₦airaland Forum

Why do these cockroaches think they have any say at all in anything that happens?

"we should", "we will". . . how?

Who takes anything you say seriously?

kawkab:
He is only regretting that he did not have the oppurtunity of seeing the kind of cash in dollars that OBJ saw.

All his replies are ironies.

Thank you.

Hehe. This is the truth. But didn't he chop the Gulf War oil money? So he did get to see some nice cash, if only for a shorter period of time.

OBJ failed in some respects, but succeeded in others. He could have done more obviously. . . but others in his situation may have been killed off in a coup or something.

Gonna be hard. The clock is ticking. . . less than 4 years to go. Each day, month, year you make no progress, the more has to be done in the remaining time.

Words are nice, but the time for action is now.

The way this guy paint it, sounds like a Greek tragedy of some sort. "The rise and fall of Peter Obi." Hopefully Okorocha will not similarly flame out. . .

Yep. The focus on university education alone as the answer for all is misguided, imo

Post JAMB kind of has to be done? Too much concern about cheating in JAMB

^-- I have that book but unfortunately haven't yet read it. Supposed to be damn good, from what I hear

Hrm, indeed:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-737457.0.html

Interesting.

By Femi Makinde
Wednesday, 17 Aug 2011

A member of the National Cancer Advisory Board for the United States of America, Prof. Funmi Olopade, has declared her intention to set up a medical research centre on breast cancer in Ekiti State.

Olopade, an indigene of the state, made this known while inspecting facilities at the University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti, in company with the Governor, Kayode Fayemi.

Olopade was recently appointed to the US National Cancer Advisory Board by President Barack Obama on the strength of her breakthrough in cancer research and scholarship.

She stated that the US was “really interested in doing discovery and sponsoring researches,” adding that her scope included “understanding the problems that people have in the healthcare system and trying to develop solution to these complex problems.”

Olopade said, “We are looking for cure for breast cancer and we want to find it wherever we can study it. I study women cancers and my research is on breast cancer.

“I have being doing researches at the University of Ibadan and also work in University of Chicago in the US.

“We don’t know where we are going to find the next cure. It could come from Ekiti and that is why I am doing the business of higher education here.”

Olopade added that she frequently visited Ekiti to see her mother who lives in the state.

Fayemi congratulated Olopade on her appointment. He said his administration would continue to tap into the wealth of experience and professionalism of indigenes of the state irrespective of their place of abode.

The governor urged Ekiti in the Diaspora to help to develop the state.

He assured that his administration would not relent in its efforts at “making the state a model, not only for our regional agenda, but a hub for National Development Agenda.”

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201108174323596

9jaganja:
I would expect ACN to be a party of intellectuals and not just repeat what state govs are saying. They pointed out to the 1999 constitution; a constitution that has proven chaotic for growth in terms of "revenue allocation" federal character" all that jazz,   I can't believe ACN is saying anything of seriously!!, 

They didn't have to repeat what the GOVs said. Being an opposition isn't what they are doing' I think they are sipping hatorade lool

It has nothing to do with repeating what the governors are saying. Look, there is a legitimate argument to be made here. Doing this certainly weakens the states relative to the FG, right? And maybe for them, they believe that the states are the basic unit in this federation, and that weakening 'em harms the system.

Which if you think about it makes sense. Why is it the constitution that determines how many LGs a state has? Why can't a state create as many as it likes? Does the US constitution specify the existence of counties in each state? Nope, this is something the states take care of themselves.

The more I think about it, the more I see where Lai Mohammed is coming from. I don't necessarily agree with him (at least for now), but I can at least see why his POV might make some sense.

A very interesting read.

Last week, Governor Peter Obi of Anambra received unflattering epithets when he intruded on a rally where state workers were discussing his unpopular proposal on the implementation of the new minimum wage. A wise governor would have sat down to listen to the concerns of the workers. Not Mr. Obi. He commandeered the microphone, talked at the workers at length, and then proceeded to leave. That’s when the workers unleashed a torrent of insults.

Governor Obi’s behavior at that rally typifies his rather unfortunate style. This is a man who believes he has all the answers, and that the governed – much like serfs – must indulge his long-winded speeches. If his audience appears less than willing to swallow his fancies and decrees, then the gubernatorial words must be forced down their throats – to quote the motto of one of the governor’s fans.

In the campaign that preceded the February 6, 2010 governorship election in Anambra, Mr. Obi recruited many Catholic priests to champion him from the pulpit. Some of the priests told their congregants that Mr. Obi was God’s and the pope’s choice. It was a terrible moment for the priests who permitted themselves to be used in a deplorable scheme. Many of them, I am aware, have since openly expressed regret for the untoward role they played.

Politics in Anambra was already beset by several maladies, including the horrific plague of “godfatherism” and violence. Mr. Obi’s exploitation of combustible sectarian sentiments compounded an already bad situation.

Once ensconced in office for his second term, Governor Obi appeared determined to surpass the middling – in fact mediocre – record that defined his first term. He has brought little or no imagination to the task of governance. Some in Anambra would argue that he has brought the wrong kind of imagination to the job.

Obi’s performance would be uninspiring by any measure, but his failure is magnified both by the odds he overcame on his way to Government House and the grand scale of the hope that they people invested in him.

Rigged out of an election he won in 2003, he took his case to court and fought doggedly, admirably, to reclaim his mandate. In pursuing that stolen mandate, Mr. Obi stipulated, rightly, that he had a moral duty to claim what the electorate had given him. On account of what we saw as his principled stance, some of us applauded when he rebuffed entreaties to abandon his case.

Mr. Obi would later return to court again when the machinery of the PDP orchestrated his impeachment, seen as part of a larger plan to clear the path for Andy Uba, a particularly close aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to wangle his way onto the governor’s seat. Anambra exploded in euphoria the day Obi triumphed. Much later still, when he persuaded the Supreme Court to sack Mr. Uba from his illicit occupancy of Government House, Nigerians – not just Anambrarians – stood up and saluted. The feeling was abroad that here was a man destined for great political acts.

Alas, it’s been a season of great fizzling acts. And the people of Anambra, as well as fans from elsewhere, are deeply perplexed.

Mr. Obi’s undoing – apart from the aforementioned paucity of imagination – lies in his increasing confidence that propaganda is a substitute for solid governance and verifiable achievements.

With little to show for his years so far in office, the governor has taken to trumpeting and advertising hollow accomplishments. His signature “accomplishment” is the tarring of 500 kilometers of roads. Missing in that claim – assuming the accuracy of the figure – is the poor quality of the roads. Last June, I traveled on Ifite road in Awka, one of the most recently tarred roads, and an important traffic artery that leads to the state-owned university. Despite the recentness of its construction, the road was already filled with potholes.

In fact the state capital, Awka, is so rundown and wretched that it would do war-ravaged Mogadishu no credit at all. What’s clear is that the governor believes his image to constitute aesthetic asset. Wherever you turn in the state capital, you’re bound to see some billboard, always with an image of Mr. Obi’s face. Some billboards carry cheap exhortations. Most tout the governor’s ostensible accomplishments. And what are these achievements? In one, Mr. Obi boasts of distributing 10,000 computers to schools and communities. In another, that he has provided some transformers. One was compelled to ask, what kind of computers? Did Mr. Obi ensure that the recipient schools have Internet access? Do they have qualified computer technicians? Do they even have electric power?

A pattern that seems to define Mr. Obi’s approach to governance is a relentless pursuit of the elephantine but hollow project. With fanfare he invited President Goodluck Jonathan to commission the Kenneth Onwuka Dike e-library in Awka. But there’s neither a single book nor computer in that so-called library. During my visit in June, the building was skirted by overgrown bush. Looking at the sign announcing the library, one was amazed. Does an empty building become a library – an e-library, for that matter – simply because a governor named it as one?

I drove past a huge structure under construction in Awka that the governor has named a teaching hospital. I am no medical expert, but I knew that the building was ill suited for a hospital. A hospital needs a lot of ventilation and light. The alleged teaching hospital in Awka has only its bigness going for it. The windows are horribly small. In fact – judging by their poor ventilation – it would be cruel to house prisoners in those structures.

At any rate, one couldn’t figure out Mr. Obi’s obsession with building a teaching hospital when he has remained nonchalant in the face of a long-running strike by state-employed medical doctors. If he’s averse to offering his doctors a relatively small wage increase to persuade them to call off their strike, how and where is he going to attract doctors to fill the positions in all the departments of a teaching hospital?

Governor Obi’s depleted political fortunes illustrate the certain hazards of cultivating an imperial mindset. Obi’s troubles are self-inflicted, for he started out with tremendous goodwill, in Anambra and beyond. He alone can arrest, and hopefully reverse, his political downfall. It would take a recognition, one, that the people of Anambra deserve far better than he has given them, two, that propaganda can take him nowhere, three, that the people he governs are wise enough to distinguish between a governor who serves them and one who serves self, and, four, that the best form of leadership is one that weds imagination and action.


Written by Okey Ndibe (okeyndibe@gmail.com).

http://thewillnigeria.com/opinion/9424-ANAMBRA-AND-THE-POLITICS-PROPAGANDA.html

^-- Preciate it man, thanks.

It is always useful to learn what puts someone else on the defensive. Interesting thread.

^-- I sort of get the ACNs POV. I guess right now, states often appropriate LG funds for their own purposes.

What is the formula now, roughly 50% FG, 30% states, 20% LG? So I suppose that from the perspective of a governor, you want to shrink the FG share but also maintain your hold of the LG share.

BTW, ACN isn't the only one saying this. The governors are saying something similar, if I remember correctly.

^-- Cosign on that.