₦airaland Forum

brownlord: He's too big to contest as gov.? Charity begins at home, i think it's a good start for him instead of been idle and waiting for amnesty thru the back door, beside an idle mind...

Cut it! Stop demeaning GMB, he once presided over the country like Obasanjo and IBB and I'm quite sure you can never wish Obasanjo go back and contest gubernatorial election in Ogun State the same way you can't ask IBB to deputize a governorship candidate in Niger State. Bro, if you've got problem with the person of GMB, here is not the place to vent your anger. Even Chief Olu Falae who lost to Obasanjo in 1999 can never go back to Ondo to contest grassroots elections. My guy, I believe you can't settle for an Administrative Officer's job simply because politics within your organization is hindering your promotion from the position of a manager to director.

Former Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing, Alhaji Lateef Okunnu, has advised former President Olusegun Obasanjo to behave like an elder statesman and not a sitting

Okunnu who served as commissioner during General Yakubu Gowon’s administration celebrated his 80th birthday penultimate Tuesday.
Okunnu also advised Obasanjo to stop dictating or harassing President Goodluck Jonathan either individually or through the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as he had served his terms as head of the country, saying “the best for him is to retire from active politics and become an elder statesman.”
Speaking with Vanguard yesterday on the planned 100 years celebration of modern Nigeria, he said it was ‘’pure nonsense for the government of the country to allow such celebration, which he said was ‘’100 years in bondage.’’
On Obasanjo, Okunnu said the advice was his birthday gift to him, saying, “Let me plead with General Obasanjo. He is no longer the president of this country. He should stop harassing successive presidents. Leave them alone.
“You have served your terms. You served, first as military head of state between 1976 and1979; three years and you served eight years as civilian president. Leave Jonathan alone to govern.
“Stop harassing him. Leave him alone to govern and retire gracefully as an elder statesman.
“That is my birthday advice to General Obasanjo. He’s my friend and I am giving this friendly advice to him. Retire from active politics and be an elder statesman. You have opportunities to advise the president at the Council of State.”
“Stop harassing him on the pages of newspapers or in PDP. Retire from active politics and be an elder statesman. That is the role which befits a former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Also commenting further on the centenary celebrations, he said, that President Jonathan should have left the private sector who brought up the idea of the centenary celebration to handle it alone as, according to him, it is their own business and not the business of Nigerians as a people.
“Let me say this that it is absolutely idiotic for anyone to want to celebrate 100 years of bondage or to celebrate the occasion when we were under colonialism. You do not celebrate slavery! Independence, yes; the day Britain established its rule over the country now called Nigeria, No.. Capital NO. It is absolute nonsense for anyone to celebrate the day Nigeria came under colonialism. You do not.
“I have never heard of any country celebrating colonialism or the birth of colonialism. Away with it and I really hope that the government would have nothing to do with it. I have heard that the idea came from the private sector. If they want to celebrate the days the British entrepreneurs and the British traders came to Nigeria,that is their business.
If they want to celebrate the Portuguese who came before the British, that is their business. But, to me, it’s absolute idiocy,” he said.

I stand before you today not as the national leader of the ACN or a member of the APC. I’m not here as Asiwaju, a former Senator, or a former Governor. Today, I rest these titles.

Thus, I stand before you simply as Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Nigerian, who has dedicated most of his adult life to the progress of this nation. For this, I offer no apology. Come hell, come high water, I am a Nigerian. Come torrential rain or sunshine, drought or flood, increase or decrease, help or hindrance, I shall remain what I am, a Nigerian. Because of this, you are my people.

Whether from North, South, East or West, we are all branches of the same tree. Whether in the same or different political parties, we are members of the same national family. Whether from the same or a different religion, you are of me and I am of you. For the love for Nigeria, for the love of Africa and for the best future of our nation I co-authored this book with our African-American brother, Brian Browne.

Now permit me to tell you a bit about this intellectual journey upon which we embarked.

The most significant economic event of the past seventy years was the 2008 financial downturn.
Assessing the vast wreckage caused by this Great Recession, we concluded the downslide was not the normal churning of the business cycle. Something more sinister that posed a grave danger to Nigeria’s political economy was afoot. If we allow things to continue as they are, that political economy will become a distorted, top-heavy edifice incapable of maintaining its balance.

Increasingly small elite will grow wealthy and powerful beyond decent measure. The middle class will atrophy into nonexistence while the vast pool of our citizens will be shackled to a lifetime of misery, and sour destitution.

Gone will be the chance of broad prosperity and economic justice. Fleeing with it will be the hope of political democracy. As long as I live I will not walk silently beside her as Nigeria steers this bleak path. I will talk, shout, and even set myself down to write a book or a library of books if that is what it takes to awaken our people to the economic dangers that we have so assumed mindlessly.

The global economy had become unbalanced and it has unbalanced our national economic architecture. We are told that we live in an age of capitalism. If only that were true, things would not be so bad. We live in a time where capitalism has been consumed by a more virulent ideology. That ideology we deem as “financialism.”
Certainly, capitalism has many blemishes. Its historic imperfections have caused misery and pain across the globe. An inadequately regulated free market has on too many occasions ground poor and weak individuals and nations into dust.

Without appropriate government intervention, capitalism can become a predator devouring those it purports to enrich. Yet, capitalism must be credited as a medium that produced unprecedented, albeit unequal, levels of global wealth and prosperity. The task before us should be how to make the positive reality overcome the more negative aspects of this complex system.

However, the current challenge is far more acute and dramatic. We are compelled to do more than brighten capitalism’s image. We are left to save it from its financialist offspring intent on burying it.
What is now practiced is not capitalism. It is something meaner but less productive. Something that intensifies the gap between rich and poor. This is a worldwide phenomenon even in Britain inequality has reverted back to the level of 1920 before the welfare state came in -the situation must be even more precarious in Nigeria. Capitalism is now Something that unduly rewards those who earn their keep through the shuffling of financial paper yet unduly punishes those who earn their way through the sweat and travails of true and honest labor.
No, this is not capitalism. It is a cannibalistic offspring all too ready and willing to devour the parent that birthed it.

Under capitalism, the financial sector was adjunct to the real sector. The financial sector served as the circulatory system, efficiently allocating funds to the most productive agents within the real or manufacturing sector in order to keep that sector vibrant. Such vibrancy generates employment for the bulk of the people. High levels of employment give birth to stability and a standard of living conducive to democratic aspirations.
This complementary scenario no longer exists. The financial sector no longer is satisfied with being the branch. To a large degree, it has assumed the role of the tree and its trunk. The financial sector no longer complements the real sector. It has grown too large in comparison. Its appetite is ceaseless and grows with the eating. Instead of feeding funds to the real sector, it now chokes the real sector. Leaving many otherwise productive people and companies struggling to draw water from an empty well.

Under capitalism, the financial sector invested in production of tangible goods. Today, the financial sector specializes in financial investment. Having become insatiable, it rather invests in itself than invest in the rest of the economy so that other sectors prosper with it. Financial speculation used to be the province of a small set of risk takers. Today, it is the fad.

Cautious and prudent bankers were once sentinels of the financial sector. Things are different under financialism. Caution has been tossed to the four winds as the economy was tossed to the wolves. The banker who keeps his wits to function in the best traditions of banking is the exception. I salute those men and women who honor their professional tenets while others turned esteemed financial houses into lax casinos. However, their demonstrations of individual propriety proved insufficient to halt the systemic distortion that occurred.
Today, we have a big problem.

Making money not tangible goods that improve our standard of living has become the overriding economic objective. Funds should be used to fuel industrial production and generate employment leading to broadly shared prosperity. Instead funds are incessantly recycled within the financial sector, creating huge nominal profits for a select few. The great nominal wealth is unconnected to economic fundamentals and has little bearing on the welfare of the average person. The more attractive this nominal wealth, the more money flows to and remains within the financial sector which produced this entrapping mirage. The mirage of nominal wealth thus expands and deceives more of us while the real economy staggers about like a starving man who searches for crumbs on the floor of an empty banquet hall.

In Nigeria today, with our lack of vital infrastructure, the absence of a concrete industrial policy and with the paucity of long-term funding to fuel the real sector, we ask the economy to do the impossible. It’s like attempting to draw water from an empty well.

These points are not just topics of abstract observation. They are our real world problems. Financialism has crippled the developed economies so much so that they remain deep in serial financial crises. If a financialist modeling of the economy turns developed economies into hollow images of themselves, what shall it wrought in our economy that has never developed or industrialized?
As such, this book is an honest warning against the impending dangers of the encroaching financialism.

Yet the book does more than warn. We sought to identify a few safety exits from the burning building. The book offers important recommendations on how to reclaim our economic destiny.
For example, the accumulation of money by the federal government is a misplaced objective for these times. We have about $46 billion dollars in foreign reserves earning about one or two per cent while we have about $42 billion dollars in domestic debt which government is paying up to 16 per cent on. This makes no sense, and it crowds out private sector borrowers and investors our driving purpose must be to channel idle human and material capacity into productive streams that furnish jobs and manufacture tangible goods bettering the living conditions of every citizen.

I believe in the national government saving money if savings is for a purpose other than itself. For a government that prints its own currency, to save that currency for merely for saving’s sake is to accumulate worthless paper. Instead, our money must catalyze development enriching the broadest spectrum of people. To say we are saving money for a rainy day while everyone is already drenched and wading through flood waters makes little sense to me.

We must shun the philosophy that says “better to save money and spend the people.” I say better to spend money and save people.
We must reform our economy. To do this, we must first reform our philosophy about the economic development. What I advocate is not starry-eyed socialism. I seek clear-eyed yet progressive capitalism. Here are just a handful of key things we must do.

1. We must reform the financial sector so that it becomes an effective artery that sends funds to the heart of the real sector once again.

2. The national government must formulate a national industrial policy focuses on developing labor intensive industries. This is not textbook capitalism but we do not live in a textbook. This is how the United States developed under Alexander Hamilton’s “American System” and how modern China reached spectacular growth.

3. We must restructure our educational system to prepare our youth for the present challenges of this economy and not educate them in a manner more appropriate for another land.

4. We need to overhaul our agricultural system and put in place a price support mechanism so that those who toil the land and who feed us do not go continuously poorer the more they toil. We must establish commodity exchange boards exclusively for farmers which will go a long way to support them and provide agricultural pricing support mechanisms and consequently enhance food security.

The challenge before our nation today is how to protect millions who toil the land, ensure they make reasonable returns and boost agricultural production. Instead of stealing from our children and stealing the pension fund of the retired; this government must answer the moral call of providing one meal per day for our school children up to high school level. Feeding our children will improve nutritional intake and work better for their educational development. Ultimately, it will eliminate child abuse and take the children off our streets.

The demand for farm products to feed the pupils will be a catalyst to generate demand, create wealth, elevate production of agricultural goods and fuel associated industrial growth. The establishment of these activity and small scale agro-industries will generate significant employment in our rural areas.

5. We need to provide primary health care, taking it upon ourselves to fight malaria so that our children can develop properly and our labor force becomes more productive as it grows healthier.

In the final analysis, our development rests with us. Foreign investment is welcome but will not lead us to prosperity. Foreign investment may repair a room or two, but it can never build the mansion we seek.
We cannot blindly follow the advice of others. In thoughtless adherence to their own economic myths, the developed economies have led themselves astray in some instances. Their present counsel can do no better for us than it has done for them. Should we continue to listen to their false counsel, we will gain nothing of it because it would nothing more than attempting to draw water from the empty well.

We have the ability and knowledge to forge our own way. We must base our approach on empirical fact not subjective theory. We must examine what has worked in other places then adjust these truths to the situation at hand. We needn't reinvent the wheel but we must be mindful not to be fooled when a stranger tells us that a round stone is the wheel we need.
Let us give our productive sector drive, purpose and vitality so that it puts the vast army of idle people and material assets to work.
In this way, we safeguard internal security because a prosperous nation is no longer a danger unto itself. In this way, we safeguard democracy because a productive work force and strong middle class are better guarantors of democracy than any military can ever be. On the other hand, a poor and idle population is a factory of inequality. In the throes of such inequality, despotism finds ample harvest.

In this manner, we give to every Nigerian whether from north or south; whether PDP or APC; Progressive or Conservative a chance for a better life. In this way, I can stand before you or anywhere else on this planet as a Nigerian without recourse to my title or position yet stand duly proud of what we have achieved and of the life we have forged for ourselves. For this solemn reason, I helped write this book. For this solemn reason, I urge that you take it upon yourselves to read it. Thank you for listening.

1. Your khaki gets smaller with every wash therefore, don't over-amend it.

2. For those who are posted to states where muontains abound, mind how you wear perfumes and other deodorants to avoid bee sting

3. Those who will be traveling for long hours, ensure you always exercise your feet when you have stop-overs

4. Always keep your valuables in your waist bag and don't go to camp with too much hi-tech gadgets (You won't have anybody to hold responsible if they are stolen)

5. If your skin reacts to water, make sure you have your disinfectants with you.

6. Prepare to live 3 weeks regimented life

7. Ladies/ Women Don't throw yourself at platoon commandants to influence your posting, most of them are just out to have the canal knowledge of you.

8. Always report to the clinic whenever you feel sick

9. Platoon 11 are the vans that come behind corps members during endurance trek, sit on one of them if you can't endure the trek

10. Ensure your data are properly documented in the book of life, it is from the book your discharge certificate is prepared

11. Don't eat carelessly

12. Never underestimate the power of networking, make friends with serious minded fellow (They might be the connection you need to secure a good job)

13. Play active roles in camp activities (inter-platoon cooking competition, sports, sanitation etc).

14. No matter how tired you may be after every activity, always make sure you pray to your God.

I wish you all a hitch-free orientation.

It's like comparing club football in the 90s to what we have now...African players were popular and earned handsomely in the 90s but, what they earned back then is like chicken feed with what today's African players earn.

George Weah won World best when football did not have much followership compared to Messi's time where it has become a tradition for everybody to be a fan of one international club or the other. But, the fact still remains that George Weah was a king during his time.

To this, it will be unfair to compare two music that were not released the same time and also of different genres. Tuface's African Queen was a blockbuster both locally and internationally during its time though, might not gain much international recognition like Oliver twist did (Time factor). But the fact still remains that there's nothing to compare as far as these two songs are concerned.

STATE: Taraba
PPA: Government Day Secondary School, Maisamari, Sardauna L.G.A (Gembu)
BATCH: A, Stream 'B'
YEAR: 2008/2009
CAMP: Jalingo
CDS: Nil

Ma handwriting

victorazy: Nice one from u guy. Which sofware(s) you dey use

Got the Artworks online.

Thanks.

Also...

and these...

Nigeria has never had a First Lady quite like this. Never! There were Flora Azikiwe, Victoria Aguyi-Ironsi, Victoria Gowon, Ajoke Mohammed, Esther Oluremi Obasanjo, Safinatu Buhari, Maryam Babangida, Margaret Shonekan, Maryam Abacha, Fati Abubakar, Stella Obasanjo, and Turai Yar’Adua. Some were on the stage for a very short period, and so nothing about them is memorable or remembered vis-à-vis the larger Nigerian context. But of those who stayed for a while, or a while longer, they were either a credit or a curse to the formal and informal office of the First Lady. Of all the First Ladies we’ve had, however, none — and I mean none — has been quite like the current occupant, Mrs. Patience Faka Jonathan. My goodness, what a lady! Fela Anikulapo’s lady!

Mrs. Victoria Gowon is mostly thought of as the quintessential First Lady. I cannot remember her being associated with scandals (while her husband was in office). And in the years since, I wonder if there ever has been one. From afar, what you saw was a lady: A lady in the real sense of the word. She looked calm and balanced and sophisticated. Again and again, she appeared educated and enlightened and supportive. And however many times you saw her – on TV, the print media, or in person – she was very soft on the eyes: beautiful, dignified, cultured and graceful. Now, one does not know, whether in private, she gave her husband and his associates, hell.

Patience Jonathan – the self-styled Dame – is the complete opposite of Victoria. But of all Nigeria’s First Ladies, the closest to Mrs. Jonathan (in terms of personality) is Turai, who seemed overly and overtly ambitious, and with Macbethean tendencies to match. But unlike Patience, Turai was not bombastic or compulsive. She seemed restrained by her Islamic faith. The general understanding is that she was always looking out for the interest of her husband. You don’t get the feeling that she is the boss who wears the proverbial pants in the privacy of their home. It is the opposite with Patience Jonathan.

From my vantage point, I cannot but conclude that Mrs. Jonathan calls the shots at home. That she is the boss-lady. The hustler. The lady with the whip. Many of the controversies that are associated with her husband seem to have been instigated by her. Incidentally, this is a woman who can’t seem to help herself, or her husband. As a wife and as a partner, one of her goals ought to have been the interest and well-being of her husband. But no, oh no! She compounds his headache and challenges; and helps to expose his weaknesses and shortcomings.

Why her husband, Jonathan, has not put her in check baffles a lot of onlookers and public intellectuals. If this President cannot control his wife, how can he control unruly powerhouses and contending groups within the nation? If he cannot put a stop to his wife’s inexplainable ways, how can he put a stop to the excesses of his advisers and ministers and all those who work for and with him? If he cannot get his wife to put a stop to unending controversies, what hope is there that there won’t be more scandals and wounding controversies in the months and years ahead? But of course, Mrs. Jonathan has been at it for a very long time! And Jonathan, it seems, has come to accept his fate. What a fate!

According to columnist Sonala Olumhense: “When she and her husband left Bayelsa State, it was with a lot of allegations, and events since then have not improved their image. Reporting on the April 2007 election, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York referred to Mrs. Jonathan as the “greediest person in Bayelsa State, and a woman of great cruelty.” Olumhense went on to tell us about the money-laundering allegations: “In 2006, when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said it had twice seized vast funds from her: the first the sum of N104 million; and the second, $13.5 million.”

Nigeria being what it is, we may never know how much she has “taken.” However, to have an idea of how much she is worth, all you need do is take a trip to Rivers and Bayelsa states to inspect the properties (hotels and all that) that many people in both states have alleged were improperly acquired. During a recent testimonial, she alluded to some of these properties being sold off while she was on her death-bed in Germany: “They are people that I trust and rely on; to them, I was dead and I would never return to the country alive. Some of them even sold my things off.” Was she expecting anyone to feel sorry that her stuffs were being auctioned off?

As a human being, we feel sorry that she was sick and came close to an inch of her life. And frankly, her death would not have served any purpose. Nonetheless, it is hard, very hard to have compassion for someone – anyone for that matter– who is noted for being unkind and insensitive to the poor and the needy. As the wife of the deputy governor, who later became the nation’s First Lady, she has mainly been associated with scandals, maladministration, and wastefulness. Not too long ago, she caused a storm by lobbying for and getting herself appointed permanent secretary in her husband’s home state. Before then, she was involved in a public spat over a land deal in Abuja with her predecessor.

Upon her arrival from medical treatment in the Middle East and in Europe, she and her team spent an estimated half-a-million naira on a welcome party. Is she ever weary and wary of storms and foul winds? My goodness! As if to outdo her controversial and calculating nature, she and or her husband got the National Assembly to vote N4bn for her pet project in Abuja. At what point is her husband, the President, going to say, “enough is enough”? At what point will he feel uncomfortable and put a stop to his wife’s unsavory tendencies and expensive jokes – jokes and tendencies that have become a monumental embarrassment to our country. Or is he an enabler?
- See more at: http://www.punchng.com/viewpoint/patience-jonathan-a-different-type-of-first-lady/#sthash.fVlvIHCR.dpuf

Osun...no contest!

jigawatts: I know Salawu street, My primary school is dere .......... AL FURQAAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (dat muslim school)

I know Al-Furqan very well, it's on salawu off Ishola Street.

Da gr8tosyn: So most of you Nairalanders are from upcountry, no wonder you say funny things about lagos and Fashola...

Community Primary School, Eleja-Itire, Surulere, Lagos State.
Atunrase Boys' High School, Surulere, Lagos State.
Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.

Omo you be surulere guy?

St. Thomas Aquinas Primary School, Lagos

Birch Freeman High School, Lagos

Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Ogun State.

Psychiatric Ambassadors

Must we have federal character in everything we do as a nation?

Where is the Nigeria of 1993 where majority voted for Abiola and kingibe regardless of their tribes?

Freiburger: please, tell us what the differences are.

The Obamas are full of life while our own first family looks timid. Moreover, our head of state is adding more flesh in office (I hope you know what that implies) while obama isn't.

The difference is clear...

When mother nature starts catching up with a lady, this will be her poem for valentine...Best of luck!!!

February 14, a day when some gullible ladies will start the countdown to November...a day without public holiday but much gallivanting...a day when colour red will not signify 'danger' but 'love/lust'...a day when brothels,confectioneries and gift stores will smile to the bank while that poor guy squeezes face...a day when STDs will expand territory...a day when "dull guys" will run bankrupt without "show"...a day some ladies won't be moved by gifts but, marriage proposal...a day some girls will prefer eatery, cinemas,I-Tech gadgets and other material stuffs to "re-assuring words".

#Different strokes for different folks...valentine palaver#

Check the most suitable car for the business here:

https://www.nairaland.com/attachments/966754_timaya_turns_g_wagon_to_taxi_lindaikejoblog_jpg811705e41307a4a5614a3a9e8c3b54b3

I don't think i would be wrong, if i call Reuben's pre-appointment criticisms of government as mere rantings of a hungry and unprincipled journalist. Below is a prove of my assertion.

HOW JONATHAN GOT HIS GCFR-Reuben Abati

Whoever came up with that explanation about how President Goodluck Jonathan got his GCFR – the highest national honour in the land a few days ago must be thoroughly disingenuous. It is as follows. The setting was the last meeting of the Council of State. Someone had proposed that the President should take the GCFR title. He already has the GCON.

He reportedly demurred citing an extant law (possibly the National Honours Act No. 5 of 1964) which says only a sitting President can confer the title of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic or Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger on another. A former Chief Justice of the Federation, Alfa Belgore then advised that his was a special case in the sense that he, Jonathan, took over from a dead President. But so did Obasanjo in 1976.

In 1983, Buhari deposed a sitting President. And so did Babangida in 1985. Abdulsalami Abubakar also succeeded a dead President. But everyone at the meeting, particularly the state Governors felt persuaded that Jonathan should take the GCFR. They then started begging the man. “Please Your Excellency”; “Please Sir, GCON is too small for you.” They begged. Oh, how they begged! Imagine all those big men begging one man to become a GCFR; and so, Dr. Jonathan, ever-so-humble, capitulated.

How could the President taking a GCFR title have created so much drama at a meeting of the Council of State? Why couldn’t such trifle wait? All of a sudden, President Jonathan who in 30 days had clearly demonstrated that he is in charge and in power was no longer in charge. His award of a GCFR was signed by all former Heads of State, with General Gowon saying: “we signed it”. Under what authority was he and his colleagues acting? They have no such powers. And how many more actions would the President be persuaded to take due to overwhelming pressure, or expediency, but more because of his failure to obey his own moral intuition? The President is the highest authority in the Council of state and so, all that contrived histrionics notwithstanding, the truth is that President Jonathan after only 30 days in office has conferred upon himself the highest honour in the land.

The Council of State is, in a strict sense, an advisory body. It is a creation of the Third Schedule Part 1, Sections 5 and 6 of the 1999 Constitution. Section 6(a)(iii) defines the role of that Council in relation to the “award of national honour,” and nowhere is it stated that former Heads of state can constitute themselves into a superior authority conferring National Honours on a sitting President. Whatever General Gowon and co may have signed is therefore inappropriate, if not illegal. Arthur Schopenhauer is right: “Honour is on its objective side, other people’s opinion of what we are worth; on its subjective side, it is the respect we pay to this opinion.” (Position, 1851).This raises an inevitable moral question: should President Jonatahn award himself the highest honour in the land? The honour that he should seek is not an additional suffixation to his name but such general opinion which by the end of his tenure would advertise his deeds and achievements in office as truly deserving of honour and celebration and a place in the people’s hearts and memory. General Sani Abacha also had a GCFR. Does anyone today think that he truly deserved it? Every Inspector General of Police in recent times has had a National Honour while in office. If anyone is looking for a list of those who have damaged Nigeria in the last 50 years, the place to begin the search is the National Honours List.

This is perhaps why most Nigerians are indifferent about the National Honours system. It does not change anyone’s opinion about the character of the title-holder. It does not attract a salary or a lifetime pension. It probably allows access to the VIP lounge at the country’s airports. But anyone with a couple of thousand Nairas can also use the VIP lounge. And what manner of man or woman is that who rather than pay a token sum for an hour of comfort, waiting to catch a flight, would insist on waving a medal? Still, we should not make light of it. The concept of honour is at the heart of society. Men from time immemorial have craved it. They would kill for it, if possible, go to war, and risk all. Honour is an intangible asset; it is about prestige and self-worth. But that prestige must be seen to have been earned, to have been worked for, such that it inspires the admiration of the community. Like Akintola Williams, CBE; I.K. Dairo, MBE. Each year when the Queen’s Honours’ List is announced in Great Britain, the award is taken seriously; it is an advertisement of the British value system: merit, achievement, international diplomacy. It is not every British Prime Minister that is on the Queen’s Honours list. It is not an entitlement list reserved for anyone and everyone in public position.

Here lies an instructive difference: the Nigerian National Honours list is driven by an entitlement mentality. The day Namadi Sambo became Vice President, he was automatically decorated with a GCON, the second highest honour. As soon as Senator David Mark became Senate President, he also got one of the country’s high honours. Every year, state Governors nominate their friends, family, contractors who donated money to their political campaigns, and traditional rulers who helped to deliver the votes. A few persons of substance show up on the list, but you really have to scratch your head to figure out why certain names have been considered worthy. Because of the emphasis on entitlement and patronage, the award ceremony is ever so bland; the citations say nothing significant.A review of the National Honours Act and system is overdue. Nigeria must be probably the only country where people are given national honours for work not done, or in anticipation of what they would achieve. National honours should be reserved for those who through hardwork and extraordinary achievement have helped to raise the Nigerian profile and its place in the world. If this be the case, the highest honours in the land should be reserved for the Wole Soyinkas, the Kayode Esos, the Chinua Achebes, the Chukwudifu Oputas, the Joystick Tigers, the Fela Kutis, the Margaret Ekpos, inventors, entrepreneurs, great promoters of the Nigerian dream, including the honest average Nigerian, but not politicians and their sponsors, not every civil servant who manages to get to a certain position, not coup plotters, not traditional rulers, not government contractors and certainly not similar rent collectors.



President Jonathan missed a good opportunity to raise the standard on the award of national honours by quickly promoting himself to the GCFR rank. This is reminiscent of the military era and the vaingloriousness of the political elite. When the late President Umaru Yar’Adua was decorated with the same GCFR on the day he assumed office, by the then outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo, he had remarked that he would have preferred getting such high honour after his tour of duty as President. It was a useful point. Once more, President Jonathan has failed to eschew the business-as-usual syndrome. I should not be surprised if in due course, the Council of Traditional Rulers unleash all kinds of chieftaincy title offers on him, including that notorious, eponymous one in Yorubaland: OTUNBA. He would of course, demur. But the Council of chiefs from this or that community will beg him. And beg him. And of course, he will accept. The moment may also soon arrive when some Nigerians will beg the President to run for office in 2011. And they will beg and beg. And of course, he will accept. That after all, is the story of how Jonathan got his GCFR.

Reuben Abati was the Guardian newspaper editorial board chair when he wrote this.

Prayer point: may you not be a Ronaldo in Messi's era

Since today's tattoo was yesterday's tribal mark, no big deal. But will be disappointed if the said tattoo is drawn in an obvious part of her body. Because if it ceases to be in vogue, hers will just be like those who can't do anything to the conspicuous tribal marks on their cheeks.

December 24, 2012 by Temitayo Famutimi

Fourteen-year-old Esther (not real name), one of the victims of the virginity test that was allegedly conducted on pupils of Ajuwon Senior High School, Ajuwon, Ogun State, by their principal, fears she might have lost her virginity. She spoke with our correspondent, TEMITAYO FAMUTIMI, on Sunday. Excerpts:

Why did you choose to do the virginity test when some pupils ran away?

I did not choose to do the test. After I and other female Senior Secondary School one pupils lined up in front of her (Olufunke Aladeojobi’s) office, I fled the scene but she noticed it and sent people after us threatening to deal with us.

Why didn’t you explain to her that you were not interested in the test?

I explained to her that my parents would be mad at me if they got to know that I did such a test without their consent but she brought out a cane and threatened to beat me mercilessly.

What happened afterwards?

Our principal marched me into her office and the school’s nurse asked me to put off my pants and laid me on the bed. She wore a glove, spread my thigh and dipped a finger into my private part. The school nurse then told the principal who was beside her that I was a virgin.

What did your principal do after the nurse said you are a virgin?

The principal said I “should not open my thigh” to any boy or man. She subsequently gave me two Ogun State customised exercise books.

Did you lose blood?

Yes, I lost blood. I didn’t notice it initially. It was the next person who saw me while dressing up that told me that my pants were stained with blood. But, I can’t say if it was the blood from my menstrual period because my menstrual period just ended or the blood was as a result of the virginity test.

Did your principal know you lost blood?

She didn’t because I left the place almost immediately and she was busy attending to other pupils.

How did your parents get to know about the incident?

I washed my blood-stained pants when I got home. I didn’t initially want to tell my mum but she noticed that I was keeping to myself. When she now queried to know what was wrong with me, I explained everything to her.

Did your principal warn you against telling your parents?

No, she didn’t. But I wouldn’t know what she might do to me if she got to know that I told my parents about it because she is strict and we all fear her. That was why I felt reluctant to tell my parents.

How have you been feeling since you underwent the test?

I have been doing fine just that I’m not happy about the incident because my classmates have been looking down on me. They keep saying that we have been “disvirgined.” I feel ashamed of myself.

Are you a virgin?

Yes. I have not had sex before but with what everybody is saying I don’t know if I am still a virgin. I really wish I’m still one.

http://www.punchng.com/news/virginity-test-my-pants-had-blood-stains-pupil-2/

Michymi: My dear, its not better because, if you dont get tested , you dont know you are a carrier, wont get treatment and drugs, infect other peeple and DIE FASTER.

You are talkin from your fear. GO GET TESTED BROS!!!!!!!! Biko

I never said it's a bad thing to get tested, i only said victims die more from stigmatization than the ailment itself here or do you want to tell me the said woman couldn't have lived longer if she was catered for and never segregated the way she was? You aren't the one to tell me to get tested and by the way, do you know if i have been doing that or not?

One of the reasons i keep saying Nigeria isn't a place where a patient can live his/her normal life.

An average Nigerian would do what the deputy governor did (stigmatize). Better live your life the way it comes than get tested, confirmed a carrier, get deserted by family and friends and ultimately DIE.

Moshood Abiola Polytechnic:

Sap route: a short-cut to town from school usually plied by students that don't have transport fare

Konko below: an oblong shaped dessert made from flour and fish

Ojere: the host community of the institution (the school is known by that name though)

SEREP: Semester Remedial Programme

Ojere Igbehin: The latter part of the semester when students are broke and not able to travel home because of exams.

Sobonde: A cheap bony fish usually eaten by an average student

His parents wanted him to study mechanical engineering but he ended up studying 'terrorism'

Moral of the story: Instead of choosing a discipline for your child,discipline them and teach them the way of God.