dridowu:
History will have it that an allege boko haram sponsor once lead pdp

ebhohimimen:
With Corruption a bag of pure water was N80
Without Corruption a bag of pure water is N150

With Corruption dollar was N180
Without Corruption dollar is N400

With Corruption I have 20hrs electricity at low tariff
Without Corruption I have 7,hrs electricity with 45% increase in tariff

With Corruption keke to my house takes N50
Without Corruption keke to my house takes N100

With Corruption smallest indomie was N40
Without Corruption smallest indomie is N60

(Romanus Ugwu, ABUJA)

The APC has emphatically denied ever congratulating opposition PDP candidate and winner of last weekend’s Benue South senatorial rerun election, Senator David Mark.

Online media sources were awash with rumours that the party and its representative for the rerun election may be at a crossroads, adding that while the APC candidate, Daniel Onjeh, has rejected and protested the outcome of the election, the party has already congratulated Mark after election commission INEC declared him winner.

However, in a release signed by National Secretary of the party, Mai Mala Buni, APC argued that the so-called ‘congratulatory message’ on a twitter handle purportedly belonging to the party did not come from the party, warning the general public to beware of false messages.

According to the ruling party: “The attention of the National Secretariat of the APC has been drawn to some false online publications reporting that the party has congratulated David Mark, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), candidate in last Saturday’s Benue South senatorial rerun election.

“The APC has not issued any congratulatory message on the Benue South Senatorial rerun election. The ‘congratulatory message’ purportedly obtained from a twitter handle, ‘@APCNigeria’, did not emanate from the party. The purported twitter message itself is not credited to any APC official.

“The general public is advised to ignore the false message. The APC reiterates that only the National Chairman and the National Secretary officially speak for the party.”

Adminisher:
Very good policy but not enough.
Nigerians want "JAIIL JONATHAN "

by Obi Nwakanma

Last week, Vanguard reported a curious drama during the State House briefing after the meeting of the National Executive Council, between State House Correspondents and the Minister for Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed. It seemed like the Buhari cabinet did not have much to talk about. There is of course much going on. Boko Haram is still killing and pillaging. The Chibok girls are as good as lost. To remove the sheen from that fact, the President was reported a while ago to have pointedly told parents of the girls of Chibok to go home as there’s not much else he could do for them.

Well, that’s very disappointing because President Buhari and the APC made it a cardinal point of their election promise to return the kidnapped girls of Chibok to their families as soon as they are installed in government. Not to return the girls will amount to a breach of trust and a failure to fulfil a cardinal electoral promise. Goodluck Jonathan lost Nigerians, and began to lose his re-election following the massive international outrage that accompanied the kidnap of the Chibok girls.

The Jonathan administration was vehemently criticized for its slow and half-hearted response, and for its inability to mount a strategic rescue operation to get back the girls from their captor. The loss of the Chibok girls was Jonathan’s greatest undoing, and it is actually in my thinking right after all, that for that alone, he deserved to lose the presidency. Right under his watch over two hundred young women disappeared from a boarding school. This was more than a security lapse, it was a clear failure of national security. It required a great operational capability to move that number of people through many borders, and it needed only a decayed or frayed security system to permit that. Because the president failed to protect these citizens of Nigeria to whom he had sworn both allegiance and service, he did not deserve to be returned to his job as president.

In actual fact, Jonathan’s slow response, and the campaign mounted in protest grew to frenzy. In the end, he went to the National Assembly and secured $1 billion in supplementary funding for his national security operations to fight Boko Haram, and mandated that operation on his National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. If truth must be told, by the time of the elections, Jonathan’s new strategy had put Boko Haram on the run, degraded its operations, and the tide had turned very clearly. Another three to six months of sustained action at the level may have seen the end of Boko Haram by now. But it was already too late for Jonathan’s government. He had waited far too late in the day to mount a serious counter offensive against the Islamic insurgency. It was too little too late.

But there were visible signs of an impending Boko Haram defeat at the eve of Jonathan’s departure, on the strength of which Mr. Lai Mohammed, the Minister for Information, and Chief spokesman of this administration, no sooner in the life of the current administration was almost too quick on the draw to claim victory and the defeat of Boko Haram. Lai Mohammed was quoted at various times to say that Boko Haram, “technically” had been defeated and “degraded.” But six months later, Boko Haram is still there, and under the watch of this administration, has mounted even bolder, more ferocious attack, and on a greater killing spree than was possible under Jonathan.

The Buhari administration has thus far failed in its promise to defeat Boko Haram. The significant push-back achieved at the twilight of the Jonathan administration has been lost. There is no clear-cut policy on the insurgency by this president except to move his military headquarters and put more boots on the ground. But an insurgency such as this requires a different strategy of counter-insurgency beyond traditional warfare techniques, and Jonathan’s last strategy before his electoral defeat had come to understand this.

Meanwhile, the Buhari administration is busy conducting a killing spree of unarmed Biafran protesters in the South East of Nigeria, while Boko Haram insurgents are running wild in the North East. Something clearly doesn’t add up here, but back to Lai Mohammed. His critics have dubbed him “Liar Mohammed,” an unkind cut from his name, “Lai.” I have always liked the name, “Lai” because a great friend of mine from the University was called “Lai” and he was a great guy. Besides, I will not go so far as calling a Nigerian minister, “Liar,” but it often takes a great alchemist of untruths and distortions, to do the work of pure propaganda, as Mr. Mohammed has often done for the current administration.

His strategy when everything fails is, “blame Jonathan.” So, in this last briefing of journalists, only two items were lined up: his attempt to explain the president’s numerous foreign travels, which has recently come under severe criticism, and his need to blame Jonathan for everything else. Reporters wanted to know a bit more – the radical slide of the naira, Boko Haram, the budget-padding scandal, the administration’s economic projections. But Lai Mohammed was in his element. Blame Jonathan.

To justify the president’s increasingly expensive and wasteful foreign trips, the minister said, “You cannot run an economy by being isolated.” True enough. But that is why we have a Foreign Ministry and a foreign minister. Trained diplomats would not tell the Telegraph in London as the President recently did that “Nigerians are mostly criminals.” Such a statement is not meant to inspire or invite investor confidence. But what did Lai say? Blame Jonathan. Buhari has to travel because Nigeria had a pariah status under Jonathan. That is a lie, minister.

Nigeria’s international standing actually improved under Jonathan. But this blame Jonathan game is getting old and worrisome.

Budget goes missing, blame Jonathan. Buhari travels, blame Jonathan; Boko Haram continues to strike, blame Jonathan; Naira crashes, blame Jonathan; Economy worsens, blame Jonathan. One truth is clear: Jonathan revived the comatose railways, rebuilt long run-down federal highways, re-equipped the Armed Services, built twelve new Universities, and expanded the middle class. Above all, his greatest achievement was that Nigerians felt true liberty and freedom: no Nigerian lived in fear of government’s persecution, and he brought to an end, the spate of assassinations and kidnappings that marked the height of national insecurity before him. He wasn’t without achievement.

Jonathan greatest undoing was the kidnap of the Chibok girls and his slow response to it. Lai Mohammed’s attempt to place the current failures of the current administration on Jonathan is both laughable and tragic. What is increasingly clear is that the APC had no plan to govern. Buhari’s first steps in government was all wrong: he started by alienating an entire segment of Nigerians, and he was too slow to respond to the realities of the crisis in the international oil market.

Rather than pick up from Jonathan running, he crawled for six months, and seemed startled and confused by his own electoral victory. That period of inaction for six months when he failed to organize his government, stanch leakages, and establish necessary reforms has led to the current crisis with the Naira in a freefall, and the economy leaking badly like a wicker basket.

Buhari’s economic policy that limited the circulation of money has led to a crisis of production and distribution. When he finally presented his budget, it became clear to Nigerians that this president is the one who really has no clue what running a contemporary nation is about in the 21st century, and the Tsunami that is about to hit him if he fails to reposition his priorities. He is already nine months in office, and he is still blaming Jonathan. Come three years hence this government will still be blaming Jonathan. Blame Jonathan is, it seems, the Buhari administration’s most consistent domestic policy. O ma bloody se o!

Obi Nwakanma is a columnist with the Vanguard, where this article was first published.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

President Muhammadu Buhari will begin a weeklong official visit to Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Monday, and hold a special prayer for Nigeria before returning to the country. Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, announced the president’s trips in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday.
The statement said Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum and group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), will accompany the president, who is expected to hold talks with Saudi authorities on stability in the price of oil.
“Before going on to Doha, the president will also visit Medina and Mecca to pray for greater peace, prosperity and progress in Nigeria,” the statement read.
“President Buhari, who will be accompanied by a high-powered Federal Government delegation, including the Minister of State (Petroleum) and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, will first fly to Riyadyh for talks on Tuesday with King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and senior officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“Ongoing efforts by Nigeria and other members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to achieve greater stability in the price of crude oil exports are expected to be high on the agenda of discussions between President Buhari and the Saudi Monarch.
“Crude oil prices and market stability will also be on the front burner when President Buhari goes on to Doha on Saturday for talks on Sunday with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.”
Adesina said in Qatar, Buhari will meet with top businessmen and seek support for his administration.
“The president is also scheduled to meet with leading Saudi and Qatari businessmen in Riyadh and Doha, and invite them to support his administration’s efforts to revamp the Nigerian economy by taking advantage of the great investment opportunities currently available in Nigeria’s mining, agriculture, power supply, infrastructure, transportation, communications and other sectors,” the statement read.
“President Buhari’s other engagements in Saudi Arabia include meetings with heads of international financial organisations and multilateral associations.”

THE REPUBLIC By Shaka Momodu; Email: shaka.momodu@thisdaylive.com; (SMS Only) 0811 266 1654

First of all, let me ask all my countrymen a question: has there ever been a political party in the history of Nigeria that had such a genius for totally meaningless prattle like the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which is self-righteous and well versed in the art of hypnotising the people with outright misleading information for political gains? I have searched the history books and listened to oral history but have found no match to this propagandist organisation’s hypocrisy and predilection for deception on the scale we are faced with today.

I have always been worried by the manner of the party’s conception and birth; its modus operandi of never conceding defeat at the polls; its attempt to blemish every institution of state that does not toe the party line - the latest being the Supreme Court for daring to deliver judgments against it; its attempt to equate its position on any issue with conventional wisdom as well as the tendency by the party to view support for it as sacrosanct and a noble display of patriotism. Otherwise, you are branded as unpatriotic, treacherous and corrupt or worse still, bought over by treasury-looters. I have been worried about the attitude of the APC to elections - when it wins in court, the party and its satellite brigade of professors of law, human rights lawyers/activists, who are largely media creations, praise the judiciary to high heaven and declare “victory for democracy.” But when it loses, it mobilises a vicious campaign against the judiciary - see what they are doing to our Supreme Court now. It must be pulled down because the APC lost its cases at the highest court in the land. Has anybody heard the APC and its human rights lawyers/activists complain about the Supreme Court judgment in the Bukola Saraki case? It seems they are happy with it. Recall that when the same court stopped the trial at the CCT, the same hypocrites attacked the Supreme Court.

More than anything else, I have been worried sick as to how its promoters, neck-deep in avarice have suddenly transformed into soldiers of liberation. It’s a wonder politicians who only yesterday were and are still part and parcel of the plague and curse the people have endured for so long now suddenly lay claim to being the architects of change. I have often wondered how these people can find the generosity of the human spirit to inspire and bring about real and redemptive change to the people long battered and bruised by a thieving leadership class they belong to.

So, right from the outset, I was very cynical about their message and intentions, even though it somewhat resonated with the yearnings of the people. I repeatedly warned that it was not born out of any genuine desire for change, but rather it was a convenient mantra used to hoodwink the people for support, and ultimately to seize and consolidate power for their selfish interests. For the avoidance of any doubt, let me repeat here what I have said countless times: it’s never been about the people or love of our country as some of its promoters’ rhetoric suggested. I once read a presentation of one of the cardinals of the party as he tried to wax populist in his viewpoint on the state of the nation, stating then that for our tomorrow he and others had sacrificed their today. I just laughed and said to myself, wonders will never cease! But discerning Nigerians know that they are the profiteers of public offices and that for their today, they have taken our tomorrow and that of our children. Not satisfied, they are also now trying to take that of our grandchildren.
Anyway, that is a topic for another day.

For now, I am more concerned with the government’s claim to have “technically defeated” Boko Haram with “substandard weapons”. In September 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari gave the military chiefs their marching orders to crush Boko Haram within three months. In the run-up to the deadline of December 31, 2015, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed exultantly declared victory over the terror group and announced to the whole world that the military had achieved the president’s mandate for an end to the Boko Haram menace and that our victorious soldiers would comb the area to mop up any remaining resistance. This was after this government had repeatedly excoriated the last administration for not equipping the military with weapons to defeat the terrorists. Of course we are in the middle of the ongoing probe of the arms scandal with chilling revelations of outright mismanagement and stealing of public funds. Some high-ranking members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and they may well pay the price for mismanaging government funds like drunken sailors.

Who can then blame the APC-led government for whatever spin they put on the investigations? The PDP let the people down and only has itself to blame for that. But the APC narrative about the non-purchase of weapons which had gained currency across the globe was recently challenged, albeit casually in far away Switzerland by former President Goodluck Jonathan who stated in an interview with France 24 that no new weapons had been bought by the new government and that the Buhari government was fighting the terror war with the weapons procured by his government. Caught in its own lies, the government through the information minister who ironically announced the defeat of the terrorists, turned around to say, “Jonathan bought substandard weapons that can’t be used to defeat the sect.” He however failed to state which weapons were used to technically defeat the terror group. Until this moment, he has not countered Jonathan’s claim with any proof that the Buhari administration had not procured new modern weapons since it came to power. Or are we to assume that our soldiers suddenly became more motivated by this government to the extent that they fought and beat the hell out of the terrorists with bare hands? But anyone following media reports on the war would have read reports of troops in the theatre of war lamenting the non-payment of their salaries and allowances. Added to that is the news just filtering through that the service chiefs at a recent meeting held behind closed doors with the leadership of the Senate and the chairmen of committees relating to security agencies expressed concern over the non-release of funds (N29.9 billion) appropriated in the 2015 supplementary budget to the military to combat Boko haram which they alleged actually undermined the war on terror. In the last few weeks, terrorists have simply obliterated several communities in the North-east, killing and maiming hundreds of people.

A fortnight ago, the “technically defeated” terrorists attacked and destroyed Mairi and Malari communities on the outskirts of Maiduguri, killing several people. Just last Tuesday, the IDP camp in Dikwa was attacked by Boko Haram resulting in the death of almost 70 people.

The terror group on January 31, 2015 burnt about 86 villagers to death, including women and children when they overran Dalori village, a mere four kilometres outside Maiduguri. This is coupled with the fact that many atrocities and killings carried out in drive-by shootings, relentless suicide bombings and daring attacks lasting several hours unchallenged go unreported. So can anyone out there tell me who is fooling who? Can anyone tell me what has changed when innocent people are still being killed daily in a senseless orgy of violence by a deranged group of killers?

It is a shame that a section of the public can’t even reason anymore when these ‘true lies’ are dished out to them in official doublespeak. In discussions at bars, relaxation joints, articles in newspapers, etc, the ‘true lies’ are waxed in the rhetoric of false sense of achievements. Any contrary view is quickly labelled as sponsored even in the face of hard facts contained in that view. Everything has been reduced to “them”, the bad guys and “us”, the saints. Critics of the methods of this government are being targeted by a hypnotised mob in a frenzied eagerness to deny the reality of the creeping danger we now face. The intellectual/activist arm of the hypnotised mob is in full flourish in the mad conspiracy to deceive the public by telling us that what we see is in fact not what we see, but what we hear from the “enemies” of this government.

These intellectuals are helping to foist a new order in utter disrespect for the rule of law and due process. Ironically, we grew up knowing some of them for no other career other than their dogged fight for the institutionalisation of the rule of law. Now, we hear them loudly query the entire essence of their lives’ struggle. They now qualify the rule of law and want it moderated including the suspension of the constitution to give one man unchecked powers to be the accuser and the judge. They forget that the backbone of society and democracy is that no matter how we despise a suspect, that individual is entitled to the full protection of due process and should not be subjected to a lynch mob or vigilante justice. Punish those found to have fallen foul of the law, but please follow the law of the land and its due process.

Back to the ‘true lies’ we are told, every new attack by the evil terror group is explained away by this government and its agents as an attack on “soft targets” and even trumpeted as evidence of how weak the sect has become. They fail to tell the people that the so-called soft targets are actually Boko Haram’s best targets. Terrorists have always targeted “soft targets” because that is where they record the greatest number of casualties in their satanic campaign to spread their gospel of death, hate and fear.

The World Trade Centre in New York, targeted in the 9/11 attack was a soft target, the Russian passenger plane blown out of the skies over Egypt was a soft target, the Paris terror attacks in a football stadium and a cinema theatre were soft targets, the July 7, 2005 terror attacks in central London were all soft targets, the attack on Radisson Blu hotel frequented by foreigners in Mali recently was a soft target, the assaults by al-Shabab terrorists on a university in north-eastern Kenya resulting in the death of 147 students and the Westgate Mall in Nairobi were soft targets.
In other words, the modus operandi of terrorists is to kill as many innocent people as possible and instill fear in people. So what is this nonsense talk about a weakened terror group now picking on soft targets in a desperate gasp for breath? Lest I forget, the attack on the United Nations building in Abuja was a soft target. Boko Haram started this way and merely graduated into occupying territories - an act they copied from the Islamic State in Syria.

If it no longer holds territory (which is debatable) and has now returned to its traditional tactic of hit-and-run, is that in anyway a sign of weakness? I certainly don’t think so. If anything, it is even more potent and deadlier in its traditional method than when the authorities agreed it held defined territory as the average number of recorded killings per day has gone up.

Lai Mohammed should save his breath – the majority of Nigerians can now see through his little game. He was an effective propagandist for his party, but being in government is a different kettle of fish. In saner societies such excuses can lead to the collapse of the government of the day. The first duty of any government is the security of lives, especially the vulnerable, and property. Any government that is failing in this sacred duty is unfit for the task of governance. It was precisely this reason Nigerians voted out Jonathan.

The issue of the Chibok girls is no longer important as it was in the run-up to the general election. At least it has been used to achieve a political end. As a matter of fact, it is now an irritant to this government. The APC used the plight of the missing girls so effectively against the last government that you would think it will top their priorities list. But nowadays, it barely features on its agenda. All has gone silent on the girls. Even their hypnotised mob of supporters no longer mention or care about what has become of the poor girls whose predicament was exploited to gain power.

Recall that then Candidate Buhari had promised that until the Chibok girls were found and safely returned to their families, he would not consider the war against the sect won. But his government was quite eager to declare victory when as he confessed recently, he did not even have any concrete intelligence on the fate of the missing girls, nine months after assuming power. That’s food for thought for all the APC supporters

In its dash to prove that Mr. President’s deadline had been met, I find it absolutely astonishing that the government embraced semblance over substance. Maybe that is the meaning of technical defeat after all.

Now, can anybody tell me why it was necessary for President Buhari to attend the Syrian Donor Conference in London recently while the North-east of our country is on fire? While away, hundreds of innocent Nigerians were killed and thousands turned to refugees in their own country. The Conference was organised by Western powers to raise fund to cushion the humanitarian problems faced by over 12.2 million people in Syria. The same powers who have largely failed to sell weapons to Nigeria in its terror war.
The more they shout change, the more things stay the same or even worse.

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has renewed its appeal to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to remove some items from the foreign exchange restriction list.
The President of MAN, Mr Frank Udemba, made the appeal in an interview on Friday in Abuja.
Udemba said that some of the 41 items in the list were essential raw materials for many manufacturers across key sectors, and could not be presently sourced locally.
He said that the affected manufacturers would soon run short of stock of those inputs and be forced to shut down with the attendant social implication of massive job losses.
“Information reaching me from our members is that by the end of March, many of those companies will start closing shop, leading to massive job losses.
“The 41 items involve a lot of things such that when broken down into the Customs Harmonised Service (HS) Codes, you have a total of 680 products.
“Based on our analysis, 95 out of the 680 products are essential industrial raw materials for our members but cannot be sourced in this country for now,’’ Udemba said.
He said the association had tabled its concerns before the CBN and requested for the removal of the 95 items from the list, at least for the time being.
“We are saying they should allocate Forex to our members to import those 95 items pending when local substitutes can be created for them.
“They can give us a time frame of between 18 months and two years to develop the local product capacity for the items before including them in the list.
“This will give our members and other investors time to invest in backward integration projects for those raw materials.’’
It would be recalled that the CBN issued a circular in June 2015 excluding importers of 41 products from accessing foreign exchange at the official Forex markets.
The apex bank said the policy was part of measures to preserve the country’s depleting external reserves and protect local industries.

(Recasts with Nigeria regulations)

Feb 18 South African retailer Truworths has pulled out of its Nigerian business citing import restrictions, its chief executive said on Thursday, a sign President Muhammadu Buhari's attempts to boost local industry are hurting foreign investment.

As well as being unable to fill its shelves, the clothing retailer said it was struggling to pay its rent and get access to foreign exchange which has dried up due to a collapse in oil prices. Nigeria is Africa's biggest crude exporter.

"We were unable to operate the stores properly any longer because we were unable to send merchandise to the stores because there's regulation preventing that," Michael Mark told Reuters in telephone interview.

In an attempt to boost local manufacturing and prop up the ailing naira, Buhari has effectively banned the import of almost 700 goods, ranging from rice to toothpicks, bread and soap.

Even non-banned items are difficult to import due to dollar shortages.

Buhari won an election a year ago on promises to end a brutal Islamist insurgency in the northeast and wean Africa's biggest economy off oil.

However, Boko Haram militants continue to launch regular attacks and economists have questioned the logic of Buhari's shock therapy reform tactics, particularly because of the knock-on effects of the slump in oil prices. (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Ed Cropley)

When the incredible issue of a missing/counterfeited 2016 budget arose some weeks ago, I was expecting to hear from the APC that Goodluck Jonathan was to blame. Surprisingly, that did not happen. Instead, blame was traded between the presidency and the national assembly, seemingly forgetting that both organs of government are now controlled by the same APC.

The stock-in-trade of this government is to blame Goodluck Jonathan for everything. If there is petrol shortage: Jonathan is to blame. If there are power cuts, Jonathan is to blame. If there Boko Haram killings, Jonathan is to blame.

This government has apparently not yet heard the aphorism that: “the buck stops with the president.” Nine months down the road from his inauguration, the president continues to pass the buck to Goodluck Jonathan. Then came the defining issue of the 2016 budget.

419 budget

Mr. President did not just send the budget to the National Assembly, he presented it himself with great fanfare and bells and whistles. This was supposed to be his signature proposal. With seven months squandered ostensibly trying to get a cabinet of saints and angels who turned out to be the same old same old, many with corruption allegations hanging over their heads; the budget was expected to provide redemption for the government.

It would provide a bold new start to the government’s much-heralded “change” with a N6 trillion “zero-based” proposal that would defy Nigeria’s austere economic circumstances, and put us firmly on the launch-pad to economic recovery and diversification.

This makes it all the more perplexing that the 2016 budget has turned out to be the biggest blunder of this government in a catalogue of blunders that has now come to define it. I am still waiting for those who voted for APC to admit they blundered royally. In their blunder, they have given us a government that keeps going from one blunder to another.

Denying the budget

We did not need Olisa Metuh, the opposition spokesman conveniently padlocked by the EFCC, to expose the blunders in the 2016 budget proposals. Different government spokesmen have competed to distance themselves from it as much as possible. Charles Dafe, Director of Information, Ministry of National Planning, blamed the blunders in the budget on the government’s insufficient knowledge of the zero-based budgeting. Who is to be held responsible for this ignorance? Surprisingly, Dafe forgot to mention Goodluck Jonathan.

Isaac Adewole, the Minister of Heath, also forgot to blame Goodluck Jonathan. Instead, he maintained: “rats invaded Nigeria Budget documents and smuggled in foreign items.” You may well ask who was supposed to buy rat poison. Did Goodluck Jonathan forget to hand it over on his departure?

Lai Mohammed, the past-master at blaming Goodluck Jonathan for everything, could not blame Jonathan for once. The man who promised to hold 365 carnivals in 365 days in 2016, and was awarded a budget allocation bigger than the Ministry of Agriculture, openly disowned the government’s “budget of change.” Apparently, someone had gone ahead to change a number of the items in it; much in the spirit of the APC’s highfalutin change mantra. Among them, the N5 million proposed for buying computers for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board mysteriously became N398 million.

The Ministry of Education was also unable to scapegoat Goodluck Jonathan. Instead, a fictitious N10 billion that showed up in its figures was attributed to a “typographical error.” That just might qualify as one of the most expensive typos in the history of Nigeria. But how can N10 billion be a typo when it should not even be there at all? Was it N1 billion they were trying to put that mistakenly became N10 billion? Or was it N10 million? What difference does it make when no one can even tell us what the money is meant for?

Outright fraud

How come a significant amount of these so-called errors have to do with the presidency itself? What error accounts for the N3.8 billion allocated for capital projects at the State House Clinic meant for the president, vice-president and their families alone; compared to the N2.6 billion allocated for all the 17 government teaching hospitals nationwide. How come the amount budgeted for feeding the president is more than sufficient to feed entire villages for years?

There is really no point in itemising the bogus anomalies in the budget because they are just too many. But a few examples should exemplify just how ludicrous they are. In the president’s so-called budget for change, N259 million is allocated for buying tyres, batteries, fuses and other whatnots for the cars in the presidency. N27 million is allocated for buying c-caution signs, fire-extinguishers and towing-ropes.

Spurious sums in excess of N100 billion are included repetitively. Bogus costing of N53.7 million is repeated 52 times; while those amounting to N37.8 million appear over 369 times. In some cases, the purchase of the same vehicles, computers and furniture are replicated 24 times to the tune of N46 billion. N795 million is set aside just to update the website of one ministry, putting to shame the amount alleged to have been used for Babatunde Fashola’s infamous website while he was governor of Lagos State.

In short, Buhari took five months to choose ministers. He had eight months to prepare a budget. Nevertheless, he ended up by presenting one of the most bogus and fraudulent budgets Nigerians have ever seen. That is the change we can surely do without.

Forex market

Other changes have only entrapped law-abiding Nigerians. The daughter of a friend of mine, C.Y. Ogunseye, was getting married in the United States. He travelled abroad expecting to make use of his Nigerian credit card. After he got to Chicago, Buhari made changes that pulled the rug from under his feet. His credit card had become invalid, to all intents and purposes. Clearly, no one in the presidency put a human face to the changes they made, which might have made them ease Nigerians into the new policy so that people like C.Y. already abroad are not caught in the lurch.

Another friend of mine, Pamela Mommah, has a daughter in university in Belgium. Since Buhari came in, it has become near-impossible to pay her school-fees. Now we are told overseas school-fees have been placed on the CBN’s foreign-exchange prohibitive list. The monies for them will now have to be sourced from the parallel market. The president had promised to make the naira equal to the dollar while asking for our votes. Now that he is president, the naira is in free fall. It has depreciated by over 50 percent since the inception of his presidency – from N225 to N335 to the dollar.

The same president who recently went outside the country on a five-day sabbatical which possibly included a medical check-up, has also included buying foreign-exchange officially for overseas medical treatment on the prohibitive list.

As if these blunders were not enough, the vice-chancellors in 12 of the universities established by Goodluck Jonathan were summarily dismissed by the government, replaced by new government appointees. This has become another example of the government becoming a law unto itself.

Vice-chancellors are tenured. That means they cannot be removed before the expiration of their term without a prima facie case of incompetence or dereliction of duty, and even then only on the recommendation of the board of the university’s governing council. But the government not only sacked the VCs without board approval, it sacked the boards before sacking the VCs.

Having done this, it then replaced the VCs in a manner completely contemptuous yet again of Nigeria’s federal structure. Four out of the twelve newly-appointed VCs are from Kano University alone; an action clearly in violation of Nigeria’s federal character principle.

Corruption baton-change

Since the inception of the Buhari administration, all we have been hearing is corruption, corruption, corruption. The president insisted he would kill corruption before it killed Nigeria. Therefore, we all expected the government to come up with steps designed to kill corruption; something no nation on earth has ever done before. However, instead of even attempting to kill corruption, the government has merely been determined to kill the PDP.

So what is the state of corruption in Nigeria today? By all account, it is hale and hearty, thank you very much. All that has happened is that the baton of corruption has been passed from the PDP to the APC. One example here should suffice.

A lot of song and dance has been made by the government since its inception of cleaning up the NNPC. The former petroleum minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, has been excoriated to the position of “public enemy number one.” The president has refused to appoint a Minister of Petroleum Resources, deciding to oversee that portfolio himself and, thereby, keep a tight rein on the oil industry. But he has given us a Minister of State for Petroleum Resources in the person of Ibe Kachikwu.

So is corruption now being choked to death in the Nigerian oil industry? If reports are to be believed, that is far from the case. According to Bako Abdullahi Yelwa, a former official of the Kaduna chapter of the Independent Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), the change that has happened is merely that a new cabal of thieves and robbers are now controlling the NNPC and its affiliate, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC).

Yelwa maintains this is responsible for the never-ending cycle of fuel scarcity that remains prevalent all around the country. The new cabal is said to insist on extorting money before issuing the allocation of petroleum products. Yelwa insists the kerosene allocations promised IPMAN members have been diverted to the “relations, friends and cronies” of the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu.

He said, “I challenge anybody to ask any marketer if they have gotten allocations. PPMC staff are frustrating independent marketers. Why will they ask for a percentage of our profit before giving us allocation? And when we refuse, they frustrate the process of getting our allocation. They only give product allocation to marketers that have given them a share of their profit upfront.”

The president needs to address the issues raised here expeditiously. Since he is now the de facto Minister of Petroleum Resources, one need hardly point out that these kinds of sharp practices, nine months after his election, cannot continue to be attributed to Goodluck Jonathan. Mr. President, the buck now stops with you.

kin8744:
,

D9ty7:
Well, Gbaja spoke on the increase in capital expenditure then because he hasn't seen the billions budgeted for the state house clinic and the hundred of millions budgeted for fixing cables in the Aso rock driver's quarters.
www.penprimus.com

2016 budget, best in 55 years – Gbajabiamila
January 21, 2016

Toluwani Eniola

Despite the furore that greeted the 2016 budget, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, says the budget is unprecedented in the country’s history.

He said the budget was historic because for the first time in recent history, 30 per cent of the budget was dedicated to capital expenditure.

The lawmaker, who said this in a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle on Wednesday, however, called for an increment of the capital expenditure in next year’s budget to 40 per cent.

According to him, the provisions of the 2016 budget would enhance even development in the country.

He said, “I mentioned earlier that this budget is historic because it has a social intervention component. This is because this is the first time that 30 per cent of our budget will be dedicated to capital expenditure in recent history.

“2016 budget is the first all-inclusive budget that seeks to carry all Nigerians along; the rich, the not-so-poor, the not-so-rich and others. It is my hope and that of the House of Representatives that the 2017 capital expenditure will be increased to 40 per cent.

“The 2016 budget is epic not just because of its mega size of N6tn but for the reason that it touches on the wellbeing of the people.”

The immediate past National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retired) is not a fugitive but a lawfully retired officer of the Nigerian Army, his Lawyer said on Sunday.

He said Dasuki legally left the Army in 1994 and his exit in the military was officially gazetted by the Federal government through the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1999.

Responding to an allegation that the Ex-NSA was a fugitive and being currently held by the Department of State Service (DSS) on alleged breach of army service rule, counsel to Dasuki Mr. Ahmed Raji (SAN) claimed that the allegation was a fallacy and a concocted lie to confuse the court as the prosecution has no answer to the well-grounded objection raised by the defence.

The lawyer claimed that “the allegation of fugitive against Dasuki cannot hold water on stand in the face of the law in view of the official gazette of the Federal Government that confirmed his retirement from the military.

“It is curious that the prosecution counsel who initially claimed ignorance of the reason behind the denial of bail is now coming up with these excuses. I am tempted to believe that my learned friend Mr. Rotimi Jacob SAN must be genuinely mixing-up facts or mistake of identity.”

“The allegation is baseless, unwarranted and malicious because his exit was in the gazette of the Federal government. We accordingly urge those holding Dasuki in the custody in flagrant disobedience to the court order that granted him bail to have a rethink and respect the rule of law.”

A counsel to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in the trial of Dasuki on alleged money laundering, Mr. Rotimi Jacob had last Thursday told Justice Husseini Baba Yusuf that Dasuki was being detained by DSS in spite of the bail granted him by the judge because of his past in the military.

Jacob specifically told the court that Dasuki went on an exile for seven years and that during the period he allegedly breached the army service rules.

Meanwhile, PRNigeria gathered that former military dictator, late General Sani Abacha held Dasuki in contempt and marked him down for persecution, when he (Dasuki) opened up his mind on the annulled June 12, 1993 Presidential election and that the winner of the election, late MKO Abiola be installed as Nigerian President.

Dasuki was among the officer who confronted Late Sani Abacha and insisted that MKO Abiola be freed and allowed to become President over the June 12, 1993 President election. This led to the premature retirement of Dasuki and other officers in 1994.

The persecution that followed forced him into exile where he joined forces with other patriotic Nigerians to claim for the return of democracy in Nigeria. Some top politicians in the current administration also fled into exile to sustain campaigns for the enthronement of democracy. Dasuki and others were declared wanted by the Abacha’s police.

In an official Gazette No 33 Volume 86, Dasuki was granted clemency and pardon along with others on March 4, 1999 by General Abdulsalam Abubakar, the then Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces for their innocence and meritorious service to their fatherland.

The All Progressives Congress in Akwa Ibom State has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the Supreme Court judgment on the state’s governorship election.
The Supreme Court in its judgment on February 3 declared that Udom Emmanuel of the Peoples Democratic Party was validly elected as the governor of Akwa Ibom in the April 11, 2015 governorship election in the state.
The APC in Akwa Ibom State, still rattled by the Supreme Court judgment, described the judgment as “weird, arbitrary and an inexplicable endorsement of violence and electoral fraud that was procured by the use of state power and resources for evil ends”.
In a statement, Saturday, by the state chairman, Amadu Attai, the APC called on “President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the hearing of the Akwa Ibom State Governorship Election Appeal and the judgment by the Supreme Court.”
“We believe such enquiry is inevitable to address the possible consequences of the Supreme Court judgment which is bound to encourage resort to self help, violence and all forms of illegality and barbarity in the quest for power.”
Besides the violence it said took place across the state during the Akwa Ibom governorship election, the APC said it had tendered enough evidence before the tribunal to prove that there was no election in the state.
“Nothing highlights the fraudulent nature of the Akwa Ibom governorship election and nothing better establishes the perversity of the Supreme Court judgment than the fact that Udom Emmanuel who was declared winner of the election had no explanation as to how 437, 128 accredited voters by Card Readers or 448, 307 accredited voters by Voter’s Register could validly produce 1, 122, 836 votes purportedly cast in the election, 996,071 of which were declared for Udom Emmanuel,” the state chairman of the party, Mr. Attai, said in the statement.
“These were findings from certified true copies of INEC documents, which were upheld by the Court of Appeal.
“The case of over-voting and other irregularities were painstakingly established in 27 local government areas out of 31, with 2,982 polling units.
“In his pleadings, Udom Emmanuel had said he would tender incident forms to account for the differentials. They were never tendered, even though the incident forms were taken to Abuja from Uyo, because they were filled several weeks after the election and therefore could not be signed by the designated INEC staff.”
Mr. Attai continued, “The case of the signing of result sheets in many wards by one person was also well established. In Mkpat Enin Local Government Area for instance, one Barr Jerry Akpan signed the result sheets in all the 14 wards of the local government area.
“As rightly held by the Court of Appeal, Jerry Akpan couldn’t have been at all the wards simultaneously to sign these documents, a clear evidence that there was no collation at the wards, as we had also presented unchallenged evidence that there was no collation at the state level.”
The party raised an issue over former Akwa Ibom governor, Godswill Akpabio’s alleged conduct inside the Supreme Court on the day of the judgment. It said Mr. Akpabio’s action and utterances inside the court room called to question, the integrity of the Supreme Court.
“As soon as the Justices of the Supreme Court retired to their chamber to consider their judgment, the Senate minority leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, arrived obviously on cue by 8 p.m. with a large contingent of praise singers, and proceeded to address PDP supporters within the court premises, telling them that it was all over,” Mr. Attai said in the statement.
“With the shout of his supporters renting the air, Akpabio caused quite a stir as he swept into the courtroom, breaking all protocols in a frenzy of banters with PDP and Udom Emmanuel’s lawyers whom he equally assured, “It is all over.”
The Akwa Ibom election tribunal which first looked into the disputed poll had nullified the election of Mr. Emmanuel in 18 out the 31 local government areas in the state. The case was later brought before the Court of Appeal, Abuja, which went further to nullify the whole governorship election in the state.
Both PDP and APC in Akwa Ibom state were preparing for a possible fresh election before the Supreme Court set aside the judgments of the lower court and the Court of Appeal, and decided the case in favour of Governor Udom Emmanuel.
The APC governorship candidate in Akwa Ibom state, Umana Umana, had earlier said that the Supreme Court judgment “calls for very serious soul-searching by our nation”.

Adminisher:


You are completely dumb . They have sold you lock stock and barrel and you are still defending the worst government. You are not even doing it intelligently. Nigeria paid three times the price of new weapons for second hand. The weapons were never enough...please ask those who know. All the stupid pictures here on this thread were admitted by the Buhari government as being bought but they are barely up to $50 million. Buhari never even said Jonathan did not buy weapons. If you are too uneducated to read go back to school. They stole 90% of the weapons buying money and brought junk without ammunition. They diverted the money to politics and to their pockets. Please do the mental work, find out the prices of the weapons on the Internet, multiply by the quantity, total up and subtract from $2bn. After that you can ask yourself what your IQ level is to be posting amateurish stuff on Nairaland in defence of crooked politicians.

vedaxcool:
[s][/s]

Weapons that exist only on paper and twitter cannot be said to be real show us ship manifest and MoD acknowledgement of receiving the weapons then you would be considered as making sense rather than spew twitter gossips and fraud like lies.

RickRichards:
Lol...OP prolly thinks we're retards.

vedaxcool:
And the weapons happen to be on Twitter.

Ebukaobi:


Nonsense. In real life, you will worship me and probably dedicate an altar to worship me in your IPOB land

Just like your Dilector, Ayeedee is irrelevant

Jonathan Delivers Stunning Speech At Switzerland,
Explains His Battle With Boko Haram

Read His Full Address:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, I thank you for coming to hear me speak on the twin issues of education and security.

Though this event is billed as a press conference on a Better Security and Education for West Africa, for the sake of time, I will focus on my experience in government which gave me a practical demonstration of how education impacts on security.

I will thereafter touch on my post presidential focus which is on advancing democracy and good governance in Africa and increasing access to opportunity for wealth generation in Africa.

If you peruse the official UNESCO literacy rates by country, what you will find is that all of the top ten most literate nations in the world are at peace, while almost all of the top 10 least literate nations in the world are in a state of either outright war or general insecurity.

Lower education levels are linked to poverty and poverty is one of the chief causative factors of crime whether it is terrorism or militancy or felonies.With this at the back of my mind, I began the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation beginning with my very first budget as President in 2011.

My policy was to fight insecurity in the immediate term using counter insurgency strategies and the military and for the long term I fought it using education as a tool.

As I have always believed, if we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow.[b] And you do not have to spend on education just because of insecurity. It is also the prudent thing to do.

Nigeria, or any African nation for that matter, can never become wealthy by selling more minerals or raw materials such as oil. Our wealth as a nation is between the ears of our people.

[b]It is no coincidence that the Northeast epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria is also the region with the highest rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the Federal Government actually does not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education, but I could not in good conscience stomach a situation where 52.4% of males in the Northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal Western education.

The figure is even worse when you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency. 83.3% of male population in Yobe state have no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6%. Bearing this in mind is it a coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states?[b]

[b]So even though we did not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education going by the way the Nigerian federation works, I felt that where I had ability, I also had responsibility even if the constitution said it was not my responsibility.

Knowing that terrorism thrives under such conditions my immediate goal was to increase the penetration of Western education in the region while at the same time making sure that the people of the region did not see it as a threat to their age old practices of itinerant Islamic education known as Almajiri.

For the first time in Nigeria’s history, the Federal Government which I led, set out to build 400 Almajiri schools with specialized curricula that combined Western and Islamic education. 160 of them had been completed before I left office.

I am also glad to state that when I emerged as President of Nigeria on May 6th 2010, there were nine states in the Northern part of the country that did not have universities. By the time I left office on the 29th of May 2015, there was no Nigerian state without at least one Federal University.

Now the dearth of access to formal education over years created the ideal breeding ground for terror to thrive in parts of Nigeria but there are obviously other dimensions to the issue of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly terrorism.

You may recall that the fall of the Gaddafi regime in August 2011 led to a situation where sophisticated weapons fell into the hands of a number of non state actors with attendant increase in terrorism and instability in North and West Africa.

The administration I headed initiated partnership across West Africa to contain such instability in nations such as Mali, which I personally visited in furtherance of peace. And with those countries contiguous to Nigeria, especially nations around the Lake Chad Basin, we formed a coalition for the purpose of having a common front against terrorists through the revived Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF).

Those efforts continue till today and have in large part helped decimate the capacity of Boko Haram. Another aspect of the anti terror war we waged in Nigeria that has not received enough attention is our effort to improve on our intelligence gathering capacity.

Prior to my administration, Nigeria’s intelligence architecture was designed largely around regime protection, but through much sustained effort we were able to build capacity such that our intelligence agencies were able to trace and apprehend the masterminds behind such notorious terror incidences as the Christmas Day bombing of the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State. Other suspects were also traced and arrested including those behind the Nyanya and Kuje bombings.

Not only did we apprehend suspects, but we tried and convicted some of them including the ring leader of the Madalla bombing cell, Kabir Sokoto, who is right now serving a prison sentence. But leadership is about the future.

I am sure you have not come here to hear me talk about the way backward. You, like everyone else, want to hear about the way forward. I am no longer in office, and I no longer have executive powers on a national level. However, I am more convinced now than ever about the nexus between education and security.

My foundation, The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, was formed to further democracy, good governance and wealth generation in Africa. Of course, Charity begins at home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a priority.

Thankfully, the administration that succeeded mine in its first budget, appears to have seen wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation. This is commendable. I feel that what people in my position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be politicized. Education is one of those issues.

If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommended allocation of 26% of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her Millennium Development Goals and improving on every index of the Human Development Index.

Data has shown that as spending on education increases, health and well being increases and incidences of maternal and infant mortality reduce. In Nigeria for instance, Average Life Expectancy had plateaued in the mid 40s for decades, but after 2011, when we began giving education the highest sectoral allocation, according to the United Nations, Nigeria enjoyed her highest increase in Average Life Expectancy since records were kept. We moved from an Average Life Expectancy of 47 years before 2011 to 54 years by 2015.

I had earlier told you about the connection between education and insecurity. I believe that it is the job of former leaders and elder statesmen to convince Executive and Legislative branches across Africa to work together to achieve the UNESCO recommended percentage as a barest minimum. I intend to offer my services, through The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, for this purpose and I invite interested organizations to help us make this happen.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, this, in a nutshell are some of my thoughts for a Better Security and Education for Africa and I will now entertain your questions.