₦airaland Forum

@op, will spending N2,000,000+ to achieve what N900,000+ used to do make u more productive?
Petrol subsidy is the kinda benefit were u av to part with something to get, our use of petrol is tied to necesary activities in ovr lives, by ur logic everyone shld be getting relatively equal benefits from oil even if they have no use for it. I dont agree with that for now. The argument shldn't be how does subsidy go from one person to another, it shld be about corruption free scheme.

How do we go about such w/out spilling into a tribal war or religous one. We all know the reality here on NL, though our govt and leaders are our most common enemy that unifies the masses.

Beaf, i still find ur argument lacking. 9ja markets might look rough but that is nothing close to chaos, our markets r like that largely because of its spacing. The transaction r still the same.
As for standard inspection and certification lacking in our system, it is corruption. If some had not triggered the chain of corruption which eventually gives rise to chaos by doing the wrong thing, there would be no chaos.

Beaf:
How can chaos be caused by corruption? Corruption is caused by lawlessness and lawlessness is caused by a lack of order, which is chaos. Comprende?
Fighting corruption without battling its root cause is a waste of time.

Fix the Nigerian system and you would have fixed corruption, underdevelopment and the various fuckries around us that have sadly become normal to the average Nigerian; from loudspeakers in churches to soldiers beating people up in the streets, pen theft etc.

lawlessness is fuelled by corruption of security and judiciary system, and by extension those who monitor and maintain order at all level including the govt.

Oga beaf, caos is caused by corruption, pple only join and increase the entropy of chaos when corruption starts obstructing their goals.

sweet9ja:
Your argument is born either out of ignorance or just complete disregard for the plight of the people of the ND.

please, what plight r u talking of exactly? If u av no point to make u dont av to go rough. What i spelt out there is the bitter truth. If the ND guys are using their ~N20B monthly allocation per state well there will be no plight to talk of here.

Olodostein:
When Ken Saro Wiwa was taken to be hanged. Ojukwu met with him in the afternoon and greeted him "Good morning". And said to him, do you know why I greeted you "Good morning" in the Afternoon? Because THIS IS YOUR MORNING.

This is Nigeria, we are watching with Keen interest.  Your own morning will DAWN.

"When u see a man driving forward but looking backwards, then u ve seen an accident waiting to happen".

@sweet9ja
the idea of resource control shld av remained as it was in the 50s, then the west contributed the lion's share and no other southerner complained. Why is it always the SS/SE complaining when it comes to resource. Don't forget tin in plateau also, the sites of tin mining are now virtually unusable, but u will never hear them kidnap or blow up govt property or the railway used in moving 'their' tin.
Eva since we discovered oil the SS/SE av always tried to lay claims of marginalisation, when in fact they are the one maginalizing others.
Most pple complaining in this forum are not being honest.

Merengue, u r officially a murderer. Chai, see as im finish ibos.

They 'av always tried to brain wash the ND into going with them. Ibos r a big part of Nigeria's problem, they are all mouth warriors with mean actions. Ibos can point fingers from now till eternity but they won't talk about how ibo land governed by ibos av remained one-Nigeria's ''backyard''.

How will they check inter-state smuggling in a sYstem where state have minimal control of their border?
What happen to every other revenue the states has been contributing to the centre?
How do we reconcile this with our past as a country? Remember the days of cocoa from west, tin from MB, and 40-60 sharing btw region and fed.
We need to sit down and do some soul searching. Governing is not just about running away with ur own resource selfishly, the man needs to visit a mental clinic.

Their problem is pride and false ego.
When Gej rigged thru the east, they claimed to av voted for him, and now that he has failed to protect them they are shy and feel ashamed to express themselves. They will rather support and put trust in a weak under-achieving president than say their mind. Everyone is free to self destruct and die in silence . . . After all na democrazy we dey.

[quote author=PROUD-IGBO link=topic=844920.msg9955257#msg9955257 date=1326451677]^^^SHUT THE F*UCK UP, knobhead!!! The problem isn't with Jonathan fool; It's with the core north born to rule, power hungry and bloodthirsty muthafuckers (that have promised to make the country ungovernable), and their wicked/greedy/silly southern accomplices.

You mention OBJ? You think if they had it in for him the way the do for Jonathan, that he would have achieved the little he did during his tenure? If he's so competent and 'tough' as you claim, how come he couldn't get a handle on the sharia issue which began during his tenure, and has now festered into what we see today? They brought in 'sharia' during his tenure for the simple reason that they were bitter that a christian southerner was occupying what they saw as their birthright, and they wanted to make the seat a bit uncomfortable for him.[/quote]have u eaten this morning ? ? ?

OBJ ruled for 8 good years but no one heard these kind of noise/plea. Next time u guys shld come up with a smarter candidate if u must produce the president, and make sure u betray no one on ur way to the top.
SS/SE, conspiracy theories wont get u guys no where.

WAT: What A Thread!!!

The quilty consience of '66 will always hunt these folks. See the way Gej is turning the country upside down and begging us not to take it personal thru his kinsmen . . . Well, apology accepted . . . but, incase of next time he shld never try such.

Agbon: IMF and ‘fuel subsidy’ removal (1)

“The prices of everything will increase, transport, housing, school fees, food, etc. The common man will not be able to survive. We will say no and oppose bad government policies. We will say no and oppose IMF (International Monetary Fund) policies.” – Mrs. Ganiat Fawehinmi,  January 3, 2012.

IS ‘fuel subsidy’ removal an IMF policy? Is Mrs. Ganiat Fawehinmi right? Yes. The present ‘fuel subsidy’ removal is an IMF programme/policy.  The IMF has promoted and supported fuel subsidy removal as government policy in most developing nations. It is part and parcel of the IMF  liberalisation policies and programmes which it imposes on developing nations whenever the opportunity arises. Let me explain.  I will limit this analysis to the last 10 years (2002-2012) for brevity.  I will focus on ‘fuel subsidy’ removal.

“Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories, ” –  Amilcar Cabral (Unity and Struggle).

IMF working papers and staff position papers are discussion tools for IMF policy formation. They start off with the usual disclaimer that the positions and conclusions in the papers are those of the authors and not of the IMF or its policies. These papers are circulated for discussions within IMF and the World Bank. Sometimes, an IMF executive board workshop or seminar is organised around the ideas expressed in them.  These discussions, meetings, seminars and workshops form the foundations of IMF policies.  So, all we have to do is find the roots of the fuel subsidy campaign in the past IMF working papers and the subsequent implementation of these policies in developing nations with special attention to Nigeria. I will proceed to do just that.



IN 2002, Sanjeev Gupta and a few colleagues in the IMF wrote a working paper on domestic petroleum pricing in oil producing countries.  (Gupta Sanjeev, Benedict Clements, Kevin Fletcher and Gabriela Inchauste, 2002, “Issues in Domestic Petroleum Pricing in Oil Producing Countries”, IMF Working Paper 02/140 , Washington: International Monetary Fund).  Sanjeev Gupta is the Deputy Director in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF.  Prior to this, he was the Assistant Director in the African Department.  Gupta and his colleagues argued that petroleum product prices were heavily regulated. Domestic petroleum product prices were below international prices and this implied foregone revenue. The foregone revenue constitutes a hidden subsidy for its citizen (price-gap methodology). This hidden subsidy benefited high income more than low income groups. The solution was to pass international prices into the domestic market and increase fuel prices. They therefore recommended the imposition of international prices on the domestic petroleum product market and the removal of fuel subsidies. They advised on how to identify political opponents of the fuel subsidy  removal programme, how to do a publicity campaign, how to set up a programme aimed at using the money generated, how to time the subsidy removal, how to make promises of transport buses, education, health, roads and give money to the poor if necessary.  Their paper is the blueprint of the fuel subsidy removal programme that the Federal Government is unleashing on Nigerians today…step by step.  It is all in the IMF working papers.

Let us look at this economic argument closely. We will leave the Federal Government and IMF corridors of power and enter the realms of household economics where ordinary Nigerian farmers, workers, students, market women, housewives, unemployed make rational economic decisions. A Nigerian farmer produces yams for household consumption and sales. This price-gap theory might argue that the yams that the farmer uses to feed his household constitute a hidden subsidy because he has forgone revenue or profit by not selling the yams in the market.  Transparency demands that the hidden subsidy be acknowledged and recorded in the household budget and family members made to pay market prices for their meals.  The theory might further argue that grownups benefit more than children (they eat more).  Hence, the household yam subsidies should be removed and special programmes (run by a honest uncle) should be put in place to help the children. A publicity programme would be needed to explain the yam subsidy removal programme to the mother and all other powerful family opponents.  I do not need to go much further.  Soon, the household members will demand market prices for their labour in the farm (market wages) so they can pay market prices for the yams they eat at home. The wife would demand market wages for the housework. The farmer’s household will collapse. Every rational farmer knows that you first feed the family and it is only the excess that you sell in the market. No amount of Leontief Input-output model, Social Account Matrix (SAM) or Computable General Equilibrium model (CGE) can explain away this basic common sense fact.

Not long after Gupta IMF paper was published, the Fedreal Government decided to increase the price of crude supply to the NNPC from $9.50 per barrel to $18 per barrel. International spot oil prices for Bonny Light Crude were $25.15 per barrel.  NNPC was now invoiced by the Federal Government in US$ for domestic crude allocations (445000 barrels of oil per day) and expected to pay the Naira equivalent to the Federation Accounts using CBN quoted exchange rates.  This is where and how they created a non-existent subsidy.  Since NNPC had no money, it paid the amount received from petroleum product sales minus the subsidy into the Federal Accounts. NNPC sent PPPRA a bill for the subsidy.  NNPC then requested the Ministry of Finance to pay the subsidy amount from the PSF into the Federation Account. The Federal Government was left with this buck passing of a fuel subsidy payment. The IMF was not finished.

In 2003,  Shahabuddin Hossain of the IMF African department wrote an IMF working paper on fuel subsidy in Nigeria (Hossain,  Shahabuddin  Mosherraf , 2003, ”Taxation and Pricing of Petroleum Products in Developing Countries: A framework for Analysis with Application to Nigeria.” IMF Working Paper 03/42 , Washington: International Monetary Fund).  He pushed the same ideas as Gupta with the same arguments. He recommended measures to protect consumption of the poor and politically powerful to stop any strong protest and social unrest after subsidy removal. Using Nigeria as an example, he calculated the fuel subsidy and called for a 115.4% increase in the price of petrol (from N26 to N56 per litre), a 89% increase in the price of diesel and a 37% in the price of Kerosene.  He claimed that these were not specific suggestions for policy reforms in Nigeria.  Maybe it is just coincidental, but a 115.4% increase of N65 /litre is N140.01/litre.

A few months after Hossain’s IMF working paper was published, the Federal Government increased petrol prices from N26 per litre to N55 per litre using some of the arguments in his paper to support the decision.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73569:agbon-imf-and-fuel-subsidy-removal-1&catid=38:columnists&Itemid=615

Lasinoh:
Poor Ibori is in jail with all members of his family. . .WHY IS THIS DRUG PUSSSSSSHER still roaming around Nigeria and NL?

Oh. . . I forgot. His children and sugar daughters are on NL.

God save Nigeria.

Cecilia Ibru stole more and has been found guilty but is not in jail, why shld Tinubu who has not been found guilty be in jail like ibori ?

His claims, if unchallenged will only raise more questions. One of those questions will be, how much does our govt sell or profit from crude oil (of about 445k/bpd) meant for local refineries?

obowunmi:
Rural ke ? There is no safety in rural areas.

what do u mean by that ? U don't expect the leaders to run into hiding. They will rather attempt to claim their innocense and steal more.

^^ i think he is subsidizing the petrol with profits from deisel and other products.

By the time this happens, pple will be ready to go in the rural areas because that will be the safest place within the country.
I hope we avert this kinda stuff sha.

It is all about agreement and mutual understanding, if they agreed on the terms previously then i see nothing wrong, instead of grumbling it is better they part amicably if their visions no longer tally

In reality it is possible to sell at 65 and make profit. Don't forget there are other extract from crude that are just as profitable as petrol.
Our 'cabals' are only trying to maximize profit.

^^ its all about contentment, the man is making a decent profit and he is satisfied with it, unlike some who always want more money.

The heat has gotten to beaf on NL, or are u in Delta state? Lol . . .

My attention has been drawn to some statements from some miscreants linking my name to subsidy collection from the Federal Government. Ordinarily, we should ignore such uneducated and uncivilised statements, which is at best the imagination of some lawless gangsters.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is important to put it on record, that my oil company, the Global Fleet Oil and Gas, which has been operating in the past nine years, with more than 210 petrol stations across the country, has never collected any money called subsidy from the Federal Government or it's agents. in addition, I have never collected any allocation from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company or imported such. We only buy and sell. I challenge anyone who has contrary information to publish it or remain silent in shame.

This statement is to correct the deliberate falsehood by some misguided people. We have never applied to any government agency for petroleum subsidy. Our companies and their operations in Nigeria do not fall in the category of companies that require government subsidy to operate, since we do not enjoy a similar thing from the government of Ghana, Sao Tome, United Arab Emirate, United kingdom and the United States of America where we carry out similar operations.

There is no need therefore to put a burden on the Nigerian government.

My Interraction with President Goodluck Jonathan shows his irrevocable commitment to the development of infrastructure in Nigeria, particularly in the construction of basic amenities like roads and hospitals, which I think is the mandate that we Nigerians gave to him, on which point I am also committed.

And it is only logical for us to give him the support required to deliver on that mandate. I do not personally think that joy and celebration without sacrifice and the burden of pain is sustainable.

Only maturity will strike a balance to do things in our ways and embrace the third alternative.
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http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/34233-my-oil-firm-got-no-kobo-of-subsidy-from-fg-jimoh-ibrahim

There are strong indications that the leaders of the labour unions and civil society groups across the 36 states may have to work from secret locations, if the three-day-old strike continues beyond Friday.

The decision to go underground from next Monday, the Nigerian Tribune has been reliably informed, is to ward off the threats being received from “high places” on daily basis over the belligerent posture of various groups being coordinated by the labour leadership against subsidy removal.

At a meeting held in Ibadan on Wednesday, before the commencement of the day’s rally, a review of the protest was carried out and the action adjudged one of the most effective civil mass action in the history of the nation and the state.

“In view of the insistence of the Federal Government over the subsidy palaver as well as death threats being received almost on daily basis since the beginning of the strike on Monday, labour leader across the country are contemplating going underground to avoid being arrested by agents of the authorities.

“They are also going into hiding so as to implement strategies currently being put together to sustain the strike and its momentum until President Goodluck Jonathan caves in, bows to the resolve of the masses and revert petrol price to N65,” a source in the meeting said.

Meanwhile, there appears to be no let-up in the Ibadan episode of the protests and agitations spearheaded by labour unions and civil society organisations against the removal of subsidy on petrol, as social and economic activities remained paralysed in the metropolis on Wednesday, the third day of the general strike.

As they had been doing since Monday, when the nationwide strike action began, the leadership of the labour and other interest groups as well as tens of thousands of protesters converged on the secretariat of the state chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) as early as 7:30am to intimate the crowd with the itinerary for the day.

The mammoth crowd of demonstrators processed through major roads and streets before stopping at Idi Odo junction at Challenge, Ibadan, for the leaders of the protest to address them on the latest developments on the matter.

First was the state chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Bayo Ajayi, who addressed the tumultuous gathering in Yoruba Language, in a message that resonated with the people.

Comrade Ajayi said there was nothing like subsidy, except what he called “fraud subsidy” and that the landing cost of petrol was N40, adding that Nigerians, rather than the government, had been subsidising the product to the tune of N25 a litre.

In his own address, the coordinator of the Joint Action Front and president of the University of Ibadan chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr Aremu Olanrewaju, debunked the claim by the Federal Government that about 35million of petrol was being used daily in the country and explained that only 12.1million was being used.

Labour rights activists, Comrade Femi Aborisade, in a remark, went down memory lane of the history of countries worldwide and submitted that no government had been able to subdue the resolve and will power of the citizens, adding that it would be in the president’s best interest to order the reversal of petrol price to N65.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/34231-labour-leaders-may-go-underground-from-monday-if

I hope this is not a declaration of Holy Jihad on ND, with all the Sapele tension u never can be too sure.

Man sets self ablaze, tries to kill judge in Delta


Mistrust between the northerners resident in Delta State and indigenes became worse on Wednesday, following an attempt by an Hausa man to set ablaze an Effurun High Court judge.

The suspect, identified as Mallam Abdulsalam Al-Kazeem, was said to have set himself ablaze at about 2.30 p.m. and attempted to wrap his burning body around the judge.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that Al-Kazeem was a guard in the residence of the judge, Justice Patience Keujubola, until the attempt to set his boss ablaze along with himself.

Security sources disclosed that the suspect had bought a keg of fuel and hid it in the premises of his boss’s house and when the judge came out, he was said to have soaked himself with the fuel and lit a match.

“We have a report that an Hausa man poured petrol on himself and set himself ablaze and he attempted to wrap his burning body around the judge, but she was rescued. The suspect sustained severe burns all over his body in the process,” he added.

Nigerian Tribune learnt that Al-Kazeem’s grouse was that the judge was paying him peanuts and decided to commit suicide and killed his boss along.

Delta State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Charles Muka, confirmed the incident.


http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/34238-man-sets-self-ablaze-tries-to-kill-judge-in-delta

2mch:
Very pathetic. International laws state 12 nautical miles. And onshore oil in the ND is only 10% of the oil revenue. 90% is off shore. So . Nigeria yi ti gbo gbo wa ni. Anyone can take their 10% . If they want to make this about oil, abeg we have to show dem sey we too get sense. We know what is in Nigeria. Make dem call SNC and go na.

couple that with the fact that the west and middle belt sustained these SS drunks with cocoa and tin money in the 50s respectively. If the try any non-sense '66 will be a joke to those fishermen.
Beaf is just a confused dude with no honour.

Beaf:
That is the way its meant to be and what people should have gone out for in the first place.

There are much more fundamental things to protest than the removal of the subsidy. The protests were ethnically instigated, but as with any movement that lacks ideology, there is only unfocused raw anger and the protests organisers have lost control. Let the people take over.

U are a pathetic dude beaf, when the protest started u said Tinubu and co. was behind it, and now that they 've attacked Tinubu's wife and his party members u r saying a totally different thing.
This is no ethnic issue, it is God's time for ur likes.

Mr. efisher, what u r proposing or insinuating here is so so unrealistic.
According to digidamage's analysis, did the 'cabals' suddenly start their false claims just because it was april or election time?
One thing i know is GEJ has alot to hide in his cabinet. This is our time to sort things out with a corrupt system.