₦airaland Forum

We all just may need to 'go to London' to fish out these records

When you are 'too intelligent and smart' to be involved in politics these are the kind of people that will 'rule' over you

E be like say no be only 'vacation' carry Presido go London

By MICHELLE FAUL
Today

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's nearly month-long medical leave in London is a sharp reminder to taxpayers that while they finance their leaders' health care abroad, they often are stuck with decrepit, ill-staffed government health facilities at home.

For decades, Nigerians have paid for their leaders and former rulers to get medical treatment overseas. That courtesy also extends to senior government employees.

This is despite taxpayers' funding of the State House Medical Center, said to be Nigeria's best-equipped facility, which serves the president and vice president, their families and staff. The center's budget this year of 3.8 billion naira to care for fewer than 1,000 people represents 1 percent of the entire public health budget for the country's 170 million people.


"For years, billions have been budgeted for the State House Medical Center while it has always been evident that every president mostly accessed medical facilities outside the country, going back to the 1980s," said Oluseun Onigbinde, co-founder of BudgIT, an organization that tries to bring clarity to the West African nation's opaque budget.

The mysterious nature of Buhari's absence is adding to the unhappiness at home, as one of Africa's largest economies and oil producers lurches through a recession.

His government has not said what exactly his health issues might be or when he will return. The president's trip, originally scheduled from Jan. 20 to Feb. 6, was described as a vacation during which he would undergo routine medical tests. It has been extended for further tests.

Officials insist that Buhari is "hale and hearty," and he was well enough this week to speak by telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana said Nigerians should seize on the president's medical leave to demand adequate funding for public hospitals he described as "mortuaries for the masses."

"The practice of allowing poor citizens to die of preventable diseases while top public officers and rich private citizens are allowed to travel abroad for medical treatment can no longer be justified," he said in a lecture this week, noting that Nigerians have a life expectancy of 52 years, though the World Health Organization puts it at 49.

It is not clear how much the country's taxpayers pay for leaders' treatments abroad.

Former first lady Patience Jonathan has claimed that half of $31.5 million frozen in a corruption investigation was a government payout for medical bills she incurred in London in 2013. Ever-witty Nigerians took to social media to ask if she was buying eternal life.

The Ministry of Health estimated that Nigeria paid about $1 billion for government officials traveling abroad for medical care in 2014, with ordinary Nigerians spending about $6.3 billion in 2015 for what is called medical tourism.


Senior Nigerian officials get "high yearly allowances" for health care abroad which "provides them opportunity to demand amounts to take care of their non-health care needs like shopping abroad," economist Vitalis Chi. Nwaneri wrote in his 2013 book "Governing the Ungovernable."

Former military dictator Gen. Ibrahim Babangida returned home this month from a six-week "medical vacation" in Switzerland. Last year, he was treated for weeks in Germany.

Taxpayers also footed the bill when former President Umaru Yar'Adua received months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia in 2008-2009, before he returned home to die in office.

In April, Buhari announced that his government would no longer pay for officials to travel abroad for medical services available at home. But two months later, the president was in London for treatment of an ear infection.

"The best-funded clinic in Nigeria does not suffice to treat the president's ear infection. Nor does the president have enough confidence in the same clinic to do his 'routine checkups' there," novelist Okey Ndibe wrote at saharareporters.com .

"Imagine, then, the fate of Nigerians who have no choice but must seek treatment at the ill-equipped, wretchedly funded hospitals in our country?" he asked.

Nigeria has just five hospital beds for every 100,000 people, as opposed to a global average of 35 beds and 24 beds per 100,000 in South Africa, which has the continent's most advanced medical care, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study in 2015.

Nigerians who can afford it shun even private health care at home.

Because the country has one of the world's worst infant and maternal mortality rates, women fly to the United States and Britain to have babies safely delivered. The risk of a woman dying because of pregnancy or childbirth in Nigeria is one in 15, compared to one in 5,000 in developed nations, according to Dr. Chris Akani, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Nigeria's College of Health Sciences at the University of Port Harcourt.

Buhari's medical costs do not come with a heftily priced five-star hotel bill, as did those of predecessors. The 74-year-old anti-corruption crusader known for his simple lifestyle is staying at the residence of the Nigerian High Commission in London, a spokesman said.

___

This report has been corrected to show that South Africa has 24 hospital beds per 100,000 people.

https://apnews.com/ed2a03c110ef4ce0bc302e599894db7f/Nigerian-leader-extends-sick-leave-abroad-as-citizens-suffer?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

He's gotta be kidding

As shared by twitter user @SophieAjayi

As shared by Twitter user MizCarzola1

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!


Ref
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/scrap-fuel-subsidy-now-tinubu/
http://dailypost.ng/2016/05/13/bola-tinubu-%E2%80%8Bwhy-the-new-fuel-pricing-is-a-much-better-deal-for-nigerians/

hmmm

http://thenationonlineng.net/apc-states-have-alternative-revenue-sources-to-oil/
https://www.nairaland.com/2134648/apc-manifesto-well-grow-oil
http://www.apcpressreleases.com/the-apc-manifesto/3/

Makes for very interesting reading

The image below is the Original Masterplan of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport. It clearly shows gates D and E which currently exist. The Idea was to expand the airport with Gates A, B, C on one flank and Gates F, G and H. The transition from the Taxi-Way to the Run-Way is well resolved here among all else.

Why are governments at Federal and State Level bedevilled with the abandonment of well laid plans for mediocre alternatives?

Well done Tolu Ogunlesi! You have outshone yourself

Tolu runs the DigiComms @WeASOcial department of the Presidency

The question is

"What does Fashola know about the N2B and WHEN did he know it?"

Abi if Senate no screen the budget or see d item Uncle for help Ministry of Finance 'execute' the strange project?!!!



ps thanks to the mod that sorted out the Antispam bot issue

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, yesterday disowned N2 billion in the budget of his ministry, saying it was inserted by the Ministry of Finance.

Fashola stated this during budget defence before the Senate Committee on Lands, Housing and Urban Development.

Committee chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade (APC, Benue) had queried the provision of N2 billion in the budget of Housing Ministry for “Regional Housing Scheme.” The project is tagged FMOWP99934089.

Gemade asked: “What is this provision of N2billion for? What is regional housing scheme? Where is it taking place? What is happening? Have you seen it on Page 18?”

Responding, Fashola said: “It is not our project... It is a Ministry of Finance initiative. They are saying that they want to do what they called ... It is not from us.”

In his reaction, Gemade said: “But you are here to defend this budget in totality.

Fashola then said: “That is what has come. I am explaining to you now, sir, on how it comes into our budget. That is not what we submitted. We didn’t submit that proposal.”

It was at this point that Gemade said they would invite the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun to explain how the money got into the budget.

The committee also expressed reservations about the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the Ministry and asked the minister to “brace up.”

Billions solid minerals revenues not declared - Minister

At another session minister of Solid Minerals, Kayode Fayemi said billions of naira generated from the solid minerals sector had not been declared over the years.

Fayemi who appeared before the House of Representatives committee on solid minerals for 2017 budget defence said the development had negatively affected government revenues.

“Clearly, there has been non-declaration and under reporting of revenues in the solid minerals sector. That’s why we decided to engage consultants working in partnership with state governments to sure-up revenue accruable to the country.

“The declared revenue of N2.8bn is inadequate reflection of what goes on in the mining sector. I should also add that we generate more than N2.8bn. This money mostly came from royalty, and if you look at the Dangotes, CGCs and other construction outfits, royalties from them should run into hundreds of billions and not N2bn,” he said.

He said the ministry had been remitting its internally generated revenue to government coffers via the Treasury Single Account (TSA), adding that they do not retain any amount at the ministry as they have their budgetary allocation.

He said as part of efforts to boost the solid minerals sector, the sum of N30 billion was approved under the Natural Resources Grant, pointing out that investments in the sector take time before yielding results.

Read more at http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/fashola-disowns-n2bn-in-ministry-s-budget/185226.html#VDJoePtopHhFMySF.99


[Sorry, had to change source from Punch to Dailytrust due to the former's copyright statement]

Sad

Hmmm

.

I was wondering why this thread (pic attached) was closed when the OP simply posted an article referring to a statement made by the 'Honourable' Minister of Information and Culture.

It cannnot possibly be that the news source is not credible as this same story was covered by the Vanguard and other News Media.

So,

Going forward is Nairaland going to screen 'false' information emanating from the office of the Minister?


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/02/fgs-whistle-blower-policy-yields-fruit-recovers-us151m-n8b-looted-funds/

The policy s not active yet as it has not been passed into Law

http://punchng.com/nigerias-whistle-blower-policy/

hmmmm....

[s]'Rehabilitated' (not constructed oh!) in June 2009 for N48Million.


https://web.archive.org/web/20120525080402/http://www.stb.lagosstate.gov.ng/STB1.htm[/s]

Laid2001:
This one is different now!!

this one is "Oshodi Nursery & Primary school, Oshodi" and not the one rehabilitated in 2009 which is "Owoseni primary school, oshodi"

There seems to be more than one primary schools in Oshodi and that is understandable, given the large population of Oshodi!!!

Indeed you are quite right.

Thanks for fact checking.

SAD

Nnamddi:
When a government takes propaganda and mind-management this seriously, you know it’s not ready to change. Good deeds are their own PR. It is when people determine that they don’t want to do good deeds that they resort to mindless propaganda. If only they invested and expended as much energy in managing the economy as they do in propaganda, we won’t be where we are. I have more, but I will stop here for now. By the way, that appointment letter is authentic.

As shared by twitter user - DoubleEph (Feyi Fawehinmi)

The strategy of exclusion (or murder) and discrimination against the physically challenged and persons with special needs is an exposition of a deep seated problem with Nigerian Society at large.

Is our excuse the fact that we are a developing country? Is that why persons with special needs are grossly unsupported, undocumented and ignored?

Accessibility is a MAJOR issue. Special Health Care is a MAJOR issue, Awareness is a MAJOR issue

It's almost as though we turn around and say to them 'It's not our fault that you are physically challenged, abeg maintain your lane'.

Callous discrimination against physically challenged and those with special needs appears to have been institutionalised at Federal, State (and Local Government Levels)

For two weeks, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s septuagenarian president, has been out of action, receiving medical treatment in London for an undisclosed illness. His absence has sent the rumour mill of Africa’s most populous nation spinning, with frequent erroneous reports that the president is dead. The tragedy for Nigeria is that policymaking has been so ponderous during the 20 months since Mr Buhari took office that, dead or alive, it is not always easy to tell the difference.

Under Mr Buhari’s slow-blinking leadership, Africa’s largest economy has drifted into crisis. Brought low by the weak oil price, on which government revenues are woefully dependent, the system has been starved of dollars. That has driven businesses into the ground, people on to the margins and the economy into its worst recession in 25 years. What had been a growing middle class is being daily eviscerated. High inflation, especially for food, is damaging the poor in whose name Mr Buhari ran for office.

There are signs that Nigerians — among the most resilient and adaptive people on the continent — are losing patience. This week, there were small, but rowdy, protests in Lagos and Abuja, at which demonstrators complained about their “missing president”.

There is an irony that Mr Buhari, a retired major general, is missing in action. He ran the country as a military ruler in the mid-1980s after seizing power in a coup. In civilian guise, his leadership style has verged on the invisible. After winning power in 2015 on the fourth attempt at the ballot box, he set out at a pace that has marked his presidency: it took him six months to name a cabinet. Hopes that he had surrounded himself with a lean team of capable technocrats empowered to get policy cranking have come to naught. Policymaking — such that it is — has been crafted instead by a tiny cabal of loyal, less qualified, stalwarts. Mr Buhari has failed to articulate anything approaching a vision.

During his campaign, Nigeria’s soldier-turned-politician promised to train his sight on three main objectives: to improve security, crack down on corruption and diversify the oil-dependent economy. Progress on the first two has been patchy, and on the third dismal.

On security, Mr Buhari has managed to galvanise a demoralised army and make gains against Boko Haram, a terrorist organisation that had been metastasising beyond its northern base. Boko Haram has been pushed back into a north-eastern redoubt and across the border into Cameroon and Chad. But that displacement has been offset by security flare-ups elsewhere, most seriously in the Niger Delta where militants have been sabotaging oil production.

Mr Buhari’s anti-corruption drive can be boiled down to a few symbolic gestures and a few high-profile cases against members of the previous administration. Yet, systemically, little has changed. The confused exchange rate policy — in which the central bank doles out scarce dollars at an advantageous rate — is a recipe for opacity. The dollar shortage is killing off industry rather than nurturing it.

Seventy per cent of Nigeria’s 170m people were not born when Mr Buhari was last running the show, so they might not notice that his policies are stuck in the same 1980s groove. Statist and redistributionist by inclination, he finds himself in charge of a dysfunctional state and an economy with few revenues to recirculate.

To be fair, Mr Buhari inherited a dire situation courtesy of his hapless predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. He did the country a service simply by beating Mr Jonathan in an election and sparing the country of further wilful misrule. Yet Dele Olojede, a Pulitzer prizewinning journalist, says Mr Buhari’s government has been “spinning around in circles”.

As well as the president’s flawed policies, he blames a bloated political system in which most of the 36 states (far too many) spend their time grovelling for federal funds. The mosaic of Nigerian politics is complicated by the need to balance power between north and south and between the plethora of regions and linguistic groups represented in the cabinet. That makes for a parasitic state, not one that can solve problems. “This is a system designed to fail even if you have capable people in charge,” says Mr Olojede, who does not put Mr Buhari in that category.

Nigeria has drifted before, though rarely at a time of such pressing crisis. In 2010, President Umaru Yar’Adua died in office after months in which his illness had been covered up. The man supposedly in charge of the country had been literally sleeping on the job. Mr Buhari may not be as ill as the rumours suggest. Politically, though, rigor mortis set in quite some time ago.

@davidpilling

https://www.ft.com/content/544e58ae-ed4e-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6

Same vandalism excuse PDP used so where's the 'Change'?

The Minister of Power, Housing and Works, Babatunde Fashola said he will continue to intervene in the irregular power supply issues Nigerians are complaining about but it is not his job to oversee power supply.

He said this while inaugurating the Commissioners of Nigerian Electrical Regulatory Commission, (NERC), in Abuja on Tuesday.

The Minister said NERC is responsible for regulating power supply and his ministry is only responsible in ensuring that the key players in the power sector are doing their job.

He also appealed to the people vandalising gas pipelines to stop because it keeps the Country from benefiting 3,000 Mega Watts which will
go a long way in solving electricity problem in addition to the 3,500 Mega Watts on ground.

Fashola said if gas pipelines vandalisation is stopped, Nigeria will be able to generate 6,500 Mega Watts per day and this will help counter the
epileptic electrical supply the Country has been experiencing.

The former governor said everybody is suffering but vandalising gas pipelines will only intensify the suffering of Nigerians because Nigerians are the one suffering the consequences and not the Government.

Fashola also said now that NERC has been constituted, those who are interested in generating all forms of power supply should forward their
proposal to the Commission and copy his Ministry so that they can intervene when there are issues.

The Commissioners of NERC inaugurated by the Minister are: Sanusi Garba which will act as the Chairman of the Commission while other members include; Musiliu Olalekan Oseni , Dafe C. Akpeneye, Okafor Frank Nwoye, Nathan Rogers Shatti and Moses Arigu .

http://tv.guardian.ng/news/national-news/irregular-power-supply-not-my-fault-fashola/?F

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39TnaP49Zeo

Looks like the #MannequinChallenge is over

really?

An audit of Lagos State's Accounts for the last 20 years will show that most if not all infrastructural projects have been padded from 100-450%.

The projects the governor speaks about could very well have been executed since but for financial opacity, greed and political ambition.....

case in point: where is all the mega income from the Lekki Toll gate going to?
Lagos as operated today is a 'bottomless pit' financially 'nobody' knows where the real money is going



Threads below attempt to explain the rot

https://www.nairaland.com/3418984/fashola-years-details-contracts-awarded

https://www.nairaland.com/2801004/recently-purchased-rrs-helicopter-5n-lag

https://www.nairaland.com/2331840/top-10-dodgy-contracts-awarded

https://www.nairaland.com/2380169/top-10-20-dodgy-contracts

Hmmm...

for posterity...

https://www.nairaland.com/2729145/fashola-becomes-minister-power-housing

https://www.nairaland.com/2729135/fashola-heads-ministry-power-works

The case of Lai Mohammed is a life lesson to all

Who are you?
What do you stand for?
What do you want out of life?
What are you willing to do to get this?