₦airaland Forum

I have just seen off to the airport some of my close buddies returning home after a decade and a half in the states.Mind you ,i have nothing wrong in going home but going to stay in the midst of lawlessness and anarchy isn't the reason i went on economic exile.To cut the story short,there's a distinguished selfless Nigerian who against all odds came home to serve his country and his reward,i would post bellow!
Last year i got an offer from one of the emerging players on the West African banking scene to be part of their global strategy team with a nice bundle and with all the extras that go with those jobs. I did go for a familiarization tour spent 6weeks or thereabouts and realised it was all folly-PHCN,ARMED ROBBERS, LASTMA,NPF,,DERELICT AND DEBASED INSTITUTIONS(trying to get a cof o,getting the police to arrest a maiguard who invites robbers to dismantle your gen set etc).I was just overwhelmed,people go through a lot to get basic things, to enjoy bare necessities!My friends that lured me who had also relocated were not finding thigs easy though but with salaries exceeding what some made here they had no option. Anyways,i still plan to visit as time permits,but it's the story of a patriot,who heard the calling and well judge-------------------------------------.
doctor’s hope reduced to rubble
By john alechenu
Published: Sunday, 25 Feb 2007
When Dr. Frank Fashina left Nigeria to study medicine in the United States of America in 1975, he was consumed by one passion, ‘I’ll be back one day to save lives.” That was what he told his friends. He finished his first degree in 1978 and went into practice while at the same time pursuing his post-graduates degrees. He married an American and had two children but still did not forget his roots. After completing his PhD (in 1982), with specialisation in gynaecology and other related areas, he knew it was time to plan the homeward journey. With the support of his family and in defiance of the advice of foreign friends who felt it was dangerous to venture into business in Nigeria, he returned home.

Skip to next paragraph

File
L-R: Fashina,el-Rufai

Between 1996 and 1999, Fashina moved into Abuja to set up Arewa Hospital. He applied for land and was allocated plots number 2287 and 2288 along Accra Street, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja. As someone well-versed in the culture of due process, he went all the way to acquire his Certificate of Occupancy and approved building plan. Without any collateral to attract a bank loan, he appealed to friends for loans to build what later became Arewa Specialist Hospital. It was a masterpiece, a structure that embodied his desires and dreams. The euphoria of the democratic dispensation in 1999 brought with it renewed hope for a new Nigeria. For Fashina and his family, it meant a freer environment for private business to thrive.

He told Sunday Punch in Abuja on Tuesday, “I had high hopes because I believe in this country. I thought to my self, now we can have a better atmosphere where the rule of law will thrive and professional practice will boom because this is democracy.” His optimism was however cut short when the Federal Capital Development Authority issued a demolition notice to the hospital, a few months after. The notice was issued on the grounds that the plots were allocated in error as they were on sewage line. That in effect meant that his hospital was facing demolition. Disturbed about the turn of events, Fashina went to court to challenge the action of the FCDA. The courts granted a restraining order.

He was however dumbfounded when the Ministry of the FCT issued another demolition notice on August 26, 2003. Four days later, on August 30, 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo paid an unscheduled visit to the hospital. Fashina and his team were in the middle of a major surgery, when he was informed that Obasanjo was at the reception. He had to choose between saving a life and attending to the visitor. To his relief, the President sent words that he should only come out after the surgery. Obasanjo waited patiently for close to one hour. Touched by the humanitarian nature of the services rendered by the hospital, Fashina sadly recalled that “The president, with his arms around the shoulders of my wife, said, his administration was out to right the wrongs of past administrations. He promised that we would be fully compensated for our property, which would be pulled down.”

The president immediately ordered the minister to take steps to effect payment of compensation and provide an alternative land for the hospital to be rebuilt as spelt out in the law. Fashina could not argue. He felt humbled by the President’s visit and the readiness to ensure that justice was done. His fears about the fate of the multi-million naira edifice evaporated, with the President’s promise of compensation made up of the full value of the structure and fresh plots of land for the construction of a new hospital. As directed by the President, Fashina hired a team of professional valuers and the hospital structure was valued at N207 million.

But the FCDA would have none of it. Its valuers said the structure could not be more than N55million. The dispute over the value was yet to be resolved when one morning in September 2003, heavy earth-moving equipment, popularly called bulldozers, pulled up in front of the hospital. There was stampede. The staff could not believe what they saw. The patients thought it was a dream. But by the time they were through, Fashina, his wife, staff and patients watched in utter shock as all they worked for, their hopes and aspirations, which translated into Arewa Specialist Hospital, was reduced to rubble. Fashina’s traumatised wife and the children left the country immediately. They viewed the incident as a declaration of war against the family. They returned to America wondering, if the words of the President could not be relied upon, who else could be trusted?

But Fashina’s troubles were just about to begin. The Minister of the FCT, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai stood his ground not to pay anything beyond N55million recommended by the ministry’s valuers. The Minister, via an approval by the Budget and Funds Disbursement Committee, authorised the payment of N14.50 million as first installment He however made a U-turn by alleging that he never authorised the payment and that the medical doctor should be jailed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for defrauding government. The twist in the tale was so alarming that the National Assembly had to wade in.

The matter went public when the Senate set up an ad-hoc committee to take a holistic view of the entire demolition exercise. In his testimony before the Senator Idris Kuta-led committee, el-Rufai was in a combative mood. He told the committee, “The way to value is to value it at the time Development Control says stop work. In the case of Dr. Fashina, at the time the building got out of foundation, General Useni (Former FCT Minister) got advice that these buildings were on a sewage line because then the sewage lines had started bursting and the place was smelling and Development Control marked all the buildings and said they should stop work.”

He told the committee that at anytime when one was ordered to stop work, whoever continued work after then did so at his own risk. He accused some staff of his ministry of being mischievous. According to him, they made two valuations in the case of Arewa Hospital. “They did the correct one in 1998 when the buildings were stopped and applied an inflation index, the CBN inflation rate. That would have been the correct value for Dr. Fashina. But they did a second valuation whereas they valued the buildings up to today as if it is today they realised they made a mistake.”

The minister told the Kuta committee that he received reports that, such was the practice among staff of the ministry in cases where a minister’s friend was a victim of demolitions and was entitled to be compensated. He said, “The two options were proposed to me to consider. I approved the first option because that’s the legally correct option. The finance people tend to normally allocate money for various purposes and this money (first installment) was paid but not with my authority.” By that explanation, he alleged that both Fashina and certain staff of the ministry, especially the finance department, were fraudulent.

The Director of Finance and Accounts in the Ministry, Mr. Silva Ameh, was summoned by the Senate as he was directly accused by the minister. He appeared and completely faulted the minister’s claims in his testimony before the Senate Committee. He said, “Because of cash squeeze we wrote a memo to the minister to give priority approvals. On this memo dated July 22, 2004, I made a recommendation to the minister for general payments, including that of Arewa Hospital. My memo was routed through my permanent secretary that endorsed my proposal and recommended it to the minister for approval. Then the minister wrote a second approval for 14.5 million naira.” He said the minister was being economical with the truth when he claimed not to have authorised the payment. It was a bold effort by the director in the face of intimidating influence of the minister who could have have had him fired. But the Senate assured him of safety.

The Kuta committee in its findings submitted that: “It was observed that Dr. Fashina of Arewa Hospital was underpaid and not over paid as claimed by the Honourable Minister of the FCT. FCDA agreed to pay N55, 804,000.00 on Dr. Fashina’s hospital building. It only paid N14, 500,000.00, which the Minister claimed was not approved by him. However by Mr. Silva Ameh’s (Former director Finance and Supplies) submission, it was discovered that the Hon. Minister actually approved the amount paid to Dr. Fashina.”

Dr. Fashina is pained by the decision of the minister to describe him as a dishonest person. He said, “I felt very bad when they did not only refuse to consider my valuation of N210 million but went on to tell the committee that I had been over paid. I kept my peace and prayed for the payment of my balance because I was told in this country if you fight for your rights you will loose out. I still have hope in Nigeria, I did not leave America to come back home, only to go back again.” Today, the Fashinas are still waiting for justice while el-Rufai’s bulldozer is still on the prowl pulling down houses. The question has never been whether houses should be pulled down but whether the demolition is done in line with existing legislation.

The Minister’s Senior Special Adviser, Amina Salihu, could not be reached on Friday for comments on the report as her mobile phone was switched off. But there were indications that the Senate had forwarded its recommendations on the committee’s report to the President for action.

Printer Friendly Version

And by the way it was construed to mean wasting of the people's money,for those who can't see the big picture always!

Of course people pay taxes!What do you expect?

Another avenue to waste tax payers money!

It's an Arabic greeting not muslim greeting~no offense intended. I am a man of peace

This should be locked up by Admin!

Aasalaamu Aleikum
I am a friend of the Fourth estate

With the PDP machinery firmly against him?Agagu,Akinnola and co no go let go easily!No be only Ondo Central election go hold o!

devolution of power at the center, regional control of resources,true federalism in evey sense,-Alhaji abd, you cannot be more correct!This would lessen the penchant corruption at the center since the presidential system makes for absolutism which OBJ and others after him may want to misuse!With true federalism, rotation of power would not be necessary because hopefully all peoples would be caterd for!However the powers that be would not agree!

The Nigerian Press has been bought and corrupted by the government and the politicians. Some notorious Nigerian journalists are defending the corrupt practices of indicted politicians vociferously.

Provide your reference!Which media oulet is guilty?Name the so called journalists if you can?

What a shame!

Yes that your ignorance has no limit!Before hitting your keyboard in that perpetual frenzy state,do you check your facts up?Or rather follow your whim and exhibit crass ineptitude!

journalist should do his job regardless of what the politicians think. A journalist owes a duty to society to keep them informed that is over and above his loyalty to the politicians. He should do his job according to his ethics and according to his conscience rather than according to the dictates of the politicians

I'm waiting because as of last count the Fourth estate in Nigeria has been at the fore front of objective,fair reporting and also a bulwark against the anarchy OBJ wants to drag us into!

This is America for you!Wolf crying where's there's obviously none!I wonder why this ain't on the major news networks!Travesty of the system

God almighty,ain't that genocide

More!
Anger mounts in Zimbabwe as crisis nears By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer
Fri Feb 23, 2:01 PM ET



JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Zimbabwe is reaching the end game, witnessing the last, desperate throes of a regime that has destroyed one of Africa's few successful economies, plunged millions of people into grinding poverty and led to the deaths of tens of thousands from malnutrition and lack of medical care.

ADVERTISEMENT

It may not happen Saturday, when President Robert Mugabe celebrates his 83rd birthday with cake and champagne at a $1.2 million party while hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans struggle to survive on bread and water.

And it probably won't happen in the weeks leading up to April 18, the 27th anniversary of an end to racist white rule and Mugabe's ascension to power.

But years of abuse and neglect are culminating in untenable crises.

"People's anger is mounting," said Zimbabwean political scientist John Makumbe. "They're no longer afraid to go into the streets and I think the government is growing very afraid of what may happen."

The world's worst hyperinflation is spiraling out of control, bringing shortages of food, fuel, medication and electricity. Police have banned demonstrations in opposition strongholds in the capital, Harare, for three months. And criticism is mounting within Mugabe's ruling party, which is divided over who will succeed him and when.

"Each and every individual on the upper echelons" is jockeying for his position, Mugabe complained in an interview on his actual birthday, Wednesday, broadcast over the country's sole and state-owned television station.

But, he announced categorically: "There are no vacancies because I am still there."

Mugabe blames sanctions, drought and former colonizer Britain for the collapse of an economy based on exports of a wealth of agricultural and mineral products.

Others blame land grabs over the past several years in which Mugabe encouraged blacks to violently force out most of the 5,000 white commercial farmers who owned 40 percent of all agricultural land and produced 75 percent of agricultural output.

White farmers had employed the country's largest work force and their ejection led to the displacement of 300,000 families. The farms, most given to Mugabe relatives, allies and cronies, lie fallow today and Zimbabwe does not have the foreign currency to import food.

The World Bank estimates it would take more than 20 years for Zimbabwe's economy to return to levels in 1980, when the country was considered the breadbasket of the region.

The ban on protests followed weekend clashes in which police fired tear gas and turned water cannon on opposition rallies. The opposition had planned to protest the high cost of living and Mugabe's plan to extend his term to 2010.

Mugabe is "at war" with its people, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai declared this week.

The National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of human rights, church and grass-roots organizations, issued a statement Friday criticizing the police action.

"It's not a crime to defend oneself from an unlawful attack, and if need be (people) should protect themselves from a partisan, violent police force that aims at perpetuating dictatorship and increasing the suffering of the ordinary masses," the statement said.

Meanwhile, people are finding it increasingly difficult just to survive.

The rate of hyperinflation — running at near 1,600 percent — that economists say soon will be represented by an upright line on a graph has the country in revolt. The number of Zimbabwe dollars that bought a three-bedroom house with a swimming pool and tennis court in 1990 will buy a brick today.

A lifetime public worker's monthly pension can't buy a loaf of bread. Charities have reported depression, suicide and malnutrition among retirees — including a type of vitamin deficiency affecting gums, bones and hair loss.

A hairdresser paid the minimum monthly wage of $30,000 Zimbabwe dollars said her bus fare to work cost more than her salary but she went anyway to get the tips from clients that keep her and her daughter alive.

The list of deserters on the walls of army barracks grows ever longer despite a 300 percent pay raise in January, which fell short of the military's demand of a 1,000 percent increase. The police chief in Harare has said in a confidential memo that he fears his constables will riot.

Doctors and nurses have been on strike since December and the rest of the civil service is threatening to join them.

Makumbe, the political scientist, said an estimated 70,000 people have died this year because there are no drugs in hospitals and medical equipment like dialysis machines doesn't work any more.

He said one 16-year-old boy who broke his collar bone falling out of a tree has lain at home in pain for days because his widowed mother does not have the million Zimbabwe dollars needed to have the bone set.

Bread disappeared off the shelves this week after the government increased the price of grain sold to millers by 10,000 percent but did not raise the controlled price for bread. Water shortages have caused a cholera epidemic that has killed dozens since November, medical officials said.

Children have been among the first to suffer, with one in four Zimbabwean children orphaned and more than 2 million at risk of starvation, the U.N. Children's Fund said.

The government has tried to control inflation by printing money and setting the exchange rate. Last year, when half a dozen eggs cost more than a million Zimbabwe dollars and the poorest Zimbabweans were millionaires, the government simply knocked three zeros off the currency. The minimum monthly salary for a house cleaner went from $15 million to $15,000 Zimbabwe dollars. The official exchange rate is set at 250 Zimbabwe dollars to one U.S. dollar, but the real trading rate is 5,000 to one.

Some Zimbabweans are getting rich off the misery. Party and government officials with access to foreign currency buy it at the official rate and then resell it at the real rate, making a huge profit.

That too,unfortunately so!

The problem in Zim transcends land reforms!Mugabe is simple incapable of ruling and it shows that without aid the country can't survive because the economic factors are not there!Haiti is not in Africa and it's the retrogressive policy of the USA not France here to keep their backyard perpetually in a comatose state viz a viz the Carribean and Latin America.Anyways it's Africa we are concerned about the especially the unimaginable apathy,want,hunger and despair in Zim!It's rather shameful and must we always cry wolf at imaginary foes like the ape is doing?The man practically ran his country aground and mind you this was a former freedom fighter in his hey days a la Kenneth Kaunda,Julius Nyere,Samora Machel,Jonas Savimbi,Sam Njuoma etc!It's rather shameful that the man could turn into a degenerate overnight!

So when the western press potrays Africa as a land of hungry,ignorant,diseased folks,should we complain!People have no food, live in slums,yet he deems it fit to celebrate 83 years of pestilence.One day!

I'm just tired!When you disagree with someone, the next thing is to kill him in Nigerian politics a la Bola Ige, Harry Marshal, Chief Dikibo,The Igwes and countless other perceived threats to PDP nationwide.OBJ's legacy of banditry,violence,destruction!Na wa o!

Police Recover Gun from Enugu Commssioner
From Francis Ugwoke in Enugu, 02.23.2007

Add To Favorites
Print This Article
Post Comment

The Enugu State Police Command yesterday recovered AK Ka-lashinikov rifle from a serving Commissioner for Special Duties, Mr. Sunday Nnaji Nwankaru who is now in police net for illegal possession of fire arms loaded with 30 live ammunition.
The rifle which was said to have been recovered in the early hours of yesterday followed a report filed by the Commissioner for Sports, Mr Ray Nnaji who is a cousin to the suspect.
The Commissioner for Special Duties who throughout yesterday, spent most of the time with the Police was alleged to have been at logger heads with his cousin, Ray over undisclosed political matters.
It was gathered that the suspect had allegedly threatened to deal with his cousin in a fresh face off, a development which forced . the Sports Commissioner to report the matter to the Police which in turn invited Nwankaru to the Police Headquarters yesterday.
Sources had it that the suspect who may have sensed that his house was going to be search soon sent some boys to remove the rifle but he was not lucky as youths in his community confronted his boys.
It was gathered that the suspicious youths followed the errand boys in Okada and tracked them down at a spot where they recovered the rifle hidden in Peugeot 504 AE B2 ENU used by the boys working for the suspect.
The youths were said to have immediately taken the rifle to the Police station along some of the errand boys.
At the Police yesterday, were both Ray Nnaji and the suspect, including a female local government chairman said to be the inlaw of the State Governor, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani.
Nnaji said that the problem started last year when he alleged that the suspect hired some thugs to eliminate him.

The Commissioner for Sports who was former National Auditor of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accused his cousin suspect of mobilizing youths and elders in his Amugu community to excommunicate him, claiming that this was the next move after his alleged plot to kill him failed.
Claiming innocent of why his cousin would want to eliminate him, Nnaji said he has reported the matter to the governor before he was made commissioner.
He told newsmen at the Police Headquarters Enugu of copies of an address where the President-General of Amugo Town Union, Chief Martin Nnajioffor at the community's Annual convention recently warned people from relating with him.
The Town Union President, according to the Commissioner had warned that anyone relating with him would be fined N1,000.
He blamed his cousin for instigating his people against him for no just cause.
However efforts made to get Nwankau to state his own side of the case failed as at the time of filing this report.

The guy is schizo,obviously so!Shame on the continent,people like him lived in the stone age.

Sorry full article!
Mugabe Gets Ready to Eat Cake While Fellow Zimbabweans Can’t Find Bread on Shelves
Desmond Kwande/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images
President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe held 83 balloons, one for each year, at a birthday ceremony Wednesday in Harare.

Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
Print
Reprints
Share
Digg
Facebook
Newsvine
Permalink


By MICHAEL WINES
Published: February 22, 2007
JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 21 — President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe turned 83 on Wednesday to the strains of the song “God Bless President Mugabe” on state-controlled radio, along with an interview on state television, a 16-page paean to his rule in Harare’s daily newspaper and the prospect of a grand birthday party — costly enough to feed thousands of people for months, his critics argued — on Saturday.

Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image

Associated Press
Mr. Mugabe, with his wife, Grace, toasted his birthday and had cake.
Zimbabwe’s economy is so dire that bread vanished from store shelves across the country on Wednesday after bakeries shut down, saying government price controls were requiring them to sell loaves at a loss. The price controls are supposed to shield consumers from the nation’s rampant inflation, which now averages nearly 1,600 percent annually.

In Harare, the capital, the police banned demonstrations and political gatherings in the city’s sprawling townships on Wednesday, citing the threat of looting and vandalism. Slum dwellers clashed with policemen on Sunday after the police blocked a court-approved rally by political opponents of Mr. Mugabe.

His critics called the ban an act of desperation, and some said that Zimbabwe’s deepening economic crisis was beginning to goad citizens into political action despite the threat of arrest and beating.

“It’s a sign of panicking by the regime,” Lovemore Madhuku, who leads the nation’s largest civic organization, the National Constitutional Assembly, said in a telephone interview from Harare. “It’s also a signal that this regime will go down fighting. They’re showing that they will continue to rely on brute force to stay in power.”

In his hourlong television interview, broadcast Tuesday evening, Mr. Mugabe showed no sign of concern that he was unpopular. Rather, he expressed confidence that voters would add another six-year term to the 27 years he has spent in power should he run for re-election.

He has proposed postponing the next presidential election, now scheduled for 2008, until 2010, and he mocked the ambitions of underlings who, he said, hoped to push him from office before he was ready to retire.

“Can you see any vacancies?” he asked. “The door is closed.”

On Wednesday, The Herald, the state-managed newspaper, included in 16 pages of tributes to Mr. Mugabe an editorial calling him “an unparalleled visionary” and “an international hero among the oppressed and poor.”

The 21st February Movement, founded as a youth welfare organization in 1986, said it had raised 300 million Zimbabwe dollars — about $65,000 at black-market currency rates — from the public for Mr. Mugabe’s birthday party. The event, to be held in Gweru, Zimbabwe’s third largest city, is to feature a parade of specially chosen children delivering birthday greetings.

Emmanuel Fundira, the chairman of the fund-raising group, says that the theme of this year’s celebration will be “empowerment, prosperity and peace.” In Harare, however, some citizens were caustic in their assessment of the festivities.

“The guy is insensitive,” John Shiri, 41, a teacher at a primary school, told a local journalist. “There is no bread as we are talking, but he will be feasting and drinking with his family and hangers-on when there is no wheat in the country.”

Zimbabwe teachers earn a basic salary of 84,000 Zimbabwe dollars a month, plus limited allowances. The Central Statistical Office said last week that a family of five needed more than 566,000 Zimbabwe dollars, or about $123, to buy a month’s worth of basic commodities.

Tawanda Mujuru, who runs a vegetable stall on Samora Machel Avenue in downtown Harare, said that she would be working in a factory if not for the failure of Mr. Mugabe’s economic policies.

“He has the guts to eat and drink when we are suffering like this,” she said. “Let him enjoy. Every dog has his day. We shall have our day.”

More Articles in International »

One of Africa's remaining despots!Guy's a nuisance and unfortunately the African Union has not sactioned him. So much for their peer review mechanism!

Emmanuel Fundira, the chairman of the fund-raising group, says that the theme of this year’s celebration will be “empowerment, prosperity and peace.” In Harare, however, some citizens were caustic in their assessment of the festivities.

“The guy is insensitive,” John Shiri, 41, a teacher at a primary school, told a local journalist. “There is no bread as we are talking, but he will be feasting and drinking with his family and hangers-on when there is no wheat in the country.”

Zimbabwe teachers earn a basic salary of 84,000 Zimbabwe dollars a month, plus limited allowances. The Central Statistical Office said last week that a family of five needed more than 566,000 Zimbabwe dollars, or about $123, to buy a month’s worth of basic commodities.

Tawanda Mujuru, who runs a vegetable stall on Samora Machel Avenue in downtown Harare, said that she would be working in a factory if not for the failure of Mr. Mugabe’s economic policies.

“He has the guts to eat and drink when we are suffering like this,” she said. “Let him enjoy. Every dog has his day. We shall have our day

Let's be serious for once-how many chicks would dump a yahoo boy?This is just some guy wanting attention!My take please!

_{He can roast in hades for as long as i care!Nuisance of a despot!}!_{Really lewa?}

_{Your point is},_{lewa talking to me}

C'mon!That is someone's father,grandfather,uncle,great uncle,cousin,in-law,boyfriend,sugar daddy!

Old Glory, true talk!Hope say u no mind me refering to you as O.G!Never used to Democrat.