₦airaland Forum

Acronyms have always fascinated me.

Not least because they convey a long name in the shortest possible way, but also because some of them are witty and sometimes even downright humorous.

A recent acronym added to the Nigerian word-space is, in addition to these two attributes, also apt.

It is apt because it captures our general national mood today.

And the word is SAD, an acronym for Special Advisor to a political office holder.

But it’s just perfect, because majority of Nigerians today are sad. The situation around the country leaves us with little choice not to be.

We are sad, not just because our brand-new president issued us a divorce letter, the very day our traditional honeymoon with him was supposed to commence, but because the steps he has taken since that infamous Freudian slip, in his inaugural address, have done nothing to alleviate the pain of that divorce.

Yet he keeps acquiring more advisers. What are these advisers for, if they can’t make one feel the pulse of the people?

I mean after the harrowing eight years of the last administration, Nigerians were hopeful that a new government would mean more kind consideration and sensitivity to their daily needs.

And having elected someone who was with us all through, and had seen the disappointment and despair we had endure, because the Buhari government had failed to fulfill numerous campaign promises, the least we hoped for was that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be more responsive to our needs and yearnings.

It was more than a kick below-the-belt when the new president started with a move that was guaranteed to affect every living Nigerian; except for political office holders.

We all know that everyone feels the pain of petrol price increase, including people in our remotest villages, because even they have to transport their farm produce to nearby markets.

Though Nigerians had questioned late Umaru ‘Yar’adua’s electoral victory in 2007, not least because he was former president Obasanjo’s hand-picked and annointed successor, he was able to turn that negative perception around, when he quickly brought down the cost of petrol from N75 to N65 naira per litre, in the early days of his administration.

It wasn’t even part of his campaign promise but as someone who pledged to be a servant-leader, both in words and in deeds, President ‘Yar’adua felt the pulse of the nation; and acted accordingly.

Former President Buhari and his team were a different breed though. They promised much and delivered little. In fact so little that before the government expired, a common joke on social media, is that of Nigerians begging Buhari to return them to where he met them in 2015.

The joke says ‘We no longer want your change. Take us back to 2015 when a bag of rice was N8500, a litre of petrol was 87 naira, when our naira was 120 to the dollar, when bandits were criminals hiding in Zamfara and Birnin Gwari forests, not armed gangs raiding whole towns and villages, while killing and abducting people at will….’

This obviously sums up the disappointment of Nigerians with the Buhari government.

In fact among the topmost indices of failed campaign promises was that they promised to end corruption by naming, shaming, prosecuting and jailing corrupt public officials. Not only did the government fail to do much in this regard, but it also bred its own high-level corrupt officials, who made the previous corruption cases pale in comparison.

It is with this obvious pain and expectation that we welcomed the Tinubu administration. But so far we haven’t seen much to celebrate.

Poverty and hunger have exacerbated. Though we were supposed to have created rice pyramids, rice has become a rare sight for the common man.

Yet, in the face of all this, the new administration seems more keen on creating the needless offices of special advisers and special assistants than in tackling the nation’s woes head-on.

Of what use is this retinue of aides when the rest of our compatriots are wallowing in hunger and pain?

Even the Vice-President has no less than twenty aides. This is one office whose occupant is, like his state counterpart, only a spare tyre.

He cannot be the front wheel unless his principal is unavoidably absent.

So why does the VP need over a dozen aides when two or three will do?

Unless our leaders learn to prioritise what their compatriots’ need, they will never achieve the success they claim they want to achieve.

These SADs and SAs must be reduced to the barest minimum because they are just a huge addition to the nations wage-bill with little to add in terms of real value to governance.

Some may say that this is the practice in most parts of the world, especailly where the presidential system is in practice; and maybe it is true, but who said we can’t change it to suit our present peculiar circumstances?

The late John Magufuli of Tanzania went as far as to cancel his country’s national day celebrations, in his first year in office, because the money budgetted was needed for something else. He diverted the amount to rehabilitation and equipping of government-owned hospitals around the country.

In our present state now, we need such radical measures to ease the situation of suffering all over Nigeria.

Presidential platitudes and doubtful palliatives cannot end the hardship being encountered by ordinary Nigerians, since before the removal of fuel subsidy and after it.

But decisive actions like immediately returning the subsidy, securing our borders so seriously that the fuel doesn’t end up smuggled, and cutting down the cost of a litre to no more than 200 naira will certainly do the magic, in the short term.

In the long term, we must embark on an immediate repair and maintenance of our refineries, so that fuel importation will no longer be necessary in Nigeria.

The other day I saw a list of petroleum exporting countries and Nigeria is the ONLY ONE without a functioning refinery.

Needless to say, this is a great shame indeed. But President Bola Tinubu is in a position to do things differently.

He can achieve this by mustering the will to do what is right and promptly too. This will not be attainable by appointing more SADs, who will only be additional drain on our national resources.

The reality of our sad situation is that we need a sensitive, responsive and caring government that will put the people’s needs first, then any political expediency second or third.

newnigerdelta00:
Now I know you are a bloody liar,where you not the one that travel to aboard during the campaign to seek for investors fake HOEBEE

NORSYK:
This is laughable

emmanuelbrown26:
Comr, una go dey cause person to dey laugh like something else

raumdeuter:
Nigeria and 3rd world countries have a lot of comparative advantages.
1 labour is very cheap,
[s]2. There are less govt bottlenecks and regulations[/s]
3. You are likely closer to raw materials

raumdeuter:
So Obi wey dey go from China to India to Egypt was wasting his time

During campaign Obi cannot mention 2 sentences before mentioning When I went to China Egypt Malaysia with fake stats

Suddenly going abroad to seek investors the same ones you are quoting is a waste of time

Abi no be this Nigeria you dey find those investors for that time

chloedogie:
Egbon is still crying upadan.

jrusky:
Really? So have you ever seen any sane country with no foreign investors?

That is why I called you a Marxist motherfucker.

Mr. Peter Obi, has said efforts of the Federal Government in seeking foreign investors abroad is waste of time if environment for businesses to thrive is not put in place.

This is coming on the heels of President Bola Tinubu’s statement on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, United States, where he told American entrepreneurs to feel free and safe to invest in Nigeria.

At the Nigeria-U.S. Executive Business Round table, the president, listed measures he said he had taken to boost confidence of the global investment community in Nigeria, which included forming the fiscal, monetary and tax policy environment.

According to him: “Nigeria is an opportunity that is impossible to replicate or find elsewhere in any part of the world. We have brilliant young people who both innovate and consume at a large scale. Our entrepreneurial spirit is a major part of what makes our market totally unique, aside from demography.

“Nigerians build businesses and Nigerian businesses partner with other businesses to conduct larger business. There is enough value to spread around. Be careful of what you hear about Nigeria. You may be dissuaded out of a major opportunity that others will take up. We are here for you. We will give you all the support you need to succeed and succeed abundantly.”

But speaking at an event in Enugu, Obi said foreign investors were like bees and honey and a government that does not know where the country is going is wasting time going abroad to seek investors.

“I came back here and told someone that you don’t go looking for foreign investors. Anyone going around looking for foreign investors is wasting everyone’s time. Foreign investors are like bees and honey. If you put honey here, how the bees will converge, no one will tell you. After the G20 meeting, Emmanuel Macron, French president flew to Bangladesh because the country had just ordered 10 Airbus 350s, so he had to go and see them. If you look at all the economic analysis, go and look at where Bangladesh would be in 2030 and up to 2050. But no one knows where we are going to be.

“A deputy governor was asked why he didn’t go to school and he said it doesn’t matter. But he filled it. He was the one who said, ‘I went to this school’, no one forced you. If you know that schools don’t matter, you would have said, ‘I didn’t go to school’, so that we would imagine your ingenuity as someone who didn’t go to school and was able to get to that level.

“We are now in a country where people say one thing and do something else. I asked a woman to stand on the queue and she told me that whenever she stands in a queue, she doesn’t get anything. This happened to me last year. After the tribunal decided our case, I called the woman and apologised to her. We had someone going round the world and saying that the election would be the best. It was from INEC that I heard what is called ‘real time’. Suddenly, he says he can do the election anyhow. Why didn’t you tell us this before the election, so that when we are voting, we can also behave anyhow?” Obi queried.

* Let behold on to the icing on the cake: Someone was jailed twice in the US for fraud (bank fraud) and later rebranded into Bola A Tinubu. No be talk, but some documents viewed from FBI archives!

"Addressing N-Power program challenges head-on! We've identified issues with over-registration, delayed payments, and inactive beneficiaries. A ministerial committee is on the case for a fair and efficient solution." #NPower pic.twitter.com/Q6NDA2Oi9E

— Dr. Betta Edu Virtual Assistant (@BettaVirtual) September 25, 2023

Fatasy:
Oya make una pay/bribe us before Dem comot amuda

The APC youth leader in Abia State said that the call becomes necessary, “because the issue is already generating negative attention to Nigeria across the globe, and Atiku should save the country this embarrassment.”

Kalu, in a press statement sent to the media on Monday, said that “it is quite unfortunate that the pride of Nigeria has been dragged to a point of ridicule in the comity of nations.”

A youth leader of the All Progressives Congress, Hyde Kalu has asked the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar to drop his case pursuing the validity of President Bola Tinubu’s educational qualifications in the United States.

The APC youth leader in Abia State said that the call becomes necessary, “because the issue is already generating negative attention to Nigeria across the globe, and Atiku should save the country this embarrassment.”

Kalu, in a press statement sent to the media on Monday, said that “it is quite unfortunate that the pride of Nigeria has been dragged to a point of ridicule in the comity of nations.”

He thus pleads with Atiku to discontinue the litigation in the United States and allow the judiciary in Nigeria to decide the post election dispute arising from the 2023 presidential election.

He said, “Atiku is a statesman, and it is not in contention that he has the love of Nigeria at heart.

“I am sure that no Nigerian is happy with the way our country has been subjected to ridicule over the court ruling in the United States

“For the love of this country and to spare Nigerians the shame of how this process may end, it is important that we plead with Atiku to drop that case and not allow us wash our dirty linens in the public.

“We are all patriots, and I believe that we can have a decent way of handling this matter and save Nigerians the shame of this impending embarrassment.

“The election has come and gone, and a president has emerged. We are all humans, and that is why I am pleading with Atiku to discontinue the case in America for the sake of the country and in consideration of the friendship between him and President Tinubu,” Kalu said.

It will be recalled that Judge Jeffrey Gilbert of a Chicago Magistrate Court had asked the Chicago State University to testify under oath in a discovery of President Tinubu’s academic records at the university, and the president caused an emergency appeal to the ruling citing “severe and irreparable damage” to him if the order of the magistrate court was granted.

Atiku is contesting the declaration of President Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election and one of the grounds of his appeal is that the president forged the document of his academic record that was submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The identity of who was admitted into Chicago State University in the 1970s has been a hot issue after college transcripts emerged that indicated the school admitted a female Bola Tinubu from Southwest College Chicago in 1977.

thesicilian:
He said he wants to intervene. The people said no. So he listened and no longer intervened. Now the people are complaining and insulting him.
Na wah for you people.

A university don, Mr Godwin Kwalbe, has advised government at all levels against cosmetic approach to addressing multidimensional poverty affecting a huge population of the country.

Kwalbe, a lecturer in the Department of History, Kaduna State University, gave the advice while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.

He said that the palliative approach to addressing poverty made it look like the hardship occasioned by spiralling poverty in the country was seasonal.

He said that the fuel subsidy removal did not create hardship or poverty but only pushed citizens further down the poverty line.

The lecturer pointed out that more than half of the country’s population were structurally poor, with many people born into poverty and might continue to live in perpetual poverty.

He noted that the Federal Government had implemented several palliative programmes in its efforts to address poverty.

He identified some of the programmes as COVID-19 palliatives, economic stimulus packages like market moni, conditional cash transfer, public works programme, school feeding Programme and the current fuel subsidy palliatives.

He, however, said that the programmes, except for the conditional cash transfer programme, were designed only to cushion the effect of poverty and not to address poverty itself.

“In this context, the palliatives are merely serving as pain killers and as such, they are not addressing the causes of the pains,” he said.

He advised the federal, states and local governments to go back to the drawing board and come up with a well-structured social welfare and social protection programmes.

He explained that social protection covered the range of policies and programmes needed to reduce the lifelong consequences of poverty and exclusion.

“Social protection, according to the international labour organisation, is a human right consisting of policies and programmes designed to reduce and prevent poverty and vulnerability throughout the life cycle.

“It includes benefits for children and families, maternity, unemployment, employment injury, sickness, old age, disability, survivors, as well as health protection.

“As such, the Nigerian social protection programmes should be humane, comprehensive, and continuous in line with global best practices and not the current sporadic model,” he said.

Kwalbe added that the social protection programmes should specifically target the unemployed, senior citizens, Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) and other poor and vulnerable groups.

He added that senior citizens and PwDs in particular, should be placed on monthly allowances for life.

“It is absolutely below the African value system to have our aged parents, queue with youngsters and fight for pittance in the name of palliatives.

“The photos and videos of youths pushing old parents down during distribution of palliatives are embarrassing to our dear nation.

“The discourse about palliatives should not also be done in isolation of the salary package for civil servants.

“Based on our African culture, paying salary to an individual civil servant means paying for the upkeep of many members of the extended family.

“This is why the government cannot be insensitive to the calls for upward review of wages in lieu of the current national hardship,” he said.

A lot of people had been hitherto miffed by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar for continuously pressing hard for President Bola Tinubu’s disputed certificate, awarded by the Chicago State University and other related documents. It’s understandable and justifiable!

These people had questioned: What good are those documents to the disputed presidential election, now at the Supreme Court? This writer, too, had thought it was sheer distraction and a waste of time by Atiku, who probably just wanted to keep the government on its toes for opposition purposes.

But this position might have changed with many people later in the week, after Tinubu arrested an order of a US court, which had instructed the university to release the documents to Atiku. The PDP presidential candidate succeeded with his push.

Even the FBI had reportedly promised to start releasing some 2500 documents in phases from October, since Tinubu is no longer a private citizen and that the request for his records followed the Freedom of Information Act.

However, just one line in Tinubu’s grounds for arresting the court order has raised concerns for many people, including yours truly. The president said releasing the documents could cause “severe and irreparable damage” to him. He went on to suggest a suitable date for its release. Allahu akbar!

Anyway, a lot of people are currently lost. The point is: How does releasing your certificate, which you boasted to have earned; swore to under oath, and to which the institution itself confirmed days ago that you’re one of its alumni, damage you?

It’s, therefore, okay to start thinking now that there’s more to this “hide and seek” over a mere certificate beyond the continuing propaganda by the president’s powerful and surviving media machine.

Honestly, that line is curious, if not embarrassing, over a certificate you earned as a “brilliant student.”

In 2023,
@JoeBiden
snubbed and canceled all private engagements with Bola Tinubu. Joe Biden does not want the world to see and think that he is legitimizing illegitimacy and the business of drug trafficking. It's possible the
@FBI
advised him to avoid Tinubu. Certainly, this isn't a good time for Nigeria in international relations.

May Nigeria be great again

benuejosh:
Tinubu will rule Nigeria for 8years straight and only God can stop it.

"The man is a fornicator and an adulterer who birthed a child with an Ethiopian woman. A polygamous pastor with two wives is who wants to define Christianity."

"I know him one on one in pdp headquarters Abuja before and he is very dubious with rotten character. See he is one of those who misled former president Jonathan,and they were just busy duping the government then and feeding president Jonathan with manufactured lies.
May God show him the right way to follow"

A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, on Friday, urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to stop embarrassing Nigerians by his desperate bid to frustrate the release of his academic records from the Chicago State University (CSU).

Frank, in a statement in Abuja, wondered what Tinubu has got to hide that prompted him to hurriedly appeal the judgement of a US Magistrate Court that ordered CSU to release his academic records.

Tinubu, according to reports, had pleaded before a United States judge to save him from suffering “severe and irreparable damage” by placing an emergency hold on a recent Court order for his university records to be released.

The President, through his lawyer, claimed that the damage he would suffer would be impossible to mitigate if the order directing the release of his academic records to Nigeria’s former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar was not delayed for possible vacation.

According to a report, “Severe and irreparable harm will be done to Bola Tinubu if the records are released,” Tinubu’s lawyer had argued at an emergency appeal before Judge Nancy Maldonado of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.

“If the records are released, harm will be done and cannot be taken back to the bottle,” Tinubu’s lawyer added.

“If you know you have clean academic records why are you fighting to stop their being released?

“What ‘severe and irreparable harm’ will you suffer if the records are released?” Frank queried.

He insisted that due to Tinubu’s desperate acts in seeking to conceal his academic records and other legal issues surrounding his persona, most world leaders are now avoiding him and this has hampered his administration’s much publicized investments drive abroad.

“For instance, his much trumpeted proposed meeting with American President Joe Biden during the United Nations General Assembly in New York was silently cancelled with no explanations from either Tinubu or Biden.

“However, we have it on good authority that Biden was warned by the US intelligence community to avoid such a meeting.

“Besides, Tinubu claimed to have gotten Untied Arab Emirates (Dubai) authorities to lift visa restrictions on Nigerians but this has since been proven to be a lie.”

He called on Nigerians to own the fight to ensure that the President has authentic academic records and not to leave the efforts to an individual due to potential political and diplomatic damage it can do to Nigeria if glossed over.

Frank, a political activist, said: “This fight should not be for Atiku Abubakar alone. Nigerians must rise up and demand to know the academic records of their President.

“Tinubu’s desperate attempt to buy time with his recent appeal is a huge embarrassment to Nigerians both at home and in diaspora. Why does the court ordered release of Tinubu’s academic records appear like a matter of life and death to the President?

“Tinubu, please stop embarrassing Nigerians through this do or die attempt to stop your academic records from being released. Nigerians are eager to know who their President really is.

“The more you fight to conceal your academic records, the more you damage the image of the country and its ability to attract investors who want to do business with genuine and trustworthy partners and not those believed to have skeletons in their cupboards.

“Are Nigerians not entitled to know the authentic academic qualifications of their President?”

He called on the United States’ Government and its institutions to transparently adjudicate on this matter in the interest of Nigeria and not that of one man.

“We demand the Chicago court to urgently hear this appeal and make its findings known without compromising the integrity of the American Court system,” he stated.