₦airaland Forum

texazzpete: Stop reasoning like a little child. It doesn't matter if her personal fortune can buy 1 million of the cars. Were the cars bought using Taxpayers money? Yes! Is it not a significant issue for a cash strapped agency to buy these cars for her? yes!

FYI, there was significant noise of the Pension scam issue. But like most episodes of corruption under this present administration, it's been swept under the carpet.



Provide proof that most of the people shouting here are linked to the corrupt waste of taxpayers funds running into hundreds of millions of Naira. Provide that proof or STFU.




By all means, if you have proof of corruption in any Government agency/ministry, post it here or send to Sahara Reporters.

now let's check this out... I'm a minister, i need some agencies to buy a couple of vehicles for ME and all i want are tundra trucks!!! Hahaha.... Hilarious. What i'm saying mister is that the allegations are getting ridiculous... One day it will degenerate to allegations of a parastatal using government funds to buy food and dustbins for ministers! Now trucks are meant for certain terrains and must have some use in the aviation sector... Is this rocket science? The real question is... Why were they bought? Not responding with the default answer on the lips of people so blinded that they cant reason.
Now why am i irritated? For the past 2 weeks it's bin-'airport roof leaks- it's stella', 'money disappears- it's stella','even when boko haram strikes and innocent lives are lost' it's a no brainer- it's stella, the word on everybodies lips that's old enough to hold a phone and type on the web.
There's corruption but all these childish ridiculous stories are making the story of the bmw cars bought at ridiculous prices look stupid and concorted. The rate at which they're springing up obviously smacks of desperation on the part of some people to get rid of her And they're adding to the other stupid issues distracting us from discussing important things like the unending strikes and threats of strike.
So think again... And pls try to stop using 'stfu' on people writing their views online, Your view is yours, mine is mine...

everyday stella this stella that... My ears are buzzing and despite the fact i hate corruption, this is obviously getting childish and amateurish. How much is a tundra? And it is a truck not a luxury car. This woman has enough personal money to buy these cars so something is amiss. Suddenly dino melaye and all the other rot axed or sacked from the govt are authorities on corruption...
Pension money running into billions stolen... No noise, but stella's name is suddenly causing nightmares. Dont get me wrong, she's certainly corrupt but most of the people shouting do worse that's why it's disgusting
My bit- maybe we should start putting up posts for every government ministry because most are worse than aviation ministry eg petroleum, oil, nnpc all criminals

geeez: Last year a 10MW power plant was built for €12m (N2.6bn) in a country that had the technical and material requirements - Germany

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/14/watch-the-construction-of-a-10-mw-solar-power-plant-in-germany/

This is a 10.34MW plant for N3.2bn in a developing country

Inflation Rate in Nigeria between last year and this year stood at 8.7%

So tell me what makes the Power Plant overpriced?

sorry for interrupting, no negative intent just a comment. The link you posted is for a solar power plant not a gas powered plant. Solar panels are very costly and u can imagine the amount used to generate that amount of megawatts... All for clean energy. Nice move by LASG but i dont think the two plants are comparable...

omonnakoda: You are illiterate and a big liar HE NEVER said that

yes sir, and u're so literate that you dont know the meaning of illiteracy. I didnt create the sensational headline on the thread i quoted, it's people like you that talk about what they dont know that create such threads... In summary, get a life

omonnakoda: Yes is Fashola said so it is a BIG PIPEDREAM even bigger than the Ibaka one but if he did not then you are just a hircine wether

he did... there's a thread on nairaland about it, so much gushing on it since it wasn't about plans for ibaka seaport... no one has actually called it a pipe dream on the thread so please express your new sentiments there freely
here's the link https://www.nairaland.com/1443593/eko-atlantic-city-1200-skyscrapers/3#18243044

headline-
'eko atlantic to have 1000skyscapers'- fashola.
The above is an exact example of a pipe dream for the OP to fixate on. Face your problems and leave others trying to progress alone

sunstyle: a whole minister is a riff raff hmmm what a shame on d president 4 appointing a riff raff as education minister.

it was amaechi that gladly recommended him and lobbied for him to be appointed... Birds of the same feather

so ffk is now being addressed as a 'clean' apc chieftain... When did he join apc? I'm laughing so hard right now @ the so called progressives who want to burn the country over and over again

what's happening in benin?

guess it's now a shortcut to scholarship... expecting another stupid announcement of a grant soon

By contrast – and I challenge any Nigerian reading this to disagree – there have been no discernible improvements in Nigeria in the past decade (outside of Abuja, where all the politicians happen to live). The infrastructure is crumbling, electricity shortages abound, Lagos airport is a national disgrace, project after project gets sanctioned but rarely started, never mind completed, before the funds disappear, and unemployment is rocketing. I heard somewhere that 2m people are added to the workforce every year in Nigeria. To do what, exactly? There are no jobs. One source of employment for young men was to drive okadas, until they abruptly got banned in Lagos last year. The roads are now much better, but you now have tens of thousands of young men with no source of income and no hope of a job. Since the ban came into effect, crime – robberies, car-jackings, burglaries – have increased by an order of magnitude, even in the rich neighbourhoods of Lagos previously thought to be safe. It’s not difficult to see why.

Meanwhile, Nigerian senators – of whom there are 109 – enjoy an official package worth $1.5m per year, which they recently requested to be increased to $2.2m per year. By contrast, the US President gets an annual salary of $400k. Given the unofficial incomes of a Nigerian senator through graft and backhanders is probably 3-5 times that, we can probably estimate most of these guys are taking home something in the order of $4-5m each year. Yet they put in for a 46% increase, in a country where 45% of the population lives beneath the poverty line. This is hardly surprising for a group of politicians, and far from unique to Nigeria. The problem is, this behaviour is repeated through every strata of society from the very top of the government to the lowest street urchin: whatever is there, I want all of it; and I want more. I saw wealthy middle-class Nigerians move to ensure drivers did not enjoy a fringe benefit worth about $10 per week. If you threatened to report a low-level official for corruption, he would usually tremble with fear of his boss finding out: not because his boss shuns corruption, but because he will want to know why the proceeds of this particular scam haven’t been coming to him. We already had the example of a multi-million dollar oil cargo being held up until somebody’s relative received a kick-back worth $10. If any amount of new money arrives in the economy – due to a new oil project, for example – those who are already wealthy, via their societies, organisations, unions, and political connections will ensure 100% of that new money will go to them. Insofar as sharing and dividing the spoils goes, it is between groups who are already of the same wealth. If any trickles down to the next layer, it is almost by accident, and to be corrected at the first opportunity.

I came to the conclusion about 2 years into my assignment that Nigeria is probably the only genuinely classless society I have seen. Class is very different from wealth. Upper class people can be dirt poor (bankrupt dukes) and lower class people can be fabulously rich (Russian oligarchs). Class is about behaviour and attitudes, not wealth (a point made very well in Kate Fox’s excellent book Watching the English). And insofar as behaviour goes, I didn’t see a shred of difference between the top politicians, down through the officials in the national authorities, through the middle class professionals, through the service providers, right down to the area boys. The behaviour was identical across all strata: I want more money, and I will do absolutely anything to get it. If you were to replace the politicians – let’s say our 109 senators from before – with 109 random people from the Nigerian citizenry, you would get no change in behaviour. You could repeat the experiment a thousand times, and you would get no change. There is no ruling class in Nigeria, there is just a set of rulers. Where any change is expected to come from I don’t know.

I believe one of the root causes is the bizarre situation where being dishonest is not socially frowned upon. Not really, anyway. If somebody is caught with his hand in the till, he is not shunned by his peers. The whole situation is treated with utter indifference, and sometimes admiration (if the scam is particularly imaginative). Societal pressure plays an enormous role in shaping the behaviour of a population, probably more so than the brute force of the law, and whilst all Nigerians complain about the crime and dishonesty so prevalent in their country (it affects them far more than the expats), they remain utterly silent when a perpetrator is identified from within their peer group. At best, you’ll get a shrug and a statement to the effect of “that’s just how it is”. If you’re a Nigerian caught running a scam against your employer, your colleagues aren’t going to think any less of you.

In fact, the only behaviour I managed to identify which would cause a Nigerian to be shunned by his peers and made an outcast, is if he decided he wasn’t a believer and therefore wasn’t going to be showing up in church (or mosque) any more. I don’t think I met a single Nigerian who didn’t attend either church or mosque, and religion plays an enormous – possibly the key – role in Nigerian society. I’m not going to go into this topic, mainly because I’m not reflexively anti-religion, but I do suspect that a lot of Nigerians justify unsavoury behaviour during the week by going to church on Sunday and washing themselves of sin. In this respect, the place is very similar to the Gulf States.

Now a reminder of what I said at the beginning of this post. Degree matters. You will find every type of individual in Nigeria, including the kind, funny, generous, honest, and everything else that is good in a person. You’ll find lots of them too. I had the pleasure of working with some great individuals, who were genuinely skilled, could apply themselves, held positions on merit, and were extremely well-mannered and respectful. The team of Nigerians I managed was one of the nicest bunch of people you’d ever hope to meet, and easy to manage as well. (My theory is that engineers are often like this: if you’re bone-idle and want to earn money dishonestly, there are easier things to do than an engineering degree.) The problem these decent people have is that they are vastly outnumbered by those who are not. For every Nigerian who is honest, well-mannered, and diligent you’ll find a hundred whose only goal is to get some money whilst expending the minimum amount of effort possible. If they can use personal connections, lies, or trickery in lieu of learning a useful skill and applying it, they’ll take that option every time. It’s a numbers thing: if 50% of Nigerians were more like 10% of them, the country would be okay. And that’s the fundamental problem of Nigeria summed up in one sentence: way too many dickheads.

When I was bored in our morning meetings – which was on most days – I would canvas my team’s opinion on certain things, often the state of the country. They were by and large in despair. Nigerians are famously optimistic, but this is often through desperation. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than on the occasion when a bank put a Christmas tree up on a roundabout with “presents” at the bottom, and the next morning all the presents had been ripped open. If somebody thinks a box under a tree on a roundabout contains an X-Box, then you’ve gone way beyond optimism and into desperation or delusion.

My lads were a happy enough bunch – as Nigerians usually are – but had no hope of things getting better any time soon. I ventured the suggestion that a return to military dictatorship might be on the cards, and I got no objection. One of them explained that during the times of military dictatorship, it was only a handful of people at the top creaming off money. Now, with democracy, it’s tens of thousands. And during the military dictatorship, crime was much lower, and few had concerns about personal security. Democracy is all well and good, but I’ve often said that it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. I am sure the world will howl with outrage and impose sanctions should Nigeria undergo another military coup, but few can deny that democracy is failing to deliver peace, prosperity, and basic services to Nigeria. I remain far from convinced that many Nigerians would not welcome such an event.

So what did I think of my time in Nigeria? In truth, I didn’t like it, but not for the reasons you might think. The worst thing, by far, was not being able to go anywhere and do anything at the weekends. The security situation did not allow us to travel beyond a very restricted area of Lagos, and even if we could there wasn’t much to do. I like walking about with a camera, camping, exploring by going to a town and drinking lots, skiing, driving around, visiting people, riding a bike, and hill walking. There was no scope to do any of that in Lagos, for reasons usually related to security. That meant for weekend after weekend after weekend there was nothing to do but watch sport on TV, go to the gym, and lie by the pool. Those with families did whatever families do; the single guys went to bars and clubs and picked up Nigerians girls; guys like me – married, single status – didn’t do very much at all. I used the time well, learned French, read countless books, improved on the guitar, and got fit. Nigeria has excellent weather, and even better pineapples, but I would much rather have spent my time doing something else in another place.

Those restrictions were by far the worst aspect of my Nigerian assignment. Insofar as the daily life in Lagos went, with all its challenges, that was manageable. You get used to anything eventually, and at some point I was able to shrug off almost everything Nigeria had to throw at me. I never quite got used to the traffic, so used to plan my day to avoid the worst of it. Dealing with the Nigerians took some getting used to, a process that was eased considerably when I figured out they weren’t the most difficult factor to consider. There’s rarely any point in getting upset about locals anywhere, because they are the raw material you have to work with. If you go to Nigeria, you will have to work with Nigerians, so deal with it. Some aspects of it were frustrating no doubt, but what can I do? Nothing.

What infuriated me more was that some of the expats I encountered were hopelessly unqualified and too inexperienced to be there. Nigeria is a difficult place to attract talent to, and as such – like a lot of oil towns worldwide – those who end up coming are usually way below the standard that should be demanded. Unbelievably, incompetence and stupidity seem to be imported at great expense into Nigeria. This annoyed me considerably, as it did when I encountered a similar state of affairs in Sakhalin. If you are going to come into somebody else’s country on the basis that you have skills they don’t, you’d better make damned sure you have those skills and they are on full view. If I had a quid for every time I’ve seen somebody fail this basic test in the oil business, I could retire and bump yachts in Monaco with Roman Abramovich. I’m pretty sure I upset a few people in Nigeria, and maybe there were a few who didn’t want me there, but nobody could accuse me of not adding value. Nobody could point the finger at me and ask “Why, exactly, do we keep this guy?” If nobody else, the lads in my team didn’t mind me. I gave them direction, support, and cover and got somewhere close to the best out of them. What infuriated me more than anything was coming across a Nigerian with a reputation for being useless, and on further investigation learning that they’d never been given a job description, never been given any meaningful direction, had no understanding of the context of their job in the department or the department in the company, and had just been plonked at a desk and expected to do something. I came across this far more than I should have, and it pissed me off. Fair enough, if somebody is useless then call them useless; but first you have to give them every opportunity to succeed, and only then can you call them useless if they don’t perform. Hey, you could even call this practice management! There was a serious lack of it in Nigeria. How many half-decent Nigerians are shoved in the corner of an office and written off as useless in this manner I don’t know, but I’ll bet it’s a lot, and it does the place a serious disservice.

As final proof that I didn’t dislike the place that much, I signed up to another 3 years of involvement when I had the opportunity to get away from Nigeria for good. I learned some things during my assignment in Lagos, and that knowledge is useful. I know Nigeria, and what it’s like to work with Nigerian companies and Nigerian people on a Nigerian project. A lot of people don’t. I’m used to it, it doesn’t hold any mystery or reason for fear as it did when I first arrived almost 3 years ago.

I’ll be back there at various points in the future, but honestly I hope I don’t have to live there permanently again for the reasons I stated. I don’t consider it 3 years wasted – far from it – and I didn’t hate it. There were moments, plenty of them, where I positively enjoyed it. And as assignments in Nigeria go, that’s not too bad.
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← An Update on Melbourne

http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/?p=1734


i think he said it as it is and mostly from his own view... comments needed

stumbled on this article on a blog while browsing and decided to share, too long but definitely worth the read.

The End of an Assignment in Nigeria
Posted on August 22, 2013 by Tim Newman

Okay, so now I’ve got a post about Melbourne out of the way it’s time for me to say a little something about Nigeria. With the exception of a week in October when I need to clear out my apartment, I’ve pretty much left Nigeria. My assignment there officially finished on 31st July, although I will have to return for business trips over the course of the next 3 years because the project I am on in Melbourne is for Nigeria.

Somebody once said that there is much to write about Russia, but when one tries you can never find the words to write the first line. Nigeria is much the same, and indeed there are many similarities between the two countries. I have tried to describe Nigeria to people who have never been there, and failed on most occasions. A colleague of mine stopped telling people back home about the place because he was getting a reputation as somewhat of a bullshitter, even though he didn’t exaggerate anything. I was at a seminar in Paris some time ago and I was describing the working life in Nigeria to a group of Frenchmen. One of them quipped that I was exaggerating and that “it couldn’t be that bad”, which prompted another Frenchman, sitting beside me, to nudge me in the ribs and remark “wait until he does his Nigerian assignment”. He was based in Port Harcourt.

Nigeria has a reputation, and I knew about it before I arrived. Most of what I’d heard proved to be completely true. Almost all of it, in fact. To get a general picture of Nigeria, just read the news, and you’ll not be far wrong. It isn’t a place like Russia, the US, or France which surprise visitors when they see the contrast between what they’ve imagined (based on exposure to their tourists or foreign policy) and the individuals they encounter. But beyond the general picture, there are some subtleties worth mentioning.

It’s first important to understand that degree is as important as form. Russians, faced with criticism of corruption in their country, often retort that corruption is found everywhere, even in the UK. Which is true, but in many countries it does not infest every authority, office, and institute like it does in Russia. It is the degree, or extent, of corruption which makes Russia different from the UK, not the form. Understanding this concept is important in describing Nigeria.

There is no getting away from the fact that corruption in Nigeria has infested almost every aspect of life, work, and society. I can’t think of a single area where I didn’t encounter a scam of some sort. Some of them were pretty normal – policemen hassling motorists for bribes, for example – with others being less common elsewhere. Filling brand named alcohol bottles with local hooch was widespread practice. Not so bad in itself, but these were being sold through supposedly legitimate suppliers and turning up in established bars. Others were unique to Nigeria. I knew a guy in charge of oil shipments for a foreign oil company who received a call from somebody in the authorities saying he was not going to release the multi-million dollar cargo until somebody had bought his cousin $10 worth of phone credit. My acquaintance found himself going to the shop, buying a phone card, and handing it over to some scruffy bloke who showed up at his office in order to allow his crude oil out of the country.

The corruption, theft, and graft can take many forms: falsifying a CV (I don’t mean enhancing, I mean pretending you’re a Lead Piping Engineer of 12 years experience when actually, until yesterday, you were a fisherman); selling positions in a company; stealing diesel from the storage tanks you’re paid to protect; issuance of false material certificates; impersonating an immigration officer to access an office, from which you then tap up the people within to fund your latest venture; selling land which isn’t yours; deliberately running down the country’s refining capacity in order to partake in the lucrative import of fuels; falsifying delivery notes of said refined fuels in order to receive greater government subsidies; deliberately restricting the country’s power generation capacity in order to benefit from the importation of generators (which must be run on imported fuel); theft of half-eaten sandwiches and opened drink containers from the office fridge; tinkering with fuel gauges at petrol stations to sell customers short; conspiring with company drivers to issue false receipts indicating more fuel was supplied than actually was; supplying counterfeit safety equipment; falsifying certificates related to professional competence (e.g. rope access work); paying employees less than stipulated in their contract (or not at all); cloning satellite TV cards, meaning the legitimate user gets their service cut off when the other card is in use (the cards are cloned by the same people who issue the genuine cards); the list is literally endless. There is no beginning or end to corruption in Nigeria, it is a permanent fixture.

Nepotism is rife: family members are employed and promoted before anyone else. Outright theft is rife: from a pen lying on a desk, to billions from the state coffers. Dishonesty is rife: from the state governors to the street urchin, lying to enrich yourself is the norm. You name the scam, it is being done in Nigeria. Eventually, nothing surprises you.

As I said before, you’ll find such practices everywhere, but to nowhere near the extent found in Nigeria.

Apparently it wasn’t always like this. There was a time, probably from around the 1970s to 1990s, when Nigeria had a reasonably diverse economy. Besides the oil and gas, they had agriculture, manufacturing and assembly (Peugeot set up an assembly plant in Nigeria in the mid-1970s), brewing (there is a both a Guinness and a Heineken brewery), refining, construction, and pharmaceuticals. Some of these survive today. There were decent universities, and students wishing to graduate had to apply themselves. Security wasn’t much of a concern to the average citizen.

I don’t know the details, but at some point in the 1990s one of the military dictators decided to flood the place with oil money in order to buy support. This had the effect of drowning every other form of enterprise and ensuring that oil and gas was the only game in town. This is bad in itself, but by no means unique to Nigeria. What was worse is that this quickly instilled a mentality across Nigeria that there was a lot of money up for grabs, and getting your hands on it wasn’t in any way related to honest efforts or applying yourself to something constructive. Nigeria became a place where if you’re not getting your hands on some of the oil money, either directly or indirectly, then you’re going nowhere. With oil money washing over the whole country like a tidal wave, soon everyone was trying to secure their own piece of the action, using fair means or foul. Imagine throwing a huge box of sweets into a playgroup shouting “Grab what you can!”, and the chaos that ensues will be similar to what happened to Nigeria on a national scale.

At least, this is what I gather happened – I may be wrong – but for sure, the current situation reflects what I’ve described. The economy is funded almost exclusively from oil and gas revenues, and everything else is merely feeding off that. The new hotels in Lagos, the growth of capital city of Abuja, the importation of luxury goods, the Audi and Porsche dealerships, the sky-rocketting real estate prices, the money earmarked for infrastructure projects, the increase in flight passengers, all of it is directly or indirectly linked to the oil money. Okay, maybe there is some hyperbole in there. Agriculture still makes up the lion’s share of GDP, and the services sector is booming. Advertising is a big industry in Lagos, although the most common thing you see advertised is advertising space. But nobody is going to get anywhere herding cattle, picking pineapples, or working in a sawmill. Even the owners won’t be earning that much, not if that’s their only income. There is very little opportunity to get rich, or even advance, unless you are somehow connected to the supply of oil money.

[b]One of the results of this national free-for-all is the formation of groups, societies, associations, and unions whose raison d’être is to obtain as much money and benefits for their members as possible. This isn’t much different from Europe in respect of trade unions, but groups and subgroups form at micro-levels with sometimes comical precision. The Lagos Association of Road Maintenance Engineers, Roundabout and Lay-by Division, 4th Department. The Nigerian Association of Water Truck Drivers, Lagos Chapter. Membership of one or more of these associations is both essential and compulsory: essential because an individual would get trampled very quickly in the general melee of Nigeria, and compulsory in the sense that you have almost no chance of being allowed to quietly ply your trade without paying dues to some group or other. It’s not clear what the legal standing of a lot of these groups is, but it’s often hard to tell how they differ from a standard extortion racket. One of the most powerful unions in Lagos, the transport union, used to shake down any okada (motorcycle taxi) driver passing through their checkpoints, claiming the money was used “to protect them from the police”. I doubt the money was used in such a manner, but people do need protection from the police in Lagos. Not that the okada drivers had any say in the matter: membership was automatic, and the union muscle would beat any non-compliant driver or confiscate his vehicle. The power of the oil and gas workers unions is legendary, ensuring their members enjoy pay and benefits which are the highest of any local staff in the world, and often outstrip those of the expatriates.[/b]

This in itself might not be so damaging, but ubiquitous to all competing factions is a rapacity the likes of which I doubt can be found anywhere else on such a scale. There is a culture so prevalent that it is a defining characteristic of Nigeria whereby no amount is ever enough, and no sum too small to be pilfered. There comes a point in the career of most people who have gotten rich, either legitimately or otherwise, where they stop chasing the small stuff and are only interested in adding to their pile if the increase will be substantial. The police chief of a sizeable Thai resort town has his fingers in many pies, but he’s not interested in shaking down street vendors. His minions might in order to supplement their salaries, but generally once the boss has his cut of most of the action, he’s not interested in sweeping up every last baht. As a result, commerce can continue relatively unmolested. The same is roughly true amongst the Sheikhs of the Middle East. Bung the Crown Prince a few million for the contract, and he’ll allow the project activities to go ahead pretty freely. He’s not interested in making an extra $10k by insisting you hire his brother’s lorry fleet to transport the gravel. Such restraint may also be practical: the dodgy official in the UK isn’t going to be interested in taking pennies if he risks getting fired or going to jail, he’ll have a minimum price he’ll work for.

But Nigeria has the same problem I saw in Russia: an almost pathological insistence of securing for yourself 100% of everything that is available, and not a kopek or kobo less. I have observed before that Russians would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something, and the same is true – but on a far greater scale – in Nigeria. The inequality in Nigeria is horrific. The middle-classes are tiny, those who are neither stinking rich nor mired in poverty. As it happens, most of the Nigerians I worked with fell into this category: lucky enough to have well-paying jobs, but not ordering Porsche Cayennes for each family member. Statistically, almost all Nigerians are dirt poor. A very few are stinking rich. Again, a manageable problem in itself, but the rich haven’t finished yet. Indeed, they’re only just getting started. I spoke to a couple of Angolans in a seminar once, and they said that although their ruling classes had enriched themselves immeasurably, they were at least spending some money on the country, and improvements were noticeable. The reason the Russians accept with a shrug the siloviki helping themselves to millions is because they (rightly) feel this is inevitable and – more importantly – life is actually improving in Russia and has been doing so since they came to power. Sure, it’s a slow improvement and life is still hard, but they are at least moving in the right direction (for how long is a discussion for another post). There have been improvements in infrastructure in Russia, the new Sheremetovo airport to name one example.

Clerverly: In a Nutshell
1. War Against Corruption (WAC)
2. Food Security. (FS)
3. Accelerated Power Supply (APS)
4. Integrated Transport Network. (ITN)
5. Free Education (FE)
6. Devolution Of Power (DP)
7. Accelerated Economic Growth (AEG)
8. Affordable Health Care.

These Would Be Achieved Through

“Our guiding philosophy will derive its impetus from these seven principles: Belief in, and the fear of God; upholding the rule of law; preserving national unity; pursuit of a just and egalitarian society; building of strong institutions; commitment to social justice and economic progress; and promoting a representative and functional participatory democracy.

we've been listing all these points since the 50s... Each generation of nigerians have been defrauded with these same lame jingles. Like olumide above said, we want to know 'how'- the exact strategy and statistics, not 'what' we all already obviously know. Because of our docility, politicians and their proganda machinery now think nigerians are dumb... Same old thing, no ideology

thanks for the reminder

all i saw was someone's head being repeatedly cracked open with a mace... All u guys justifying that action and narrating an unseen prequel are the real problems of nigeria- not gej or amaechi

nigerians embrace political parties like they are supporting european football clubs... Air of change my foot, whoever thinks apc really is fresh air or new uncorrupted ideology is deluded. Big obvious surprise, they're all the same, filled with sidelined politicians seeking relevance and desiring to dip their fingers in the pie

Eko Ile: You are basically indicting and furhter nailing your incompetent governor..

1. The hospitals you are talking about were built by the previous administration and not your governor

2. Your governor is yet to build a single clinic after almost 8 years in office

3. So as you stated that the GH are very busy and over burdened, why is your governor yet to build one single clinic to help out?

Answer, he's busy buying luxury jets, jeeps for celebrities, sending people to Dubai for wedding, buying luxury Mercedes Benz vans..

i think u're hell bent on reinforcing your propaganda for whoever that it has made your sight selective.
First correction- i was a corper in the state, serving, he was not my governor.

2nd correction- my emphasis was on function or utilization or usefulness and it was not about a beautiful empty structure in a desert or forest. Akwa ibom has newer hospitals, there was one in oron area that i was posted too, fine hospital in a former speaker's village, equipment, gadgets but no patients.i asked to be redeployed after a week and they moved me to gh, ikot ekpene
Lagos state also has a lot of old structures or hospitals too, i passed by island maternity recently and from the outside it looked dilapidated- you need not be told of the huge workload within...
So please shelf all this talk and focus more on service delivery and more available manpower... Not beautiful structures

now,enough of the lies, i worked in gen hospital ikot ekpene 5yrs ago during youth service and those buildings you see are part of a long history. that hospital is older than the state and the work load on it is more than 4 gen hospitals combined....
comparing it to new empty structures is obscene and pls their are more modern general hospitals in other LGAs.
please, enough of empty beautiful functionless hospital buildings,that hospital is doing akwa ibom state a great service with the workload on it

life with mtn has been very distressing and painful, dstv bills have caused some physical and mentalsuicides in nigeria... Maybe we should all learn xenophobia from our african brothers, head to mtn headquarters and throw their hardworking execs down the stairs ignoring the guilty shareholders of the company... My 2 cents

Omo_Tier1: What investigation do you need? An Aircraft that was allowed to fly in the country sky since 2012, even when one of the most strictest Aviation regulator was at the helm of affairs, the same agency under one nonentity will suddenly wake up and say the Aircraft was illegal brought into the country...

Tell me, why hasn't those who have been collecting landing dues from the River State government being suspended and made to face the law for allowing the Aircraft to fly the Nigeria skies for months?

that's no reason. Some people go about without paying tax, drive about without license and rsvg is no different...
Good for goodluck, he's finally wiser and fighting his opponents with the same weapons they shamelessly use on others.
Let the games begin, show all of them who's the president, obj never apologized for hunting idiots who think they can outshine the master down. Amaechi must know he's playing a dangerous game, a perceived toothless dog may be hiding it's fangs. Ask dsp alameisegha

your doctors are leaving the country in droves and your guys are here bickering about the ratio of paediatricians to children. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH DOCTORS IN NIGERIA! get it into your heads. i realized. that during youth service and it was heart wrenching seeing the mass of people queuing to see the few doctors available... most times, even in the south, 1-3 doctors per LGA, cities give a false sense of plenty because they conglomerate in teaching hospitals and where they can get a better life. and your politicians enter airplanes and fly off to go and see them...lol. Nigerian physicians are booming outside.
as for saying that a doc who cant do caesarean section and some other surgeries is a bad doctor, i completely disagree. it was so in the era where they were very very few doctors and people were messing around with people's life and getting away with it. medical litigation is real and you must do what u are truly trained and certified to do. many of such docs may have been doing surgery for years only to realise that they've been doing the wrong things and maiming pts. people actually can acquire those skills through their personal private practice if they meet a good mentor or they learn by fire or force during youth service when u realise u're the only hope in an LGA of hopeless people...
but the teaching is that if it reaches a certain level that is above ur basic training, refer to a specialist. very soon, just graduating in nigeria will not be enough, family medicine/general practice is now a discipline... ignorant docs beware lest you fall prey to hawks who will sue u for ur last penny when there's a complication u cant handle. going for residency is the only way to learn...

These politicians are all the same so stop the comparisons... Lagos state just recently hosted the national sports festival in teslim balogun stadium so the recent renovation and clean up will still be in place. Maybe we should compare national stadium to teslim balogun stadium when we're hosting world cup or something else big

nigerians are not smart... U tribalistic fools are here bickering while the whole article was actually about WALE BABALAKIN AND HIS BUSINESS CONCERNS!!!! You guys should calm down and read carefully... The 'bribed' useless writer is trying to stoke up ethnic flames to achieve his aims.NIGERIANS PLEASE LEARN TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES AND STOP INSULTING YOURSELVES!!!

onila: sharrap

loooool! On point both ways, nerves were touched

The guy was lip syncing.... Mouth couldn't even move with the recording played but all in all we were entertained

a car?!!! After 'kukere' i thought he only wanted their 'waists' or rather 'waste'

naija!!! going to mali was the best decision strategically though the decision was made by our leaders for the wrong reasons so that we can brag as the supposed 'giant of africa'.
from my inept calculations, those islamic extremists/mujaheddin will rush to mali to help their backbone, if we crush them their, we crush them here or else their will always be a 'source' of militants pouring into the country.
it will be very bad for the whole of west africa if these terrorists succeed in mali... imagine a terrorist nation at your doorstep, and it took france that's miles away to recognize that...

dudu negro thank u. This is the kind of thread that should make front page. That was how they passed that stupid tax law last yr and nobody knew. Besides, i'm just becoming aware of the existence of a poll. Anyway, enough of watching tonto dike and davido's asses.
Front page please, let nigerians see and discuss this

deducing from the post, bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc are all agents of the devil and antibiotics are angels shebi. Niggas shit happens, learn to leave with it. God gives when He wants to, and he also taketh away, that is why He is Lord.He owes you no explanation, He's the creator and the earth is His FOOTSTOOL. Even hardcore christians were told in the bible to expect persecution and not a rosy worldly life. No one is born perfect and each is given a burden to carry by God to see how faithful we are and whether we'll curse him unlike the bible's greatest sufferer. That's why i get mad when people say it's not my portion. If not, whose portion is it?