₦airaland Forum

Una well done ooo Oduduwa Governors!

Oduduwa region has united to tackle crime in their lands under their Amotekun Initiative which involves vigilante, police and civil defence.

SS and SE are urged to follow Oduduwa. If we don't then the criminals will leave Oduduwa to come feast on us and our children. Fani-Kayode and several others have been urging SS and SE to follow suit.

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HOW SOUTHWEST SECURITY OUTFIT AMOTEKUN [LEOPARD] WILL TACKLE CRIME
The Nation newspaper, January 8th 2020

At the height of criminality across the six Southwest states last July, the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission held a security summit, which produced the idea of an unconventional regional security outfit that will root out criminals and criminality from the six states: Oyo, Osun, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun and Ekiti. The outfit, which is codenamed Amotekun, will be inaugurated in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital tomorrow. Southwest Bureau Chief BISI OLADELE highlights the details of the outfit and how it intends to make residents sleep with their two eyes closed.

The nation will tomorrow witness the birth of an innovative regional security outfit, Amotekun, in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Perhaps the first of its kind in Nigeria, Amotekun will add to the rich history of Ibadan as the city of the firsts, having hosted Africa’s first television station, first skyscraper, first stadium, and first university, among others.
Amotekun is a security outfit jointly established by governors of the six states that make up Southwest Nigeria. They are Oyo, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Osun and Ekiti.

The inauguration will be presided over by Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), who is the Chairman, Southwest Governors’ Forum.
He will be joined by the host governor Seyi Makinde; Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti); Adegboyega Oyetola (Osun); Dapo Abiodun (Ogun) and Babjide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos).
The idea came through three-day technical sessions by experts of Southwest origin. The idea was conceived out of the need to jointly tackle increasing criminal activities, including kidnapping and armed robbery, in the region.
It was thought that a single state will battle criminals in vain as contiguous states will readily serve as safe haven for them, if they are not involved.

Amotekun
Amotekun is the Yoruba name for leopards, a carnivorous big cat with strong bones and jaws. They have a running speed average of 58 kilometer per hour.

Leopards hunt down their preys in the same manner as lions and tigers. They are feared in Yoruba land because of their strength, speed and carnivorous nature.
The name was carefully chosen to convey the above attributes which are believed will send the right signals to criminals.

Membership and structure
Membership of the outfit comprises vigilante groups operating within each state, security experts and statutory security agencies such as the police and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.
Though a regional outfit, each state will have its own Amotekun in the form of a state police command. They will operate from a given base in each state.

There will also be local government organs, which will coordinate Amotekun activities in each local government. But, the six state commands will relate with the regional command to which each has contributed vehicles equipped with security and communication gadgets.
The regional command will operate from the control centre in Ibadan, and will work closely with the DAWN Commission, which provides administrative supervision to the project.
Amotekun will be funded by the state governments with support from their security trust funds. The Commissioner of Police in each state will oversee Amotekun.

Operational guidelines
As at press time yesterday, governors and police bosses were still perfecting the document that will serve as the operational guidelines for the outfit.
While the governors were interacting on funding and management, commissioners of police and the three Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIG) in the region were firming up the technical aspects to prevent inter-agency rivalry and clashes over leadership and superiority among members during patrol and other operational activities.

The Nation learnt that the states have recruited many of the unconventional security personnel.
As a local collaborative measure, Amotekun will gather information about crimes and suspicious activities for interpretation and proper action, including prevention, management or counteraction.

It will undertake routine patrols in parts of highways in the region, which police are unable to adequately cover day and night. Working with traditional rulers, its activities will also permeate local communities to keep an eye on suspicious residents, visitors and non-residents coming for business or related activities.
The outfit will deploy technology in its operations, including geographical mapping and security drones.
By gathering intelligence and sharing it with the police and other statutory security agencies, it is believed that these security measures will help improve community peace and security all over the region.

The inauguration of the outfit is expected to have sent jitters down the spines of criminals who have returned to their trade, particularly in Ondo State in the last one month.
The bandits may have explored the room created by the slight delay in the inauguration of the outfit, which was due since last October.
When contacted yesterday, the AIG Zone 11, Leye Oyebade, declined comment on the outfit. He said facts about it will be made know during tomorrow’s inauguration.

The Director-General, DAWN Commission, Mr Seye Oyeleye, was also unavailable for comments.

Police involvement
The Nigeria Police is a key stakeholder in Amotekun’s operations. The force will offer services in the area of security clearance for those to be recruited as members, exercise the legal power of arrest and prosecution and also provide technical training and back-up for the outfit.

Zonal APC on initiative
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Southwest has hailed the six governors on the birthing of Amotekun.
The zonal leadership of the party lauded the six governors, endorsing the airing of its administrative headquarters in Ibadan, which used to be the capital of the defunct Western Region.

In a statement by the APC Zonal Publicity Secretary, Karounwi Oladapo, the party observed that the governors hearkened to its call to rise to the occasion in the wake of kidnapping and other criminal activities in the zone.

He said the governors’ bold response has manifested in the prompt actions taken by them and other critical stakeholders that brought the abductions to the bearest minimum in the region.

Oladapo said: “The strategic approach of the governors to deliver on their mandates of securing the lives and property of the Yoruba people was responsible for the purchase of security vehicles, motorcycles, communication gadgets and the coordination of the conventional security agencies and unconventional security outfits, preparatory to the launch that we are about to witness.


SOURCE:
https://thenationonlineng.net/how-southwest-security-outfit-amotekun-will-tackle-crime/

Nigeria and all Africa should truly have been a PARADISE ON EARTH with every Black person having no need to be a migrant abroad, but just go abroad as a tourist not a migrant, if not for those civil servants and politicians looting our nation's treasuries to live lavish lifestyles here and abroad with stolen money.

I just saw this tweet (attached below) that says it like it is then I typed out the words of the tweet to make it easy for us to copy and broadcast via our WhatsApp and other social media.

As we raise awareness who knows but that we Nigerians might sooner than we think, be able to rescue ourselves from this nightmarish country!

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Africa’s RICH UNTOUCHABLE MIGRANTS in Europe, sustained by looting African public funds, are the ones turning Africa BARREN. These RICH MIGRANTS should be the MAIN target of global anti-migrant policies. This will help FIX Africa so that the ordinary African citizen who is the VICTIM of the looting of these RICH MIGRANTS will not need to flee Africa for a good life in Europe.

DANGERS OF AFRICAN FILMS TO OUR POLITICAL, CULTURAL & DEVELOPMENTAL ORIENTATION
(You can copy and forward this via your WhatsApp and social media)

I got my insight from a religious Facebook site then meditated on it, and am sharing my thoughts on it to WARN us.

The things we watch affect us. That is why after seeing an advert we now want what we have seen. In our homes and everywhere we go, shops, waiting areas, barbers, business centres etc the TVs are showing our Africa Magic films. These films are steeped in our African superstition, spirits, spells, juju, witchcraft and the devil. So we bring all this junk into our minds and hearts, and they guide us and impact our behaviours. In these African films there are rituals, witchdoctors, charms, casting of spells etc. And that keeps us focused on such things and on the pagan religion of our forefathers which they handed down to us, and which kept them (and now us) TECHNOLOGICALLY BACKWARDS compared to everyone else on earth! Another thing about these African films is that “…a poor man SOMEHOW manages to travel abroad and SOMEHOW in quick time amasses great wealth while there. Why then are we surprised that the greatest desire of an African is to get to Europe or the West so as to become rich (in unexplained ways and in rapid time)...”?

These African films give us a wrong and very bad value orientation. It makes us focus on wealth and on juju-filled society. I AM JUST SAYING LET’S BE CAREFUL WHAT WE WATCH. Let’s know what it is we are watching. Let’s consider the effect of what we are watching on ourselves and on our CHILDREN.

The African is at the very bottom of Mankind’s pile. In fact some communities are convinced that Black people are sub-humans when they see how our wretched lifestyles are and that we all want to escape to go live with them and enjoy what their type of thinking and behaviour has created. Our children WILL inherit what we sow. Just as we ourselves are inheriting what our parents sowed for us.

JUST COMPARE the way we Africans think and the way Whites think, and our lifestyles then show this difference:

We Africans live with SUPERSTITION ----- Whites live with SCIENCE

We Africans live with REGRESSION ----- Whites live with INNOVATION

We Africans live with SUSPICION of our people ----- Whites live with TRUST in their people

We Africans live with SELFISHNESS ----- Whites live with COMMUNITY-CENTREDNESS

We Africans live with BACKWARDNESS ----- Whites live with PROGRESS

We Africans live with STEALING from others ----- Whites live with SHARING with others

We Africans live with FILTHY environments ----- Whites live with CLEAN environments

We Africans live with POVERTY ----- Whites live with PLENTY

Isn’t it time that we Africans removed from our lifestyles and culture all these things that are against us? That our forefathers, parents and grandparents have sowed for us? Or must we carry on with our nonsensical non-scientific thinking that makes us the WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, and VAGABONDS seeking which foreign place will take us in and give us a good life? OUR THINKING (OR LACK OF) AND MUCH IN OUR CULTURE IS OUR ENEMY.

THESE AFRICAN FILMS JUST KEEP ON FORWARDING AND KEEPING ALIVE WITHIN US THESE SUPERSTITIOUS, ANTI SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, FEAR-PRODUCING, GARBBAGE THAT KEEPS AFRICANS FROM DEVELOPING.

African film makers can produce films that encourage READING, STEM subjects, HONESTY & SINCERITY with ENVIRONMENTAL CARE instead!

THE DANGERS TO CHRISTIANS OF AFRICAN FILMS
by Christianity for Africans (Facebook)

Everything we watch on TV reflects the values and orientation of its director, whether it is an advert, a music show, news, a documentary or a film. Last year we posted a six-part series on Juju Christianity where we touched upon the dangers to Christians in watching many of our African films. We are doing so again because it is becoming apparent that many Africans are “addicted” to these films which are shown in homes, hair and barbing salons, business centres, waiting areas, and other types of shops.

The danger to Christians lies in those films where there is magic, witchcraft, sorcery, the spirit world, and quick unexplained wealth. Watching such films keeps the viewers heart and mind taken up with magic, witchcraft, sorcery, the spirit world, and riches. These are all things forbidden for TRUE Christians. Those who are not true Christians but are just Church-goers can watch whatever they like and live in this world however they like. But those who are true Christians and true seekers are guided in the straight and narrow way, and they are kept safe from Satan’s traps by heeding their Saviour and wanting no darkness about them.

These African films help keep Africa bound under superstitions, and with a dangerous preoccupation with spirits and devils: God calls believers to be preoccupied with Him, not obsessed with things that oppose Him. That just fosters fear and paranoia rather than peace and security. Plus it glorifies the devil.

• This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced MAGIC brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all (Acts 19: 17-19a).

• There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices WITCHCRAFT, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a SORCERER, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you (Deuteronomy 18: 10-12).

Our forefathers were pagans and life revolved around spirits and spells, curses and charms, and “medicine”. These are what African films portray because the spirit and orientation behind these films wants Africans to remain pagans at heart and in reality, even though calling ourselves “Christian”.

Lastly, in these African films a poor man SOMEHOW manages to travel abroad and SOMEHOW in quick time amasses great wealth while there. Why then are we surprised that the greatest desire of an African is to get to Europe or the West so as to become rich (in unexplained ways and in rapid time).

• For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs (1Timothy 6:10).

We should also not expose our children to these anti-Christ films for they will affect their thinking and view of life. Let us heed Scripture. The Bible is our guide and is a gift to us for our SAFETY. Amen.


SOURCE:
https://web.facebook.com/Christianity4Africans/

The saddest thing is to be created into a Race that refuses to think.

Here we are wanting TO MARRY.

Here we are wanting TO BREED. Like goats.

Nigeria's already fat population will double to over 400 million in less than 30 years. The 200 million we already have all want to go to oyeebo country for oyeebo to house them, feed them, give them job, give them education, give them opportunities, give them a good life. What a sorry Race! Yet still BREEDING like flies, like brainless goats. OK. A horrible future awaits us Black people. Today is already bad. But instead of doing what will give us a good future, we are BREEDING and are giving our children a terrible inheritance. (Some of them will commit suicide because of the awful life we are giving them as inheritance).

Below is someone's comments on Facebook after he read from a Pan-Africanist that "Africa is NOT overpopulated". But we, we know na lie when it comes to already OVERPOPULATED Nigeria. We know too that Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Automation are the future so small populations are best where couples limit to 1 or 2 children who will have QUALITY not SHIT lives as African children do. Oh Africa - a true true SHITHOLE because Africans refuse to think, then apply good solutions.

Here is that Facebook comment:

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"[b]I'm not about swallow this argument entirely. I'm pragmatic I often find some Pan-Africanist defending everything African, warts and all and condemning everything European as if we Africans are saints and bear no blame in our current condition. Such intellectuals are not helping this continent one bit. I'm for saying it as it is. True, Africa's contribution to environmental degradation at the global level is minimal compared to the developed economies, we are surely degrading our immediate environment rapidly. The vast majority of rural dwellers still kill live trees for charcoal. Space is shrinking for farmers and herders allover Nigeria herders and farmers population are exploding, and land has never expanded since the end of creation thereby creating conflicts. The Sahara is still marching downward in most of West Africa except perhaps Senegal .The population is growing nearly four times as fast as the economy and vital infrastructure in so many African countries. Huge family sizes of the poor is turning poverty to a multi generational disaster. I read about an okada rider that died recently leaving behind three wives and twelve children. A northern state legislator died recently leaving behind 52 children. This high dependency rate contribute a great deal to poverty in Africa. Nearly all per high per capital income countries have relatively much lower fertility rate. Any argument that suggest Africa need not slow down it's population growth is either not well thought out or just being deliberately dishonest[/b]"

[b]Robots and Artificial Intelligence are the future for progressive countries so LIES ABOUT AFRICANS BEING NEEDED IN THE WEST SHOULD STOP! [/b]Africans should FIX Africa!

Europe doesn't need a big population any more.
USA doesn't need a big population any more.
China doesn't need a big population any more.

Here's a poster from World Economic Forum with caption: "These are the industries most likely to be taken over by robots" to tell DECEIVERS and DECEIVED the TRUTH.

This information comes from an article written in 2 parts but I have just quoted the take-home information here.

It seems the Black Race is CURSED to enrich other Races at the detriment and expense of our own people (who are actually our children and their children). The world knows the Black as the global slave. And are they wrong?

It's "a status symbol and a boasting" (I quote from a writer I follow on social media) for Nigerians to be abroad for whatever reasons. Rather than use our money and intelligence to develop Nigeria so we can do all we want within Nigeria, and foreigners can come here to learn. We rather do so many things under STEALING acts to underdevelop our country, then use that as a reason to be abroad (where we can boast we are in America and Europe, or China and Malaysia).
Why can't we live like the rest of mankind eg Europeans study in America BUT Americans study in Europe so it's an equal exchange. How many foreigners want to come study in Nigeria? But we, we love to troop over to Europe and America as all kinds of unwanted and unneeded MIGRANTS deceiving ourselves we are needed there when we know they have Artificial Intelligence and Robots to do their work for them. This is nothing but the behaviour of a self-CURSED Race.

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From Article 1
".....The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was established..... set up to administer and disburse education TAX COLLECTIONS to the federal and state tertiary education institutions in Nigeria. The main source of income available to the Fund is the 2 per cent education tax paid from the assessable profit of companies registered in Nigeria[/b]. The levies are collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)....."



From Article 2
*....While some scholars justify the reason why Tetfund is sponsoring scholars to study abroad, other scholars have argued that the fund has succeeded in [b]carting away taxpayers’ money to fortify and strengthen universities abroad.

A lecturer in the University of Jos, who prefers to speak anonymously, said that Tetfund is enriching universities outside the country at the detriment of the universities in Nigeria, according to her, if the money used for academic staff training is committed to one university each year, the country’s universities would have been well equipped to international standard.

“How can universities in Nigeria grow when the major source of funding prefers to give it to some other universities outside? If money committed for foreign training for academic staff is dedicated to one university each year, we would have state of the art research facilities in Nigeria universities the foreign researchers would come to visit. But no, Tetfund prefers to give it to foreign universities for training rather than spend it on Nigeria.”

The lecturer also said that it might not be farfetched if academic scholars are insisting to go and study abroad for some staff to enrich themselves....



SOURCE:
https://thenationonlineng.net/how-tetfund-spends-billions-yearly-on-scholars-2/

https://thenationonlineng.net/how-tetfund-spends-billions-yearly-on-scholars-1/

While we sleep our future away, UAE is creating Solar and Renewable Energy city near Dubai called Sustainable City.

Arabs use Western EDUCATION to better their lives while Nigerians have Boko Haram and Almajiri: UNEDUCATED and pitiful.

Tell our mis-leaders that Solar is the future and we must use our hot sun to do good things for us like electricity and water heating.

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........... But the United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to change that reputation, with a range of projects aimed at having more than 40% of the country's energy come from renewable sources and cutting consumption by the same margin by 2050.

Opened to the first residents in 2016 and to be fully completed next year, the initiative dubbed Sustainable City is a private settlement on the outskirts of Dubai designed to use as little energy and water as possible.

Comprising 500 low-lying villas that are home to nearly 3,000 people, as well as commercial spaces and a mosque, the city aims to be a "net-zero" settlement, producing all the energy it needs from renewable sources on site.

"The Sustainable City is a living laboratory for testing future technologies and solutions," said Karim El-Jisr, head of SEE Institute, the research arm of the city's developer, Diamond Developers.

When the project started six years ago, building a zero-energy development "seemed a bit like a dream", he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Today it is not difficult anymore, tomorrow everybody will have to do it," he added.

From neighbouring Masdar City to the Qatari capital Doha, it is one of several developments launched across the region in recent years that aim to serve as a model for environmentally- friendly living in the Middle East.

.... In the Sustainable City, residents zig zag through the streets on bicycles or aboard small electric carts, under the shade of the palm trees flanking the strips of square, white houses. Cars are banned from most of the area.

All buildings and parking spaces are topped by solar panels which feed the energy they produce into the grid, allowing residents to pay only the difference between what they produce and consume, according to the developer.

Residential units designed to avoid direct exposure to the sun and covered in paint that reflects sunlight to keep the heat out, while wastewater is recycled to irrigate green areas, El-Jisr said during a visit to the site.

Resident Belinda Boisson said she paid more rent than the Dubai average but, besides sustainability, the development offered a family-friendly environment and sense of community that was rare to find among Dubai's high rises.

"(Children) can play outside without me worrying about my daughter being hit by a car," said Boisson, a 46-year-old expat from South Africa.

...."If this can be done in a desert environment that is difficult for humans to inhabit... it can be done everywhere," she said.


SOURCE:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/uae-aims-reduce-energy-intake-40

Received in a WhatsApp post
Good questions to answer. Good questions to apply to Nigeria/Africa as we are quickly being left out of the world's lifestyle and technological progress

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WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM – 7 KEY QUESTIONS; TOPIC: HOW DO WE BUILD A #FAIRERWORLD?
From the Wef website

Record a short video or use the #FairerWorld hashtag on Twitter to answer to one of the 7 questions. The best answers will be featured on their website.

“What kind of capitalism do we want? That may be the defining question of our era. If we want to sustain our economic system for future generations, we must answer it correctly.

Today’s global risks need global solutions, and those solutions need to be fairly distributed so they can work for all of us.

We’ve identified 7 key themes that will be covered over this year’s Annual Meeting and 7 key questions that we want your answers to. The answers to these questions shouldn’t just come from business leaders, governments, and academics – they also need to come from you”.

[The deadline for responses was not mentioned on the website but the WEF Annual Meeting starts 21-24 January 2020 so the sooner you answer the question you choose to, the better]


Choose to answer ONE of the questions below:

1. The world needs to learn to work together – how can governments lead the way?
2. How do we create a more equal world for everyone?
3. How do we save our planet?
4. How can we make businesses better for people and the planet?
5. How can we make sure game-changing technologies are a force for good?
6. How can we prepare for the future of work?
7. How do we ensure everyone has access to quality mental and physical healthcare?


To take part you MUST go to the website and get more information:
https://www.weforum.org/challenges/fairerworld


ALSO!
WEF (World Economic Forum) are launching our Uplink platform in early 2020. Uplink is a digital crowd-engagement platform designed to accelerate the resolution of the world’s most pressing issues as set out by the Sustainable Development Goals. Visit weforum.org/uplink to learn more and register your interest in being one of the first on the platform.

People, these are very good suggestions on Law(s) to deal with churches in Nigeria (and likely all Black Africa too).

I got them from Tweets by Stop Corruption @stopcorruption

Let's forward on these suggestions and see how to make them into Law. Any Lawyers out there?

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Pastors who earns more than a university professor from the church's account will be mandated to pay income tax.
Pastors who flaunts stupendous wealth and cannot explain the source of their wealth will be referred to EFCC for full investigation and prosecution.

All churches will be mandated by law to declare their annual income to the corporate affairs commission and any church whose annual income is above N15m will be subjected to business rate tax.
Failure to comply would lead to administrative action.

There will be a new legislation that would make it impossible to have more than two churches in a 1500ft radius. Where are are more than two churches in the specified radius before the legislation, the oldest church will remain and the new ones will be closed down.

All Nigerian Pastors will be required by law to have a 5 year renewable licence upon vetting by the Christian Association of Nigeria.
Any Pastor caught in activities relating to corruption, sex harassment, ritual practices and exploitation would have their licence withdrawn.

All churches and mosques will be banned from erecting loudspeakers outside their buildings. [YEESSSOOOO!!!]
All places of worship will be mandated by law to install noise monitoring and noise control equipments inside their buildings.
Govt will set accept volume based on d size of d congregation

If I have my way, I will make it impossible for Nigerians to exploited by fake Pastors.
No church will be allowed to erect places of worship in residential areas without planning permission from local authorities, consultation and approval from affected residents.

This Reps member sounds HONEST and SENSIBLE! Can this be?

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INTERVIEW: ₦37 billion for NASS renovation wasteful, needless — Nigerian Lawmaker
Premium Times, January 4, 2020Yusuf Akinpelu

Bamidele Salam, the House of Representatives member representing Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency, in this interview with Yusuf Akinpelu, says the ₦37 billion intended to be used for NASS renovation is a misplaced priority. Mr Salam also speaks on what he would do to stop the move.

He also speaks on the clamour for a reduction in the cost of governance and other matters affecting the legislature.

Excerpt:

PT: The leadership of the National Assembly believes that the ₦37 billion renovation for the NASS complex is long overdue and justified as the building is dilapidating. Can you say this of the building?

Salam: I have been in the NASS for six months now. Yes, there are parts of the building that are obviously failing mainly for lack of proper maintenance but I can tell you that over 70 per cent of it is still very okay. The truth is that there are more important, more critical infrastructure needing urgent attention. It is a matter of setting the right priorities.

PT: Are you saying if the money is eventually released, it would go down the drain into private pockets?

Salam: I am not saying that. My position is that it is a wasteful, needless expenditure that does not reflect our present economic realities. That money, just like others voted for similar purposes in other arms of government, should rather be spent on projects that will create jobs for millions of Nigerian youths and improve on the quality of life of our people.

I was a member of a committee that investigated cases of abandoned projects since 1999. I felt ashamed at the discoveries we made. Over 90 per cent of abandoned projects was as a result of paucity of funds. Critical roads, schools etc. awarded as far back as 2001, 2003, 2005 have only reached 15 per cent completion because there was no money voted or released in several budget cycles! Aren’t these more urgent than renovating some cosy offices?

PT: So, as a member of the House Committee on Works, how do you feel that the National Assembly renovation gets more allocation than FERMA would get to renovate federal roads in the country?

Salam: I feel this is unjustifiable in any way.

PT: If you were the Speaker of the House of Representatives what would rather do in this case. Remember the Senate President said the president himself authorized the money.

Salam: I would simply go back to the President and tell him that going by the avalanche of public reactions to this proposed spending, there is a need to bring a proposal for a virement of the money and similar ones in other budgetary heads. The Speaker that I know is a man with a conscience. He is a grassroots leader himself and must have heard the loud voice of our constituents against this part of the Appropriation Act.

PT: There is what they call “easier said than done”. Is this the case here?

Salam: Well, if there is a will, then nothing is difficult to do. We are not in the House to represent ourselves. Our oath of office is to serve public interest

PT: So, as a member of the House of Representatives, what would you do to stop this upon resumption?

Salam: I will definitely bring up a motion and probably a bill to amend the Appropriation Act to reflect the views of my constituents on the proposed spending. I know there are other members who are of the same mind. We will work together on this.

PT: But your party is in the minority. How would you push through?

Salam: This is beyond party boundaries. The current poverty in Nigeria does not separate its victims along party lines. Every Rep member who went home for Christmas will understand the need for us to frontally tackle unemployment and poverty in Nigeria.

The important thing is to present a convincing argument and I know there are many others who will see the merits in this position and support it.

PT: What can constituents also do to block this money from being coughed out?

Salam: Unfortunately nothing much. The best they can do is advocacy which is being done on so many platforms already. We are their voice in parliament and must do the needful.

PT: Does this means power does not belong to the people?

Salam: The power of the people is as enshrined in the constitution. They vote and recall. That is how democracy works. Any other thing is anarchy.

PT: Some could argue that your stance on this is because you are a member of the opposition party, PDP. The Johnathan-administration apportioned over ₦40 billion for the same purpose in 2013. How would you react to this?

Salam: I was not a member of the National Assembly in 2013 and may not know what was appropriated then. Whether in 2009 or 2019, it is unjustifiable and unwise to spend more money on making leaders look good than on improving the living conditions of the majority of citizens

PT: Don’t you think at the heart of all these, the huge allowances lawmakers get is the most important money that needs to be cut, not necessarily the ₦37 billion in question?

Salam: I support all measures necessary to reduce our cost of governance and have more money for real development. This may include a downward review of emoluments of public office holders, not just lawmakers but everyone holding a public office from the local to the Federal level.

PT: Some of your colleagues have advocated for a unicameral legislative house, and some said we should trim down the number of legislators we have per state. Did they speak your mind?

Salam: I have always been an advocate of leaner government at all levels. I believe our present structure is not only bogus, but it is also inefficient. I am of the view that a constitutional amendment should be undertaken to restructure the Nigerian federation to bring our institutions of governance in tune with our social, political and more importantly, economic realities.

A state must not have more than seven commissioners, federal cabinet members should be a maximum of 15 while the current size of the National Assembly should be drastically reduced to one-third of what it is. The truth is that we can not afford what we currently operate but we are living in denial.

A country with over 200 million population and terrible social and infrastructure deficit as ours should not be spending more than 70% of its annual budget on recurrent expenditure. It is simply not sustainable and the place to start is from the size of our government.

In practical terms, the Senate should be made up of 1 senator per state, meeting on part-time basis (to confirm appointments, approve loans, emergency powers etc.) while the House of representatives should have only one-third of its present number sitting as a full-time parliament.

PT: The 2020 budget itself is dotted with a flurry of vague, fraudulent projects. You were a part of the process that passed this budget. How did this happen?

Salam: Unless there are specifics, I may not be able to react to this

PT: For instance, the Presidency’s Office of the Senior Special Assistant on MDGS (OSSAP-MDGS) had an increment of ₦5 billion increment in its budget. This add-on, among others, is for the “supply of goods, fertilizers rice, maize and beans in Katsina” and “supply of tricycles, motorcycles, sewing machines,” each of which will cost ₦500 million; as well as “supply of new Toyota Hiace buses, utility vehicles SDG intervention,” which would gulp ₦1.92 billion. How do you justify these frivolous spending?

Salam: I have no issues with any of the items in this head as long as they will be faithfully implemented to have value for money.

PT: The current legislative house has been accused of being a rubber stamp. Your debates on the floor of the House seems to show you agree with this.

Salam: The House of Representatives is not and cannot be a rubber stamp. The powers and responsibilities given to the House are as enshrined in the constitution and does not in any way envisage that it will always operate in parallel lines to the other arms of government, especially the executive. There is an interdependence of the two arms of government and that is in the larger interest of the public. I sincerely don’t know how debates in the House suggest being a rubber stamp.

There had been many instances where the House had faulted acts carried out by MDAs and ordered a probe into critical activities of the executive arm. What needs to be understood is that the parliament has a majority from the party which controls the Executive. This will ordinarily mean some measure of synergy between the two arms, especially on the issue of policies. What those of us in the minority can do is to raise alternative views on those policies but in the final analysis, the majority will have its way.

PT: But how do you reconcile this with the case of a tax bill that was passed by the Senate without senators seeing the content. Or that of the Reps wherein the report on the Army’s Operation Positive Identification was not seen by members yet was passed. You objected this that day.

Salam: This is one problem we have raised several times and which I hope the leadership and management will address in the new year. A lot of times, reports are not available for a good length of time to enable members to make informed contributions. It is not even good for the image of the legislature.

PT: What should be done by the two Houses to improve the delivery of constituency projects. Or should it be scrapped?

Salam: I do not believe that constituency projects should be cancelled. Rather, we should identify the fault lines in the present system of executing constituency projects. The reason is that if you take a budget of ₦10.6 trillion in a year it is very possible that most constituencies, without the constituency projects, would be unable to have a feel of the federal budget.

However, with the experience in the recent past, there is a problem of implementation. For the capital releases for 2019, zonal intervention projects (ZIP) was 40 per cent. You can’t release a 40 per cent allocation and expect a 100 per cent performance. What we need to do is to be more realistic by limiting it to projects that can be funded 100 per cent.

Bamidele Salam, the House of Representatives member representing Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency
In addition, I also think it is possible to streamline the kind of projects that can be accommodated under ZIP. For example, (we could have) electricity projects, water, education and health. These are specific projects that easy to track and no community in the country does not need at least one of them as basic needs.

PT: What is your stance on the hate speech bill?

Salam: Those who initiated these bills are making a mountain out of a molehill. That’s my personal opinion, with due respect to those who initiated them (the hate speech and social media regulation bills). We have quite a number of socio-economic challenges today in Nigeria that should attract our attention, rather than magnify the issue of what kind of opinion someone holds about another.

In any case, there are enough laws in our statute books to take care of some of the concerns these (new) laws are claiming that they want to address. We should rather devote our energies as lawmakers to critical issues affecting Nigerians, which has not allowed them to sleep with two eyes closed; which has made the average young man not to be sure of where his next meal will come from; the huge deficit we have in housing; the challenges we have in social and health insurance.

These are more fundamental issues I think should take our attention. I don’t think there is any serious challenge posed by this clause on comment on social media. That’s my position.’

PT: You have shown to be a dissenting voice in the House. Aren’t you afraid of being stabbed in the back?

Salam: There is nothing to fear about standing for the truth and following one’s heart. I am also aware that a number of my colleagues share in the aspiration to make Nigeria better for the majority of our people. It is in our interest that we stem rising unemployment and insecurity. Any legislator who travels home and stays for two weeks must know what it means to have so much poverty in the land.

You cannot have a quiet time with your family for one hour, from morning till night, people are (always) coming to ask for one help or the other. Most of the things they need help for will be unnecessary if government works; issues like school fees, medicare, jobs and food. So it is in the interest of the parliamentarian that we take radical, sacrificial steps to reform our economic and political system. Anyone who is angry with such calls truly needs some more education.


SOURCE:
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/370876-interview-%E2%82%A637-billion-for-nass-renovation-wasteful-needless-nigerian-lawmaker.html

Good!

SS and SE should be developing and escape this country together, or if we remain, remain together as one in a Confederation.

Orient Harmony! (For SE & SS peoples https://web.facebook.com/Orient-Harmony-490676718354748/)

THE ONLY THING THOUGH IS THAT FULANI ARE NOT INDIGENOUS

@ Beachlife

This is VERY interesting! Can you post a source for it? For instance the book/article where the map of Nigeria attached came from? (I have saved a copy of the map to share to others)

Thank you for this.

Good and interesting read that provides an anchor for those among us who want a better country.
It makes it clear that we can have a different, an alternative way of behaving in this country.

(I am even going to circulate the article link by WhatsApp as I think many people will want to know this and it's
a good way to start this new year)

===============================================================

NIGERIAN CULTURE OR ALTERNATIVE CULTURE?
By Ndidi Uwechue 1st January 2020
African News Today

Living in Nigeria, it is tiring to hear the usual response of, "This is Nigeria" or "This is not the UK" or "Are you not a Nigerian?", in the face of obvious wrongdoing that I have challenged.

In any country the predominant culture is the one that characterises the country, and is the one that citizens are known for, and labelled by. For instance consider two foreign travellers arriving at London’s Heathrow airport. Both are males of the same age and social class, both are attended to by the same Immigration Officer, but one carries a Japanese passport, and the other carries a Nigerian passport. Japanese are renown for being law-abiding and having a tidy, productive little country. The Immigration Officer knowing facts about the cultures of the two countries where the travellers come from asks them different questions, his aim being to keep Britain safe from “undesirables”. The Nigerian stays longer interacting with the Immigration Officer and when he is allowed through to enter Britain he feels that UK’s Immigration Service is somewhat antinubianist (Antinubianism is racism specifically against Black people).

Culture matters. This is because “by their fruits ye shall know them” which means that by the results of their culture a people are known. The condition of Japan is due to the culture that predominates among the Japanese. The condition of Nigeria is due to the culture that predominates among Nigerians. Simply put: good culture produces a good nation; bad culture produces a bad nation. So citizens of these differing cultures are viewed and treated differently by the world.

Why are Nigerians fleeing Nigeria in droves? Because they want to go to where there is a DIFFERENT CULTURE and a BETTER CULTURE so that they can have a GOOD life. It is not politically correct these days to openly criticise any culture, but I shall do so because Nigeria is in Darkness of wrongdoing and I know what can bring us Light, and respect among the nations, plus give hope and a future to our young people.

This article is not considering the type of wrongdoing committed regularly by our ruling politicians and civil servants, it is about wrongdoing by the ordinary Nigerian. Wrongdoing has become such a normal part of general Nigerian Culture that it needs to have a searchlight beamed on it so that we are clear about it, and it includes:
• “African time” – that practice of being late, and being insincere about time.
• Maintaining a filthy and untidy environment.
• Unwillingness to wait one’s turn.
• Revelling in noise-making.
• Motorists who have no concern whatsoever for any pedestrian (child or adult) on the road.
• A pupil in school, or a student in a tertiary institution cheating in a test, exam, or in an assignment.
• A teacher or lecturer who facilitates exam malpractice.
• A trader involved in selling fake, expired or substandard food, medicines, or goods.
• A market seller who is not transparent by declining to display the prices of goods.
• A bus, taxi or keke (tricycle) driver who overfills his vehicle so that he can make more money.
• A civil servant who will not do their job unless getting undue personal gain.
• Staff who are sloppy yet expect a salary, then later a pension.
• A worker who steals food, drink, money, or any item from their employer.

The amount of wrongdoing that forms part of normal Nigerian Culture is pretty extensive. What is clear about Nigerian Culture, what underpins it and keeps it strong and dominant is its near-exclusive focus on SELF. With that comes UNCONCERN for others, for animals, for the environment, and for the country in general. In a nutshell, Nigerian Culture is based on SELF. In contrast, although not perfect societies, that is why Nigerians pray to be in Europe (or the West) where the culture is about COMMUNITY and how to create a pleasant life and environment for self and for OTHERS.

When a culture is so much based on SELF, with people concerned only about what SELF wants, and what SELF thinks, and SELF ego, then society stagnates. When such a situation is reached where the dominant culture is based on SELF as in Nigeria, then it is time for the emergence of an ALTERNATIVE CULTURE. This is where those who reject SELF-focus, and rather are concerned about others, want a caring community, want a clean, beautiful and safe environment, and want to be part of a thinking and intelligent culture, can find a home.

There is another option to the (for now) dominant Nigerian Culture – there is an ALTERNATIVE CULTURE available for Nigerians too. Those who are satisfied and quite comfortable with what Nigerian Culture represents, but which the world holds in disdain as is evidenced by Nigeria’s low reputation among the nations, and by how holders of a Nigerian passport are treated, and by how our youth are seeking to flee such a culture, are quite free to hold on to their Nigerian Culture.

However, there is also an ALTERNATIVE CULTURE for those who want a culture where “doing the right thing”, and “doing the right thing the right way”, not SELF are its foundations. Nigerians who are to be part of our new ALTERNATIVE CULTURE are the ones who are going to show the watching world that we are law-abiding not lawless, we are honest not dishonest, we are hardworking not malingerers, we build not destroy, we are smart not stupid, and that we can be trusted.

This is only an introduction to Nigeria’s new ALTERNATIVE CULTURE. More articles will be written by many of us who are part of this ALTERNATIVE CULTURE. A new year is upon us where new resolutions are made. We can see that culture matters so what will it be: the Nigerian Culture or the Alternative Culture? You choose.


SOURCE:
http://www.africannewstoday.com/magazine/nigerian-culture-or-alternative-culture/

The oyeebo-looking (very ugly) hairweave that makes Black women look like FOOLS and FREAKS is on its way out! Amen & Amen! Black women can now begin to show off the hair God gave them in all wonderful types of natural ways: dredlocks of various sizes, afros of various sizes, two-strand twists of various sizes, braids of various sizes. I Googled to find their names but the best is Bantu knots pictured below.

(I got the picture from the African emoji App called Zouzoukwa developed by Senegalese chap)

================================================================

AFRICAN-AMERICANS CAN EMBRACE THEIR NATURAL HAIR

In America: From plastic bags to natural hair, here are the new laws coming in 2020
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN, 01/01/20


AFRICAN-AMERICANS CAN EMBRACE THEIR NATURAL HAIR

Black students and employees in CALIFORNIA can finally feel free to be themselves.

Wednesday, the Golden State BECOMES THE FIRST IN THE UNITED STATES to ban employers and school officials from discriminating against people based on their natural hair.

The Crown Act makes it illegal to enforce dress code or grooming policies against hairstyles such as afros, braids, twists and locks.

"This law protects the right of black Californians to choose to wear their hair in its natural form, without pressure to conform to Eurocentric norms," state Sen. Holly Mitchell said earlier this year. "I am so excited to see the culture change that will ensue from the law."

SOURCE:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/01/us/new-laws-coming-in-2020-trnd/index.html

OPINION: 2023, BOLA TINUBU AND THE COST OF POLITICAL MISCALCULATION
by Sanusi Muhammad, African News Today (ANT), 31st December 2019


The godfather of Lagos politics, Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2015, led the Southwest into an alliance with the north to birth the All Progressive Alliance (APC). His decision, evidently, was informed by the expectation that the two geopolitical regions will share power, invariably to the exclusion of the Eastern bloc. And ultimately that he, or the Southwest will take power by the time the north completes two terms in 2023.
But it has proved to be a miscalculation.

Certainly, power play is about conspiracies and alliances. Tinubu is well within his right to do what he thought would best advance his political interest and that of his region. However, in backing President Muhammadu Buhari, he cut his nose to spite his face.

It may not have seemed obvious to many, but once Buhari took power in 2015, Tinubu’s political career was in jeopardy.

To navigate the president without bruises, the best Tinubu could have done was retire from active politics and assume the role of an elder statesman. He did not, he stayed on, wanting to be president and pushing hard to remain at the centre of political discourse. But power is jealous and if there is any holder of the highest office in the land who would tolerate a co-president, it is not Buhari. Things are beginning to unravel, fast.
Without Tinubu and by extension, the Southwest, Buhari could not have been president today. This is one fact that president’s men who now dominate the political space and brook no opposition will hate to admit, but it remains true, regardless.
But being essentially Buhari’s kingmaker, it was political naivety to decide to hang around in the expectation that he would share power. The old Machiavellian advice is that the prince must first destroy the one who made him king. Reason? Because he could decide tomorrow to make another king.
Writing in ‘The Prince’, the legendary Niccolo Machiavelli noted “… he who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him who has been raised to power.”

Of course, it should have been obvious that, in helping to make Buhari president, Tinubu wasjeopardizing his political career and plunging the Southwest and by extension, southern Nigeria into political slavery whose only parallel in the country’s political history, is the late Emeka Ojukwu leading the Igbo to war in 1967.
With respect to the Biafra war, blaming Ojukwu for embarking on it could earn one exile in the Igbo country. But if truth be told, the war was avoidable and could have been avoided if Ojukwu had not been too stiff to listen to the likes of Zik and other intellectuals who understood better, international politics and diplomacy. This is not to say, nonetheless, that Ojukwu was not sufficiently provoked by the killings of the Igbo in the north in the aftermath of the July 1966 revenge coup that threw up Yakubu Gowon as head of state, and indeed the actions – or lack of it – of the Gowon-led federal side.

Regardless, it was still in his hands to accept to fight or toe the path of diplomacy which, given the circumstances, was the best option and the only way to win international support for his secession quest. In the event, he went to war and only succeeded in sacrificing more Igbo lives and weakening the Igbo politically.
The consequence of that weakening is that it provided fertile ground for the emergence of hegemonic northern power. The imbalance so created is largely responsible for the crisis of Nigeria’s national identity. One mistake many Nigerians, particularly in the south, make is the assumption that the country is already formed and settled as a circular state. It’s not the case. There is the ever present quest to define the country, right of course, from the 1804 jihad.
Colonial rule put a stop to it, then in the post war years, the middle belt soldiers who dominated the army acted as a wedge. Tinubu’s alliance with Buhari has served to reenact that quest. Buhari is now, apparently, out to define the country. The Jagaban’s political miscalculation could yet prove too costly.

The old generals who I reckon, understand this are already raising alarm. But of course, the horde of naive, ignorant online crowd of crumb eaters are blurring the resistance line.

As it concerns the 2023 presidency, it should be clear to anyone with a functioning brain that President Buhari’s north has no intention of relinquishing power to the southwest or any zone for that matter. What many may not have realised, however, is that for the next three decades at least, if ever, and should Nigeria remain one, power will not leave the north. But in projecting, one must always leave space for the law of unintended consequences and the God factor.

But given Buhari’s antecedents, was there any grounds for the southwest particularly to have given him benefit of the doubt in 2015? Absolutely none in my reckoning. However, it would appear that emotion rather than sound political calculation informed their support for Buhari in 2015. It was, perhaps, more of spite for the East than love for Buhari. I had been amazed when, in the heat of the moment in 2015, before the election, the news editor of my then media platform branded a fellow reporter who didn’t buy into the Buhari presidential project a “bloody b*stard who is following the Igbo people to betray Yoruba by supporting Jonathan.”

In the lead up to the 2019 polls, I had on several occasions engaged my landlord – a backer of Buhari’s second term project who loves to discuss politics with me – on who between Atiku Abubakar and the president would make a better leader. My insistence was, of course, that Atiku would. After we exhausted all manner of issues he raised against the former vice president, he said finally that he would still back Buhari because Atiku was an “Omo Igbo project” and that “after Buhari, Yoruba will take power and after Yoruba, Hausa will take power again.” According to him, “we will be rotating it like that, Igbo people will never smell that place.” I had more of pity for his ignorance.

When in 2003, Buhari joined presidential race, he did so, apparently to stop the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Not because Obasanjo had performed badly as president, having taken power with the return of democracy in 1999, but because Buhari and the section of the north he represented believed that power had to return to the region.

In settling for Obasanjo in 1998/99, the intention of the northern military class was for him to do four years as compensation for MKO Abiola – the Yoruba had become uncontrollably agitated – and hand power back to the north. But not long after Obasanjo took power, it became clear that he was never going to leave it for anybody. This realisation led to agitations, criticisms of Obasanjo government was swift in the north, the climax of which was the Sharia crisis of 2000.

To take power however, the anti Obasanjo forces in the north knew that ultimately, it was about going to challenge him at the polls. Buhari emerged as the arrow head of that challenge. And through speeches and actions that appealed to regional sentiments, he built cult following that saw him win elections convincingly in the north right from 2003.
Until 2014/15, Buhari was a regional hero who believed he could become president by winning elections in the north and never thought seriously about campaigning in the south. However, in 2014/15, the Tinubu led southwest gave him an undeserved national platform, and through heavy media propaganda, dressed him in the robe of a born again democrat. But old habits die hard.

Once in power, Buhari did not hesitate to take off the borrowed garb of a nationalist and democrat to put on his original robe of sectionalism. Right from his first set of appointments, he made clear his intentions. And as it stands, he has completely consolidated power in the hands of the north.
Buhari is an idealogue, usually idealogues are very resolute and persistent people. Say what you will, he is doubling down on nepotism. Shout ‘Fulanisation’ or ‘Islamisation’ all you will, he will only look for a hate speech bill or social media bill to shut you up rather than re-examine his ‘hate’ policies.
Possibly, when Buhari is done with the country – if he has his way – no southerner will, on the basis of election, ever become president except at the behest of the north. By suppressing votes in the south and inflating figures in the north, the administration is only trying to establish a pattern, a dangerous pattern which supporters of his party in the south are evidently too blind to see.

It is clear to the discerning where the president is headed. But the question is whether he would succeed. I had pointed out elsewhere that the project would fail, ultimately, because Nigerians are too many to be subjugated.
It would seem, from the actions of those controlling the levers of power, that there is an attempt to precipitate a national crisis with a view to using force to take over the country. But of course, this is a country of 200 million people. The advantage those who have “legitimate” right to bear arms are enjoying at the moment would be lost if there a total breakdown of law and order. And the country would break into fractions controlled by warlords such that it would take a miracle to have it again as one, stable country for anyone to control.

Sanusi Mohammed.



SOURCE:
http://www.africannewstoday.com/politics/opinion-2023-bola-tinubu-and-the-cost-of-political-miscalculation-by-sanusi-muhammad/

helinues:
And who are those who is going to vote for or against it?

People's Revolution nah!

COMPATRIOTS - WE HAD PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM AGREED UPON AT INDEPENDENCE!

We should return to that by pressing RESET.

Scrap the Senate and RETURN TO PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM!!!

SERAP, 585 OTHERS TO COURT: STOP BUHARI FROM SPENDING N37BN ON NATIONAL ASSEMBLY RENOVATION
By METROWATCH, December 29, 2019



By Ndubuisi Michaels

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), BudgIT, Enough is Enough (EiE) and 583 concerned Nigerians have filed a lawsuit asking the Federal High Court, Abuja to “restrain and stop President Muhammadu Buhari and Mrs Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning from releasing N37 billion allocated for the renovation of the National Assembly complex to the Federal Capital Development Agency and the National Assembly until an impact assessment of the spending is carried out.”

The groups are also seeking a court order to “restrain, prevent and stop the Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila and the Federal Capital Development Agency from demanding or collecting the N37 billion earmarked for the renovation of the National Assembly complex until an impact assessment of the spending on critical sectors and access to public goods and services, is carried out.”

In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/1633/2019 filed last week at the Federal High Court, Abuja, the plaintiffs argued: “The National Assembly complex should be a safe and conducive environment for those who work there. But spending ₦37 billion to renovate the place is not commensurate with the constitutional commitments to public services and goods; decreasing public revenues and increasing level of debts as well as the poor economic and social realities in the country.”

The plaintiffs also argued: “Spending N37 billion to renovate the National Assembly complex is self-serving, wrongful, illegal and unconstitutional expenditure of public funds, as it means less money for educating millions of out-of-school Nigerian children, providing access to clean water and healthcare to Nigerians including the elderly, or repairing the country’s roads and bridges.”

The 583 concerned Nigerians who joined the suit as co-plaintiffs include: Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) co-convener Aisha Yesufu; Nigerian singer and actor Banky Wellington; Mrs Ayo Obe; Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, and Fisayo Soyombo.

The suit, filed by Kolawole Oluwadare and Opeyemi Owolabi, read in part: “The defendants are public officers who have sworn the constitutional oaths of office to perform their respective duties in the interest of Nigerian citizens. The refusal of President Buhari to object to the Budget/Appropriation Bill containing a huge N37 billion on renovation of the National Assembly complex is a gross violation of the constitution and existing laws in Nigeria.”

“The National Assembly complex was reportedly constructed at the cost of $35.18 Million USD in 1999 and ₦40.2 Billion Naira was budgeted in December 2013 for the construction of phase III of the National Assembly Complex and renovation of the first and second phases of the complex.”

“The 2020 Budget is in deficit of ₦2.175 Trillion with anticipated revenue at ₦8.42 Trillion Naira and proposed expenditure of ₦10.594 Trillion.

“The present-day economic reality in Nigeria includes chronic poverty amongst a high percentage of citizens and the inability of many state governments to pay salaries of workers and pensions. Unless the reliefs sought are granted, the Defendants will take benefit of the allocated N37 billion at the expense of many Nigerians living in poverty.”

“The crux of the Plaintiffs’ argument is better expressed in the question: Why should the nation spend so much on a building when there are other important areas of national infrastructure that can be developed in order to affect a greater number of citizens?”

The plaintiffs want the court to determine: “Whether N37 billion proposed, voted and allocated for renovation of the National Assembly Complex in the 2020 Nigerian National Budget via Appropriation Act 2019 by the National Assembly and signed into law by President Buhari is not in breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers [Fifth Schedule Part 1] of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended] and Oath of a Member of the National Assembly.”

The plaintiffs are seeking “an order of interim injunction restraining President Buhari and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, or their agents from releasing the N37 billion allocated for the renovation of the National Assembly complex to the Federal Capital Development Agency and the National Assembly leadership pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on Notice for an Order of Interlocutory Injunction filed contemporaneously in this suit.”

The plaintiffs are also seeking “an order of interim injunction restraining the Senate President Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Federal Capital Development Agency from demanding or collecting the N37 billion proposed for the renovation of the National Assembly pending the hearing and determination of Motion on Notice filed contemporaneously in this suit.”

The plaintiffs are seeking the following substantive reliefs from the court:

A DECLARATIONthat the N37 billion proposed, prescribed, voted and allocated for renovation of National Assembly Complex in the 2020 Nigerian National Budget via Appropriation Bill/Act 2019 is a breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers [Fifth Schedule Part 1] of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 [as amended] and Oath of a Member of the National Assembly

A DECLARATIONthat the N37 billion proposed, voted and allocated for renovation of National Assembly Complex in the 2020 Nigerian National Budget via Appropriation Bill/Act 2019 signed is a breach of the Defendants’ solemn constitutional obligations to know and follow constitutional oaths governing their conduct, including their duties of care to Nigerians to faithfully protect and defend the constitution and improve the well-being and welfare of Nigerians

AN ORDER OF THE COURTrestraining, preventing and stopping President Buhari and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning from releasing the N37 billion allocated for the renovation of the National Assembly complex to the Federal Capital Development Agency and the National Assembly leadership until an assessment of the impact of the spending on critical sectors like education, health, clean water and safe roads a revision to the allocation, is carried out

AN ORDER OF THE COURTrestraining, preventing and stopping the National Assembly leadership from demanding or collecting the N37 billion proposed for the renovation of the National Assembly until an assessment of the impact of the spending on critical sectors like education, health, clean water and safe roads a revision to the allocation, is carried out

ANY ORDER(S)that the Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstance of this suit.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.


SOURCE:
https://metrowatchonline.com/serap-585-others-to-court-stop-buhari-from-spending-n37bn-on-national-assembly-renovation/

czarina:
We're in Africa, if people in America and other places talk about Kwanzaa, it's understandable. But not Africans.

Aren't we already in the largest gathering of ourselves? Kwanzaa is better left where it originated.

Just my opinion.

But Santa Claus and Christmas tree of Northern Europe is ok for you? Yet, what our BLACK BRETHREN in America whose forefathers were kidnapped from among us here in West Africa, what they develop for us and all Black people - you REJECT! Nah wah for you. And because of those with your kind opinion (anti Black unity) who follow follow oyeebo but despise their own things, Black people don't achieve.

Kwanzaa has 7 Principles that are EXCELLENT for Black people but you, Santa follower cannot see that. Big pity. Big problem.

Dear SESS (SE & SS) people,

Read how by celebrating Kwanzaa among us we deepen our bonding and as Kwanzaa gets bigger and bigger we can develop many business opportunities, among us SESS and with the international Black community.

( Also - Orient Harmony Facebook page is good to visit and is for us SESS people. Let's like it and tell our SESS people about it)
=======================================================================

SEE HOW WELL KWANZAA FITS IN WITH ORIENT HARMONY!
From Orient Harmony Facebook post

We know what Orient Harmony is. Orient Harmony is an ideology that is for SESS (SE and SS) people, it leads us to show brotherly kindness, brotherly concern, brotherly interest, and brotherly care among ourselves. Orient Harmony comes naturally to us SESS people as it follows from our Christian heritage and beliefs.

But what is Kwanzaa? It is a fun festival that is NOT religious but it also fits in very well with Christian beliefs because it is about unity and togetherness with Black people worldwide. Although Kwanzaa started in the 1960s among our African American brothers, it is for Black people everywhere and is spreading quite fast in the last few years. Kwanzaa is celebrated over the seven days from 26th December to 1st January so it conveniently comes after Christmas. It is a fun festival and people celebrate it the way they like and are comfortable with, but it is guided by seven Kwanzaa Principles, one for each day – and that’s where it meets well with Orient Harmony and we SESS people.

Here are the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa:

Day 1. Unity
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and Race.

Day 2. Self-Determination:
To define ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Day 3. Collective Work and Responsibility
To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and solve them together.

Day 4. Cooperative Economics
To build and maintain our own stores, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Day 5. Purpose
To make our collective desire the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people their dignity.

Day 6. Creativity
To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Day 7. Imani: Faith
To believe with all our heart in our people, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Presents are given out to children and guests.

You see, Kwanzaa fits in well with Orient Harmony, and with our Christian values. As we celebrate Kwanzaa as the people of SESS, it will strengthen and deepen the bonds between all our ethnic groups!

Kwanzaa is a celebration of community, family and culture. It is fun to use our creativity, the internet and books to, as families and friends, etc, research and decide what to do at Kwanzaa using the Seven Principles to guide us. There are no limits! In fact, there are many business opportunities to provide products and services to help us all have great Kwanzaa festivals. We have what it takes to use Kwanzaa to work for us SESS people, as it increases our Orient Harmony brotherly love, acceptance and care for one another.


Today, 29th December is Kwanzaa Day 4. So Happy Kwanzaa to us all of SESS from Orient Harmony!


SIURCE:
https://web.facebook.com/Orient-Harmony-490676718354748/

Perfecttouchade:
now see where greed lead these ones to, be contented with what you have, u can't get that luxurious life through crimes. These ones will be drilled for their stupidity and lack of being satisfied with the little they had.

Yessooo... But tell that to our looter civil servants, politicians, BANKERS and their cronies. Will not be surprised if the bank workers are behind this attempted robbery.

Quote from SayAfriq Facebook site
(Good quotes there that inform and motivate to action)


Udez Baba, the Hausa nickname for Dr Goeorge Udezue has been warning Africans to STOP the destructive corruption and looting whose fruits is to keep us in Technological darkness that may become a PERMANENT condition.... while nothing tech works properly and as it should for us in Africa, and we are left far behind the world.

Read the words in the poster and let's stop it and change our behaviour and our continent. For our children's sakes, as they will be the ones living (suffering) the darkness.

SOURCE:
https://web.facebook.com/SayAfriq/

AFRICA NEEDS CHRISTIAN REFORMERS – WILL YOU BE ONE?
By Christianity for Africans, Facebook post

It is with a burdened and heavy heart that we survey what goes by the name of Christianity and Christian, in Africa. Dear friend, you know that deep hypocrisy, false gospels, ego-filled “man of god” deceivers, money and wealth crazed teaching – all these abound in so-called Christian gatherings in hamlets, villages, towns, and cities throughout Africa.

The state of true Christianity is so very low, and it is rare to find it. With so much emphasis on money, wealth and prosperity, and pastors shamelessly manipulating their followers to hand over money, an increasing number of Africans are concluding that if this is Christianity, they want nothing to do with it, and they are becoming atheists or agnostics. Such Africans are actually quite right in rejecting this false teaching and these false churches. However, had they known the real Gospel and the Christ of Scriptures, they would gladly bow down before Him, learn from Him, and worship Him.

The Darkness over Africa is due to little true Christianity. This Darkness is the fruit of the behaviour of too many Africans towards righteousness, ie the Ten Commandments and the guidance of Proverbs, so we have too much stealing, insincerity, lying and dishonesty. And it shows: IN ANY COUNTRY THAT RESISTS GOD, YOU WILL FIND FEW OF HIS BLESSINGS. So we have the richest continent yet the poorest people with the worst of governance. So bad are things that the prayer and plan of many Africans is to flee Africa and to go to Europe.

Europe too had its Dark Ages when violence and corruption filled that continent. The church and Christianity at that time had become corrupt and confused, and nothing like the church described in the Book of Acts. Then there was a REFORMATION in Europe! The Reformation, also called the Protestant Reformation, is a religious revolution that took place in Europe in the 16th century. Its greatest leaders undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin. It had far-reaching political, economic, and social effects, and the Reformation became the basis for the founding of Protestantism (Encyclopædia Britannica). In short, the Reformation cleaned up the church and brought sound saving doctrine to the citizens of Europe.

The true Christians of Europe knowing that whether they lived or died, God was with them for they had eternal life that nobody could take away from them, fearlessly challenged the evils and wrongs in the church and society. Some died for their stand, but others did not – all according to God’s plan for each person.

Africa too desperately needs a Christian Reformation. The time is here for TRUE African Christians to make themselves known by taking a stand against false Christianity and society’s evils (such as human sacrifice, witchcraft, child abuse and corruption etc). True Christian, do not be derailed by the inactivity and unconcern of others in the church (remember that the wheat and weeds are left together, see Matthew 13: 24-30). Instead fix your eyes upon Christ your Saviour and starting in 2020 up to the time of your death, be determined to be a Reformer. For you know that, “… the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” (Daniel 11:32b).This is a great command and a great promise, and it is one of the most courageous verses in the Bible.

Because of Christ we are to be salt and light. Because of Christ we are to be Christian Reformers. Amen.

(NOTE: Learning about the Reformation in Europe is very helpful if not even essential, and it can guide us in our African Reformation so please use Google search to learn about the Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Philipp Melanchthon, Zwingli and many more)


SOURCE:
https://web.facebook.com/Christianity4Africans/

ISLAMIC STATE IN NIGERIA 'BEHEADS CHRISTIAN HOSTAGES'
BBC news, 27/12/19

The Islamic State group has released a video claiming to show the killing of 11 Christians in Nigeria.
IS said it was part of its recently declared campaign to "avenge" the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a US raid in Syria in October.

No details were given about the victims, who were all male, but IS says they were "captured in the past weeks" in Nigeria's north-eastern Borno State.
The 56-second video was produced by the IS "news agency" Amaq.
It was released on 26 December and analysts say it was clearly timed to coincide with Christmas celebrations.

Nigeria's government has not yet commented on the video, and nor have any of the aid agencies whose staff are being held by the "Islamic State West Africa Province" (ISWAP).
What do we see in the video?
The footage was filmed in an unidentified outdoor area.
One captive in the middle is shot dead while the other 10 are pushed to the ground and beheaded.
"We killed them as revenge for the killing of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and [IS spokesman] Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir," said a member of the group's media unit, according to Ahmad Salkida, a journalist who was first sent the video.

How active is Islamic State in Nigeria?
One faction of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram broke away in 2016 and now fights under the banner of ISWAP.

Earlier this month, the group said it had killed four aid workers it had abducted in north-eastern Nigeria.
Last year, ISWAP killed two midwives it had previously taken hostage.
It is also active in neighbouring countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Mali.

Dozens of hostages still being held
Ishaq Khalid, BBC News, Abuja

The video once again highlights the brutal tactics of ISWAP, while the timing of the release - over the Christmas period - is also designed to get maximum attention.
This video may be intended to increase tension between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, as well as put more pressure on the government to respond to their demands, says security analyst Kabiru Adamu.

Earlier this month, the group released a video of the captives, appealing to the Nigerian authorities and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to intervene.
ISWAP has used hostage-taking as a bargaining tool - either for ransom or in exchange for their arrested members, although the authorities have never confirmed carrying out a prisoner swap.
The militant group has previously killed a number of hostages, including members of the security forces and aid workers but this is the largest group to be killed at one time.
It is not clear how many captives ISWAP is currently holding in Nigeria, but there are believed to be dozens - mainly security forces, aid workers and those perceived to be associated with government institutions.


SOURCE:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50924266

ANNUAL FOUNDER’S KWANZAA MESSAGE - 2019 “LIVING KWANZAA AND THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES: AN ALL-SEASONS CELEBRATION AND PRACTICE OF THE GOOD”
By DR. MAULANA KARENGA

EACH YEAR KWANZAA PROVIDES US WITH a special and unique time to see and celebrate ourselves as African people in beautiful, uplifting and liberating ways. But it also offers us a set of principles which, if practiced throughout the year, ensure that Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, are not only subjects and references for a season, but also a lived and living tradition. Indeed, making Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba what Seba Malcolm called “a living reality” is made more compelling by their origins in a history and culture of righteous and relentless struggle by our people to bring and sustain good in the world.

Kwanzaa’s origins are both ancient and modern and both sources serve to urge us to constantly strive and struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves, to live good lives and to bring forth the best of what it means to be African and human as both a personal and social practice. Kwanzaa’s rootedness in ancient African first fruit or first harvest celebrations offers a framework of activities that are not simply seasonal, but are all-season practices of building family and community, preserving and expanding culture, and doing good in and for the world. For it is a people-focused, environmentally caring and morally concerned holiday dedicated to cultivating, harvesting and sharing good in the world. Also, Kwanzaa was conceived and developed in the Black Freedom Movement and was understood as part and parcel of that two-fold struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves. It was a struggle to be Black, to be African and to be free from domination, deprivation and degradation and to be free to live good, meaningful lives, bring good in the world and come into the fullness of ourselves.

Kwanzaa, then, is a time of serious and sustained remembrance, reflection and recommitment. And thus, it calls on us to sit down and to meditate deeply on the awesome meaning and responsibility of being African in our community, society and the world. And it requires us to remember as Mary McLeod Bethune taught us that we are heirs and custodians of a great legacy and we must bear the glory, beauty and burden of that legacy with strength, dignity and determination.

This year’s Kwanzaa theme is “Living Kwanzaa and the Seven Principles: An AllSeasons Celebration and Practice of the Good.” Implicit in the theme is the question of how we make Kwanzaa more than an annual celebration, a seasonal and episodic engagement with our culture and the beautiful, uplifting and liberating sense of ourselves it gives us? But embedded in the theme is the answer - it is by holding fast to the spirit and principles of Kwanzaa in the way we live our lives, do our work and wage our struggles to bring forth the best of ourselves and to bring and sustain good in the world.

This requires embracing the principles of Kwanzaa as a continuous and daily practice, to use and embrace them as moral imperatives, obligations born of our history, our struggle and an active concern about the current conditions of our lives, and the forging of a new and expansive future of maximum human freedom and flourishing. And as we embrace and practice these principles, we not only transform the conditions of our lives as a people in liberating ways, we also transform ourselves, expanding the human sense and moral substance of ourselves through dedication, discipline, sacrifice and achievement of the Good.

The principle of Umoja (Unity) asks and urges us to think relationally and act accordingly “to strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race” and by extension the whole world. For it teaches a deep sense of relatedness, togetherness and oneness in the world and a constant concern, work and struggle for common good and the well-being of the world and all in it.

The principle of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) asks and urges us “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves” and to respect the right of other peoples to do the same. It is a claim and commitment to freedom in its fullest and varied forms in dignity-affirming, life-enhancing and world-preserving ways. It is about appreciating and speaking our special cultural truth to the world and bringing forth our own unique contribution to initiating a new history of humankind, as Frantz Fanon challenged us.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) calls on us “to build and maintain our community together and to make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.” It is a call for the cooperative creation of the good community, society and world we all want and must work and struggle for in varied and ultimately victorious ways.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) asks and urges us “to build and maintain our stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.” It puts forth the foundational principles and practices of shared work and shared wealth in the world. And it opposes the plunder, pollution and depletion of the shared resources of the earth and the monopoly of wealth for the few at the expense of the shared good of society and the world that belong to all in common.

The principle of Nia (Purpose) asks and urges us “to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.” It is a call to greatness based in moral conceptions of ourselves, our needs and aspirations, and our obligation to place our knowledge, resources and righteous and relentless efforts in the service of our people, the shared interest of humanity and the well-being of the world.

Kuumba (Creativity) calls on us “to do always as much as we can in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.” And it reminds us that we belong to concentric circles of community, as members of the global African community, humanity and the world. Indeed, our ancestors called us in Swahili, not only watu – human beings, but also walimwengu – world beings. And they taught us the Maatian ethical imperative of serudj ta, to constantly repair, renew and remake the world, making it more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it, and leaving it as a rich legacy for those who come after us.

Finally, IMANI (FAITH) REMINDS US OF THE indispensable foundation of confident, righteous and rewarding belief, calling on us “to believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our leaders, our teachers and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.” Indeed, there is no real, relevant or righteous moving forward without faith in our people. For parents, leaders, teachers and all others who are beautiful, good and essential to our lives are composite parts and representatives of our people. It is faith in our people and service to them that grounds our lives, gives meaning to our work and victorious movement to our struggle. And we must believe in the righteousness and victory of our people, regardless of delays and disappointments, setbacks, desertions and defections for reasons and excuses of endless kinds. For there is no substitute for freedom, no alternative to justice and no possibilities for a good life and future not forged in righteous, relentless and victorious struggle.

Heri za Kwanzaa!!! (Happy Kwanzaa!!!)


Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (US); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Introduction to Black Studies, 4th Edition, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org; www.MaulanaKarenga, www.Us-Organization.org, www.AfricanAmericanCulturalCenter-LA.org


SOURCE:
http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/documents/AnnualFounderKwanzaaMessage12-19-19.pdf

Kwanzaa starts today!

HAPPY HAPPY KWANZAA TO THE GLOBAL BLACK WORLD!

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KWANZAA – OUR TOOL TO PUSH AWAY THE LOOMING DARKNESS
By Ndidi Uwechue
African News Today, 24th December 2019

When explorers, missionaries and historians described Africa as the “Dark Continent” we condemned them as being antinubianists (Antinubianism is racism specifically against Black people). However, now in the 21st century many concerned voices, from Africa, from Europe and from Asia are talking about the looming threat of darkness hanging over Sub-Saharan Africa. Some say we have already entered the darkness. Others say we are on the very verge of it. What seems to be agreed upon is that this darkness WILL BE PERMANENT IF INTERVENTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN UP.

Let us first define this darkness. Reports, analyses and statistics abound pointing to a resources-rich Continent yet with an inability to govern its people well, or feed its people well, or generally cater for even the most basic of human needs of its people. To compare Africa with the rest of the world is to see that darkness which comes from a gross lack of productivity, of technological capacity, of educational rigour, and of sound economic management. In short it is a darkness of severe backwardness in every area of life. The darkness portends to be calamitous when we factor in the exploding populations, then also increasing desertification with water shortage, drought, diseases and extreme heat of global warming.

The reason for this darkness is simple: it is a darkness induced and brought upon Africa’s people by bad governance. This darkness has been manufactured for Africans by their leaders, sometimes aided by foreign interference. The looting of public funds by civil servants, politicians and their cronies has created instant multi-billionaires in this class, as it has created abject poverty, preventable illnesses, and terrible deprivations for the masses of Africans.

This darkness is seen also in the way that Sub-Saharan Africa is excluded, and has excluded herself from being RELEVANT in most of the technological global conferences, scientific symposia, economic leaders’ gatherings, etc. Sub-Saharan Africa is overlooked as a source of globally respected knowledge, and our leaders are held in international distrust when it comes to matters of sincerity, integrity and honesty – evidenced by phrases such as “if there is the political will” or “lacks the political will”.

Unfortunately, the unpatriotic, greedy and corrupt behaviour of leaders has rubbed off onto the people too, creating dysfunctional societies that have a low regard for fellow Africans evidenced in lack of trust among the people, lack of unity of purpose, and easily manipulated by leaders using religion and ethnicity.

The cumulative effect of gross criminal looting of Africa’s funds and resources by those in leadership positions who should have cared for African citizens’ humanity, has ensured such a technological backwardness in every area one chooses to consider, that it is often considered doubtful whether Africa can ever recover. Time will tell. If we apply the needed interventions then there is hope; but if we do not, then the darkness of hopelessness can be our lot.

Often the simplest of interventions are the most effective. Interventions that tackle unpatriotic, greedy, selfish and antinubianist behaviour are needed if we are to have a sustainable population of pro-people and pro-Africa citizens out of which a better and more intelligent class of leaders can arise. We actually already have such an interventionist tool! It is obtainable by reading about it on the internet, then applying it, and spreading the word about it. This tool is KWANZAA.

Kwanzaa is a fun festival but it has within it seriousness through its Seven Principles that will transform Africa for good. Kwanzaa is NOT religious but social and community-building so every African can take part, and it covers the seven days of 26th December to 1st January. Kwanzaa benefits Black people in several ways because 1) It gets us to focus on our community worldwide; 2) It gets us to appreciate our common ancestry as Black people; 3) It gets us to keep our money circulating within the Black community; 4) It is ours: created for us, by us, and its Seven Principles are acceptable to the diversity found within the global Black world.

From the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa (listed below) which are covered one on each day, it becomes obvious that it is a tool that we need to push away the darkness:
Day 1. Unity
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and Race.

Day 2. Self-Determination:
To define ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Day 3. Collective Work and Responsibility
To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and solve them together.

Day 4. Cooperative Economics
To build and maintain our own stores, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Day 5. Purpose
To make our collective desire the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people their dignity.

Day 6. Creativity
To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Day 7. Imani: Faith
To believe with all our heart in our people, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Presents are given out to children and guests.

There are many ways to celebrate Kwanzaa available on the internet. Kwanzaa is not the only intervention needed to stamp out the darkness, but it is one good tool that we already have. Kwanzaa leads us to have unity within our diversity, and gives us a common sense of purpose and direction. Its Seven Principles should become our principles to live by at all times.

Africans are not as helpless as we tell ourselves we are. We have tools such as Kwanzaa created to better our living experiences. All we need do is choose to use this tool. Africa’s rescue will not come from spirits or from foreigners. It is Africans ourselves who have the responsibility and the task to push away the darkness.


SOURCE:
http://www.africannewstoday.com/opinion/kwanzaa-our-tool-to-push-away-the-looming-darkness/

The Blessing Of The Demographic Dividend, And Why Africa Needs To Borrow At All?
The Africa Report
Wednesday, 25 December 2019

Africa will be beating most of the rest of the world on growth in the 2030s. For the next decade however, Africa will be short of capital - because of the demographics.

[This is the third in our series on what to watch in 2020. Follow the links for the first on Africa’s 2020 elections, and the second on higher shipping costs]

The implication for 2020s’ Africa remains that the continent will be short of capital. And to a great extent, this is a function of its demographics, not abusive banks or greedy mining and oil companies.
However, some policymakers do not recognise this reality.

From Zambia to Egypt, we have often heard complaints about high interest rates. Kenyan parliamentarians blamed abusive banks and introduced interest rate caps to change the situation. Tanzania tried a similar policy in the past. Neither worked.

Nigeria’s central bank is demanding that banks increase lending to the economy but this will have only a marginal impact on the investment outlook in the country. Far more powerful in the long term would be for leaders in these countries to pursue an effective family planning policy.
It is not just local banks that are criticised. Foreign investors are also accused of mispricing risk in Africa.

High interest rates on external borrowing are seen as one reason for the $68-108bn annual financing gap in Africa’s large infrastructure needs.
While Africa is indeed very often misunderstood, the key question is why Africa needs to borrow at all?
A common answer is that the West undervalues Africa’s commodity exports or takes a bigger than fair share of the profits from its investments in Africa’s mines and oil wells.

In the CFA zone, it is often said that France is keeping West Africa down, by holding FX reserves in Paris that is used to buy French debt. This is particularly ironic because the CFA zone is a set of exceptional countries with high fertility and low interest rates.

Across the continent, we hear justifiable outrage that the West does too little to stop capital flight from the continent.
While these criticisms may well have validity, the point is many African countries are in fact oil-poor or even cobalt-poor, when we consider the number of people that commodity export revenues have to be divided between.
Nigeria exports only $1 a day (per person) from oil exports.

Even if the oil price trebled to $180/bl and Nigeria got all the proceeds, $3 a day is not going to make every Nigerian rich. For all the excitement about cobalt, the numbers are even smaller in DRC, where exports are worth $0.50 per person per day.

Less attention is paid as to why China, rather than Africa, has such a surplus of savings that China can export them around the world, and at cheap interest rates.

It is not just China. We see this within Africa too. Morocco’s borrowing costs are remarkably low. Morocco has such a surplus of savings, it is indirectly exporting them across West Africa, via its banks’ expansion plans.
What marks China, Mauritius or Morocco apart from Kenya, DR Congo, Nigeria and Zambia?

After analyzing 1,586 data points in as many countries as possible since 1960, we found out that demographics, and more precisely the fertility rate, affect savings and interest rates and strongly drive per capita GDP.

When there are fewer children (i.e. China, Mauritius and Morocco), the ratio of adults to children/pensioners improves and GDP growth per capita trebles. When there are many children per woman, it is accompanied by low savings and high interest rates.

We found out that in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, the fertility rate will drop below 3 by 2030-2035, thus helping savings and bank deposits grow and enabling these countries to replace external borrowing with ever cheaper domestic borrowing.

In Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, the fertility rate will remain above 3 over the next 20 years.
Leaders in these countries may be looking at faster growths in other neighbouring countries and fail to recognise what is driving the better growth – the demographic dividend. This is when you STOP HAVING LOTS OF CHILDREN, and when you die because you are old rather than because of disease.

For many decades, you are neither spending heavily on children nor elderly parents. More importantly, the proportion of the population able to work rockets higher.

Policymakers can talk about financial inclusion and mobile money, but if a country has a total fertility rate above 3, bank deposits will probably be 30% of GDP or less and real interest rates will be one the highest in the world.

Fertility trends are the explanation of why we believe Kenya should grow faster than Nigeria in the next two decades, and indeed, why most of Africa will be beating most of the rest of the world on growth in the 2030s, rising by 57% by 2030, relative to 2019 GDP levels.


SOURCE:
https://www.theafricareport.com/21615/the-blessing-of-the-demographic-dividend-and-why-africa-needs-to-borrow-at-all/

From a WhatsApp post, but original article link source quoted below too:

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WHERE ARE THE COWS?
By Gbonka Ebiri


It is very unfortunate that most people around him are sycophants and praise singers…. The day he destroyed his legacy with his own hands is the very day he agreed to put his weight behind Buhari…..

There are three observations in past history about coalition with Fulani and these predictions are as foolproof as science formulas.
1. Any Southern elite that makes friends with a Fulani is out to serve self-interest and personal ambitions either for himself alone or for himself and a few handpicked elites
2. Such elite always looks the other way when the Fulani deals with his people …for as long as his self interest is protected
3. He always ends in disgrace and it matters little if he is a Muslim

The sage Awolowo understood this, that is why he turned down ever offer from the North in the first republic to fold up opposition, join the coalition and take ministerial slots for Yoruba people... In his journal... he wrote.....' I declined the offers because they were designed exclusively to gratify my self-interest, with no thought of fostering any political moral principle which could benefit the people of Nigeria.'

At 1960 independence, Zik teamed up with the North to serve the interest of Igbo elites… He did not care that the North has always been hostile to his people and massacred them in Jos in 1946 and Kano in 1956… He did not care as well that the Sadaurna openly expressed irritation against his people and put laws in place to restrict them in his region. What mattered was that Igbo elties as coalition partners had portfolios at federal level (and Igbos only rebelled against Nigeria when their elites fell out at federal level).

Afonja invited Alimi and the Jamas to the vassal state of Ilorin to help him build a mini empire independent of Oyo… the very empire that elevated his house into nobility by appointing his great grandfather (Laderin) as the first provincial Governor of Ilorin…. He looked the other way when the jamas plundered Ilorin and harassed his people… taking their farm produce and invading their homes….. when they have gained enough ground and helped isolate him from Oyo… they murdered him and took the throne from him…. His end was death by assassination.

Solagberu was given special privileges as feudal overlord at Ilorin…. In exchange, he pledged allegiance to an emir that stole the kingdom from his friend (Afonja) for the Fulani caliphate at Gwandu….. He led many expeditions into Yorubalands to sack cities of his kinsmen and condemned many captives into slavery…. His end in the hands of Fulani was execution like Afonja when the emirate had no need of him anymore.

MKO Abiola was the financial strength behind opposition against Awolowo in the second republic. He financed Shagari’s campaign (with an agreement that he would use only one term and hand over to him)…. For the most part of the second republic, MKO was a thorn in Awolowo’s flesh… he opened a newspaper company solely to embarrass Awolowo and his party…. Financed many hostile takeover of motor garages to destroy Awolowo’s strength in the street…. Only to get a rude shock when he was called to Shagari’s office and told frankly that the presidency is not for sale to the highest bidder and he should forget about his ambition ( for a reward, he was offered an oil bloc which he refused)…. Financing of the party was taken over by Umaru Dikko who was given special privileges in the corridors of power to raise funds for future campaigns….. His second opposition came when the Sultan pressured Babangida to annul the June 12 elections…. He admitted that he liked MKO as a person and fellow Muslim but if he ever became president, he would reverse the gains the North recorded since 1960 and undo the Sadaurna’s achievements in the North…. Ultimately, the results were cancelled Abiola jailed.... He spent his last years incarcerated and died in very suspicious circumstances.

Tinubu like Abiola does not represent the interest of the North…. Like many of the Yoruba predecessors mentioned… he is highly ambitious and only thinks of the Fulani as a means to an end…. Currently, he enjoys patronage for his handpicked leutenants and turn a blind eye to sufferings of his people in the hands of Futa Jalon…feigning ignorance and asking where are the cows…. Like many of the Yoruba elites before him that took the very path he is currently taking…. The end is predictable and certain.


SOURCE:
https://oblongmedia.net/2019/10/18/where-are-the-cows-by-gbonka-ebiri/

GOD ALMIGHTY be praised! May these Juju-pastors, 419ers, one chance, robbers and bandits who deceive the gullible as "man of god" be exposed more and more for the crooks and petty thieves that they are! Amen & Amen.
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UK Charity Commission indicts Christ Embassy of fraud


The United Kingdom Charity Commission has indicted the country’s branch of Christ Embassy and its board of trustees of fraud.

The indictment follows a five-year investigation into the church’s finances and administration. The church was founded by Chris Oyakhilome.

In a report published on its website in November, the commission said its inquiry concluded that there were serious misconduct and mismanagement in the church’s administration, inadequate recording of its decision-making processes and failure to comply with its grant-making policy.

The commission said it opened an inquiry into Christ Embassy to investigate issues ranging from transactions between the church and “partner organisations”, administration; governance and management of the charity; financial controls and management of the charity and if the trustees had complied with their responsibilities under the charity law.

The commission found out that the church, between 2009 and 2011, paid substantial grants to organisations classified as “partner organisation”.

According to the report, the church’s account showed grants amounting to £1,281,666 were paid to Loveworld Television Ministry; £118,995 to Healing School, £186,616 to International School of Ministry, £10,000 to Christ Embassy Canada, £10,566 to Christ Embassy France, £37,216 to IPPC Conference and £77,266 to Rhapsody of Realities.

However, after examining the church’s records, the interim manager (IM) found no evidence of compliance with the church’s grant-making policy in the documents examined.

“Documents examined showed a lack of records and receipts to account for grants made and there appeared to be little consideration given to whether the receiving parties had expended grants appropriately and for intended purposes, as was required by the policy,” the report said.

“This demonstrates failure to comply with its grant-making policy and inadequate recording of decision making by the trustees which is misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity.”

ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT

The inquiry noted that it had “serious concerns” regarding the trustees’ decision making relating to the charity’s relationship with Loveworld Limited, whose “primary objective was to advance Christian programming in the UK and to provide entertaining and educational programmes for the diverse demographics of the UK”.

According to the report, the trustees informed the inquiry that payments made by the charity to Loveworld Limited were not grants or donations as indicated in their accounts but represented payments for broadcasting services provided by the company to the charity.

But when asked to provide documentation that recorded the decisions made in respect of payments made to Loveword Limited, the charity could only provide two sets of minutes of trustee meetings.

“However, neither set of minutes included any decision or resolution to make payments to a company of which one trustee was sole shareholder,” the report said.

“The trustees did not have any formal contracts in place or indeed rationale for using Loveworld Limited as opposed to any other broadcaster.

“The IM’s scrutiny of charity records and documents demonstrated that the trustees had failed to comply with the terms of the charity’s governing document and that they failed to comply with the requirements of section 185 of the Act in paying for services by a company owned by a trustee.

The inquiry also found out that the church allowed Loveworld Limited to make use of its property valued at £1.8 million from 2006 to 2012 for free.

When asked, the trustees said Loveworld had only occupied a “small part of the premises”, on an informal basis, adding that the arrangement had been formalised since 2012 and the company was charged £75,000 per year for use of the property.

But the inquiry considered that the level of rent indicates that Loveworld Limited occupied a substantial proportion of the building.

“This indicates that the trustees failed to act in the charity’s best interests or with reasonable care and skill in terms of their decision-making and in the negotiation of the arrangements with Loveworld Limited and is not seeking appropriate advice regarding formalising occupation of premises by the company,” it said.

“In addition, the fact that the charity was also subsidising a proportion of the company’s utility bills indicates a lack of reasonable care and skill and a failure to use the charity’s resources responsibly. These actions were not in the charity’s best interest or in furtherance of its objects and were misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity.”

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The inquiry also discovered that in 2013, the church paid Ventaja Limited £44,925 for construction and decoration of a stage. It found out that the company was owned by Tony Obi (trustee G) a member of the church’s board of trustees, who was also a zonal pastor of the church.

“The IM found evidence indicating that Trustee G had employed the services of Ventaja Limited to provide services to the charity, but it was unclear from the charity’s records what considerations were made regarding potential conflicts of interest. It is unclear to the Commission that the decision-making trustees, in position at the time payments were made, were acting only in the interests of the charity.

“The trustees failed to provide any records to evidence that conflicts of interest had been identified or correctly managed prior to the opening of the Inquiry.”

LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

Under the church’s financial control and management, it was discovered that cash collection and payment recording processes were not uniform across the charity.

Nine bank accounts were identified as holding funds belonging to Christ Embassy, Nigeria which is a separate company to the church.

“The inquiry found no evidence to suggest that any of the banking institutions were aware that they were holding funds controlled by Christ Embassy Nigeria,” it said.

“In addition, the accounts were not named in such a way as would indicate the funds are controlled from Nigeria: for example, two of the active accounts are named Christ Embassy East London.

“The inquiry, not being satisfied that the funds held in these accounts were owned by Christ Embassy Nigeria, exercised legal powers and issued orders dated 8 august 2014, under section 76(3)(d) of the Act, freezing six of these nine bank accounts, protecting funds to a value of £615,420.

“In the absence of clear evidence to support the trustees’ position, the Inquiry concluded that funds held in the accounts belonged to the charity and these accounts remained frozen until the order was revoked on 24 August 2016.

“This demonstrates the trustees’ failure to deal with the bank accounts appropriately and their lack of understanding of financial management and the importance of clearly identifying the charity’s property and/or assets held on behalf of another entity and is mismanagement and/or misconduct in the administration and governance of the charity by the trustees.”

FAILURE TO SUBMIT TAX RETURNS

The IM informed the inquiry that the trustees’ failed to submit the church’s 2010-11 and 2012-13 self-assessment tax returns on time thereby incurring penalties for late submissions.

“The IM established that the charity had failed to maintain sufficient records or processes to show that expenditure by employees had not been an employee benefit and therefore subject to tax,” it said.

“Sufficient records to show that charity vehicles were being used solely for charitable purposes and not used by trustees/employees for private use; sufficient records to support the charity’s claim to Gift Aid and to demonstrate the expenditure was in fact charitable.

“The interim manager agreed to pay £250,000 to settle these violations with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).”

UNDISCLOSED ASSETS

The Inquiry team also discovered three UK properties that were not disclosed to the commission by the trustees.

The trustees reportedly said despite the legal title of the properties being vested in the name of two of the church’s trustees, the properties “were acquired on behalf of, and held in trust for, Christ Embassy Nigeria”.

“The Inquiry noted that the Land Registry entries in respect of the 3 properties made no reference to the beneficial owner being Christ Embassy Nigeria and documentation supplied by the trustees provided no evidence to support their assertions.”

INADEQUATE INSURANCE COVER

The inquiry discovered that the trustees failed to secure adequate insurance to protect church’s assets and protect them against claims for accidental damage to property/or compensation for accidental injury to third parties.

“The failings of trustees to act appropriately left the charity open to financial and reputational risk and losses, as well as to risk of litigation,” it said.

SOURCE:
https://www.thecable.ng/uk-charity-commission-indicts-christ-embassy-of-fraud