₦airaland Forum

Frankly, I don't know why we cannot semi-privatize our defence companies like DICON and partner with foreign defense corporations like DENEL to develop our own armed platforms.
DENEL will be willing to share the rooivalk and mokopa missile technologies if they are given sufficient monetary and market incentives. We can deepen partnership with Portugal on communication gadgets and avionics. Even Pakistan can be a very important asset.




We really need to start moving away from "acquiring" to "developing".

President Buhari and the need for guarded utterances
By: Edebhagba G. Justice


Once again, Nigeria’s most illustrious septuagenarian has managed to embroil himself in yet another insidious fiasco, the likes of which are fast putting the 2015 “Orubebe incident” to weeping shame; in a rather daring display of political aloofness, the President ruffled the bristling feathers of Nigerians with his statement last Wednesday at the Commonwealth Business Forum in U.K., where he brazenly surmised that “a lot” of Nigerian youths are lazy illiterates who possess a misguided sense of entitlement. Predictably, his comment has generated heated condemnation from aggrieved youths nationwide and a fresh new wave of putrid bashing from political opponents, all the while sending his media handlers scurrying around in a futile attempt to do damage control.


Now, it is quite plausible that the President never meant his statement as an insult; however, the fact remains that it was not the most tactful of things to say (especially in a foreign country), and has only led to his opponents capitalizing on his reckless commentary to further propagate the current atmosphere of “irresponsible politics”. As it stands, the current administration is riddled with numerous of such gaffe; on July 22 2015, while the President was speaking in an interview at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), he bluntly uttered the poisonous arithmetic of 95% and 7% (referring to the yawning gap between the proportion of constituents who voted for and those who voted against him, and how it was impossible to treat them both the same way), splitting the country into a dangerous mathematical dichotomy that further fanned the flames of anger and discontent. Subsequently, the country suffered through a bitter series of pipeline vandalism by enraged Niger Delta youths and a bellicose secessionist movement that almost got out of hand. All due to the heightened feelings of marginalization that was made rife by the President’s infamous “body language”, after all, both the Niger Delta and South East are regions which consider themselves part of the “7%”.


October 1st of the same year was another instance where the President in an independence speech delivered from the U.K., warned Nigerians to “stop their unruly behavior” (isn’t that rich coming from someone whose son was skidding around the highways of Abuja at midnight on a power bike till he landed in an emergency ward?), a statement that portrayed Nigerians as an undisciplined and primitive mob in the face of the international community. As if that wasn’t enough, in the same month, he went ahead to Germany where he claimed, with humorous relish, that his wife belonged to “the kitchen” and “the other room”, much to the chagrin of a clearly miffed Angela Merkel. Without seeming to be aware of it, he successfully painted himself as a male chauvinist, lacking regard for women.


Yes, no one is above making mistakes and one may sometimes make innocent remarks that can be erroneously interpreted within the purview of other less benign contexts; but as the President of a multi-polar state like Nigeria, one would expect more than poorly conceived innocent remarks that could lead to increased sectarian tension or have serious negative impacts on the morale and perception of the country abroad. Thus, Mr. President must learn to address issues with a certain level of succinct diplomacy or risk crossing the Rubicon to a point he would rather not wish the country to be.


President Buhari must realize that good governance is beyond abortive attempts at fighting corruption, but also entails good communication with the citizenry; the President’s media aides must do more in prepping the President for media chats, instead of their trademark fire-brigade and obstreperous approach to public relations.


While many of the presidential loyalists and goons are defending the President by claiming that he was only being frank and truthful, or that he never expressly used the word “lazy” in his controversial dialogue (yeah, right, the same way Jonathan never expressly used the words “I am clueless” when he publicly declared that “stealing is not corruption”), the point remains that the sensibility of Nigerians should always be respected, especially by the very people they voted into power. Our President should realize that while his episodic declarations of cosmic truths are very much welcome, his rather uncanny habit of declaring these “truths” in foreign countries and further embarrassing his country and its citizenry isn’t in any way amusing.


http://www.opinionnigeria.com/president-buhari-and-the-need-for-guarded-utterances-by-edebhagba-g-justice/#sthash.WTnAFHli.bXDScrAr.dpbs

dhardline:
They are all the same.. ..from the president, governors ,house of assembly and house of reps.

It's better they are all booted out totally so as to cleanse the system cause they have become nothing but a cyst to us.

Infact, the have become tropozoites that are responsible for our national illnesses.

Lack of transparency, the Minister should address the issues and clarify her position on the matter.

Firstpage:
not "most". Get your facts right and watch the video. I watched it this morning on channels TV. He said "a lot".

If I said a lot of Nigerian youths are into yahoo, would I be wrong?

Yes, he said "a lot" of 60% of our population, that qualifies as "most"; He doesn't have to use the exact words to make his message clear.




I don't know why people will try to defend such a terribly misguided comment. It smacks of a collective lack of self-esteem.

@ekobami, the issue here is about the President making such a hasty generalization, using the word "most". I know for a fact that even the poorest homeless almajiris in the north are not lazy, they toil under the sun doing petty labour; digging wells, hawking puffpuff, mending shoes and clothes, selling suya and indomie, the government has given them nothing in their lives, yet they hussle to make ends meet, those that aren't fit to work go around begging from dawn till dusk. Talkless of the south where everyone is hussling; going to school, learning a trade, or doing business,and you say Nigerian youths are lazy?, perhaps you should speak for yourself.

deomelo:
1. No more fuel import and shortages

2. Export petroleum products and earn foreign exchange for Nigeria

3. Satisfy local demand and Export fertilizer and petrochemical products for foreign exchange

4. Create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Nigerians

5. Significantly boost manufacturing output

6. Produce 12,00MW of electiricity

7. Produce and export gas

8. Multiply or triple Lagos state's IGR.


.....I see endless benefits across he board.

How will it multiply or triple Lagos IGR?

Nigeria is poor, but has the necessary resources to be rich.
Just take a look at our budget, barely up to $30 billion; in per capita terms, that is about $150/citizen. South Africa with a population of 50 billion and no crude oil has an average yearly budget of $120 billion; which is about $2400/citizen.
We have all it takes in both human capital, market and natural resources to become far more advanced than South Africa, infact, than France, but we aren't tapping into it. We don't even know what we want in this country, people don't pay taxes and government does not even ask.

There is a lot of international and even local politics going on with this polio eradication in Nigeria, organizations such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary Club and even Dangote Foundation donate millions of dollars, while raking in more millions in turn. If the government doesn't take decisive measures, polio may never be eradicated in Nigeria.



Even the quality of the vaccines should be verified before administering them,we mainly use OPV(Oral Polio Vaccine) in Nigeria, which requires strict maintainance of the cold-chain, if the cold-chain is broken, the OPV which is a Live Attenuated Vaccine(LAV) may revert to become virulent on inoculation. So, instead of immunizing people, they begin to infect them.




Many things the government need to look into, I hope we get our polio-free certification next year.

Let him build political relevance and awareness by contesting in 2019, in 2023, he may actually get a real chance.

Interesting, you are saying that the very foundation on which christianity was built is a lie?

Well, technically, the words cross and tree can be used interchangeably, since a cross is made from a tree, perhaps its an allegory.


Jesus was recorded to have died on a cross, on numerous accounts.

Mere campaign gimmicks