₦airaland Forum

TheGoodJoe:

Are you aware that I am totally against the budget as a whole. I believe it is riddled in corruption and I am not defending the budget in any way.

I am not only for the cancelling of the budget but I want a full probe and massive arrest in this.

I especially want the neck of Udo Udoma.

So what does your question have to do with my stance?

Any true supporter of the war against Corruption will not stand for the clear case of planned looting on this budget. I am happy we are in a period such a thing would not pass unlike before were people turned a blind eye to things like this.

TheGoodJoe:
If it was Jonathan's regime, this budget will pass without question. [b]Hence this is a corrupt conscious regime, our money is more secured unlike the Santa Claus regime.[/b]

BankeSmalls:
THAT IS THE PROBLEM, WE HAVE TO ENDURE THIS TROUBLE FOR HOW LONG?

BankeSmalls:
For the failure to give us light after nearly a year in office
For failing to stop Boko haran
For not getting our refineries to work
For slaughtering Shia muslims, killing thousands
For killing unarmed IPODD PROTESTERS
For smuggling inflated but frivolous items into our budget to cheat us
For visiting Nigeria like a tourist
For turning the judiciary to inconsequential puppets
For failing to pay us 5K for unemployment
For supporting bad governance
For insensitivity and intransigence


BURARRI SHOULD DO THE RIGHT THING AND RESIGN

BankeSmalls:
BUHARRY SHOULD RESIGN

suxkill:
Lol!Aisha rice is still working on them.
Had it been it was "Metu bought 40m car" you will see them howling all over the place.

Blackfire:
, so u don't know am speaking in irony.

Blackfire:
buhari is a saint, don't forget he only have one house , and less than a million naira in his account.

I repeat buhari is a saint.

MrEverest:
At this rate, we will wake up one day to hear that Nigeria has been sold!

Blackfire:
Please close this thread. Why? It is belittling our amiable president, and all of u commenting are not true patriot of this country.

Please nobody should criticise buhari and co... Or else .

Remii:
don't give up yet, it is corruption that is fighting back.

suxkill:
Zombies will avoid this thread.

Obiagelli:
Abi o, even buhari and co are denying the budget they proposed, every clown is still flying the presidential fleet they promised to sell off

TippyTop:
But we have no other country except this one.

Obiagelli:
Maybe its time to just give up on this country.

TippyTop:
But we have no other country except this one.

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed yesterday openly disowned the N398 million being part of the budget estimates by his ministry meant for the purchase of computers.

Speaking at a budget defence session before the Senate Committe on Information, Mohammed noted that the total sum of N398 million proposed in the budget for the purchase of computers was strange to him.

Reacting to questions on the N230 million and N168 million voted for the purchase of computers for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board, the minister said he was not aware.

“No, that is not possible. That was definitely not what was proposed, this cannot be,” the minister protested even as an official of the ministry noted that only N5 million was proposed for the item in the original budget of the NFVCB.

But the chairman of the Committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe said, “The difference between N5million and N168m is huge.”

Managing Director of NAN, Ima Niboro also expressed shock at the N230million for the purchase of the same item as captured under “Capital Votes” in the 2016 budget of NAN.

A member of the committee, Senator Ben Murray Bruce had also expressed misgivings about the fact that little or no attention was paid to the core functions of the ministry and parastatals under it at a crucial time when Nigeria was at war in the North East.

“I want to ask passionately that they (Ministry/ parastatals) re-submit their budget, taking care of the North East.

because people are dying. This is not the question of spending more recklessly, I appeal that the budget be resubmitted, taking care of their needs in the North East; it is very important”, Bruce said.

Recalling that during the Civil War, radio was a very effective way of communicating with the public, the Senator added that this should also be employed in the war in the North East.

He said. “It would have made more sense for the information budget of the Army to be given to the Ministry of Information to equip these stations manned by NTA and FRCN used by the military as a source of communication.

“For instance, if there is going to be an air raid in a particular area, we can warn the citizens to stay off that particular area. The media can be used like when Buhari did in 1983 for War against Indiscipline, War Against Corruption, so National Orientation should use the medium that we have.

“NTA is a phenomenal network, it has more assets than any station in the whole of Africa today, NTA must be worth 400 million dollars in the open market today.”

Bruce noted that Nigeria is in a state of war as such it was important that national orientation should be in the fore front, followed by NTA and FRCN to be led by the Minister working with the military to guarantee that innocent lives are not lost.

SouthernBreeze:
Breeze don dey blow and fowl yansh don dey open

• Report shows Boro spent N157.2m on armoured, other cars, N510m on 150 ex-militants to take UTME in two months
Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja


Ahead of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta’s consideration of the 2015 Status Report of the Presidential Amnesty Programme at the Senate today, senators have indicated their disapproval of the over N48 billion purportedly spent by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s coordinator of the programme, Brig-Gen. Paul Boro (rtd), since he assumed office last July.


The senators, who preferred not to be named, were particularly concerned over Boro’s purchase of official vehicles for his office for over N157 million as well as the huge sums of money purported to have been expended on the training of ex-militants between November and December last year.


The expenditure, which according to the senators, was listed in the annual status report of the Amnesty Office sent to the Senate Committees on Niger Delta and Public Procurement, have made nonsense of the federal government’s efforts at belt tightening measures, arising from the nation’s dwindling earnings from crude oil.


The annual report, which the two Senate committees would review along with the office’s 2016 budget today, said the senators, indicated that Boro who took over from Hon. Kingsley Kuku as Presidential Adviser on the Amnesty Programme under the current administration, in just five months awarded contracts worth about N48 billion.

Describing most of the contracts awarded by Boro as “mostly nebulous or frivolous”, the senators were particularly irked that at a time Buhari had castigated the National Assembly for its proposal to buy official cars for senators and members of the House of Representatives, the Amnesty Office coordinator, who is just an appointee of the president, had since acquired as his official car, an armoured Lexus LX 570 Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) with communications equipment for VIP movement.


The exotic official car was acquired from Wada Autos Limited at the princely sum of N55 million and full payment has since been made by the Amnesty Office.


“The president claims to be fighting corruption while his aides are already swimming in corruption. Can you imagine a Special Adviser using a bullet proof Lexus car worth N55 million as an official car at a time the president is trying to stop us from buying our own official cars worth about N5 million each? So what happened to the monetisation policy of the federal government?” queried an irate senator, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta.


The report before the two Senate committees and sighted by THISDAY also indicated that Boro had further acquired for his office from Globe Motors Limited, the following cars: one Toyota Land Cruiser VX V8 at the cost of N25.85 million; four Toyota Camry 3.5L V6 cars and four Toyota Hilux 4WD buses at the total sum of N75.35 million. Globe Motors has since been paid fully the sum.


Some of the senators complained that a thorough analysis of contract documents attached to the report showed that at a time Nigeria is experiencing perhaps its worst economic downturn in recent times, Buhari’s adviser on the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme appears only concerned about awarding “frivolous” contracts.


“We expected him to restructure the budget he inherited from his predecessor at the Amnesty Office to fit into current economic realities and in line with the anti-corruption crusade of President Buhari. Unfortunately Boro is just spending recklessly,” lamented another senator who did not want to be named.


Credible sources at the Amnesty Office, however, confided in THISDAY that Boro began the contract awards in November 2015 apparently to beat the December 31 deadline for the return of unspent monies to the treasury, as stipulated by the extant financial regulations in Nigeria.


The nation’s financial regulations stipulate that unspent appropriated funds be returned to the treasury after December 31 every year. However, the federal government made exemptions for the funding of capital projects to continue till March 2016.


Latching on to the need to “empower” already trained Niger Delta ex-agitators, THISDAY sources claimed that some of the contracts did not follow established guidelines for awards.


Said a source: “In several instances, the same contractors used by the former administration of Kingsley Kuku, who already had due clearance from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) were rushed in to handle the so-called empowerment contracts.”


According to an angry senator, the contract awards occurred in spite of the fact that several of the Amnesty Programme’s trainees in universities abroad were either stranded or had been repatriated due to their inability to meet with their financial obligations to their schools.


The senator said his investigations had revealed that under the guise that there was no money to pay the ex-militants’ tuition and in-training allowances, Boro had ordered the students in universities in the UK, United States of America, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Russia, the Philippines, Belarus and elsewhere abroad, to return to Nigeria.


“Several of them have since returned and are on the verge of being placed in Nigerian universities to continue their education. The Amnesty Office cannot afford to deploy or maintain delegates offshore anymore,” he quoted a senior official of the Education Department of the Amnesty Office as saying.


The senator said officials of the Amnesty Office told him that N510 million was paid to an institution, Westerfield Colleges, to prepare 150 students for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).


This transaction, according to him, stipulated that over a period spanning just two months, Westerfield Colleges would prepare the students for the UTME organised by JAMB at a cost of N3.4 million per delegate.


“The same Boro who has been telling Nigerians that the Amnesty Office does not have money to fund the education of students abroad is the one awarding a contract worth N510 million to an institution to organise JAMB classes for fresh students. This is really very silly and embarrassing,” he said.

https://cdn.akamai.thisdaylive.com/0bef99d6-acf5-4e2c-9779-8fa02ba3fcd4/assets/310715F-Paul-Boroh.jpg?maxwidth=400&maxheight=540
Even more curious, he claimed, was the fact that the payment of the N510 million by the Amnesty Office was not treated as a contract, hence no award letter was issued to Westerfield.


Rather, the senator further claimed, Boro in glaring breach of the Procurement Act and other extant financial regulations of the federal government, ordered that the payment to Westerfield be passed off as a direct payment to a school and students.


Efforts to reach Boro and his media consultant, Mr. Owei Lakemfa, failed, as neither of them responded to calls to their mobile phones. A text sent to Lakemfa’s phone was also not replied.

eldino44:
D guy is checking the contents of dat BOOB to see if its worth d money he paid for

Nicur:
A man woke up from sleep shouting holy ghost fire!!! The wife asked is lion chasing you
in your dream? That would have been better said the man. What happen the wife asked?
I nearly voted for APC again in my dream, the wife shouted blood of Jesus!!!!!!

ladyF:
lol and the animals in the zoo will be? You?

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that contrary to the claims by critics of his incessant foreign trips, none of the trips he had made so far can be said to be frivolous.

He said there were always political and economic justifications for his trip.

Buhari said this on Friday in London while answering questions from some Nigerian journalists shortly before he commenced a six-day vacation that would end on Wednesday.

Our correspondent obtained the transcript of the interview on Saturday.

It will be recalled that Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, had asked Buhari to stay at home and govern the country instead of junketing from one country to the other.

Fayose had said that the President’s incessant foreign trips were already bleeding the economy with about $1m being spent per trip.

But Buhari said he did not know how Fayose arrived at the figure he gave.

He said, “Every one of my trips can be politically or economically assessed. I recall that the first trip I had was to go to Chad and Niger. The trip was mainly because of Nigeria’s security.

“We campaigned based on three issues -security, economy (employment) and corruption. And then the G-7 invited me to Germany. After that, I went to Cameroon. I then went to the United Nations General Assembly.

“I have not seen any frivolous journey that I undertook. I understand that the governor of Ekiti State said that every trip I make costs Nigeria at least $1m. I do not know how he worked that out but every trip that I have made, there must be economic and political reasons that justified them.

“Those who do not see it the way the government sees it have the right not to agree and say whatever they like. But we will try and give them the appropriate reply.”

Buhari also promised to take his administration’s ongoing anti-corruption war to all sectors of the economy.

“We have to go the whole hog into other sectors because unlike what some people believe that the fight against corruption is selective, although they have failed to define the selectivity in their own understanding, there is no way we can get a public officer on record that has misappropriated public fund and we will leave him alone.

“It is one of the undertakings that the Federal Government made and we are going to see it through,” he said.

The President identified the need for firm evidences against corrupt persons as one of the main challenges facing the war.

“The challenge mainly is to affirm evidence. If you just hear our story that somebody built 12 houses in Abuja, houses do not move. Do they?

“It is for us to do verification. We need to verify and quantify before the man is invited to justify how he acquired those properties while he is a public officer,” Buhari explained.

He promised to make a representation to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Muhammed, on the various complaints being made against judges in the country.

He recalled that a lot of allegations had been levelled against some of the judges who served on election tribunals.

He, however, declined to comment on the recent Supreme Court verdict that validated the elections of Governor Nyesom Wike (Rivers) and Governor Udo Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom) until he holds a discussion with the Ministry of Justice.

Buhari insisted that despite the killings being witnessed in public places, his government is winning the war against terrorism.

He said, “We are winning the war. I have said that Boko Haram used to effectively control 14 local governments, they hoisted their flag and declared a caliphate of some sort.

“But now, Boko Haram is not holding any local government. They have been dispersed. They have reverted to technology.

“They use Improvised Explosive Devices. They use cooking gas, some wires and metals, put them together and get girls from the age of 15 downwards and explode them in churches, mosques, markets or motor parks and kill people en masse.”




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My trips are not frivolous, Buhari replies Fayose
February 7, 2016


President Muhammadu Buhari


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President Muhammadu Buhari has said that contrary to the claims by critics of his incessant foreign trips, none of the trips he had made so far can be said to be frivolous.

He said there were always political and economic justifications for his trip.

Buhari said this on Friday in London while answering questions from some Nigerian journalists shortly before he commenced a six-day vacation that would end on Wednesday.

Our correspondent obtained the transcript of the interview on Saturday.

It will be recalled that Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, had asked Buhari to stay at home and govern the country instead of junketing from one country to the other.

Fayose had said that the President’s incessant foreign trips were already bleeding the economy with about $1m being spent per trip.

But Buhari said he did not know how Fayose arrived at the figure he gave.

He said, “Every one of my trips can be politically or economically assessed. I recall that the first trip I had was to go to Chad and Niger. The trip was mainly because of Nigeria’s security.

“We campaigned based on three issues -security, economy (employment) and corruption. And then the G-7 invited me to Germany. After that, I went to Cameroon. I then went to the United Nations General Assembly.

“I have not seen any frivolous journey that I undertook. I understand that the governor of Ekiti State said that every trip I make costs Nigeria at least $1m. I do not know how he worked that out but every trip that I have made, there must be economic and political reasons that justified them.

“Those who do not see it the way the government sees it have the right not to agree and say whatever they like. But we will try and give them the appropriate reply.”

Buhari also promised to take his administration’s ongoing anti-corruption war to all sectors of the economy.

“We have to go the whole hog into other sectors because unlike what some people believe that the fight against corruption is selective, although they have failed to define the selectivity in their own understanding, there is no way we can get a public officer on record that has misappropriated public fund and we will leave him alone.

“It is one of the undertakings that the Federal Government made and we are going to see it through,” he said.

The President identified the need for firm evidences against corrupt persons as one of the main challenges facing the war.

“The challenge mainly is to affirm evidence. If you just hear our story that somebody built 12 houses in Abuja, houses do not move. Do they?

“It is for us to do verification. We need to verify and quantify before the man is invited to justify how he acquired those properties while he is a public officer,” Buhari explained.

He promised to make a representation to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Muhammed, on the various complaints being made against judges in the country.

He recalled that a lot of allegations had been levelled against some of the judges who served on election tribunals.

He, however, declined to comment on the recent Supreme Court verdict that validated the elections of Governor Nyesom Wike (Rivers) and Governor Udo Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom) until he holds a discussion with the Ministry of Justice.

Buhari insisted that despite the killings being witnessed in public places, his government is winning the war against terrorism.

He said, “We are winning the war. I have said that Boko Haram used to effectively control 14 local governments, they hoisted their flag and declared a caliphate of some sort.

“But now, Boko Haram is not holding any local government. They have been dispersed. They have reverted to technology.