₦airaland Forum

Ciscogod:
Increase in salary will only add to our problem,

Reduce cost of living and everyone will be happy afterwards

And what's is your strategy for reducing cost of living based on sound economic policy!!

Themandator:
I get angry knowing that some people forced this Dillard on Nigerians just to ruin the good works of PDP thereby enabling highwired rape and robbery of the common purse.

Lifeless threw the economy recession with just one policy: TSA

He wasn't the originator. PDP was. It was not a punishment tool to get at people like Atiku. No . It was a financial leakage management policy .

But lifeless came in and weaponised it.

The entire west was experiencing economic meltdown that demanded that they recall some of their foreign investment to support a reinflation of their home economy. While these guys were pulling out their finances from Nigerian banks , lifeless was ordering the same banks to transfer all government deposit back to CBN.
By the time the venture capitalists pulled out their funds and government took out theie deposit , the banks has no choice but to go after loans defaulter like the oil marketing companies and carry out massive retrenchment. The rest is history.


That was the genesis is our recession

Though Buhari caused the recession, it wasn't caused by TSA. It was due to his stance on forex when the oil price fell. Instead of allowing the naira to devalue, he tried to protect it by restricting supply from CBN, banning products from accessing forex and keep portfolio investors from repatriating their money which caused a spiral effect on the black market rate, caused slowdown in production due to unavailability of forex for critical raw materials etc. Not TSA!!!

BrutusOj:
You sabi book my brother. Atiku is an industrialist, having served in the capacity of a custom boss, he will do us more good than the retired dictator a.k.a herdsman. Nigerians, let' Atikulate for a better Nigeria come 2019

So serving as a customs boss makes you an industrialist??

This is over designed! Don't these celebs look at foreign design magazines? It's not about crowding the living room with all manner of things.

I keep saying that we are not ready to take the bull by the horn in this country and that's partly because our leaders (and even we the followers) are too sentimental, don't have enough knowledge about basic economic and free market policies (that said I don't know it all either) etc.

Whats I would do for Nigeria if I were in charge would be as follows:

Pay the N50k minimum wage and sack about 40% of the workforce to fund it and make the federal civil service work computer based. I'd rather have fewer better motivated, competent and productive staff than more semi illiterate and unproductive staff. Have you gone to a civil service building and see how people just while away time in offices doing nothing!? The Nigerian civil service - federal and state is still in the stone age. Anyone who cannot EFFECTIVELY use a computer needs to be sacked or retired. Of course anyone let go would be paid his dues as appropriate.

Remove subsidy on petrol: A good chunk of the petrol in Nigeria is consumed in Lagos and environs and a good chunk of that again by middle and upper class who can afford it. See the amount of cars dedicated to school runs in Lagos carrying one or two kids to school!! The impact is very visible during summer break - Lagos roads suddenly become freer. Removal of subsidy will go hand in hand with privatization of govt refineries. This will make refineries a place where our younger engineers can work. Savings from current subsidy will go towards making PRIMARY and SECONDARY education free and qualitative - as much as we can afford. ( I find our people are always after free though and not necessarily qualitative).

Increase fees for tertiary education towards improving the quality and make them less dependent on government. Truth is that because of our structure, even those who dont really have the aptitude for university education crave for it. Just go to our universities and engage the boys and girls in conversation! The English (both spoken and written) is terrible, use of logic is poor, cannot argue a point or debate intelligently etc. I make bold to say that perhaps 50-70 % of those in our universities would be better off in technical and vocational colleges. How come Togo and Benin people do the best furniture, POP, Painting, screeding etc Where are our own guys?? Because they never have the patience to learn these things properly! Now some of the better mechanics in Lekki are from Cotonou!! Poor but intelligent people will be supported with scholarships from an education bank, which they will pay back on the principal...no interest!! If tuition is N500k per year i.e N2mln for 4 year course, that is something that can be paid back in 5 years with a decent job in a bank after graduation.

Remove restrictions on electricity pricing. i.e make it cost reflective. Again we say electricity can turn Nigeria around, yet we joke with it. Abuse the DISCO's as much as we like, but the truth is that if the sector does not make more money that it spends, they cannot invest and no bank will loan them money. Yet, I see again that most electricity is used by middle and upper class who have AC's, microwaves, washing machine, toaster, blender, 40" tv, dstv, home theatre, fridge and freezer all in one house!! The VI, Ikoyi, Lekki, Gbagada, Anthony, Yaba crew!! Yet these types of people are able to buy petrol and diesel for generator at circa N120 per kwh!! So why not just pay a cost reflective say N50!! As for the masses, I'd make electricity pricing staggered i.e 0-200kwh@ N27; 201-400kwh@N48 and 401kwh and above@N60....but only for those with modern meters. Everyone else at current N27. That would provide and incentive for DISCO's to install meters and would mean that the rich who use a lot of electricity subsidize the poor who use a little.

I would map out the key roads in Nigeria such as Lagos -Ibadan; Port Harcourt - Enugu; Benin - Shagamu; Abuja - Kaduna; Ibadan - Abuja and others and make the commercial with toll gates. I would concession where the concessionaire pays an upfront fee say N25bln and uses his own money to fix the road and recover via agreed toll fees per car. These are roads that Nigeria absolutely needs to have superbly motorable at all times due to their importance! These roads cannot afford a single pot hole and must we well maintained at all times. While Nigerians will grumble, but the truth is how often do I (or others) go on road trip outside Lagos or their resident cities? Cant remember last time I traveled by road. And compared to what we have now as roads (which are actually death traps), i'd rather pay N1000 toll fee for a spotless road the few times i travel and save my life than a free road that has a high chance of taking my life!!!

For rail, I'd make the NRC only an operator of tracks, but not the actual train services. Let private people come and put their trains on the tracks the same way private people have airlines but government owns the airports. Rail is mostly important for freight and not passenger. For me passenger is a bit of an afterthought after freight and logistics. This is why people say its easier to get a container from China to Nigeria, than to get it from Lagos to Makurdi!

You might notice a common theme from the above involves the private sector. That's because I'm a firm believer that the private sector is 100 times more effective and efficient than public sector. The sooner we put the engine of growth in the hands of the private sector and get away from government incompetence the better for us. Let me give a few examples. Compare the performance, innovation, quality of service etc of the following companies/industries in public and private hands:

Nitel vs MTN/Glo
Nicon Insurance (when it was govt) vs AXA Mansard
ACB bank vs GTB/Zenith
NTA vs Channels
NNPC vs Shell/Exxon
Nigeria Airways vs Aero/Air Peace
Radio Nigeria vs Cool FM/Classic FM
Old Nicon Noga vs Transcorp Hilton
Fertilizer company of Nigeria vs Notore
Eleme petrochemical vs Indorama
Unilag vs Covenant University

The list goes on and on and on and on!! If you want to wait for government services to improve, you will grow old waiting!!

Gkay1:
The first time it was increased from 7k to 18k, the price of everything almost tripled, now the 18k is much more useless than the 7k from before. I could remember vividly cause I was getting ready for uni at that time.


We need to increase purchasing power of the naira not minimum wages

Thats exaggerating quite a bit!!!

Kachikwu has suddenly found his voice again? Where has he been for the past 1 year following the issue with Baru?

And doesn't this country ever announce finished projects? How come we always talk bout what we WILL do and never what we HAVE done

Unsad:
You and the 12 people that liked your post are sick!

No they aren't actually. The problem is that we are fighting the symptom and not the cause by wanting university education to be dirt cheap.

The REALITY is that even if Nigeria is corruption free, providing quality tertiary education for the millions of youth on this country is a daunting task. USA can't do it, neither UK. How then will we do it. Yet we want petrol subsidize and we also want electricity subsidised. Where will the money come from? Yet, we also need funds or roads, Rail, Ports etc.

Theefore, like I said the real fight isn't about the cost of education, its about the amount of the minimum wage. That's where energy should be devoted to.

We cannot continue to look at the past. The point is that even if The Pope becomes president if Nigeria today, he can only start to plot a future for this country based on where we are now - which is already inside a deep hole. And continuing subsidies won't get us out of it. The only subsidy I support is primary education (and possibly secondary) for All children. University is not compulsory and should not be subsidized. Neither should petrol and electricity or anything else for that matter. Getting the wage up is the real issue. A plumber or builder makes more money than a fresh graduate in UK.

How come all our building and pop is now being done by Togo and Benin people? Cos our own people are not learning any trade? We've made that type of work to be for others and not us, even when many people in Nigerian universities today don't really have the aptitude to be there.

And evidence of that can be found in the type of comments we see on social media. People can't argue a point without resulting to insults. It shows the quality of education they have had.

The road doesn't look like much! I thought I'd look better. Hope it lasts though.

Austema:
That means they usually gain over N16.5m everyday? Airline industry is another lucrative biz

Revenue not profit

Knowing Nigeria, they will now say drilling of borehole is banned nationwide! yet the stupid government does not provide pipe born water!!

So how are people supposed to get water? The government will typically not think of that first before banning boreholes. Just wait and see.

Looked acted in my opinion. I mean the guy was smiling at some poiint while saying "I'm addicted to pornography..""

Who smiles when he has just been caught watching porn in church. The guy didn't look embarrassed at all.

I must confess that Nigeria is the most incompetent country in the world!!

The stupidity of our leaders is on an uncharted scale!! Why would a minister launch something as significant as a national carrier a few months ago only to announce now that it's been suspended.

I have always had hope for this country, but to be honest I am on the verge of giving up on this country. Middle class are now checking out to Canada in droves and I cant blame them.

Maybe my feeling this way is because I'm currently in Dubai and seeing what has been done with oil money and seeing structure and purpose in place, it just makes you angry!! From airport, to roads, to organised driving, to neat taxi's with meters, to organised city layout, to stable electricity, to working metro....!!! Just name it!!

Yet in Nigeria, we are not smart enough to clean our own gutters, clear drains, properly patch our roads, design our own city, get danfo drivers organised, get tanker drivers off the roads etc. Why are we so useless!!?? And to be honest, as bad as the government is, we ourselves have a problem. When you travel elsewhere, you just realize how much of a filthy people we are. Who born you to drop coke bottle for floor, or eat gala and drop wrapper for bus stop floor for dubai? Or to just be weeing on the side of the road anywhere. In Dubai since you know you cant wee anywhere, you make a note of weeing before leaving where you are to ensure you can get to your destination safe. But here a man leaves his house and in 10mins he's weeing on the road. I know we have multiple excuses (no public toilets, no this, no that), but even at times when govt has tried to provide, have we used it?

I once saw a woman driving an IX35 (so you would suppose she's a bit educated and learned) wind down the back window of her car while driving on Aba road in PH, for her kids who had bought takeaway from an eatery to throw out the foam pack with left over rice, chicken bone, coke bottle out on the road. If anyone had challenged her, she would even argue with you that wettin concern you and most passer by would even support her. That's the kind of people we have become.

Nigeria needs a military style of discipline and reorientation walahi!! With serious koboko for like 5 years so that we start to behave ourselves again. We had it before the first coup, started loosing our sanity during military era, was on the verge of gaining it back during Idiagbon, but unfortunately lost it for good. Now so many generations have been born without basic decency and civility that to go back to basic manners is almost impossible.

That's why I often tell people that this Democracy we are practicing cannot take us anywhere in like 100 years! We need a benevolent military leader to cause us to make progress swiftly by manhandling us into shape for some time. Unfortunately the same brutal power to change things immediately that we'd need this person to have, would likely corrupt him and he'd become a despot, unless God just wan help us. How can Kigali which was war torn like 10 - 15 years ago be a better organised, cleaner city than Lagos!!! What have we been doing since!!! Where is our own common sense to do things!!! Soon Monrovia and Freetown will be better organised than Lagos.

Why are we just an overall useless nation!!!!!

While CBN has probably not as effective as it should be, one of the main reasons why new notes are scarce is because bank managers keep them for their friends and also sell to dealers for parties. Where do riff rafs who sell new notes at parties get them from?

I used to be one of the key custodians of a bank vault and my head of operations who had the other key would warn me not to touch the mint in the vault. She used to use it to settle her friends and feel important that she could supply mint.

How much for this beauty? Also can we see inside and engine bay please.

Nigerian bank MDs are notorious for treating staff like shit.

Not that big a deal. We all know we have plenty of Tin left in the ground in Jos from when we abandoned other minerals for oil.

What we should be looking for is cobalt though. It is a valuable mineral for making rechargeable batteries for electric cars and solar farms. the world supply is limited and almost all in Congo and the price has almost doubled in recent years as electric car firms scramble for available supplies (law of demand and supply).

For key Trunk A roads in Nigeria such as Lagos-Ibadan; Port Harcourt -Enugu; Abuja-Kaduna; Shagamu-Benin etc the best solution is two fold:

Take out a $3bln bond for these road re constructions, put the money in a dedicated project account in CBN for the swift disbursement based on milestone accomplishment, so that the work does not start/stop based on delay in budget approval and release of allocation. Once the roads are ready, concession the management and maintenance to private firms of strict maintenance service level agreements who will then build toll gates and take 10% of the toll as service fee, while the 90% goes to a sinking fund to liquidate the loan. The 90% then reverts to federation account once the loan is extinguished.

Alternatively, simply concession the roads to credible private investors who will use their own capital/debt to effect the repairs and build toll gates. In this scenario since the private sector sourced the funds, 80% should then go to them, while 20% goes to FG. Since their money is at stake, the private sector will do all it can to ensure the road doesn't go bad. They will fix pot holes the size of a football because if they don't and it becomes the size of a football field, the repair will still come from their pocket. In this way, the citizens will enjoy good roads for a longer period of time.

It has become clear to me that the only way anything can work in this country is if it is in private hands. Military govt tried running business, now civilian govt has tried. The result is still the same! Monumental failure!!!!

The incompetence in this country is legendary! I have not understood why drivers license, voters card, international passport, national id card etc are such a big deal.

Yet banks are able to give you mastercard with your name printed on it and activated on the spot!!

The interior of the plane looks a bit dated. Also the article doesn’t mention premium economy, but the seats after the economy seats picture are look like premium economy. Business class doesn’t typical have a 3 configuration in the middle.

And suddenly being an actress in nollywood makes this much money?

ednut1:
Nigeria to SA is less dan 120k. Mushroom article

I was going to say where on earth did the Op get his prices from? They are nowhere near that high.

We keep creating new agencies that week end up doing nothing. Just paying salaries and adding no value to the country.

Our politicians are unable to take tough decisions. If I'm president, civil service will have to reduce manpower by at least 30 to 50%. We have people doing nothing.

Also promotion based on time spent will stop (or being DUE) It will be based on evidence of delivering on clear deliverables in a efficient and value adding way.

I know this is just 4 pictures and there are probably more aspects of the airport not shown, but my first response was its this the best that we can come up with??

And the country no get oil o! We have wasted our oil wealth for over 50 years now. Nigerian infrastructure should be far better than it is now.

Woke doesn't look very interested

This one is "fake news". I'm not sure anyone in government fears Osinbajo. Not even sure anyone fears Buhari himself, with the way his Ministers and appointees behave. Otherwise IGP would not have dodged going to Benue state when ordered to do so.

If kerosene is really that expensive and people are still using it, isn't something wrong with them?? Shouldn't they know that they should switch to gas?

I don't think simple camp gas burner with small cylinder will cost more than N7k. Why burn N300 per litre of kerosene?

How much are they selling it?

How much for them? Particularly the 2017 one?

Thumbs up bro! Una try! God bless your hustle!!

I could really consider this car if my money had been ready, but not just yet....

And if the price were cheaper