₦airaland Forum

MixedMan:
What's this Anumanu Saying?

INTROVERT:
passing by

Lordave:
GEJ was overhauling the entire system of our governmental system for proper dissemination of the dividends of democracy.

Of course, such process has no immediate positive effect, in fact, it puts a nation, society or organisation on a standstill. Yet GEJ managed to steer the country to many points of positive achievements which are becoming evident in this administration. GEJ fought a war on multiple fronts and came back with convincing results yet you lots paid him back by bullying him out of office.

Let's see how Buhari copes with GEJ'S legacy.

PassingShot:

Abimbola29:
Pls let's allow PMB and his vice to work,lets let them enjoy their tenor with peace of mind pls,we should not expect miracles to happen

PassingShot:

Abimbola29:
Pls let's allow PMB and his vice to work,lets let them enjoy their tenor with peace of mind pls,we should not expect miracles to happen

ba7man:
Ohhh....... I remember... GEJ's goodness that nearly grounded the Nation.

Or do you live in Congo??

vedaxcool:
I am at a loss that you know how to spell the word conscience, the same conscience you and your hediot taniods used to deny the chibok girls where never missing? the same conscience that praised Jonathan handling of the BH matter despite Jona's confession that he underestimated the issue? The same conscience that accepts all looted funds be left unrecovered? Haba, bros this your conscience seems to be steeped in evil waters.

Lordave:
GEJ was overhauling the entire organs, agencies and system of our government for proper dissemination of the dividends of democracy.

Of course, such process has no immediate positive effect, in fact, it puts a nation, society or organisation on a standstill. Yet GEJ managed to steer the country to many points of positive achievements which are becoming evident in this administration. GEJ fought a war on multiple fronts and came back with convincing results yet you lots paid him back by bullying him out of office.

Let's see how Buhari copes with GEJ'S legacy.

MizMyColi:

PassingShot:
FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION AND INDISCIPLINE
PMB/VPYO’s electioneering campaign was largely built on the fight against corruption and insurgency. Having succeeded in their quest to rule the nation, is it then not an absurdity to read and hear that a segment of the society is doing everything possible to thwart the efforts of the government in this regard?

As the government is poised to probe cases of high profile corruption during the last regime, Jonathan’s supporters argue that it’s either Buhari probes all past regimes starting from the military era OR he does not probe anyone. What a ridiculous way of reasoning! This is just like making a case for a captured thief on the ground that previous thieves must be caught first! When has failure to apprehend some looters become a justification to allow all looters go unpunished? Why did Jonathan fail to probe his immediate predecessor? Given what we now know about Jonathan’s administration on corruption, it is safe to conclude that he didn’t bother to probe his predecessor because he knew he was going to empty the treasury through looting as well.

Since coming of PMB/VPYO, the anti-graft agencies in Nigeria that were practically sleeping during the regime of Jonathan have suddenly woken up without being prompted. I guess they now know that stealing is now corruption as opposed to GEJ’s “stealing is not corruption”. Since June of this year, EFCC and ICPC have probably invited more public officials for questioning than they did throughout Jonathan’s regime. I understand that the fight has to go beyond inviting for questioning and releasing but we must understand that questioning these suspects is a first step in building a water-tight case against them to be used in their trial. You don’t just take people to court without proper investigation if you expect a favorable outcome.

Aside the FG’s ongoing effort to establish a framework to bring big looters of our treasury to justice, here are a few developments on war against corruption and indiscipline since June of this year:

• ICPC seizes 24 properties from three staff of Ministry of Niger Delta: The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission has seized 24 property and several cars from three civil servants with one of them having 18 properties. A document obtained from the Office of the Chairman of the ICPC, Mr. Ekpo Nta, with the title ‘Notice of Seizure of Movable and Immovable Properties Pursuant to Section 45 (4) a – (b) of the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Ac 2000, revealed that the commission seized the property from three officials of the Ministry of Niger Delta. It stated that the property was seized because they were “excessive of the emoluments of the affected officers.” Read further here http://www.punchng.com/news/anti-corruption-war-begins-%E2%80%A2-icpc-seizes-24-property-from-three-civil-servants/

• ICPC’s indictment of Okiro-led Police Service Commission on election monitoring fund: The PSC was ordered to refund N145.16 million, out of the N350 million election monitoring fund to the Federation Account. http://www.ireporteronline.com/p4502_icpc-indicts-okiro-led-psc-orders-body-to-refund-n145m

• FG appoints PwC and KPMG to audit NNPC, CBN, FIRS, DPR, NPA and others: Why I find this to be very lofty is the fact that we can now know to what extent Nigeria was looted by those responsible for managing her affairs. Before now, a similar exercise was never carried out by any government to ascertain the level of corruption and how much exactly was stolen by the thieves.

• Sealing of major depots and other filling stations engaged in sharp practices: As part of war against corruption, six major oil depots that were found selling petroleum products to filling stations at a price above government regulated price. The depots were found guilty of flagrantly disregarding the government directive that the depot price of petrol should not be above N77.66 per litre. https://www.nairaland.com/2515378/fg-shuts-ascon-integrated-mobil

• Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) through NNPC now remits to the FG what they were not remitting before now.

• Withdrawal of 130,000 police personnel attached to unauthorized persons and VIPs


REDUCTION IN COST OF GOVERNANCE AND BLOCKING OF LEAKAGES
Since PMB took over the reign of leadership, deliberate efforts have been embarked upon to reduce cost of governance and block some leakages.

Leaner Delegation: The last regime was an epitome of profligacy. We watched in surprise how Jonathan went to Canada for the G8 meeting in 2010 with over 200 delegates consisting of political jobbers and their associates. In 2013, GEJ had 600 delegates when he attended the UN General Assembly in 2013 http://saharareporters.com/2014/09/10/reuben-abati-lied-president-jonathan-did-lead-600-man-delegation-2013-un-general-assembly.

And even when public outcry forced him to reduce his delegates to the UN Assembly in September 2014, the president still managed to attend with 100 delegates as was reported by his spokesman Reuben Abati. http://thestreetjournal.org/2014/09/president-jonathan-leads-100-delegates-to-un-assembly-leaves-wife-behind-in-england/ What those senseless huge entourages cost Nigeria is better imagined. If the wailers wanted sane people to believe that PMB spent N2.2bn on 34 delegates to USA, they must agree that Jona spent trillion of naira for his ineffective large delegates.

When the president attended the G7 meeting he had twenty persons on his entourage http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2015/06/07/buhari-lands-g7-summit-with-fashola/ and when he visited president Obama, our president had only 33 persons on his team. Does anyone need a rocket scientist to analyze the savings that come with such reduction from hundreds to tens?

Cancellation of Govt’s Delegation to Hajj: He was accused severally of having the agenda to Islamize Nigeria but the same man has cancelled the FG’s sponsorship of delegates for annual Hajj pilgrimage. The move is reported to have saved about $ 1 million and N30 million in local expenses. An analytical mind can easily understand that the money saved by this step can be directed towards providing economic benefits to the citizens. http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/188162-nigerian-govt-to-save-1million-from-2015-hajj.html

Termination of Pipeline Surveillance Contract: One of the ways Jonathan used to distribute our “yams” to his “goats” (hope you know GEJ’s Yam and Goat theory) was to give statutory duties of some of our security agencies to his cronies including the ethnic militia and in the process deny our security agencies funding for equipment to carry out their functions. Jonathan’s penchant for wastefulness resulted in giving multi-billion naira contracts to militants (Gani Adams, Tompolo, Asari Dokubo, Tom Ateke, etc) to guard our crude pipelines and waterways while maintain their loyalty to him. Unfortunately, this divide-and-rule tactic did not prevent Nigeria from losing about N155 billion monthly (according to Ngozi Iweala, the former Finance Minister) to crude theft and also failed to stop pipeline vandalism.

To block such wastage, our amiable PMB has rightly terminated the contract and directed armed military personnel to take over the security of the facilities from the operatives as reported here http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/06/govt-terminates-ethnic-militia-pipeline-surveillance-contract/ .http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/sunday/index.php/top-stories/19991-multi-billion-naira-nnpc-contracts-create-tension-in-ex-militants-camps

Since termination of these contracts, we now hear less report of pipeline vandalism and it has contributed to the improvement in power supply. Could it be that the militants contracted to prevent vandalism were actually responsible for the destruction?

To put it succinctly, reduction in cost of governance and blocking of leakages have resulted in:

I) Increase in Nigeria’s Foreign Reserves: Jonathan met $47.7bn in our foreign reserve in 2009 and despite that crude sold for upward of $100 per barrel for a good period of his tenure, our reserves witnessed depletion and the man left it at $29.1bn in May 2015. What they did with the money remains a mystery.

Despite that crude price has continued to decline during PMB’s tenure, our foreign reserve is witnessing steady growth due largely to blocking of loopholes by the current administration and stood at almost $32bn as at July 7th, 2015. This is an impressive addition of about $3bn in less than two months! Hear Emefiele the CBN Governor on the foreign reserves: “I must use this opportunity to commend the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari for his dogged approach in seeing that all loopholes are blocked." http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/emefiele-nigeria-s-external-reserves-now-31-89-billion/214192/

II) Increase in allocations to states due to more prudent management of resources: It is somewhat surprising that there has been increase in cash to states from the federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) despite reduction in Nigeria’s gross earnings.

According to Business Day newspaper, “the unexplained rise at a time of a continued fall in international crude oil prices left many analysts wondering but investigation by BusinessDay has showed that the transparent reporting method imposed by the two-month old Buhari administration meant that revenues that were hitherto unaccounted for, had to be brought into the collective pool for sharing. The total disbursable fund for June amounted to N539bn or $2.71bn, up by 32 per cent from the level for May. http://businessdayonline.com/2015/08/cash-going-to-states-from-faac-rising-on-fear-of-buhari/#.Vck2F4Eo7qA In July, N511bn was shared by the various govts. Compare these two figures to the N388bn and N409bn that was available for sharing in April and May 2015.

There is no doubt that as time goes on, prudent management of our resources will translate to having more money available to prosecute more projects for the government.

Another action that blocks leakage is the cancellation of Offshore Processing Agreement and SWAP contracts that was used to shortchange NNPC and FG. http://dailytimes.com.ng/buhari-terminates-oil-swap-agreements/

Sincere9gerian:
For many other Nigerians, it's been 100 wasted days. Let's examine the sectors one after the other:

1. Fight against corruption. It's been a 100 days of fighting corruption on the pages of newspapers, no policy, no programmes and no structural institutional changes.

2. Promised public asset declaration. Buhari has failed to declare his assets publicly as promised. For a govt that is sincere on fighting corruption, this should have been a quick win. What does Buhari, a so called clean man of integrity, have to hide? If Buhari wants to be taken seriously on his fight against corruption, then he must declare his assets publicly because he that comes to equity, must come with clean hand.

3. Govt appointments. Going by the 35 appointments made so far, the Buhari govt has turned out to be the most divisive, vindictive and tribalistic ever. We're seeing the worst form of nepotism. The current national debate alone on the issue of federal appointments shows that it has never been this bad.

4. Power sector. The president said in his inaugural speech that "studies are underway to identify the quickest way to bring power to Nigerians". It seems the study is not yet over because so far, no plans, no programmes and no projects for the power sector. The power sector is on autopilot mode from what was done in the last administration.

5. Oil sector. Besides the change in leadership of NNPC, nothing more has happened in the oil sector. No projects, no policy and no programmes

6. 100 days in office and more the 5 months after being elected, still no cabinet in place. All the MDAs are on autopilot mode

7. Most federal projects are stalled. Work has stopped on Lagos-Ibadan road, Second Niger bridge and many other federal roads

8. The economy is on standstill, no finance minister, no economic policy and no direction

Nimoomosuli:
Kudos to you OP. Many Nigerians definitely prefer this new government to the last one. Jonathan and his thieving fellows are better consigned to the sorry past of our dear nation.

Sincere9gerian:
For many other Nigerians, it's been 100 wasted days. Let's examine the sectors one after the other:

1. Fight against corruption. It's been a 100 days of fighting corruption on the pages of newspapers, no policy, no programmes and no structural institutional changes.

2. Promised public asset declaration. Buhari has failed to declare his assets publicly as promised. For a govt that is sincere on fighting corruption, this should have been a quick win. What does Buhari, a so called clean man of integrity, have to hide? If Buhari wants to be taken seriously on his fight against corruption, then he must declare his assets publicly because he that comes to equity, must come with clean hand.

3. Govt appointments. Going by the 35 appointments made so far, the Buhari govt has turned out to be the most divisive, vindictive and tribalistic ever. We're seeing the worst form of nepotism. The current national debate alone on the issue of federal appointments shows that it has never been this bad.

4. Power sector. The president said in his inaugural speech that "studies are underway to identify the quickest way to bring power to Nigerians". It seems the study is not yet over because so far, no plans, no programmes and no projects for the power sector. The power sector is on autopilot mode from what was done in the last administration.

5. Oil sector. Besides the change in leadership of NNPC, nothing more has happened in the oil sector. No projects, no policy and no programmes

6. 100 days in office and more the 5 months after being elected, still no cabinet in place. All the MDAs are on autopilot mode

7. Most federal projects are stalled. Work has stopped on Lagos-Ibadan road, Second Niger bridge and many other federal roads

8. The economy is on standstill, no finance minister, no economic policy and no direction