₦airaland Forum

I’ve been watching the Morning Show for almost a year and I’ve never seen a guest cry this way before.

Rufai really scattered this guy’s head. 😂😂😂

You see, these APC people are now slowly distorting history and that must be resisted by all well-meaning Nigerians. pic.twitter.com/26CjFtRDIl

— Morris Monye (@Morris_Monye) October 30, 2023

SenatePresdo:
That's to show you they don't do ethnic suffering and smiling because someone is from their region.

Once Satan identifies as a Yoruba, Yorubas would support him over Jesus because of sentiments and lack of knowledge due to hampered evolution of their brain.

Naturetony1:
All of you defending a constitution which made it possible for an ordinary SSCE holder to be a president have not for once reasoned why it's not so in every other aspects of employment. For you to become a manager or climb to a senior management level in most companies and even some government parastatals you need SSCE and a degree (HND/BSC) at least, yet you're here defending why a president's university degree authenticity shouldn't be questioned. Nigerians are indeed their own problem..

anyilalaz:
That is the reason we have find ourselves in this sh*t. Just imagine, minimum qualifications for the seat of the president for the largest black race country, with GDP more $440 billion, with complicated and diverse ethno-religious population.

Have you ever seen any multi national employing anything below degree? Most of them have master with all manners of executive training etc

We deserve better

cliqtips:
But Tinubu didn't promise Nigerians anything during campaign or did he ?

They only voted for him because they felt it was his turn while some did because they're the same tribe/religious group.

But las las everybody go dey alright.

ganisucks:
Tinubu’s personal lawyer, Senior advocate of Nigeria Babatunde Ogala also said whatever document Atiku gets from the Chicago State University is no longer useful.

chanceux:
The process of Minimum wage review should have been started a long time ago and would have been in the process of implementation if they were serious about helping the poor. Up until today, all we've been hearing are just rumors while people are suffering.

I don't care whom anyone supports, my only concern is the level of hardship in that country. No matter how much we try to blind our eyes to that truth, it will stare right back at us. Nigerians are suffering and it is getting worse, the government should have pity on them haba! It's not too much to ask

tuoyoojo:
How to kick start the economy

Encourage the growth of small and medium scale enterprises by reduce excess taxation, provide affordable power, cheap transportation and access road

Ensure the refineries are working and reduce our over dependency on oil

Invest in manufacturing and education

Speedy prosecution of financial fraud, starting from the top, no matter who you are. Make an example of 5 or 6 big men and see how everyone would fall in line

Above all , reduce govt spending spending or budget inflation and see how things would turn around

nairalandkachy1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKkSRVrTPcg

RepoMan007:
You don't know who you talking to. He is irredeemable. Claiming a thing that cost N800 will be sold for N40 is his way of blurring out the finer derails that proves subsidy can be sustained. The people our go is buying from in India and singapore dothey sel it to our govt at N40 after producing at N800 a litre? Never. It is just a matter of buying from local refiners and selling at whatever subsidized rate the govt likes. Refiners makes profit while gov makes the loss on behalf of same people who the govt is serving.

nairalanda1:
At the end, when you sell something less than the cost of producing it, you would end up with corruption and looting...because you are attacking somene's right to make a profit.

Why do we have scarcity of petrol, but no scarcity of bread? Because bread is sold at a profit in Nigeria. Petrol is not.

Bring in a subsidy, corruption wills et in in the sector being subsidised.

Plus even IF YOU ELIMINATE CORRUPTION, all your problem is not solved.

If we kept petrol at N195...our subsidy costs would have gone up from N400 per liter in may to N700-800 per liter by now. Buhari did not budget any money for subsidy beyond June. The money for the increase will come from other sectors of the budget, causing a deficit...which has to be filled in by loans.

nairalanda1:
Am afraid you missed my point completely

When you bring in a subsidy for anything, you encourage corruption and looting, because the price control inherent in subsides means that there would be no profits made.

Thus money would be made by illegitimate means. Add the fact that subsidy is free money.

I am not saying corruption and greed in nigeria...all of it...comes from fuel subsidy.

nairalanda1:
Corruption and greediness fostered by subsidy.

Lagos feels different, the boisterous - often chaotic - energy that drives Nigeria's commercial centre has been subdued by the removal of a fuel subsidy that had kept the price of petrol low for decades in Africa's largest economy.

Since June, fuel costs have tripled, leading transport fares to shoot up and forcing many employees to return to the pandemic era by working from home.

Many private cars are off the roads. And with fewer passengers to tussle over, some of the yellow, fume-belching buses, pride of the city's eternal hustle spirit, now idle at motor parks.

The notorious miles-long traffic jams have drastically reduced.

This bustling city of an estimated 20 million people is quieter, but for once that is not a good thing.

What Lagos has gained in tranquillity it has lost economically since President Bola Tinubu abruptly ended the supply of cheap fuel in his first day in office at the end of May.

Oil-rich Nigeria, he said, could no longer afford to subsidise petrol which was costing billions of dollars a year.

Mr Tinubu also ended currency restrictions that had been put in place by the previous government, and while many experts agree that it was the right thing to do, it has led to a weakening of the local currency.

The double whammy of rising fuel costs and a weak currency has sent the economy into a tailspin, and nowhere is the biting hardship more apparent than in Lagos - a commercial behemoth that is often a snapshot of the rest of the country.

Many small businesses have packed up, and some low-income earners who live in the suburbs of the mainland and commute to the business districts on Lagos Island have stopped going to work.

"I was spending 600 naira a day on transport, it jumped to 1,000 naira. By the end of the month I was spending all my salary on transport," a cleaner said, adding that she had been forced to resign from her job.

She lives in Ikorodu, a congested part of Lagos state, which is popular with low-income earners.

Previously, the 41km (25 miles) between Ikorodu and upmarket Victoria Island took two-three hours during rush hour. Now, it can be done in 45-50 minutes.

Recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that when compared to the second quarter of 2022, the contribution of road transport to the economy within the same period this year fell by around 47%.

As that data only captured one month since the policy changed, things could be even worse now.

That economic hit would have been mostly felt in Lagos, home of Nigeria's busiest port and the city that the Nigerian president prides himself on building.

He was right to remove [the] subsidy but not at this time, not without fixing the refineries," said professor of Economics Uchechi Ogbuagu. Because Nigeria's oil refineries are not functioning, most fuel is actually imported.

"An essential commodity like energy - if you tamper with the price, there will be a multiplier effect," he said.

What to do with the expensive fuel subsidy was one of the major talking-points before elections earlier this year, with almost all economists and politicians agreeing that it had to go.

Nigeria was spending money it did not have to keep fuel prices low and it was no longer sustainable, the arguments went.

Previous investigations found that the system was riddled with corruption, and as was evident after it was stopped, a large portion of the subsidised fuel was smuggled to neighbouring countries where it was sold at higher rates.

Some experts and government agencies argued that the fuel subsidy benefited rich Nigerians more than the poor, while opponents said removing it would inflict hardship on the latter group.

But even among those who wanted the subsidy gone was an admission that it needed to be done in phases, certain things had to be put in place first.

The labour unions wanted the local refineries working, the main opposition wanted government to get out of the oil-importation market.

Others asked for subsidised transportation - especially to move farm products, and there were also questions about how the money saved would be used.

But despite having some of these in his manifesto, Mr Tinubu used an off-the-cuff remark in his first speech as president to remove the subsidy, initially sending the system into shock before prices went up.

"I was possessed with courage and I said 'subsidy is gone'," Mr Tinubu said of his now-famous remark on 29 May.

"We are tired of feeding smugglers, making few people rich and subsidising the next-door neighbour," he later said at a function in France.

With prices of petrol up, small businesses like the popular motorcycle food-delivery companies, that provided employment to young people, have had to rethink their strategies.

Some workers have been laid off while others like Happiness Emmanuel have resorted to using bicycles for deliveries, a rare sight in the scorching heat of Lagos, where there is a lack of bicycle lanes.

"I make more money and it is less expensive to maintain," he told the BBC at his food court location in the Ikeja area.

Some of his colleagues have also started using bicycles because of the high cost of fuel, he said.

Even the city's Bus Rapid Transport, which recently added electric buses to its fleet, has seen an upsurge by as much as 30%, a spokesman told the BBC.

This was helped by prices that were halved by the government, he said.

The state is also commencing operations on its metro system on Monday, and its affordable fares should get more residents on the move again.

President Tinubu announced in early August that more than 1 trillion naira ($1.3bn; £1bn) had been saved since subsidy was removed - money that otherwise would have gone to "smugglers and fraudsters", he said.

He acknowledged the hardship, asked people to "look beyond the present temporary pains," and assured that saved funds would benefit families.

Tuition loans have been introduced for poor families with children in university and talks are ongoing for the minimum wage to be raised.

The government has also distributed grains, announced plans to convert cars from fuel to gas, while some states have introduced electric buses.

For some, the current realities put an end to the arguments about who benefits from the fuel subsidy. Many want it back and now argue that fuel subsidy is not a bad if it can be ring-fenced from corruption.

"Subsidy, if implemented well, benefits all," said Prof Ogbuagu.

"Everybody was buying fuel at the same price. The poor may not have lots of TVs and fridges, but transport fares would be low," he said.

Mr Tinubu has assured that there are no further plans for petrol prices to rise - which ought to happen as the naira weakened further - all but signalling that the subsidy was back.

He has also announced his cabinet, filling up important posts that are crucial in driving the economy.

It demonstrates how difficult it is to do away with what is a popular policy, even for President Tinubu who has often boasted of having the will to carry out difficult decisions.

He will not be the first Nigerian president to walk back on the scrapping of the fuel subsidy, though predecessors faced far stiffer opposition, such as nationwide protests in 2012.

There have been pockets of protests in some states against the hardship and the labour unions staged lacklustre demonstrations but they barely registered.

Such demonstrations have often kicked off in Lagos in the past, with other parts of Nigeria feeding off its energy to join in.

But for once, the city that never sleeps is low on fumes, literally and metaphorically.

There has been a dramatic rise in Ukraine's number of dead, according to new estimates by unnamed US officials. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville has been on the front line in the east, where the grim task of counting the dead has become a daily reality.

The unknown soldiers lie piled high in a small brick mortuary, not very far from the front line in Donetsk, where 26-year-old Margo says she speaks to the dead.

"It may sound weird… but I'm the one who wants to apologise for their deaths. I want to thank them somehow. It's as if they can hear, but they can't respond."

At her cluttered desk outside the mortuary's heavy door, she sits, pen in hand. It is her job to record the particulars of the fallen.

Ukraine gives no official toll of its war dead - the Ukrainian armed forces have reiterated that their war casualty numbers are a state secret - but Margo knows the losses are huge.

The figures remain classified. But US officials, quoted by the New York Times, recently put the number at 70,000 dead and as many as 120,000 injured. It is a staggering figure, from an armed forces estimated at only half a million strong. The UN has recorded 9,177 civilian deaths to date.

On Margo's inside right arm is a small tattoo of a mother and child, with the birthdate of her son recorded. Her manicured nails are painted in Ukrainian colours. She wears a black T-shirt with the words "I'M UKRAINIAN" on the front.

"The hardest is when you see a dead young guy who hasn't even reached 20, 22 years old. And realising they didn't die their own death," she says. "They were killed. They were killed for their own land. That's the most painful. You cannot get used to this. It's now getting to the point where it's just about [helping] the boys reach home."

The most difficult day of her life, she says, was when her common-law husband was brought into the mortuary on the day he died. Twenty-three-year-old Andre was killed in battle on 29 December 2022.

"He died while defending his motherland," she says. "But then, for the umpteenth time, I've convinced myself that I should be here, I should be helping the fallen."

The job has made her hard - like steel, she says. And no matter how painful it is to see the bodies being brought into the mortuary, she says she never cries in public.

"I keep all of this inside me [until] the evening when I come home. No-one sees my tears."

[b]As recently as April, leaked estimates from the Pentagon put Ukrainian deaths at the much lower figure of 17,500. The alleged jump to more than 70,000 can be partly explained by the counter-offensive in the south. In its early days it was especially hard on Ukrainian infantry - "worse than Bakhmut" [/b]one brigade commander who is fighting there told me. The city in Donestsk fell to Russia in May in one of the bloodiest battles of the war so far.

Ukraine has now changed tactics there, but the beginning of the push to breach Russia's occupation defences in June was costly, for young newly trained soldiers in particular. They were dying "by the dozens" every day, one senior sergeant fighting around the Donetsk village of Velyka Novosilka told me in June.

At the mortuary, one of a number along the front line, they work to put names to the unknown soldiers, who come direct from the battlefield.

Body bags are brought outside, one at a time, and the search for clues begins. Inside the first body bag is the corpse of a young man, his eyes still open, his hands folded carefully across his lap. His face is cut, and there is a gash on the side of his leg. Another body is brought out, the fingers missing on the right hand, blood and battlefield mud stain his uniform.

Their pockets are cut open by mortuary staff, still full of the artefacts of everyday life - keys, a mobile phone, a wallet with family snaps. In death, these items are now clues that might reunite the unidentified with their families.

Written in black marker pen on another body bag, the word "Unidentified" is scored out and replaced with a man's name and army company details.

More body bags emerge, but reporting restrictions don't allow me to say how many.

A group of soldiers - commanders of various ranks - arrive in an army pick-up truck and pace outside the mortuary, smoking cigarettes. They inspect one body, to see if the soldier is from their platoon, company or battalion. It looks like he was killed in an artillery strike - part of his head is missing and the wounds to his body are severe, even worse when he is turned over.

"This is difficult. Unpleasant. But it's needed, part of our job. We have to give the boys a proper send-off," says a deputy battalion commander who goes by the call sign "Avocat".

More men from his unit will be brought to aid in the identification of the body, he says.

The reality of the scale of casualties is laid bare in Ukraine's cemeteries.

In the late afternoon sun around Krasnopilske cemetery in Dnipro, the heads of the sunflowers hang heavy - an honour-guard for the freshly dug graves that spread ever closer to the perimeter.

At one such graveside, 31-year-old Oksana weeps alone. Pictures of her dead husband Pavlo gaze down on her. The bearded and brawny junior sergeant was a power-lifting champion and personal trainer. He was killed during Ukraine's previous counter-offensive, near the city of Izium in November when a missile from a Russian helicopter struck his convoy.

He voluntarily went to defend our country," Oksana says. "He was a warrior at heart - freedom loving. He was the embodiment of our Ukrainian spirit."

It took time to identify Pavlo's body - he, along with others in the car, was badly burnt. Eventually he was recognised by a tattoo.

The yellow and blue of Ukrainian flags whip above each grave in the gentle breeze - there are hundreds of them. Each is a marker in the great tide of loss that sweeps daily across eastern and southern battlefields, filling cemeteries in towns and villages the length and breadth of Ukraine

A year and a half into this war, few families here have been left untouched by grief.

But still, there appears to be no slackening in the will to fight. If anything, the losses have, for now, galvanised the determination for victory.

Oksana and Pavlo made a wartime pact that if he died, she would join the military. For the past two months she's been serving as part of an aerial surveillance drone unit, on the outskirts of Bakhmut.

A week after we met in the cemetery, Oksana is in full body armour and heading to a forward position in search of a Russian anti-tank unit which is targeting Ukrainian forces. When we get there, the sound of artillery, almost entirely outgoing fire, is deafening.

I ask her why she put herself in harm's way? It is her moral duty, she says, as she plays with the silver wedding ring on her right hand.

She says: "I just need to continue what he started. So, all his efforts were not in vain. Volunteering and donations are all good, but I want to be a part of it, a part of our victory in the future."

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar earlier released a statement warning that those who release casualty numbers would be liable to criminal prosecution.

"Why is this data secret?" she asked rhetorically. "Because during the active phase of the war, the enemy uses the number of dead and wounded to calculate our likely further actions… If the enemy has this information, they will begin to understand some of our next steps."

The toll of the war hangs heavy on the men of the 68th Jaeger Brigade, who are fighting to stop Russian advances on the eastern front, near the town of Kupiansk.

In 35C-plus temperatures, we sought some shelter under camouflage netting, away from the midday heat and the ever-present danger of Russian drones. A deputy battalion commander who goes by the call-sign "Lermontov" was in a reflective and dark mood. Over freshly brewed coffee, he predicted a long war.

The Russians won't stop, he said, "you can't negotiate with them". The West doesn't understand this. Young soldiers who expected to be home in a year realise now, he said, they will be gone longer.

He is a veteran of the fight in Donbas, he's been fighting Russia and its proxies since 2014. How long then did he expect this war to last? "Another 10 years," he replied.

His grim mood was understandable. On 1 August, the brigade's sergeant major and two other sergeants were killed in a single Russian mortar strike. "He was a legend," Lermontov said. The dead man's car was parked where he had left it, a few feet away. His personal belongings still inside.

As we spoke, Lermontov's phone buzzed. It was the mother of a soldier killed the week before. She wanted to know why young men with guns were being sent to attack Russian trenches if Ukraine had been gifted so much modern Western weaponry. But on this 600-mile front line many brigades lack the latest armoured vehicles or long-range guns. The reality is that in many of the trenches, Ukrainian soldiers have to make do. "I don't have an answer for her, she doesn't understand… we don't have everything," he told me.

At a medal ceremony, in the garden of a house which serves as a company base, I meet the brigade's commander, Colonel Oleksii. He had just returned from the sergeant major's funeral.

He told me: "We had two big [Russian attacks]. I think we were very successful, we found around 35 bodies. So I think basically we demolished one company."

Overall Russia's casualties are far greater, some 120,000 dead according to the latest US estimate. But its army, and population, is far larger. Ukrainian soldiers at the front line say Russia's ability to absorb pain appears limitless.

I ask Colonel Oleksii what he tells the families of the fallen.

"I just ask for forgiveness that I have not provided enough safety. Maybe I was a bad leader, bad planning. And I thank them for what they gave for this fight."

HonNL:
https://www.manutd.com/en/news/detail/man-utd-official-club-statement-on-mason-greenwood-21-august-2023

Kukutente23:
Lol. It's back. Stop repeating same thing like a disc jockey
You were not blind when NNPCL took a $3bn loan recently to be paid with crude oil

plaindealer:
https://www.thecable.ng/survey-62-of-nigerians-see-country-moving-forward-under-tinubu-despite-economic-hardship

justmondris:
What has Democracy done for Africa. During the worst military head of state in the history of Nigeria, 1$ = 22Naira. What's the current exchange rate in the so called democracy regime?

We don't care about the regime or type of governance. We just want good leaders to move our country and continent forward. Is this too much to ask for?

Sajio:
This message is for nairaland,I don't know who is using my account. I kept see likes on comments and messages when I ever I long in. Is that my account has been hacked or what? How do I go about this..

Procashtips:
Majority of the people of Niger are with the military, it's going to be extremely difficult to overcome such a resolve except you actually want to kill the civilians.


My question then goes thus: If majority want the military, what then is the problem of outsiders?

GodHatesBigots:
“Bazoum and his family, according to the latest information, have been deprived of food, electricity and medical care for several days,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said Bazoum’s reported detention conditions “could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights law”.

The AU said “such treatment of a democratically elected president” was “unacceptable”.

oyeb15:
What is d way out for Nigerians now. Our businesses are down. Myself I use fuel for my business and since it now expensive and [b]people are not paying well [/b]coupled with very low customers. Am running at huge loss.I can't even run again cos have spent all my savings. Am really confused!
How are we going to survive Please?