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The depth of the writer's understanding of the Nigerian situation is mind boggling. The absolute truth.

ono: This reminds me of a pastor asking for those who can donate 1 billion naira to see his secretary....and everyone else, those who can donate 100 naira as well, to give towards the building of a humongous 3km by 3km auditorium.

From 1 billion naira to 100 naira - no amount is too small to be pilfered. It seems there's some kind of parallel relation between the Pentecostal church style of ''giving'' and the ''pilfering'' we see in every sphere of our national life. Pity.

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There is actually a symbiotic relationship between the Pentecostal church style of 'giving' and the ''pilfering''( and ''fraud'').

Okay, so now I’ve got a post about Melbourne out of the way it’s time for me to say a little something about Nigeria. With the exception of a week in October when I need to clear out my apartment, I’ve pretty much left Nigeria. My assignment there officially finished on 31st July, although I will have to return for business trips over the course of the next 3 years because the project I am on in Melbourne is for Nigeria.Somebody once said that there is much to write about Russia, but when one tries you can never find the words to write the first line. Nigeria is much the same, and indeed there are many similarities between the two countries. I have tried to describe Nigeria to people who have never been there, and failed on most occasions. A colleague of mine stopped telling people back home about the place because he was getting a reputation as somewhat of a bullshitter, even though he didn’t exaggerate anything. I was at a seminar in Paris some time ago and I was describing the working life in Nigeria to a group of Frenchmen. One of them quipped that I was exaggerating and that “it couldn’t be that bad”, which prompted another Frenchman, sitting beside me, to nudge me in the ribs and remark “wait until he does his Nigerian assignment”. He was based in Port Harcourt.Nigeria has a reputation, and I knew about it before I arrived. Most of what I’d heard proved to be completely true. Almost all of it, in fact. To get a general picture of Nigeria, just read the news, and you’ll not be far wrong. It isn’t a place like Russia, the US, or France which surprise visitors when they see the contrast between what they’ve imagined (based on exposure to their tourists or foreign policy) and the individuals they encounter. But beyond the general picture, there are some subtleties worth mentioning.It’s first important to understand that degree is as important as form. Russians, faced with criticism of corruption in their country, often retort that corruption is found everywhere, even in the UK. Which is true, but in many countries it does not infest every authority, office, and institute like it does in Russia. It is the degree, or extent, of corruption which makes Russia different from the UK, not the form. Understanding this concept is important in describing Nigeria.There is no getting away from the fact that corruption in Nigeria has infested almost every aspect of life, work, and society. I can’t think of a single area where I didn’t encounter a scam of some sort. Some of them were pretty normal – policemen hassling motorists for bribes, for example – with others being less common elsewhere. Filling brand named alcohol bottles with local hooch was widespread practice. Not so bad in itself, but these were being sold through supposedly legitimate suppliers and turning up in established bars. Others were unique to Nigeria. I knew a guy in charge of oil shipments for a foreign oil company who received a call from somebody in the authorities saying he was not going to release the multi-million dollar cargo until somebody had bought his cousin $10 worth of phone credit. My acquaintance found himself going to the shop, buying a phone card, and handing it over to some scruffy bloke who showed up at his office in order to allow his crude oil out of the country.The corruption, theft, and graft can take many forms: falsifying a CV (I don’t mean enhancing, I mean pretending you’re a Lead Piping Engineer of 12 years experience when actually, until yesterday, you were a fisherman); selling positions in a company; stealing diesel from the storage tanks you’re paid to protect; issuance of false material certificates; impersonating an immigration officer to access an office, from which you then tap up the people within to fund your latest venture; selling land which isn’t yours; deliberately running down the country’s refining capacity in order to partake in the lucrative import of fuels; falsifying delivery notes of said refined fuels in order to receive greater government subsidies; deliberately restricting the country’s power generation capacity in order to benefit from the importation of generators (which must be run on imported fuel); theft of half-eaten sandwiches and opened drink containers from the office fridge; tinkering with fuel gauges at petrol stations to sell customers short; conspiring with company drivers to issue false receipts indicating more fuel was supplied than actually was; supplying counterfeit safety equipment; falsifying certificates related to professional competence (e.g. rope access work); paying employees less than stipulated in their contract (or not at all); cloning satellite TV cards, meaning the legitimate user gets their service cut off when the other card is in use (the cards are cloned by the same people who issue the genuine cards); the list is literally endless. There is no beginning or end to corruption in Nigeria, it is a permanent fixture.Nepotism is rife: family members are employed and promoted before anyone else. Outright theft is rife: from a pen lying on a desk, to billions from the state coffers. Dishonesty is rife: from the state governors to the street urchin, lying to enrich yourself is the norm. You name the scam, it is being done in Nigeria. Eventually, nothing surprises you.As I said before, you’ll find such practices everywhere, but to nowhere near the extent found in Nigeria.Apparently it wasn’t always like this. There was a time, probably from around the 1970s to 1990s, when Nigeria had a reasonably diverse economy. Besides the oil and gas, they had agriculture, manufacturing and assembly (Peugeot set up an assembly plant in Nigeria in the mid-1970s), brewing (there is a both a Guinness and a Heineken brewery), refining, construction, and pharmaceuticals. Some of these survive today. There were decent universities, and students wishing to graduate had to apply themselves. Security wasn’t much of a concern to the average citizen.I don’t know the details, but at some point in the 1990s one of the military dictators decided to flood the place with oil money in order to buy support. This had the effect of drowning every other form of enterprise and ensuring that oil and gas was the only game in town. This is bad in itself, but by no means unique to Nigeria. What was worse is that this quickly instilled a mentality across Nigeria that there was a lot of money up for grabs, and getting your hands on it wasn’t in any way related to honest efforts or applying yourself to something constructive. Nigeria became a place where if you’re not getting your hands on some of the oil money, either directly or indirectly, then you’re going nowhere. With oil money washing over the whole country like a tidal wave, soon everyone was trying to secure their own piece of the action, using fair means or foul. Imagine throwing a huge box of sweets into a playgroup shouting “Grab what you can!”, and the chaos that ensues will be similar to what happened to Nigeria on a national scale.At least, this is what I gather happened – I may be wrong – but for sure, the current situation reflects what I’ve described. The economy is funded almost exclusively from oil and gas revenues, and everything else is merely feeding off that. The new hotels in Lagos, the growth of capital city of Abuja, the importation of luxury goods, the Audi and Porsche dealerships, the sky-rocketting real estate prices, the money earmarked for infrastructure projects, the increase in flight passengers, all of it is directly or indirectly linked to the oil money. Okay, maybe there is some hyperbole in there. Agriculture still makes up the lion’s share of GDP, and the services sector is booming. Advertising is a big industry in Lagos, although the most common thing you see advertised is advertising space. But nobody is going to get anywhere herding cattle, picking pineapples, or working in a sawmill. Even the owners won’t be earning that much, not if that’s their only income. There is very little opportunity to get rich, or even advance, unless you are somehow connected to the supply of oil money.One of the results of this national free-for-all is the formation of groups, societies, associations, and unions whose raison d’être is to obtain as much money and benefits for their members as possible. This isn’t much different from Europe in respect of trade unions, but groups and subgroups form at micro-levels with sometimes comical precision. The Lagos Association of Road Maintenance Engineers, Roundabout and Lay-by Division, 4th Department. The Nigerian Association of Water Truck Drivers, Lagos Chapter. Membership of one or more of these associations is both essential and compulsory: essential because an individual would get trampled very quickly in the general melee of Nigeria, and compulsory in the sense that you have almost no chance of being allowed to quietly ply your trade without paying dues to some group or other. It’s not clear what the legal standing of a lot of these groups is, but it’s often hard to tell how they differ from a standard extortion racket. One of the most powerful unions in Lagos, the transport union, used to shake down any okada (motorcycle taxi) driver passing through their checkpoints, claiming the money was used “to protect them from the police”. I doubt the money was used in such a manner, but people do need protection from the police in Lagos. Not that the okada drivers had any say in the matter: membership was automatic, and the union muscle would beat any non-compliant driver or confiscate his vehicle. The power of the oil and gas workers unions is legendary, ensuring their members enjoy pay and benefits which are the highest of any local staff in the world, and often outstrip those of the expatriates.This in itself might not be so damaging, but ubiquitous to all competing factions is a rapacity the likes of which I doubt can be found anywhere else on such a scale. There is a culture so prevalent that it is a defining characteristic of Nigeria whereby no amount is ever enough, and no sum too small to be pilfered. There comes a point in the career of most people who have gotten rich, either legitimately or otherwise, where they stop chasing the small stuff and are only interested in adding to their pile if the increase will be substantial. The police chief of a sizeable Thai resort town has his fingers in many pies, but he’s not interested in shaking down street vendors. His minions might in order to supplement their salaries, but generally once the boss has his cut of most of the action, he’s not interested in sweeping up every last baht. As a result, commerce can continue relatively unmolested. The same is roughly true amongst the Sheikhs of the Middle East. Bung the Crown Prince a few million for the contract, and he’ll allow the project activities to go ahead pretty freely. He’s not interested in making an extra $10k by insisting you hire his brother’s lorry fleet to transport the gravel. Such restraint may also be practical: the dodgy official in the UK isn’t going to be interested in taking pennies if he risks getting fired or going to jail, he’ll have a minimum price he’ll work for.But Nigeria has the same problem I saw in Russia: an almost pathological insistence of securing for yourself 100% of everything that is available, and not a kopek or kobo less. I have observed before that Russians would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something, and the same is true – but on a far greater scale – in Nigeria. The inequality in Nigeria is horrific. The middle-classes are tiny, those who are neither stinking rich nor mired in poverty. As it happens, most of the Nigerians I worked with fell into this category: lucky enough to have well-paying jobs, but not ordering Porsche Cayennes for each family member. Statistically, almost all Nigerians are dirt poor. A very few are stinking rich. Again, a manageable problem in itself, but the rich haven’t finished yet. Indeed, they’re only just getting started. I spoke to a couple of Angolans in a seminar once, and they said that although their ruling classes had enriched themselves immeasurably, they were at least spending some money on the country, and improvements were noticeable. The reason the Russians accept with a shrug the siloviki helping themselves to millions is because they (rightly) feel this is inevitable and – more importantly – life is actually improving in Russia and has been doing so since they came to power. Sure, it’s a slow improvement and life is still hard, but they are at least moving in the right direction (for how long is a discussion for another post). There have been improvements in infrastructure in Russia, the new Sheremetovo airport to name one example.By contrast – and I challenge any Nigerian reading this to disagree – there have been no discernible improvements in Nigeria in the past decade (outside of Abuja, where all the politicians happen to live). http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/?p=1734

Dangote Abeg oooooo.take your Cement Haulage to our Waters and Rail.Dangote leave our roads alone

In the voice of FELA #I.T.T#I.T.T#I.T.T#I.T.T.International Thief Thief.International Rogue

[quote author=Leebeedo]Nigeria is doomed! I live and work in Lafia and I want to give u guys a full gist of what really happened.
Everything boils down to 2015 gubernatorial race. The Egon people said they are tired of been ruled by foreigners (i.e migrants from Maiduguri) which the current governor Umaru Tanko Almakura and the emir of Lafia are and so they’ve started preparing for 2015 elections. The militia group actually recruited youths but they never did it forcefully, Egon youths voluntarily enlisted themselves because we never heard of such occurrence @ the church (Egons are predominantly Christians, say 98%). Sometimes, we see the militia group matching around Lafia peacefully with their black uniform not disturbing anyone or causing mayhem and even sometimes, we see their leader drive around his SUV robed with all sort of charms and we laughed.
The governor got scared because of the growing strength of the militia and even attacked them severally through Fulani herdsmen, they even killed a Fulani herdsman close to my house early this year.
The governor’s second shot was through the emir. He invited the chief priest to his palace and tried to charm him but the chief priest defeated him and it was even rumoured that the emir was dead that period. (RUMOUR)
Discovering that he couldn’t succeed with his Fulani herdsmen and the emir strategy, he decided to use the police, SSS and civil defence guys through the commissioner of police, one stupid Yoruba man that doesn’t know his job and really good at driving around Lafia with his dead BMW disturbing with siren sound. The commissioner fell for it and he sent his boys to arrest the chief priest of the militia. They claim to have gone there peacefully to arrest him, but ask why they went with machine guns. The killed some of the militia guys but the militia wiped them all, just about 6 of them escaped. I don’t think the militia group used guns because I went to the hospital where they deposited their remains (Dalahatu Specialist Hospital at Shendam road) and I saw deep cutlass cuts on them and I also saw stuffs like blue powder on them, they were burnt and were over 100 in number. Immediately this happened, the governor ran to Abuja and later ran to kano probably to meet with the emir. The commissioner cried all through but many don’t know why he cried. It’s because he’s to retire in 2 months’ time but now will likely face dismissal.
The candidate egons want to put forward is Solomon Ewugha (not sure of the spelling)

It seems by this account that the traditionalist was right in his account of the events that took place.

Nigerian president is 'squeezing the life out of our country'
Goodluck Jonathan is more interested in retaining power and accumulating wealth than truly tackling terror and corruption

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images
Salisu Suleiman for Nigerians Talk, part of the Guardian Africa Network

There is a joke about a morgue attendant who was so used to seeing dead bodies that one day, when a supposedly dead body started twitching, his response was, "this is the morgue, not the emergency room". He promptly smothered the twitching body until it was well and truly dead. "That's more like it", he said, as he sat down to guard the cabinet full of dead bodies and to wait for new arrivals.
In many ways, the way Goodluck Jonathan has handled the affairs of Nigeria since becoming president can be likened to that of the morgue attendant. And worse still, Nigeria under his administration has grown to become a vast, sprawling mortuary where deaths and dead bodies do not seem to matter at all. In the aftermath of Jonathan's visit to Maiduguri, the trouble northern city under attack by Boko Haram, in security operatives reportedly dumped about 70 bodies at the morgue, up from the daily average of 10 or 20.
Like the morgue attendant in the story, when about two years ago, the Borno state Elders Forum met the president and asked him to order the withdrawal of troops from Maiduguri to enable them take a different approach against the jihadist group, Jonathan flatly refused. In the two years since, how many more lives have been needlessly lost in the fighting? His attitude seems to be, "I'd rather preside over dead bodies than save lives".
Accepted, Jonathan took over a country that was severely distressed. But what is the job of the president? For someone who has spent the last 14 years in power at the state and federal levels, the excuse that he is still studying the situation is one of the lamest apologies in political history. Either deliberately or inadvertently, like the morgue attendant, Jonathan's actions and inactions all seem geared towards killing Nigeria off once and for all.
Why was it that when he was eventually shamed into visiting northern Borno and Yobe states by opposition governors, his response to calls for an amnesty for Boko Haram was, "We can't grant amnesty to ghosts". Within a week of his mindless retort, another 25 Nigerians had been blown to smithereens in Kano. Since he can't grant amnesty to ghosts, perhaps, he can grant amnesty to dead bodies?
Incidentally, more and more Nigerians are beginning to suspect that the deteriorating security situation may be more than the handiwork of Boko Haram. More than ever, there are growing fears that some, if not many of the attacks attributed to Boko Haram may be the work of other "ghosts" beyond the militants, whose ultimate objective may be to divide Nigerians further along ethnic and religious lines for political advantage. The very nature and timing of some of the attacks on churches and some ethnic groups lend credence to that supposition.
Is this the same Jonathan who told us on his inauguration that, "Today, our unity is firm, and our purpose is strong, our determination unshakable. Together, we will unite our nation and improve the living standards of all our peoples whether in the north or in the south; in the east or in the west. Our decade of development has begun. The march is on. The day of transformation begins today. We will not allow anyone exploit differences in creed or tongue, to set us one against another?"
Perhaps, Nigerians should not be surprised at what Jonathan has become. From the supposedly timid state governor and vice president, we now have one of the most calculating and thick-skinned leaders, totally deaf to criticism. The only thing on his mind seems to be to retain power beyond 2015 while allegedly helping friends and cronies accumulate wealth. After all, when he was asked about politicians declaring their assets in public, he said: "The issue of public asset declaration is a matter of personal principle. That is the way I see it, and I don't give a damn about it, even if you criticise me from heaven."
Which is why the condemnations of the pardon he granted to Diepreye Alamiesegha, a former state governor who stole millions of dollars and jumped bail in the UK after disguising himself in as a woman, are likely to fall on deaf ears. It is why, even with a daily income of $224 million, Nigerians are among the poorest people on earth. It's why we have 68 million people unemployed; why Nigeria is the most corrupt nation in the world and why studies show that a child would be off being born in Somalia, Mali, Chad, South Sudan and other war-ravaged countries than in Nigeria.
Jonathan's well-paid and ill-mannered army of internet and media warriors may sing his praises to high heavens and work hard to distort any discourse about the woeful failures of their paymaster, but they cannot hide the fact that, under Jonathan, Nigeria has become a vast mortuary where death and tragedy are routine. And like the morgue attendant, the president seems intent on smothering all remaining signs of life.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/02/nigeria-jonathan-boko-haram

I think a lot has to be done to re-educate Nigerians.The same thinking behind the thought that pagans are responsible for our under-development is the same as that blaming demons for our poor power system.Failure has many excuses.

And all the Custom duty waivers given to some churches should be cancelled and those duties recalled,you cannot be asking for duty waiver for Jeeps and other luxury Goods.I think it is time for the senate to assume the power to grant waivers to themselves and not the president.this would make it more difficult and would most likely be in the open with the senators.Custom waivers is one of the methods perfected by some unscrupulous "pastropreneurs" to bled our system.How can a pastor be given a custom waiver for a Jeep and other luxury goods

Our present personal income tax act does not exempt pastors or other church workers who earn salary from Pay-As-You Earn('PAYE') tax which is meant to be collected by the various state government.The Church are also mandated by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and Corporate Affairs Commission to file their Annual audited accounts.We should separate the church from the pastors.State government should intensify efforts to collect PAYE tax from the staffs of Church and their audited accounts should be published and given to the members of the Church.Church members are also stakeholder in the Church of God.There is no need to tax the Church tithes and offerings.

Breaking the Dynasties of Poverty in Nigeria

By Chukwuma Charles Soludo

Poverty is the summary measure of the state of well-being of a people, and hence the effectiveness of governance. Embedded in the measurement of poverty are such variables as income, education, employment, and access to basic necessities of life such as housing, clothing, food, water, etc. Breaking the vicious circle of poverty and inequality vis-a-vis insecurity, low savings - low investment and low and fragile growth traps constitute a central concern of public policy. In Nigeria, most people can FEEL the poverty burden - on the streets and the high level of dependency. A deepening crisis which receives little attention is the breakdown of the social ladder, values, and networks traditionally used in our society to climb out of poverty. Poverty is consequently becoming an inheritance - a dynasty - whereby the children of the poor will, in all likelihood, end up poor. Increasingly, the rich won’t be able to sleep because the hungry and angry poor are awake!


If the statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on the state of poverty in Nigeria in 2010 and 2011 at 69% and 72% respectively are correct, then there is a state of emergency. The previous poverty survey in 2004 put the index at 54% and by 2011 it has jumped to 72% despite an average 7% annual growth of income, said to be led by non-oil sector (largely agriculture where the majority of the poor are). No other comparable oil exporting country has a similar record. If the numbers are correct, Nigeria would not only miss the MDG goal in 2015 but would probably hold the world record as the country which rather than reduce poverty by half, actually almost doubled it. All these despite the plethora of public interventions to reduce poverty, including NAPEP and MDG funds!


From the NBS result, much of the Northern Nigeria is still in a poverty trap, although the rate of worsening poverty has slowed down. An interesting puzzle is the South, (especially the South-east which previously had the lowest poverty rate) but now shown to be on a high speed lane in the race to the bottom to catch up with the North. While poverty is declining elsewhere in the world, the states in Nigeria are reported to be competing to see which one wins the trophy as the poorest state.


I have decomposed the relative contributions of each state and geo-political zone to the worsening poverty, using the NBS figures, and the results for the zones are: North-central (4.7%); North-east (10.2%); North-west (15.6%); South-east (37%); South-south (14.3%); and South-west (18%). In total, the 19 Northern states contributed about 30%, while the 17 states in the South contributed 70% of the deterioration in the national poverty index. At the state level, the five states with the worst deterioration (in percentages of deterioration compared to 2004) are: Anambra (238%); Bayelsa (189%); Abia (185%); Oyo (152%); and Enugu (132%). The states with the most improvement in reducing poverty (percentages of improvement) are: Niger (32%), Kogi and Jigawa (17%); Kwara (13%), Kebbi (10%), and Lagos (7%). The full results show that compared to 2004, poverty worsened dramatically in all Southern states except Lagos in 2010, whereas in the North, it worsened in 11 out of the 19 states. A very interesting symmetry is the fact that except for Adamawa and Zamfara States, every state where poverty declined in the 2004 survey, it increased in 2010 and vice versa. Can this be true or a typo? The statistics are quite intriguing. To be honest, I have serious reservations about the NBS figures. As I argued in an earlier article, the flaws are so much that neither the arithmetic nor the economics makes sense. The NBS needs help to give Nigeria credible national income and social statistics.


If the figures are correct, they raise a very important issue pertaining to the size of government spending and poverty. Interestingly, some of the states that spent the most money also had very high deterioration in poverty between 2004 and 2010: Ogun (117%), Edo (119%), Imo (109%), Rivers (101%) and Akwa Ibom (80%). The results challenge the thinking in some quarters that the more money states have, the more likely they are to reduce poverty. They also raise issues about value for money spending in the states as well as the composition of the expenditure. These and the issue of how we measure performance are issues for another day.


While we can dispute the exact figures or their distribution, what is not disputable is that there is pervasive poverty in the land. Many factors determine poverty but we focus on three: size of the household, educational level, and occupation of the head of household. The least educated are likely to be in the informal sector or peasant agriculture with low income, and probably with a large family size. It is shown in Nigeria that 90% of households whose family size exceeds 10 are in poverty. It is not difficult to see why some parts of the country are trapped in poverty. To escape the trap, our political and religious leaders must have the courage to educate the people that the number of wives and children anyone decides to have is a choice, and not destiny. If you have children that you cannot train in school, you have condemned them and perhaps their own children to a life of poverty. In one of the organisations I worked, I was told of a driver who had 32 children. Clear and sensible population policy as well as a credible programme for demographic transition can no longer be ignored.
For the large army of people eking a living in the informal sector and peasant agriculture with very low productivity and incomes, public policy must explicitly target them. Productivity per hectare of land is very low in Nigeria. While aiming to raise the productivity of the existing peasant farmers, Nigeria needs a long-term strategy of transition from peasant agriculture to commercial farming. Most of the existing, ad hoc skill acquisition centres do not work well, and cannot reach many in need.


The key to sustained poverty reduction is access to opportunities by all. Access to qualitative education is the foundation and provides the social ladder that enables the children of the poor to break out of the cyst. In my primary school at Nigercem Nkalagu, I was in the same class with the children of the General Manager of Nigercem. For the secondary school and university education, we were in class with children of the super rich and taught by the same teachers. Most successful people I know today had humble beginnings and the only magic that happened in their lives was access to qualitative education as well as opportunities to demonstrate their talent. In that world, if the children of the poor were more brilliant and hard working, they had a chance of doing better in life than children of the rich. Not anymore! Today, the children of the rich would be in elite private schools or abroad, while the others are condemned to a bleak future in the collapsed public schools.


My estimate is that the poorest 40 per cent of our population (which NBS says are also food poor), with their children in the poorest of schools, if any, are getting a raw deal, and their children will likely end up in poverty. A vicious circle ensures, thereby creating dynasties of poverty. The middle group which manages to enter the largely public higher institutions end up with estimated 60% being unemployable because of the poor quality of education. With no structural diversification of the economy, the labour market is tightening relative to the supply of labour force from our youthful population, and hence very high unemployment. A tiny one or two per cent are able to offer their children world class education abroad. We are creating multiple enclaves of Nigerians, with the hungry, angry but rugged bottom 40% on the one hand, and the ‘managing to get by’ middle as well as the upper, elitist but fragile top likely on a collision course.


One of the consequences of the oil resource curse in Nigeria is the creation of a culture of easy money, with no correlation between effort and reward. Everyone sees hundreds with no daytime jobs ‘making it’, and no one cares to ask what you do for a living. The millions excluded must survive one way or another. A sizeable number are now engaged in the underground speculative and criminal economy including prostitution, kidnapping, armed robbery, 419 scams, oil bunkering, drug trafficking, smuggling; dealership in fake and substandard products; etc. As the informal sector, especially trading shrinks, millions (largely uneducated) are migrating to all parts of the world and Africa in search of ‘opportunities’. Social networks based on kinship and trust, especially in business, are also breaking down. Without trust, most of the interventions to help the poor, including non-collaterised loans, break down.


Perhaps a more dangerous development is the poverty of the mind especially among the bottom 40%, and the impact of religion in keeping them down. I was brought up to ‘work and pray’. In my secondary school, some of us had on the cover of our notebooks the quote by Albert Einstein that “genius (success) is 1% inspiration (luck) and 99% perspiration (hard work)”. Another popular quote we had was: “success is when preparation meets with opportunity”. When I mentor young ones, I emphasise three keywords: focus, hard work, and prayer. Especially among the trapped 40%, and increasingly also among the ‘educated’, people now want opportunity without preparation.


Success is seen to be all about ‘luck’ and no personal responsibility in terms of effort. No wonder there is a boom of all kinds of spiritual and religious groups promising ‘miracles’, and there is a booming clientele. If the promises of instant miracles don’t materialise, the clergy will see visions for their ‘captives’ about some relatives or friends who have ‘taken their luck’. A friend of mine in the oil and gas sector told me an interesting story. For several years during Christmas, he would buy rice and kill cows to share to the destitute in his village, as well as give scholarships and credit for micro entrepreneurs. After some time, he noticed that the number that came dwindled dramatically. He was happy and thought that it was an indication that less number of people needed help. It took a courageous close relative of his to tell him that the reason was that people said that he was ‘collecting their luck’ through his philanthropy, and that was why he was a successful oil magnate. I have heard several such stories. The import of this is that private charity will decline. How do you get millions with this kind of mindset to work their way out of poverty? Our imams and pastors have to help us with this!


Nigeria suffers from an illusion of affluence. We are a poor nation. The proposed Federal Government budget for 2013 comes to about $180 per Nigerian. There is a whole lot that government can and should do to break the poverty traps. But there is a lot more that the society must do. Perhaps a national summit to focus on this emergency is the starting point!

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Nigeria is a soulless Nation.A nation that tolerates murder in the name of fighting terrorism.The terrorist we all created and sustained by tolerating injustice and extreme poverty.

Statistics is been thoroughly abused,They should present us with all the breakdown of accidents,traffic infringement,robbery and others in Lagos for some years,and allow us do our analysis.not quoting percentage.

This guy is a clown.I can't stop laughing.

The more laws, the less justice. ~ Cicero

Who are in this government ministries do they do their due diligence before engaging on an assignment.So a potential investor would pay money first to confirm whether his potential business partners in Nigeria exist or not.

NIgerians Let us hear the cry of the poor.these policies are catalyst for serious wahala in the future


PROVERBS 31:9: "Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy."

PROVERBS 31:9: "Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy."

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged


"JUDGE NOT, LEST YE BE JUDGED" is often quoted by THE HYPOCRITES to those who PUBLICLY OPPOSE SIN.

Let's look at the passage in its context:

MATTHEW 7:1-5:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull the mote out of thine eye; and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Clearly, it is hypocritical judgment that this Scripture condemns. (Look at verse 6, and 13-15 to see that Christ actually instructs them to make judgments!) A hypocritical judgment is judging something for something of which you are also guilty - LIKE TELLING ME NOT TO JUDGE WHEN YOU ARE JUDGING ME! This passage means the opposite of what hypocrites often interpret it to mean! Jesus' point is for hypocrites to pluck the beam of sin out of their own eye so that they can see clearly to cast the mote out of their neighbor's eye.

Let's look at some other Scriptures...

JOHN 7:24: "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

LUKE 12:57: "Yea, and why not even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?"

PSALM 37:30: "The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment."

PROVERBS 31:9: "Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy."

LUKE 17:3: "Take heed... If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him."

LEVITICUS 19:15-17: "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him."

EZEKIEL 22:2 & 23:36: "Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations... The Lord said moreover unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? Yea, declare unto them their abominations."

ISAIAH 58:1: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins."

MATTHEW 3:2,7: John the Baptist preaching, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

MATTHEW 23: Jesus publicly rebuked the hypocrites, "Woe unto you... hypocrites!...ye blind guides...fools...full of extortion and excess...whited sepulchres...full of hypocrisy and iniquity...Woe unto you...Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"

ACTS 7:51: Deacon Stephen said to the mob that ended up stoning him, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." (Read the whole chapter - No fear-of-man patty cake here!)

ACTS 13:10: The Apostle Paul says to a man who hindered the Gospel, "O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?"

ACTS 8:20-23: Here the Apostle Peter severely rebukes a baby Christian who commits one sin: "Thy money perish with thee... Thy heart is not right in the sight of God.Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitter-ness, and in the bond of iniquity."

I CORINTHIANS 2:15; 6:2-3: "He that is spiritual judgeth all things... Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?"

JOHN 3:18-19: "He that believeth on Him (JESUS) is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already,because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

JOHN 12:48: JESUS CHRIST said, "He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day."

***It is God that sets the standard and passes the judgment. We simply pass on the information.

No man has any right to define what is right and wrong - ONLY God! Those who reject God's laws and judgments and trust in their own judgments are the ones guilty of judging in the worst sense of the word. For example, the person that says premarital sex is okay is judging just as much as the person who says it is sin. What right do you have to judge another human being? (It works both ways.) God is the ultimate Judge, and it is up to us to submit unto His judgments. The Psalmist said,

"With my lips have I declared all the judgments of THY mouth." (Psalm 119:13) Whose judgments do you declare?

“BISHOP” OYEDEPO AND THE REST OF US

BY EDDIE IROH, Email: eddie.iroh@thisdaylive.com

Before I say another word in this article, let me quickly state that I have already put my neck on the chopping block for the guillotine, slipped a hangman’s noose round my neck, and tied myself to the stake ready for the firing squad. I say this in acknowledgement of the fact that when you dare to raise issues with a Nigerian’s religion, ethnic group or political allegiance, however valid your facts or the argument, you might as well be ready for all of the above. For when issues pertaining to these arise, you quickly realise that the Nigerian person is probably the most emotive of all of God’s creations. As even the celebrated Chinua Achebe has recently found to his probable chagrin with the publication of his new book, even the “well educated” and “learned” Nigerian throws intellect out of the window, opens the door wide for primordial sentiments and, quite pitifully, he or she will not provide a superior argument to thump yours. Very often, abuse and insult, the resort of the intellectual scoundrel, are proffered in place of sound reasoning.

But as Igbo people will say, you do not chicken out of a battle just because people can get killed in action. Besides as writers and journalists, if we worried about the bruising our ego would suffer, among other consequences, we would be failing in our commitment to truth and a better society.

Anyone who has read the expose carried in the British Mail on Sunday newspaper on October 21, cannot but shudder at what the paper had to say about “Bishop” David Oyedepo and how his Winners’ Chapel ministry had stretched its tentacles to the United Kingdom and into the wallets of its British congregation which is made up of largely African and Caribbean under--class. The article stated that Oyedepo’s UK church, run by his son David Oyedepo Junior, had “exploited its British congregation” to the tune of more than £4 million in 2010 alone; nearly double its takings the year before.

The writer estimated Oyedepo’s personal wealth at a little under £100 million. The paper carried photographs of Oyedepo luxuriating in the plush cabin of one of his two private jets; it showed him in the notorious photograph in which he was alleged to have slapped a young girl in his church who was accused of being a witch, and gave a catalogue of Oyedepo’s assets, from his Rolls Royce Phantom limousine to his business empire that includes everything from bakeries to petrol stations. The paper had infiltrated the congregation with an under-cover reporter who was able to give an eyewitness account of how church members were given envelopes with slips of paper to make donations with their debit cards in return for promises of prosperity from above.

There is probably nothing that The Mail newspaper unearthed in the Winners’ Chapel in the UK that does not happen on a larger scale in Nigeria where the church has a large following and owns a 50,000 capacity church in Ota, Ogun State. But the one significant fact here is that the newspaper categorically accused Oyedepo of “exploiting” British citizens and of “enriching” himself.

In a country where churches are given various types of concessions and considerations because they are by their nature non-profit making, any suggestion of exploitation of, and or personal enrichment from donations made by the congregation immediately attracts public condemnation and the attention of the Charities Commission, the body that oversees non-profit organisations and ensures that resources are used for the purpose for which they are intended. But because Nigeria is a moral no-man’s land, her mushrooming churches, which see Britain as rich pickings for hard currency among the hard-up immigrant Black population, fail to realise, first that Britain is not Nigeria and that Big Brother is always watching. Secondly Nigeria is not a country much loved abroad. Also Oyedepo clearly did not learn from the lessons of Matthew Ashimolowo and his own ministry which got into a similar mess in the UK some years ago.

Now there are two ways of looking at Oyedepo and the so-called ‘pastorpreneurs’, prosperity pastors who have turned their churches into commercial enterprise with themselves as the CEOs, and for which Nigeria has become as globally notorious as she is for her 4-1-9 exports. Sadly, either way you look at the Oyedepo phenomenon, the exercise is fraught with the danger of irrational and emotive attacks from the fanatics of the new wave Christian denominations who will, as I said earlier, abdicate any attempt at theological logic and resort to insults and name-calling. Notwithstanding, we have to face a few fundamental facts.

The first is that except in theocratic societies like Iran and Saudi Arabia, religion is globally regarded as a private as well as sensitive affair in which neither the state nor indeed anyone, except the adherents, have a say. The second is that when any Nigerian organisation, be it a church or a bank, extends its operations beyond our borders, it ceases be a private matter. For however you look at it, the type of adverse publicity generated by Oyedepo’s church in the UK cannot any longer be the exclusive business of David Oyedepo and his followers. It impacts on the image of Nigeria and her citizens.

The other aspect of the matter, and one for which I should put on my bullet proof vest, is the question that many of us who have witnessed the activities of these new wave churches, have shied away from asking, probably because as I said earlier religion is a sensitive affair. Nevertheless the question needs to be asked: What is the theological agenda of Oyedepo and his fellow ‘pastorpreneurs’? Are they businessmen and millionaires or are they followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man who had “no place to lay his head;” who rode not on a gold-plated chariot or white stallion, but a donkey, the lowest form of transport of his age? One has to ask, which Christ are we following, the one that commanded his apostles:”You have received without paying, so give without being paid”? As pastors and priests, are we following in the footsteps of the apostles who “left everything” and followed Jesus? Are we following in the example of Peter, the first apostle, who, before he healed the lame at the entrance to the synagogue, declared “silver or gold [or private jets] have I not, but that which I have I give to you...”and what he had was the power to say “...in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Are we preaching prosperity of the pocket or of the spirit?

As I was working on this article, I stumbled on a posting on the internet which read: “If your pastor is not telling you to be prepared for the rapture but always preaching about prosperity, you are in danger.” Dare I say then that many Nigerian Christians are in danger when our sermon consists of how the congregation can improve their socio-economic status through “giving to the Lord” [conveniently citing the widow’s mite]; when we equate the Lord’s treasury with the bank account of the pastor, are we preaching the gospel of Christ or exploiting the economic woes of the down-trodden?

Of course there is little question that the cottage industry which the Pentecostal faith has become in Nigeria grew with the severe economic hardship of the military dictatorships of the 80’s. Clearly, the pastors quickly spotted a lucrative opportunity: the preachment of prosperity would resonate with the impoverished population; never mind that many of the preachers knew little or nothing about true religion. Indeed a research carried out by the defunct NEXT on Sunday newspaper two years ago claimed that many of “the Pentecostal clergy are equipped with no more than six months of Bible college in America”. As if to prove this point, a few weeks later, I watched one of the leading ‘pastorpreneurs’ in Lagos say on television that “the original sin was sexual intercourse”! But the fact is that in these churches, money is the centre of sermons and worship; God becomes a money-doubler, and religion is used in the manner a drunkard uses a lamp post – more for support than illumination.

Sadly the majority of the exploited poor may not read this article. One such person who will not is Peter. In search of deliverance from poverty Peter attended his local Pentecostal church in Ikeja recently. The pastor cajoled his congregation into giving all they had “to the Lord,” reminding them about the “widow’s mite.” Peter gave all N200 in his pocket “to the Lord”. After the service, Peter was desolately trudging home when he saw “the Lord” cruising past him in his brand new Toyota Land Cruiser.

Peter many not afford to buy this paper; but his Pastor can. And I hope it will give him an opportunity to re-examine the real mission of his ministry.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/-bishop-oyedepo-and-the-rest-of-us/129367/

Being a Nigerian pastor is easy. If this were a book, it will probably be a best-seller because of the spate at which churches spring up at the slightest opportunity in Nigeria. Opportunities are vast and since Nigerians need something to believe in, this “trade” will always sell…. At least, till Jesus comes!

The following are steps to follow to be a Nigerian pastor. If these steps are followed religiously, you will not only become rich, you will become extremely powerful. You will be worshiped, adored and people will fall over themselves to get your attention. Politicians will fall on their knees and beg you to lay hands on them! Yes! You will be that powerful.

1. It doesn’t matter what you were or used to be, it doesn’t matter that you used to be an armed robber, an advance fee fraud expert, a cult lord, a drug pusher or even a rapist. The fact that you used to have an evil past is a big testimony on its own. The worse your past, the more people will believe in the new you. It’s just the Nigerian thing. We love them complicated.

2. Gather a small crowd of people. No matter how small, tell them how you went to bed the previous night and a white-clothed figure appeared to you in a vision and “called you”. Tell them you are ready to take up this clarion call. Get a big fat shiny new bible and a cassock if possible, look as calm as you can and smile at any opportunity, they will believe you. As long as no one can get the call history of how “God called you”, no one cares. They just assume he did. Again, it’s the Nigerian way of reasoning.

3. The third step is very important. Naming your church. Most pastors don’t know this, but like the caption of books and movies, the name of a church is everything. Look for a very catchy name; something that people will love to describe themselves with once they become members. Take for instance; “Oluwa Is Involved Holy Ghost Penticostal Fire Brand Ministries”…. Nice huh? Your members can call themselves “Fire Branders”. This will be printed on all merchandise from t-shirts to holy water to holy oils and sometimes, holy handkerchiefs. They won’t be really holy but well…. What’s a company without advertisement?

4. Next is building a church. Mr pastor-in-embryo, this is very very very important! You have to be very technical and innovative about this. Two vital questions are involved in building a church. They are;

i. What kind of church do you want to build? Is it a church for the rich ones or the struggling ones? (Before you say rich, money and power will come in from either ways)

ii. Do you have the funds to build a church in your area of choice? If no, how do you hope to get the funds?

Suggestions;

i. Building a church either in a rich or poor man’s environment both has its basic advantages and disadvantages. If you are thinking the rich man’s zone, then be prepared to out-do numerous competitors. It is also very capital intensive. You need an eye-popping edifice. Fully air-conditioned, comfy pews, etc. A lot of pastors-in-embryos are also thinking like you. So for you to succeed in that zone, you have to be extra-innovative. You need a basic know-how of being a Behind-queens-english-speaking kind of pastor. If you can perform a few tricks and call them miracles, voila! You stand a better chance of hitting gold and out-doing your numerous competitors.

However, if you are thinking the struggling zone, this isn’t too capital intensive, you can start from a shop, or open space or even in the one-bedroom apartment which you presently reside somewhere around Ijora-badia. All you need for a start is at least two very loud speakers, a drum-set and a fairly used piano. No matter how small your church is, you need more members who need to contribute so you move to your “permanent site”. So your loud speakers must be blaring at all times.

ii. Getting funding to start a church is important for your hustle. It’s easy. Gather a group of rich men you may know. You may think of it as a sort of consortium. Lay down your business plan and tell them how and when they will get returns on their investment. Bear in mind that these people can’t be deceived. They actually don’t care about you or even God so don’t appeal to their spiritual side because they have none. Appeal to their self-interest and I assure you that in no time, your funding will be ready. Congrats.

5. The next step is choosing your title. Being referred to as “Pastor” isn’t just good enough. Look for something bigger and more respectable like “Senior Reverend, High Bishop, Cardinal. Or even Pope. Add “Daddy or Papa” at the end of your name. Members can call you Cardinal Yabiswacko, Daddy or papa for short. Your wife must also be a Bishop and known as Mummy for short.

6. Now that your church is almost ready to take off, you need advertisement. Call on a few media houses and organize a large crusade. If your specialty is in the struggling zone, Call it something like; “Operation Your Village Witches Must Die”. Appear on television if you can. Scream and sweat profusely while on air. Let your prospective members know you mean business. Look very fiery like you can actually confront their respective village witches and move your mouth like you are speaking in tongues. On the day of the crusade, you will be amazed at the turn out. You may call it “the Lord’s doing” if you like. Some will leave after the crusade but those that stay back will form your first set of members. You can grow from there.

7. By now the church is set and has taken off, plan the organogram very well. Members of the consortium who funded the building of the church will be the “board of trustees” or “church council”. Your most trusted friend or even your wife MUST be the church treasurer. You can’t afford to trust the church funds with a stranger. This is business and should be handled with serious seriousness. Next you make a very handsome dude the choirmaster. That way pretty ladies will join the choir. You make an ex-officer or policeman the head of ushers. That way there will be orderliness. The others can take care of themselves.

8. Income: money is important and even the bible confirms same. Tithing is important so make sure 80% of your congregation are tithers. It is none of your business what business members of your congregation do as long as they pay their tithe. This people sometimes try to be smart and try to cheat god (which is you) by not declaring what they earned so you can deduct your 10%. Blackmail them. Tell them how they will spend eternity in hell for trying to cheat god. You must also be creative. Spin some success stories of people who paid god in the past and have been living happily ever after. Also tell them of people who tried to cheat god in the past and met a very terrible, brutal end. Also, collect as many offerings in a Sunday as possible. As usual, be innovative and give these offerings names such as “welfare offering” “widows offering” “missionary offering” “pastor’s welfare offering” etc. In the end, watch your ministry rise with financial power. Also, never let any opportunity pass without you taking an offering. Be it naming ceremonies, burial, baby dedication, car dedication or even okada and keke maruwa dedication.

9. Now that your ministry is growing in numbers and financial strength, the time to repay your debtors has come. Pay them off as quickly as possible. Don’t let them truncate your hustle with them hassling you for debt. Pay them off, then count your blessings. Bring up new laws in your church. Claim you saw these instructions in a vision from heaven and they must be followed to the letter or they won’t be allowed to enter the kingdom of God;

* No more inter-church marriages. Everyone must marry from within your church.

* Every family must seek spiritual guidance before doing any business, when they have dispute and permission before they have sex at home.

* No single man must approach a single woman directly, he must come to you and then you will in turn “consult with god” if they will go well together. (If the single lady is pretty and you have eyes on her, she is a no-go area of course. Tell the single man that heaven denied the transaction. He must accept his fate and look for a less good-looking woman)

* Call families randomly and tell them “thus saith the lord; that place you want to go today is dangerous. Don’t go!” Of course everyone has a place he or she should be. You will be respected and seen as the man who god talks to.

* Declare that henceforth it is a sin for anyone to remain on his feet when talking to you. They have to always be on their knees while you “lay hands” on them.

* Tell the unemployed ones to add “Spiritual son or daughter of Cardinal Yabiswacko” in their CV when looking for jobs. Tell the employed ones it is now a grave sin to employ a member of another church for a position that a member of your church is interested in. No matter how highly unqualified the latter must be.

10. Always stay on the side of the government and the authorities. The possibilities are limitless! So to achieve this, always tell your congregation never to criticize the government, tell them to always pray for the government no matter how poorly it treats them. Declare fasting and prayers when, for instance, the president’s wife is down with food poisoning after feeding on, say, three million naira a day. All this will turn attention your way and just hopefully you may one day become the chaplain of Aso Rock or even a certain president’s personal pastor!

11. Now that you are a big pastor, buy state of the art cars. Build yourself the kind of mansion that is waiting for you in heaven here on earth. Whenever you go out, drive on a convoy, buy yourself a private jet or two if possible because you will be needed in every part of the world and you won’t have that time to flock with mere humans who rush daily to the airports to board commercial airlines. You are a demi god and you must always carry yourself like that. Money, power and invincibility.

12. You need your congregation to always listen to you. Always be in your power and under your Mighty feet. So, as much as possible, don’t ever preach about any other thing except prosperity and winning the war against the witches and wizards in the villages. If, for instance, as the pastor, you have an opportunity to feed 5,000 people like Jesus did in the bible, don’t! You can’t afford to have your congregation so well fed for they might no longer listen to you. Simply eat a part of the bread and fish and tell them how it was sent from above. Sell it to them one after the other and see your finances rise. Don’t ever feed them! Don’t ever care about them too much! You are the god and they are your creation.

These rules have worked for many a Nigerian pastor. They may take a while to come to fruition – what lucrative venture doesn’t anyway? – but they have never failed!

I wish you all the patience and goodluck in your hustle.

http://www.ekekeee.com/how-to-be-a-nigerian-pastor-by-segun-dada/

Follow the writer on twitter @Dolusegun

chucky234: It baffles me that out of the one million registered members on NL with over two hundred thousand coming from Rivers state no one seem to know about GEJ's thesis or someone who was his former student,we get to do something right here and fast too.
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I am sure Billyonaire,Deideke and Jmaine will have better information about our loving president to share,can someone invite those three to the house pls.

I have attached below the link to the only online academic publication by our president.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/108879484/A-Joint-Academic-Publication-by-GE-Jonathan

This is a reflection of how bad our educational system has become.a PHD holder talking absolute trash.

I would rather vote for our shoeless and directionless Jonathan than vote for Sanusi.Sanusi has nothing to offer other than voodoo economics and religious extremism

The East west road between warri and PH is horrible.the contractor is too slow and disjointed in approach to the road reconstruction.Calabar to Uyo is very bad also.anytime it rains heavily the road is almost taken over by flood especially at Itu.From Ikot-Ekpene to Umuahia is also very horrible.from Umuahia to link the express to Onitsha is a disgrace.The answer is clearly C.the roads are deteriorating everyday.Benin-Ore road is still a death trap.

What are they doing with 200 brand new cars whether for hire,gift or purchased.According to the wikipedia,there are 54 recognizable sovereign states or countries in Afica.Therefore we are expecting about 54 first ladies inclusive of our first Lady.Even if you give 3 cars to each first lady( asumming one to convey the first lady,one for her personal staffs and the other for security),we would still have 38 cars left.The government has no excuse for such ostentacious and lavish lifestyle for a position that is not even recognised in the constitution.I sincerely think that the tax men should look at Coscharis transactions more carefully,I am very clear that a much sinister transaction is been consumated.

I dey laugh for chinese and korean

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi should see this the bulk of your customers("Nigerians") are illiterate and this bushman from Kano is talking about Cashless Banking

Rule for more than 4 years.It is not possible.I would never be a apart of that your plan.Please sir, you do not deserve a second term.please quietly return back to Otuoke and enjoy your presidential pensions and gratuity.