₦airaland Forum

alj_harem:
dude please stop talking rubbish here

does lagos collect money from the centre ?

when last has the country given allocation to lagos?

all the jobs created for people, what about that?

the fish farming and agriculture produce in lagos can feed only lagosian but the bearing of migrates from other parts mostly from the east is affecting the state and its bugets

also, lagos is putting the country to worlds stage thanks to the people of lagos

psquare,Dbanj, nollywood etc would not be here today if not for Allah/God and the people lagos

what other state unites Nigeria if not lagos

pls mention one. Lagos is even called the mini Nigeria

Revenue generated by foreign investors in Lagos alone, is sustanting all those pot-belly politicains

Oil revenue is lagos is another thing.

all thanks to Lagos,

alj_harem, I decided to use a couple of hours to see if I would deduce any sence from this post, I actually tot after boldy classifyiing my post as rubish, you would go ahead to make a meaningful contribution, but what you written here shows the usual combination of ignorance and arogance,
Ignorant that Lagos state queues up along with other states, cap in hand for monthly allocations from the FG,
Arogant about your view of Lagos in relation to the other states of the federation, You need to get off your high horse about your fantastic lagos and come to earth, and then answer the question properly, how has lagos which has benefited tremendiously from being a capital city for so long inspired Nigeria to greatness? if you still insist in mentioning Dbanj and fish farming, then you may glefully continue to wallo in your ignorance for eternity.

"In whom much has been given much is expected" this is what we learned as children, but for most of the lagocians "In whom much is given, much empty bragging is expected!"

playboy19:
As if other states doesn't get their checks monthly from the government. And hey, it is Nigeria and not nigeria. If you respect the USA, UK and China enough to Capitalize writing their names, then you should to Nigeria too.

Thanks for the spell checking, i would like to imagin that there is more upstairs to contribute than this,

All states collect money from the center, yes they do indeed, but y world people from one of these same states make it a point of duty to beat their chest at every single opportunity, what is the real contribution of lagos to the development of this nation? that is a more important question to be answered. The answer to this question should determine how Lagosians brag about this lagos everytime.

These same people look down on the rest of nigeria with glee but when BBC and CNN publish reports about the real lagos they cry foul to the high heavens, Talk about hypocracy

Where the hell do you people get off this stupid train of rubbing this 'Lagos rules' issues in our faces?

Please lagos and Nigeria, as presently constitued and run are backward, so don't give me the 'we are all blind, but you are blinder than me treatment' because that is just the kind of bullshit that gets other nigerians pissed,

I really feel people who decide to rub this sort of rubish in our faces (the most mature state, the most hospitable indegienes, the most ingenious indgienes) are lacking several files in the compartment of their heads relating to exposure, otherwise they should be lamenting that over 80years of pouring national resourses into that part of the country has not had the expected ripple effects on the rest of the country, they seam to be happy that even though lagos is as backward as it is, it is better than enugu or other parts of nigeria.

This is the sort of reasoning that will get them very irritated when other sections of the country look like they may overtake lagos in terms of development.

The history of great countries cannot be told without leading roles of thier key cities in development of their economies.
The rise of the UK cannot be told without role of london, USA without newyork, China without Beijing etc,
In nigeria all we see is ignorant lagocians laf and mock the rest of the country for not beig sharp or lucky enuf to corner as much national resources as possible.

Please expose yourselves, being the commerical capital that has enjoyed so much infrastructural development does not in anyway make you better, you has better wipe that tot for your mind, cos you are stiill part of a very backward country.

kcjazz:
Haha, yeah I have read that and yeah I support his ideas. Very applicable to Nigeria, instead of a national ID card scheme lets do land reforms. Plus it was on Late Yar'Aduas 7 point agenda, so they thought of it but I guess things have changed now.

Funny enough, if rapid industriliasation is what we need, the present land system where state governments hold the land in trust may just be the way forward, why you would ask?, since governors, along with the state houses of assembly can decide what to do with land at any point in time and pay compensation, it means there exist a possiblity of great things being achieved,

Just imagin around the Aba axis, well known for its enterprenurial drive, but being held down by lack of power and associated infrastructure, nothing stops the Abia state governor from providing lands for private people to build industrial parks or estates, self reliant on power provided by another set of private individuals tru IPPs, who are reliant on another set of private people who pipe down the gas for the IPPs from the nigerdelta, who pay the oil companies for the gas, and gbam, medium scale industries can now operate with fairly ok infrastructure, and constant light, and pay a rental for a space in any of the industrial parks,
Does the government need to reform land to achieve this? Nope
Does the government need to build the industrial parks? Nope, just provide the land, and draw up conditions to make it competitive and ensure that demand and supply fairly balance out, too few parks make the cost exorbitant, to many may discourage investors with low rate of returns, ( the business of regulation, policy fomulation and modulation of business enviromental conditions is very serious, and it presently being diminished by governments desire to participate in a businesses that can be better driven by private sector, in short land reforms is not what we need for now,

Just imagin a situation where kwara and benue state governments carved out very many sections of lands and leased them to large scale private farmers?? several hecters each, not one, not two but 50-100,

The same can apply to residential areas , commercial areas etc? maybe government may end up being fully responsible with just trunk roads linking the various layouts, industrial, residential, commercial etc after all people should contrate on buying houses built in organised areas properly setup, not building one house for 25years, block by block, but paying up your morgage over 25 years, maybe I am being too theoritical

kcjazz:
With the subsidies, this is business, lets at least feed ourselves and by extension Africa, last year we spent $1.2 TRILLION not Naira, that includes milk, sugar, rice etc. Even the industrial revolution was ushered by the British Agricultural Revolution, so I am not out of order when I think agriculture is a way.

Kcjazz, when will you realise that blanket subsidies actually kill us, don't doo us any good, create a lazy culture and and up perpetrating what it was set up to solve, lets take a few examples,

Free education: ends up creating two classes of schools, one for the poor of the society and the private ones for the rich, those for the poor are definately substanded, you will never catch a middle income person sending his kid to one of this schools even in your wildest dream, all the same, funds will be allocated for these schools, imagin replacing this messed up system with one where all the schools were privately owned, and government had to pay school fees for those who truelly cannot afford it, the gap between the standards of the schools might not be that high, all the private schools had a to meet a minimum requirements, and govt will not lack the moral justification to demand this min standard because it wouldn't run substandard schools

Free or subsidized healh care: exactly same as above,

@pleep
Great post, great topic, great reading, one of the best intellectual discussions I have ever read on the 9ja project.
You basically said everything that was on my mind especially when you defended your position against AjanleKoko, the situations in South Africa and UAE was really remarkable, 9ja is really trying to be like UAE with its opopulation of 150million people, very true and indeed very funny,

It is never going to happen, we can never develop without industrializing first, some have said education first and others have said agric first,

With regards to educating first, Take nigeria for example, There is really no difference between the sections of the country that claim to be in most educated and the least educated, we have an educated set of people all living in squalor, making a mokery of education,

With regards to focusing on Agric first, I seriously fail to undersrtand the point of the persons making this argument,
are they saying that we should all go into subsistence farming, propably like 80% of the population??
are they aware that the most industrialised countried produce the highest amount of food with less than 1% population? when we talk of UK and US government subsidizing agric in their countries it is done as a price control measure, because so much food produced in abundance that prices may crash and force farmers out on business in addition to protecting the farmers from competition of other industrialised countries where the labour cost are lower.

For nigeria, industrialization is definately the way to go, but so far why have we failed, I thinks its because of government desire to participate in business ventures, in order words this has contributed to the killing the capitalist and adventurustic spirit of the nigerian enterpreneur,


Our first attempt at industrialising failed because all the majour industries setup to propel the country into the industrial age were all goverment run, from the steel mills, aluminium rolling plants, tools shops etc, they were not run as profit making ventures, and as such crumbled,
The usual justification for this system is that nigerian are poor and can't do it them selves, so government will run it for them,


In order to move forward,
1-government needs to get out of of business very fast, if this is not what GEJ is thinking about then forget about development for the forseeable future, Concentrate solely on regulation ind inspiroing development, do not run any thing, schools, hospitals, transport, railways, houses, factories, sports, nothing, nothing at all, al government income should be derived from taxation, remember that when gevernment officials are no longer distracted by parastatals and government run businesses, there is likely to be more focus on policy and regulation

2-Subsidies, after full privatisation, all subsidies should be stopped, no food for lazy man, blanket free education, free health care, fuel subsidy, etc should be cancelled from the constitution. A proper welfare system targeted at the unfortunate in the society (not lazy people) should be set up, to the run by consultants to

3-Government activities. 95 precent of government should be run by consultants, government should be comprised of a few very highly paid professionalls in the various fields, other sundary activities should be handled by consultantants at the lowest bidder cost, no more government clearners and drivers, clerk, stewards etc,

4-Encouraging industriazation via tight policy control not by active participation in business, eg, businesses who patronise products from nigerian may end up paying 10% the tax of other companies

At the end of the day, to have sustainable power, good roads, and infrastructure, health care, schools, and various other good things of life, we need to be producing them, or at least a major component of them, its waste of money to set up a fertilizer factory or railway system just to import every single screw or bolt required for its maintenence, worse even when being run by government,

Hard decisions need to ne made, we need to move some steps backward to propel our selves forward, we should not be trying to sustain the poor with blanket subsidies, its a waste of funds, we should be rushing to increase the middle class, and the only way forward is rapid industriliasation

Definately a poverty induced tradition, nothing more nothing less

govt at all levels need to get out of business now, not a second later, now now now now, not a moment later, all businesses steel mills or plants, power generation, water, anything, everything, reduce government to ministries to regulations and monitoring and policy formulation etc, in nigeria govmt involvement has never been positive and it will never be, GEJ if this is the only system you can put in place in the next four years, things will take a major turn for the best,

Desola:
Emeka,

I have said it before and I will re-iterate that the SW would never vote for a SE prsident. Forget the tribal enmity on this site for a second and think objectively.

How have the SE proved to Nigeria as a whole that they are capable of running a government effectively. Don't bring Nollywood(they are totally tribal) or spare parts and that "we are the economic powerhouse of Africa" bile into this now. We are talking politics and good governance here now. Who is capable of picking up the mantle and please do not bring Amaechi into this as we all know that he is a SouthSoutherner whose quota is currently in use. Who would you front and why? Why do you think the SW should vote for him/her without throwing the "we are southerners" hogwash or "let's stand against the North" nonsense.

Tell me why we should vote the SE and not NC.

Desola, In terms of development, if you remove Lagos from the SW states, how far developed are the remaining 5 SW states compared to the 5 SE states or any other states in 9ja for that matter, the answer is not much, if any at all, this is in spite of the fact that the economy of this country has been run from the SW as part of the unwritten pact with the north, in which the north had the political power.
There is actually no much difference btw a state like Ogun with all its PHD holders and Jigawa state,  Yet you come here to demand proof of the capability of others to lead, Lagos had previously had massive infractural development, just as Abj is getting now so it can never be placed on the same footing with other states,

Every tribe has its share of criminals and intelligent ones, its safe to say the the nature of 9ja politics has driven those sharp intelligent people who should be at the helm of affairs away from politicking, Fashola definately belongs to this breed and is lucky to have found himself there as I don't think he would have gotten there in the first place on his own efforts, tinubu definately helped him with this, Personnaly I feel fashola's achievement are modest, not really better than a couple of few other performing Govs, but the rivalry btw Ibos and Yorubas, the superiority complex of the yorubas and the fact that we are used to seeing extremely low or negatively performing govs has made fashola name more popular than it really ought to be, To preside over a complex and large country like 9ja, you definately need to have a rear but fine blend of ability to play politics and vision to ensure that you win hearts accross various sections while pushing for complem system change to ensure development, getting such a person is not easy and fashola lacks a coombination of these traits to rule this country.

Kilode?!:
I think the fact that they are publicly calling for restructuring and total reform of the federation is a good first step. We should encourage that.

I agree that giving the FG a pre-determined 35% is not good enough, but that is about the same thing as States paying 35% tax on their collected revenue. The amount may be too high, but the real issue is to determine who has the right to collect these taxes from revenue within each state in the first instance.

Income and revenue currently goes to the FG directly, then shared down to the states monthly. I think that encourages federal corruption, gives us a central government with too much power, essentially rubbishing our federalism claims.

To make our "True Federalism" work, We need to go the VAT way with ALL INCOME. We currently have the FG with too much control over finances and National revenue. That is the issue.

EX: Shell Oil company should be paying State taxes in it's state of domicile e.g Lagos or Delta. Same should apply to ALL INCOME generated within a State, including Personal income.

There is no need for the FG to control Oil revenue or any revenue accruing from companies operating in individual Oil states or ANY state at all, rather, they should tax the income of those companies federally based on pre-determined percentages, while the State does the same by the taxing their profits/revenue and the LG can access fees and property taxes.

The same system should apply to individual income, Property/Real Estate, Capital gains e.t.c  Also Excise duties and fees should be accessed this way. I see no reason why the FG should collect duties at a port owned by Lagos or Rivers state, or say the city of ONNE( if we adopt vibrant independent City Governments )

The FG shouldn't also lay claim to the income of the Kano Water Corporation or Adamawa Tourism revenue. All FG owned companies should be transferred to the State for Privatisation. Let private companies run Industry then pay taxes to government. EX: The NNPC issue should be resolved in that manner.

Now, Nigeria can have an agreement among it's constituent units on what percentage of their State income should be contributed to the Federal Account. It should be based on pre-determined percentages, So a richer state will definitely contribute more Naira than a poorer one. But the contribution must go from state to FG and not FG to state.

Also, Federal Civil service expenditure and Grant to poorer States or for National services like Parks, Primary education funding and grants, Federal Emergency Management Large Federal infrastructual Projects and the Military should come from the account administered by the FG through Legislative oversight based on receipts from federal taxes and state contributions to the FG account.

Individual citizens and companies should be taxed by both Federal and State Governments where applicable(some States may decide not to collect state individual taxes) while LGs can rely on sale taxes, property taxes and local fees to run their government.

Governments need to focus on overseeing regulations and attracting businesses to their States, LG or Region -whichever one we adopt.

BTW, State Police is a no-brainer really, what we currently practice is a joke.

I am in total agreement with this sweet post, except for some fine details like FG collecting individual taxes, and police, I believe community policing should be encouraged as it happens in the US, community police, state police and FG police, each with their jurisdictions, This is basically the type of federalism we crave for, The structural changes the ACN leadership is asking for is definately not possible without true fiscal federalism, All@of a sudden what was good for the geese is no longer good for the gander,

Gbawe:
Wether by ommission or commission , you thought wrong. "True federalism" , as applicable to the agitations of Nigerians themselves, fundamentally involves the devolution of power away from the centre to grant more developmental autonomy to States and regions. There are other issues but this is the central gist . Most of what the ACN have stated in this article are common sense utterances entirely in line with the sincere practice of the type of "true federalism" that can assist rapid development for Nigeria. I really don't see how, for example, you can have a problem with the justified request for more money for State use in the allocation sharing formula when a wasteful centre pays Senators 4 times the $400, 000 salary of Obama.

True federalism is certainly not about "federal units generating their own income and then paying taxes to the center " because that notion bypasses the responsibility of the FG to disburse National income fairly and in a fiscally responsible manner that aids development.  You don't really seem to understand (or are deliberately pandering to mischief) with your grossly erroneous take of what you assume "true federalism" to be so one cannot expect you to view what the ACN have said objectively. It is funny you are quick to misinterprete what is written while ignoring the laudable issues stated in the article like the clamour for State policing, the wrongness of the FG fixing minimum wage without recourse to the financial ability of States to comply , the call for a review of the allocation sharing formula, etc . Clearly you are not interested in a fair assessment of issues. That is why , with all due respect, what you write below is rubbish not worthy of discussion by anyone who knows the genuine developmental needs of Nigeria that will not be aided by myopic protectionism and feudal thinking.

It is definately obvious that your support for ACN ensures that you see no wrong in anything done, maybe you have heard the saying that he who plays the piper dictates the tune, how can you be talking of monthly stipends from the federal government and at the same time want to be in total control of your affairs, can't you see the folly of your ways. At a time when reasonable minds are saying that dependence on centrally shared revenue is the source of our problems, our laziness, our lack of productivity.

Wether by ommission or commission , you thought wrong. "True federalism" , as applicable to the agitations of Nigerians themselves, fundamentally involves the devolution of power away from the centre to grant more developmental autonomy to States and regions.

Gbawe are you telling me you don't know the relationship between money and power in the context of political relationships. If the federal gevernment makes the money and shares it to the states and you expect the giver to relinquish power to the taker, what a dreamer you are?

ACN leaders claim to follow the doctrine of awolowo in everything apart from fiscal reponsibility, I got the following quote from an article on Awolowo http://www.nigerianbestforum.com/generaltopics/?p=11775

Chief Awolowo, according to Osuntokun, advocated fiscal federalism, “that is to say, each part of Nigeria should keep the bulk of its revenue while contributing to maintain common services at the centre”. The Action Group (AG) was formed in 1950. Awolowo was the Premier of Western Region from 1852 to 1959 when he yielded the position to his deputy, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Awolowo became Leader of Opposition in the Federal House Representation in Lagos. In 1963 he was arrested, tried and jailed for treasonable felony. He was released in August 1966 and a year later was appointed Vice-Chairman of Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner for Finance in the military government of General Yakubu Gowon.

Are you telling me that you cannot see a shift in mindset of these Awolowo followers, is this not hypocrazy, all this is because they still have their eyes on ND oil, if the supposedly most educated set of people in the country are still set on lazily leeching of the ND oil, then what hope for the rest of us (the other 5 underdeveloped regoins),

Clearly you are not interested in a fair assessment of issues.

Clearly it is you who refuses to see the big picture, and that is you can not ask for all the goodies that come the federalism and not want to work for it, expecting to control your own police, set your worker salaries, etc and depend on the FG for pay for it.

what you write below is rubbish not worthy of discussion by anyone who knows the genuine developmental needs of Nigeria that will not be aided by myopic protectionism and feudal thinking.

Clearly you have no dignity or shame? how can you want to keep your revenue (VAT) generated as a result of your resources (Population) and expect to share the revenue generated by the natural resources of other states,

http://odili.net/news/source/2011/may/27/818.html

[size=14pt]Nigerian federalism is fraudulent - Tinubu, Aregbesola, Fashola [/size]

Tunde Odesola


The leadership of the Action Congress of Nigeria has described the country's federalism as anti-people.

Leaders of the party, who spoke at an induction ceremony held in Osogbo for all ACN's legislators, nationwide, on Thursday, said the country's federalism ran counter to development.

The leaders, who spoke at the ceremony included the National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande; a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; Osun State Governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, and the National Secretary of the party, Dr Usman Bugaje.

A cross-section of the leaders called for a review of the constitution to reflect the desires of the citizenry.

In his paper entitled, Leadership and party supremacy, Akande said, "The twin major ingredients of cohesion and discipline are leadership and ideology.

"Ideology represents objectives while leadership provides social influence that motivates people to serve.

"We are constantly promising Nigerians to effect a measured change from what Peoples Democratic Party had fraudulently been doing in the past 12 years."

Tinubu said the Federal Government had no solution to the myriad problems besetting the country, stressing that the government at the centre was perpetrating corruption via the country's federal structure.

The National Secretary of the party, Dr Usman Bugaje, said only the ACN was capable of providing the template for Nigeria's greatness, stressing that the party would continue to work out the political salvation of the country.

Tinubu contended that it was wrong for the Federal Government to unilaterally fix a minimum wage for the 36 states of the country.

Tinubu explained that it was wrong of the Federal Government to unilaterally operate the Excess Crude Account, sell national properties and institutions without giving the proceeds to the state governments.

He said, "The country's Constitution was not written, debated and adopted by the generality of Nigerians. It was the military that wrote it without inputs from the generality of Nigerians. Sovereignty, in our constitution, was taken from the people and given to the Federal Government."

Fashola called for a new allocation sharing formula, which would see the Federal Government receiving 35 per cent of the country's monetary resources while the states take 42 per cent and local government takes 23 per cent.

Like Tinubu, Fashola faulted the Federal Government for fixing the minimum wage for all states, saying that the action negated productivity and creativity.


Fashola, who explained that the minimum wage of blue collar jobs could be fixed, however, argued that it is difficult to fix the wage of white collar jobs.


Supporting the clamour for the establishment of state police, Fashola described the present arrangement wherein the Federal Government controls the police as an aberration.


He said the creation of state police was a veritable avenue of providing mass employment to teeming Nigerian youths, adding that it was wrong of the Federal Government to keep the money charged on Value Added Tax.

@NLers
1- I thought true federalism was all about federal units generating their own income and then paying taxes to the center, What I am seeing here is a desire to continue depending on the FG for revenue, this is quite strange comming from advocates of true federalism??

2- Another strange desire I noticed in this articule is a desire to keep VAT but share the revenue generated by others, I think is is just plain contradictory  and selfish,

What do you guys think

At the national constitionl conafb organised by Obj few years ago, this was the main demand of the SS and SE delegates, when the delegates from the north supported by the Sw refused to give in, SS & SE delegates staged a walkout that ended the confab unceremoniously, the demand of the SS and SE was a derivation system where the states would pay 50% taxes to the center, but this was to be implemented after a weaning period of 5 years, to allow othe states find their footing,   while everyone on this post seams to like the proposal, the results of that confab few years ago had lead me to believe that the north and SW are not ready for derivation or resourse control that is where I see a major challange for fiscal federalism, how do we go about conviencing the rest or nigeria to get of their arses and be productive I wish I had the answers, its a major puszle for gej to solve.

yeswecan:
The problem with Nigeria is not corruption ! !  You hide your points behind grand words "present political structure on ground" and "reduce corruption",

It is too simple to say Corruption is the problem with Nigeria, in fact it is intellectual laziness to resort to that simple, and all too familiar answer to Nigeria questions. Don't tell me corruption is the reason for our closed Agriculture sector - mind you - before we discovered Oil we had growth figures that were from agricultural exports. Africa as a continent has to look beyond the corruption debate to understand where its problem lies - as far as i am concern.

Corruption is a tactical issue - we have a structural problem in Africa at large.

If i launch a review into a phase of Nigeria's problem i might bore you - but check this out. Africans are traditional farmers - the real problem with Africa i tell you is WTO, IMF and World Bank. Yes they are, and also US and EU agricultural subsidies which has been used intentionally to lockup Africa farmers. If there is really free trade i would be exporting cattle.s to England because beef here is highly demanded, highly subsidised (2 pounds=500 Naira subsidy to every cow a day) and yet very expensive. If there was a freedom of movement the whole Europe beef market would have been taken over by Africa farmers. Our advantage is farming - not banking. We have the highest arable land on planet earth (Africa i mean) and US subsidy on cotton alone is bigger than five Africa country budget combined to avoid us from taking over their market. As if that was not bad enough, the IMF and World Bank came and asked us to open up for remnant of EU and US subsidy dumping which subsequently kept our peasants of farming.

Agriculture is the advantage in Africa - not banking, manufacturing or technology.

Excuse me yeswecan,  where have I ever said that corruption is the problem? please kindly identify that write up,
All my post have been about how the political and governmental structures existing today encourage corruption, I hope you are not interpreting this to mean I said that corruption is the source of Nigerias'problems,  I advice you re-read my post again,

I also commented about the need to change these socialistic structures, the need to start applying subsidies sensible and strategically. Please take care to digest the messages in my post before responding,

If i launch a review into a phase of Nigeria's problem i might bore you - but check this out. Africans are traditional farmers - the real problem with Africa i tell you is WTO, IMF and World Bank. Yes they are, and also US and EU agricultural subsidies which has been used intentionally to lockup Africa farmers. If there is really free trade i would be exporting cattle.s to England because beef here is highly demanded, highly subsidised (2 pounds=500 Naira subsidy to every cow a day) and yet very expensive. If there was a freedom of movement the whole Europe beef market would have been taken over by Africa farmers. Our advantage is farming - not banking. We have the highest arable land on planet earth (Africa i mean) and US subsidy on cotton alone is bigger than five Africa country budget combined to avoid us from taking over their market. As if that was not bad enough, the IMF and World Bank came and asked us to open up for remnant of EU and US subsidy dumping which subsequently kept our peasants of farming.

@ bolded, are you really sure about this I think this is lame talk, especially comming form someone you ought to know better,
Agreed that their policies may not favour us, because thay are generally made to favour the powerfull western interest,
But think about it, China, Taiwan, South Korea, India Brazil, etc where all in the same boat as Nigeria (On may be not exactly the same level) but are now emerging as strong economies. Are you going to say that these western sponsored bodies "WTO, IMF and World Bank"  didn't make the same unfavourable policies towards them,

The truth is the the problem lies nearer home, and from the bolded parts of your last post on below

If i launch a review into a phase of Nigeria's problem i might bore you - but check this out. Africans are traditional farmers - the real problem with Africa i tell you is WTO, IMF and World Bank. Yes they are, and also US and EU agricultural subsidies which has been used intentionally to lockup Africa farmers. If there is really free trade i would be exporting cattle.s to England because beef here is highly demanded, highly subsidised (2 pounds=500 Naira subsidy to every cow a day) and yet very expensive. If there was a freedom of movement the whole Europe beef market would have been taken over by Africa farmers. Our advantage is farming - not banking. We have the highest arable land on planet earth (Africa i mean) and US subsidy on cotton alone is bigger than five Africa country budget combined to avoid us from taking over their market. As if that was not bad enough, the IMF and World Bank came and asked us to open up for remnant of EU and US subsidy dumping which subsequently kept our peasants of farming.

Agriculture is the advantage in Africa - not banking, manufacturing or technology.

The problem appears deeper than I thought,
Hope you will acknoledge that the most industrilsed countries produce the highest amount of food, Agriculture can be a big advantage if we harness it with technology, we must industrialise to move forward,

ola olabiy:

Thank God; better argument has prevailed. They NOW support the status quo, even DaLover.

It took 10 pages, though.

even DaLover??
Take a look at my first post on page 9 again.

I honestly think too many people on this forum are bodered about how to sustain the existing poor masses than how to move the mass of poor people out of poverty into the middle class,
To me all the present policies and laws of the country sustain poverty,  if we can close our eyes to the existing poverty and realise that before any good thing comes along, there has to be some suffering, then we will appreciate the need to remove subsidies i.e nothing good comes easy, We need to remove subsidies very quickly.
But removal of subsidies alone cannot change or improve the lot of the nigerian masses, I am thinking a major atitude change by majority of the middle class(as withnessed here in NL) and leadership from overbearing socialist tendencies where the government is deeply involved in business to a more capitalist nature where government is lean, mean and concentrated more on regulation for the benefit of the country.

The fact that The federal and state governments don't depend on peoples taxes to survive means that whould not be answerable to the people.
Removal of subsidies should not come in isolation as the solution to anything, afterall, coruption will quickly erode the gains of any savings,

Whats needs to be none,
1-Quickly privatise all its commercial interest NNPC, NFA, Nigerian air-waste, NEPA etc etc etc, taking care to accomode all the six zones.
2-Bottom to Top model of revenue generation otherwise know as the federal system be properly implemented, All government revenue should come from taxes, individuals-lgas-states-fg, not the other way round.
3-Allow for a free market economy that encourages local production capacity, we are seriously dependent on foreign manufactured goods, Imagine local operating refinaries that sources all/majority of their spares locally,

In summary removal of subsidies is the best way forward if 9ja government is ready to overhall its model of doing things,  presently there are too many people that have built up a system based on sharing of oil revenues, and if this continues we will continue thinking of how to sustain poverty of the masses for many years to come.

What do you think the bold statements implies?

troy07:
This guy is talking jargons.

I take it that you tried to do some reasoning and this was your final output!

yeswecan:
@DaLover

I have read all your comments - your reasoning is subtle and often specious - the cleverness of your argument conceals the fact that you are arguing for a "one size fits all" capitalistic policy. I agree with you that government run business is the cause of so many problems - be it healthcare, education, power, transport etc . . they should all be privatised and keep the government as little as possible.

The issue i have here is the subsidy case - i am a disciple of John Maynard Keynes and also a capitalist - mind you. The tacit message of IMF - that we should not worry about building refineries but remove subsidies instead - is not only vicious but also Silly - How can a major oil producer ship raw material oversea to refine and buy refined product back to its country . . . But that's not the main point - Oil is free from the ground - if we take them and refine for domestic use then how will the govt not be able to control the price? The IMF guy is silly - we can exploit oil for domestic use and sell even 20 naira per gallon . The reason for subsidy in the first place is because we have to re-buy already refined products. That is the point.

It then means that you have failed to see the following points in my previous post or you fail to realise that subsidy discussion is multi-dimensional and cannot be solved in isolation
1-With the present political structure on ground, I don't support removal of retroleum subsidies
2-With an improved political and governmental structure that reduces corruption, removal of subsidies is necessary because the monies can channeled to areas with much greater long term effects,

These two points are the summary of what I have been saying, to be honest I haven't read what the IMF guy is saying because I don't care, as for the one size fits all theory you think I am proposing, check again! I am actually proposing that Nigeria takes a radical path towards development by concentrating first on deeping the economy and then latter come back to create sensible welfare schemes? not the other way round.

adconline:
Dalover

I'm pro capitalism, but if you remove the so called subsidies, Naija politicians WILL pocket the proceeds. The effects: prices will go up, everything will go up and masses will suffer, but politicians and their cronies will be throwing parties and flying their wives, concubines and families to New York, Paris, London and Dubai for shopping.

That is why I have said lets reduce curruption first by restructuring how we go about goveranance in nigeria

adconline:
Dalover

Let the government build railway and put an end to power shortage, then they can kill the subsidy by having functioning refineries.

This is a big NO NO, y should the government build you a railway or power facilities? How can you say this after seeing what has happened to all the things nigerian governments have built? can't you see more avenues for inefficiency and corruption? na wa ooo, the journey in the wilderness continues,

adconline:
Dalover

In the USA, farmers are subsidized to 50 cents on a dollar. Scottie Pippen, who played professional basketball for 17 years gets subsidies, Paul Allen, Microsoft Billionaire founder gets farm subsidies. The big oil companies get big subsidies about $21 billion in 10 years. Wall Street got over $900 billion in bailout funds. Amtrak in the US is subsidized by the government.
Why are prices of petroleum cheaper in Libya that borders Egypt , Chad, Niger and Sudan where prices are higher? Why are prices cheaper in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait if not because of subsidies. Why does the state of Alaska give oil money to every Alaskan from their oil wealth fund? Is that not subsidy?

USA, Libya, Saudi Arabia, UAE
-Is Nigeria as rich as this countries?
-Or are they as currupt as Nigeria?

So if you were made president of a very poor country that just discovered oil and you had just enough money for either of this two options
a-reduce the pump price by 50% through monthly cash payment to suppliers or
b-invest in industrialization, R&, design and engineering capacity, infrastructual development
which would you choose?

@jesus

Do you understand that government has tried to do everything and ends up doing nothing?
This statement is so simple, see no reason why you don't get my points?
I wonder if what I am writing is different from what you are reading,

When I was in the university of benin in the 90's the FG charged us less that =N=1,000 per accademic session,
Is this not subsidised? Has the university system not failed, Is this not an example of how government has tried to run university on subsidised rates and end up failing? Please what is emprical evidence? maybe I don't understand

The the FG not own a firm called Nigeria Airways in that became moribound in the 80s, Is this not an example of how FG tries to get involved in aviation business and failed, even tried again recently with virgin and failed, though this time at commercial rates?

Are you telling me that apart from BRT, you are not aware of the various state and LGA government owned transport accross the country? and you need me to supply you empricall eveidence that they charge cheaper than commercial transporters?

So you don't know where I want government to hands of from? Don't worry may next season you will know

So you are telling me that you don't know that NFA is a government organisation? Most football clubs in 9ja are state owned, the sponsorship of the league is just a recent phenomenon after the league crashed some years ago

Okay, come to number 15 olumu street off airport road warri, I will show you some imperical evidence you want, since you may not have observed this in the country.

You actually need me to tell you the cost difference btw government sponsored pilgrimage and private sponsored ones Just come to the above address for the exact breakdown,

For your information, the argument that government services charge the same for some of the services actually translates to a loss, due to inefficiency in operations, this means that cost of delivering the service will be higher than when privately driven,


@adconline
Very good examples of government run business in other countries,
But let me let you in on a secret you may not know, (such system has failed in nigeria!),

So what do we do next? keep on doing what we have been doing for the past 40years with no result? There is a distant posibility that a different outcome could actually emerge if we continue with our present structure, Maybe one day a powerful leader would emerge that would eradicate all these currupt aliens within our mist (I doubt they are related to me or you or any nairalanders) and we will live happly ever after,
We probably should reverse the telecoms de-regulation and go back to the nitel days and wait for the ministry officials to be cleaned by strong willed EFCC, Lets do it the botswana way,

Guys why don't you want a change?
A privately run system is always profitable but in the event of failure the loss is limited to the owners of the company, government can even provide a temporary bail out, but not to remain there parmanently,


Governments role
-provide a level playing filed for participants
-provide policies that would see the country move in a particular desired direction
-Monitor and regulate
-Cater for the haves nots

But even this calls for priorotization in the face of lean resources- and cater for haves not can not be the top priority,

jesus.:
When, where or how has the Nigerian government done those characters in bold? can please give an 'emperical' proof?

NB i mean[b] 'empirical'[/b] proof

Maybe you did not understand what I was trying to say, Let me repeat, The nigerian government is trying to provide all these things free or subsidised and ends up failing because it is overinvolved in too many unnecessary things,

My argument is government should hands off, concentrate on creating condusive environment and regulations.

besides what other empirical proof do you wnat, don't you live or havent you been to Nigeria,
How much did you pay in a nigerian federal university?
You runs your football in Nigeria?
Haven't you seen government owned transport vehicles?
Haven't you heard of government sponored pilgramages to holy lands?
Haven't you heard of Government owned radio stations?
Maybe you haven't heard of Nitel?
Or Nigerian Airways or virgin nigerian airways or what ever name?

and the most anoying NNPC petro-stations,

Look as long as we remain on the road to nowhere, we will get to nowhere

yeswecan:
@DaLover no doubt your made some important argument but the core of your presentation - removal of subsidy- is trash.

And Scott Rogers of IMF knows nothing - he said "i[b]f all refineries are made to work as people have been canvassing for, the onus will still be on the owners of these refineries to decide whether to sell at the local price or take it outside the country to make more money[/b]" Hence saying we do not really need refineries to get down the price. He is wrong. If we have working refineries at least for domestic consumption the level of subsidy will reduce  drastically - not to mention the waste.

But let me come to your point on the removal of subsidy. This will not only be a blow to 90% of Nigerians but worst the negative effect will be felt in the market. Rise in the general level of prices of goods and services cannot be avoided, rise in transportation and a weaker naira.

Oil subsidy is the best thing Nigeria govt has ever done - and am not a socialist. In fact i am the biggest capitalist there is - but there is no such thing as pure capitalism. The united states subsides her farmers with a commitment that's twice bigger that the Nigeria budget.  The European union uses 40% of her budget for only farm subsidies. UK cattle receive 2 pounds subsidy each, everyday - - - - -subsidy has always been part of the game . .  don't be fooled by IMF Scott Rogers . .There is no plain field. this same people overturn Africa agriculture to the negative and caused hunger in Africa farmers with anti-subsidy sermons

It not what Rogers said or didn't say, if you ask me I will not remove subsidies now because, I can't reform the government? If our government is going to reform, then remove subsidies, and if they must be added, it must be done more sensibly that it is now, for instance, those refineries selling thier refined products locally will pay much less tax than those that choose to export, just an idea(may not be full proof), but anything to avoid paying direct cash to importer and then turning to sell it cheaper, that is condusive enviroment for the bateria of curruption to grow,

Stop comparing Nigeria with UK, france, USA etc, these are rich countries with a very large middle classes, Taxes collected from the middle classes and the corporate world can fine tuned to enable tax breaks in sectors that are lagging behind, In Nigeria everything is lagging behind, They have almost proper demographic data bases of the population spread with respect to wealth. So that a good number of people that collect unemployment benefits are actually unemployed, In Nigeria, the governors will come up with poverty alievation program PAP, splash money here and there, buy motocycles and sewing machines for 500 people and think that something meaningfull has been achieved, Me make money first by deeping the economy and then provide benefits to people who need it, not the other way round, its like being in university and trying to take care of your siblings, it makes more sence to abandon them for fours year, concentrate hard on getting great results and a good job, then come around to provide support, alternatively you share your meager allowance with them, struggle to finish a four year course is 6 years, end up with a third class and you and your siblings continue suffering for the rest of your lifes, nothing good comes easy, you must suffer first.

adconline:
You are off the mark, because the government has not done anything.So something near free does not exist in Naija. The Naija constitution stipulates that the govt shall provide social benefits to Nigerians. France provides free education up to university. Mind you IMF is headed by France. US provides free education up to High school and WorldBank is headed by US.

ESKOM, which is responsible for power in S/Africa is owned by the govt. Same with France. Public transport in the US is almost free- heavily subsidized by the government.

Hope you know that nigeria is far poorer than these countries you mentioned, provision of free services cost money to somebody, for a country without depth, even if nigeria was curruption free today, it wouldn't still make commercial sence to start with subsidies on petroleum products first, even in this rich countries you mentioned like france, there have been contract demonstrations because a number of these subsidies are becoming unsustainable, hence the constant labour strikes in France,

It has been prooven beyound reasonable doubt that Nigerian government cannot run any business, so why stating that ESKOM is SA is run by government?? I can say for sure that since ESKOM produces 40000MW when run by government, it may as well produce 60000MW in the hands of a private entity, Hence money is still beeen lost, all people in the canoe of government run businesses are try to jump to the speedboats of privately run environments, Government run businesses may give some good results in an environment of reduced corruption, but in Nigeria we have to find a way to sidestep corruption.
Lets change the way we run things

adconline:
You are off the mark, because the government has not done anything.So something near free does not exist in Naija. The Naija constitution stipulates that the govt shall provide social benefits to Nigerians.

The reason you feel that the government has not done anything is because of the way nigerians interprete the bolded,
Government tries to provide everything either free or at a subsidised rate
-Primary, secondary and university education, transportation busses, airlines, airports, power, telecommunications, fuel, water, loans, NNPC petro stations, pipelines, chuches, morsques, pilgramages, football and sports, radios stations, tv stations, etc, etc etc, I can go on and on,
Government is involved in almost everything you can think off, and what is it they say about a jack of all trades Master of none,

Katsumoto:
@ dalover

I apologise if u found my tone condescending; that was not my intention.

That being said, I see a lot of things that may or may not happen in your post but there is no pragmatic solution. There is a teal danger that the subsidy can be removed; how do you propose that the ideas you speak of GET IMPLEMENTED in the current political dispensation and not in a state of Utopia?

Also, how do you mitigate against the negative effects of the removal from being felt by 80% of Nigerians? Please do not ignore the antecedents of the nigerian govt and politicians in your analysis.

If you check my first input into this thread I stated that subsidies are really bad, but removal alone will not bring about the needed benefits, it need to come with a redical departure from socialist ways of thinking, a highly reduced government (to reduce coruption and focus government on it primary goals of being a netral umpire). These two things need to go hand in hand,

DaLover:
I honestly think too many people on this forum are bodered about how to sustain the existing poor masses than how to move the mass of poor people out of poverty into the middle class,
To me all the present policies and laws of the country sustain poverty, if we can close our eyes to the existing poverty and realise that before any good thing comes along, there has to be some suffering, then we will appreciate the need to remove subsidies i.e nothing good comes easy, We need to remove subsidies very quickly.
But removal of subsidies alone cannot change or improve the lot of the nigerian masses, I am thinking a major atitude change by majority of the middle class(as withnessed here in NL) and leadership from overbearing socialist tendencies where the government is deeply involved in business to a more capitalist nature where government is lean, mean and concentrated more on regulation for the benefit of the country.

The fact that The federal and state governments don't depend on peoples taxes to survive means that whould not be answerable to the people.
Removal of subsidies should not come in isolation as the solution to anything, afterall, coruption will quickly erode the gains of any savings,

Whats needs to be none,
1-Quickly privatise all its commercial interest NNPC, NFA, Nigerian air-waste, NEPA etc etc etc, taking care to accomode all the six zones.
2-Bottom to Top model of revenue generation otherwise know as the federal system be properly implemented, All government revenue should come from taxes, individuals-lgas-states-fg, not the other way round.
3-Allow for a free market economy that encourages local production capacity, we are seriously dependent on foreign manufactured goods, Imagine local operating refinaries that sources all/majority of their spares locally,

In summary removal of subsidies is the best way forward if 9ja government is ready to overhall its model of doing things,
presently there are too many people that have built up a system based on sharing of oil revenues, and if this continues we will continue thinking of how to sustain poverty of the masses for many years to come.

Look there is absolutely no way we can keep doing the samething and expect different results, instead of advocating for a fight against corruption, lets all fight for a system that encourages
1-Hardwork and productivity
2-reduced lines of responsibility, your council taxes to your elected neigbour etc
3-competitive neviroment
Starting to fight corruption right now is like trying to patch hole in a ship with a thousand holes, you will sink baby
I advocate for a change in the system of doing thing, GEJ's main focus should be to re-organise the way we go about business in 9ja

adconline:
Too much of rhetorical argument without taking into account facts on the ground. How is Nigeria a socialist driven country when it does not have any social security of safety net for her citizens?
Where is free education? Where is constant power supply? Where is unemployment benefit? Where is security?
IMF is telling us how to run our economy while its' Chief who is alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman who came to clean his $3000/per nite suite is telling us to tighten our belt.

BTW, why is the present government saying that all the federal agencies that were privatized are badly run by Nigerians? Where are Transcorp and Nicon, NITEL etc? Corruption is killing us not subsidies. African farmers make the best cotton in the world, but American cotton farmers who produce at higher prices sell cheaper because of farm subsidies from US government.

Well Nigerian want to hear that they will be given free education, free light, free unemployment, free this and free that, and the politicians promise that, only to discover that it is not possible to achieve because |Nigeria is actually a very poor country in every sense of those words, be it financial or human capital, a friend once told me when you are fighting an enemy, its better to deliver one powerfully blow than many small blows, Nigeria is fighting poverty and economic stagnation, and we have limited resources, to be able to channel this recourses properly by reducing corruption, you reduce corruption by reducing the size of government, to reduce the size of government by limiting government to regulations and policy making funded soley by taxation, A lean mean efficient government, with the private sector running move of the countries activities, includeing urban redevelopment and infrastructural development,

That whan strategic subsidies can come in, be used to uplift sectors for grater benefit, not national jamboree as it being practiced now,

Katsumoto:
So because the govt doesn't depend on income taxes, it shouldn't care about the welfare of its people.
Name one country that privatised all its public corporations and was better for it. Brazil and China are exponents od State Capitalism; they are both doing very well. There are arguments for and against all types of government; the the key is for a nation to select the type of govt that suits it best.
Name one country that depends solely on taxes; just one. Also, since the revenue of Nigeria should come only from taxes, what should Nigeria do with its reserves? Should it give it to charity? Why can Nigeria not pool all its revenues (taxes and revenue from natural resources, agriculture, etc).
If a majority of Nigerians are living on $2 a day, do you honestly think that the govt will be able to function with taxes from its citizens?

Did you bother to read the entire thread before you jumped in? If you did, why did you ignore valid questions that were raised such as endemic corruption and incompetent and corrupt leadership. If you didn't, then take the time to go through the thread first. Do you envisage that all you advocated would be achievable without visionary and competent leadership?

Please don't come back with a free market doctrine; address the issues that are bedeviling Nigeria and stop focusing on some utopian idealism.

Hey Mr don't ask me stupid questions about reading the thread before I jumped in, keeping to your points would do just fine, its also quite daft telling not to come back with free market doctrine, Another arogant posture based on your superiority complex disposition,

the federal government and the 37 states are so large today, because nobody seems to be able to inspire creativity amongst the populace, large government because they want to be involved in everything, collecting dustbins, providing danfo busses, providing okada, government should stay out of business, provide subsidies where they are need in the form of tax breaks, outright dispensing of cash should be avoided like a plague, government this and government that,

World with the phenomenon of capitalism is gradually taking hold in otherwise strong communist countries like china and Russia, people like youo would rather move nigeria in the wrong direction,
Presently our policies are made based on the fact that there is a mass of poor people that need to be sustained, and this just kills us
--How can the poor people pay high nepa tariffs---so let govt run nepa
---How can the poor people pay for high petroleum product----so let govt run it NNPC
---How can the poor people pay for quality football matches---so let govt run NFA
---How can the poor people pay for telephone connectivity-----so let govt run Nitel
---How can the poor people pay for transport services-----so let govt run it,
-----How can the people watch tv at homeso let govt run it,

this is how we have been living since indepencence and it not getting us anywhere, the excuse for not providing efficiently run private services is that the poor masses will suffer, yes initially there will be suffering but on the long run we will be better off, compare the initial suffering that occured when the telecoms companies started in nigeria an now,
Nitel with 200,000 lines at 5naira a minute or GSM companies with 60million lines at 30naira a minute, is it so hard to see why gpovernment should step aside,

For your information the USA, Britain, France depend on only tax, how else do their government make money, apart from corporate and individual taxes, countries like britain, france and others in the EU that operated a lot of state owned outfits are gradually experimenting with m ore private sector involvement (this has not always worked as expected, but the general move is in that direction), In those countries it is generally accepted that government run organisations are less efficient, possessing less zeal and drive than privately run businesses in a competitive enviroment, if you throw in corruption into this the you have a whole new mix then you have the nigeria situation,

Government owning a business or deciding to subsidize any sector should be strategic and result in overall benefits in the long term, where the money is used to sustain poverty as is done here, i just have to say sorry for your future,


As for corruption being the root of our problems, I also disagree with you on this, because to me corruption is like a bacteria that thrives in a dirty enviroment, the dirter your environment, the more the bacteria spreads, and thats how corruption will continue to spread as long as the system structure engourages laziness, government patronages, very large unproductive governments, government involved in all and sundary, creating so many avenues and loopholes for corruption, the environment is such that corruption willl thrive, You can try to fight the corruption within the messedup enviroment like Buhari and ribadu did, but corruption will always fight back as it did with Ibb against Buhari in 1985 or against Ribudu with Ibori in 2008/9
Or you can start by fixing the structure, making the enviroment less suspecitble to corruption, as the telecoms sector was able to deliver connectivity to millions despite the corruption in the government, create competitive environments, side step corruption and make it much easier and more manageble to deal with.

Nigerian Government can depend on Tax, in fact the FG should depend on Tax from the states, states from LGAs, LGAs from wards and corporates entities, wards from council taxes of individuals, he who plays the piper dictates the tune, Government cannot be making money elswhare and dance to the tune of the masses, mind you Those earning less that $2 shouldn't pay taxes, but will look forward to paying as they rise into the middle class, owner of the land or sea own the oil underneath and should explored and pay taxes as well, simple

Reference: I say they should remove the subsidy and government get out of the industry NOW!!! not tomorrow. Do we know how much petrol used to cost when this IMF debate started in the eighties N4.00 a litre. Now its N65.00. Has the heavens fallen. No. Instead of properly administering this subsidy wahala Nigerians have resisted proper pricing and the government has resisted proper investment, yet the price has crept up. Whether we like it or not if crude prices remain north of 100 dollars the price we pay for petrol will get to that much feared N100 per litre sooner or later. Our oil industry is on life support and we keep postponing urgent surgery for short term palliatives. Nigeria needs the private sector. That is the future. Let's stop kidding. Government cannot handle this thing.

Its time we hold them to account. Yes we will pay more for fuel if NNPC and all its assets are sold but the rewards are clear. Efficiently run refineries and distribution by the likes of Shell and AGIP. Then if government wants subsidies it will be paper for paper. You tender your poverty card and get stamps. For those who say crude oil is cheap or free so petrol should I simply laugh. If a river runs through your backyard does that equate to the whole town lining at your door steps day and night for free water. It will cost you something to serve them. The Niger-Delta has paid a higher price than we care to admit. We should pay properly to have their environment put right and the peoples properly compensated.

Once it was said private telecoms will kill us all. We know better today. We pay our bills without subsidy. If we cannot afford cards we do without it. So is electricity, fuel, food or anything else. I refuse to accept electricity or petrol is any different. Nothing is compulsory in the quantities we wish. Crude oil is not oxygen. It is not free. Use what you can afford and run your life according to your abilities.

I will also liken the call of some for the present subsidy to exist while the same government builds new refineries as a family that cooks and eats out regularly. Collosal waste. If you can buy and sell refined products at any price like Saudi Arabia, then why bother refine. Refineries like home cooking are for those who have the basic economic sense, desire independence and have an eye for quality. The IMF is not asking us not to refine. It did not tell us to import. It is we Nigerians out of greed and profiteering that ended up like this so why blame IMF for telling us the truth. Dear forumites if we are going to spend $350 million a month on subsidies and $5 billion dollars a year on new refineries at the same time then when the next thread on power supply, education and roads comes let us ask where we expect the government to get all this money simultaneously and spend it without causing the inflation we are so worried about particularly when we don't want to pay for it.

Let us start a culture of paying properly for what we use whether rich or poor. There are poor people in every nation as there are subsidies in every nation as there are proper businesses controlling economies in every nation. There is in the US too the rain of $4.00 dollar petrol with some not covered by social security. Are all our fellow forumites out there in Yankee covered by US subsidy too. If we don't learn how to develop our economic muscles by taking the horns of tough financial decisions now, the day this crude oil will finish, hmmmm,

Great write up, we are just too socialist in nature,

GenBuhari:
Just wait to see the price when the subsidy is removed

I hope that for once that PDP government would stop being the puppet of the World Bank / IMF though.

We need a government that would take decisions for the benefit of Nigeria and Nigerians and not because IMF dictated to them.

Lets watch this space.

GenBuhari,
Govt providing everything free is getting us nowhere fast, free education, free health, free poverty etc,
Subsidies should not come in blanket reduction of prices across board, they should be strategic to achieving a goal, encouraging competition or improving local capacity or something sensible, they way it is practiced in nigeria just encourages laziness nothing more, nothing less, we have been subsidizing life in 9ja since independence and we are still very good neigbours with poverty, lets try something else,

A lean mean government focused on regulations only

I honestly think too many people on this forum are bodered about how to sustain the existing poor masses than how to move the mass of poor people out of poverty into the middle class,
To me all the present policies and laws of the country sustain poverty, if we can close our eyes to the existing poverty and realise that before any good thing comes along, there has to be some suffering, then we will appreciate the need to remove subsidies i.e nothing good comes easy, We need to remove subsidies very quickly.
But removal of subsidies alone cannot change or improve the lot of the nigerian masses, I am thinking a major atitude change by majority of the middle class(as withnessed here in NL) and leadership from overbearing socialist tendencies where the government is deeply involved in business to a more capitalist nature where government is lean, mean and concentrated more on regulation for the benefit of the country.

The fact that The federal and state governments don't depend on peoples taxes to survive means that whould not be answerable to the people.
Removal of subsidies should not come in isolation as the solution to anything, afterall, coruption will quickly erode the gains of any savings,

Whats needs to be none,
1-Quickly privatise all its commercial interest NNPC, NFA, Nigerian air-waste, NEPA etc etc etc, taking care to accomode all the six zones.
2-Bottom to Top model of revenue generation otherwise know as the federal system be properly implemented, All government revenue should come from taxes, individuals-lgas-states-fg, not the other way round.
3-Allow for a free market economy that encourages local production capacity, we are seriously dependent on foreign manufactured goods, Imagine local operating refinaries that sources all/majority of their spares locally,

In summary removal of subsidies is the best way forward if 9ja government is ready to overhall its model of doing things,
presently there are too many people that have built up a system based on sharing of oil revenues, and if this continues we will continue thinking of how to sustain poverty of the masses for many years to come.

chines4:
Must this degenerate to tribal war. Can't we just discuss as Nigerians and stop all these Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba mentality.

No it musn't, if we all agree that no one is better than the other,
some may be lucker to have experienced education first, or be blessed with natural
resources, but that still does't make them better,

If that understanding of equality is observed by most, than there shall be peaceful progress.

Chines you have to understand the discussion in the context of the title and the underlying issues,

Well the discussion is quite obvious, don't need to repeat it,
The underlying issue is that proponents of the ACN are saying that their party is the one to
lead us out of the mess called nigeria, and we on the other hand are saying capital NO,
not with ethnic brand of politics, and definately not with false mis-representations of performance
by the ACN. Especially when it has been proven beyond doubt that ACN is just as corrupt as PDP,
but with tribal afiliations.

IMO what is required is a party that can carry all along, has a clear vision on how to rapidly industrial
the country and make it productive, not all these populist policies of free this, free that, things that
are unsustainable and depend on oil revenue, so far no party has been able to do that,
But for people to want to use tricks to bambozule me to a tribal party is just outrightly shameful.

igbo boy:
what is the benefit of the so called education in the southwest? Is it english that is hard for you? I think jonathan mistake was delivering that speech in english, he could have allowed obj to read it in Yoruba so maybe you guys would have understood. He was referring to the politicians and not the people yet you guys just want to add salt and pepper into his speech, una sef

Igbo boy to buttress your points, This points to exactly what beaf is saying,
Lets do the logic,
----GEJ insults ACN leaders(A political party) as rascals
----ACN leaders say GEJ insulted yoruba people

hence
ACN=Yoruba

or else the quarel would have been between ACN and PDP,
but because ACN is actually seen as a yoruba party by NLers and
ACN leaders , they accuse GEJ of insulting yoruba people,

If for instance I said PDP people were rascals, no specific region would
feel insulted,

Trying to sell a regional party as a national one when it is not says a number of things,
which the nigerian public reject entirely. You are indirectly telling us that you are a
better and wiser people who would lead us out from our economic depression,.

You have taken a erformaing governor and wrapped tan ethnic party around him in a bid to sell
the rest of Nigeria falsehood, unfortunately for these people who feel they are better and more
advanced than us, we can see through this falsehood.

I have made this analogy before and I will make it again to press home my points,
The average black american will always reject a white man who has ties to the
KKK, no matter how good an administrator he is, no matter his track record of achievements,

Now in Nigeria, we will reject a tribal party in any form, from appearing at the national stage,
Just ask Buhari, or Awo's friends

Beaf:
That is another topic for discussion and several threads have been opened already. Sadly for you, the corruption you percieve in PDP has nothing to do with the definitions of fascism or ethnic bigotry.
This thread though, is about ACN. Deal with it, please.

I agree that fascism is a bit of a strong word, but it is better to heed the alarm now; the bells are ringing loudly. Below is the definition of fascism from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

It is easy to recognise ACN ticking the vast percentage of the boxes above. It is pursuing a very dangerous path in a multi-ethnic and under developed country like Nigeria. ACN can be successful without going down dark routes, there really is a thin thread to the slippery slope.
I don't know what you make of the headline below, but to me and many others, it is very alarming:

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201102222451954

There are very many quotes where that came from, I'm sure we can even feel several pages with quotes that seem to have popped right out of a fascist handbook.

Beaf its been obvious, based on oging discussions that ACN is a tribal party, but this fashist defination throws an entire new light on the matter, ethnic nationalim, authoritaranism, socialism, althese remind of the natioanlist, socialist party of germany earlier in the century, the dreaded NAZI party, we all know how that ended, lol, using the broom as insigna instead of the swasticka, ACN can never be credible opposition to the pdp as long as it remains a tribal party, the best it will do is to inspire the rise of other tribal parties,

its a real sad day when people who should know better decide to play around with word to achieve other mean ings, the topic of the post is about ACN being a yoruba tribal party or not?
For those who say it is not, let answer the following questions, maybe they may change your understanding of the subject at hand.
Is CPC a northern party or not?
Is APGA an IBO party or not?
Is KKK a WHITE suppremaisist party or not?
Were AG,UPN, AD yoruba parties or not?

Now right now, I mean right now as we debate not 2015 but 2011, is ACN a yoruba tribal party or not? if the average nigerian on the street knows the answer to this simple question, y has it become a rocket science issue on NL,
If the key actors that ran AD are those running ACN, then for all intents and purposes the party remains the same, from my earliest recorde memory and the history, the yorubas have alwys felt better working alone together, many may not want to agree, but there exist this 'we r better than othr nigerians atitude' amongst the average yaruba man. In case the only reason why PDP ever ruled in the SW was because the yourba man was president at the time, after the yoruba man left the status quo had to return to how it has always been, yorubas in a yoruba party and the rest of nigeria doing their seperate thing,
The movement of the SW back to ACN/AD/UPN/AG (what ever alphabet) you choose to call it actually has less to do with PDP performance and more to do with the 'we should be together mentality' of the avarage yoruba man on the street, the poor performance of the PDP is a very convienent excuse for this activity, Now lets look at performance,
If fashola is doing great, does that translate to ACN doing great What about the other ACN\AD governors we know? What was the performance of the AD party in the SW before PDP took over? Does the fact that Donal duke and rotimi performed very well make PDP a great party? Can we try to be honest or should we call spade a shovel to change to meaning?
Now imagine an APGA governor inn Oyo state, what is your first reactionI mean ur true inner most feeling, not the polished one you would like to present,
Some one said that Ngige will convience Ibos to jump on the ACN trins, while I very much doubt that, I would say that if a good numder of Ibos start takingin AC N as theri party than it becomes a southern party, or a national party if same applies accross the country, but until then it remains a yoruba party with a sprinkling of politicians from outside the SW zone.

Now as a tribal party, other nigerians do not what you to control their afairs, hence nigerians rejection of Buhari as president on a tribal platform, Awolowo also suffereed the same fate and wht makes us feel that someone like fashola, whos performance cannot be measured to Awolos woulld stand a better chance on a tribal platformfood for tot