₦airaland Forum

Naso. Arsenal expects Manchester City to just step down for them to lift the trophy and we say the competition is credible.

Madam, democracy is a contest of ideas. It is a test of vision. It is where the people see how you react under pressure, what your composition is all about before they expenrd their highly valuable franchise on you.

If I can walk into a apparel store and test that snazzy pair of shoes before opening my wallet. If I can test drive that new ride before buying it, if the suya seller down the road will give me a 'tasting', then why should my representative not face a contest, a test, particularly a newbie. The risks are just too high.

numericalguy:
First of all, I am not Yoruba but I don't see why you should rejoice in the suffering of innocent Nigerians yet you wonder why you people keep having problems with the rest of Nigeria

Secondly, major insecurities in Nigeria started with Obasanjo government and not this present administration but you chose not to see it. Boko Haram started with Obasanjo

What is all these 'started with' nonsense you folks are always talking. Was government changed for nothing. Did you bring in this government to enjoy itself or to work the work they claimed to be capable of doing.

You made a choice amongst almost two dozen political parties and presidential candidates so stick with it and work it and stop looking for rocks to hide under. Stop making excuses for them. They pay themselves in billions of naira, they should do their damn jobs or get out of there.

How can a country sit down and accept this kind of nonsense as normal. And the people in charge will wake up in the morning, go to the office, do nothing, return home to their families and feel they are serving the country....

If they have no solutions they should just give way abeg. Poor quality leadership propped up by failed citizen everywhere you look.

Neoteny:
Good.

Never liked him, quite an elitist.

He openly constructed a massive hotel in Rayfield while his constituents are wallowing deeper in misery.

So he should go run his hotel business. He hasn't lost out afterall. To them it is always about the money. Primitive politicking.

The day this will all end is the day the people will wake up and push for the removal of the Legislature from the Federal budget.

For the life of me I cannot understand why a person representing HIS PEOPLE to contest against the Executive government should be paid by the Executive.

In my opinion the office of the representative should be domiciled the constituency he represents and functions he undertakes to the centre for lawmaking, advocacy or oversight should be sponsored by the people via direct taxation.

Then salaries, allowances and perks will be decided by the people and responsibility towards them naturally obtained in return. Then the people don't have to jump through hoops to remove an earring lawmaker. They simply stop his salary and change the name tag on his office door.

Then it will be clear who is there to serve and who is there for the money. Then a President will have no reach whatsoever in influencing who leads the Legislature and how it is run.

donkarly:
How these guys think they'll continue to fool us with all these their gimmicks is what i don't understand..

This pondering meme is back after how many years AWOL...

So the video of the aerial assault we saw yesterday was what.... because what we saw was a total destruction of the camplacement.

So was it a ground assault or an aerial assault. Details before claims pls. Because we know the capabilities of our military and videographed precision aerial strikes is not one of them.

Cheeryfeet:
Sincerely. I don't know why people are mocking him. Someone stepped up to try
He tried abeg. Personally he didn't loose, he just gained experience. He will know better next time.

Know better as how...
His complaint was that he spent ...purchased something and it was not delivered. Is this political school fees he oor a police case of 'obtaining by false pretense' aka Cc 419...

Please let us not be encouraging money politics. It can work in other climes where there is accountability. Here the consequences are clear for all to see in this two decades plus of democracy.

Let us avoid establishment people. They are cut from the same cloth as those we criticise over poor governance today.

dawnomike:
https://guardian.ng/breakingnews/i-regret-trusting-my-community-elders-cubana-chief-priest-blasts/

'...cleaner and issue based...'
Then you went ahead to bribe them.
I shudder to think of what will have been if you decided to run a dirty cockfight.
This democracy is not ready to take off yet.
Let us all wallow in delusion.

nairalanda1:
Okay, enjoy your borrow borrow government.

LOL.

You guys, you and the emilokan guys are both alike.

What are they borrowing for.
Tell us na. Since the government has refused to tell us. And if they feel it doesn't concern us, who are we as citizens to poke our noses into their business deals.

Just don't say you are doing it for us because you are not doing what the majority of Nigerians WANT.

If I employ someone to work for me he cannot be doing what he wants and expects me to pay his salary. You own a.business. Is that how it works.

Nigerian are saying give us power, give us cheaper fuel, give us security. If you are borrowing for that or taxing for that make it clear in black and white, facts and figures and people will pay.

Mr Tinubu can go ahead with his grandiose plans but Nigerians will only pay for them kicking and screaming. If he doesn't care for what people want nobody will voluntarily drop a naira. He can ask his party men for that.

nairalanda1:
And all the above accounts for 20-30% of government funding per annum. Most of the rest comes from oil revenue.

VAT raised 7.9 trillion in 2025...bank charges, etc raised less than 4 trillion for a budget that needed 54 trillion naira. As for PAYE...lol. Only 44% (government figures), 30% (world bank figures)..and at the begining of the Buhari regime it was 16% of tax eligible Nigerians pay tax to the government

Most of the country work in the informal sector, who don't pay tax to government, be it at federal or even state level.

Nigeria is undertaxed. Part of it is poverty, part of it is the idea that the oil money...which on a good day can't pass 80 billion dollars...talkless more than 100 billion, can somehow magically sustain us, that all we need to do is block leakages. Well, I beileve we should fight corruption, but if we voted Obi tomorrow, and he ended corruption next week, the leakages being stopped won't improve our fiscal life at all.

And thus, we borrow and borrow and borrow.

Abeg make government use dia money invest and wait for return to use as dey like. Make dem leave us alone. We no wan development...haba. Na by force....hahahaha...

My friend. The easiest way to open wallets is to sell a good product and meet or surpass the expectations of the buyers.

There is no substitute for good governance. Serve the people. Listen to them. Do what THEY want FIRST. It is not hard. But the way of the transgressor is HARD.

On this forum alone how many times have you heard citizens scream, shout, lament, swear about the power situation as a classic example. If you as a government made that a key priority to ANSWER the calls of the people and they see active steps taken then you can bil them and they will pay.

But no. It is new superhighways that is your KEY INFRASTRUCTURE and you want them to pay for that and still be buying solar and expensive fuel. Abeg, who dey blind government to what is clear as daylight. Na curse?

We have a spending curse hanging over our heads.

Helinuss:
We dont want the development

Hahaha....I don laff taya.
You no wan concrete road to Golgotha....hahahaha...na lie oh. You must have have development. Oya bring ya money sharpenly...Chagoury dey wait....

Just wow....this country truly defies logic.

Gerrard59:
So OP earns well and lives in Nigeria. It begs the question: What does a Nigerian who earns well enjoy while living in Nigeria?
https://www.nairaland.com/7496716/what-exactly-does-one-enjoy


I find his narration very emotional and soul draining. He makes good money, but it's not showing in his quality of life. If he cannot enjoy his money, what about those who don't make a quarter of his earnings?

---

That said, subsidy had to go. It was non-negotiable. The problem are: not using the recouped funds for better public transport system and Tinubu kicking against its removal 14 years ago. Electricity has to be fully privatised for constant electricity to be widely available. The hike in petrol prices isn't Tinubu's fault. Crude oil is a global commodity. The reason there has to be better public transport systems across major cities.

Omo, Nigeria's problems too plenty, abeg.

Quite right.
The rise in the price of gasoline and others fuels is the direct cause of all the economic woes A to Z. This is where the savings from the removal of subsidies should have been instantly, immediately invested before inflation took hold of the entire economy.

I said this the SAME DAY subsidy was removed on this forum. The objective of removal should have been take away value from the public and focus such resources for better efficiency.

The two primary uses of fuel in Nigeria is for transportation and electricity generation. These are the two sectors the government should have invested ALL the subsidy savings, EVERY PENNY and a lot more to get Nigerians an alternative to match the cost they were paying pre removal BEFORE INFLATION TOOK HOLD.

But this government rather took this money and began to share to states, playing politics with the economic well being of Nigeria(ns) and began to do all manner of pointless projects to satisfy political patrons....leaving the public out to dry.

Today no investment in alternative transportation nationwide whatsoever, not even a plan. Today, no serious investment in power generation to make it available and drive down the prices to where individuals can become solvent and businesses viable.

To show you how disconnected this government is from the realities on ground Wike built a series of mega bus terminals across Abuja. Not that it will reduce the cost of transportation but till date I doubt if a single one of them is in use. They simply cannot understand.

At the national level the much trumpeted fuel to gas migration has stalled even before take off. No serious investment drive to broaden and deepen availability. As a matter of fact people are beginning to walk away as prices rise and gasoline era scarcities persist.

What a mess.

Princedapace:
I was battling with network issues recently, and it reminded me how difficult it has become to survive here. There is no stable electricity. Most of us survive on generators.

South Africa achieved significant progress in electricity within two years, yet after four years, nothing meaningful has changed here. It is still the same story and the same daily struggle.

Now, remove emotions for a moment and look at the reality:

A kilogram of gas is about ₦1,400. That is extremely high for a country with very low salaries.
A crate of eggs is between ₦5,500 and ₦6,000.
A bag of cement is around ₦12,000. This is one of the reasons house rent has skyrocketed, because many citizens can no longer afford to build homes.
Renting a 2-bedroom apartment in most state capitals now starts from about ₦2.5 million and above. That is insane for a country where the majority of citizens are struggling financially.
Fuel is around ₦1,400 per litre.

Fuel powers our generators. If you run two businesses, you may need two generators.

For someone like me who works online, I need electricity almost 24/7. A huge part of my income goes into fueling and servicing generators because, most nights, my generator runs till morning. I work with clients across different time zones, sometimes at 2AM.

What does all of this mean?

Our purchasing power has dropped drastically.

Yet, despite these realities, the tax burden keeps increasing.

I honestly want to ask: does the government truly understand what Nigerians are going through?

Even someone earning ₦25m–₦30m yearly in today’s Nigeria is not necessarily living comfortably. A large percentage of that income already goes into solving basic social problems and surviving.

You pay for:

Electricity
Security
Healthcare
Transportation
Water
Education

Everything.

So where exactly is the money left to pay huge taxes from?

How many Nigerians can genuinely save millions yearly after handling all their responsibilities as parents, children, and providers?

To survive, many people are already being forced to reduce their quality of life:

Cutting down electricity usage despite terrible heat
Moving children from good schools
Switching from bottled water to sachet water
Selling better cars for cheaper alternatives because of fuel costs
Cancelling vacations and basic comfort

The painful part is that many self-employed Nigerians hustle endlessly just to stay afloat, yet at the end of the year, they are still expected to pay heavy taxes.

One of my friends, despite earning what many would call “good money,” is already in debt because of school fees and living expenses. Yet, government expectations are based only on income figures, not the harsh realities behind those figures.

And remember, this is a country where many parents depend on their children financially just to survive.

Honestly, many leaders cannot relate to what ordinary Nigerians are facing because:

Their electricity is sorted
Their security is sorted
Their healthcare is sorted
Their feeding is sorted

So they may never truly feel the pain of the average citizen.

Dear Nigerian leaders, Nigerians are suffering.

We are exhausted.

What could be done differently?

Reduce excessive tax burdens. Maybe 3 percent for now. Please, this country is poor or increase the threshold to maybe 50m per year if you truly wants to target the rich for income tax.
Fix electricity.
Tackle corruption seriously.
Improve security so farmers can return to farms safely.
Support the tech economy so more young people can earn online.
Invest in skills and digital opportunities.
Cut down excessive government spending and luxury packages for politicians.

Nigeria is a poor country with multidimensional poverty. In many homes, one working person carries the burden of an entire extended family.

Tax should not be the first priority when citizens are already struggling to survive.

As I write this now, my area is in complete darkness again. Families will spend heavily on fuel tonight just to have light for a few hours.

So I ask again: after paying for survival, where exactly should the tax money come from?

We are tired.

The bills are too much.

please can someone push this to front page?

I want to understand why the sacrfice must be done by the suffering masses instead of the politicians. I am curios to know why. Why must I suffer what I didn't cause?

Questions, questions, questions.
But the answers lie in the concrete roads from Lagos to Calabar and from Badagry to Sokoto....if anyone feels offended they should tell me exactly what key investment the government has made in this country to affect the citizens positively. Citizens from which they have taken much...taken almost all....

The answer to all the questions above lie in three simple words. Poor Quality Governance

gohf:
lol what do you expect from a people who love money, isnt the love of money the root of evil. After all without money men go suffer, so all this humanity talk na wash to them, suffering is real lol

I just don't understand these people.
So we have deteriorated as a society to a situation where it is okay for people to accost others and shoot them in the head for what they believe or choose not to believe.

If we all get involved in that, who will be left alive. And some have the temerity to blame the victim. Okay the victim in question renounces her faith, where does it end, then they tell her to follow them to do worse things....

Amotolongbo:
You just lost your sight for nothing

You can do better than this.
You must be ashamed of this.
Remove religion from the fact.
Should anyone be assaulted like that for any reason.

Nigerians have completely lost the essence of humanity. Of coexisting as a civilisation. Zero horizontal relationships with one another.
And we expect to build a country of any positive attributes.

Oga Tinubu, go and do mass transit for your people. Do the one that will have a positive impact on the vast majority. Do the one that reflects the millions of votes you received, not the one that will benefit only the top 5 percent.

Layout plans to connect all 36 states with modern rail services. Layout plans that will connect major industrial, extractive and agricultural zones to the seaports for international trade.

Call all 36 governors now under your control and task them to start work on mass urban train and tram systems from the billions extra you have given them to ease the crushing burden of petroleum products prices going haywire.

Tell your beloved son Wike that he should begin work on plans to link the key satellite towns of Kubwa, Gwagwalada and Nyanya to the city centre with the kind of tram systems they see when they travel out. For goodness sake it is the capital city of the biggest black nation on earth and in 2026 has no mass transit system.

Hussein035:
The government is not serious very soon you will arrest them and tell us they will go for training and you want to integrate them back into the society

Once a terrorist is caught KILL THEM ONCE BECAUSE THEY ARE DISGRACING ISLAM. ISLAM DID NOT TELL ANYONE TO KILL EXCEPT THEY ATTACK YOU FIRST

IRAN is a good example of what Islam teaches. Even if you have power you must humble yourself but fight if they bring fight to your house

Who is fighting bandits?

BANDITS, KIDNAPPERS, TERRORIST ARE NOT MUSLIMS BUT DESTROYERS SO GOVERNMENT SHOULD KILL THEM ONCE THEY ARE CAUGHT

Totally agree.
Mainstream Islam should distance itself from these people so that the targets are visible. Lives of citizens and particularly security personnel cannot continue to be wasted this way.

At some point the government has to make it clear that amnesty has its limits and timeframe and if the mindless violence continues all bets are off.

The IGP should get down to that place immediately. 17 police officers felled in one swoop. Haba, this is too much. Gosh.

And for these terrorists to attack such a training facility, it means they know what they are doing. It is more than a target of opportunity. This is strategic. This is the long game at play.

The government had better up their game. It is high time we get security experts from abroad involved to fashion strategies to contain this menace. And the government should place ALL it's cards on that table. There has to be no doubt they are FULLY COMMITTED to this war and are not pandering to any sentiment be it religious, sectional or institutional.

This is the time Nigeria needs a security architecture that is fully apolitical, detribalization and totally, totally, TOTALLY secular. This is the task for counter intelligence.

Marvellee:
We need footage or pictures of his corpse, what if he wasn’t there?

That is for the Nigerian military to do in their mop up ops. But you can be sure the CIA will be snooping around there too for artefacts of Intel value.

Wonder what kind of platform was used to deploy the munitions. But the footage is obviously off an MQ-9.

Maybe in 2024 the military was prophesying ...

Lzkdy:
He was a bench warmer throughout the season. Stop misleading people with such headline

Scored a couple of crucial goals in the run in but he wasn't a big thing at Celtic this season. Cannot see a new gaffer keeping him going forward next season when O'Neil steps down.

Brendan Rogers his former manager at Leicester City brought him to Celtic and he might as well find a place for him at Qadisiya in the SPL.

RollinTNDA:
Iheanacho helps Celtic win Scottish Premiership title

Super Eagles striker Kelechi Iheanacho has won the 2025/26 Scottish Premiership title with Celtics

He is no longer a Super Eagles player.
His game is no longer there.

SamuraiXXX:
El-Rufai was not just ranting against Tinubu, he openly disrespected him and he also did the same against Jonathan.

He has a habit of always insulting presidents from the southern part because he feels he untouchable.

Tinubu will teach him a lesson he will never forget!

Is disrespect now a criminal offence.
Is "insulting" Presidents abnormal in a democracy.
Is there any since 1999 that has not been called names.

TimeMachine2:
Same thing his father did to the shiite leader. Karma is real.

Justice is good governance.
Vengeance is the sauce of failed states and despots.

It is like saying I instal an electrified fence and you clamber over, get pulsed and have a cardiac event....or I place the good ol broken bottles atop the fence and you get a good gash....or you cut yourself while trying to scale my American Razor wire topped fence....or you get your big head stuck trying to slither between my hardened steel protector bars....

WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING THERE....

"His dog, your honour, is just the flesh, bone and animal tenacity of all the above scenario" says my able lawyer. "So we move to have the case struck out on grounds of criminal trespass and seek to have the felon charged with animal cruelty because my clients dog has been forced to taste human blood against his ethics of being a strict vegetarian, your honour..."...

nairalanda1:
The sentence makes sense.

The problem is, saying it makes sense apparently means you support APC.

If Obi, GEJ or anyone else said the same thing , I would applaud.

But many Nigerians want to live as if they be from Saudi Arabia.

Even if we fight corruption, we still need to find a way to make an extra 500 billion or more dollars for the treasury. taxation is the way to go

Oga, it is the elites that want to live like Arab Sheikhs not the average Nigerian or the downtrodden who just want to survive, just want to live.

There are millions out there that are already accustomed to suffering, to crushing poverty, to danger, peril and the threat of violence as a way of life. You need to travel wide and visit places in this country. I do regularly.

They are so weather beaten, so traumatized by life they are not even asking for anything. As a matter of fact many do not even understand the concept of government in those rural places and in many cases they just want to be left alone.

If government CANNOT make their lives any better
It should stop making it worse.

And as far as the 500 billion for the treasury is concerned, from whom do they expect to get that money. From the people they don't know or the people they don't care about.

In most capitalist nations the top 5 percent covers almost the entire tax income of nation. Nigeria is similar. The problem here is that the top 5 percent are known by them in givernment and they are frequently in cahoots to mine the country, to collectively pillage it's resources so there is that dissatisfaction is collecting back just part of what you have given out in the first place.

That is why the theme for the season is PRODUCTION, PRODUCTIVITY as against the phantom wealth of CONTRACTING which is just a recirculation, a flow of resources from government to citizens and back again. Zero sum.

Like Mojeed Dahiru will oft say. For government to set itself free from the debt trap. It has to start INVESTING in productivity as against SPENDING on depreciating assets. You CANNOT tax your way out of debt. You cannot tax your way to economic growth.

Look for Mojeed Dahiru and listen to his views on public finances and you will be enlightened.

But I like this. It will bring about the much needed revolution and a rebooting of society. Let them continue the press.

IsraeliAIRFORCE:
How do you tax 130 million people living in abject poverty in Nigeria? You and I will be happy to pay taxes for the government to provide food stamps and support for senior citizens, but what will this taxes he is talking about be used for? Don't tell me about roads and bridges.

Finances from National Resources, VAT and coorporate taxes should be enough for this government

Just ridiculous.
The minimum, poverty wage is within their tax bracket. A wage that is less than the equivalent of 2 dollars a day the UN terms as extreme poverty. That is how mean the government if the day is.

That wage that cannot transport you to and from work for a month. It is still taxable. Talk about it and they will claim reliefs. As if that can pay for any decent insurance, healthcare or any sort of habitable accomodation.

And you cannot demand tax without accountability.
You cannot collect taxes and use public funds the way you like on things you want and give to whom you please..

Want western levels of compliance, give western levels of accountability where public officials resign or are prosecuted over air tickets, restaurant meals and holiday perks all grafted into public expenses.

Airforce One trips are paid for by the American taxpayer for official government business only. When the time for campaigns and political rallies arrive the campaign organisation of the President will be sent a bill by the Airforce.

Here a newly appointed Federal Fire Chief led a convoy to his village for a homecoming at public expense and defenders said it was in our tradition....okay.

Sheuns:
Make the document available so we can read it. Other parties should also make theirs available then we decide on who to vote.

APC need not bother. We’re seeing theirs live.

...concrete road called critical infrastructure for which the economy has to be demolished.

fintol:
Am not a supporter of trump,I think he is trying to avoid unnecessary war which may result to global damage.

That is my take on this.
They can choose to posture and the end will be Mutually Assured Economic Destruction for what.... pride.

The conflict in the mid east has not taught anyone that. And for citizens of poor, vulnerable economies like Nigeria to be advocating for escalation on matters that don't concern them and when your government has little to offer by way of economic resilient is just amazing.

But then Nigerians have proven time and again that they are a people of very poor, unwise choices.