It is pretty embarrassing, but honestly not a dealbreaker. I have more serious concerns about GEJ than his wife.

Can we have a credible news source, please?

Seems mostly like wild accusation.

Aletheia's excellent questions remain unanswered.

If I wanted to destroy the economy of Yobe State, I'd take their money and sink it into unviable businesses.

Conversely, if I wanted to make Yobe State rich, I'd find things that are viable and invest in those.

Guess which category an airport falls in.

Anyway, this is why I'm a federalist. Cookie cutter solutions don't work. If Lagos State has $10 million free, the best thing for them to spend that money on is probably not going to be the same thing that Ekiti State or Yobe State should spend it on. Let the states decide for themselves which direction they want to go.

jason123:

With the level of corruption and incompetence in Nigeria, that will actually do more harm than good.

I feel more confident about my ability to root out corruption and incompetence in my own state/LGA/town than in all of Nigeria. Latter task sounds hard, former task is less so.

Just give us the funds and no FG interference/obstruction, and good things will happen.

^-- Imo, let the states decide which way they want to go. FG doesn't need to mandate it from above. Give each state the cash and let it manage its own affairs. That maximizes flexibility and progress.

Your own state can then take the money and build airports if they like. . . mine can then go in a different direction. Everyone wins.

Kobojunkie:

The people(millions of them) in these states deserve and need these investors to come in to help upgrade their lives as well. The only way you can do that is create opportunities for the millions who live their and how do you do that? By getting the investors to come in, and what are some of the things you do to get them there? Provide them with easier means of accessing these regions.

I would strongly object to the FG building an airport in my state (unless of course the FG says, "Take this airport or have nothing." I'd rather them give us the cash and let us invest it in something else that is more profitable. Say, improved roads across the state. Ultimately, I think every state should be able to decide which direction it wants to go. It makes no sense to force cookie-cutter solutions on everyone.

Alj Uche:

dapo, at the end of the day buhari will not force anyone or state to have an airport

it is the choice of the state or the people of the state

Fair enough. I'm starting to understand now why African countries don't progress quickly though. Just poor decision making, investments and planning. "An airport for each state" sounds more like a vanity project than a sound plan to move the country (and its states) forward. If I have 1000 naira but constantly invest in bad ideas, I'll eventually be poorer than a man who starts with only 100 naira but invests in good business ideas.

She is pretty attractive.

Kobojunkie:

I don't see what you see  . ,  . . we might as well tell the federal Government to stop all road building and investing in the railway lines for the same reason you have above.

The road and railway network in Nigeria is far worse than the air infrastructure, Kobo. It is easier to justify the investment for the former than the latter.

If the FG sold off Lagos-Benin road to private investors who'd then get to charge a toll, it'd be snapped up pretty quickly.

But if the FG offers an airport concession to some company to build an airport in Yobe State. . . nobody would want to invest. Just because he knows that he won't make his money back.

Anyway, Nigeria isn't that big a country. . . the government doesn't need to subsidize airports in every state. Big waste of money.

jason123:

In what geopolitical region does it make sense to create 20 airports Do you not see that creating Airports in each geopolitical zone will gradually take the country back to Federalism? BTW, what do you mean by ""organically"?

It is just a # to illustrate a point. Hypothetically, it might turn out that some regions get a ton of traffic which will then justify investing in more airports.

I don't see how this is federal. I thought federalism = everyone does their own thing by themselves, makes decisions independently. This doesn't sound like federalism to me. Sounds like a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all sort of solution.

By "organically", I mean "naturally." Take bank branchs for example. New bank branches are opened up in economically viable places. In some places in Abuja, you have 5-6 banks within a mile of each other. In my village, far less. The FG didn't mandate from above that Abuja and my village must have the same # of banks. The banks themselves determined how many each should have.

Kobojunkie:

Airports in each state sounds like an AWESOME idea to me. Open up every single state out there to more equal levels of PPP investments sounds brilliant to me.

It is an absolutely terrible idea. Who the fvck is going to pay for it? If you open an airport in Yobe State, how many people are likely to frequent it a year? Likely under 50 a day. That airport will be losing enormous amounts of money.

Why on earth should we be wasting money on white elephant projects like this?

Again, if Yobe State wants to waste its money doing this, that is their own choice. But why should I be paying for it?

@jason123: Even that doesn't make sense to me. In some regions, it might make economic sense to have 20 airports. In others, maybe only one. I don't see how it makes sense to pre-determine how many each region gets. . . let it happen organically and naturally rather than determined from above by the FG.

@Alj Uche: But who will pay for the airport in Kwara, if it turns out loses tons of money? I highly doubt Kwara State gets enough air traffic to justify having its own airport. So in other words, it'll be a money-losing business venture. So who pays for the shortfall? If the government of Kwara State wants to make up the shortfall, fine and well, that is their own decision. But why should I be the one paying for their decision?

[quote="Buhari Manifesto"]
5. Embark on PPP schemes with a view to ensuring that at least one functioning airport is available in each of the 36 states.
[/quote]

This to me sounds like a terrible idea. Not every state should have an airport. The only economically viable airports right now are in Lagos, Abuja, PHC and Kano. . . all the rest drain away money, if I remember correctly.

Why build more financially unsound airports? 

Anyway, this should be a state decision, not a federal one.

If my own Ekiti State foolishly decides to invest finite resources in an airport, then I don't see why others should have to subsidize that poor choice.

Problems I have with Ribadu's plan:

Power
Inadequate power supply restricts socio-economic activities, limits economic growth and adversely
afects the quality of life. Electricity supply in Nigeria is grossly inadequate as total installed capacity
is far less than demand.

Fine, we all agree with this.

The current supply system relies essentially on natural gas and hydro (70:30) which are both
vulnerable to sabotage and adverse weather conditions respectively.

True, but not really a big deal. "Sabotage" is an issue, but still NG is the cheapest source of fuel you'll easily get.

The drop in water level in the
hydro power plants and acute shortage of gas supply to the thermal plants contribute to the
inadequate supply of electricity.

OK. So WHY is there a shortage of gas? Well, the reason is because under the current regulation, NNPC (at least, I think it is NNPC?) provides subsidized gas to the power plants. This gas is then turned into electricity and sold at below-cost prices to the Nigerian consumer. If PHCN were buying natural gas at market prices (rather than subsidized prices), then there wouldn't be any shortage of gas.

The nation currently has an installed generation capacity of about 10,000 MW, but an available
generation capacity of between 2,500- 3200 MW. Transmission capacity is estimated at 5,838 MVA
with a transmission backbone of 4,534km (330kv lines) and 19 major transmission sub-stations.
Our distribution capacity sits at about 8,425 MVA. Technical energy loss is estimated at 14% of
generation capacity (4%-transmission, 10%-distribution) Non-technical losses accounts for 32% of
generation capacity. Access to electricity is estimated at 40% of the population.

OK.

We will move to diversify the energy mix by introducing coal powered plants which will employ clean coal technologies. hese plants will be sited to ensure proximity to known coal reserves in Okaba, Ogboyoga (Kogi State), Owukpa (Benue State) and Ezimo (Enugu State).

Coal will fail too if you force whoever mines the coal to sell it for below-market cost. The technology is not the issue, the issue is the pricing structure. I have no clue why he is suggesting coal w/o first facing the pricing structure issue.

We will also invest in decentralized renewable energy such as wind, solar and biomass especially in rural areas, with limited grid access. 

Irrelevant, and not going to help very much. You don't get much electricity from these sources.

We will provide fiscal incentives for private developers.

Absolutely no need for fiscal incentives. Just let them sell the electricity at whatever price they want to. Just the same way you let a yam farmer sell for whatever price he wants.

We will implement pricing schemes to promote load management and motivate customers to minimize their energy consumption during peak periods. We will also ensure good consumer education on the most eicient use of energy. We shall ensure capacity building within the industry and re-orientate PHCN personnel towards customer- oriented service, productivity and eiciency and sanction recurring anti-customer behaviour. We will introduce power consumer assistance funds for low-income power consumers, who consume below a certain threshold.

Blah blah blah, not really important.

We will bring credibility to the power reform process by ensuring that those we will appoint will be above board, highly qualiied and driven solely by public interest. We will stabilize power generation, transmission and distribution in the shortest possible time while putting in place a sustainable energy plan for the long term.

The problem I have with this is too much "we." Not enough, "deregulate and create an interference-free environment for private
business to operate."

Buhari's plan is too inspecific and slow. 50K MW by 2019 seems. . . . mediocre.

Otoh, Ribadu's seems too government oriented. There is actually nothing wrong with using NG for electricity. The problem is the current subsidy system that discourages investment. Nobody wants to invest in producing electricity when they are forced to sell it for less than it costs them to produce.

To be quite honest, I like GEJs plan the best. He pretty much plans on privatizing electricity period and deregulating the industry. If you do this, then supply should catch up with demand, and there is no need to say things like "X MW by date Y."

Damn, that is nuts  

Hard to say. Yar'adua did pretty much nothing. Let's not romanticize the past.

Beaf:

What do you imagine they were going to do in a country at war? Sell suya?

Smh. Prostitution, try to enter Europe. . . there are many plausible options. But your immediate first guess, that a band of largely women (including an 18 year old girl) are travelling there as mercenaries obviously makes no sense.

Beaf:

They were going to fight Gaddafi's war as mercenaries. They should be giving the stiffest punishment available.

Use your brain. 4 out of these 5 names are women's names (if I'm not mistaken about nwazuzu.) And you think they are going there to fight as mercenaries

buzugee:

those people need prayers. i think someone is calling them home via libya. they need deliverance
the power of juju

Prayer, juju? wtf? How about a better economy so people don't flee Nigeria for a country in the midst of a civil war 

Hell, i could even see venturing to Iraq/Afghanistan and working there. . . you can earn on the order of a quarter million in a year. That sort of tradeoff might be worth it (though personally i wouldn't do it.)

But how much are these women really going to earn doing prostitution?  I doubt it is up to $20k.

@tpiah!: Relax o. You'll never hear me diss naija women.

Largely speaking, I'm beyond ethnicity and nationality when it comes to females anyways. . . I don't really care about that type of stuff.

Smh. . . life is more important than money. It isn't even like they'd be earning huge amounts of cash, is it?

Now is really not the time to be trekking to Libya  

^-- Heh.

In this particular case, we don't even need to lift a finger to do anything. Read this article and think of its implications:

http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE7280JB20110309?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

So just relax and watch things unfold.

In case it isn't clear. . . not every investor is as media and brand conscious as Shell. Some in particular (indigineous Nigerian businessmen, Chinese, etc) are absolutely ruthless, and will do anything to see their investment profitable.

The implications of this should be obvious.

KnowAll:





I think my brother is just star struck by "Jonathan". Because like millions of young Nigerians he is a member of Jonathan’s Facebook’s FAN CLUB always sending post to the President and getting favourable response back not knowing that it is people like “ Beaf” replying him.

The boy think say “him get intimate relationship with Mr President” I am sure a lot Niaja youths would fall into this category of people. For abroad we can log onto the web inside toilet sef, but in Naija “facebook” is still a novelty.

This cracked me up

^-- Man, fvck that. That is not even relevant.

You cannot afford to be on the defensive with riff-raff. Simply fvck them and seek their destruction.

If they want to play this game, so be it.

All this talk, still no picture, lol

^-- I disagree. Moreover, I suspect that Yoruba people in general disagree.

Anyway, whatever. Whoever wants to work against our interest, then we shall work against theirs. Fine by me.

All that money they get, and they still need economic liberation.

Na wa o.

Accountability and less pissing away of funds is the best way to liberate yourself. . .

I strongly suspect that they see more funds from the government per capita than the rest of the country.

South Africa is a land of contrasts. It has fabulous mineral wealth, with 90% of the world’s known platinum reserves, 80% of its manganese, 70% of its chrome and 40% of its gold, as well as rich coal deposits; yet 43% of its population live on less than $2 a day.

http://www.economist.com/node/16248589

Damn. And I think we both know which segment of the population this 43% is. . . don't we?

So like I said. . . be very careful who you start taking shots at.

We can leave it at that, or I can dig deeper. Up to you how we play this game.

RSA:

You should all use South Africa as a role model on how to have a successful African nation.

In other words. . . turn over the country to whites, Indians and Asians, let them build it up to a first-world nation, then kick them out and run it down? 

If this is the only way to build a successful African nation, then count me out.

Which South Africa are you talking about,yes we don’t have 6-8% growth as compared to other Africa countries including Nigeria because those countries where extremely  underdeveloped,South Africa is still growing steadily at 3 to 4% annually just like most developed countries,

This isn't enough, though. Small pockets of your country are first-world, large swathes of it are 3rd world. Unemployment is what, 30%+? 3-4% economic growth simply will not cut it.

It is funny you scream unity when it suits you guys,and beside no one will respect a brother who cannot even bath himself.Learn to bath yourself before you could start calling yourself Africas big brother.

When on earth did you bathe yourself? Julius Malema is bathing himself?

In this instance Nigeria is the lazy drunkard,and we all know that they’re boasting about nothing.A country of 200 thousand million people cramped in overpopulated,undeveloped,no infrustruture,unhygienic,corrupt and unlivable country yet they still have guts to say South Africa is no match for them?

Lol. "200 thousand million people"? Illiteracy is still an issue, it appears.

When we talk about crime,HIV or any of ills we base this on facts,statistics that are scientifically proven.In Nigeria this information is not there,which makes me belief that Nigeria’s Aids AND crime cases might be bigger than South Africa.

Rofl. You are certainly entitled to your own beliefs, but not your own facts.

Anyway, it is what it is. I don't think Nigeria will necessarily make it intact. . . but I don't see why some dudes in a country built by the white man have bragging rights, at all.

^-- I don't think it is a problem with individual Igbo. It is mostly these organizations that need to be vigorously monitored and ideally destroyed. Individuals mostly want the same things everyone else does.

Only a small fraction of people can move into another man's land and work against the interest of his host. Likely 95% of immigrants to Yorubaland are well-meaning.

Key thing is to separate these evil elements from the rest. No point throwing away the wheat with the chaff.