Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has served as acting president for much of this year, said on Monday he had not given any thought to contesting the country's next presidential election in 2019.

Nigeria has faced heightened uncertainty over whether President Muhammadu Buhari plans to contest the next election. Buhari, 74, took power in 2015 but has been absent for much of this year due to illness.

Osinbajo, a 60-year-old law professor, served as acting president during Buhari's absences, succeeding in calming tensions in the oil-producing Delta region and pushing small steps to improve the business climate, including foreign currency reforms. Some business leaders say he could provide stability by running for president himself in Feb 2019.

Asked at the FT Africa Summit in London if he had considered running, Osinbajo said he hadn't thought about it, adding: "None of that is on the cards".

Osinbajo also said that militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta region no longer posed a significant threat to oil production.

He said Nigeria had lost as much as 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production last year amid militant attacks on oil and gas infrastructure, which is concentrated in the southern Delta region. It was now pumping roughly 1.85 million bpd and climbing toward 2 million bpd. That is closer to its top production of around 2.2 million bpd.

Still, he added that Nigeria needed to diversify its oil-dependent economy and take advantage of the resource while it was still in high demand.

"We don't have all the time in the world with oil," he said. "We have to use oil while it makes sense to do so."[/b]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nigerian-vp-osinbajo-says-running-presidency-not-cards-100519060--business.html

deji68:

If you are still of the misguided view that it was the coup of 1984 that destroyed Nigeria's infrastructure, please read " Was Nigeria This ‘bad’ In 1970? " at [i]https://www.nairaland.com/4094058/nigeria-bad-1970, or https://www.thecable.ng/nigeria-bad-1970.
[/i]There you will find some truth, if you can stand it

Veteran column readers will remember that I told many of these stories for the benefit of our youngsters back in 2010 when we marked 50 years of Nigeria’s independence. Since Nigeria produces new youngsters at the rate of 3% a year, let me retell some of them as we mark 57 years of Nigeria’s independence for the benefit of those that came of age since 2010.


Youngsters in this country are sold on the notion [created by the newspapers] that Nigeria has been going downhill with respect to all socio-economic, infrastructural, political, public service, security, ethical and cultural value indices since independence. The only disagreement is whether this slide has been rapid or geometric. A young fellow told me in 2010 that “Nigeria is worse in all respects than it was 30 years ago.” Trouble is, the guy was less than 30 years old so it’s not like he had a personal knowledge of how things were 30 years previously. He said “our roads are bad, not like before.”

Before when? In 1967 when General Yakubu Gowon divided Nigeria into 12 states, my family left Ilorin for Jega in our father’s Holden car. We left Ilorin at 7am on Saturday and only got to Koko, still 45 miles short of Jega, at 4 pm the following day after driving non-stop all day and night. There was not an inch of tarred road between Ilorin and Sokoto. Crossing the Jebba bridge alone took seven hours because it was single lane and hundreds of trucks and trailers were lined up on both sides of the bridge.

Up until 1974, the trip from Jega to Sokoto through Tambuwal and Shagari, which takes about 75 minutes today, took a whole day. That was until Gowon tarred the road in 1974. Birnin Kebbi is only 32 kilometres away from Jega but in 1970, it took a whole day to make the trip. There were three major landmarks, the bridges at Ruwan Kanwa, Basaura and Langido. It took hours to get to the first one, which I was amazed to discover in later life is only three kilometres away from Jega. These days motorists cover the Jega to Birnin Kebbi distance in 20 minutes.

In 1970, a football match was organised between our primary school and Kimba primary school. I was selected among those to go and we set out at dawn, marched through farmlands and bushes, crossed what looked like a mighty river and got to Kimba late in the afternoon. Some years ago the chairman of Jega Local Government took me in his car to see a project at Kimba, my first return there since 1970. I settled down in his car for what I thought would be a long drive. We drove along a tarred road for a few minutes, drove across a culvert over a narrow stream, and he pulled up and said we were at Kimba. I couldn’t believe it.

In 1970 there was only one taxi cab in Sokoto, driven by a Yoruba man who inscribed on its door the motto Be Patience [sic]. The only other intra-city commercial vehicle, which plied the route from Kasuwa Yar’dole to Farfaru, was a small bus driven by a man called Alallaba. It was so slow that children could run on foot and overtake it. If you rode on Alallaba’s bus and didn’t want to pay the three pence fare, all you had to do was to wait until it was approaching your destination. You then complained loudly that the bus was too slow! Alallaba will quickly stop and ask you to go down, and you walked away without paying.

These days, our youngsters are always complaining about poor GSM service and “network problem.” It reminds me of my effort to get a NITEL telephone land line in 2001. I first applied to NITEL in January, secured the help of several touts and went to NITEL’s Kaduna office at least 50 times in the next one year. I only got a number assigned to me in April, after which I paid the N50,000 fee. Three months later, I was told that even though I had paid for the phone box and the cable, NITEL had none in its store so I bought them from the market. The cable was finally connected to my house in September but there was no dialling tone. It took another two months and the intervention of a General Manager at NITEL headquarters in Abuja before I got the dialling tone in November. When I left the area a month later, NITEL said the line was not transferable.

In the 1970s it was better to just post a letter. My late brother Ibrahim regularly sent letters to me from Zaria, which arrived in Sokoto within a week. If the message was urgent, then you must send someone. I was once sent from Sokoto to Kaduna to announce a birth, something you do these days with a text message. Sometimes the Post Office misfired. A letter was sent to my brother Abbas at “Koko Secondary School, Koko,” and it went to the coastal town of Koko in Midwestern State. Abbas received it six months later because one thoughtful postal clerk wrote on it with a red biro, “Try Koko in the North.”

In those days, a really urgent message was sent by Police radio signal. Even that was not failsafe. In August 1979 the Etsu Nupe sent a message to the Sultan of Sokoto by police radio saying the Ramadan moon had been sighted in Bidda. The message arrived in Sokoto at noon the next day. A Ministry of Information Land Rover then went round the town telling people to “catch their mouth” because the Ramadan fast began that morning.

Many people say the security situation in Nigeria these days “is worse than before.” Before when? My late father once told me a story, that when he entered Kaduna College in 1944, it was not easy to go to the Friday market at Kawo. They first went to Unguwar Sarki and joined an ayari of several dozen people. This ayari was then escorted to Kawo market by armed vigilantes because the area presently occupied by Badarawa and General Hassan Katsina House was thickly forested and robbers regularly attacked market goers. Today, you make the trip by bus in five minutes.

Most Nigerians say the same thing about our health services. In 1971 when we were in primary school, at least one third of the pupils had smelly open sores during the morning assembly. Some were so smelly that one had to cover his nose with a handkerchief in the class. All of them were assembled each morning and marched off to the town’s Dispensary. Jega Dispensary had neither a doctor nor a nurse in 1971, only a dispenser, the very hardworking Malam Umaru Dispensa. That man attended to all the patients and dressed all the sores. He dispensed either analgesic tablets or the extremely bitter syrup kuni (quinine). The dosage for all the patients was the same. As he dispensed it Malam Umaru said, “Two in the morning, two in the afternoon, two in the evening. Drink a lot of water. May Allah bring relief.”

Even with respect to peace on the streets, Nigeria has come a long way. In 1970, soldiers returning from the Civil War had no barracks and they lived with other tenants in face-me-I-face-you compounds. This made for a lot of fights. Usually it started at the water tap, where a soldier’s wife will quarrel with another person in the struggle to fill pails of water. The soldier’s wife will run home and call her husband, who will arrive with a belt or a whip and severely beat up the civilian. This phenomenon only ended when soldiers got barracks all over the country.

Therefore, anyone who still thinks that Nigerian roads are too bad, its communications too slow, its hospitals too bare and its markets too insecure should please go back to 1970.

https://www.thecable.ng/nigeria-bad-1970

Buruji Kashamu, senator representing Ogun east senatorial district, has called on the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to sanction Fayose for declaring his intention to contest the presidency in 2019.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, Kashamu said it was the height of anti-party activities for Fayose to have gone against the decision to zone the presidency to the north.

He also said Fayose did not have the interest of the party and nation at heart, adding that he is only seeking the position for personal gains.

“Fayose seeks to further widen the ethnic divide in our country, cause resentment against our great party and tragically bring the party into disrepute.”

He urged the national leadership of the party, comprising of the national caretaker committee (NCC) and the national executive committee (NEC) to sanction Fayose for going against the party’s zoning arrangement.

“Although his so-called declaration is of no political consequence whatsoever, it is antithetical to the mood of the party and nation that someone who claims to be a party man could go against the decision of the party to zone the presidency to the north,” the statement read.

“By 2019, the south would have had the presidency for 14 of Nigeria’s 20 years democratic rule since 1999, with a southerner ruling for two terms back to back. It smacks of insensitivity and greed for anyone from the south to declare for the presidency so soon.

“With Fayose’s latest action, it is now glaring that all his grandstanding was meant to further his own selfish interest. He never had the interest of the party, the people and the nation at heart.

“This man is simply desperate for power. It is like since his anti-depressant drugs can no longer contain him, he is looking for every available means to perpetuate himself in office. Otherwise, how do we explain the fact that the chairman of the PDP governors’ forum would go against the decision of the party?

“Little wonder none of his governor-colleagues attended the event. No member of the party in the national assembly attended the ceremony.

“At first, he said he wanted to seek re-election to continue his first term which was truncated by impeachment in 2006. Thereafter, he began to work towards becoming the vice-president and now he says he wants to be the president!

“I am however glad that Nigerians are no fools. They know those who really have their interest at heart. They know the leaders with the demonstrable capacity to take Nigeria to the proverbial promised land; not the charlatans and looters who pretend to be leaders.
https://www.thecable.ng/anti-depressant-drugs-can-no-longer-contain-kashamu-mocks-fayose-presidential-declaration

z07ion:


Your Opinion friend! but his Advocacy for World peace cannot be faulted! Thanks for reading and commenting SalamRushdie.

@Dr. Olufon, You should know by now that SalamRushdie as a critic , not Objective though, of PMB, usually extends his attitude to anyone who says anything that does not attack PMB.

SalamRushdie:


First and foremost I don't hate Buhari at all if not I wouldn't have voted for him in the last election , I only hate his style of leadership which can only take us backwards as a people ...now to Ur question I think you should as Buhari who Inherited a Nigerian Airways with 33 working planes , the most extensive functional rail network in Africa , a vibrant postal service then, 24 sepecatJaguars air superiority fighters, 18 Mig 21s, 24 Alpha jets, 29 L39 Albatross, 18 C 130s heavily lifters and 18 months down the line most were already gone down the drain via poor leadership that immediately put pressure on most sectors and they couldn't cope ..I believe UCH went down the same route

@ SalamRushdie, Buhari took over an economy under recession due to fall in global oil price and mismanagement by the Shagari administration. Buhari brought discipline to the nation and things were about picking up until IBB and his cohorts who were more interested in looting shoved him aside.
It was Babangida who crippled the Airforce after Squadron Leader Martin Luther alleged coup plot, C130 crash was under IBB, collapse of Nigeria Airways was also under IBB.

IBB instituted probes after probes to get something with which he can nail PMB but nothing came out.
So the person you should be asking is not PMB, but Babangida.

Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos on Wednesday inaugurated the state’s Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) and Forensic Centre to accelerate collection of evidence and improve its quality to quicken justice dispensation
The facility is located in CMS, central lagos.

Accordint to the governor, the center will provide a definite boost to the state's justice sector reform programme, and further transform the system of administration of justice in Lagos in particular and Nigeria as a whole.’’
The center, going by the governor, will soon be equipped with additional capacity in the areas of toxicology, trace evidence and controlled substance analysis, fingerprint and latent prints, firearms, ballistics and tool marks, digital forensics and questioned documents examination.

With this facility, cold cases such as the murder of Bola Ige can be re examined and culprits brought to justice.

owobokiri:


No, we are not "blaming anybody but ourselves". We haven't done anything wrong to ask for a more workable arrangement for our kids. Moreover, that we agitate deosn't mean you are better off than us. We are all in this snake pit together. The only difference is that while we march and yell for a better tomorrow, you, being a willing product of a command and control society prefer to stand hand akimbo as your future is being wrecked by a bunch of eternally blundering political bimbos. This country is a mess not because one Nnamdi Kalu and his over dramatized "hate speech". but because of some tribal square pegs in round holes like buhari.. Yet Kanu is your enemy! Why? Why is the noise against oppression more disturbing to you than the oppression itself??

If, "you march and yell for a better tomorrow" in sincerity, why were you guys quiet under GEJ regime. He hoodwink you with a constitutional conference but refused to implement the report of the summit.
He refused/failed to locate a seaport in the East.
Refused/failed to designate your airport as international Airport.
Refused/failed to address the scourge of Erosion in the East.
Refused/failed to give the East another state.
Minister for Finance, Petroleum, Aviation, Labour, Secretary to FG all came from the East and they would not influence the govt to so something concrete for the Region.

Your Senators and House of Reps members even conspired to remove the funds meant for the 2nd Niger Bridge from 2017 Budget, and it took a south West minister, Raji Fashola to raise the alarm.

You are right in that you are "blaming anybody but ourselves", for the unfortunate state of affairs of the south East.
You guys need to wake up and state holding your leaders accountable.

Can't see any pix

Abaribe and co don enter one chance. [i][/i]

"Whether we are conscious of or acknowledge it or not, the fact remains stubborn and indestructible that poverty, disease, social unrest, and instability, and all kinds of international conflicts, have their origins in the minds of men ... It is only when the minds of men have been properly and rigorously cultivated and garnished, that they can be safely entrusted with public affairs with a certainty and assuredness that they will make the best of their unique opportunity and assignment."

- Inaugural Address as Chancellor of the University of Ife (1967) Voice of Wisdom, 1981

In other words, do not entrust leadership position in the hands of people with minds that have not "been properly and rigorously cultivated and garnished,..."

Investigations by ALEDEH reveal that once an officer is recommended for promotion by Barr. Emmanuel to the IGP, he or she gets promoted.

The IGP does not have power to promote senior police officers, the Police Service Commission, headed by, former IGP, Okiro,is saddled with that responsibility going by our constitution.

T9ksy:


I doubt you read the article else you won't have posted such dim statement.
I suggest you go back and read the whole article properly and hopefully you will amend your post.

They are welcome. Its only the guilty that are afraid. Innocent hearts fear no accusation.

South West people can't be used by politicians and looters who lost in the last election to ferment trouble.

We don wise pass that[b][/b]

Mature speak.
Hit the key spots.
Nigeria, once more showing leadership by proposing a possible way out of the Korean Peninsular Missile crisis