₦airaland Forum

What a come back

Why is the link not opening

I'm Igbo, true Biafran but Nnamdi Kanu is a f.ool. big one for that

TooNoisy:
Choosing a VP from the South East was a great miscalculation. Peter Obi is not going to substantially increase PDP votes because the South East was going to vote PDP. Choosing Obi will at most add 250k votes to what Jonathan had the last time. Unfortunately, he will lose the South West by a wider margin than Jonathan did.

All South West Governors are APC, the VP is from the South West and the Tinubu factor will make Atiku lose. The truth is that the PDP have neglected the South West for a long time. There is no one from SW in the top echelon so it will be very difficult for Atiku to win.

PDP is now dominated by Igbos. The top leaders are now Igbos. VP candidate, Party chairman and even highest ranking member in the Senate. All these people are Igbo and we all know how Igbos play their politics. Rather than build bridges with other regions, they actually destroy bridges. Igbos will create enemies for Atiku in the other regions especially NW and SW. And we all know those two regions contribute 46% of the voting block. Once Buhari wins NW and SW, it's game over. SE don't have the numbers.

With this your calculation i wonder why APC did not give vp position to either se or ss since sw is already APC and yoruba will still vote for APC no matter where vp came from

bonechamberlain:
If the Fulani's dont retrace their steps, in 20 years time, they might b extinct in Nigeria.

Sooner than later other tribes in Nigeria will gang up against them, their madness is getting too much

Shehu Sani have deceived himself already. It's game over for Sani

If you vote out wike because of killing what will you do to Buhari, El-rufai and zamfara state governor

The question should have been how a dictator, a coupist become a president in Nigeria

Tinubu talking trash as usual

No Military Head of State and certainly no elected President since 1970 ever accumulated up to $10bn in three years. Buhari’s $14 billion now, or $4.6bn per annum, with the possibility of more to come, is a record which should make us tremble with fear because of the consequences that will follow. It is unprecedented.

OFFICIAL ASSURANCES FLIES IN THE FACE OF REALITY

Last week, three officials of the FG were at various conferences attempting to allay the fears of Nigerians and foreigners about the debt situation which everybody else considers disturbing. The Director-General of the Debt Management Office, DMO, the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Budget and National Planning went abroad with the same story which can be briefly summarised as follows.

Nigeria’s debt indeed is rising rapidly. But, it is sustainable because Nigeria has the lowest debt to GDP ratio of most leading countries in the world. Indeed, Nigeria still has a great deal of capacity to borrow. Nigeria’s problem is not debt but revenue generation. We are not collecting taxes enough. Debt is not our problem but revenue.

Only two indisputable truths are contained in that submission. Yes, our debt/GDP ratio is low. And we are not collecting taxes especially from the wealthy tax-delinquents because they are close to the corridors of power.

On the face of it, one would assume that they have provided reassurances. In reality, they have misled the unwary. To begin with none of them is an economist – to the best of my knowledge. They certainly all lack a sense of Nigerian history with regard to loans. A quick recall should help all of us.

When in 1978 General Obasanjo’s regime was considering taking a $2.78bn facility recommended by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, to boost economic growth, the Organised Private Sector, OPS, led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, GCFR, then Chairman/Managing Director of UAC, was in support. Some of us were not. The strongest argument the OPS advanced at the time was simple. Nigeria’s debt/GDP ratio was extremely low; the country was under-borrowed. The country would easily repay the loan. That was the clincher. Obasanjo took the loan in 1978. He returned to power in 1999 to find that $2.78b has not been retired. Instead, the debt stock had exploded to $36bn.

What went wrong? This is important because it should serve as a lesson to Buhari’s government and the officials presenting partial truth as the whole story. A small diversion should also help to drive home the point that Nigerian governments cannot always be trusted with loans – foreign or domestic.

Late Chief Ayo Ogunlade was Abacha’s Minister for National Planning. In 1997, he had a shocking revelation to make about the loans which were taken with promises to repay. According to him at a lecture delivered at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Lagos, ten per cent of the loans never reached Nigeria; they disappeared into various accounts abroad.

Fifty per cent went into uncompleted projects; thirty eight per cent went into projects which earned no returns on investments and only two per cent was allocated to ventures earning positive rates of return. Yet, Nigeria had to repay one hundred per cent of the loans with interest. A question will soon be asked of the spokespersons of the Buhari administration on the loans taken so far.
THE FALLACIES

Nigeria’s debt was not easily repayable in 1978 as argued by the OPS and will not easily be redeemed from now on as the DG-DMO, Minister of Finance and Senator Udoma Udo Udoma are promising, for the simple reason that national loans are never discharged from the Gross Domestic Product. Loans can only be repaid and reduced from revenue.

The three have agreed that Nigeria’s revenue is low; they have implied our difficulty to repay exists unless revenue generation improves. But, they have not provided a plan to increase revenue. That is the “pie-in-the-sky” approach to economic management.

Nations managing their economies efficiently don’t wait or pray for income to increase; they plan and make sure it goes up. That is the only way they can rest, assured of paying their bills as and when due. This government has failed to do that. And, that is the problem.

Furthermore, a great percentage of the GDP of third world economies is not tradable and cannot be used to repay debt. For instance, Nigeria’s rural communities and the millions of subsistence level farmers contribute a significant percentage of the country’s GDP. But, hardly any of it leaves the community because they are consumed at the point of production. Even the value added portion is left on the farm.

By contrast few owners of mechanised farms in more advanced countries consume what they produce on the farm. So, they form part of the modern economy. Obviously, the FG is basing its assurances to Nigerians and the global community on faulty understanding of economics by its top officials. For us the debt/GDP ratio provides little comfort.

PROJECT SPECIFIC LOANS ARE BEST

One of the strongest verdicts of economic history has taught us is that project-specific loans, especially those which are self-liquidating, have the best records of repayment. Yew made the point with regard to Singapore Airlines. “Singapore Airlines was 100 per cent government-owned, but, it was efficient and profitable because it had to compete with international airlines. We did not subsidise it; if it is not profitable, it would have to close down (p 315).”

Two things are clear from that example. Singapore Airline is creating jobs for hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly. It is not draining the public purse; so government has more money to spend on social welfare programmes that lift the people out of poverty. Finally, it is earning foreign exchange for Singapore instead of waiting for government or NNPC to generate the dollars. It reduces the exchange rate and strengthens its currency.

Obviously, Nigeria Air started out with the wrong model. It was bound to fail even if it took off in December 2018 as planned. Sirika would probably nominate as Chairman and Managing Director close friends. The airline was designed to drain government’s foreign exchange and it has now lost funds which could have gone to relieve poverty if properly utilised.

Most of the loans taken by Buhari are not project-specific, and even those that are, depend on government to repay the loans not on profitable operations. That explains why the debt/GDP ratio is so dangerously misleading. Underlying it is the assumption that the country can pile up debts without definite repayment plans and survive indefinitely. Nothing can be more false.

WHERE ARE THE PROJECTS FINANCED WITH $14bn?

Let us return to Ayo Ogunlade briefly. The late Minister made the points that we were in a debt trap in 1997 because so many loans taken were not tied to any income generating project, some were never executed at all; others were unprofitable and could never be. Even then the debt/GDP ratio was highly favourable to Nigeria.

The reason the World Bank, the IMF, African Development Bank, even our own Central Bank of Nigeria as well as economists are worried about the huge loans taken since 2015 is because there is very little to show for it. There is no completed project repaying its loans and there is none in sight.
A good example is the railway system. Shortly after appointing Ministers the FG rolled out a plan to revolutionise the rail services nationwide including Lagos-Ibadan, Lagos-Kano, Lagos-Calabar. The first was promised to start December 2017. Today, there is no trace of it. Chinese loans were taken which have added to our debt burdens. Unless there is a long moratorium regarding commencement of payback, we might already be paying for railway services we will not enjoy for years to come – if ever. What stops another government from scrapping it? It has been done before.

Without income-generating projects, the nation is now borrowing just to fund consumption by government officials. There is little investment. Nothing demonstrates this fact better than the fact that the Minister of Finance announced in October that only N460bn had been released for capital expenditure – less than 20 per cent of the budget for the year. With less than three months to go in 2018, it is obvious that there has been very little capital investment this year on which we can grow the economy in the next few years.

So, it is safe to ask: where are the projects which will help to repay the mounting debts?

CONCLUSION

Governments worldwide borrow. What separates those acquiring loans to improve on the welfare of their people and those who deepen their poverty is the deployment of the loans, strict adherence to efficiency and performance and accountability. Nigeria’s Minister of State for Aviation could not have lasted more than 72 hours after announcing that he had just flushed money down the toilet on an ill-conceived project called Nigeria Air.

Ultimately, the difference is leadership. Lee Kuan Yew would not have retained such a minister who did not know he should voluntarily resign his appointment. That is how Singapore developed and why Nigeria will not. Nigeria borrows now to fund waste. That explains why we now have the largest number of poor people on earth. Another four years of this sort of governance and we will add 27 million more people to those living below the poverty line. When those living below the poverty line become the majority, who will repay the debt?
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/10/the-looming-debt-trap-fg-borrowing-may-deepen-poverty-in-nigeria/

By Dele Sobowale

When those in office regard the power vested in them as personal prerogative, they inevitably enrich themselves, promote their families, favour their friends. The fundamental structures of the modern state are eroded like the supporting beams of a house after termites have attacked them.



The people have to pay dearly and long for the sins and crimes of their leaders – Lee Kuan Yew, former Singaporean Prime Minister.

VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ p 2.

BORROW AND INVEST

VERSUS BORROW AND WASTE

Lee Kuan Yew is familiar to everybody and his famous book, FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIRST IN ONE GENERATION was a best seller worldwide for almost a year. It was a gripping story of how a small country hardly bigger than Ogun State in Nigeria, starting with no natural resources, was managed so intelligently as to become a first world country in thirty years.


President Muhammadu Buhari
By contrast, Nigeria with all of our natural and human resources had remained stubbornly in the third world and we are now in danger of creating a special category for ourselves by becoming the world’s only fourth world country.

Comparing Singapore with Nigeria is perhaps the best way to demonstrate our predicament as a nation today.

Two recent events in the aviation sector in the two countries illustrate the differences between a nation governed by purposeful leaders who are also always conscious of the basic principles of economics and one whose leaders are missing the boat each and every time on economic management. It is difference between “borrow and invest” and “borrow and waste”.

A few years ago, Singapore Airlines announced that it was ordering planes for non-stop nineteen-hour flight from its capital to New York City in USA – making it the longest non-stop flight in the world. Singapore Airlines which started doing business years after the defunct Nigerian Airways, is today one of the world’s leading airlines earning foreign exchange for the country. Nigerian Airways we all know was liquidated by the Federal Government under Obasanjo in 2006. It never made a kobo for Nigeria. Instead the government owes the staff about N42bn.

Early this year, the FG under Buhari announced that a new national carrier would be launched in December this year called Nigerian Air. An undisclosed sum of money was allegedly squandered on it by the Minister of State for Aviation, Mr Hadi Sirika, who is friend of the family to President Buhari. Publicity for the new airline was far reaching; it was all over Europe and America that a new elephant was about to fly.
History will record that in October 2018, and on due date, Richard Quest of the Cable News Network, CNN, was on Singapore Airline’s maiden non-stop flight to New York as promised and fully-booked. Late in September, the FG of Nigeria, through the same Hadi Sirika, announced that the launch of the Nigeria Air had been suspended without telling Nigerians what happened to the funds wasted and who was getting punished for it. That was bad enough.

A quick check around in aviation circles revealed that even if all Sirika flushed down the drain was N2 billion as alleged, it was sufficient money to buy two of the planes now flying non-stop from Singapore to New York and earning dollars for Singapore.

That true story leads us straight into the heart of this national alarm about Nigeria’s rising debt which is increasingly ending up impoverishing the people, while borrowing by the government of Singapore had been managed to increase the per capita income of Singaporeans. The reasons Singapore is rising and Nigeria is falling were explained by Yew in that book.

THE ALARMING RISE OF NIGERIAN DEBT IN JUST THREE YEARS

VANGUARD on its front page on October 18, 2018, published infographics by Jide Babatunde titled NIGERIA’S RISING FOREIGN DEBT ($bn). It was a brilliant summary of the alarming and unprecedented increase of Nigeria’s foreign debt since the Buhari administration came into power. Unfortunately for Nigerians now alive and in the future, the debt just went up by another $2bn recently bringing the total to $24bn.

In real terms, that makes it $14bn borrowed in just three years or 130 per cent increase over what Buhari inherited in 2015. Even that disturbing fact fails to capture the full impact of the tragedy which awaits the nation if the trend continues. Four more years of Buhari and we could be in debt up to $48bn or more.


File: Children affected by poverty
A quick review of our history will help to put the entire situation into perspective. Buhari’s three years and five months’ tenure in office is one of the shortest among Nigerian leaders since the Civil war. In descending order the length of service have been as follows:

Obasanjo 11 years
(military and civilian)

Gowon 9 years
Babangida 7years 11 months
Abacha 5 years
Jonathan 5 years
Buhari 4 years
8 months (military and civilian)

It took the country 26 years, from 1978 to 2004, to accumulate the $36bn, or $1.4bn per annum, from which Dr Nogozi Okonjo-Iweala extricated the country in 2004. Most of the debt was actually accumulated interest for failure to repay loans as and when due.

Under the Babangida regime when crude oil prices went as low as $10 per barrel at one time, a Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji, was charged with the responsibility of getting our loans rescheduled while minimising the penalties that were imposed by the lenders at the time.

They got their deal done. That's Buhari method of fighting corruption. If you are not with Buhari, then you are corrupt. A case of swallow or be swallowed.

Eniola Akinkuotu

A former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, has retrieved his passports from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Sunday PUNCH can report.

This is despite a directive by the Federal Government that 50 persons under investigations for fraud exceeding N50m are restricted from travelling.



An impeccable source in the EFCC told our correspondent that Obanikoro, who has an American passport and a Nigerian one, met certain conditions before his passports were returned to him.
He said, “Obanikoro was able to return over N100m out of the money he received from Dasuki. He showed genuine commitment to returning more money and assist the EFCC with investigations and his passports were returned to him.

“The fact that the commission returned the passports to him does not mean that he has been cleared.”

Obanikoro has been under investigation since 2016 for allegedly receiving N4.7bn from the embattled former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), in 2014.

The former minister allegedly handed over about N1.3bn to former Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and another N1.3bn to the then Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate in Osun State in 2014, Senator Iyiola Omisore.

After Fayose was arrested by the EFCC last Tuesday, however, it was learnt that Obanikoro travelled to the US.

“Obanikoro travelled out on Wednesday evening, saying he wanted to go for medical treatment. He gave no date when he would return,” a source said.



The former minister, who has defected to the All Progressives Congress, had declared his intention to run for the Lagos West senatorial district election but shelved his ambition at the last minute.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that Omisore had also recovered his passport from the commission.

The former federal lawmaker was arrested by the EFCC in 2016 for allegedly receiving money from Dasuki through Obanikoro.

He subsequently returned N300m to the EFCC but his passport was seized by the commission.

Omisore had written to the EFCC, requesting that his passport be returned to him so that he could travel for medical treatment but his request was turned down.

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However, the Osun State deputy governor, who recently contested the governorship election of Osun State on the platform of the Social Democratic Party, entered into an undisclosed agreement with the APC when the election was declared inconclusive.

He was reported to have entered into a series of negotiations with the APC leadership to support the APC candidate in the poll, Gboyega Oyetola, but the details of the negotiations were never made public.

It was during the negotiations with the leadership of the APC that Omisore was said to have recovered his passport from the anti-graft agency.

Omsiore’s media aide, Mr. Jide Fakorede, had said recently that his boss was no longer under investigation by the EFCC and that he was free to travel.

He had said, “Senator Iyiola Omisore was wrongly accused in 2016 and he surrendered himself to the EFCC for investigation and was given a ‘clean bill of health’ by the anti-graft body after a thorough investigation.

“It is on record that no case was instituted against him in any court of our land and neither was he arraigned before any court either. He has been enjoying his freedom and has even presented himself for election into public office passing through all security screenings. So we ask, what is the noise about?

“The basis for placement on the watch list and travel ban is to ensure that those answering EFCC charges are held within the country and for someone not having a current case with the anti-graft agency, there may be no basis to restrict his movement.”

Attempts to speak with the spokesman for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, proved abortive as he did not respond to phone calls on Saturday.

When contacted on the telephone, Omisore rejected our correspondent’s calls and subsequently sent a text message saying, “Sorry, I can’t talk right now.”

Our correspondent sent a text message to him on whether it was true that he had retrieved his passport from the EFCC based on his agreement with the APC but he had yet to respond as of press time.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that the EFCC had slammed five charges against former Governor Ayodele Fayose.

Barring any last minute changes, the former governor will be arraigned in Lagos this week for allegedly receiving money from Dasuki through Obanikoro.
https://punchng.com/obanikoro-omisore-recover-passports-from-efcc-ex-minister-returns-to-us/

When is Tinubu deceit going to end in Lagos

We are waiting for APC in Zamfara state

senatordave1:
Under gej an incumbent,they managed just 1.4 million with all the federal might.apc have scored 30% in all the rivers legislative rerun polls and even won some seats something no party has done since 2003.what does that tell you?

PDP is sure of getting 49% in osun they did during governorship election

senatordave1:
Very nonsense analysis.atiku has little or no grassroot links or connection in the north east.the op is high on atikulooted weed.buhari has always won heavily in bauchi,borno,yobe and gombe.atiku can only win taraba and adamawa narrowly.even im adamawa,hes struggling and may lose to buhari.

Based on my analysis,it will be:
Borno apc 800,000. Pdp 100,000

Yobe. Apc 600,000 pdp 100,000

Bauchi. Apc 1 million pdp 200,000

Gombe. Apc 500,000. Pdp 200,000

Adamawa. Apc 300000. Pdp 400000

Taraba. Apc 200000. Pdp 300000

Nonsense

One of Buhari problem is that he surrounded himself with unintelligent people

APC should try play by rules

escodotman:
APC is bitting more than they can chew. By the standard APC has been setting since it came to power, if PDP gets back to power, I can see them paying APC back and making sure they never win any election in Nigeria again and are totally destroyed.

I'm telling you. APC is not playing by the rules at all. I wonder why some people are still supporting these criminals and anarchists

[quote author= post=72186725]COURT!!!!!

I RISE!!!!!!!

Cry me a RIVER !

PDP?!
Never again!![/quote]If satanic party (APC) is that strong i wonder why they are always afraid of free and fair election

boss1310:
OP what's the name of this your phone

Samsung definitely

theoldpretender:
I don't know why you Nigerians keep on allwing yourselves to be decieved.

Yes, the government claimed subsidy was removed....except that they were STILL setting the prices.

If subsidy had been removed, the price setting would not have been in the hands of government....it would have been in the hands of the independent marketers.....meaning fuel would have been costing N200 per liter and above by now.

The thing is, the reason why APC is still payign subsidy, and why Atiku will still pay subsidy, and keep on paying it...is because Nigerians don't want high fuel prices. They would rather keep the subsidy corruption monster alive in return for low oil prices.

Some of you people even want Bubu to make it N87 per liter again.

So stop screaming about corruption....because you Nigerians dont want the solution. You want cheap fuel....so keep on paying for cheap fuel.

APC and PDP are just lying to us...and we are buying it because we hate the bitter truth. We need to deregulate...and we should have done so since 1992!

That is not what Buhari told Nigeria when he increased fuel price. We were told that subsidy have been removed

If buhari said subsidy is a fraud what is he now paying

That is actually what i have been saying about 8 lane Lagos - Badagry express road, Why building a new expensive one when you know that the problem of the old one is maintainance.

Who doesn't know Nigeria port is a mess. Nigeria port is only place where containers takes month to be clear

God punish buhari

NonsoWow:
This happened before the PDP presidential primaries when Atiku came to solicit for Anambra PDP votes. Atiku should listen to the southeast PDP stakeholders and replace peter obi with another generally acceptable candidate like Osita Chidoka or Chukwuma Soludo if he wants a united southeast behind him in 2019. But if he insists on peter obi, then he should prepare himself for sabotage in the southeast because these guys are serious and they are in the position to make or mar him in the southeast.

Any South East governor who try to sabotage Atiku Obi candidacy will receive Onoh treatment. The governors have no option than to roll with masses

Before 2019 only Tinubu, Buhari and Oshiohmole will remain in APC

Tinubu reply is as bad as his first comment, what is the meaning of unoccupied land? Is there any land in this 21st century Nigeria that is unoccupied.... So fulani herdsmen can chase people out of their land and declare the land unoccupied

UgwuAghachi:
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala over Peter Obi

Ngozi and are not competing.... They are all igbo with good quality

Na only yoruba will die