₦airaland Forum

In our series of letters from African journalists, Mannir Dan Ali, editor-in-chief of Nigeria's Daily Trust paper, looks at why the Nigerian president is finding it hard to please anyone.

Muhammad Buhari's second coming as Nigeria's president one-and-a-half years ago was greeted with a lot of hope and excitement.

There was a collective sigh of relief when he took over from the lacklustre Goodluck Jonathan, who symbolised everything that was wrong with the then ruling party.

Eighteen months down the line, many Nigerians are openly asking whether the 73-year-old president has what it takes to lead Africa's most populous state, given the enormous challenges that the country faces.

While the president has gained some kudos for his efforts to tackle corruption and for the fact that the military now has the upper hand in the fight against militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which at one point held large swathes of territory in the north-east, little success has been recorded in other areas.

As President Buhari has said, he had the misfortune of coming to power at a time when very low oil prices meant the import-dependent and oil revenue-reliant country was paying a high price for its expensive habits.

Nigerian leaders, and especially Mr Jonathan's government, never planned for the vagaries of oil prices, which have plummeted from more than $100 (£79) a barrel in 2014 to just above $30.

Mindless corruption ensured that the extra income was carelessly spent and even money allocated for purchasing arms to counter Boko Haram's insurgency was allegedly pocketed by individuals or diverted to political campaigns.

Mr Buhari admitted he felt like absconding from the job when he found how bad the situation was when he took office in May 2015.

Having won the election on his fourth attempt, Nigerians expected the former military ruler to have an idea or two about how to fix the country's main challenges: Poor infrastructure, lack of electricity and high unemployment.

Wifely tongue-lashing

Now some of his supporters are beginning to lose patience.

Even his wife took the unprecedented step of criticising him publicly in a BBC interview where she said she might not support him again if he ran for another term in 2019.

Nearly halfway into his four-year term, Mr Buhari is yet to make some key appointments to drive his vision.

It took him six months to assemble a cabinet and, eight months after the death of one government minister, that post remains vacant.

With many key officials yet to be replaced, there is an air of tentativeness in the operations of many government departments.

It is in the area of the economy that there is even more dissatisfaction given the recession that the country is experiencing.

'Investors are no fools'

The unofficial devaluation of the local currency, the naira, higher food prices and job losses have all made life more difficult for families. Many people just manage to have a meal a day.

The following phrase trended among Nigerians on social media recently: "We are no longer asking President Buhari to develop Nigeria. At this point we are only asking him to return Nigeria to the state it was before he became president."

Concern was raised about the doubling of the price of food items and the more than 50% fall in the value of the naira.

Similarly, the business community and those with knowledge of the economy are unimpressed with some of his key economic advisers and the direction they are taking.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who supported Mr Buhari's election but who has a reputation for sounding like a one-man opposition party, has come out to oppose some of the economic policies of the government, such as the idea of borrowing about $30bn.

"If we do not fix the economy to relieve the pain and anguish of many Nigerians, the gain in fighting the insurgency and corruption will pale into insignificance... Economy neither obeys orders nor does it work according to wishes," Mr Obasanjo said.

"It must be worked upon with all factors considered and most stakeholders involved. The investors, domestic and foreign, are no fools and they know what is going on with the management of the economy, including the foreign exchange, and they are not amused," he added.

As things stand now most Nigerians are hoping that President Buhari and his team will get their act together to pull the country out of its biggest economic downturn since the return to civil rule in 1999 - and prove that it was not a mistake to invest so much hope in the man who promised to fix the limping giant of Africa.

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OBA0708:
ALWAYS ASK FOR COMMON SENSE

Kawu Ashe is just one of up to 120,000 people facing starvation in north-eastern Nigeria, which has been ravaged by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.

Last month, she made the life-and-death decision to flee her village after militants delivered a chilling message: "We are coming back to take your son."

The insurgents killed her husband, a cattle trader, two years ago and were now insisting that the couple's two-and-a-half-year-old son Abdullahi belonged to them.

Ms Ashe knew she had to act - even if the penalty for trying to escape could be execution.
Under the cover of darkness, she and her two children and a younger sister walked through the bush for nine hours to safety.

But although Abdullahi survived the militants, he now faces another deadly threat - starvation.

He is among the estimated hundreds of thousands of children in north-eastern Nigeria currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

The UN describes it is as the "greatest crisis on the continent" and is appealing to the international community for more than $1bn (£793m) to deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance to almost seven million people in the region.

Abdullahi is skeletal. His body weight at 7kg (15lb) is around half of what it should be at his age.

"There was barely any food or clean drinking water in the village," said Ms Ashe, speaking at a Unicef malnutrition clinic set up in the region's main city, Maiduguri.

"Even if we did get some food the militants would take it away. Things are little better here. But I'm still struggling to feed my children."

'It starts with the kids'

Last month, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said thousands of children had already died of starvation during the crisis.

The seven-year-long Boko Haram insurgency has laid waste to this region - killing thousands and forcing millions to flee their homes in north-east Nigeria and the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

But as the Nigerian military pushes the insurgents from territory they once controlled, the sheer scale of the hunger and devastation is being revealed.

Frequent Boko Haram attacks mean farmers have been unable to plant anything in their fields for the third year in a row and aid convoys are ambushed on insecure roads.

There are allegations of wide-spread aid theft, which are being investigated by Nigeria's senate.
The military has also closed down markets because of security concerns but it means people have nowhere to buy food or to make a living.

The UN says millions are now reliant on food aid and there is simply not enough to go around.

"Without more international assistance, many more people are going to die" says John Ging, operations director for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"It starts with kids because their parents have no means to actually take care of them," he says.

"We can do better than that in 2016 - it's a rich world. We need a very small fraction of those riches for international humanitarian action. At the moment we're not getting that small fraction."

'Bloated' with hunger

The city of Maiduguri is now the centre of the aid efforts. Its population is swollen by the hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled the violence and are now living in make-shift camps.

The worst cases of children suffering from starvation are brought to the MSF medical facility in the city.

In the intensive care unit, around a dozen severely emaciated children lay on beds.

They were hooked up to oxygen. Some had drips attached to their skulls as that was the only place the nurses could find a vein.

One of them is two-year-old Ali, who was born albino.

His mother Zara Mustafa said that her husband struggled to find work after they were forced from their home and they had no money to feed the family.

"Sometimes we don't eat for three days straight," she says.
In another bed lies one-month-old Mohammedu - his little body bloated my malnutrition. His mother, Aisha Umar has six other children.

"It's unbelievably difficult to get food here. I have to send my children out to beg," she says.

While the children are in a terrible state, they are at least getting some care.

There are still areas under the control of Boko Haram, which aid agencies cannot reach.

Conditions there will almost certainly be worse than those in Maiduguri.

And with the start of the dry season under way, yet more hunger is now on the horizon.

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idu1:
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STFUareyouGod:
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A dark Black Friday origin story that has something to do with slavery is apparently behind the merry, yet chaotic, shopping spree event. But is there any truth to it?

Every last Friday of November, or the day after Thanksgiving, shoppers flock to the stores of retailers to mark the start of the Christmas shopping season while getting massive discounts. Yet a dark tale seems to shroud the day of the shopping bonanza.
BLACK FRIDAY ORIGIN: BLACK SLAVERY TRADE?
There are claims that the trade of Black slavery by slave owners and slave traders is the history behind Black Friday. Allegedly, Black slaves are sold on the day after Thanksgiving to help plantation owners in preparation for the Winter season. However, there is no truth behind this unbacked theory.

In fact, the term was coined in as early as 1951, which is almost a century after the abolishment of slavery in the U.S. With that, the Black Friday origin of Black slavery trade is nothing but a false statement.
SO, WHERE DID BLACK FRIDAY COME FROM?
In 1951, the term Black Friday allegedly came from a disease that was only next to the bubonic plague in its effects. It was said to have hit workers on the day after Thanksgiving. To have a longer holiday, workers usually call in sick the day next to Thanksgiving. But employers had a hard time distinguishing whether the “sickness” was real or not.

Later on, another apparent origin of Black Friday came from the headache Philadelphia police traffic squad are experiencing on the Friday after Thanksgiving. As this marks the start of shopping for Christmas, an influx of pedestrians and shoppers cause massive traffic jams.

Thus in 1961, the term is dubbed to the two days: Black Friday and Black Saturday, which are considered the biggest shopping days of the year that cause the terrible traffic situations.

But the most plausible Black Friday origin, which somehow influences the practices of today, may perhaps come from retailers that are experiencing a rise in sales from its profit loss in as early as 1981. In accounting terms, it is the transfer from “red” to “black.”

When retailers get profit, it correlates to “black ink.” This raise in profits then gave an opportunity for retailers to make discounts and bargains for shoppers to have even higher sales.

Today, the marked-down items no longer happen on Black Friday alone. Some retailers start days, or even weeks, before Black Friday when slashing their prices to get a head start from their competitors.

Another term, Cyber Monday, or the Monday after Black Friday, also came into life for shoppers who prefer to stay in the comfort of their homes as they shop online.

A dark Black Friday origin story that has something to do with slavery is apparently behind the merry, yet chaotic, shopping spree event. But is there any truth to it?

Every last Friday of November, or the day after Thanksgiving, shoppers flock to the stores of retailers to mark the start of the Christmas shopping season while getting massive discounts. Yet a dark tale seems to shroud the day of the shopping bonanza.
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http://sarcasmlol.com/2016/09/07/birth-order-about-personality