel of crude to U.S.-based refiners in July, for the first time since 1973. Today, the price of oil has dropped from $100+ per barrel to just under $75. Raul Pal of Global Macro Investor estimates if the dollar remains strong, crude oil could go down to $30 per barrel “and stay there for a while." Can you imagine what that kind of price drop would do to Nigeria? Life in Nigeria is already difficult. What will happen if the nation loses 66% of its revenue?
Now, consider the alternative. What if that young engineer had been allowed to realize his vision? Nigeria would be able to export other industrial raw materials like petro chemicals, oil derivatives, and plastics instead of being dependent on one commodity it can’t even control.
When I first sounded the alarm in 2010, I warned Nigerian leaders about President Obama's plan to wean the country off foreign oil. Some rather clueless Nigerians argued that if the U.S. does not buy our oil, other nations will buy it. But they failed to realize that the economic toll America’s dependence on its own shale oil would make on the oil market. The change could depress oil prices longer than Nigeria is able to withstand, especially since Nigeria does not have any other export revenue sources besides crude oil.
Even despite Nigeria’s imminent plunge further into the abyss, I don’t hear any Nigerian leaders talking about a plan for our future. None of the people currently vying for office have mentioned this disaster waiting to happen. No one has a bold new vision for Nigeria, not even one that is better than the one the young engineer came up with forty years ago. Where there is no vision, the people perish. And hope is founded on visions. No vision, no hope.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy said within ten years, "America should put a man on the moon and return him back to earth." Just by speaking those words into existence, Americans were inspired to venture into previously uncharted territories in space exploration, technology and computer science. The results have been world-changing. His words, no doubt, served as the hope on which the World Wide Web was built.
Well, when Obama stated in 2009 that one of his goals was to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, it propelled the whole country into a new paradigm that opened doors for policies and technologies that created fracking which unleashed oil buried deep in impenetrable rocks for centuries. Now, for the first time in America's long history, America is now exporting oil. Thanks to a visionary leader. Thanks to free enterprise. Thanks to policies that unleashed entrepreneurs.
In Nigeria, all the oil and the ground where it exists belong to the government. In American, the oil and the ground where the oil is buried belong to the people who own the land and they have the freedom and the right to explore as they see fit as long as they do so lawfully. That is why Nigeria's oil is a nightmare to the people whose ancestors have owned and controlled the land for centuries while in America, the oil has been a blessing to the land owners whose ancestors have owned and controlled the land for centuries. That is why the Nigeria state of Bayelsa has billions in oil reserve but is languishing in poverty, while the U.S. state of North Dakota has billions in oil reserve and is prospering.
In Nigeria, oil is used as a weapon of Mass destruction, while in America, oil is used as a weapon of Mass Prosperity. In Nigeria, everywhere there is oil, there is extreme pollution, huge joblessness, hopelessness, and poverty. There is no electricity, no running water, no plumbing and no functioning schools. Every Nigerian is suffering from the curse of living under the boot of a bad leader. Recently, the “Honorable” Minister of economy was quoted as saying, "The Nigerian Government must adjust to permanent oil price shock.” Really? Madam Minister, it should not be a shock, the writing was on the wall for a long time. The state governors are scrambling to pay wages, because 90% of their revenue is derived for oil money handed over to them by their masters in Abuja. Since they don't have to think about developing or growing their economy, they are now sitting ducks for the impending devastation from the drop in oil revenue. If only these honorable men and women leaders had seen the writing on the wall, or listened to the alarm when I raised it four years ago. Even if they heard the alarm, it's typical of Nigerian leaders to ignore such warnings anyway. They are too busy stealing. Now the nightmares are here. Even the Federal government is worried. Nigeria’s progress has to start with a dream, a vision, and a decision by its leaders to do what is right.
It starts with the dreams and visions of the people who are bold enough to support and vote for incorrigible leaders who put the welfare, security and prosperity of its people at the forefront. So now in the face of falling oil prices, the downward spiral of the Nigerian currency, falling revenues, and the dwindling of foreign reserves, I hope our leaders can help us to wake up from the nightmares Nigerians have been living for decades.
Vote, Nigeria, but don’t just vote for “a president.” Vote for a visionary leader.
Let's continue this discussion on Twitter @1amazingtoyin or Facebook.
Falling Oil Price: Working People must prepare to resist Attacks
By Peluola Adewale
Ordinary Nigerians, whose daily life is like being in a frying pan with hot vegetable oil, should be prepared to resist any attempt by the government to fling them into fire. This is as a result of the decline in the oil price. The Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the Financial Times that a sustained slump in oil price would necessitate more painful measures (Financial Times, London, October 27, 2014).
As the past experiences have shown, it is the working people and poor who did not benefit anything from high crude oil price that would be made to bear the pain of the slump. Already the Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has announced the plan to increase fuel price under the guise of the oil subsidy removal. This has been supported by all the state commissioners of finance.
However, given the propensity of the bourgeois politicians to sheathe sword and pretend to be pro-masses as elections approach, it is not likely that fuel price will be hiked in the immediate. This also explains why the government did not mention any overtly anti-poor measure when Okonjo-Iweala announced the plan to cut expenditure on November 16. But labour, socialist and pro-masses' organizations must be prepared to mobilize and lead the working people and youths to resist all the measures that would intensify neo-liberal attacks on the poor masses.
The oil price which for almost two years was stable between $100 and $110 per barrel has recently plummeted to around $80 with potential for a further decrease. Indeed for a period of about three months between August 1, 2014 and October 28, 2014 the average crude price by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) collapsed from $104 to about $82 per barrel. Besides, the benchmark American oil price broke below $76 a barrel on November 4, representing its lowest level since October 2010, before recovering a bit (New York Times, November 4).
Shale oil
This is as a result of development and use of new technologies such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking in the exploration and production of shale oil in the United States which has reduced its oil imports as the domestic production rises. For instance, the US has stopped buying oil from Nigeria, which used to be its fifth largest oil supplier, since July. According to the US Department of Energy this is the first time since records start in1973 that Nigeria has not exported a single barrel of crude to US-based refiners, the biggest consumers of the commodity from Nigeria (Financial Times, London, October 2). Ironically, it is the high quality of Nigeria's oil, sweet crude, which has knocked it out of the US market. It is of the same quality as the shale oil being pumped in North Dakota and Texas.
Nigeria has now increased its oil sales to the Asia's four largest oil importers – China, Japan, India and South Korea. This is said to have risen more than 40 per cent so far this year over the 2013 level. But China which has one of the largest reserves of shale oil is said to be also working towards production of the shale oil with new technologies. Britain and other countries in Europe which is currently the largest consumers of Nigeria's oil have also intensified the process for development and production of shale oil. All this will further cut the price and reduce the market for exports from the OPEC countries including Nigeria.
Reservoir for Looters
The Minister of Finance has said that the country through the excess crude account (ECA), which is the saving from difference between the oil price and the budget benchmark, has the capacity to withstand the effect of the continued fall in the oil price for two or three months. This account, which is purportedly meant for rainy day savings, is in reality a reservoir for looters. It is shared monthly between the federal and state governments, without budgetary appropriation, in addition to the statutory monthly allocation to all tiers of the government. In less than a year the ECA has been depleted from $9bn to $4.1bn without anything to show for it in terms of infrastructural development and social spending. It is not accidental that Nigeria is ranked the least on Human Development Index among the OPEC countries.
It also means that what is in the account at present is $2bn short of even the IMF recommendation as the fiscal buffer for decline in oil revenue. The ability to build up the ECA up to recommended level, given the continued decline in oil price, commercial scale oil theft and official looting of the account monthly in the name of sharing, is seriously in doubt. The budget benchmark of the 2014 budget is $77.5 per barrel.
It should be however stressed that even a huge fund in the ECA is not a buffer against more neo-liberal attack on the masses. On the basis of capitalist neo-liberal policies, it is clear that Jonathan government will not commit public resources to infrastructure development and basic needs of poor working people, more so now there is slump in the oil revenue.
Besides, the run-up to 2015 elections means that official looting will reach a fever pitch. The bourgeois politicians are dire need of petrol dollars to outspend rivals for patronage and electoral manipulations. This also means that there will be agitation for more voracious sharing of the ECA by the state governors in order to have more public loot to fund their return to office or emergence of their proxies.
All this has meant that the government response to falling oil price will be more attacks on the working people. As the William Wallis of the Financial Times wrote, a sustained slump in world oil prices would necessitate either greater borrowing to finance the deficit, or budget cuts (Financial Times, October 28). Either way it is the masses that will be at the receiving end.
"We will have to look very hard at recurrent expenditure, and identify overlapping agencies. When the price is heading down everyone sees the necessity but that doesn't stop them hating you," Okonjo-Iweala said.
The share of the recurrent expenditure in the annual budget is outrageous. It is for instance 76% of the 2014 budget. It is the outrageous, jumbo pays of the top government functionaries, which are said to be among the highest in the world, that accounts for the huge recurrent budget at the expense of capital expenditure every year. But to the Minister of Finance the reason for the rise in 2014 recurrent expenditure is the pension implication of increase in salaries of civil servants in 2011. With such mindset the target of any cut in recurrent expenditure and "overlapping agencies" will be pensioners and workers, and definitely not the over-bloated top government functionaries who live as leeches on the collective resources. Already, Oyo state governor Abiola Ajimobi has warned that "most states may not be able to pay workers' salaries let alone carry out other development programmes." Labour must resist attacks on jobs, wage and conditions of workers as well as pension, and rather demand significant cut in the jumbo pays and hangers-on of the top government functionaries at all levels and the democratic control of allocations, funds and projects by elected representatives of workers, relevant professionals and communities.
Subsidy for casino market
Incidentally, 24 hours after the Financial Times published the warning of belt tightening to Nigerians by Okonjo Iweala as a result of drop in revenue, there was report in the Nigerian newspapers of the gazetteing of a five-year VAT exemption for commissions on transactions at the Nigeria Stock Exchange. This is a subsidy for casino market.
The stock market is essentially a casino with NSE acting as bookies that collect commission or cut on the bet whether players lose or win. This tax exemption is in addition to a debt forgiveness of about N22.6bn the government earlier granted to stock brokers who borrowed the so-called margin loans at banks to gamble on stocks. It should be recalled that margin lending contributed to collapse of some banks which has attracted up till date over N3 trillion of bail-out funds in various forms.
Sadly, many ordinary Nigerians who were lured into gambling den lost their life savings to the collapse of the stock market in 2008. Besides, it took six month of ASUU and closure of universities before the government, which freely gifted private banks N3trillion, was forced to give N200bn to universities. The subsidy and bail-out fund to the stock market, which hardly creates real values especially at the secondary market, is to gratify the Jonathan government's obsession for vainglory and false impression of robust economic activities.
Nigeria is perhaps accurse with the most virulent specie of the parasitic capitalist ruling elite. This explains why the country does not have functional and adequate refineries despite being the continent biggest oil producer and having huge resources at its disposal. Worse still, the country's four refineries operated at an average of 10.46 per cent of their combined capacity of 445,000 barrels per day in June, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (Punch, November .
Besides, since 2002, the government has issued licenses to 18 private sectors to build refineries. Till date none of the refineries has taken off. The importation of refined oil products which guarantee quick and super profits explains the lack of investment in the refineries.
For a Working People Alternative
Labour and pro-masses' organisations must demand the investment of public resources on building of new refineries and comprehensive repair of the existing ones side by side with the democratic control of the projects and their operations, when they come on stream, by the elected representatives of workers and relevant professionals. As against the planned increase in fuel price, there must be demand for lowering of the price given the fall in crude oil price and the concomitant decrease in landing cost of the imported fuels. It should be recalled the major argument for the fuel price in 2012 was the high price of crude oil in the world market.
The trade union leadership must also demand a new minimum wage as the inflation has already eaten up the current wage. It should be recalled that the new minimum wage had been introduced before the hike in fuel price in January 2012. Unfortunately, the labour leadership has not done anything serious to enforce even the full implementation of the current minimum wage.
Also importantly, labour leadership must show interest in all neo-liberal capitalist attacks including privatization, casualisation, high school fees, commercialization, etc and resolve to lead fightback. But the fight against neo-liberal attacks is not enough, it has to be linked with struggle to wrest power from the rapacious ruling elite. Indeed, the failure of the ruling elite is so egregious despite the huge oil wealth at their disposal that even the Guardian, a pro-establishment newspaper, has to make a scorching rebuke of "those at the helm of the management of the Nigerian economy" in its editorial of November 3. It writes, inter alia, "having exhibited incapability of bringing about a desirable outcome, those at the helm of the management of the Nigerian economy have done more than enough damage to the country. This should stop. Or they should quit."
They will not willingly quit; they have to be chased away. But there is no desirable alternative for the working masses in the APC. There are as anti-poor as the PDP. The labour, socialist and left organizations should mobilize workers, youths and poor masses for the formation and building of a fighting mass working peoples' party, with a socialist program, that could defeat all the anti-poor capitalist ruling elite at all levels and commit resources to basic needs of all and infrastructural development. Such a party, when in power, has to take into public ownership, the commanding heights of economy with democratic management and control by working people in order to mobilize adequate resources to finance social programs and development.
Author: John Campbell, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies December 11, 2014
Nigeria has benefited from an oil boom since the end of military rule in 1999. Prices rose from $10 per barrel that year to $140 per barrel in 2008. As late as June 2014, they remained above $100. However, since June oil prices have fallen by more than 30 percent. It is unlikely that they have reached bottom. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has declined to mandate a cut in production. It would seem that only a major cut in production, probably led by Saudi Arabia, could cause oil prices to recover to the $100 per barrel level.
This plunge in prices is generating alarm in a number of oil-dependent states, none more so than Nigeria. Despite nominally high growth in the non-petroleum sectors, Nigeria remains a petro-state. More than 90 percent of the profits from the petroleum industry go to the Nigerian government. Petroleum accounts for up to 80 percent of all government revenue (government revenue was an estimated $20.7 billion in 2014) and more than 90 percent of the country’s exports.
That dependency is now stirring serious concern throughout the country’s political class. Among other things, a whole array of government expenditures associated with petroleum play a major role in sustaining the cooperating and competing patronage networks that run Nigeria. Absent this political lubricant, the country’s already unstable political situation promises to get worse just two months ahead of national elections.
With by far the largest population in Africa, 177 million, Nigeria is also the continent’s largest economy. It is the political and economic hegemon of West Africa. Its economic and political challenges have consequences outside its borders. Already there are hundreds of thousands—some estimates exceed one million—of internally displaced persons within its borders, and there are Nigerian refugee flows into Cameroon and Niger associated with the Boko Haram insurgency. In a region still reeling from the economic consequences of Ebola, Nigeria’s tremors can be felt throughout West Africa .
An Oil-Based Budget
The Nigerian federal budget is based on a conservative estimate of the world price of oil. The federal government distributes oil revenue by a set formula to the states and to local government authorities, which are mostly dependent on it because they can raise little through local taxes on their own impoverished and under-developed local economies. (Lagos state is the exception, in part because it is the heart of Nigeria’s modern economy.) “Bunkered,” or stolen, oil may amount to 10 percent of total production.
Oil production may also be falling. It is estimated that Nigeria could produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, however actual production seems closer to 1.9 million barrels, reflecting low investment in the industry and political uncertainty. A petroleum industry bill that would redefine the relationship between the government and the oil companies remains in limbo. In addition, the major international oil companies have been cutting back their operations in Nigeria for a variety of market, political, and security concerns.
The market for Nigeria’s oil is also shifting. Over the past decade, about half of Nigeria’s petroleum production went to the United States. However, the United States imports of Nigerian oil are negligible due to the increase in its own production associated with hydraulic fracturing and the greater availability of oil closer to home. Conventional wisdom, often articulated by Petroleum Minister and newly elected President of OPEC Diezani Allison-Madueke, is that Nigeria’s production will find other markets, especially in Asia. However, there will be a time lag caused by the need for new customers to meet new requirements, such as revamping or expanding their refining capacities to accommodate Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil.
In response to falling government revenue, the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has recalculated its budget twice from an initial estimate of $78 a barrel to $65 a barrel. (On December 10, 2014, Bonny Light crude had fallen to $61 a barrel.)
With the fall in oil prices the naira, Nigeria’s national currency, has fallen dramatically, eroding foreign reserves. In response, the Nigerian government has devaluated the naira by 8 percent. The government’s new target range for the naira is 160 to 175 to the U.S. dollar. However, the naira remains under siege. According to Reuters, it closed on December 10 at 180 to the U.S. dollar.
Continuing Political Volatility?
The bottom line is that the Nigerian government’s revenue is falling, which means it has less money with which to manage political problems. Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is calling for austerity, and Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank, has raised the possibility of cutting the highly popular subsidy on public consumption of fuel. A 2012 effort to end the subsidy provoked a serious crisis and forced the government to back down. In the end, the subsidy was cut by about 50 percent, but the government was shaken.
The decline in government revenue comes at a time of general political instability, and will likely make it worse. Boko Haram, the radical Islamist insurgency in northeast Nigeria, continues to expand. Last week, there were attacks in Gombe state, outside of the group’s usual areas of operation. At President Jonthan’s request, in November 2014 the National Assembly authorized him to borrow $1 billion for the struggle against Boko Haram.
Boko Haram now occupies territory estimated to be as large as the state of Maryland, and has free range over a larger area. In some areas both secular and religious authority has broken down. In large swaths of northeast Nigeria there has been no planting or harvesting, raising the specter of hunger in the coming months. Nobody knows how many have died in the war between the Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. CFR’s Nigeria Security Tracker estimates that as of November 2014, deaths related to the Boko Haram insurgency and the government’s response to it topped twenty thousand. Kidnapping and hostage taking have now become commonplace, with the notorious Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in April 2014 unique only because of the number of victims.
Meanwhile, the performance of the army and the security services continues to be dismal and marked by human rights abuses. Amid the oil slump, there will likely be less money available to revamp them.
In general, public confidence in the federal government appears to be low, making it unlikely that there will be willing acceptance of an austerity policy. However it is hard to see how the Jonathan administration can avoid one.
National elections are scheduled for February 14, 2015. Elections are the occasion and the venue for competition, often violent, among Nigeria’s fractured political elites. In the past, abundant oil money provided a means to resolve numerous conflicts, to literally “grease the skids.” Now, there is less money available.
Beyond Boko Haram and the elections, falling oil prices poses a new challenge to the patronage networks that run Nigeria because for the first time since 1999, government revenues are shrinking and the naira is falling. Should the government pursue policies of austerity, there could be a sharp public reaction. An effort to do away with the fuel subsidy could provoke popular unrest in Lagos, which has been relatively free of political or sectarian violence.
In the short term, the government could continue to draw down its sovereign wealth fund (established with oil profits during the fat years), but that account would be quickly exhausted. It could also approach international financial institutions for help, though it would be reluctant to do so because of the likely requirements they would impose.
The confluence of declining oil prices and government revenue, a failing effort against Boko Haram, and contentious national elections in two months is making it harder for Nigeria to pull back from the brink.
When the wind blows, it blows first the top of the tree; this statement is also true of class society. The unease and restlessness that pervades society has found its expression in the deep split with the ruling class. While the ruling party is desperate to continue in the old way, not minding the growing anger and loss of social support, having been in power for 15years, we are also witnessing the desperation of the so-called opposition party to unseat the incumbent party through deception and camouflaging. As the anger of the oppressed masses intensifies, this division among the ruling class is expected to get deeper.
The political atmosphere is dominated by these two tendencies for now, organised around the PDP (the ruling party) and the APC (the bourgeois opposition party). It is this painful fact that sects of all shades in Nigeria has been unable to come to terms with. These sectarians who shamefully call themselves Marxists are accusing the masses of allowing themselves to be limited to only two useless bourgeois options. “How can the masses be so gullible as to allow themselves to be pushed around by two sides of the same coin?” they lamented, not taking into consideration that the masses do not learn from books but from the greatest teacher: experience. Their extreme impatience has led them to form a political party with five human beings and plenty of dogs. Their actions confirmed more strikingly that sectarians are activists with very small brains and small ambitions. Some of them who are not prepared to go through the rigour of party registration are struggling to raise a dead and buried sectarian organization to stand for election. Some of them even ask why Marxists bother to pay so much attention to the splits among the ruling class, forgetting that in some instances, it is the battle within the ruling class that eventually drags the masses into political movement. Those promising youths who unfortunately enter these sectarian organizations have been miseducated, overused and in many cases they have dropped out of the struggle, tired and disillusioned after several futile attempts at useless adventures.
The independent party of the working class and the challenges of building one
The future of Nigeria’s economic situation is very grim. Governments of either the PDP or the APC will have no other option than to remove the subsidy on oil, to increase school fees in our institutions, continue freezing wages, continue cutting funding on health; that is, they will put the burden of this crisis on the head and shoulders of ordinary Nigerians. This is mainly because these two parties rule on the basis of the capitalist programme and with slogan of “government has no business doing business”. None of these bourgeois political parties will retrieve our collective wealth from the private individuals who are currently controlling it: our oil will still be controlled by Shell, ExxonMobil and a host of them. Our banks will still be in the hands of the fat cats who continue to speculate with huge wealth in their care and continue shunning investing in productive exercises that can generate employment.
Only a mass workers’ political party with a socialist programme can be committed to the nationalization of the key sectors of our economy and responsible enough to put our collective wealth in the service of all, a party that will decide on its investment not on the basis of profit, but for the good of the overwhelming majority. It is only such a party that can actually lift the working class and the poor from the current sorry state that the inept and ruinous ruling class has sunk us all in. But such a mass party cannot come into being on the basis of mere proclamations as the sects thought; such a Party will only evolve on the basis of the life and death struggle between and within the oppressors and the oppressed class. The only revolutionary class in a bourgeois society like Nigeria remains the working class, and the fact that they are currently under reformist and compromising leadership does not in any way negate this fact.
Fortunately, the working class had built its fighting organizations even before Nigeria was proclaimed in 1914. The Nigerian working class has built its Unions, the NLC and TUC, with almost 10 million workers organized within them and enormous resources under their control. With these human and material resources under its control, the Nigerian working class is capable enough of building a mass party that could immediately become a force and commence the process of overthrowing these inept and useless ruling elite.
We are obviously in a pre-revolutionary situation here in Nigeria, the wind is blowing the top of the trees; but it will not stop at the top of the trees, the shoots and even the roots will be touched. The mass organization of the working class will also be affected, one way or the other, by this wind of pre-revolution.
Boiling anger of the middle classes, a struggling working class and soldiers in revolt
Social inequality, amidst increasing corruption is already inducing social tensions. Beneath the apparent calm on the surface is an increasing anger of the oppressed strata of the society. January 2012, the mass movement of millions of Nigerians appeared like a thief in the night. It revealed how deep the anger in society has become. Though the movement was led by the trade union organizations, the involvement of very large layers of the lower middle class who turned up in very large numbers to demonstrate their anger against the Nigerian ruling class showed how revolutionary the period we have entered is.
Most Nigerians are well aware of the fact that the Nigerian state has degenerated significantly, but many were unaware of how rotten and to what extent it had degenerated, until it was tested in the encounter with the rag-tag insurgency called Boko Haram. The so called war against Boko Haram terrorists fully exposes the Nigerian state. It shows how low the morale of the rank and file soldiers is. How could it be otherwise? We heard that lower ranking soldiers have to lobby their officers before they can get bullets to fight, that when they die in battle their corpses are thrown into the bushes and the information kept from their families so that the next of kin will not ask for entitlements, while the officers keep collecting the allowances of the fallen soldiers. Rank and file soldiers have to pay for their medical treatment when they get wounded in battle. The last Chief of Army Staff (Inhejikira) is reported to be one of the richest men in Nigeria, with the wealth he made from embezzlement and outright stealing of the allocations to the Nigerian army.
The military inevitably reflects the situation in society as a whole; just as society is rotten, so also is the military; just as the working class and the poor in the society are revolting, so also is their uniformed counterpart in the army. There are now up to five different reported cases of mutiny in the army, this is apart from the last protest of wives and children of soldiers in the barracks, where the protesting women prevented the armoured vehicles from leaving the barracks.
The military court has already sentenced 12 soldiers to death by firing squad and 97 others are awaiting their judgment, but rather than this repression cowing down the extremely angry soldiers, it has only increased tension in almost all the barracks. According to the reported interview of one of the soldiers:
“We are rather very loyal soldiers of the Nigerian Army and the behaviour of those sentenced to death is just a signal that they, the officers will not be safe if they kill our people unnecessarily. How many do they want to kill? We have a common enemy Boko Haram inside this very state, instead of them to rally round the soldiers and the people to get to the root, they are using oppression. We are waiting to see who will fire the shots at the firing range and where they will get the soldiers from to do the job."(National Daily)
This is important evidence that we have really entered a pre-revolutionary situation in Nigeria and highlights the need for Nigerian Marxists to speed-up their preparations for a major revolutionary upheaval.
Nigeria: The Economic Downturn, 2015 and the Crisis of Alternative
Written by Editorial Board of Workers’ Alternative - Nigeria
Monday, 13 October 2014
As a result of the increased domestic production of shale oil, the US has slashed crude oil imports from a peak of almost 14 million barrels per day in 2006, to slightly above 7 million barrels per day. Crude oil imports from Nigeria, one of the principal sources of light crude, were also slashed from more than one million barrels per day in 2010 to zero in July 2014. This figure is unprecedented since Nigeria started exporting oil about 40years ago.
India has now become the highest importer of Nigerian crude oil. Unfortunately for the Nigerian ruling elite, India too is aggressively pursuing the extraction of Shale oil domestically. Nigeria earns over 80% of its budgetary income and over 90% of its foreign earnings from oil. The aggressive search for new markets and the intense competition from new oil/gas exporting countries like the US is already significantly putting pressure on the international price of oil; as if the loss of significant markets were not enough for Nigerian economy.
The fact that the US is no longer importing oil from Nigeria does not signify an end to the tight relationship between the two countries that have always been that of master and slave for over 40 years of Nigeria’s absolutely dependent “Independence”. The importation of refined oil coming to Nigeria from the US rose from about 17% to over 50% currently. What we are witnessing is a reversal of the balance of trade in the oil sector; as crude oil to the US from Nigeria is reducing, the importation of refined oil from US is increasing. Nigeria is therefore currently experiencing a significant fall in income, that has already reduced the allocation to different States of the federation by half and, subsequently, many states cannot pay their Civil Servants’ salaries and others.
Despite this major fall in income, official corruption continues unabated. The Nigerian ruling elite has developed over the years into beast that can only survive on the basis of huge corruption and inefficiency. Capitalism and corruption are like sesame twins, in the case of Nigeria, oil wealth made it possible for the ruling class to institutionalize and consolidate corruption and make it an official component of the state machine.
Before now, Nigeria had been growing annually by over 7.0% for over a decade, thanks to high oil prices and relatively stable oil markets (aside from a brief disturbance in 2007/2008). So much money was made in this period, but at the same time we witnessed an increase in the poverty rate from 65% in 1999 to over 73% by 2012. This glaringly revealed the criminal nature of wealth distribution under capitalism.
After the last rebate, Nigeria is now classed as the biggest economy in Africa, but it is more like an elephant with chicken legs. While South Africa has been able to generate 41,990 MW as of March 2013 to power her economy, Nigeria is still struggling to raise her power generation to 4000MW. While the poor continue to get poorer, Nigeria is now home to the richest man in Africa, with the number of dollar billionaires rising from 0 in 1996, to 4 by the year 2014; out of seven black men who are dollar billionaires in 2014, seven of them are Nigerians. Massive privatizations, which resulted in mass lay-offs of workers and exacerbated the already bad unemployment situation, happen to be at the same time the booster of wealth for Dangote, the richest man in Africa. He benefited most from privatization and access to Government in power. While the overwhelming majority of Nigerians continue to suffer pain and poverty, a very small number of fat cats continue to grow fatter; this is what capitalism actually means.
interesting article about a conversation between a rich guy and a gold digger:
Maybe you saw the post on Craigslist by the young woman who said she was "25, spectacularly beautiful, articulate and classy" and wanted to marry a guy who makes at least $500,000 a year.
She heard from a man who makes more than $500,000 a year. He said she was offering him "a crappy business deal" because "your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity. So, in economic terms, you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. In Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold. ... It doesn't make good business sense to 'buy you' (which is what you're asking), so I'd rather lease.
"In case you think I'm being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades, I need an out. It's as simple as that."
IBB you are a fckng liar and I can assure you that your days are numbered.
I would rather vote for a man who didn't pass an exam but put the interest of my nation before the interests of the World Bank and the IMF - what has passing an exam got to do with doing the right thing for your nation, you are a disgrace and a cancer on the Nigerian nation and your demise will be very ugly.
delishpot: Well, yes, its hard to find justice against rich people wether you are married to them or not. So I guess we should all avoid rich people cos if they commit any crime against us, we wont get justice? The point is, its not a bad thing to marry rich men/ women. Its just to shine your eyes when marrying same as when one is marrying a poor/ average person. Many women/ men have married rich people and experience same level of problems poor/ average people experience in their marriages if not less. They are doing okay and raising their kids just fine. Biko let them ladies not be afraid to marry rich men. Ladies feel free to marry any rich man that God brings to yo. As long as you two are happy together. Let the world call you what they like while you fly in that private jet.
Rather than focus on marrying a rich man you should concentrate on being financially independent as a woman so that no one can kick you around. There is nothing better than having self respect and peace of mind. Women who marry rich men are some of the most miserable women on earth, think about it, these men can get almost any kind of woman they want , many of them, especially the Nigerian rich men even flaunt their mistresses in their wives faces knowing that there is no repercussion for such behaviour, in the western world rich men know that such behaviour will result in them paying huge divorce settlement so they hide such behaviour from their wives, but Nigerian men do the opposite, in fact some of them even tell their wives to their faces that they must be prepared to share them with other women, which normal woman would be happy under such an abusive situation? Anyway majority of Nigerian women tolerate abuse from rich men because they have no self respect or dignity, many of these women are living in a permanent state of delusion, some of them go for days without setting eyes on their own husbands and they dare not speak up for fear of losing their so called esteemed positions, whats the point of living in luxury when you are treated like a common who.re?
Health › Re: Bill Gates Attests To Nigeria Transformation by cap28: 8:28am On Dec 29, 2014
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