₦airaland Forum

OnyeAshuaUru:
It's useless projects as this, which are apparent conduit pipe for milking states' treasury that the dull, weighty-faced governor of Enugu State wants to replicate in the name of "bus terminals" and "smart schools". Dude allocated half of the State's budget to building multi-storeyed classroom halls in a state where public schools are lying comatose, not because of lack of buildings, but because teachers are still being paid -- or rather, owed, 30K per month.
Peter Mba is also demolishing markets and throwing hundreds of small business owners into destitution, not because these businesses broke any law, but because Peter Mba wants to build an almost needless but surely photogenic motor park that will put billions into his and his cronies' pockets.

The last batch of good governors was the Sullivan, Donald duke, Peter obi... Maybe include Fashola's, set.

At least these guys had a little bit of sympathy and put the populace in mind during their planning.

The rest of the governors that followed have been nothing but an embarrassment.

osmosis101:
Go build a new one...erase the memories and let ur kids have a new memories

One of the coldest statements I've ever read in my life.

May evil not befall any of us.

Chai

Curious345:
I have not been able to buy a new phone since this dollar slump. Phone I'm using currently, I bought for almost 400k. The upgraded version of this Oppo is now almost ₦1m+..


How can I splash ₦1m on a phone ? How!

This is my longest tenure of using a particular phone . Dec 2022 up until now , and I can't change to another phone 📱

You still get mouth to talk

Flame333:
I need more words of encouragement from His supporters..

Five stars for the Chicago President

Hahaha... Guyyy

cjrane:
Nothing we can do now. We have to go through this storm and naira will finally stabilize at some point.

What we are observing are the fruits of mindless borrowing and printing of money that was the hallmark of Buhari's regime. Unfortunately, these things take time to manifest and Tinubu is the unlucky guy in power when the effects of those economic crimes by Buhari are now manifesting.

Be receiving yourself.

You guys need to apologize to madam Aisha Yesufu

caye:
You can easily identify APC propagandists, once you have intelligence.
Their trick is to use big, big grammar to deceive simple Nigerians.


How can you borrow money, so that you can collect more taxes from improverished Nigerians, and there is NO BASIC AMENITIES;water, roads, electricity, basic security, eh?

Those guys are lost souls

grandstar:
In case you don't understand, let me break it down in simple English:

1. The World Bank is lending the government $2.25bn.

2. Interest is 1% or $22.5m a year.

3. Duration: To be paid in 2064.

4. Purpose of the loan: To assist the government increase the lamentable tax collection rate by 2.8%.of GDP.

Nigerias tax collection is 9.4% of GDP. Ivory Coast is 26%. Soludo said a country should colleet at least 22%.

So we borrow money so that we can collect more taxes from the people?

Bizibi:
Somebody should give me one reason why buhari shut our borders

The call it nzu zu in igbo.


It's a level of madness, the guy was just a big fool.

Benekkk:
It’s what it is because they want it so, but we’ll all reap what we sow no doubt.

Better leave that your talk and plan for your future

ogododo:
At the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium on March 29, 2019, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, then only a powerful but unofficial pillar of the APC, gave us an ominous presage of his administration that we all either ignored or sniggered at but which is now eerily materializing.



“If we reduce the purchasing power of the people, we can further slow down the economy," he said to a mysterious ovation from the audience. “Let’s widen the tax net. Those who are not paying now, even if it’s inclusive of Bola Tinubu, let the net get bigger and we take in more taxes. And that is what we must do in the country.”

Many people were genuinely bewildered and wondered what Tinubu meant. I was, too. For one, there is clearly neither economic logic nor even moral merit in reducing the purchasing power of a people, slowing down the economy, and then taxing the same people whose purchasing power has been reduced in a depressed economy. Why would anyone propose that as the anchor of his economic policy?

It’s defensible to suggest the broadening of the tax base of an economy, but not even the most ruthless, unfeeling, sadistic, and misanthropic tyrant would openly advocate the mass pauperization of the people as an economic policy.

So, many people, including me, concluded that Tinubu merely slipped up. What he meant to say was inconsistent with what he actually said. It was a fair concession. But there was more to the slip-up than many of us cared to accept at the time.

I am a student of Sigmund Freud. I was exposed to his psychoanalysis in my secondary school days by one Steven Omolaiye, a 1984 University of Ibadan sociology graduate, who was the project supervisor of a hospital the European Economic Community built in my hometown.


He was from Ogori-Magongo in what is now Kogi State. I have no idea where he is now—or if he is even alive—but I first learned about Freudian slip and of Sigmund Freud from him. When I got to Bayero University, Kano, for my undergraduate degree, I read almost every book Freud wrote, even though I was a mass communication student.

I am bringing this up to establish my non-credentialed bona fides to psychoanalyze Tinubu’s 2019 slip-up in light of what his administration is turning out to be. When Tinubu idealized increasing the tax burden of the people at the very moment that their purchasing power is weak and the tempo of the economy is decelerated, he was betraying, without he himself realizing it, a subconscious, deep-seated longing for the sort of invidiously stratified, anti-poor regime he creates and strengthens with every policy.


“From error to error, one discovers the entire truth,” Sigmund Freud once said. In other words, errors in speech and in writing sometimes serve as lenses that help reveal an unconscious, suppressed, or subdued desire or internal thought.

If I had written this in 2019 or, especially, in 2023, I might have been accused of being “sponsored” (everyone who writes what we don’t like is “sponsored” in Nigeria) to undermine Tinubu’s chances at election.

It bears repeating that Tinubu’s first act upon being inaugurated as president was to announce the removal of petrol subsidies which, in one fell swoop, reduced the purchasing power of the people and slowed down the economy in unexampled ways.


The “floating” of the naira merely strengthened the wickedness that the removal of petrol subsidies unleashed. The astronomical increase in electricity tariffs and the foxy dilly-dallying over increasing the national minimum wage are metaphoric rubbing of salt in the wounds of reduced purchasing power and slow economy, the necessary precursors to Tinubu’s next stage: widening the tax net.

The “next stage” of Tinubu's economic masterplan started in earnest on May 6 when he directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to require banks to assess a 0.05 percent “cybersecurity” fee on every electronic bank transaction—in addition to multiple bank fees that have already made Nigerian banks notorious for being the only banks where you lose money by saving it there.


While I was seething with angst at the unceasingly escalating economic assault on the poor and the weak in Nigeria in the less than one year that Tinubu has been president, I saw a headline in the Daily Trust of May 9 that almost ruined my day and convinced me beyond all shadows of doubt that Tinubu is single-mindedly determined to push through the dystopian economic vision he inadvertently articulated in 2019.

The headline was, “More Burden For Nigerians As Tax Committee Recommends VAT Hike.” The paper reported that “The Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax reforms has recommended an upward review of the Value Added Tax (VAT).”

Apparently, even the chairman of the committee, identified as Taiwo Oyedele, is aware that there would be an outcry, so he quickly said poor people and small businesses won’t be affected by the proposed increase in VAT.

“We would ensure that it doesn’t affect businesses,” he said. “The only thing is to look at basic consumption from food, education, medical services and accommodation will carry zero percent VAT. So for the poor and small businesses, no VAT.”


Of course, even a novice in economics knows that when companies are burdened with higher taxes, they transfer this burden to consumers, which invalidates Oyedele’s assurance that poor people and small businesses would be exempt from the impending VAT hike since inflation, which higher taxes on businesses will activate, is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

But Oyedele thinks Nigerians are unthinking chumps. He said the government had extracted a commitment from businesses that they won’t jack up the prices of their goods and services in response to the increased tax obligation they will have to contend with. “We have spoken to businesses about it, and they won’t increase the product price,” he said. “We want to make sure when we do VAT reform, no one will increase the price of commodities. We will work the mathematics with the private sector.”

Why does he think Nigerians would be persuaded by his false assurances? When Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidies on May 29, 2023, and petrol marketers suddenly increased the pump price of petrol from less than 200 naira to more than 500 naira on old stock that was subsidized by the Nigerian taxpayer, the government didn’t intervene.


It was the most nakedly immoral, government-sanctioned predation of the people that I have seen anywhere in the world. Why would a government that tolerated, even encouraged, that sort of rape of the people be trusted to persuade businesses not to increase the prices of their goods and services in response to increases in their tax liabilities?

In any case, we now know from a retrospective reading of Tinubu’s 2019 speech that his grand plan is to economically disempower the people, depress the economy, and tax people and businesses to death.

I am honestly at a loss what Tinubu hopes to gain from this other than to make the vast majority of the people so economically disaffiliated that they are vulnerable to manipulation, as I pointed out last week. But I hope he is aware that he is sowing the seeds for a spontaneous eruption of a disabling convulsion. There is a limit to what even the most docile humans can tolerate.

My genuine hope is that Tinubu and the people close to him understand that they are brewing the ingredients of a potentially all-consuming conflagration and beat a strategic retreat. It’s not late.



https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2024/05/the-2019-tinubu-speech-we-ignored-is.htm

Proof?

The Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, they say.

You have to be a lost soul to think a certain kind of way.

Just coming to this thread to read comments.

I have understood why its easy to fool majority of Nigerians even when you under perform as a leader

Because at the end, all the people do is to blindly follow their leaders by tribe...

If I am from a certain tribe, I can be as f00lish as I want, because I know my tribe people will support me for free.


The dumber the tribe the thicker the support.

Nigerians and priorities

Ok

yoruboid:
How come none of those that ever worked with Obi as commissioners, permanent secretaries, politicians etc aren’t publicly in support of his ambition unlike PBAT that has everyone that ever worked closely with him sticking out their necks for him

That should tell you something

That Nigerian's are corrupt by nature and it is irredeemable.

adigun3127:
The school authorities don talk say dem go return the money so wetin this wan Dey talk

Dem no quick get the update

vanbonattel:
Do you see how you attract hate for Nigeria? People will now respond to you in the negative and you will claim they hate you, no constructive criticism, no good points, just feeble opposition to peoples honest opinions.

The guy de always off me walai

helinues:
And when we ask you some questions about this topic now, una go start scratching head.

Opposition is not madness my friend

What are you saying?

Always talking off point.

favor914:
microbekorede, Dangote should refine the diesel @ 950, then sell it to you at 850 abi?

That is why I asked my question.

Microbekorede:
I think Dangote can do better by reducing the price of dsel to 850 then we can now hopefully know that is going to do better for petrol

How did you come up with this number?

Lol


He's lucky to find a keeper.

Timmi:
Please do so quickly and while at it, take all your village people with you. Nigeria doesn’t need weaklings

Keep searching for Garri investors till your old age.

Ewu gambia

Biodun556:
Anything about subsidy would be over in 2 months time

I'll be back to quote you.

SenecaTheYonger:
But everyone knows this. The trick is to flood the market with dollar in this case $2bn a
Month. Which is $24bn a year.

But keep a blind eye to the inflation?

WTF I never saw this coming.. I have to leave this country

RealLordZeus:
1 hour in 1 week, can someone explain what band am I?

Bandana

Isreal will try to look for what will hurt the Iranians the most.

Good of him.

Always set to.


When??


Are you guys not tired of being f0olish?


I can't count the amount of times I've read this same news this year.

I'm beginning to like Tinubu.


I've always felt anything but Buhari would work

blaise26abj:
Nonsense talk.

The issue is that foreign companies settle in foreign currencies . Obasanjo encouraged the floating of a 100 percent Nigerian company to compete with the foreign companies. But after he left, dem no get jobs again.

Na your leaders you de talk about oo...
People that steal for a living.

Some loans have some conditions sha.

Making deals with some foreign countries have conditions of using their engineers for stuffs like this. It's deep.