Nigeria is a funny Country sometimes. hehehe.

We cant summon the courage to execute armed robbers, hired assasins, murderers etc. who have been condemned to death years back and have been on death row since.

yet for some reason we imagine we can execute a death penalty on the most powerful and connected persons in the Country who perpertuate white collar crime.

Hehehehe-----Lolz.

Everyone knows NNPC must be restructured.

Thats one of the key contents of the PIB which our legislators refused to pass.

However, all this 'i will probe, I will probe' threats are really getting boring!!!!

Please Sha do something!!! Its too quiet in FCT and the Nation is drifting!!!

No doubt the Army needs to be restructured.

However, there is nothing special in this account (note i am not saying things are as they should be). You can speak to any police constable on his experiences and see if they are any different?

Speak to a nurse in any general hospital outside the state capitals and see if the story is different.

The Country's public management systems are rotten. Every sector operated by Government is exactly like this, so it would be naive to imagine that our military would be different. The only sad thing is that the Military involve life and death, so the effect of the rot here is more dramatic. However, we must be truthful and admit that it is not unexpected.

The solution is simple but difficult ----- Public service reforms!!!
Unfortunately, this would be a 10 year game at the minimum, involving extensive re-professionalism, change of terms of service, rewrd and punishment etc.

The sad fact is that Iheanacho, yahaya and all the best boys from the U17 side went abroad with the wrong focus. They were more interested in signing for big sides than continuing their development by playing week in/week out.
They proved in the first game that they are not match fit. What is more, it is now doubtful if they can break into their club first 11s. If you cant bench Taiwo Awoniyi is it Aguero you will bench?

Their parents were practically begged by soccer analysts all over nigeria to settle for small sides where they can get game time and grow, but they rushed to Spurs and man City were even the likes of Dzeko and Adebayo are warming the bench. I wish them luck, but sincerely i am not hopeful.

Emik09:
Yahaya and iheancho, Simon should have started this game.. garba is a big inexperienced coach.. Why waste such a talented bunch on the bench.. I blame him for this loss

Yes my brother.
But isn't that what is called one chance

PassingShot:
Great. Very good indeed!

The unfortunate thing is that campaigns are over and Buhari will be president for four years at least.

May be we will consider this info then.

The Lord be praised. There is yet hope for this Country.

At last someone has nailed what i have been saying all along!! The truth is that the fault lines in our National foundation are so wide that the corruption is only a symptom of the dysfunctional structures.
Thats why Govt. resources or property are seen as belonging to no one.

All this yarn about sharing power in APC has not considered the sensibilities of those in whose backyard the cake is baked. When you finish the sharing in APC and they do not feel justly treated, only God knows what will happen.

May the Lord Keep us all!!!

Reference:
I hope you guys now believe that corruption is not the biggest problem Nigeria has but that of structure. Power balancing, compromises and compensations are precursors to corruption. At the end of the day leadership in Nigeria is always weakened. We operate a jaundiced, corrosive, corruptive system by default. Even the Pope would not succeed in this conundrum.

Nothing wrong with the visit to Niger and Chad (except perhaps the timing). However, we cannot deny that Buhari's utterances did not suggest it was a good idea then.
He chose to play politics instead of being a Statesman. Consequently he and his supporters should be prepared to take it on the chin when the criticism comes as it is already beginning to do.

Good work my bro.

Make we dey hype our own.

Wish we had the records of all time goal scorers in the league to use as a yardstick.

Though your choice of Ezeji seems to make sense in view of his longevity.

My guy, you no read my post well.

I explained exactly what i would have done:

'' define the criteria/CV for each ministerial candidate and accept recommendation from a broad based group including Governors, party leadership, industry groups, Multilateral agencies (World Bank, UN, IFC etc.), and select the best hands''

Selecting just based on a narrow/ personal network of persons will lead to compromise and selection of suboptimal candidates thats all am saying sir.

Do you disagree?

49cents:


U sef what do u want

Jonathan let the big wigs have their way and where did it get him

Buhari does the opposite u criticse

Do you want the big wigs to keep on being the primary beneficiary of the government or what


I remain an unrepentant buhari opposser but his got it right here

My brother unfortunately removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria will always by and by result in petrol price increases, let us not deceive our selves.

Why? Because the price of petrol depends mainly on global oil prices and forex exchange rates. Especially as long as we import petroleum products.

i.e. Global oil prices rise = increase in global prices of refined petrol = partly addressed by strong Naira = moderate rise in fuel prices!

or Global oil prices fall = fall in global prices of refined petrol = weakened Naira (because more then 80% of the forex earnings come from oil) = tends to cancel out effect of fall in oil prices = minimal fall in local petrol prices.

Meanwhile, the long term demand for crude oil means that it is unlikely to fall below $70 in the medium to long term (according to the Men wey sabi).

hedonistic:


Nigerians are not really interested in whether the subsidy is removed or not. They are only interested in not paying higher prices, which unfortunately, is what removing subsidies means in this warped country where a cartel controls the importation and marketing of petroleum products.

Nigerians protested against Jonathan because fuel prices skyrocketed from N65 to about N140 per litre when the subsidy was removed in 2012. Would they have protested if the price fell from N65 to N55 as a result of subsidy removal? No! So Buhari must be prepared to face the wrath of Nigerian masses if he removes subsidies and the price of fuel keeps skyrocketing as has been the case with diesel ever since subsidy on diesel was removed many years ago.

Na wa for we Nigerians!!!

We are so quick to shout Hosanna Hosanna, but when it is time to take painful decisions we are fast to shout Crucify Him! Crucify Him!!!

These are just the preambles, the game starts from May 29th. Before then anything APC/GMB does has no real impact. Therefore he can afford to play to the gallery.

When the kick off whistle gos we will know which of these promises are real.

The challenges with not relying on the Governors' recommendations (like PDP does-- the Governors only recommend) are as follows;
1. The constitution requires at least 1 minister from each state, who does GMB know in Ebonyi state or indeed Ekiti, the chances are that he will have to settle for someone sub-optimal from here since his network in the State is by far less than the Governor's

2. This introduces the initial seeds of discord within the party. Some of these Governors shed blood for him. If he knew he was not going to countenance their recommendations, why did he accept their campaign funds and support? States like Osun, Rivers, Ogun are in serious trouble now with unpaid liabilities to civil servants, contractors etc.

3.Centralization and personalization of the selection of the cabinet is not necessarily a good thing.

In my humble view, the best thing would have been to simply define the minimum criteria /CV for each ministerial candidate and allow recommendations from as many sources as possible Party leadership, State Govs, Multi-lateral agencies (World bank, IFC ati be be lo) etc.

The path he seems to have chosen is populist, but it is a slippery slope!! If he loses the support of these political big wigs too early in the game his road will be much rougher. Meanwhile the populace are as flighty as 17 year old girl. They are very gullible, easily deceived and have little or no patience.

Like i always say, there will be no dull moment after May 29th!!! Make we dey watch sha!!

Just one thing to say on this matter.

In 1 or 2 months time when the APC led FG finally rests the subsidy program, I hope they also have the decency to tender a full and unreserved apology to the GEJ administration.
When he proposed removing the subsidy in 2012 this same opposition demonized him.

Well like they say, what the old sage can see sitting on a stool, the youth may not appreciate even if he climbed an iroko tree!!!!

Great idea. However, we have always known this. The matter is in the doing.

In any case i will wait for May 29th before getting involved in any further debate on what will or will not be done. Next thing you know Lai Mohammed will come on air and deny GMB ever said this.

I shall wait till i see Baba saying anything before i believe. The denials are too much.

You may well be right my brother. However, until then make una lef am hand naa!

kastonkastrol:
patience jonathan will be cut to size very soon. All this her gra-gra will end by may29

We dey wahala ooh!

The fact of the matter is that the marketers are just being realistic. There is no guarantee that the new govt will pay them so they want all monies owed them right now.
If your personal business was in their shoes you would probably not act differently. The new govt would have a big decision to make immediately it enters, either pay off the marketers and maintain the subsidy arrangement, or ignore the marketers and import directly through NNPC as the current govt is doing now (along with the associated scarcity given NNPC's inefficiencies).

Which ever way they choose to go, radical changes are called for in the way the downstream oil industry is run.

However, if the government chooses to remove the subsidy, then we all (including APC) owe GEJ an apology, because when he suggested this in 2012, everyone opposed it.

An exciting 4 years lying ahead, no dull moments.

In my view no problems are intractable.

The only question is are we seriously tired of the status quo, do we genuinely want change?
These problems have remained with us because we claim to want better things but we are not willing to change or make sacrifice.

- Are we willing to change the constitution to address the inequities embedded in them? We saw the answer in the last National conference, some parts of the Country want to keep reaping the resources from other regions with no modification. These imbalances make the Country inherently unstable, but they dont seem to mind.

- Are we willing to strip executive officers of immunity? We talk about it but the State houses of assembly will never approve such a change to the constitution because they are all in their Governors' pockets

- Are we willing to allow the LGAs to function properly as autonomous levels of government? The 36 state Governors will fight you in unity irrespective of their parties of affiliation because they want to keep 'jollofing' the LG funds

- Are we willing to save for the rainy day? The FG tried to do this but the Govnors (led by Rotimi amaechi) fought the concept of excess crude account and Sovereign wealth fund to a stand still, to the point of taking FG to court and forcing them to share the fund to the States. Okonjo iweala had to fight with her blood to even secure $1b for the Sovereign Wealth Fund. Today the groove times of oil at over $100 are gone and we are wishing we had saved more money. In fact the same state govnors who agitated for the money to be shared are turning around to blame GEJ for the low balance in the Excess crude account.

In summary, the incoming Govt means well. However, there are too many structural things which have to be changed without which not much can change. Any other thing we try to do will look cosmetic if these deep lying issues are not addressed. The have their work cut out for them. One thing is for sure, over the next 4 years there will be no dull moment.

To get any gain we must be ready for the pain (pain both from a personal level of economic hardship, and the regional level of changes in balance of regional power)! All the countries who have succeeded went through it. I just fear that my country men are not ready for it. But i guess we shall see.

Gbawaii!! You just hit your head on the nail sir!!! ---- Sorry i meant that the other way round.

wisesoul:
If BUHARI is sincere by opening up all probes that have been carried out since 1999, I tell you solemnly, most people who where singing at the top of their voice on Key D upper octave that Jonathan administration was corrupt won't also escape the rot of the incoming Government. E.g OBY, Soludo, Even Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. 70% of people who have participated in nigeria politics from 1999 are all corrupt.

Some of the comments here make it appear many Nairalanders are slightly older than 6 years of age.

The mere mention of sacrifice precipitates heavy abuse. I really pity the incoming president, i hope he does not come to regret taking on this challenge(though he actually deserves anything he gets on account of the insincere promises that formed the basis of his campaigns).

But seriously, are Nigerians believing we can develop without painful sacrifice? Is change possible if we (all of us) dont change our ways? can we actually continue paying the civil service (who consist less than 1% of our population) over 70% of our National budget? By the way do you know labor is preparing to ask for further wage increases?

Which country in the world has achieved positive change by sitting back and folding their arms and had change delivered at their door steps?

Finally i think we should realize that while GEJ may not have met many people's expectations, 99% of our problems today were there before he came and when the new government comes in after May 29, we will soon understand that it takes more than a wave of hand to address them.

Best regards fellow countrymen.

Dont mind them my brother GMB will find it.

In deed his ability or inability to find it will become a key appraisal point for his administration. If he fails to find it, it is either Sanusi is a liar (and should be made to pay for the false alarm) or GMB has found it and is pretending not to have found it so they can share it. In which case he is just as 'corrupt' as the people he replaced.

If he does find it and can prove in a court of law that it has been found, the persons found to have embezzled it should go to jail.

Fair enough

nairaman66:
No smoke without Fire!

The Avalanche of Sanusi's revelation has thrown NNPC into pandemonium!!

Question remains- Where is our $20B dollars??

The truth is that most of the commenters on this thread did not bother to read beyond the headlines.

A man who signed off projects worth billions for 6 years is being paid off with N10m and people are screaming. What do you think is GMB's current pension annually?

How will corruption ever stop if a man leaves his carreer where he would have been well paid and serves his Country for 6 years and cannot even take away half of what a Bank GM would get as severance?

Please before you respond to this go back and read the thread thoroughly!!

Stchinedu,

I like your sincerity. However let us appreciate that corruption is an intangible quantity and is very difficult to measure. Genuinely, absolute corruption has been on the increase in Nigeria from day 1, hence it is higher in each successive administration. However people forget that the man who steals in the day does not necessarily steal more than the guy who steals at night. it is just that his theft is more obvious.

The point i am making is that GEJ's rule coincides with the explosion of online nigeria. Under OBJ how many blogs were there? how many fora? even nairaland was in its infancy? there was even no BBM to talk of facebook or twitter, no saharareporters etc.. Hence GEJ's failing were well publicized, while OBJ's had the benefit of minimum exposure. e.g. OBJ tried unsuccessfully to remove the fuel subsidy at least 2 times, but when GEJ tried it once, what happened? An online/blog inspired revolution (ably supported by the opposition).

Bottom line there are very few of the systemic failures we experienced under GEJ whose seeds were not already growing under OBJ. E.g. we say NNPC's accounts are messy, and i agree. But do you remember that OBJ closely oversaw those accounts (as Minister of Petroleum under his own regime) for two terms?

We can certainly criticize GEJ for not meeting our expectations, we have every right to do so, our standards are higher now, and our patience is even less and those can only be good for Nigeria. However, if we compare him to any of the other leaders of this Country before him, it would be fair to say he did a decent job given the circumstances he faced (boko haram and heightened ethnic tensions). The anger is still high now and i don't expect most people to agree. However, i am confident that when posterity looks at his 6 years, they will regard him favorably compared to his forebears.

stchinedu:

My brother try and be straight...stop saying people are hypocritical when you are not different in anyway.
Nobody is praising Obasanjo ' administration or saying it is free from corruption. But GEJ administration made corruption to sky rocket. Truth be told, I do not blame GEJ myself but it happened under his administration...He allowed those rogues to stain his administration, knowing full well he is the one people will blame because it is his administration. He messed up period!!!
Trying to shift GEJ ' mess to obasanjo is the height of hypocrisy.

I am sure the private investors wont mind, once you cough up the $2.5b they paid you in total for the assets plus any bank interest that has accrued since then, plus amounts they have since invested in replacing old transformers etc.

Sorry did i mention you also have to invite back the old PHCN workers most of whom had already been handsomely paid off, and then continue paying them salaries!!! Will be nice to see how you do this while also providing school meals, paying unemployment benefits to graduate along with all the other wonderful promises that underlined the change agenda.

This is without mentioning the terrible impact this will have on investor confidence when you then want to invite investors to build your railways, manage your airports etc.

Goodluck (Not GEJ oo) to you all, you will certainly need plenty of Patience( not PEJ oooo) over the next 4 years on power supply if GMB takes this poison pill advice from Atiku.

Will be nice to know who will do this audit for Buhari, and how long it will take, but most importantly what they will find.

We wait with baited breath.

Wow talk about brain drain.

The cream of our intelligentsia growing the economy of other Countries.

Sad.

Hope he does not show up tomorrow and deny ever saying this.

Meanwhile regarding reactivating the lake Chad, i hope he has gotten clearance from the Central African Country where he wants to take water?

This approach is a new one to me ooo! I thought you could fight the recession of the Lake by addressing desert encroachment e.g. by planting trees etc., this one of transferring water is a different school of thought.

Well we learn everyday. Cant wait for the honeymoon period to end on May 29th so we can see action!!!

The rubber is beginning to hit the road. Time for the tough choices. We shall see what GMB chooses.

The writer is obviously new to Nigeria, or was too young to follow other changes in govt in the past.

These positions you have outlined are standard positions whose occupants would be changed once there is a change in the presidency, even if the the same party won. Only a fool would retain police chiefs, service chiefs or SSS head whose loyalty is not 100% assured. The changes in NNPC leadership is also given because you need your people looking after the cash till. Its that simple.

In deed to add to your list, expect the leadership of all major parastatals (except autonomous ones like CBN etc.) to be retired (in the next 6 months), expect the commander of Brigade of Guards to be changed for an officer from Daura (or at least Katsina), expect all the GOCs to be changed across the key military formations.

These changes always happen with a change in govt, and have nothing to do with seriousness or the lack thereoff. Seriousness will be judged when the rubber hits the road from May 29th. We wait with baited breath!!!

These Kenyan soldiers look like line infantry as opposed to special forces or anti-terror police. Also there is an MBT. Seems like using a sledge hammer on a fly perched on your 'family jewels'. This called for a surgical operation preferably by night using NVGs, stun grenades etc. to confuse the terrorists to save as many lives as possible.

Anyway its possible these were the troops holding the perimeter, while the special forces make the assault.

Its Okay madam. There is no need to continue vilifying him. He has lost and is on his way back to Otuoke.

The performance of this Govt will indeed determine whether he should be further castigated or perhaps even be vindicated as a true hero. i just pray that you get a position on this new cabinet so you can perform all the wonders you have expected from this Government.

We are watching!!!

Ha! The chess moves have started.
Who are the evil disciples? Baba already positioning as Father of the Nation by setting agenda for GBM, as though all this harm was not there when he was head of state 8 year ago?

Interesting times ahead.

Good Points My guy,

However, it is impossible to effectively equip 400,000 men with our current budget levels (considering the need to continue to invest in infrastructure, healthcare, education etc.). Our best bet is to accelerate the domestication of our defense needs starting from the low tech, high frequency usage items, that way our little forex can be optimized on the really high tech items.

Why should we still import uniforms, body armour, small arms, basic ammunition up to 155mm, first level APCs-battle taxi types, basic missiles e.g. ATGM, light artillery i.e. mortars, Multi launch rocket systems, howitzers and guns up to 105mm, dry rations etc.

We just need to make that commitment to build the manufacturing capacity and most things will fall into place.

Daverytimes:


I don't get why people keep saying this, countries with comparable populations to those of Nigeria has 3 times the amount of Active personnel and most of them have 20-35 times more reserves in their military than we do. Out of the top 10 most populated countries in the world the only country that comes close to Nigerias 130,000 Military personell is japan at 230,000, and that country is supposedly not allowed to have an offensive force (and they number about 50 million less than Nigeria). Bangladesh and Pakistan (the countries closest to us in population terms) has 400+ thousand and 600+ thousand respectively. Does it really make sense to shrink a Military that is already this shrunken? Nigeria needs to expand not shrink, with determination an expansion can be done in conjecture with a modernization program.

Obasanjo is never happy when he is ignored, so he has to concoct one story after the other to remain in the news!!

This is how he 'discovered' 1000 snipers and watch list for opposition politicians. Oh well! maybe the snipers will appear tomorrow, i still dey wait.