https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-63542573


A notorious Instagram influencer from Nigeria has been jailed for more than 11 years in the US for his role in an international fraud syndicate.

Hushpuppi, whose real name is Ramon Abbas, was also ordered to pay $1,732,841 (£1,516,182) in restitution to two victims.

The influencer rose to fame flaunting his wealthy lifestyle on his page, which boasted 2.8 million followers.

But it all came crashing down when he was arrested in Dubai two years ago.

According to Don Alway, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, Abbas had - behind the glitz of his account - become "one of the most prolific money launderers in the world".

"Abbas leveraged his social media platforms... to gain notoriety and to brag about the immense wealth he acquired by conducting business email compromise scams, online bank heists and other cyber-enabled fraud that financially ruined scores of victims and provided assistance to the North Korean regime," Mr Alway said in a court document on Monday.

Abbas pleaded guilty to money laundering last year, admitting attempting to steal more than $1.1m from someone who wanted to fund a new children's school in Qatar. Court documents in California say he played a key role in the scheme, playing "the roles of bank officials and creating a bogus website".

He also admitted to "several other cyber and business email compromise schemes that cumulatively caused more than $24 million in losses", the US justice department said.

Among them was a 2019 scheme, which plunged the European island of Malta into chaos as payment systems shut down after he tried to launder €13m ($13m) stolen by a gang of North Korean hackers from the Maltese Bank of Valletta.

At one point on Instagram, Abbas said he was a real estate developer and had a category of videos called "Flexing" - social media lingo for showing off.

In 2020, he renewed his lease for another year at the exclusive Palazzo Versace apartments in Dubai under his real name and phone number.

"Thank you, Lord, for the many blessings in my life. Continue to shame those waiting for me to be shamed," he captioned an Instagram picture of a Rolls-Royce just a fortnight before he was arrested.

Those who knew Lagos-born Abbas before his transformation into Hushpuppi allege these are not the first scams he has carried out.

He allegedly started his fraudulent lifestyle as a "Yahoo boy" - the Nigerian term for men who commit romance fraud by stealing other people's identities online and swindling their none-the-wiser lovers out of money.

A Lagos driver called Saye told the BBC back in 2021 that he developed a taste for the finer things in life - but was always "generous".

"He used to buy beer for everyone around," he said.

HushpuppiImage source, INSTAGRAM/HUSHPUPPI
Image caption,
Hushpuppi had a huge following on his now deactivated Instagram account
However, Abbas' supporters say he is a changed man.

According to Nigerian newspaper Permium Times, two imams wrote to the judge in Los Angeles appealing for leniency, saying he regularly helped out widows and orphans, as well as donating to things like feeding programmes.

Meanwhile, his wife said his arrest had plunged her into hardship - noting that she had to overtime in order to pay for their child's private education.

Abbas himself apologised for his crimes to Judge Otis D Wright in a handwritten note, saying he would use his personal funds to pay back his victims. He also said he had only made $300,000 from the crime he was being tried for.

However, he was still sentenced to 135 months in a federal prison.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-63542573

Rubbish!!
5000!!! What's the total student population?
if this is true why publicise this, so all new female students will have the label as 'former olosh'

unnecessary sanctimonious publicity stunt.

compare to voting pattern for Buhari and Atiku

niceprof:
Concise and an apt analysis of what lies ahead from those who have bothered to "think".

Unfortunately too few people will read this or those that read will accuse the writer of imperialism. However the writer is spot on. Privatise NNPC, we automatically see an end to fuel shortage and naira will appreciate against the dollar. Instead we are fearful Atiku will pocket NNPC for his pocket, not realising NNPC is already in the cabals pocket

The Socialist Politics of Envy: What the World Can Learn from Nigeria’s Unfolding Disaster

www.ccn.com
9 mins read

Africa’s most populated country and the world’s 26th largest economy is heading for a meltdown as a direct result of envy politics.
It was an election between a multimillionaire pro-business candidate seen as part of the establishment and a self-proclaimed hero of the masses who railed against corrupt elites and promised to fight for the little guy. While this may seem to be the story of pretty much every election nowadays since the shock victory of Donald Trump in 2016, the results of Nigeria’s recent elections contain a very important message from an imperiled country about the dangers of using socialist rhetoric and envy politics as a tool of governance.
It is a story that shows how the populist tactics deployed by Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have infected the global political discourse, becoming powerful tools for emerging dictatorships and incompetent governments to entrench themselves in power. Whether dressed up in right-wing clothes as in Trump’s case or presented as new age “socialism” as with AOC, the basic method is the same – the weaponization of envy and use of scapegoats to achieve political goals at the expense of good economics and common sense.
If the collapse of Venezuela got the world’s attention, the impending collapse of Nigeria, with six times the population of Venezuela, will be positively seismic. This is what happened, and here is how the world can learn from it.
‘Poverty is Good’
Typically decided along ethnic and religious lines, these elections took on a decidedly economic posture, with the generally prosperous South voting as one for the first time in favour of Atiku Abubakar. This was an economically liberal challenger and successful businessman who promised to introduce comprehensive cryptocurrency regulation in his campaign manifesto after Nigerians were forced to become prolific crypto traders due to the woes of the naira, which fell over 85 percent between 2014 and 2016. The largely impoverished North, however, voted almost unanimously for the famously statist incumbent Muhammadu Buhari.
Following four years of woeful economic performance, including Nigeria’s first recession in a quarter of a century, Buhari’s campaign message was no longer that fighting corruption would grow the economy – which it clearly failed to do in his first term. The message was something altogether different – that Nigerians should learn to accept poverty as the price for “fighting corruption.”

While this message elicited stunned reactions from many voters, it turned out to be right on the money in terms of hitting the emotional lever of an even greater number of people.
Despite being far behind where it should be on a per capita basis, Nigeria’s $411 billion economy has a significant population of US Dollar billionaires and millionaires, in addition to a large population of middle class professionals in cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu and Ibadan – predominantly in the country’s South. This fact is often overshadowed by the preponderance of extreme poverty, particularly in the North.


There is a very sharp economic divide between Nigeria’s prosperous South and impoverished North. | Source: Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
The glaring economic divide between North and South has been used alongside ethnic and religious politics in the past, but this election was the first time that no attempt was made to promise economic growth to those in need of it. Instead, the message was that poverty in Nigeria is a sign of virtue because only the “corrupt” are able to live well. Like a certain social media sensation-cum-Congresswoman across the Atlantic, Buhari was the “man of the people,” campaigning with a message that their honest poverty is not their fault and is nothing to be ashamed of.

Like Buhari, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has achieved great success by branding herself as “the candidate of the people.”
Like in the U.S., this approach worked brilliantly, with voters responding positively to a message that absolved them of responsibility and found a comfortable and suitably visible scapegoat. On the surface, AOC’s message is “billionaires and corporate money are distorting democracy,” but what voters are actually expected to hear and respond to is a class warfare dog whistle saying “rich people think they are better than you.” Similarly, the message Nigerian voters really got from the “live within your means” mantra was “those smug city people feel superior to you because they have some money which they probably stole.”
Populism is Good Politics
For Buhari’s campaign team, it meant avoiding discussions about real issues like Nigeria’s bloated, inefficient, and excessively powerful central government and the unsustainable nature of its welfarist federal budget.

Almost 70% of Nigeria’s 2018 budget is reserved for recurrent expenditure | Source: Daily Trust
To have such a discussion would mean explaining why amidst the naira’s 85 percent fall against the dollar in 2016, Buhari’s government chose to maintain an unrealistic official exchange rate which was used to subsidise religious pilgrims heading to Mecca for the Hajj.
Such conversations would include discussing the opposition’s stated plan to privatise NNPC, Nigeria’s state-owned oil firm that essentially functions as an independent country on its own, with no practical oversight by or accountability to government. Also included would be the federal government’s opaque and inefficient public contracting, procurement and funds disbursement process.

Rather than discuss a lack of investment in education and healthcare, extremely poor power generation and transport infrastructure, or the lack of proper separation of powers making the executive a law unto itself, the campaign was instead spent attacking the convenient fig leaves of “corrupt people”, “treasury looters,” and “arrogant elites”.
In the absence of reasoned debate or actual policies and achievements, a large vote-buying effort was also deployed, in what some have referred to as the “weaponization of poverty.”

AOC, Trump and Farage In One
Weaving together the anti-elitist appeal of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the bloviating news-magnetism of Donald Trump and the skilful sophistry of Nigel Farage, Buhari’s campaign painted a picture of a country held hostage by “corrupt” elites, “treasury looters” and their middle-class subalterns who wanted to vote in a pro-business candidate to preserve the corruption status quo.
In 2015, Buhari defeated an incumbent candidate with a Ph.D. who was perceived to be incompetent due to being an airy-fairy ivory tower resident. This time around, his challenger’s wealth was portrayed as a moral failure in a manner reminiscent of how Ocasio-Cortez has portrayed the existence of billionaires amidst poverty as morally unjust.

While the world of shouty Fox News anchors and social media-savvy Congressional freshmen may seem relatively tame in comparison to the literal life and death politics of Africa’s largest country, it is important to note that Nigeria itself was not always this way. The unfortunate sequence of military coups and poor economic decisions that saw the country lose an entire generation of talent to the developed world could not have taken place without popular support from the very people most affected.
It may be difficult to picture Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Donald Trump leading the U.S. into a dystopian future where middle-class professionals are disparaged as the “enemy”, and widespread poverty is held up as a virtue, but such situations can take decades to incubate. The incubation takes place in three stages that often overlap – an anger and dissatisfaction phase, a demonization phase, and then the catastrophe.
Demonization and Scapegoating
The first phase is already well underway across most of the developed and developing world. From Bangalore to Baltimore, everyone is united in anger about something. Regardless of the wide disparity of living experiences around the world, the general mood is that things are worse than they have ever been, and something or someone must be held to account for it. Politicians eagerly feed the narrative that something has gone terribly wrong, and they will fix it.
The second phase is also underway across much of the world. During this phase, scapegoats must be identified and separated from the assumed ‘virtuous masses’. In Nigeria, the scapegoats are “elites”, which translates practically to “anyone who is not poor.” Anyone with a university-level education and a stable source of income is an “elite” who is collaborating with “corrupt treasury looters.” Across the developed world, the scapegoats may vary from immigrants to Blacks, to Muslims, to “the 1 percent.”
To the impoverished and angry Nigerian voter, their predicament is down to “people who are stealing Nigeria’s money,” regardless of how easily that argument falls down when challenged by the most cursory analysis. Their world is a zero-sum game, where if someone eats three times a day, lives in a comfortable modern residence and drives a car, they must have those things because they “stole” them, or they work for someone who stole them.

However intellectually redundant such a viewpoint is, it has a powerful emotional resonance that is often amplified by lack of education and existing ethnoreligious divisions between North and South.
To the angry voter across much of the developed world, their discontent is caused by immigrants coming over and being given all the jobs and housing, or it is down to the Muslims and refugees being allowed to come into the country and create their own laws and live outside the constitution unlike the long-suffering, salt-of-the-earth natives whom nobody ever listens to.

Perhaps it is the Blacks who are committing all the crimes and nobody can criticise them for fear of being called racist, or most recently, it is the 1 Percent (or even the 0.1 Percent) – the globalist plutocrat oligarchs who pay fewer taxes than everyone, and who have taken away all the jobs and healthcare and placed everyone in debt.
Nigeria’s Unfolding Catastrophe
For most of the world, the catastrophe phase is not underway yet, so perhaps a look at Nigeria, where it is well and truly underway will be instructive. A poor economy dependent on a single export resource looks set to continue on its self-imposed implosion, driven by generous subsidy regimes, ridiculously unsustainable social intervention programs, rapidly ballooning foreign debt and a growing annual recurrent expenditure bill that it cannot hope to afford.
In a wrong-headed attempt to plug this funding shortfall, the government has embarked on a high-handed tax collection effort, repeatedly violating the law by unilaterally freezing bank accounts belonging to small businesses and private individuals in the absence of valid court orders or even demand notices. Understandably, this has spooked investors and accelerated the outward flow of investment, which is conveniently labeled as “corrupt money” leaving the country, as against a policy failure driven by envy and fuelled by incompetence.
Alongside this is the growing spectre of oil losing its value, as the world’s biggest oil buyers including China and Europe switch to renewable sources over the next couple of decades, which will effectively render Nigeria’s government penniless overnight. Amidst all this, due to a populist aversion to promoting family planning, Nigeria’s impoverished population over the next decade will add another 137 million to its numbers – the biggest growth of any country on earth excluding India.

Already, tens of thousands of middle-class Nigerians are upping sticks and moving to destinations like Canada, Germany, Australia and the U.S. in preparation for the impending crisis. An entire generation of highly skilled labour including doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers, nurses, pilots, accountants, entrepreneurs, artists, programmers, artisans, academics and management personnel is being lost to the developed world, leaving behind an exploding population of people living in extreme poverty.

Nigeria has the largest population of people living in extreme poverty | Source: QZ Africa
The Sahara desert meanwhile, is also claiming an estimated 3,500 sq. km of arable land from Nigeria every year, which is a contributing factor to the presence of Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen – two of the world’s deadliest terror groups responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, maimings, and abductions over the past decade.
Envy Politics is Deadly Politics
Through all of this, a class of anti-intellectual populists in Abuja continue to raise clenched fists before adoring crowds, admonishing them to “live within their means” while demonizing economic ambition and wealth. They have achieved great political success by weaponizing the economic envy of a large, impoverished population, publicly glorifying poverty as a virtue while collecting the world’s most generous compensation packages for political office holders.

Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari acknowledges cheers at his 2015 swearing-in | Source: CNN
Outside in the real world, however, following the news of Buhari’s re-election, the Nigerian Stock Exchange lost 196 billion naira (about $542 million), as the investment outlook continues to dim on Africa’s largest economy. The net result of years of envy politics and demonizing wealth and intelligence is a country that has hit the metaphorical iceberg, and continues to cheer while the band plays as the ship sinks.

Buhari’s supporters in the Northern city of Kaduna take to the streets in celebration after his election win | Source: Daily Trust
The next time a politician – be it AOC or Donald Trump or Viktor Orban or Nigel Farage – tells you that your life is terrible because of this or that group of people, it would do you some good to think about whether this is what you want your future to look like, before giving in to your base instincts.
The unfolding lesson from this part of the world is very clear – the politics of populism and envy may be very good at winning elections, but they clearly are not good at running successful economies.



read:https://www.ccn.com/the-socialist-politics-of-envy-what-the-world-can-learn-from-nigerias-unfolding-disaster

wow Katsina ….98% collection

[quote author=yerilistik post=75720013]
We are almost saying the same thing. We have to correct the wrongs of 16 years before you can see the benefits of the new policies of the new government and 4 years is not enough to correct these ills. Now they have been able to bring us out of recession which to me is a huge success with the little resources at thier disposal, couple with the vsisble progress made in infrastructures, railways, better power supply, increase in food production etc, given the next 4 years I am very certain you and I including our families will have a cause to smile.
Bro, let me tell you the truth, going back to Egypt shouldn't be an option as one cannot eat his vomit, going back to those that put us in this present mess, God forbid !
Let's be wise as not all that glitters is gold.

NEXT LEVEL

PDP destroyed Nigeria for 16 years

Looking at The APC Presidential campaign council constituted yesterday, this is what I found;

1. Vice Chairman North: Sen. George Akume- PDP Governor for 8years.

2. Vice Chairman South: Sen. Ken Nnamani- Former Senate President under PDP

3. D.G: Rotimi Ameachi: 8 years Speaker House of Assembly and 7 years Governor under PDP. Spent 15 of the 16 years in PDP.

4. North West Zonal Director: Aliyu Wammakko- PDP Governor for 8years and Senator for 3 years.

5. South West Zonal Director: Olusola Oke- Former PDP National legal adviser for 9years.

6. South South Zonal Director: Godswill Akpabio- Former SSG, former Governor for 8 years and until 4months ago, was the PDP minority leader in the Senate.

None of these people spent less than 13years as PDP members. Mathematically, that is 81% of the 16 years of destruction

In one breathe, you say PDP destroyed Nigeria for 16 years. In another breathe, you need this same destroyers to help you to "change" Nigeria.

Who is deceiving who?

These are interesting times..

theoldpretender:


Some back up history

1.In 2012, GEJ raised fuel prices at the pump to 140 per liter. Protests knocked it down to 97.at the time, landing cost of fuel was 99 naira.

2.By 2016,fuel was at 87 naira, landing cost was 132 naira, and because of falling oil prices, govt of Bubu raised prices to 145, ending subsidy at that time.

3.When the landing prices rose to above 160 naira, subsidies returned under the guise of under recovery.

4.Because of the 2012 protests, debts were incurred in paying the marketers subsidy claims. These debts made subsidies unsustainable by 2013 (which is why GEJ plan of 2012 made sense), and the debts rose. It is only just now we are paying them. Off.

5.For govt to remove subsidies, it simply has to stop setting prices and allows marketers set their own price. Because this means politically expensive prices of 250 and above, govt would rather pay subsidy than.risk a revolt.

This is one of the most insightful posts on Nairaland, not just this topic. Unfortunately most Nigerians are too stupid to face reality. Just two questions;

1. Is poor Ghana with their faster growing economy not paying more than 250 naira a litre, have they died? has their development stopped?
2. Why is it only PMS government pays subsidy on? why not garri and yam, are these items not crucial for the economy and the poor man, or sudsidy on medication and anti-malaria tablets?

Nigeria such as hypocritical country.


Nairalanders complaining about what she is wearing in church
Complaining that we no see the papa
Complaining that Peter Obi is attending the baby dedication.


Some of the most successful leaders and movers in the world did not know their fathers, Bob Marley, Bill Clinton.......amongst thousands of others.
What you wear in church doesn't make you religous or not, do you think the current Pope, Pope Francis has ever complained about how people dress in church or what is important on how people live with each other?
Linda is one of the most influential bloggers in Africa, she became this by her own efforts. We should celebrate our achievements.
Politicians that do attempt to connect with all society; market women, farmers, students, civil servants, bloggers, single parents, etc is a failed politician.
Only dictators choose who they consider worthy of their presence.


Peter Obi is smart connecting with Linda Ikeji.

Nigerians are dying, praying, fasting, begging to get money and visa to live in those countries that support single mothers, gay marriage, that allow all kinds of people attend church or not but have better living standards than we Nigeria that follows so-called God's law.


We face what is important.

Btw......am sure Linda Ikeji can give her son a good upbringing both financial, educational and morally .........perhaps better than a family of papa, 5 wives and 32 children.

again you are talking out of ignorance. import substitution is a step along the path to export. Dangote now exports but he started first by import substitution. There was nothing wrong with the implementation of the national development plans until they were truncated. many of the infrastructure we continue to enjoy today were from those plans. Many of the Nigerian doctors that are doing great things abroad are a result of the development plans, the question you should ask is why are Nigeria's doctors abroad. The problem was the military came in and halted everything.

My mothers driver bought a brand new 504 GL back in the day. teachers/civil servants bought brand new cars then. what is a security guard doing with a brand new car.


stop talking out of ignorance

My friend, you are a wicked man. So its okay for you to be able to afford a brand new car but not a security guard? Nigerians are struggling to get out of Nigeria to become security guards in other countries. And people like are condoning low salaries because according to you a security guard does not deserve to drive a brand new car. In the developed countries security guards and other artisans drive brand new cars and live in the houses they have been able to buy with a mortgage. Why can Nigerian society not aspire to this standard of living?

People like cannot see beyond the poverty that is facing you and your society.

Import substitution industries in many cases produce substandard products that cannot be exported. Hence export oriented industries should start from a position of excellence and price reductions in order to encourage overseas buyers.

Here's a teaser for you....would rather have a farm that produced enough garri to feed your family or a farm that produced only pineapples that you sell a juice factory and the money you use to buy garri and pay your childrens school fees?

TheBlessedMAN:
First of all, let me tell you who I am.

I don't go to church unless its a cross-over night. Thats who I am. You are free to judge me.

Now to the reason behind the questionic title above, (Is it proper for a Christian couple to watch porn together before having sex?), last week sunday, in the morning, I was inside my room having my usual sunday-lic rest in preparation for the new week, when the loud speakers of a C.A.C church adjacent my house started blarring in its typical we-are-doing-sunday-school-service things.

Frustrated and angry at the same time, I grabbed my phone and begin to play game. Suddenly, I heard someone, probably from the congregation, asking the sunday school teacher the question I posted above and that was what caught my interest. I was curious to know what answer the teacher would give.
But unfortunately, I couldn't hear anything again. I guess the teacher had decided to answer the question without using microphone.


So, can someone help me to answer that question? Biblically or Morally. Thanks.

I am judging you.....Crossover is BS!!!
there is no Christian ceremony of Crossover night. The concept of Decemeber 31st being a New Year is a man made concept. God does not measure progress in your Gregorian calendars of new year or new month.

A true Christian has no need to be praying for 'blessings for the new year'. Only backward countries like Nigeria make a big deal out of praying for blessings in the new year.

My brother you seem like an enlighted fellow, stop wasting your time in going for Crossover.......just pray everyday to your God, your Goud is too big to be upset that you did not attend Crossover.

BTW.....porn watching between consent adults is ok.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p06llbyf/bbc-stories-the-truth-behind-my-fried-chicken


No wonder we can't compete with imported poultry products.

This is possibly a 'shake-down' by the Federal government to increase APC election campaign fund.
Use the government depts. such as EFCC, CBN or tax authorities to pressurize private companies on spurious or dodgy charges.

Watch this space

MTN will 'win' the case after 'settling' behind the scences.

This is the type of things countries like Putin's Russia do to private companies...

geometricaxis:


you are talking out of ignorance, please educate yourself on the 1st (1962-68) ,2nd (70-74) and 3rd (75-80) national development plans and find out under whose watch we abandoned national development plans and commenced haphazard development.

You are almost correct but the National Development Plans - which were never really carried through in any case were themselves flawed and not aimed at strengthening the economy in a sustainable way. The fundamental flaw was setting up industries for import substation instead of export oriented industry and businesses. We always (especially during Buhari regimes) that if we curtail imports and produce our own we will be richer. Whereas the Far East Asian countries have always concentrated on producing goods and services to export out of their countries, in the first instance they never looked at their home markets - think about it, 40 years ago how many Chinese children were playing with the cheap plastic toys that China was famous for exporting?


We have been a mono-economy since the early 1970's and prior to that we relied on cheap cash crops to survive.


We can never have a currency that can be comparable to other currencies if we export so little compared to our needs.


BTW the era of strong naira to the dollar was a fallacy and disaster waiting to happen. Only the privileged few benefited from it.


When dollar was $1 to N1 how many fully employed security guards in any Nigerian company or ministry could afford to buy a car?

yet a security guard in America at that time could afford to buy a car. So how did the so-called strong naira help the average Nigerian?

wristbangle:
In SouthAfrica, DSTV is not among the top TV satellite brands as competitors offers quality service and reasonable price to them. It's only in Nigeria where nepotism and corruption is having a field day they can practice this unlawful act of milking the masses and it's courtesy of the orangutans/clueless barbarians in power.

Ideally, if competition speaks in the TV satellite sectors just like in the telecommunications, by now even their premium subscription price would have reduced to N1000 or be forced to shut down. If not for the likes of Glo who brought per secs billing, Money Taking Network ABI EmptyHen will still be billing us per min.

Useless thieves.

Sorry Bro ….you're talking rubbish

1. We live in hopefully a free society so anyone within the law can set up any legal business
2. Cable or satellite television is not essential commodity - government or courts should have no business in setting prices for a private business
3. If you don't want to pay higher price don't pay for the service nobody is forcing you
4. You, Dangote and other Nigerians are free to establish your own satellite television service
5. if DSTV is really that profitable, those with money and sense will soon enter the market to challenge them (they will come from other parts of the world if no local business has the money or skills to challenge them)

6. if DSTV make themselves too expensive - the public wll not use them, or find ways around them not to pay the high prices.

7. DSTV have big costs to run business in Nigeria - just think of the diesel bill to run their servers

menzino:


Obviously you are one of those Libyans that came to destroy this country. your write up is filled with greed and selfishness. Please convert that N350 to Ghanian Cedis and tell us how much it is. Besides Ghana is not an oil producing nation, why the comparison??

Don't you see your foolish, a none oil producing country NEVER has fuel shortage (Ghana), they don't produce oil and pay commercial prices. Government should remove hand from fuel and allow we, Nigerians control our own markets. Fuel and Food which is more important. Socialist and Communist countries that tried to control food, fuel and other so-called important economic factors failed woefully. China abandoned socialist controlled economy and in 20 years is now competing with America. We are going backward....asking government to feed us.


Go and study basic economics and basic international history and you'll see why oil rich Venezuela is in a mess now

I pity all the clueless Nigerian youths blaming lack of maintenance culture or different political parties.

This so-called $100m was a direct route to put money in the pockets of Akpabio and his cronies.

A state government has NO business in building a project that only a viable private sector business should establish after doing their due diligence and business planning.

How many people in Akwa Ibom state IF this project ever worked would benefit from such a STUPID WHITE ELEPHANT?


$100m in soft loans for market women, carpenters, mechanics, farmers....channel the money through micro-finance banks.

$100m on local and rural roads

$100m in partnership with private sector to establish local electricity and power plants...NO NO NO


instead our Governors want to build airports, 5 star hotels and other gradniose projects - and poor, employed youths that can never afford to use these project will be bragging to their mates in Lagos that 'my state has.....airport, my state has finest hotel, etc....rubbish!!!!

Another national tragedy, and as usual those with the greatest number of followers on their social media will retreat to their usual succour of calling on collective prayer for the country. Please continue to pray, God knows we need prayer, but perhaps not for the intercession you may think we need.

On the narrow matter of exploding fuel tankers (of which there have been dozens of incidents over the years, perhaps not catastrophic as the latest incident), the solution is not blindly calling for collective prayer, NO.....as long as we as a nation clamour to pay for fuel below the international production price at our fuel pumps, unfortunately we will continue to experience such accidents.
We blame tanker drivers and owners association of flouting highway rules and using substandard equipment, yet 'we' pay them below the cost of their services.
We want to pay fuel at the same cost in Lagos, Sokoto, Calabar, yet we give tanker drivers and owners a tiny addition to the cost of transportation.
A brand new tanker with all modern safety features will cost in excess of $150,000 each, yet we pay our tanker owners less than $300 a trip from Lagos to Calabar (bearing in mind they come back to Lagos empty).
Of course our tanker owners will use 20 year old rickety Mack Trucks imported from the junk yards of America. How do you expect the tanker owners to maintain these 'dead' trucks?
Factor in the driver has queued in Apapa for a week before loading, has been hassled by all traffic and ticket enforcement from Lagos to Calabar, has no control over driving time and rest time, and perhaps most importantly not a single driver in Nigeria under age of 45 had ever been trained or tested by anything that is comparable to any other decent country.
So if we are calling for collective prayer and our prayer warriors, let’s pray that we can afford to the real price for fuel so tanker drivers can buy brand new trucks, whilst in that prayer please for bus drivers, airline pilots and tricycle owners at the same tim[b][/b]e


The article above I posted shortly after the Otedola tradegy, I was roundly criticised. Now the government wants to ban old unroadworthy trucks from being imported. As the article above states every truck owner wants to buy brand new trucks to run his or her business, put how do they recover the cost of the truck or vehicle when we will pay them less than $400 a week to travel to Sokoto or Calabar.

a litre of fuel is over N350 in Ghana - they have not died and they have much better and decent oil tankers. Which the Ghana government does NOT pay for, but private sector will run a good transport services if customers and passengers will pay for it.

We are here in Nigeria decieving ourselves that we are paying N145 a litre

[quote author=Olumyco post=69516773]OP exchange rate does not determine the value of a country's currency.

I think weakness of a currency should be in terms of value.

A currency value is its purchasing power.

Also in currency denomination, a country can decide to adopt any style... it is the economy of the country that shows the true value of its currency. A country with high denomination can still be higher in value than a smaller denomination.

I repeat the purchasing power of a country's currency is the key factor when it comes to strength.

See like Cedis

Cedis was recalibrated around 2007/2008. Ghana removed 4 zeros from their money.

Its also called redecimation or redenomination.

There is a reason why economics must be applied to anything that has to do with money.

1 Cedis was 10, 000 cedis before 2007/2008.. Even up till now in Ghana many of them still refer to 100 cedis as 1 million.

Normally it is economy plus some other economic principles that shud increase the value of a currency and not manual methods like recalibration.

And to prove that nothing serious has changed in Ghana with their recalibration.

1 cedi = 75/80 naira

1 cedi will buy 5 sachets of pure water while 75/80 naira will buy 7 to 8 sachets of pure water.

Infact when the recalibration was done it was 1 cedi to 1 dollar but now because of economy instability.... the cedi has dropped and it is now being exchange for 4/4.7 cedis to 1 dollar.

Further more exchange rate is being determined by many factors that has to do with economics. Economic policies play a major role in exchange rate determination.

A country can decide to increase or decrease based on the economy of the country.

When an economy is dependent on dollar for import there is tendency that the economy will be controlled by dollar and in dat case if you want to decrease the way your dollars go out since import is more than export (meaning dollars going out is more than dollars coming in) then you have got to increase the dollar exchange rate to favour the dollar from going out easily and too much.

So in short dollar economy is all about trying to preserve your foreign reserve... when you have more dollar reserve... because export has increased.. then you can decrease...

Well... thats just it.

I will want to shock everyone here that Nigeria foreign exchange reserve is higher than that of South Africa. We even have more dollars than them. Infact Nigeria had the largest foreign exchange reserve in Africa.

Guys the best thing we need to do is to study economics... economics is something everybody in the world needs to manage finances since we spend and earn money. This will enhance our understanding of Forex and currency economics.

Thanks[/quote]


This is the most informative comment on this topic but our daft nairalanders will not be able to read and understand. Currency to dollar does NOT determine how strong a currency is. The Japanese Yen is one of the strongest currency in the world yet 113 yen = 1 USD, tell me nairalanders, which would you rather have 10 Yen or 10 Cedis?

TylerDurden:


And what guarrantees are you giving that if the pump price increases the transporters will adhere to safety regulations?

You seem not to understand how petroluem pricing is arrived at by the NNPC.

FYI, there exist another subsidy within the subsidy regime for PMS and it covers the cost of transporting fuel to hinter areas.

The cost of fuel in Sokoto is the same price in Lagos. This is a policy that the FG put in place to have a singular cost price on PMS nationwide and at the end of the day, you in Lagos who ought to be paying a far lower cost is subsiding the cost of fuel in Borno.

To make matters worse, in the Niger Delta fuel stations not under the major marketers sell well above the pump price. In Calabar south municipality, fuel sells between 170 -190 per litre. The fuel marketers defend this pricing as a result of the cost in transporting fuel from outside Cross-River.

The solution to all these lies within local jurisdictions to which states like LASG have the powers to regulate the kind of vehicles that operate on their roads by using the VIO Motor Vehicle inspection units.

Just as states have the powers to ban Okadas they can also regulate the trailers and tankers plying their roads.

By assuming prices of petrol must go up before Tankers can be road worthy as akin to the foolishness of Fashola defending and pushing for increase in electric tarrifs in order to improve supply.

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The transport subsidy given to transporters of fuel is too little and makes no sense.

Governments CANNOT control markets. We have been deceived for 60 years of government controlled economies. China the number one communist country abandoned a government central controlled economy even thought they kept the one party communist government and see in 20 years they have become the biggest or second biggest economy in the world.


State governments can give strict guidelines n the quality and roadworthyness of vehicles but as long as people cannot afford good vehicles they will simply bribe government officials.


Any transporter would prefer to buy a brand new truck, that does not breakdown, is fuel efficient, has tracker, etc because that is easier to run than the 20 to 30 year old rubbish we see on our roads. But he cannot afford to spend N64 million one truck, when they receive less than N200,000 for one trip and the cost of diesel they use on one trip is up N80,000.

Please note increase in fuel price NOT for government to increase price but for ordinary marketeers to buy and sell PMS at any price they can buy and sell. It is not for the government to fix the price.

By the way most of the tankers are Tokunbo bought from the US by southerners just trying to make a living.

[quote author=TylerDurden post=69043877][s][/s]

This is total foolishness at its peak.

[color=#006600]Have you wondered why the NNPC can not seem to manage and operate their PMS and gas pipelines and pumping stations despite budgeting annually to maintain them?

Did you even bother to ask why the NNPC is not exploring using rail to convey imported PMS from Lagos onward to other hinterland states?

The issue is that powerful elements are benefiting from the neglect of the railways and derelict NNPC pipelines and those people are mainly northerners who own majority of the fuel tankers.[/quote][/color]


No sane country allows a government department run it's main industry......Other stupid countries like Nigeria that produce oil yet do not have refined petrol for their own citizens like Iraq, Iran, Venezuela. All these countries deceive themselves that they are oil producing and sell cheap to their citizens yet there are fuel shortages and black market.


Countries like Malaysia, Phillipines don't have oil yet they have safe and new road oil tankers and they don't fuel shortage. Even Ghana doesn't have fuel shortage and they don't have oil.

Lets stop decieving ourselves or allow the government to decieve us.

the goverments like the control they have over the local petrol market (they can't control the export market because Shell and Chevron have sorted that out and just hand over tax revenue). but the local petrol market, all the government ministries, NNPC and subsidiaries know how much they make from Nigerians whilst decieving us that they are giving cheap fuel.


Please ask yourself, if you had N60 million would you buy a brand new tanker that will struggle to balance you N200,000 a month? No you will go and buy 20 -30 year tokunbo Mack from US for N5 million and form 'big man' in your area with your dead truck, no tyres, no brakes, fake papers.....and carry a deadly cargo of highly flammable petrol.(add bad road and bad drivers to that mix)

recipe for disaster


see my answers above on pipelines and trains

SalamRushdie:
Hahahaha...so the price of sand needs increase for tippers to be safe, the price of shipping needs to increase fro container trucks to be safe ...in the last 3 years price of petrol has increased from 87 to 145 and we didn't see any changes in our truck qualities ...hahahahab Oga shey you can see you didn't think this thing well

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Don't you see the dead tippers we use to move sand? those tippers are over 30 years old !!!!
a trip of sand costs N30,000 …...that's like $80

A new tipper in US will cost you easily $100,000 how do you balance that? Madam that supplys sand must use 30 to 40 year old Bedford truck for her business, and that truck must keep breaking down and even have faulty brakes.

Increases in price of fuel has always been on the government terms. Let the market be free and let you, me and anyone else bring in petrol and sell at our prices. Not this current artificial rubbish we have now.

How Nigerians love to blame the government

The government of Nigeria is irresponsible.

But the truth must be said....even with the best will in the world if you pay below the cost price you will get poor products.

We have foolishly alowed the governments over the past 60 years to sell our crude oil on our behalf and deceive us that they will give us cheap petrol. The masses ...market women, farmers, etc don't benefit from cheap petrol ......only those in cities might have any benefit...but in the next 9 months there will be fuel scarcity because of the unsustainable subsidy ssytem and once again we will be forced to buy from black market at over and the international price for poor quality fuel.

Let government remove hand from fuel business.........

Price of fuel will rise yes!!!
but we will have regular supply,
Truck owners, petrol station owners, tank farm owners will have more cash to buy better, safer and more efficient equipment.

Do you see Glo,MTN , airtel going to buy 20 year old technology equipment for their networks? the telecos are not perfect but they are better than any other industry in Nigeria and unsucessful telecos will fail like Etisalat.

We want our trucks to look like American, European or even China trucks.....do you ask how much those truks cost compared to death trap scrap we call trucks in Nigeria?


BTW ...even trains and pipelines cannot reach all corners and we will still need trucks.

if MTN or Shell owned the pipeline and charged commensurate amount of money for their service do you think you will be hearing about vandalised pipeline? see how telecos protect their current infrasture today and they still make profit.

fineboynl:
what happen to pipe line or rail. Nigeria is a failed states. its too bad the British created it with no intension for development. the thing they created will come back to hurt them.

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Rail and pipeline cannot get everywhere even if they exist.
The same lack of money will ensure that rail and pipeline do not get the investment they need.

The Telecos have invested billions of dollars in Nigeria in the past 18 or so years and the Tekecos charge the interational market rate for their services.

until the real independent businesses, start to invest in the oil sector and we the public pay the real market rate for petroleum products we will continue to have substandard and dangerous services (such as 'killer tankers')

So you believe we should continue to use 20 year old' dead' trucks that canot be serviced, use dead tyres, combine this with our bad roads, reckless driving, non conformity to traffic rules and you expect there to be 'no problem'.


Continue to buy something at less than cost of production and you think the seller will be there to sell to you again tomorrow.


smh*******

The problem of unroadworthy tankers (even other modes of transport) is not the wickedness of owners or drivers, the problem is simply that we, Nigerians do not or cannot pay the real international price for our commodities.

A brand new tanker for moving refined petroleum products with all the modern safety features will cost in excess of N64 million ($180,000)
Currently new tanker tyre costs over N150,000 for one tyre!!!
One tanker trip from Lagos to Calabar, or Lagos to Kano will cost like N200,000 ie $600.

As such it is not possible for tanker owner to buy or use new and modern safe tankers.

Instead they buy Mack truck from US that are often 20 years old. They import these truck from scrap yards all over America.
They cannot afford the spare parts, with tyres costing N180,000, they cannot afford to buy new tyres (Remember a new tyre costs the same as the income of one trip to Kano).


How can such a contraption be safe?


The trip price is only N200,000 because;

1. the price of fuel is the same in Lagos & Sokoto regardless cost of transport (don't mention the pathetic distance allowance NNPC give)

2. the price of fuel is even below the international price


Other countries pay much more for their fuel , hence they have a better services from all sectors connected with the provision of fuel.


Can Nigerians afford to pay international price for fuel? Well we already pay close to the international price for telecoms and the service we get from telecoms whilst not perfect is the best service of any sector in Nigeria.

We indirectly already pay the international price for fuel, because every few months there is fuel scarcity as this model is unsustainable, hoarding will start, black market prices, poor quality fuel, etc.

So until we start paying the full price for fuel, all services around the provision of fuel will be sub standard and even downright dangerous

This inabilty to pay the international price for many goods and services affects us in many ways in Nigeria
[i][/i]

DisGuy:


A national carrier doesn't necessarily have to be owned 100% by the state...many developed countries have national carriers..that they eventually dispose of totally to private investors or invest in through pension/sovereign funds

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What is the point of wasting value resources in establishing a national carrier in the 21st century if we are just going to sell it off?. Just encourage the massive private sector to establish their own airlines. I said it before the average Nigerian will not enter a plane in his or her life, we need the little money we have to be spent on 24 hours light, not vanity projects that will be misused by the corrupt board of directors appointed that will give themselves and their families free tickets.


Nigerians should not encourage this wasteful venture, which will only benefit the elite.


I am a PROUD NIGERIAN and I believe our NIGERIAN entrepreneurs have a better chance of having the best airlines in the world rather than a useless government airline. (Afterall a few years ago a Nigerian businessman was at the head of a private consortium that bought and ran the second largest airport in the UK, Gatwick Airport - would any Nigerian government allow that in Nigeria?)