₦airaland Forum

The comma in the middle of my headline converts it from a name to a remark or a sentence. As in prison sentence.

For I predict that by this time next year, the best-known bearer of that name, Nigeria’s former leader Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, will be serving one.

In the closing weeks of 2015, what was sometimes conveniently dismissed by his supporters as heavy criticism of Mr. Jonathan has proved to be fair. That tragedy is that he did not run a government; he ran a no-rules and no-responsibility bazaar to ennoble, and enable, the shameless privatization of Nigeria’s resources.

A case in point (and the only envelope to be opened so far): what some people now call Dasukigate: an arms-purchase scandal anchored by the National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki through which federal funds meant for arms for the military were being distributed to the well-connected.

It is unclear when and how it became the business of the NSA to purchase military armament. Nigeria’s appropriation laws and practices do not reflect that.
Scandalous, but Mr. Jonathan superintended it.

To worsen the scandal, the star of Jonathan’s cabinet, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, confirmed early in December that she had also transferred into the hands of Dasuki previously-undisclosed “new Abacha funds of about $322 million” for “urgent security operations.” It is unclear where those funds came from.

Remember: In June 2014, Liechtenstein returned $227m to Nigeria, to which Jonathan responded with a committee of cabinet to determine how it was be used. Nothing was heard of the Liechtenstein funds thereafter, but Nigerians at least knew how much was involved, where it had come from, and when it arrived.

Three months earlier in March 2014, Switzerland repatriated $380 million, bringing that country’s total Abacha loot return to over $1billion.

The point here is that until circumstances this month compelled Okonjo-Iweala’s confession, nobody had ever declared the return of “about $322 million…with another $700 million still expected.”

In various commentaries over the years, I have argued that contrary to the tale being told by government officials—especially Okonjo-Iweala—Nigeria has recouped billions of Sani Abacha dollars, with no evidence they have been used for Nigeria. The casual, and illegal, transfer to NSA Dasuki of $322 million by the tag team of Jonathan and Okonjo-Iweala demonstrates the point.

With no legal authorization of any kind, in a democracy supposedly governed by specific structures and laws, the Finance Minister gave $322m to the NSA Minister. Read her statement closely and observe how she carefully tried to steer attention away from the quality of the crime with the promise of future riches: a forthcoming $700m that would presumably not be distributed among politicians, but “applied for development programmes as originally conceived.”

But these are not the things that Mr. Jonathan was saying in the United States a week or two earlier as he marketed his “Goodluck Jonathan Foundation” at the Presidential Precinct in Virginia.

The Precinct has the potential to do a lot of good work. Managing Director Neal Piper writes: “The Precinct offers an interactive and engaging learning experience that connects leaders – allowing them to share their expertise, collaborate, and build on ideas and lessons learned here and around the globe. Our goal is for participants to learn skills that they can apply in their home countries thereby helping them reach their goals and aspirations while transforming the economies and governance where they live. The Presidential Precinct allows them to make connections that will help build their personal futures.”

You read that convoluted construction carefully, and it is clear that the mission of the Precinct is muddled up between its obligations to former leaders such as Mr. Jonathan, from whom it obtains its limelight; and its nod to future leaders, for whom it seeks its political legitimacy.

Mr. Jonathan was the wrong client, and although The Precinct said it was helping him to hone the message of the GEJ Foundation, that plan is undermined by Mr. Jonathan’s political record.

The former Nigerian leader did not tell his audience about that first envelope: Dasukigate, let alone such forthcoming envelopes as the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Transformation Agenda, Sure-P, or the broad daylight rigging back into office in Ekiti State of Governor Ayo Fayose.

Instead, and here is the video of one of the public events, he told the curious story of how, when he was young, Africa was “considered the dark continent,” a misunderstood concept he wants to change through his foundation to make it “a light, a very bright continent.”

He tells the story of his economic triumphs and how he transformed Nigeria into the biggest economy in Africa within five years on account of his reforms. “We reformed the private sector.

So many sectors. We reformed our power sector. We reformed the agricultural sector. We reformed our oil and gas sector. Our industrial sector...
Watch the video: “We involved young men and women in the private sector. We mentored them, encouraged them to set up small businesses, macro and small and medium scale enterprises in terms of light manufacturing, processing…food items, and also the service sector and it worked wonderfully well…”

“[Mentoring]…Our philosophy was that every young person that is keying to our programme in five years should be able to employ two to five others but when we started that programme under two years some of them could employ up to ten, even more…”

It is true that in April 2014, Nigeria’s economy became Africa’s largest when it was rebased to include in her GDP industries such as telecoms, airlines, film production, information technology, and online sales. None of them had anything to do with Jonathan or his policies.

On the contrary, his government’s “reform” initiatives were often betrayed by his government. Unemployment soared; power supply worsened. Stealing received Mr. Jonathan’s official stamp of approval; merit declined as a currency; his government shared out money meant for combating the insurgency in the North. His was Nigeria’s most incoherent government since 1960.

When did Mr. Jonathan implement the policies he speaks about in the video? Where are the figures to back up his claims?
In what year or in what local council area did he encourage young graduates to go into farming—a programme he claims has been so successful that doctors, engineers and lawyers have switched into it?

In his mix of misinformation and disinformation, the former Nigeria probably imagined he was in Nollywood, where fiction has no consequences.
But this is the same mindset that ruined his years in the presidency, and for which he was rejected at the polls last March.

The envelopes, please. And oh, Goodluck, Mr. Jonathan.
• sonala.olumhense@gmail.com
• Twitter: @SonalaOlumhense

Source;
http://saharareporters.com/2015/12/26/goodluck-jonathan-sonala-olumhense

GEJ

If GEJ goes down so does OBJ so does all the former PDP, ANC that are now APC etc;
Let us clean house until 9ja dey spotless!

The author is a dimwit the Abacha loot returned is what NOI is speaking of she gave Dasuki, is that rocket science?

Just like Fashola claimed in his website scandal GEJ is innocent until the judiciary system grows balls.

Watching in 3D

Gosh am tired already..

Money and figures makes my head spiral out of control...

People no deh even fear God again sef mm

enitiObanke:
The comma in the middle of my headline converts it from a name to a remark or a sentence. As in prison sentence.

For I predict that by this time next year, the best-known bearer of that name, Nigeria’s former leader Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, will be serving one.

In the closing weeks of 2015, what was sometimes conveniently dismissed by his supporters as heavy criticism of Mr. Jonathan has proved to be fair. That tragedy is that he did not run a government; he ran a no-rules and no-responsibility bazaar to ennoble, and enable, the shameless privatization of Nigeria’s resources.

A case in point (and the only envelope to be opened so far): what some people now call Dasukigate: an arms-purchase scandal anchored by the National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki through which federal funds meant for arms for the military were being distributed to the well-connected.

It is unclear when and how it became the business of the NSA to purchase military armament. Nigeria’s appropriation laws and practices do not reflect that.
Scandalous, but Mr. Jonathan superintended it.

To worsen the scandal, the star of Jonathan’s cabinet, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, confirmed early in December that she had also transferred into the hands of Dasuki previously-undisclosed “new Abacha funds of about $322 million” for “urgent security operations.” It is unclear where those funds came from.

Remember: In June 2014, Liechtenstein returned $227m to Nigeria, to which Jonathan responded with a committee of cabinet to determine how it was be used. Nothing was heard of the Liechtenstein funds thereafter, but Nigerians at least knew how much was involved, where it had come from, and when it arrived.

Three months earlier in March 2014, Switzerland repatriated $380 million, bringing that country’s total Abacha loot return to over $1billion.

The point here is that until circumstances this month compelled Okonjo-Iweala’s confession, nobody had ever declared the return of “about $322 million…with another $700 million still expected.”

In various commentaries over the years, I have argued that contrary to the tale being told by government officials—especially Okonjo-Iweala—Nigeria has recouped billions of Sani Abacha dollars, with no evidence they have been used for Nigeria. The casual, and illegal, transfer to NSA Dasuki of $322 million by the tag team of Jonathan and Okonjo-Iweala demonstrates the point.

With no legal authorization of any kind, in a democracy supposedly governed by specific structures and laws, the Finance Minister gave $322m to the NSA Minister. Read her statement closely and observe how she carefully tried to steer attention away from the quality of the crime with the promise of future riches: a forthcoming $700m that would presumably not be distributed among politicians, but “applied for development programmes as originally conceived.”

But these are not the things that Mr. Jonathan was saying in the United States a week or two earlier as he marketed his “Goodluck Jonathan Foundation” at the Presidential Precinct in Virginia.

The Precinct has the potential to do a lot of good work. Managing Director Neal Piper writes: “The Precinct offers an interactive and engaging learning experience that connects leaders – allowing them to share their expertise, collaborate, and build on ideas and lessons learned here and around the globe. Our goal is for participants to learn skills that they can apply in their home countries thereby helping them reach their goals and aspirations while transforming the economies and governance where they live. The Presidential Precinct allows them to make connections that will help build their personal futures.”

You read that convoluted construction carefully, and it is clear that the mission of the Precinct is muddled up between its obligations to former leaders such as Mr. Jonathan, from whom it obtains its limelight; and its nod to future leaders, for whom it seeks its political legitimacy.

Mr. Jonathan was the wrong client, and although The Precinct said it was helping him to hone the message of the GEJ Foundation, that plan is undermined by Mr. Jonathan’s political record.

The former Nigerian leader did not tell his audience about that first envelope: Dasukigate, let alone such forthcoming envelopes as the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Transformation Agenda, Sure-P, or the broad daylight rigging back into office in Ekiti State of Governor Ayo Fayose.

Instead, and here is the video of one of the public events, he told the curious story of how, when he was young, Africa was “considered the dark continent,” a misunderstood concept he wants to change through his foundation to make it “a light, a very bright continent.”

He tells the story of his economic triumphs and how he transformed Nigeria into the biggest economy in Africa within five years on account of his reforms. “We reformed the private sector.

So many sectors. We reformed our power sector. We reformed the agricultural sector. We reformed our oil and gas sector. Our industrial sector...
Watch the video: “We involved young men and women in the private sector. We mentored them, encouraged them to set up small businesses, macro and small and medium scale enterprises in terms of light manufacturing, processing…food items, and also the service sector and it worked wonderfully well…”

“[Mentoring]…Our philosophy was that every young person that is keying to our programme in five years should be able to employ two to five others but when we started that programme under two years some of them could employ up to ten, even more…”

It is true that in April 2014, Nigeria’s economy became Africa’s largest when it was rebased to include in her GDP industries such as telecoms, airlines, film production, information technology, and online sales. None of them had anything to do with Jonathan or his policies.

On the contrary, his government’s “reform” initiatives were often betrayed by his government. Unemployment soared; power supply worsened. Stealing received Mr. Jonathan’s official stamp of approval; merit declined as a currency; his government shared out money meant for combating the insurgency in the North. His was Nigeria’s most incoherent government since 1960.

When did Mr. Jonathan implement the policies he speaks about in the video? Where are the figures to back up his claims?
In what year or in what local council area did he encourage young graduates to go into farming—a programme he claims has been so successful that doctors, engineers and lawyers have switched into it?

In his mix of misinformation and disinformation, the former Nigeria probably imagined he was in Nollywood, where fiction has no consequences.
But this is the same mindset that ruined his years in the presidency, and for which he was rejected at the polls last March.

The envelopes, please. And oh, Goodluck, Mr. Jonathan.
• sonala.olumhense@gmail.com
• Twitter: @SonalaOlumhense

Source;
http://saharareporters.com/2015/12/26/goodluck-jonathan-sonala-olumhense

. I am temtpted to call you a big fool but I won't. Did you hear yourself reeling out figures of recovered re-invested Abacha loot, that is a function of TRANSPARENCY in governance, can you tell us JUST ONE FIGURE out of the numerous ones returned by looters directly to your messiah. You can't bc even your finance minister don't know. You can neither dispute nor controvert any of the claims made by GEJ. They are not just mere claims, they are records which cannot be erased except you want to re-write history. Your hatred for GEJ can only send you to untimely grave if you don't repent and begin to love him. He is favoured by God. If you oppose him, you come into direct confrontation with God. A word is enough for the wise. You are getting free information now bc GEJ agreed to sign the FOI bill into law. Once again, be wise.

As if all this trash would change the fact that Buhari ate from the purported loot.

Buhari has a date in jail too.

keally:
. I am temtpted to call you a big fool but I won't. Did you hear yourself reeling out figures of recovered re-invested Abacha loot, that is a function of TRANSPARENCY in governance, can you tell us JUST ONE FIGURE out of the numerous ones returned by looters directly to your messiah. You can't bc even your finance minister don't know. You can neither dispute nor controvert any of the claims made by GEJ. They are not just mere claims, they are records which cannot be erased except you want to re-write history. Your hatred for GEJ can only send you to untimely grave if you don't repent and begin to love him. He is favoured by God. If you oppose him, you come into direct confrontation with God. A word is enough for the wise. You are getting free information now bc GEJ agreed to sign the FOI bill into law. Once again, be wise.

Gerrahere mehn

keally:
. I am temtpted to call you a big fool but I won't. Did you hear yourself reeling out figures of recovered re-invested Abacha loot, that is a function of TRANSPARENCY in governance, can you tell us JUST ONE FIGURE out of the numerous ones returned by looters directly to your messiah. You can't bc even your finance minister don't know. You can neither dispute nor controvert any of the claims made by GEJ. They are not just mere claims, they are records which cannot be erased except you want to re-write history. Your hatred for GEJ can only send you to untimely grave if you don't repent and begin to love him. He is favoured by God. If you oppose him, you come into direct confrontation with God. A word is enough for the wise. You are getting free information now bc GEJ agreed to sign the FOI bill into law. Once again, be wise.

I bet you thought he was 'favored by God' right until Nigerians dumped him out of Power.
He was just a lucky fellow, promoted to levels above his competence. And as soon as he was given the chance to contest on merit (no more sympathy votes of having no shoes or being 'humble' ) he was dumped out.

As far as am concerned Gej is far better than what we have now. I dare bubu to publish names of looters who returned their loots. As for that prison pit u dug for Gej, u will be d one to fall inside.

I Laf in japanese, Gej to which jail? his house abi?

OP fact is you are just looking for FP thingz. Even your saint Buhari knows that GEJ can not be toiled with. He will walk this country and this globe a free man, respected by all till he dies! Get it into your thin skull.

Jonathan and those who support him are all fantasist. They all live in their self constructed bubble away from the realities of their cluelessness and corruption.
Every where you look, they left mass destruction.
The more they shouted transformation, the more it became obvious that the country was on speed track to calamity.
Oil prices rose to unimaginable proportions yet at the end of it all, the country still runs on PTF infrastructure.
Poverty rose too.
Death stalked the land.
He claimed to have transformed sectors which predated his government.
Telecoms which Obasanjo bled to reclaim from the hands of cabals and ineptitude. the IT industry which OBJ single handedly raised from nowhere through bis financial and government support for the marine one and marine two intercontinental fibre optics cable.
What about the cheap publicity he sought to gain from putting ancient trains on rail whose renovation was given to the Chinese by ABACHA. This renovation continued all through a Abubakar, Obasanjo and yaradua. During this time there were trains on the track.
I can vividly remember when the Chinese were working on the ibadan axis of the track in 1997.
The only thing he did was to squander all the gains from high oil prices without anything to show for it.
They turned the economy which was not producing enough to a consumption, import everything economy.
through Iweala, Nigeria started importing beans, tomatoes, palm oil etc. Thereby throwing even more farm people from the rural areas into urban destitution.
Jonathan's government can be summed up in following
Clueless projects
1 cassava bread( not even his idea or work)
2 Almajiris school which exist on paper
3 Sure p for PDP thugs
4 Sale of government properties for peanuts
5 a rubbish you- win
6 telephone for farmers
7 cooking pot
8 Abuja CCTV which has never worked
9 airport transformation ( have you been to MMA recently)
The Jonathan locust years Are years Nigerians are not getting back.
The magnitude of his ineptitude will last for generations.

"We dare Buhari to arrest Jonathan" SS/SE

Let me tell you a hidden secret. There is a undisclosed PRESIDENTIAL CODE OF CONDUCT. No successor jails or attempts to assassinate his predecessors, no matter what. They have been some that broke that code, and for that, WE either murdered or roughed up their administration, depending on the gravity of their crime. If BUHARI attempts to incarcerate his predecessor, then we will put a bullet between his forehead.

PIGA loading.

hinwazaka:
Let me tell you a hidden secret. There is a undisclosed PRESIDENTIAL CODE OF CONDUCT. No successor jails or attempts to assassinate his predecessors, no matter what. They have been some that broke that code, and for that, WE either murdered or roughed up their administration, depending on the gravity of their crime. If BUHARI attempts to incarcerate his predecessor, other past leaders will put a bullet between his forehead.

Edit it so that those APC moderators won't ban you oo

Change that "we" to "the past leaders" will put a bul...... between his forehead

Jonathan and those who support him are all fantasist

I rather be a GEJ fantasist than a Buhari bast@rd. With all the unintelligent lies you told here, you are truly a coward with no foundation.

asadike:
As far as am concerned Gej is far better than what we have now. I dare bubu to publish names of looters who returned their loots. As for that prison pit u dug for Gej, u will be d one to fall inside.

asadike, can you please mention how and where Gej is better than Buhari

Jonathan sabi lie.

all you GEJ supporters should thread carefully...more 'gates' will surely open up in 2016. If Buhari continues to stands firm on corruption, big time humiliation awaits that man. I shall join sonala to say goodluck to him.