₦airaland Forum

Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Shehu Garba, has responded to criticisms by Nigerians over the frequent Foreign trips Buhari has made since he assumed office in May. According to Garba, the trips being made by Buhari are not for enjoyment. He said this in an article he posted on his facebook this morning. Read below...

I have been amused, reading a number of jokes concerning the frequency of the President, Muhammadu Buhari's foreign trips. Questions have been raised about why so many visits, and what are the benefits Nigeria is getting?

I will make it clear from the beginning that the critic is entitled to his and her opinion and nothing said here is intended to silence him or her. Criticism goes with the territory and as it is often said in a wisecrack, if you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen. President Muhammadu Buhari came into office under the mantra of change. While Nigerians are yearning for change, you need someone who will set up the infrastructure, both at home and abroad for it. President Buhari is busy doing that. The change is manifest in where he visits and what he does. In the delegations accompanying him abroad, President Buhari has slashed the numbers, bringing them down to a tolerable or the bearable minimum. He went to the United Nations General Assembly in September with an unbelievable 32 officials in his delegation. These included his cook, his doctor and luggage officer. His predecessor in office went to the same meeting with 150 officials and family members the year before. Wherever they are given government accommodation and feeding, members of President Buhari's entourage receive reduced allowances, thereby saving the government some money. In public diplomacy, experts say that it is better conducted throughface-to-face interaction than through third parties. This is even moreso at the level of heads of state. To do by it by proxy is to miss the effect of fostering strong interpersonal relations between leaders, by which nations benefit. President Buhari has so far visited Germany, South Africa, USA, Niger, Tchad, Cameroon, Benin, Ghana, South Africa, India, Iran and Malta, where we are presently for the Commonwealth Summit. Mostly, these were due to either the United Nations, EU, African Union or energy and security-related summits. They were mostly undertaken to attend specific meetings, not State Visits. Looking at these assignments, the trips are inescapable for the President. What would Nigerians say of their leader when see the array of world leaders assemble, as they would shortly be doing discussing climate change in Paris on Monday and their own President is missing from the table? Those of us who were around under Abacha read all the taunts about him being a sit-at-home leader. Abacha was despised for not representing his country abroad. President Buhari's foreign visits have been marked by punishing schedules. They are always business-like and results-oriented. All trips have been marked by tight schedules. Meeting after meeting, happening back-to-back morning, afternoon and evening. The President has had to travel overnight for some of these meetings. The visit by any president to another country is the highest act in international relations. It sends out a message that that county is important to the visitor. It is not like your usual vacation abroad.
Official discussions involving political leaders, the military, the diplomats and at times, business people are held at multi- track levels. In foreignpolicy you stand on a quick sand of events and you slip up if take a rest or lose focus. Governments also know that their achievements at home will be meaningless if they cannot project them abroad. Who or where are the foreign investors,whose hand you are seeking if you can't travel meet them? Will they come if they don't know about the country? President Buhari demonstrated a keen understanding of these when in the first week of his taking the office, he brought together foreign policy and all three cardinal objectives of his administration-security,economy and war on corruption- by embarking on visits to neighboring countries. In our recent history, much of the West had ignored Nigeria under the corrupt PDP administration for many years, which warranted the country's tilt towards some Asian countries. As a consequence, this country has suffered past isolation of various types, including the denial of access to the arms-purchase market. As a member of the then Standing Committee of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, I remember being in a delegation that visited the Aso Rock Villa, to beg the government at that time not the execute the writer and activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. At the meeting with the Number Two man in that government, Major-General Oladipo Diya, he announced to everyone's shock and disbelief that Ken had been executed. "Honestly," he muted, "I think he has been executed about two days ago." What followed that pronouncement was a global outrage. The then Foreign Affairs Minister, Arch. Tom Ikimi representing Nigeria at the Commonwealth meeting in New Zealand, shattered the feelings of the leaders of those countries when he announced to them that he had not been briefed about the executions and begged for time to talk to the leaders back in Nigeria. Nigeria faced an imminent expulsion from the group and would have been so sacked but for the intervention of the then President of South Africa, late Nelson Mandela. In place of this extreme form of sanction, a suspension and and a barrage of sanctions followed and remained in place until an appreciable remorse was was shown and progress made towards the return to democracy by Nigeria. Throughout that period of time, it was difficult being a Nigerian in the international space. As council members of the UN Human Rights Commission, Africans would caucus in Geneva without us Nigerians. Like lepers, we were shunned wherever we showed up. I mentioned this short narrative to illustrate two things: one, for a country to do the right things all the time and two, you don't know the joy being a part of international gatherings until you suffer the pain of exclusion from them. Short of begging the world, there was nothing that the Abacha government didn't do to be taken back into the Commonwealth. And it is against this background that I felt the need to pen this opinion in the hope of bringing better understanding to fellow countrymen and women on the current subject matter. There is no reason to be angry with anyone criticizing President Buhari for traveling abroad.

In politics, even if President Buhari were to bring with him a suitcase full of cash and a potgold each time he returned from a trip, someone will criticize him, saying that the journey is wasteful. The PDP will kick, knowing that they got 16 years and did nothing with it. Those who didn't do much during their term of governance will find it instructive to fault whatever the President is doing. If President Buhari is successful as a leader, the PDP will be history. My own point here is that he is doing a great job and the fruits are here, and many more will soon come. He is working to strengthen diplomatic relations, trade and the security of our nation. He holds serious meetings with serious investors and has fetched us investments in the range of billions of US Dollars. Now, countries such as France, UK, The U.S are supporting Nigeria with intelligence, weapons and training for our military against Boko Haram and the economic saboteurs in the Delta region. President Buhari will definitely make Nigeria great,what the PDP fooled us for 16 years. All heads of countries around the world now take Nigeria seriously. His foreign trips are for business, security of the country and bilateral contacts- contacts that get actualized by follow-ups and the love and support a leader enjoys at home and abroad. Today the world is in a warm embrace of President Muhammadu Buhari. Nigerians should be proud of the attention, love and admiration, importance, respect and investment he is bringing to Nigeria. These trips are not for enjoyment. Lastly, to answer those who ask all the time, what is he bringing back home? We are not a country of beggars. It is good if something is in the bag as the leader comes home from a trip. Culturally, we never return home from a trip without a souvenir for everyone left at home. Yes it is good he declares something upon his return. But the most important task for the President at this time is to reset the image of Nigeria abroad, given the damage it sustained over many years in the past. So far, in fairness, the President has projecteda large image of Nigeria and of himself which should be a matter of pride for all our citizens. Marketing of Brand Nigeria can never be more important than currently it is. The President is doing a great job for the nation. He needs to be supported.

http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2015/11/buharis-trips-are-not-for-enjoyment.html

THE ORACLE OF GOD, WARNED THEM. BUT THEY REFUSE TO LISTEN,

A shocking yet revealing phone conversation between two politicians has gone viral.

In the audio conversation, which is currently circulating on BlackBerry Messenger and Whatsapp, a Northern politician identified as a People’s Democratic Party member is speaking with another politician from the South West by name, Kunle.

The 20.38-minute audio recording, which appears to have been made by one of the parties or an eavesdropper, the Northern politician, identified simply as Alhaji, reveals the sinister plot of the Northern politicians to attack the business interests of the people from the South East and South South region of the country.

Our investigations have led us to the source of the audio, who does not wish to be named. The Trent can authenticate that the recording is a real telephone conversation that happened just after the inauguration of of President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29, 2015.

Alhaji takes time to reveal the plot of the Northern elites to frustrate people from the South East and South South of Nigeria and revealed that there is a Satanic alliance with some elements of the South West to also join in frustrating the South Easterners and denying them their rights under the constitution to live anywhere they wish and do business anywhere in Nigeria.

The Alhaji reveals that this plan to ‘destroy the Igbos (which means anybody from the South East or South South)’ is central to the strategy of the All Progressives Congress. He also reveals that former Governor Tunde Fashola, of the APC, used the last four years of his tenure in office to execute this plot to destroy the business base of the “Igbos”. He also revealed that the plot includes arson against the markets dominated by “Igbos” in Lagos and denying “Igbos” business licences, even though they qualify for them.

Alhaji, who obviously did not know he was being recorded, went on to reveal a deep hatred by the Northern politicians for the people of the South East and South South. He revealed that if President Goodluck Jonathan had won the March 2015 elections, “they” would have caused Boko Haram to “spread to Kano, to Gombe, to Sokoto, and all over” in order to frustrate Jonathan’s government.

This, in essence, confirms suspicions that Boko Haram and the carnage that the Islamist terrorist group has unleashed on the people of the North East and other parts of Northern Nigeria is a political tool in the hands of the power-hungry elite of the North.

He also mentioned that Jonathan would probably have been killed in office if he remained as President beyond 2015.

Alhaji, who is well spoken, revealing that he is part of the Northern elite made it known that the Northern politicians in the APC do not trust Imo governor, Rochas Okorocha and former Rivers Governor, Rotimi Amaechi. He says, “they are just there, nobody trusts them”. Such comments are instructive especially against the backdrop that Amaechi is acknowledged by chieftains of the APC to have bankrolled 80% of Buhari’s campaign.

In detail, Alhaji reveals that ‘the North’ preferred former Kano Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso because he is radical and had begin to implement some of the plans of alienating people from the South East and South South from Kano. He said that had it not been for Bola Tinubu’s support for Buhari, Kwankwaso would have won the APC presidential ticket in the party’s primary of 2014 held in Lagos.

Alhaji goes on to reveal some long-standing ethnic suspicions between the major ethnic groups in the country. “Who doesn’t have ancestors? Don’t we all have ancestors?” He asked in frustration. He then went on to complain why attempts to buy land from the Igbos ends in rejection “because the ancestors say they shouldn’t sell the land.”

He also claimed that the gang-up against President Goodluck Jonathan in the last election was also religious. According to him, the Muslims in the South-West teamed up with the Muslims in the Northern part of Nigeria to vote out President Jonathan because he was a Christian who empowered the people of the South East, against the original Northern domination plan of keeping the Igbos under subjugation.

http://www.thetrentonline.com/chilling-domination-plot-of-the-north-against-the-south-eastsouth-south-revealed-listen/

Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan minister and World Bank Vice President & Treasurer Aruma Oteh, was awarded for her IMPACT IN LEADERSHIP AWARD BY FORBES.

PLEASE O WE DON'T LIARS IN OUR CLUB OOOO.

WAILING WAILER...........
WAILING FOR BETTER DEMOCRACY

Growth rate set to slow to 16-year low of 3.3% as oil falls
Naira policy is biggest concern, Citigroup analyst Howell says
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When Muhammadu Buhari clinched victory in Nigeria’s presidential elections in March, stocks soared as investors looked to the former military ruler to reverse decades of economic mismanagement and policy inertia. Now hopes have fizzled in his ability to turn around Africa’s largest economy and oil producer.
Money that flowed into stocks and bonds in the West African nation, which McKinsey & Co. says could become one of the world’s 20 biggest economies by 2030, is now fleeing as growth prospects diminish along with oil prices. While Buhari, 72, has prioritized stamping out the graft that has plagued Nigeria since independence from Britain in 1960, policy-making appears as uncertain and haphazard as ever.
“After the initial euphoria, people have become disillusioned,” Ayodele Salami, who oversees about $500 million of African equities as chief investment officer of London-based Duet Asset Management Ltd., said by phone. “He would probably say that he’s being deliberative and cautious. But we expected more.” Duet’s Africa fund has cut its investments in the country to about 24 percent of the total from 38 percent in the last year.
Buhari waited five months before naming his cabinet, hasn’t proposed a clear plan to revive growth and backed foreign-exchange controls aimed at defending the naira. His retention of gasoline subsidies, plans to raise spending in the face of declining revenue and silence about a $5.2 billion fine levied on mobile-phone operator MTN Group Ltd. have added to investor unease.
Nigeria’s benchmark stock index has plunged 22 percent since reaching a year-high on April 2, the day after Buhari was declared the winner of the presidential race against incumbent Goodluck Jonathan. That’s the third-worst performance globally in the period, after the bourses in Ukraine and Egypt. The index advanced 12.5 percent in the two days after Jonathan conceded.

To be sure, Buhari inherited depleted government coffers and a bureaucracy that multiple probes have blamed for looting billions of dollars of oil revenue. The president has said he delayed appointing ministers because he needed time to vet suitable candidates.
Garba Shehu, a spokesman for Buhari, didn’t immediately respond to written questions after requesting they be sent that way.
The hiatus has compounded the pain caused by the slide in the price of crude, which accounts for two-thirds of government revenue and 90 percent of export earnings. Growth, which averaged 6.3 percent annually over the past decade, is set to slow to a 16-year low of 3.3 percent this year, according to the median estimate of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Many filling stations ran dry this month as the government withheld fuel subsidies to suppliers, preventing them from restocking. Lengthening lines forced Buhari to ask lawmakers for permission to pay 413 billion naira ($2 billion) in overdue payments, an amount that hadn’t been budgeted for.
While next year’s budget has yet to be finalized, Buhari wants to raise spending by 56 percent, according to a person who attended a briefing on the government’s plans and asked not to be identified because the matter is private. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the government plans to spend its way out of a slowing economy and that an infrastructure fund will be created with public and private financing.

The penalty imposed on MTN’s Nigeria unit last month for failing to register about 5 million subscribers may be an attempt to plug the hole in government finances, according to Cobus de Hart, an economist at NKC Independent Economists.
“You cannot deny there might be a fiscal element to the massive fine,” he said by phone from Paarl, near Cape Town. “It will make investors a little bit more wary of investing in Nigeria.”
An even bigger concern for many investors is the authorities’ naira policy. The Central Bank of Nigeria, with Buhari’s backing, has burned through $4.3 billion of reserves this year and choked off supply of foreign exchange to banks and their customers to defend the naira, even as major oil exporters such as Russia and Colombia have let their currencies slide. The restrictions prompted JPMorgan Chase & Co. to remove Nigeria from its local-currency emerging-market bond indexes, tracked by more than $200 billion of funds, in September, triggering a selloff in the nations’ assets.
While the naira has been all but fixed at about 198 to 199 per dollar since March, forward prices suggest it will drop by almost one-fifth, to 243.5, in a year.

“The number-one issue is the exchange rate,” Andrew Howell, a Citigroup Inc. frontier markets strategist, said from Lagos. ”Access to foreign exchange is becoming a widespread problem.”
Nigerian Breweries Plc, the nation’s biggest brewer, controlled by Heineken NV, said it takes two weeks to obtain dollars to pay for its imports, twice as long as it took a few months ago.
Buhari has won plaudits from leaders including President Barack Obama for his efforts to tackle graft. He replaced the management of the state oil company, which was accused of withholding billions of dollars from the government, and has stepped up the fight against an insurgency being waged by Islamist group Boko Haram.
“The degree of transparency we’re starting to get with the new administration is hugely positive,” Douglas Rowlings, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said in an interview in Lagos. “It gives investors the perception that operating in Nigeria will now be done following proper procedures.”
Jan Dehn, head of research at Ashmore Group Plc, which oversees almost $60 billion of emerging market assets, remains unconvinced that Buhari is up to the job. The fund manager sold all its Nigerian government debt in the past year.
“So far the Buhari administration has done all the wrong things,” Dehn said by phone from London. “Not only has he been incredibly slow in taking any action, when he finally has taken action on the economic front it’s been diametrically opposed to sensible policy. That is a major disappointment given expectations prior to his election.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-26/buhari-bounce-becomes-bust-as-nigeria-policies-annoy-investors

I THOUGHT THEY SAID, GEJ WAS LYING, #WATCHTHECHANGE

KO KON AYE, I THOUGHT THEY SAY GEJ WAS LYING.

ure right man God bless GEJ

Jorussia:
so you expect pmb to say their names publicly?

ok we don hear he shold not tell us their name, he should tell us how much he has recovered so far

irumule to o je amala. tell the the truth they hate to hear joor

arsenal33:
STILL AKPABIO! the only performing PDP governor

says who

comos:
if he is serious, he should give the names of those who returned their loot.

gbam

Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has carpeted President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim that many of those who looted the public treasuries in the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan had started returning the stolen funds to the government, saying the President should rather stay at home to govern the country instead of junketing around the globe and acting like a saint before the international community.

The governor challenged the President to tell Nigerians how much was returned and the looters who returned the stolen funds, adding that “Since the purported looted funds belong to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it ought to have been paid into the Federation Account and shared by the Federal, State and Local Government.”

Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said in a statement issued in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday that Governor Fayose advised President Buhari to tackle the collapsed economy of the country headlong instead of going from one country to another, casting aspersion on Nigerians with his sing-song of fighting corruption.

He said the President’s attitude was yet to change from that of 1984 when he was military Head of State, adding that; “Buhari’s statement in Tehran, Iran that it was easier for him as a military Head of State in 1984 to arrest corrupt individuals and put them in protective custody was a pointer to the fact that he has not changed from the dictator that he was then.

“The truth is that Buhari did not fight corruption in 1984. Rather, he persecuted great Nigerians, especially the likes Chief Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Ambrose Ali, Chief Bisi Onabanjo, Alhaji Lateef Jakande and Chief Bola Ige, who served the people meritoriously.

“Is Buhari justifying the imprisonment of Dr Alex Ekwueme, who was only the Vice President or All Progressives Congress (APC) leader like Chief Bisi Akande, who only served as a Deputy Governor?”

While urging the President to stop acting like the sole-administrator of Nigeria and the only honest man among Nigerians, Governor Fayose said “Nigerians are desirous of concrete developments, not rhetoric about fight against corruption that is only being used to persecute perceived political enemies of the President both in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and within the APC.

“As at today, Nigerians are faced with serious hardship occasioned by prolonged fuel scarcity that the Federal Government does not have any solution to. Multi-national companies are laying-off thousands of workers while contractors working for the Federal Government have left their sites. Yet, what we get to hear from the President is noise in foreign lands about non-existing fight against corruption.

“Honestly, this President should get to work and stop lying to Nigerians and the international community.”

Omolara Adegoke- Abuja

http://www.thebreakingtimes.com/return-of-looted-funds-buhari-is-a-liar-he-should-stay-at-home-to-govern-fayose/

arsenal33:
Because of only one PDP governor's hospital?
U must be a comedian

WORLD CLASS STADIUM NKO. BLIND CHAI BABA CHANTER

Dear Mr. President,


It cannot be gainsaid that the Buhari brand, in the most recent decades, has achieved groundbreaking successes trailed by a few popular failed strategies. This was overly emphasized by your easy overthrow as an army general and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, and the back-to-back failure in your history of democratically contesting for the top seat of the country. A review of this and your seemingly slow first six months as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria made it expedient for me to sound a loud alarm that your journey with long swinging strides of popular failed strategies has clogged your seat as Mr. President with a fast-ticking failure time bomb.

I know that many, especially optimists, life coaches, and critical entrepreneurs, must have argued in your favour that it is not always about how many times failure is recorded, but more about whether or not success is eventually attained. This may be correct. But in the case of the Buhari brand, after the sustained failure of the implementation style of the War Against Indiscipline strategy, among other, and the successful easy overthrow of your government with a military coup d’état, it may be difficult to ascertain what factor delivered your eventual success that was celebrated the world over. It could have been a great coincidence with the same time Nigerians needed to sack the 16-year ideology, or ‘customer-brand’ sympathy which usually doesn’t stand the test of time, or eventually good selection of strategy. Whatever the case may be, let me mention that being the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria today, for you, is not success; it is only the beginning of success!

At this point, Mr. President, it is important I douse your suspicions that this letter may be a sponsored tool of the opposition. I am for you and everyone who is truly committed to taking Nigeria to the pinnacle of her desires, and I am not for you or anyone else irrespective of their leadership capacity; I am only a true Nigerian who desires the best for this generation and the next. My interest is deeply fundamental as it concerns your solemn promises and, by implication, the lives and hopes of highly expectant Nigerians.

Mr. President, while journeying your way through your fourth attempt at the top seat, you made multiple promises with highly reassuring aplomb. You restored hope in those who had buried theirs; you gained reluctant confidence of those who never utterly agreed that your party was a better alternative, and your seeming successes created even more jobs for critics. Nigerians actually see your real intentions to birth a new nation for them, and they believe in your individual propensity to achieve great reforms across sectors. But were you alone in governance, they would have trusted this change.

Niccolo Machiavelli once noted that there was nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new order of things. Let me say to you, Mr. President, that you seem to have got yourself too busy with the pressure of delivering on your promises that you forget you cannot work for the people without working with them; you are not alone in the train! Perhaps you assume that since you have correctly identified the worst of the country’s problems –corruption –and are willing to confront it head on, it consequently implies that everyone –elected, appointed, or even in civil/public service –will be willing, or must be willing, to agree with the problem and face it firmly as well. Change never happens that easily.

The military era is gone and gone for good! Mr. President, it is time you paid more attention to strategic communication as major bedrock of successful democracy. An assumption that everyone is a proponent of your new philosophy may be the beginning of downright failure. I have watched your first six months very closely, and I must say Nigerians have reasons to worry. While true democracy and your philosophy of credible governance in Nigeria may take time to develop, the process cannot even begin until you invest time and resources in reinventing the way people think, especially those in governance –right now, they are happily living the corruption, misappropriation, waste, and poor maintenance way of life. You cannot lead a team of people who think completely differently from the way you think and expect a common goal. I smell frustrating failure!

It is not enough to emphasize transparency, integrity, and accountability across private and public transactions; the corruption cut may have gone much deeper in the flesh of Nigerians than you imagined. A deliberate reorientation process is inevitably necessary first for the three tiers and the three arms of government, and then for every Nigerian. You will find that there are about four different categories of people you should be prepared to manage within this reorientation process –those who have also identified the problem and truly desire change, those who understand the need for change but will keenly want to resist it, those who will require several effort to unlearn their corruption-stricken way of life, and those who will require enforcement agencies irrespective of your effort to get them along. It will not be surprising to find that only a very insignificant few or none of your most trusted cabinet members actually belong to the first category of people you will have to manage; the need for this reorientation is resonantly emphasized.

Hopefully, after your fourth year as President, it will no longer be business as usual for Nigeria’s President, it will no longer be business as usual for our Executives, Legislatives, and Judiciary, and hopefully it will no longer be business as usual for Nigerians.

While I congratulate you ahead for your monumental success, I will guarantee that Nigerians will no longer celebrate failure.



Sincerely,



Ayo Alaba Idowu

Editor-in-Chief,

Greennews.ng

alabee2002@yahoo.com

THIS IS THE REAL CHANGE. THE NEXTGENPDP WILL BE WONDERFUL

osazeeblue01:
I can never be disappointed because i never supported his coming, is only those that hope,supported and believe in Buhari that will be disappointed.

ME TOO. VUVUZELA GOVERNMENT

janeso:
Ok mr president we don't need names.

Hw much have they returned and in whose account.

Enough said.

I PRAY SAY THEM GO ANSWER YOU

chymystique:
Punch shld keep waiting for proof.. lol.. Believe anything this govt says and you can believe anything.. APC and LIES are like 5 and 6... They enjoy making statements with no proof/action to back it up thinking that most Nigerians are silly... He will soon tell us the proof is with Nigeria Army Archives

PEOPLE EYES DON DEY CLEAR

CAN THEY TELL US WHO AND HOW MUCH HAVE BEEN RETURNED SO FAR

kolaaderin:
I bought fuel with ease in my area now at lekki, the scarcity is subsiding fast. It's not getting worse as indicated by the OP.

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF AND NOT FOR EVERYONE. HERE IN ABEOKUTA NO FUEL

The age of the New Media is characterised by, among other appurtenances, the ubiquity of digital devices that enable us to grasp fleeting moments and freeze them into evidence. This easy accessibility to proof generated its own aphorism in the electronic world of the social media: pics or it didn’t happen! The meme is a cynical response to outlandish claims: either you substantiate it or you are lying.

In the same vein, I think President Muhammadu Buhari owes us some proof of his claims that some former government officials who robbed the nation in times past are gradually returning their loot or he risks being called a liar, a label I can assure him will have some impact on his image.



In Iran on Tuesday, while speaking to the Nigerian community, he claimed that his government’s efforts at recovering stolen funds were yielding success as those who stole those funds were wilfully returning their loot. He added that his government was currently investigating those people who by the way – he noted – are innocent until they are proved guilty. When they have enough evidence of their sins, he said they would charge them to court.

All these sentiments seem nice but they raise more questions than they answer.

For one, this is not the first time we would be told that some people were returning stolen money. In June, barely two weeks after Buhari was sworn in, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, made a similar claim. According to el-Rufai, some unnamed “patriotic” and “Good Samaritans” who looted during the last administration had already started returning money to government. This feat would have been worth celebrating if he had mentioned the names of those involved and how this came to be. One needs to know, were they returning their loot out of guilt-ridden conscience or there was an active loot recovery process that was hidden from every other Nigerian that is not part of their exclusive club? Is this part of an ongoing process or not? When did the process start and how much has been recovered? How come there has been no public engagement on the issue, just occasional media references? Are these recovered funds being documented? If yes, can we see some proof? We are entitled to it.

Again, if these claims were true, which agency is the government working with and what are the terms of engaging these innocent-until-proved-guilty looters? Is there some kind of plea bargain arrangement?

Buhari referenced a “we” all through his statement but everyone else needs to know what only he and el-Rufai seem to know. It is unhelpful for democracy when serious issues, with serious implications for the nation, are treated with such degree of casualness. We cannot hope to build strong institutions or strengthen democratic processes when we resort to secrecy and rumour mongering.

Can the “we” be – for instance – the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission? How possible it is that looters, hard of heart and bereft of conscience, would suddenly take the castrated EFCC that seriously? Was it not lately that the head of the agency himself, Ibrahim Lamorde, was eased out of job for the ignominious role he was said to have played in the culture of corruption in Nigeria? So, who are these people and why would they be admitting their own guilt by returning their loot? Were they investigated prior to the return of the funds or they were simply harried by the President’s “body language”?

These questions are necessary because the idea of people wilfully returning loot is a novel one. In Nigeria, nobody ever admits to being corrupt openly. You can catch a Nigerian with their hands in the public till at 12 noon in Tinubu Square in Lagos and they will defend themselves to the end that what you saw was in fact, a fight against corruption. Just lately, the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who snubbed the press for much of her time in public office snagged a chance to refurbish her image. She not only denied every accusation she was glibly confronted with, she went ahead to claim that she lived such a modest life that she bought clothes and jewellery on credit! This was a woman accused of spending N10bn on private jets yet boldly claimed that public service actually impoverished, not enriched her. If no Nigerian admits in public that they are corrupt, and they manipulate the law to every extent they can stretch its spirit and letter so as to stay out of jail – and so far most of them have succeeded – why would they refund any loot to the President in private? What will be their motivation to indict themselves when there is no concrete risk involved in doing otherwise?

Even more importantly, I am worried how little Buhari – a man who spent 12 years contesting the Presidency all the while clinging to a single story of how he would single-handedly rid Nigeria of the corruption virus – has actually engaged corruption. Fighting corruption in Nigeria under Buhari has been reduced to making loud and empty claims in the media. Nothing one can term impressive has happened so far.

Eight months since he won his election, Buhari has yet to roll out his big plan for fighting corruption in Nigeria. Where, for instance, are the major changes to existing laws he promised to sponsor to make wriggling out of prosecution more difficult or impossible outright for those accused of corruption? Rather, his party, the All Progressives Congress, is toeing the same worn path as the Peoples Democratic Party they upstaged. When they are confronted with their double standards, they look in another direction as if it does not matter. When you directly accuse them, they throw up the specious argument about “innocent until proved guilty” as if that was the standard they previously preached. The kind of conversations they should be making about corruption is largely absent, replaced by the fairy tales and exaggerations of their achievements.

By now, one expects Buhari to have divested himself of this simplistic understanding of corruption as some dishonest people stealing public funds and evolve a more nuanced and complex understanding. How about talking about the socio-cultural systems that nurture corruption and the hydra-headed ways we can undercut them?

Corruption in Nigeria is not only complex, it is a culture that implicates everyone of us one way or the other.

Corruption is legitimised into our daily existence such that though we blame it for everything, we do not see it when it is up and close to us. To uproot it will require a major re-engineering of our social DNA; the kind of which cannot be triggered by lame and unsubstantiated reports of corrupt yet patriotic people returning their loot.

If truly people are returning their looted funds, the public deserves the details. Because, unlike boastful claims of social media that request a picture, Buhari’s yarn cannot be easily drowned in endless twittering. It will return to haunt his reputation, the very cauldron in which his electoral victory was cooked.

Finally, it is time this government realised electioneering is past. The kind of fiction about a President who can solve knotty national problems with his personal clout that Nigerians bought at a desperate moment when they needed to edge out the PDP no longer sells. Put differently and most succinctly, Buhari and his people need to stop believing their own fiction and get serious.

http://punchng.com/buhari-and-the-returned-loot/

Barely a day after his arrival from Iran, Nigeria’s Petroleum minister, Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday, November 26, 2015 jet off again to Malta as the lingering fuel scarcity gets worse.

Buhari is set to participate in the 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which would kick off in the Island nation on Friday, November 27, 2015.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity), Femi Adesina, on Wednesday, November 25, 2015 disclosed in a statement that Buhari and other Heads of State and Government will be in Malta for the 2015 summit where they would deliberate on fresh Commonwealth initiatives on development and climate change with a view to adding greater value to ongoing global efforts in these areas.

At the summit, a new Secretary-General of the Commonwealth will be announced to replace Kamalesh Sharma, who is currently handling the position.

There will also be a presentation of a progress report on the eradication of polio among the common wealth nations which include Britain, Nigeria and 51 other countries

The Head of the Commonwealth, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will formally declare the summit open by Friday, November 27, 2015.

After the summit, Buhari will leave Malta for Paris on Sunday, November 29, 2015 where he will present Nigeria’s statement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference which will kick off in the French capital on Monday, November 30, 2015.

President Buhari will also participate in a summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin Republic which has been scheduled to take place on December 2 in Paris on the sidelines of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change.

Deliberations at the Paris meeting of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin Republic will focus mainly on the war against Boko Haram and other security issues of common interest to participating countries.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Amina Mohammed and the National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd.) would accompany Buhari to the trips.

http://www.thetrentonline.com/buhari-jets-off-to-france-malta-as-fuel-crisis-worsens/

U.S Director of the African Center at the prestigious African Council in Washington, Dr Peter Pham said that Nigeria has failed time and again to effectively beat back the Boko Haram sect wreaking havoc across the country.



"Officials there have tried to shift the blame to Washington, claiming American policies have prevented Nigeria from acquiring the weapons needed to win the fight against extremism. But it turns out the real culprits may have been closer to home."

But Pham wasn’t so sure. Even if the Nigerian military had acquired the equipment outlined in Dasuki’s alleged phantom contracts, Pham said Nigeria’s poorly trained military might not have known what to do with it.

“You beat a military uprising by war fighting, and, quite simply, they don’t have a war-fighting military,” he said.

According to Buhari — the onetime military leader who beat out former President Goodluck Jonathan in March and took over the presidency in May — Dasuki awarded “phantom contracts” to buy a dozen helicopters, four fighter jets, bombs, and ammunition. None of the equipment or weapons were ever supplied to the military, and he said Dasuki pocketed the money.

Dasuki, the official who arrested Buhari when he was overthrown in a coup the first time he led Nigeria in 1985, has denied all charges.

Pham, an expert on international relations said Wednesday that “there is personal history between the two men.”

For Dasuki to have stolen $2 billion out of a relatively small defense budget would be “getting into an unconscionable amount of corruption,” Pham said.

“I’m not saying that means Sambo Dasuki is innocent, but I don’t believe in coincidences either,” he said.

Two billion dollars may sound like a lot, and for a defense budget of just $6 billion a year, it is.

But even if Dasuki did dip his fingers that deeply into the defense budget, tracking down what he allegedly took may be nothing more than a starting point. Buhari believes roughly $150 billion has been stolen from Nigeria by corrupt officials over the past decade.

In July, when he visited Washington to discuss the fight against Boko Haram, Buhari requested that U.S. President Barack Obama help track down the jaw-dropping amount of money allegedly stolen by corrupt officials. The need to hunt for that much in missing funds is “a testament to how badly Nigeria has been run,” Buhari said.

Pham said that where exactly the $150 billion figure came from is still not clear and, to a certain degree, Buhari is right to track down and hold accountable those who let corruption fester. But according to him, the dramatic crackdown on corruption is in some ways a distraction from addressing structural problems, including oil prices and the government’s failure to diversify its revenue streams.

“I fear that this is a populist substitute for addressing some issues that may be much more unpopular,” he said.

Just like Jonathan’s administration wanted a “magic bullet” to solve Boko Haram, Buhari’s can’t expect arresting a few corrupt officials to solve the root cause of the problem.

Last November, then-Nigerian ambassador to the U.S. Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye called on the United States to provide more military assistance for the fight against Boko Haram, claiming the United States was only allowing Nigeria to “deliver light jabs to the terrorists when what we need to give them is the killer punch.”

Four months later, roughly two weeks before Buhari ousted Jonathan in the country’s presidential election, top Nigerian military and intelligence officials visited Washington and again blasted the United States for not doing more to help Nigeria fight Boko Haram.

Rear Adm. Gabriel E. Okoi, then-Nigeria’s chief of defense intelligence, said at the time that Nigeria’s friends had “disappointed” them.

The officials were referencing the U.S. Leahy Law, which prevents the Pentagon from providing arms to militaries that have committed egregious human rights violations. Last year, the United States also blocked the sale of an Apache helicopter from Israel, claiming Nigeria did not know how to use the equipment, which further angered officials there.

Meanwhile, Femi Adesina, an advisor to Buhari, seemed to pivot from the American blame game last week, saying instead that if the money allegedly stolen by Dasuki had been spent the way it was intended, “thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided.”



J. Peter Pham is Director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. He previously held an academic appointment as tenured Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Political Science, and Africana Studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

An expert on international relations and strategic issues, with particular concentrations on U.S. foreign and defense policy, African politics and security, terrorism and political violence, and religion and global politics, Dr. Pham has authored of over 300 essays and reviews and is the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books on these topics. He is frequently invited to testify before the United States Congress and brief senior administration officials and has also served as an adviser to the United Nations, foreign governments, and multinational corporations.

http://www.persecondnews.com/index.php/component/k2/item/5036-nigeria-lacks-war-fighting-military-us-defense-expert-says-buhari-playing-the-blame-game

WHO GET LIGHT I WAN CHARGE MY PHONE

EVEN OMOJUWA TOO IS WAILING

MORE TWEETS

A group of Nigerians have taken to twitter to express their distress over the looming economic crisis in the country by calling to the notice of the President using the designated hashtag #OpenLetterToMrPresident.

The hashtag seems to have originated from this twitter account, @EknowhowNG who started the campaign to appeal to the Government concerning issues some people are facing in the hands of some Customs Officers at the Lagos State border ports.

They released several letters online expressing their disappointment at the way they are been treated, stating that the issues are as a result of the bad economic policies sent out by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which they believe would have a drastic effect on the nation’s revenues if not averted. See letter above.

Other Nigerians decided to latch onto the hashtag to air their views about issues happening in the country.

- See more at: http://www.aitonline.tv/post-_openlettertomrpresident_from_concerned_nigerians#sthash.VeVM3NBV.dpuf

Opinedecandid:
I dare them to embark on the protest.

1st January, 2013 when the golden hearted Goodluck Jonathan attempted to remove fuel subsidy, we did not buy fuel as expensive as we currently do, but NLC didn't allow a few days to pass before organising protests in different cities of the country.

In 2015, the couch bites harder, oil price globally is lower, a situation that is ullupposed to crash the fuel price further down, but NLC are waiting and watching.

Hypocrites unions

NASO

ozoigbondu:
Now they have woken up from their sleep


The incomptent Petroleum minster must go

GBAM

calaway:
it amazes me how aviation fuel is never in short supply, always enough for baba rolling stone to globe trot aimlessly..

SERIOUSLY BABA WOULD HAVE STOPPED TRAVELLING AND SOLVE THE ISSUE OF THIS FUEL SCARCITY