₦airaland Forum

DesignMaestro:
Wike was a recipient of national honour not best governor award. You can conduct your research on best performing governors in the last four or seven years and I'm sure APC governors will top the list. This is not about sentiment, it is a fact. Can you objectively name any PDP governor, aside Wike, who is doing well?

You are entitled to your views and opinion on who to vote and who not to vote for. I've stated by own opinion and reasons for my choice of candidate. This is democracy

You know the president is a good man yet you accuse Tinubu of 'solely bringing him upon us' Lol!



Happy New Year!!!!

DesignMaestro:
Don't worry my friend, all these will change under Tinubu. Asiwaju's government will be a total departure from these poor economic decisions. He is a different kind of personality from Buhari.

He will run a progressive government that will bring prosperity to the people not the one that will escalate poverty. Don't think everyone that supports Tinubu is a fan of the current government. We are supporting BAT simply based on our trust in him due to his capacity not because of any political affiliation.

Buhari's government has failed in areas of security and economy but you can't deny the fact that the most performing governors in this country today are APC governors.

We are voting APC, we are voting BAT
Tinubu is not Buhari!!!

lhordspy:
Very true.
Something this political Amateur Obidients are unaware of.

Politics is not and never an aggressive or Do-or-Die contest. If you go around insulting, and cursing everyone. You attract much negativity to yourself. I wish these kids can learn.

Tycyborg:
You are the one confusing yourself here Mr man... My question is what made the calabar stagnant despite been a capital before... So are you telling me the whites and Nigeria or should I say the south did no development in calabar before moving? Even kano that wasn't the capital nor have any coastal area is better than calabar as of now and again did calabar not have coastal area even bigger than Lagos?

Secondly Dubai I am talking about... I know it's a city but yet still better than a a country call India let alone the whole UAE... Lol a country monetary exchange internationally determined the growth of a country... The last time I checked dirham is bigger than rupee...
Lastly tell me what makes India better or bigger than UAE aside population and immigrants remittance... I want to know please...

Tycyborg:
Difference of years? Does that mean the white didn't do anything in calabar as you guys claim they did in lagos?
And if it's about white development... Do you still see any steam engine trains and those old houses? Lagos improved and improvise... It's simple and others decided to stand still...
Just like music... Olamide and wizkid has been in the industry and still in the industry because he improved to the modern ways not stuck on one thing because things change... What happened to MI and others? They didn't improve... It doesn't have to be how many years you stayed to acquire wealth... It's what did you use the wealth for?
If I am to go by your narrative... India have been in the light for a long time and Dubai was only few years but can you compare India with Dubai now?
Dubai improved despite the little year theyve been in light while India is standing still compare to Dubai... So why can't calabar improvise and improve?

lhordspy:
Lot of things kept running through my mind after Wike's statement. Then i remember sharks. Yeah sharks

Do you know why sharks never stop moving?

When they atleast slow down, thier breathing reduce. And when they stop moving; they die. They need to keep moving to stay alive.

Since the news of the G5 meeting in London surfaced. It's been a hell of a hard-time for obidients. The aggressiveness, the loudness - all died down and dim like fading light.


Thank God Nyesom Wike is coming out now to say something. The diversion was killing them. They can now resuming the wailing, and re-direct their anger on Buhari and Tinubu . Something they are destined for, something they live for, something they need to keep doing to stay to stay afloat and alive. Something they have been doing since the inception of democracy, something they will likely be doing for the next 8years.

Because when they dont wail, they are lifeless.. Just like sharks which will always keep moving to stay alive.

youngbabaj:
Like it or not
APC come 2023
Know this and have peace

MasterTeeUSA:
As a Christian, for competence, equity, and for one Nigeria, I am fully BATIFIED. Those supporting Peter Obi, including Afenifere, want to force a referendum. If he wins and changes his mind, they will create chaos...if he pushes for a referendum, he will be going against the norm. We cannot experiment with the Presidency. He won't be able to get anything past the Senate or Reps. They will create problems to force a referendum.

They don't care about Peter Obi or South-East Presidency. They see him as the least powerful to challenge their appetite for referendum. They know Constitution ammendmends will fail..Tinubu and Atiku are no pushover. Listen to them, their support is only because they want to compel. The goal is not Nigeria but selfish interests.

DesignMaestro:
Atiku, Saraki, Tambuwal, Amaechi, Dino, and the rest of those who called themselves nPDP during Jonathan's administration are not blamed for whatever happens now, it is Tinubu that bears all burden, lol! There is absolutely no point arguing with you guys.

Continue giving yourselves sleepless nights over Tinubu's matter. We all have the right to support whoever we want to support.

February is around the corner, since you know that BAT is not popular among the masses for the reasons you always publicise on social media, you don't need to bully those who are supporting him. Afterall, your candidate is the one wanted by the masses, according to you, let us campaign in peace and vote in peace.

You should stop feeling intimidated by the personality of someone you already believe he isn't going to win.

Shalom.

DesignMaestro:
We aren't going back to PDP again and LP's Obi doesn't have the capacity to turn things around if we want to be honest with ourselves.

At this juncture, there is no room for experimentation. We need someone with track record and capacity to bring a team of tested technocrats to turn things around for the country. We don't need a saint, no need for any candidate to be presenting himself as a messiah or saint to us. Governance is not a one man show.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the best man for the job. We are not voting for party, we are voting personality (hope you remember that )

doseni:
Just read what you wrote again and ask yourself if you are making sense. You are unintelligent and arrogant at the same time, how will you learn. Gosh

IbeOkehie:
Hope you know this is a scandalous lie?

List of goods and services under government subsidies and price regulation include airline tickets, rice, university education, electricity, forex, healthcare, religious pilgrimages, public piped water. You could also add massive employment of government workers who do basically NOTHING to earn their salaries.

Think about Government Water Boards - there's 37 State Water Boards in the States and FCT and yet access to piped water in Nigeria is below 5%. And those workers collect salaries every month. That's subsidized work! Same thing with the NNPC refineries that produce NOTHING and yet retain thousands of paid staff.

Why would anyone make a claim that fuel subsidy is the ONLY benefit given to Nigerians by government? Government subsidies and price controls are in Nigeria are massive and pervasive. Those subsidies and regulated prices are THE REASON for the long term stagnation of the Nigerian economy. If they're not significantly reduced or completely removed, Nigerian will NEVER have generalized economic prosperity.

Be advised!

DesignMaestro:
Agbero starting in Lagos under Tinubu? I can't keep on arguing with you over this since it is clear that you guys simply hate him and feel good throwing all kinds of garbage at his personality.

You said NURTW, a union that was founded in 1978 started during Bola Tinubu's administration, lol! I won't go any further on this but just want you to know that NURTW is a union under the umbrella of NLC and it is one of the most powerful and influencial pressure groups in Nigeria today. It is an independent body and how it generates it's revenue and what it does with the money it generates is not anybody's business.

I am also against their mode of operation especially the aspect of thuggery and extortions, but who is to blame? The union's leadership or Bola Tinubu?

I have told you why any politician in power will likely be lenient to them irrespective of their actions in my previous response. Even if PDP or any other party should take over the leadership of Lagos tomorrow, Agbero would still continue to operate the way they do, except if the governor doesn't mind losing the next election.

SugarGirl44:
You’re surprised a woman is putting you in your place right.
Hehehe...
Agberos are human beings and they’re much more better than you miscreants from the iboland who are majorly criminals.
They only collect tax, they don’t kill their fellow Yoruba people the way you guys eat your people in the east.

Tycyborg:
Even calabar was once Nigeria capital why is it not as developed like Lagos now...? Calabar is bigger than Lagos even had ocean but can't develop... These people are just full of hate honestly

SugarGirl44:
Why are you bothered about correcting him?
What’s your business?
Your mate dey build house, you dey pick nails.
Are you not ashamed of your life and your tribe?
How’s what happens in another region a problem for you ibo people?
I still don’t get.
Do you see Yorubas ‘correcting’ or interfering in anything you guys do in your region?
What’s the obsession for?

Jakande o, Tinubu o, Fashola o etc., at least they’re all Yorubas and their collective effort brought Lagos to what it is now, you shouldn’t be fvcking concerned about them at alllll.
You should be more worried about your region that’s decaying by the day.

DesignMaestro:
Agberos are everywhere in Nigeria. They're NURTW members. The so called Area Boys are also termed as Agbero today. Lagos is known for Area boys wahala since before independence. They are called Omo Oraisa ('All right sir' boys) by our grandparents in those days.

These boys are always used by politicians as political thugs. Awolowo used them, Jakande used them and same with Tinubu. Politicians in other regions also nurture these type of boys for political reasons. That's how Nigerian politics is played.

Now, for the Agberos (not area boys) they have no issue with the people. They only disturb commercial drivers, who are actually their members. So, it is wrong to call them criminals. Agbero in Yoruba means someone who assists a commercial driver to woo passengers. They are everywhere in Nigeria. Go to any motor garage or park, you will find them. They all behave in the same way.

doseni:
It’s not my fault you passed through school and not school passing through you. If indeed school passed through you, you will have taking time to read about Baba Jakande’s (May his soul rest in peace) metro rail plan and safe yourself all this embarrassment. If you have done a bit of search, you would have discovered that they are different. Baba Jakande’s rail project was to go through Ikorodu road. The recently launched project was initiated by Tinubu and not Baba Jakande. To be honest, there's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.

SugarGirl44:
Why are you bothered about correcting him?
What’s your business?
Your mate dey build house, you dey pick nails.
Are you not ashamed of your life and your tribe?
How’s what happens in another region a problem for you ibo people?
I still don’t get.
Do you see Yorubas ‘correcting’ or interfering in anything you guys do in your region?
What’s the obsession for?

Jakande o, Tinubu o, Fashola o etc., at least they’re all Yorubas and their collective effort brought Lagos to what it is now, you shouldn’t be fvcking concerned about them at alllll.
You should be more worried about your region that’s decaying by the day.

Everlastingson:
Thank you. Many of those you hear shouting subsidy should be removed are actually enemies of the masses, agents of the World Bank who have equally been brainwashed by the West. ALL Arab countries have fuel subsidy in place for their citizens but are still light years ahead of Nigeria. Until the Federal Government stops stealing Nigeria is going nowhere.

DesignMaestro:
Good, and that is the beauty of continuity. That is even why it is difficult for Tinubu's critics and opposition parties to prevail on Lagosians to vote his party out.

From Fashola to Ambode and Sanwo-Olu it has always been progress upon progress for Lagos.

Kobonaire234:
Not for all their people, for selected groups and those subsides are paid for by heavy duty taxes on everyone. Not our kind of ekuke taxes

DesignMaestro:
Wrong!!! Jakande's metro rail plan is entirely different from the rail project being carried out by the present day governments of Lagos state.

Alhaji Lateef Jakande (may his soul rest in peace) planned a metro rail that will be laid along Ikorodu road. The military government came and nipped it in the bud.

Fast forward to 2002, Bola Tinubu established LAMATA, brought in experts from relevant fields to design a master plan for an organized bus rapid transit, water transport and light rail mass transit that will connect the whole parts of the city. The present governor and his commissioner of transportation were in the team. They where sent to South America to understudy how metro system worked in that part of the world.

At the end, they designed a master plan for BRT dedicated lanes, six light rail lines and a monorail. The six rail lines are blue, red, green, orange, purple and yellow lines.

Fashola started the blue line (Marina to okokomaiko). This is completely different from Jakande's Ikorodu road metro. Go and listen to what Sanwo-Olu said about Bola Tinubu few days ago when they were marking the completion of the phase one of the project.

These are facts, go and verify. Find out more about LAMATA and its purpose of establishment.

No matter how you try to twist the narratives, Tinubu's name will continue to be mentioned as far as the development of modern Lagos is concerned.

Politics and propaganda can only conceal fact, they can't change it.

Kobonaire234:
The leakages happen because the fact is....when you bring in fuel at a high price and sell it at a lower price, you will end up with looting...because in some ways it is the only way to make a decent profit.

Like I said has enough been done to verify how much is actually brought in and at what price by NNPC? Has enough been done to tighten border controls and check smuggling? Has the government made public examples of compromised customs officials and their supervisors? Has enough been done to ensure depot owners sell appropriately after receiving at N148 naira? What is being done to combat this price collusion/cartel by the depot owners? Has enough been done to get our refineries working again?

Also, the smuggling happens because fuel is sold to marketers at N148. Meahwile it costs N300 and above in all our neighbours. At the end, people will smuggle fuel and have enough profit to pay off the customs man at the border. By the way, it is not only big men involved in the thing...a lot of small boys at all our borders do the same.

People smuggle because government allows them to smuggle. Look at the revelations coming out now that government has decide to tackle bunkering. Like I said earlier if the seriousness is there to combat smuggling it will become too hot for the participants to indulge in. I raised the example of imported rice earlier. If it can be done for rice it can be done for fuel. Anyone coming from other countries to buy fuel must pay appropriate duties at the border same way Nigerians pay duties to Benin Republic to import cars from Cotonou.

Finally, we lose money. We lose dollars to subsidy...meaning our currency falls because no dollars to buffer it, and we waste money that could have been used on new ports and new refineries among other things...which is why we have to bring in cars through benin.

We lose money because we chose to lose money. I have shown you how a serious government can not only plug leakages but generate dollars at the borders instead of these monies going to corrupt customs officials. If it can be done for rice it can be done for fuel. Just saddle EFCC and DSS with spotchecking the customs and see the revelations that will start coming out.



No amount of cutting leakages is going to change the fact that when you sell fuel at N148 after bringing it in at N510, and when it costs aboveN235- N300 to produce one liter of fuel, there will be losses. And to plug the losses.....illegal activity suddenly becomes a necessity.

The landing cost of fuel is debatable.... The cost of producing a liter of fuel domestically is debatable. It is the responsibility of government to ensure we get the best prices for domestic consumption. If best practices are adopted a whole lot will change and if we focus on resuscitating our daily crude oil output and export which again we are not seriously monitoring giving rise to significant leakages there too, we will do just fine as a country.


To end smuggling, and illegal activites...subsidy has to go. No other way out.

If other middle Eastern oil producing nations can subsidise their fuel and still remain highly profitable and efficient in their oil production I see no reason why Nigeria can't be the same.

The society that lives on subsidies and freebies, is always responsible for a corrupt governance.” ― Dr. Ashok Anand

Kobonaire234:
At the end of the day, we will end up with a rising subsidy cost due to a rising cost of production, because the people who bring out the fuel and the people who sell the fuel and the people who refine the fuel ...want to be paid because

1.Cost of living

2.Cost of the machinery they use...including maintenance costs, replacement costs, and so forth...to refine the fuel.

3.Transport costs.

The rising subsidy means that government spends more and more money on subsidy...meaning we have to take heavy loans to cover the deficit.

We also spend more forex on subsidy...and more forex on imports....meaning no dollars to buffer the naira...meaning the naira keeps on falling.

As for inefficencies...smuggling happens because fuel cost less than in our neighbours. Stealing happens because free government money and because subsidy forces a lot of people to operate at a loss....which also fuels smuggling.

Finally, subsidy=price controls. Unless you are the most altruistic human being in the world, you won't let government set your price.

At the end, it means we have something called rising debt...worse than what we have now. Which means that ....


THE POOR PAY IT.

So, your choice. Pay for fuel at the market price....or pay for it at IMF HQ. At a higher rate.


Or remove subsidy, we get higher investment, more refineries, more jobs, more money flowing in, in return for a hike in prices that would become irrelevant as the benefits kick in.

Kobonaire234:
If we want an end to scarcity then we have to remove subsidy.

The biggest mistake any government can make is to 'regulate prices'. We have been regulating prices of petrol since 1973, and in the process we have gone from having 2-3 working refineries to 4 and now to none.

Inherent in subsidisng fuel is the idea that we can sell fuel below the production cost and then pay off the resulting loss via subsidy. As we can see that is not possible. To even run refineries effectively, we need them to make a profit.....which means a refinery is allowed to sell fuel in a way that it can make a profit to pay off the supplier of crude, and its maintenance and upgrade costs, and the marketer is allowed to sell fuel in a way that enables it to pay off its transport costs, the refinery, its supplier. And all have to pay the government its due.

Subsidy does not help the poor. In 2021...it cost N261 to bring in one liter of fuel. Now as at November it was costing N510. The official price of the petrol jumped from N165 to now N179. And we somehow expect to keep it magically that low.?

Nigeria has wrecked our refineries at home because we could not let them produce at a profit....this is the extent of government mismanagement. Government did not let the refineries make a profit. Government over the years prefers to use a large and larger amount of the budget to pay off subsides...because it has no other way of helping the poor that Nigerians like.

The poor are helped in 'sane societies' by heavy taxation, and tax to gdp ratios that are as high as 40-50%...which pay for the welfare of most of the poor. In Nigeria, we do the paying by blanket subsidies, and by cutting prices of petrol. As a result, we end up taking a large chunk of our budget to pay for subsides...because government cannot control the production cost of petrol...whether in or out of Nigeria....and we take loans to cover our asses.


Until subsidy goes....there is going to be scarcity. You cannot bring in fuel at N510 and sell at N180. You cannot refine fuel in Nigeria above N250, and sell it at N180. Petrol, like the phones and rice and stuff you buy...costs money.


Thanks for listening to my TED talk on subsides.

DesignMaestro:
Even if the plan was conceived by Obafemi Awolowo or Herbert Macaulay, what is your business with that? What is wrong with someone conceiving an idea and twenty years later another person bringing back the idea and making sure it comes to reality?

Alhaji Lateef Jakande wanted a metro for Lagos as far back as 1980's but did Lagos get it? Tinubu came 20 years later and drew a master plan for transportation reforms in Lagos. He established the LAMATA which is saddled with implementation of the Lagos intermodal transportation master plan. Through LAMATA today we have BRT and metro train. Tinubu ended a 20 year stagnation for Lagos and you want him ignored?

About fourty years after Jakande conceived the idea, the metro has come to reality in Lagos and you want us to ignore the man who has helped to actualise the dream by ensuring continuity and stability in governance?

Your obsession with Tinubu might eventually consume you.

Thank you Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu!
Thank you Babatunde Raji Fashola!!
Thank you Babajide Sanwo-Olu!!!

God bless Baba Jakande!!!!

doseni:
Maybe when you understand the difference between conceiving a project and initiating one then I can engage you. I have zero tolerance for those that can’t use their heads. To who a brain is given, sense is expected. This project was initiated by Tinubu and delivered by Sanwo-olu. I am allergic to stupid people . it’s better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. If you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d be twice as smart as you really are.