fiizznation:
Did you just said that how many herdsmen are killed? My friend you need to check your head and your conscience. So a herdsman life doesn't matter because he is not a being? Playing the victim card won't resolve these issues. Do you even know there are some communities in west Africa who kill Fulani people and use some parts of their bodies for fetish things? Look all these things are not new news, the have been happening and media houses don't talk about them.

fiizznation:
People have to be careful. If you think you are dealing with the average Nigeria fulani/fulfude group then you people should better wake up. I'm a Fulani man and I know what I'm talking about. These herdsmen carrying out all these atrocities are dangerous herdsmen from other Africa countries e.g chad, Niger, Sierra Leone, Gambia, guinea, Senegal, Mali etc. Normally they rarely attack any community until they are attacked first and they don't understand anything called fair play. They have a very wide network that cuts across the entire African continent.

My problem with the hypocritical Nigeria media houses is they hardly report any killings of these herdsmen by the local community, but the herdsmen reprisal attacks are always reported. To me this is insensitivity. We all know how innocent Nigeria herdsmen are killed everyday by the locals, but nobody wants to talk about that. The agatu people killed many innocent Fulani herdsmen before the herdsmen reprisal attacks, but how many media houses reported that? All we were hearing was Fulani ransacked agatu community.

People should be careful, if you think these herdsmen don't get to hear news about how their fellow brothers are killed and their cattle rustle, then we are not serious about solving this crisis

A former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani; and a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Masari, on Monday met President Muhammadu Buhari to suggest the way out of the current face-off between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the 2016 budget.

The meeting was held inside the President’s office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Nnamani and Masari later confirmed to State House correspondents that the issue of the budget formed part of the discussion they had with Buhari.

Nnamani described budget preparation as a peculiar area, saying the executive and the legislature have to collaborate for a proper budget to be passed.

Concerning the current impasse, the former President of the Senate urged the National Assembly to embark on self examination.

He said, “Budget is an area where we practise what we call co-management between the National Assembly and the executive branch of government. Both of them co-manage the economy through the budget.

“It is a peculiar area; both of them will have to cooperate and collaborate for a proper budget to be passed and once it is passed, it becomes law.

“So, as it stands today, the situation is such that the National Assembly has to do what is called introspection. How did we get to where we are now?

“The year is running out and we are still talking about 2016 budget; where is the fault from?

“Wherever it is coming from, both the executive branch and the legislature must find a quick solution to it. It does nobody good to drag it any longer.

“Remember, it is an area of co-management, it is not left to the executive alone and it is not left to the National Assembly alone. There has to be collaboration.”

When asked what the President’s disposition was to his advice, Nnamani said, “I think it stands to reason that what I suggested is being studied. I think it is appropriate.”

Masari, who is also the governor of Katsina State, gave an indication that if he was in the President’s shoes, he would not sign what he was not sure of.

He recalled that he signed his state’s budget recently and he did not do so until he was sure of its content.

“You know I am now an executive and I signed budget for Katsina State and before I did that, I made sure I knew what I was signing for. So, take it as I said,” he said.

When asked if Nnamani had dumped the Peoples Democratic Party for the All Progressives Congress, the former President of the Senate said he had not taken such a decision.

“I will not join a party in secret. When it is time for me to join any party, I will make it public. Today, I am bipartisan,” he said.

Masari also spoke on the forthcoming economic and development summit being organised by his state.

He said what should be the focus of the present administration was to go back to agriculture and natural resources.

He said, “There was a time Katsina was entirely dependent on its natural resources, those resources are still there and I believe that we are sensitising the general public and the world to know that there are lots of investment opportunities in Katsina.

“We believe we can make it, we believe we can survive on natural resources and agriculture and other resources that abound in Nigeria.

“So, that is why we have tagged this economic and development summit, but also we are refocusing to encourage our own local investors. Those who have N100, 000 to invest can make more money than leaving the money in the bank.

“Essentially, our focus will be on agriculture and cultivation of selected crops and we are focusing on natural ginger.

“We are focusing on the area of irrigated agriculture in the area of rice, cotton and other crops, we also have gold and diamond in Katsina but what we can lay our hands now is in the area of agriculture.”

Businessideas:
This is what Journalism should be. Fearless and accurate. I just hope the present crop of leaders are learning because this same pen The Punch had used to "put Ex-President Jonathan and Dr Ngozi Okonjo -Iweala" in their rightful place in history,would be used to write their own failure if they choose to fail. He that has ears, let him hear.

Image123:


Lol. Am i the only one who noticed an increase to $2.3billion in the ECA?

ATERI:


The same demographics that used to reject Buhari

ATERI:


My one and only combination is Ribadu as presidential candidate with madam due process as his vice. The only combination that can remove Buhari from office

ATERI:


I may not know the candidates that would win it, but I have an idea of the ones that wouldn`t win it

ATERI:


All these names you are throwing around-Fashola, Utomi and Co are you the one that would elect them or the Nigerian people? Let`s not forget that the days of Obasanjo or Babangida selecting who would be the president of Nigeria without any regard for the electoral process are over. Please don`t forget that.

tsdarkside:


realy?,?...i already like him for that statement...funny..

ATERI:


Obasanjo and Buhari wouldn`t have been able to win as governors of their states yet they were elected as our Presidents. If you prefer anyone to be president of Nigeria today to Ribadu, then it means you have other pre-requisites apart from good leadership qualities.

modath:

Former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, on Monday, said he would contest for presidency on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019.

Lamido made this known to newsmen in his village – Bamaina – in Birnin-kudu Local Government Area of the State.

He, however, said a party’s ticket was not given to anybody on the platter of gold, adding that a candidate must earn it.

“If my party finds me worthy of the party’s presidential ticket to serve Nigeria, I will thank God and oblige.

“Although there are issues in the party that we are all working to resolve, we hope to have success soon and come out united.

“As I’m talking to you now, we are working silently to resolve our differences and bring back to our fold those that left the party for APC”, he said.

The former governor held that the internal crisis in PDP was the reason for its defeat in 2015 general elections.

He said that the party had the capacity to rule the country again but the members must work hard to achieve that.

Lamido denied any rift between him and his successor, Gov. Muhammad Badaru of APC.

He stated that both of them had mutual respect for each other and he had no differences with him other than political ideologies. (NAN)

Image123:


Thanks bro. It has become insane to take NOI serious. She's Nigeria's unpatriotic Esau that worked for the West to fulfill their economic predictions concerning Nigeria, to be given position at GAVI and co. That's the only thing that reasonably describes her actions.

quinnboy:

like most nairalanders...... just read the first paragraph n then comment...... I hate her monetary policy while she was at the top of our economic affairs

neolboy:
Nigeria’s main opposition party Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused that Mohammed Sani-Omolori, Clerk of House of Representatives gave a bribe of N500million to be promoted Clerk of the National Assembly.

Recall that Senate president, Bukola Saraki rejected the appointment of Mohammed Sani-Omolori, as the Clerk to the Assembly.

Mr Sani-Omolori was named the acting Clerk to the National Assembly on Wednesday, April 20.
Saraki said Ben Efeturi, who is currently the deputy clerk to the National Assembly should have replaced Salisu Maikasuwa, who is proceeding on pre-retirement leave this month.

PDP in its allegation via the party’s official Twitter handle, @PdpNigeria said the N500m bribe was given to Adamu Mohammed Fika, head of National Assembly Commission to breach due process.

FLASH: Mohd. Sanni Ataba, Clerk of House of Reps gave a N500m bribe to be promoted Clerk of National Assembly.
pic.twitter.com/oRnZikdZ2v

— PDP Nigeria (@PdpNigeria) April 25, 2016

The N500m bribe was given to Adamu Mohammed Fika, Head of National Assembly Commission to breach Due Process.

#BuhariAndCorruption
— PDP Nigeria (@PdpNigeria) April 25, 2016

quinnboy:
shifting blames is not allowed Madam...... name your yeye policy crashed our economy

FORMER Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, touched a raw nerve recently when she recalled the profligacy of the immediate past Nigerian government. But, recanting a day later, she tried vainly to shift the blame to state governors. In the face of daily revelations of the financial banditry of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, her narrative only adds to the injury of Nigerians reeling from economic adversity caused largely by the corrupt government she served.

Speaking at a forum at the George Washington University, United States, she recalled that while the country was able to save $22 billion (referring to the Excess Crude Account), under former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007), whom she also served as Finance Minister, successive governments lacked the political will to save when oil prices were high. That statement was an admission of her own failure to exert a positive influence on a weak and vacillating president who practically handed over the economy to her with the novel title of Coordinating Minister for the Economy in addition to her Finance Minister portfolio

The direction of public discourse however changed when she caused a statement to be issued a day later that the zero political will to save under Jonathan was squarely the fault of the state governors whom she accused of opposing savings in the ECA and in the Sovereign Wealth Fund. “Rather, she was referring to what many Nigerians know: the strong opposition by some governors to the Jonathan government’s efforts to save in the Excess Crude Account and the Sovereign Wealth Fund sabotaged this important national priority,” the statement said.

This utterly specious statement insults public intelligence. It also flies in the face of facts. Jonathan’s government was profligate, wasteful and had zero, even sub-zero, political will to save. Attributing to Jonathan any serious “efforts to save” is a brazen, insolent attempt to rewrite history, an insult to the collective intelligence of Nigerians who are now bearing the brunt of his cluelessness.

[b]Until mid-2014, when oil prices began to dip, that government benefitted from oil prices that hovered around $100 per barrel and above. Based on savings of the country’s share of oil revenues at prices above the annual budget anchor, the ECA ought to have risen between 2011 and early 2015. As Charles Soludo and Oby Ezekwesili, former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor and Education Minister respectively under Obasanjo, reminded us, for some 72 months while he (Obasanjo) was in office, the “average monthly oil price was $38 per barrel and yet, he left $43 billion in foreign reserves.” But in the last five years to January 2015 while Okonjo-Iweala and Jonathan ruled the roost, they separately said, with average monthly price at $100pb, foreign reserves had been declining. Soludo said, “If the economy was better managed, our foreign reserves should have been between $102 billion and $118 billion before the fall in oil prices. As of now (January 2015), reserves should be around $90 billion.” Ezekwesili insisted that $22 billion was saved in the ECA and $45 billion in reserves. Okonjo-Iweala’s attempt to blame lower oil production then will not wash. Oil price benchmark was $75pb on 2.3mpd in 2011, $72pb on 2.48mpd in 2012; $79pb on 2.52mpd in 2013, and $77.5pb on 2.38mpd in 2014, while prices actually hovered around $100pb, making up for lower production.[/b]

Nigerians have a better memory than Okonjo-Iweala gives them credit for and remember vividly that state governors vigorously opposed Obasanjo’s saving plan too, but it was the then President’s determination that enabled the savings. Rotimi Amaechi, then governor of Rivers State, claimed that governors insisted on sharing what was left of the depleted ECA because they found that the Federal Government under Jonathan and Umaru Yar’Adua before him had been drawing from it without their knowledge. Remarkably, in a rebuttal she authorised on January 7, 2015 to Obasanjo’s lament of the squandering of $22 billion ECA, the Ministry of Finance said; “At the end of May 2007, Nigeria’s gross reserves stood at $43.13 billion – comprising the CBN’s external reserves of $31.5 billion, $9.43 billion in ECA, and $2.18 billion in Federal Government’s savings”. Curiously, at her Washington outing, she admitted, but did not specify when savings hit the often-quoted $22 billion mark.

According to Soludo, the Jonathan team did not save because it lacked the critical virtues of leadership and integrity. Okonjo-Iweala’s attempt to shift the blame for the fiscal recklessness of the government, of which she was the economic pivot, is diversionary. If the state governors were averse to saving – and we readily admit that they were and still are – did they stop her and Jonathan from doing so? The subsisting revenue sharing formula gives 52.68 per cent to the Federal Government; a government committed to “efforts to save in the excess crude account and the SWF” would have still saved its own share, irrespective of the profligacy of state governors.

Rather than the paragon of prudence she seeks to project of herself, Nigerians were shocked by her confession in December 2015 that she acceded to a request from Jonathan and released $322 million of the funds recovered from the loot stashed away by the late dictator, Sani Abacha, for arms procurement. Scandalous tales of un-appropriated money being taken directly from the CBN on Jonathan’s authorisation by officials who promptly proceeded to disburse them into non-government accounts, have continued to emerge; some cases have been charged to court. These cannot be attributed to lack of political will to save by governors. Her memo to Jonathan on the money said a portion was from the Future Generations window of the SWF. But for an online report that provoked that confession, neither Nigerians nor the governors would have known that the government had begun raiding the SWF. Nigeria’s governors are notoriously wasteful and extravagant, but theirs paled in comparison to the excesses of the Jonathan government.

Just as the governors did not stop her and Jonathan from saving the federal share of the ECA, they did not force them either to deplete special funds or grant the waivers, exemptions and concessions that the Nigerian Customs Service said cost the country N1.4 trillion in the three years to 2014, in contradiction to her own claim of N170.7 billion for the same period. If what was happening under Jonathan was in conflict with her “high moral standards,” why did she not resign?

[b]A country must confront the mistakes of the past to correct them and build a better future than the mess Jonathan and his team bequeathed. There is enough blame to go round: the governors may have been right on the constitutional ground that all revenues accruing to the federation be shared among the three tiers of government, but they are paying the price for it today, as the drastic fall in revenues has left them with no buffers and 27 states owing staff salaries.

Okonjo-Iweala is way off base if she thinks that she can talk herself out of that atrocious government. While the Jonathan government was frittering its oil resources and borrowing to sustain its profligacy, sanctions-hit Iran still managed to have reserves of $93.9 billion and SWF of $62 billion by December 2015; failing state, Libya, had $61.63 billion and $66 billion, and the United Arab Emirates $79.9 billion and $1.21 trillion compared to Nigeria’s $29 billion reserves and $2.9 billion SWF. No thanks to Jonathan and his imprudent government.[/b]

In sum, Okonjo-Iweala must give an unqualified, unambiguous apology to the Nigerian people for the wrongs and injustices done to them on her watch as the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy. Or else, she should just keep quiet!

PPAngel:


In 3mths time call me a liar

modath:

Thanks for resurrecting this travesty of a wailing thread, to think same people are almost convulsing now!!
Cc, Midolian, Omenka, 989900 , Aresa, Tuale4u, TheVoice, seunmsg, Ratello, Goke7,

agabaI23:
Are you the only man in Jerusalem

ogbologbo1000:


if he was old enough to be convinced that Buhari was the right person for Nigeria he shouldn't be too old also to speak up when things are not happening the way it should.
You are here saying people are wailing yet you say they expect a 82 year old man to fight for them.
as for me, am always cautious with people who go back to lick their vomit, I don't take what that pale! say serious for a long time now.

agabaI23:
Bo how far? This grazing bill dey worry you so? Wole does not fight his in-laws

duscollins:


It is not the president that decides who becomes the Senate president. It was a simple majority among the senators that brought Saraki. The president and the party can only lobby the senators to tow the party line.

lookingfly:
any time any day Gej can't be compared with pmb, because Gej is far more better. Even if fuel is $200/barrel oil, it was crystal clear Bubu had nothing to offer Nigerians from his promises that were unrealistic but people like you kept supporting him even though we were asking questions how buhari plans to achieve those promises. I sure it's been a long time we actually had issues of fuel scarcity especial under Gej era not until pmb era that everything changed to worst. Where are all the billions buhari claimed to have recovered from corrupt individuals? All are cheap propangada just to keep the Likes of you occupied thinking they are actually working. Pls tell me what this government have achieved for almost a year now?

LordAdam:


Oga did you not see where I said he would take loan that is a "considerable" part of the deficit. The fact is Nigeria is in a funny situation because our credit ratings have nosedived. Therefore, bills and bonds will not be as effective as they were in the past. It doesn't mean they would fail though. However, we both agree that we need loan to help balance the deficit. I never said he would need to take a $11b loan.

As at today, there is no big lender willing to give us loan, yet the budget will soon be signed. IMF, China, the Middle East have just bullshitted us. China was our last and actually most potent hope.

Please, understand that investments are not substitutes for loans. As I said they are laudable, but these $6b investments (as far as I know) are not part of the projects in the budget. Unless they are, I see no point in your argument. We need all the capital we can lay our hands on to finance the infrastructural projects. If Buhari gets the loan, adds the money realized from the financial instruments, then uses them to fully finance his budget and the accompanying capital projects; is it a bad thing? If he adds the investment commitments from US and China to his efforts, would that not be good for us?

Virtually ever country gets FDI and then if they have budget deficit, they also take loans and/or use financial instruments to offset the deficit. One does not replace the other. Even India with more than $35b in FDI in Q1 2015 had a deficit of 3.9% (far lower than our current deficit of above 35%). Guess what, they still took loan. I'm not comparing India to Nigeria, I'm giving you an insight.

Both FDI and the Budget keeps the economy going, FDI is from people and corporations overseas, the Budget is by the government. They work in tandem. No one replaces the other.

You can't say because you have high FDI, you should stop or heavily reduce government spending, especially in a country like Nigeria.

-Lord